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stereotypes

Posted on August 27, 2011 @ 11:42 am by massimo | Filed under: advertisement,blog,cheap,flights,fun,illustration,india,news,people,travel,wordpress

Plenty of cheap flights to India in Bangkok! I had bought one, a night flight to Delhi. I had got my 6 months visa at the Indian Embassy in Sukhumvit. After travelling an year I was now coming back from the costly Japan. Yet it was to early to get back home and India was on my way home: a great, fascinating place to visit,  an affordable and exciting stop-over before to fly to Italy. The night flight found me mostly reading a beautifully illustrated, yet  misleading India guide book. When the plane landed my mind and my eyes were so full of visual stereotypes about sacred cows, sadhu, fakirs, holy men, Kumbha Mela, and then Taj Mahal and Hindu temples, snow capped peaks in Himalaya and the Ganga river, that I said to myself: “The author of this book is just exaggerating and his is a very trivial way to advertise such a wonderful land: there must be a deeper way than this!.” . But, alas! A few minutes later, at the passport control desk, the mature female officer checking my visa, smiled politely and pointed out that, during my six months stay in India, I would surely meet a fakir.  Her concise  talk caused my sudden, puzzled  immobility which she could not but  noticing:  to check that I had understood,  she gently turned her head and glanced to the closest wall where an old poster promoting tourism in India, was sticked: a poster that my eyes had obviously, unconsciously rejected…When I left India 4 months later, not even a fakir had been in sight.

an African bargain

Posted on August 22, 2011 @ 11:17 am by massimo | Filed under: advertisement,africa,bargain,blog,fun,holidays,illustration,kenya,people,travel,wordpress

For us Westerners, born and raised by the concept of “fixed price”, bargaining may seem a strange practice at first, or more benevolently, a waste of time. On the contrary Africans think that every bargaining is a challenge to immagination, a friendly way to “duel” with the customer, to value his ability and patience. Despite our different ideologies both of us look forward to get the best value: actually  a holiday deals is the golden rule of everybody who travels on the cheap. But even travellers who have no definite plan but not going home soon, need to bargain. So who cares if an hotel room deal or some souvenirs purchase turn into a time consuming process? The very thing is getting the right price, and even more important, being positively influenced by the local habits. How could I forget, for instance, the never ending deal I had in Mombasa with The Hydro Hotel indian owner some 30 years ago? How to forget his lethargic manner, purposely “provocative”, that included scores of apparently inconsistent questions and ended with a cup of chai sipped togheter, after he had appreciated my skills and before fixing the room final price: 18 kenyan shillings a day. A great price! So when I went back in Mombasa Old Town in 2009, I could not escape the feeling of paying a visit to the old and lousy Hydro Hotel which, I found out, was not changed at all. I climbed the stairs  and reached the same wooden desk at the reception, as in dream. The young clerk listened to my story, laughed a lot and said that the old baba retired just a few years ago…

Illustration Friday topic is: influence

August anniversary

Posted on August 15, 2011 @ 3:36 pm by massimo | Filed under: advertisement,bargain,blog,food,holidays,illustration,news,people,travel,wordpress

On August 13 morning, 1978, I woke up in  the ground floor dormitory of King George VI Memorial Hostel, Holland Park, London. I was very dizzy. The first thing I could see from my bed was a bunch of clothes in the middle of the room and my room-mates standing around it,  picking up their trousers and shirts…What the hell had happened was clear to me when someone told that burglars had entered the ground floor dorm in the nighttime, by an open window, sprayed the air with some funny sleeping gas, stolen everybody’s money. I was definitely broken! I went to the dorm upstairs where my travelling companion was, I talked to him and borrowed 30 £. All I could do with such little money was to buy a cheap ticket home. I went for Magic Bus. At their travel agency in  Shaftesbury Ave they told me that a coach bound to Greece was scheduled on august 15 at 8 pm; I was supposed to get off in Milan, where my dear aunty lived. The ticket price was 25 £! All I had to do was to survive until the bus departure. Friends of friends drove me in Weighton rd, Penge, where someone else lived in a squat. I was welcomed and I was suggested to attend the nearby Hare Krishna restaurant where I could get free vegetable soups. On august 15, the magic bus left from Charing Cross. I was on board, rather hungry, a Wimpy Bar sandwich in a box, 5 copper pence in my right pocket and the absolute certitude to be in Milan in less than 48 hours. The bus was overcrowded by last minute tourists, willingly looking their hot greece holidays. In a hurry, we all where positively hurry for some reason, but, alas! that bus company was really magic. As soon as we reached Chamonix Bus Station, on the French side of  Mont Blanc tunnel, the Greek driver asked everybody to get off:  a new magic bus would be arrived in half an hour and picked up all of us. It is a fact that after 6 hours no bus whatever was in sight yet! All The Brits where absolutely disgusted and very, very angry. I left them there , still waiting for their never coming bus, and I  caught an ordinary shuttle bus to Aosta, Italy. Once in Aosta I went to a police station, I showed my fully empty pockets, so getting a printed temporary permit to travel by train for free to Milan. Happiness and exctiment swelled within me: I felt so proud, I was just 18 after all…

Illustration friday topic is: swell

the temple of Apollo

Posted on August 10, 2011 @ 3:39 pm by massimo | Filed under: architecture,blog,fun,holidays,illustration,island,mediterranean,mythology,news,people,travel,wordpress

A very good reason for a cyprus holidays is to visit the archeological greek sites, particularly the temple of Aphrodite and the Sanctuary of Apollo Hylates.  Everybody who has been visiting some “special” archeological area, has experienced a very peculiar and powerful  feeling, something that really can project the visitor back …

Aphrodite

Posted on August 9, 2011 @ 9:58 am by massimo | Filed under: advertisement,art,beach,blog,holidays,illustration,island,mediterranean,mythology,travel,wordpress

A trip to Cyprus is also a trip back to greek mythology. According to the myth, Cyprus claims Aphrodhite’s birth from the island waters. The fact that Aphrodite, among hers many names, is also called Cypris (Lady of Cyprus), might confirm this thesis. Wherever she borned, the myth of her birth …