I am sitting on the castle walls. Bulgar kings ruled Bulgaria from Veliko Turnovo for over 200 years ending in 1393. By the looks of it they haven't done much since. Like all old towns, it was built on a river in a valley, and I'm just sort of sitting here watching the Soviet Ladas labour up the hill. All Ladas have tool kits in the trunk and all Lada owners are amateur mechanics. Bulgarians don't replace something unless its broken and if something breaks they fix it. So everything is old. A Bulgarian told me the only thing a Lada is good for is spare parts for another Lada.

The one remarkable and vibrant thing in Bulgaria is the forest. What a forest!! Many things here are very old, like the castle; the rest was built by the Soviets 50 years ago. There isn't anything else, just cracked stucco buildings of brown and gray and the red mission tile roofs. Its like an agreement with the forest: it swallows everything except brown stucco buildings with red tile roof. It will eventually swallow this road below me. The river on my right has no banks. The black forest grows right up to the edge. It will be a swamp in 50 years. If they let ivy grow up the sides of the buildings, you could camoflauge the whole country. Maybe thats what the Soviets had in mind, but they lost. The forest swallowed Communism too. And now all thats left is rusted iron, Ladas, empty factories, smokestacks, and railroad tracks crisscrossing the country, leading nowhere, past stations with no roads, harsh flourescent lights on rusted placards naming some desperate isolated villiage perched in the mountains fighting the forest all whispering the broken promise of Communism. Perhaps the whole country is sulking.

I've heard that Communism was a good idea, just that the implementation was bad. As I watch a Peugeot taxi tow a broken Lada up the hill, I have to disagree. It is against human nature to expect a man to work harder for an abstract concept than he will for his own self interest. Any system including such an idea will eventually need a tow from a Peugeot taxi.

I initially found Bulgaria incredibly quaint and rustic, but I've changed my mind. Yesterday I visited the "traditional" village of Koprivstitsa. There they carry on in the old Bulgarian way of life...but that is only true if there is a new Bulgarian way of life. There isn't. The old and the new are the same. Koprivstitsa isn't traditional...its just old. Its like retro clothing. If kids rediscover old styles its cool. If some dude in his middle 50s is still wearing the stuff from the last time it was popular...thats just pathetic.

The only remarkable and vibrant thing in Bulgaria is the forest...and the train...it isn't vibrant, but it is remarkable. Yesterday I was 7 hours on the train for 2 dollars and changed at 3 stations. We left late cause the train was broken. I saw the conductor beating a rusted metal rod on the platform...it must've worked. Being 45 minutes late I didn't think I'd make my connections, which were only 5 minutes per station. All the other trains were late too so it didn't matter. Bulgarians nod their head for no and shake it for yes...so it happened like this: I pointed at the train, "Karlovo?" They shook their head. "Tulovo?" They shook their head. "Veliko Turnovo?" Same head shake. We are conditioned to think head shakes mean no. I couldn't help it. Every stop it was the same crisis: I'm on the wrong train, until I remembered that head shakes mean yes. Then I'd forget 2 minutes later and it was back to the same thing.

10:30 pm I arrived in Veliko Turnovo. It was raining a hard gray heavy Soviet rain. It was dark and the station is 5 km from town. I think the Soviet Central Planners saw the city one day growing to meet it. They had big ideas, a great vision of a coming Empire. I was cold and wet and alone with the dark and rain. All the Lada taxis were either gone or broken. My spirits were very low and I also felt a little ridiculous.

Koprivstitsa is a time warp. There isn't one single thing that speaks of the last 50 years. The attention to detail is striking, like a movie set...nothing modern, no anachronisms. Old Russian cars and horse drawn carriages...no bus stop...no train station...not a single sign in English. Tractors dragging bails of hay in wooden carts...children at play unattended (the boys at least, the girls just watch the boys and look like budding prostitutes). I haven't met one person that speaks English. The guidebook told me the name of a hostal, but I couldn't find it cause I can't read Cyrillic. I must've walked past it 20 times.

I don't yet know how to leave town. I can't read the bus and train schedules, if that is even what they are...I tried to find Tourist Information. There is a hole in the ground where the guidebook says it is...so I walked into a building nearby...maybe they moved it? There was an old lady behind a counter and, in the Bulgarian tradition, 4 or 5 others just sort of sitting around...again, no English. I drew pictures of a bus and a train and explained by map that I wanted to go to Veliko Turnovo. An argument broke out between the three old women. The little girl kept tugging at my wrist. I don't think she'd ever seen a digital watch. They eventually pantomimed that I couldn't get to Veliko Turnovo from here and that I'd need to backtrack to Sophia. I didn't have the heart to ask how to get to Sophia.

It dawned on me as I left that it wasn't Tourist Information at all. Perhaps I had wandered into someone's house? I thought that old lady was behind a counter, but maybe it was just a table? There was a label on the building, but maybe it was just a street sign?

I'm sitting at dinner now. Its cold here, just 7 hours from the blistering heat of Istanbul. Sophia is the highest capital city in Europe and the villiage is higher still. I can't read a thing on the menu and the sluty waitress only understands the word "beer", so I just point and hope . Tonight I've eaten 2 types of kebab and a fried cheese dish. I love cheese, but it makes me sick if I eat too much. I can also say that the 2 Bulgarian beers I've tried, whose names are in the indecipherable Cyrillic script, are very good.

I am the only backpacker in town and nearly the only tourist. This town will be gone in 10 years. Its clean...better than quaint and picturesque. Its like Swiss Family Robinson meets the Sound of Music. In 5 years it will be full...horseback riding and marked hiking trails...buses and trains and signs in English...and alot more trash. On the way in today it was like a glimpse behind the Iron Curtain...defaced busts of Lenin and Stalin...the Soviet Star on stark square buildings...railroad tracks everwhere and empty stations waiting for the fulfillment of the promise of Communism...factories with heavy rusted signs in the hard Cyrillic script and smoke from smokestacks. Maybe they make buttons or screws or black boots...something repetitive and significant. "What do you do Comrade Joseph?" "I make shoestrings for the greater glory of Russia." A good trade, noble and concrete. "What do you do Comrade Elliott?" "Well...I get overeducated and question the significance of everything alot. Then I travel around the world trying to sort out the mess I've made of my own head." It makes shoestrings sound like a good idea.

The bus ran into the Canadian from Iraq visiting family in Istanbul and Bulgaria. He was an irritable man anyway, chomping on sunflower seeds from the seat behind me half the night. The two young boys in front had invisible ray guns and were pretending to blast each other, using their embarrassed mothers as cover. Had I spoke Bulgarian, I would've informed them that ray guns are actually silent weapons, and don't make the terrible shrill they were supposing. I couldn't help wishing they were real ray guns. Perhaps they would blast one another and shut up. Luckily kids tire, unluckily not before my patience did. The bus arrived in what I assumed was Sophia at 4 in the morning and emptied. I was tired, puffy eyed and lost...very lost. I had one of those moments...wished I were somewhere else...the Cyrillic alphabet is no better than Chinese...couldn't read anything...everything was closed...I froze up, but didn't panic...too tired for panic. I must've looked pitiful, because the bus driver took pity and locked me in an empty bus till morning.

Next morning...same shit, different day...except now I'm rested...but hungry...with no money. I am thinking of going to another city or to Romania cause I can't be bothered so I start asking at the kiosks for buses to Koprivshtitsa. There are hundreds of kiosks with destinations all in Cyrillic. No one speaks English. My pack is heavy. I am hungry. Some people said there are no buses to Koprivstitsa, some said only trains, and some said one bus at 4 oclock, but you can't buy the ticket at any of the hundreds of ticket kiosks, only on the bus. I have since guessed that the bus kiosks aren't for tickets at all, but booths for really young, scantily clad Bulgarian women to put on make up...which is all I ever saw them do. Maybe its like the red light district in Amsterdam. I thought the prices they were quoting were a little high for the bus.

Young Bulgarian women tend to look like anorexic Russian prostitutes. I mean that in the best possible way. They dress sluty, have sharp blue eyes and pouty red lips. The others dress sluty, have deep brown eyes, and forget to wear a bra. The Peace Corp volunteer I met at breakfast at KFC told me to subtract 5 years from any age they give you. Personally, I'd rather he hadn't told me.

Unfortunately, Bulgarian women age poorly. It seems they all eventually gravitate toward the archetype old fat lady with a mustache, stooped over, in a gray house dress, wandering the city peddling flowers and begging for money. According to the Peace Corp volunteers it is very common for older men to date these slender 18 year old princesses (subtracting 5 years would make them 13).

I mentioned to the Peace Corp folks that Bulgaria was cheap. "Not as cheap as Zimbabwe." Why were they in Zimbabwe? "What were you doing in Zimbabwe?" "We were volunteers there." Wow. "You signed on for another 2 years?" "No, we got kicked out of Zimbabwe...that's why we're here...only been here 5 weeks." After the comment about the age of Bulgarian women I decided not to ask why they got kicked out of Zimbabwe.

Next I went to the train station and got help from a janitor. He showed me a bunch of stuff that ended up being of no use, but we passed an ATM and baggage check during the tour, so I got rid of my pack and scored some cash. I bought him a half liter of beer as thanks. It was 8:30 in the morning.

Walking through town I bought some batteries for my walkman for 50 cents. They lasted 10 minutes. 5 people were working in the shoe shop all watching each other do nothing. There were 11 in KFC, but only one register was open. Its about a buck for a value meal at McDonalds. I went to a museum; they gave me 15 tickets to enter a one room exhibit. I bought a great Soviet liquor flask with a KGB insignia for $5. Old Nazi stuff is pretty expensive. I can't stop writing because its only 15 cents for an expresso. I'm wired on coffee and my waitress looks like an anorexic Russian prostitute.

I tried to pass time last night by drinking. I even went so far as to listen to some ill-informed, closed minded Indian Brit rant about American abuse of power. (I've never heard that conversation before.) Apparently its all a conspiracy by the US government and Israel to control the world. I think he once called me a capitalist, but I forgot to be offended. He also implied I was amoral. I offerred to buy him a beer and I think he forgave me.

I threw scraps at the conversation, enough to keep him going, which wasn't hard. It was like a well practiced speech. He said he wanted to be a journalist so as to have a forum to express his opinions. I suggested he get his own opinions instead of repeating what he's heard from other paranoid, self reinforcing, conspiracy theory junkies. Its like they want to believe.

He told me the US Founding Fathers were a bunch of power hungry racists bent on overthrowing the British Empire. "All the Founding Fathers were white. The constitution is a racist document." I went a step further: Perhaps the Founding Fathers were all Freemasons descended from the line of Kind David. The Constitution was based on documents found beneath the Sphinx during The Crusades that survived the City of Atlantis. If folded into the shape of a Jewish star, the Constitution reveals the blueprints for a flying saucer, the location of the Ark of the Covenant and dates for the End of the World. If the Constitution is read backwards it contains subliminal messages and, of course, all the Founding Fathers were abducted by aliens.

"A plane never crashed into the Pentagon on 9/11. It was staged. There is just too much evidence against it." I granted his "too much evidence" for the sake of argument and suggested that the evidence against was also staged and that he was actually playing right into Their hands. "After all, if They are smart enough to secretly coordinate world history, They are smart enough to plant conspiracies. By the time you smell a rat, the real conspiracy has already moved on." If he were a robot, that is when the smoke would have started coming out his ears.

He didn't find me nearly as clever as I did, so I offerred to buy another round of drinks to keep myself interested. For someone of as little faith as I, it amazes me what people will believe without evidence or in the face of contrary evidence. I question everything...even that statement.

I made him sound more and more ridiculous, but he continued unphazed and unmoved. I sort of admired him. I can make anyone sound ridiculous anyway. Its an annoying talent, and I wish I didn't enjoy it so much.

Sorry for the lack of updates. I'm tending to various matters in Istanbul at the moment. I've got a lazy idea. There aren't a whole lot of people still checking the site, or I suspect just a small number over and over again. Will you please write me an email telling me what you're up to, what you think about whatever, or just something so I won't feel so isolated like I sometimes do? It'll also give me an idea of the people that I'm writing these silly entries to (dangling preposition). Be good.

I've decided I will have my head shaved today and rent a bicycle. Cappadocia is an alien landscape, a science fiction desert. Last night I saw whirling dervishes and belly dancers in an underground cave. There was food, drink, dancing and jumping through fire.

I committed the unthinkable tourist faux pas yesterday and bought a Turkish carpet. They are beautiful and I likely paid too much, but I am happy until someone tells me its a fake you can buy at Wal Mart. But you can buy just about everything at Wal Mart I guess. Perhaps they'll turn into family heirlooms?

Mustafa, from the carpet shop, told me fabulous stories about how much money there is in carpets. After how much I paid, I think I believe him. "There is alot of money in buying and selling things," he said. Later in the evening, when we were watching one of the belly dancers, he said, "You see the gypsies playing the music? They're fucking stoned out of their mind. And the belly dancer: when I used to drink a bottle of liquor and six beers a day my friends and I would get her to dance for us by a fire with barbeque and we would get stoned all night with the gypsies. It was great fun. One night I gave her an 800 dollar tip." He told several more fabulous stories of love and loss and we all got drunk and watched the dervishes. He is only 26 and I believed his stories for some reason. Hiroshi told me the economy in Japan is very bad and it costs 15 dollars to see a movie in Kyoto. Japanese people can make me nervous. They huddle and nod and move around too much, shifty and overly self conscious. I liked Hiroshi; he didn't even have a camera with him. He made fun of some other Japanese tourists: "Japanese very bad dancers."

I was walking through a river to reach a bank. Trees, flowers, rocks, water, like an unkept Japanese Gargen. There was a bald guy with white robes and a goatee standing perfectly still, meditating. "Surely American," I thought, "We're the only ones capable of losing our minds so completely." There were 2 Turks smoking cigarettes and I spoke to them as the monk was busy contemplating his divine serenity. "Hello." They offerred me a cigarette. "No thanks. I don't smoke, very few Americans do." They looked puzzled, "Americans don't smoke? Marlboro, Camel, Winston..." "Yeah. We make the cigarettes, but we sell 'em to you guys to smoke." There was some muttering about capitalism, the monk woke himself from the trance and they started solving the problems of the world. The young, the poor and the idealistic never tire of this conversation. Oh the empires that crumble and the wrongs that are righted over a few shared cigarettes between strangers on foreign soil. Of course, I don't smoke, so I refused to take up the mantle of Capitalism and big business explotation, which is the role an American is generally due in such converstations. I think they were disappointed...you know, it leaves nothing concrete for them to point a finger at, which is part of the problem in the first place...like ghosts in the dark.

They were very adamant about everything and it was universally agreed that pretty much everything is a "big problem". With that point I can hardly argue and I hated to interrupt their impromptu anti-everything pep rally, but I had to occasionally ask: so what is the alternative? I nodded and smiled and my internal dialouge went about like this: It would create more problems that it would solve...has already been tried and didn't work...or...Wow, that is simply the worst idea I have ever heard.

It turns out the monk wasn't an American, but an ex-lawyer from Belgium and he wasn't an absolute flake, or at least he said one thing that struck me as significant...but even a broken clock is right twice a day. "Beautiful day," I said to the Turks as I pointed out the beautiful day. They nodded and ashed their cigarettes unconciously. "Where are you staying?" They named some place I didn't recognize and asked me. "I'm staying at Kadir's in the treehouses. Its great. Why aren't you staying there?" "No money. Too expensive." Kadir's is about 7 bucks for a bed and 2 meals a day. It struck me that tourism has made many beautiful spots in Turkey too expensive for the Turks to visit. They continued, "Money is a big problem in Turkey. People have no money." Although I am not inclined to listen much to someone who needs so much practice breathing, the monk said something that made me think twice: "Thats nothing. In Turkey money is a big problem. In Europe everything is a big problem."

I didn't hear the rest of the conversation. I was replaying stuff in my head: Ali that owned Oludeniz Camping, the Turkish Gullet people, a bunch of stuff. In Turkey it seems if one can get a little money, one can be happy. In America, money is only the beginning of our problems.

And that is how it is: In countries that lack money they seem to know better what to do with it. At home, money is simply the key to participate in the next, more complicated set of problems.

I remember what Ali said: "So this place is only open 6 months a year? What do you do the rest of the year?" He shrugged his shoulders and looked past me, likely picturing in his head some Turkish version of the perfect day. "Why six months? Why not 7 or 8?" "We don't need to open more. We leave the campground open for people...nothing else." I pressed the issue: "If you stayed open all year you could make more money." I knew the answer before he said it: "Why? I already have 6 months vacation."

His logic is impeccable and flies directly in the face of western economic dogma: Unrecognized profit is a sin. It is inefficient and lazy. In fact, if he is correct, some of the last 2 years of business school can be rethought in terms of indoctrination and social engineering. In short: a polite and voluntary brainwashing.

That doesn't invalidate the Capital Asset Pricing Model, nor does it change the present value of future cash flows...it simply recognizes an often overlooked truism: No fact is devoid of value judgment. Even the most benign carry implications and subjectivity.

Somewhere in that dialouge is a great idea. I am just too dumb to figure it out.

This is what it feels like on the deck of a sailboat with a blistering fever when its 100 degrees outside:

My hand is so heavy...maybe a ton or more I estimate. I never realized the effort needed to lift it. Its so hot. I want to move it, but its blocking the sun. There is gonna be a mark on my forehead. My skin is swollen to consistency of silly putty. Am I dripping off the side of the deck? My hand is cutting through my forehead. It won't move; its gonna leave a mark. Am I really this heavy? There are people talking around me. Drip. Is that what people really sound like? Drip. I think I'm on fire, melting and running off the deck. I call faintly for someone to move my arm. It moves, and makes a big thud. Did anyone hear that? There is so much pressure in my head...maybe I'll just explode, like the spray on a breaking wave? These are nice people. They'll clean up. I wonder if someone can help me drink? My throat is on fire. Maybe I'm on fire and no one can get close enough. Drip. Fuck..I'm heavy...2 and a half tons...maybe even 4. In fever sometimes we think best. I want to move, but I can't. Am I getting heavier? Water is coming from my eyes; the pressure is squeezing it out. I want to make a noise, but I can't...too much effort. Am I still here? Perhaps they all left? How long has it been? Drip. I'm surely almost gone by now. Go through the motions and wait. It should be go through the motions, wait and hope. But sometimes hope is gone and so its just go through the motions and wait. The habit of self preservation is the strongest, violent and primal. It doesn't require hope...it is the bottom rung of every ladder....remembered when everything else is forgotten. Do I hear my name? There are people in the water. I'm too heavy...I'd sink like an anchor, but it would cool me off. I'm surely burning. Maybe they all abandoned ship. I hope I don't have to pay for it. I pick myself up with extreme, almost Olympic, effort. My eyes won't focus. Are people looking at me?

I threw myself overboard hoping I was right about the whole self preservation thing. The water leapt and hissed like lava running into the ocean. Everything rushed back into focus like a car wreck at 100 miles an hour, the water cooled me off and the saltiness released the pressure in my head.

I went downstairs to change clothes as one of the Australian girls asked a Turk for a beer. "What do you drink?" she asked pointing to the beer. "Later," he said in apparent comprehension. "No, what do you drink?" she asked more loudly to increase undestanding. He looked at her blankly, "Milk." I went to my berth, pissed, changed clothes and stared at myself a minute. When I returned she was still pointing at her beer, smiling and asking the same question. "I don't think he drinks," I surmised.

"Well," I thought to myself, "I didn't fry my brain. Life is just as ridiculous as it used to be."

-- Update: That was written a few days ago. The fever went away. I still have a little pressure in my head, but I'm better now. I slept for 30 hours straight at one point in a fever induced delirium. Not fun, but if it must be done, from a Turkish Gullet on a cruise up some of the most picturesque coastline I've ever seen is the way to go.

I somehow convinced myself to get back on a boat for 4 more days for a cruise along the Turkish coast in keeping with one of my oldest and most dear personal platitudes: 'Try anything once. If you don't like it, try it once more just to make sure you didn't like it the first time.' I am now utterly convinced that I didn't miss my calling as a sea boat captain, but it was fun and the Turkish coast is more beautiful than the Greek Isles. The following is from my journal on the first day:

I've been in the Med for almost 2 months now and the weather is 85 to 90, sunny and near cloudless with a constant breeze...everyday. Today is the same.

The captain of the boat didn't want to stay long in Butterfly Valley. "I don't know...maybe only 30 minutes. No good today...bad weather...maybe worse later." "I want to see the butterflies," I said as we approached the white beach littered with white teepee like tents and tanned travellers in sirongs. "No more butterflies," said the Turk flatly. "Why not?" "No more...maybe 2 or 3." "What about the waterfall?" I asked. "Very little water."

After his complaints about the weather I decided to follow up on the matter and swam ashore to ask. "How long have you been here," I asked a girl swimming in the lagoon. "About a week and a half.." "Have you been up into the valley to see the butterflies?" "Nope...maybe tomorrow." "What about the waterfall?" "I heard it was nice..." she informed me.

The med school student from Chicago was more helpful. "...Yeah, heaps of butterflies, especially if you climb up the waterfall to the next ridge, but the climb is a bitch...really slippery." "From all the water?" I asked. "Yeah."