From East to West,
I now pursued the Sun on Iron Road.
Away from land of Mongol men, and the great Khan's roaming hoard
Plains of dessert land and ever rolling hills.
The land of Russia now lay ahead and Siberia n'between.
To the fair lake of Baikal deep and blue.
The riding hotel of the trans Siberia was once more my home for some four days.
As the kilometers sped under wheel and rail and the enormous land passed before our window the train became ever more empty as passengers descended at the most remote stations somewhere in Siberia, where time often seems to have stood still, or even gone backwards since Soviet times.
Yes, this was the furthest reach of the Modern day USSR. The new Tsarian empire of Putin. And the land of the shiny world cup of football this summer.
Days upon days of the graceful white stemmed birches and spruce green floated by in a dreamlike wave of lush open land, such a contrast after the water deprived outer rims of the Gobi where the great heards dwell.
Patience...
Ever tropical temperatures reign inside the train, tended by some very stern Mongolian stewardess ladies, and one only gets a few period to air a day when a stop is made at a station.
I first shared my cabin with some Russians, but soon I was all alone, to meditate and reflect upon the vast land out there, and my present Euro bound state.
Unto the streets of great Moscow I was ejected, our massive locomotive finally coming to a halt at the end of the track after some 8000 kilometers since Ulan Baator.
After another train and bus, from St. Petersburg, that has so much resemblance to Amsterdam, although be it it's Baroque counterpart, I got to the safety of Helsinki.
The bus was already a clear preparation for all the comforts that were awaiting on the return to Europe. Full WiFi and cosy seats, full video displays, phone charging, air-con, the whole shabam!Yes, I am a citizen of this empire, and it feels almost regular.
Landing in Helsinki, I went to the house of my friend Aini, and spend the night in her lovely, cosy, boutique, vintage wooden finish house in a kind of gardeny area of the city.
As she wasn't there, herself away on a trip, so did I after those long days of sitting still on the train, crave for some movement, and so went on a small hike in the nearby Nuuksio national park.
There I much enjoyed the wonderful wild and rough Finnish country side of the ground down granite outcroppings, smoothed by endless years of glacial violence, interspersed by deep dark lakes and ponds of the softest mildly warm water and silence and ducks.
For two nights I camped among the heater and picked the most delicious blueberries as much as I could devour and more.
No moose I saw, although at one point I was almost be sure one had wandered from my dreams onto the wooded opposite lake shore.
It had been almost three years since Aini and I last met, and so returning to the city after all that country silence was also a joy.
We had three action filled days cycling round in the rain and sunshine, the air was still fresh up there, even though the weather was relative sunny. We were hanging out with Aini, iina, Aino, ia, Anni and Anna. Went to a big flea market in a park, braved the full force of the sunshine at a trance at 21.00 in the evening, made it to both a birthday and a housewarming party, and as this was Finland, had two good saunas including 'wichtas' or birch twig spankers to improve blood circulation in the skin.
We made a beautiful walk to a place called sheep island. We did not we see any sheep, but instead, were given wide views of the bays of Helsinki and the clouded skies, that later rained down upon us and sent us jogging along a wooden foot path snaking it's way through the reeds that stretched between the island and the real shore.
It was all so beautiful and Scandinavian, and everything so well organized.
A bunch of time was spent just enjoying being in such a homely home, cooking some nice food and regaining health after the austerities of train life.
I than took a last ship across the Baltic waters to Tallinn on perhaps the largest ferryboat I have ever sailed upon. It was just colossal. What a chunk of floating metal!
Already aboard I started hitchhiking, and yes, I found a ride.
I found a ride with two friendly Estonian guys working in Finland, who took me about half way through this small country.
And from there it continued. Still that same day I came to the city of Riga, capitol city of Latvia and beautiful to behold.
Yes, once this was a Hanze city and prosperous, with a picturesque old core and a bunch of lovely very sharp spired churches of bulb upon bulb and copper clad balustrades rising up and up to the clean sky.
A harbor on the Baltic sea this was, on a wide river. And there on it's bank, sat many of it's beautiful buildings, neglected in all those Soviet years, where only the future seemed to matter, and the past was only more of a nuisance.
But now reviving, and feeling quite lively, yet the crushing poverty I clearly felt.
There's seemingly very little agriculture, or any kind of industry to be seen as one drives through these regions. Depopulation in Lithuania alone was about a quarter in the last ten years. A million people just left, searching for their luck elsewhere in Europe once the borders opened. All the young people just disappearing, what a tragic situation that must be, for those that are left behind.
In the morning I packed my tent that I'd pitched somewhere in a park, and than continued, hitching a ride south, leaving the midnight sun behind, the strange Finnish nights, where darkness never really falls, going south and crossing the border into great Poland. Driving with some really cool sunglassed guys in fast cars.
The landscape is almost entirely flat in the Baltics and there is not so much that I feel I can describe. There are fields, there are forests, but hardly anyone visibly there that is working them. As one crosses into Poland the situation is much different, and activity is apparent everywhere. I found a beautiful old wooden Polish hay barn that night to sleep in. How comfy was that? Laying on the old hay, seeing the sun go down through the slits in the faded wood. Golden orange blades of sunlight set my instant bed ablaze, and made dust spark up as it lazily floated through the periphery of my vision.
The sweet odor of summers flowers in the air from around the barn.
As there is basically now highway anywhere between Tallinn and Warsaw of an name, it seemed to take forever to get through these countries. Just one lane roads is all they have, and you are constantly stuck between ribbons of big trucks.
People were so friendly though, once they picked me up. The sugar-free chocolate salesman, an accountant, a team leader at a tobacco firm with an unintentional baby on the way, a guy working on electric power plant machinery adjustment, the construction worker on his way to a date, the rock band tour assistant, a background singer for a famous Polish Band.
It may sound like a random bunch of people, but they all have their story.
So interesting. This hitchhiking, is a course in Humanity.
For an hour or two, you get to sit down with some complete stranger and have a very intimate conversation with them in a space that only you and them share.
That has the safety of knowing that you will probably never see each other again after that moment. There is so much to learn about anybody's life.
And how useful it is to reflect the thoughts about your own life upon someone else? To clarify them, to give them shape.
Nothing that has form, will give you happiness
I descended into Germany and with the loving kindness of many short rides through many small uber German towns with large old fackwerk farmsteads, soon arrived at the tiny hamlet of Kacklits, where my old dear friend Vita has a home. Embalmed in a chorus of crickets and swallows we greeted once more.
From Israel to the German Altmark, our friendship has now lasted 10 years, and we both evolved so much, and are so much happier for it. Not that we were not happy before, but now we feel more fulfilled and sure, about life, even at this tender age.
Right than night there was a village feast of some 50 folks to be attended and we went and gorged on all the choice vegetarian delicacies that were on offer and let the whole roast pig to the others to sample. What a day to arrive!
Kids playing jump-rope on the grass and teaching them finger tricks. Now this far south, soon the darkness fell with determination.
Both now working in the field of healing, Vita and I than spent a day sharing skills and experiences in her sun laden grassy yard, where all plants had now turned to straw gold after two months of not a drop of rain.
And that was the end of it.
From there, only slightly more west I had to travel to arrive once more in that familiar city on the Amstel, and complete my circumnavigation of the northern Pole.
As Hitchhiking often is, you know not why at times no ride seems to be right, until you get that really good one that bring you all the way where you wanted to go and you know, that all that initial struggle was only because your perfect ride was just not ready yet to pick you up, so had to practice some Patience....
Than the lands flattened even more, big cows appeared, and recognition of culture was once again 100%
These were my homelands, and I could now appreciate them with new eyes.
Seeing their value without criticism.
That often seems like one of the biggest boons to travel.
To time and again learn to love your home,
and be One.
How can I keep forgetting that everything in this Human life
is perfectly organized.
This Human condition, everything is set perfectly,
everything is arranged, in perfect order.
This Human condition to forget our source,
to forget how we are everything,
part of the earth, part of the Universe.
How we are, the Universe, how we are the Earth.
How there are no mistakes, there are no forgotten moments.
Everything is as it must be.
What we need to do is remember,
be aware, be thankful for all these chances, all these lessons,
all these opportunities to grow and strengthen our
understanding of what is, and how it carries us.
End of the 4th journey, part II
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