I have wandered into the central square of a European city. Around me are old, European style buildings in pastel colors, their facades covered in the kind of decorations you might see in Italy or Spain, their lower floors fronted by arcades. The ground is covered in worn down, black and white stone tiles laid out in a zebra stripe mosaic. In the center is a fountain surrounded by tourists with their cameras. It’s quite astounding how European the place looks, the only thing indicating that I’m in fact thousands of kilometers from Europe are the Chinese characters on the … Read the rest
There is a rounded opening in the wall of trees, just big enough for two people to stand side by side, framed by overhanging branches and low bushes silhouetted against the background, a barely perceptible difference between the shades of gray. A path, its gravel surface painted a light gray by moonlight, runs through the undergrowth, undulating slightly as it stretches out to a point somewhere in the distance. Thanks to the full moon my companions and I can navigate the darkness without using our flashlights, it enables us to see the little flickers of light all around us. In … Read the rest
A vast expanse of grayish brown sand, broken up by a couple of large puddles left over by the receding tide. Shallow canals winding their way through the wet sand, leading out to a large lagoon of pale blue water, and in the distance the white crests where the waves break over the outer sand bank. The sun shining down from a cloudless sky, topping every unevenness in the sand and every ripple in the water with a dash of silver. The distant roar of the breaking waves fills the air, every other sound seems to have been blown away … Read the rest
I’m sitting here in the lift, waiting for it to bring me to the top, contemplating my situation. It’s really quite strange when you think about it, you travel hundreds if not thousands of kilometers to some small town somewhere where everything is overpriced. When you get there you spend a large portion of your time sitting in a chair that’s suspended several meters above the ground with nothing but a thin metal bar keeping you from falling out, and you get get slowly pulled towards the top of the hill, all the while being exposed to the elements. When … Read the rest
It’s cold, if there’s even a slight gap in my armou of winter clothing I feel it immediately. It’s snowing, the icy flakes sting the exposed skin of my face and stick to my beard, forming a frozen mask around my mouth. Visibility is low, at most some 50 meters before the world disappears in a thick milky fog. Given the circumstances you’d think that I’d be miserable but I’m ecstatic; I’m literally ass deep in soft fluffy powder with a snowboard under my feet and it feels like surfing on clouds. Bloody awesome!… Read the rest
The walkway is raised above the road, allowing pedestrians to navigate the streets without having to deal with the heavy Hong Kong traffic. It’s a couple of meters wide and covered but with open sides, and follows the street for several hundred meters, branching off here and there to follow the smaller side streets. Normally it’s nothing special, just a convenient way to get around, but today is Sunday, when all of Hong Kong’s maids (most of them Malaysian migrant workers) have their day off. Since they have no place of their own they can’t go home, and since Hong … Read the rest
The room looks like the basement of a school or something, thats been temporarily converted to a disco; an open space with low ceiling, bare white walls and a couple of support pillars. Against the back wall is a DJ booth on a raised platform and behind it, the letters “XXX” painted in white on a black background. On the left wall is an LED matrix display showing the words “Absurd TRAX – dj sniff”, and on the right wall is powerful light. The entire place is awash in red and blue light and the air is imbued with the … Read the rest
In October last year I set off on my three month journey through south east Asia. When I first came up with the idea for that trip many years ago, I had this vague notion that I should write a lot of Frozen Moments during the trip, perhaps even forgoing a camera altogether and just document what I saw using words. My idea was that I would gather all of these texts together and try to get them published as a book, a sort of photo album if you will. In the end I did bring a camera, and … Read the rest
The place looks like a normal temple from the outside, the facade covered in typical temple decorations with the name above the door. Once you get inside you realize it’s actually a cave, a wide tunnel burrowing some 10 or 20 meters into the rock, divided into two sections by a concrete wall. Each section has an altar against the back wall, as well as all the other paraphernalia that belong to a temple. The walls are bare rock, with carvings and niches for statues here and there, and then, in the corner next to one of the altars is … Read the rest
I’m in the most amazing market I have ever seen! The entire street is full of stalls, crammed so tightly together it’s impossible to know where one ends and the next one begins. In the the middle of the stalls is a narrow passage that is so full of people, both locals and tourists, that you can hardly turn around without bumping into anyone. Nearly every vendor in the market is selling things for the upcoming Deepavali festival. There are entire walls covered in garlands of artificial flowers; there are tables laden with boxes of fireworks; and from the canvas … Read the rest
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