Bored With Mali? There's Always Guinea-Bissau... Unless You Worry About Safety

Guinea Bissau is bigger than The Gambia

That the Tuaregs of Mali (as well as Niger and Mauritania) hold hundreds of thousands of Bella and other black Africans in slavery is certainly not enough to motivate any kind of intervention from France, Britain, NATO or anyone else. Even when the Tuaregs have captured, in quick succession, Kidal, Gao and Timbuktu-- and two-thirds of Mali-- it wasn't until Islamist groups with a jihadi agenda and murky ties to al-Qaeda, that the West intervened. Mali has no oil but it isn't that far from oil-rich, Muslim-roiled Nigeria. Oil and Islamic jihadis... that gets the West's attention-- and fast. Slavers taking over a country-- who cares? Same with international drug barons... it might be inconvenient and yucky-- but if there's no oil or jihad involved, you're on your own.

I know people are just starting to figure out what Mali is; so I feel bad having to introduce a whole new country and it's problems onto the blog. AroundTheWorldBlog, meet Guinea-Bissau. This small (slightly bigger than Maryland) West African state tucked between Senegal and Guinea, was once part of the Empire of Mali. Portugal began colonizing it in the 1500s and kidnapping it's people to sell as slaves. Coincidentally, it used to be identified on maps as the Slave Coast. A rebellion began against fascist-led Portugal in the 1950s and they finally drove the Portuguese out in 1973. The first elections, though, weren't held until 1994 and since then every government has been violently overthrown. Not one president has finished his term. It's one of the poorest countries in the world-- on a level with Nepal, Burundi, Niger, Congo, Mali, Ethiopia, Afghanistan, Somalia, Haiti, Liberia and Malawi.

The country has no embassies in the U.S. or Britain and little tourism. If you want to visit, you have to stop in Lisbon and get a tourist visa there-- just like in the old colonial days! (It only takes a couple hours though... not counting the flight to Portugal.) Virtually no one will accept credit cards anywhere in the country but everyone love Euros and dollars. International phone service is, at best, sporadic. The country is considered one of the most violent in Africa and much too dangerous for tourists and the U.S. State Department warns American citizens to not travel there. From the State Department website:

The United States established diplomatic relations with Guinea-Bissau in 1975, following its independence from Portugal. Post-independence, the country has seen a mix of coups, attempted coups, civil war, assassinations, and democratic elections. The United States strongly condemned the April 2012 attempt by elements of the military to forcibly seize power, called for maximum restraint on all sides and the restoration of legitimate civilian leadership, and continues to work with its partners in the region and beyond as it monitors developments on the ground. Now that the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has returned Bissau-Guinean military factions to their barracks and a civilian government is in power, the United States is working with its partners and the Transitional Government of Guinea-Bissau to facilitate free and fair elections by Spring 2013, and to promote basic reforms on governance, justice, and economic development.

There is no U.S. Embassy in Guinea-Bissau. All official U.S. contact with Guinea-Bissau is handled by the U.S. Embassy in Senegal. Local employees staff the U.S. Office in Bissau, and U.S. diplomats from the Embassy in Dakar travel frequently to Bissau.

Given the April 12, 2012 coup, the United States was obliged to terminate foreign assistance to the Government of Guinea-Bissau consistent with the requirements of section 7008 of the Department of State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs Appropriations Act for 2012. Previous limited non-humanitarian assistance focused primarily on the justice sector as well as demining and proper weapons storage programs.

It gets worse. If you happened to read a report by Adam Nossiter in the NY Times last November, you're probably aware that Guinea-Bissau has been taken over by an international drug syndicate and is the major hub for cocaine traffic-- 30 tons a year-- between Latin America and Europe. The country is addicted to coke and crack and it defines the term "narco-state."

When the army ousted the president here just months before his term was to expire, a thirst for power by the officer corps did not fully explain the offensive. But a sizable increase in drug trafficking in this troubled country since the military took over has raised suspicions that the president’s sudden removal was what amounted to a cocaine coup.

The military brass here has long been associated with drug trafficking, but the coup last spring means soldiers now control the drug racket and the country itself, turning Guinea-Bissau in the eyes of some international counternarcotics experts into a nation where illegal drugs are sanctioned at the top.

“They are probably the worst narco-state that’s out there on the continent,” said a senior Drug Enforcement Administration official in Washington, who spoke on the condition of anonymity so as not to jeopardize his work in the region. “They are a major problem.”

Since the April 12 coup, more small twin-engine planes than ever are making the 1,600-mile Atlantic crossing from Latin America to the edge of Africa’s western bulge, landing in Guinea-Bissau’s fields, uninhabited islands and remote estuaries. There they unload their cargos of cocaine for transshipment north, experts say.

The fact that the army has put in place a figurehead government and that military officers continue to call the shots behind the scenes only intensifies the problem.

...Was the military coup itself a diversion for drug trafficking? Some experts point to signs that as the armed forces were seizing the presidency, taking over radio stations and arresting government officials, there was a flurry of drug activity on one of the islands of the Bijagós Archipelago, what amounted to a three-day offloading of suspicious sacks.

That surreptitious activity appears to have been simply a prelude.

“There has clearly been an increase in Guinea-Bissau in the last several months,” said Pierre Lapaque, head of the regional United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime for West and Central Africa. “We are seeing more and more drugs regularly arriving in this country.”

Mr. Lapaque called the trafficking in Guinea-Bissau “a major worry” and an “open sore,” and, like others, suggested that it was no coincidence that trafficking had spiked since the coup.

Joaquin Gonzalez-Ducay, the European Union ambassador in Bissau, said: “As a country it is controlled by those who formed the coup d’état. They can do what they want to do. Now they have free rein.”

The senior D.E.A. official said, “People at the highest levels of the military are involved in the facilitation” of trafficking, and added: “In other African countries government officials are part of the problem. In Guinea-Bissau, it is the government itself that is the problem.”

United Nations officials agree. “The coup was perpetrated by people totally embedded in the drugs business,” said one official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the political environment here.

The country’s former prosecutor general, Octávio Inocêncio Alves, said, “A lot of the traffickers have direct relationships with the military.”

...Officials point to several indicators, besides the increase in plane flights, to show that Guinea-Bissau has become a major drug transit hub.

They cite photographs of a recently well-cleared stretch of road in a remote rural area near the Senegal border, complete with turning space for small planes. The clearing was created under the supervision of military authorities, officials say. They also note mysterious absences of fuel at the tiny international airport in the capital, presumed stolen by traffickers.

Four months before the coup, a plane, with the aid of uniformed soldiers, landed in a rural area in the center of the country, which is the size of Belgium, said João Biague, head of the judicial police. The landing took place not far from General Injai’s farm.

Mr. Biague heads what is nominally the country’s antidrug agency, though he made it clear that he and his staff are largely powerless to practice any form of drug interdiction despite receiving frequent tips about small planes landing from abroad. “The traffickers know we can’t do much,” he said.

The agency is so starved of funds that he does not have money to put gas in its few vehicles, Mr. Biague said. Paint is peeling on the outside of the judicial police’s two-story colonial building downtown, and mold blackens the ground-floor pilasters. It is allocated $85 a week from the country’s Justice Ministry.

“The agents we have in the field want to give up because they have nothing to eat,” Mr. Biague said.

In the last three years, there have been more than a half-dozen unsolved political assassinations here, including of the longtime president and the former army chief of staff, as well as at least two coup attempts, besides the successful coup. Nobody has been successfully prosecuted, though drugs were linked to many of them.

Last month, the justice minister of the transitional government warned opposition politicians not to speak publicly of “cases that don’t concern them,” under threat of criminal penalty.

This week, the repression appeared to tighten. General Injai threatened journalists with death if they asked questions about the assassination of the former president, and he warned that there would be many arrests as a result of the countercoup attempt.

There is remarkably little public talk of the unsolved political killings or of the country’s relations with the drug business. There have been no demonstrations; no discussion in the Parliament, shut down since July; no news conferences.

“A country that’s not capable of discussing its own problems-- it’s not a country, it’s not a state,” said Mr. Alves, the former prosecutor general.

The Obama administration, while encouraged France and then Britain, to intervene in Mali and is offering material support for the endeavor, has a very different attitude towards Guinea-Bissau. After explicitly linking the country’s military to the drug trade in 2010 and freezing the U.S. assets of drug kingpins ex-chief of the navy, Rear Adm. Bubo Na Tchuto, and the air force chief of staff, Ibraima Papa Camara, the Obama administration has backed off considerably. The top U.S. diplomat at the Guinea-Bissau desk in Dakar, Russel Hanks: "You will only have an impact on this transition by engagement, not by isolation. These are the people who came in to pick up the pieces after the coup.”

And, no, neither Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham nor Kelly Ayotte brought up Guinea-Bissau in the Senate confirmation hearings for Chuck Hagel today. Awesome tunes though:

New York Times: The 46 Places To Go In 2013

I don't want to ruin it for anyone, but #46 is... Paris. Like after you've been to Burma's Mergui Islands, Republic of Congo, Ningxia (China’s answer to Bordeaux), Houston, Delhi, and Pecs (Hungary). And Marseille-- which comes in as the #2 destination of the year! "Whether you travel to eat or shop, surf or ski, new adventures await," this week's Travel Section promised. OK, but if you're looking for any good ideas about where to go... well, I should be fair. There are some. But you have to be discerning enough to remember that they're recommending Paris because "it has a new allure: a green and walkable Right Bank."

Where once there was just a busy road, there are now alder trees, native Seine grasses and wide walking and cycle paths, all due to a 35-million-euro beautification project led by Mayor Bertrand Delanoë. Wooden furniture to stretch out in has been installed along the banks, where visitors can relax while taking in the view of Notre Dame Cathedral, and five adjoining islands in the river are being turned into “floating gardens.” Across the river, ambitious steps are being taken to transform a nearly 1.5-mile stretch of the Left Bank free of cars by this spring, with 11 acres of new green space between the Musée d’Orsay and Pont de l’Alma.

The recommendation right before Paris, Casablanca, is the Moroccan destination of choice. Not mine, though. I've been to Morocco over a dozen times and to Casablanca several but... Fez, Marrakech, Essaouira, Taroudant, even Tangier all go before Casa, even if it has lovely architecture, North Africa's tallest towers and is "developing one of the most interesting modern art scenes in the Arab world." To be honest, the reason I do like going to Casablanca-- usually to catch a flight somewhere else-- is because it boasts one of the most spectacular seafood restaurants in the world, Le Port de Pêche, a hidden gem most people who get their travel advice from the New York Times would probably miss ("scary" location on the docks). But-- with a discussion of the relative merits of the art, architecture and cuisine saved for another day-- I think most tourists would get a bigger kick out of Taroudant than Casablanca.

And the Times' #1 destination for the year? Rio. OK, I want to go there too. But I don't know if my reasons are related to the Times'. South America's first Apple store? Gimme a break!

Fifty-three years after Brazil’s federal government decamped to Brasília, and decades after São Paulo took over as the country’s business capital, Rio is staging a comeback. With the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Summer Olympics (plus an oil boom) providing the impetus, the tropical city perhaps most famous for its Carnival hedonism is on its way to becoming a more sophisticated cultural hub. In January, the Cidade das Artes, or City of the Arts, was inaugurated as the new home of the Brazilian Symphony Orchestra. On March 23, Casa Daros-- an outpost of the Zurich-based Daros Latinamerica Collection-- will open in a renovated 19th-century building with an exhibition of Colombian artists. March will also mark the opening of the Rio Museum of Art in Praça Mauá, a once decrepit port area now being revived. (The Santiago Calatrava-designed Museum of Tomorrow, also in the port area, is scheduled to follow in 2014.) Shopping, a Rio obsession, got a boost in December when the luxe VillageMall opened; it will soon house the city’s first Gucci outlet and South America’s first Apple Store. Special events also dot the coming year’s calendar, including the Catholic Church’s World Youth Day in July, the biennial Rio Book Fair starting in late August, and September’s Rock in Rio. And, of course, there’s soccer: the finals of the Confederations Cup, considered a dress rehearsal for the World Cup, will be held in a completely overhauled Maracanã Stadium on June 30.

Some of the more worthwhile suggestions include Accra (Ghana), Mongolia, Bhutan, Amsterdam (yes, the Stedelijk and the Rijksmuseum are finally reopening), the Yucatán, Porto, Istanbul and Koh Phangan (where a German tourist was partially devoured by a shark last time I was there. They also recommend Kalpitiya, Sri Lanka, not one of the incredibly beautiful island's best destinations by any stretch of the imagination, and the Falklands, although why someone would go there rather than Tierra del Fuego is as hard to fathom as what rhyme or reason went into the list of 46 to begin with.

Mali's Tourism Industry Devastated-- And The Overflow Is Wrecking Burkina Faso's Tourism As Well

I've visited a lot of countries that are tough for tourists these days: Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Egypt, Greece, Sri Lanka, Palestine... but none as tough as Mali. The restaurant on the banks of the Niger in Ségou in the video above... Roland and I sat on that terrace. I was in Mali for about a month in the winter of 2008. Since then it has been consumed by a civil war, which has torn the country in half and immersed it in bloodshed. Foreigners are routinely kidnapped. When we were there, the tourism sector was exploding. Wonderful, charming boutique hotels-- rather than the ugly soul-destroying chains which would have come later-- were popping up everywhere and a growing stream of foreign visitors were helping fuel an economic resurgence, especially in Timbuktu. Timbuktu has now been wrecked by anti-Sufi fundamentalist jihadis, who have destroyed the city's historical treasures and cultural heritage.

The Tuaregs are in full-scale rebellion against the central government-- and have declared independence-- because, like the Southern rebels in the mid-1800s here in the U.S., they want to preserve their "special" way of life: slavery. The Tuaregs are a brutal, savage people, like American southerners, with an Ayn Rand perspective on how to work and play with others. "Others" are meant to be their slaves and they tie he whole ugly, inhuman package up with a phony religionist fundamentalism. In the future, this will be a picture of the Tuaregs of Mali:



When we visited Mali we laughed at the Peace Corp volunteers who were prohibited by the State Department from visiting Timbuktu and the whole northern part of the country. We were lucky; that's all. No one in their right mind goes anywhere near that part of Mali these days. In fact, no tourists go to Mali anymore at all.

Since the coup last March that split the country in two and left the north occupied by al-Qaida-linked rebels, and the kidnapping of a French citizen in November, France has enlarged the "red zone," a no-go area for its citizens that now stretches from Mali's northern borders with Mauritania and Algeria to the north shore of the Niger river in Ségou-- almost three-quarters of the country.

Other foreign embassies followed suit and warn against all travel to Mali, leaving the tourism sector-- Mali's third biggest revenue generator-- "almost dead," according to Ousmane Ag Rhissa, the tourism minister.

In 2011 almost 200,000 tourists visited the country, each spending at least $100 (£62) a day; barely 10,000 visited last year.

"The impact is pretty severe," Rhissa said. "Since there are no more tourists coming, there is no income generation."

The government has written off as unrecoverable more than a quarter of the targeted revenue for 2012. Spending plans have been slashed and the suspension of donor funding in the form of budget support and project aid has caused a state budget shortfall of $782m (£488m).

This has exacerbated shortages caused by the Sahel food crisis. Rising gas and food costs-- a 100% increase in the price of millet in the last year-- are making it harder for struggling businesses to keep afloat.

And last month, The Economist reported that tourism throughout west Africa is getting hairy. Neighboring Burkina Faso has taken an influx of Malian refugees but now they have their own troubles devastating their small tourism industry.

An army mutiny in 2011 prompted foreign embassies to turn their travel warnings to red. Then in January this year, 37,000 refugees from neighbouring Mali flooded across the border to escape their country's political crisis. The collapse in Mali's tourist industry has been even more damaging. The country has long been a highlight of travel in West Africa. Tour operators got people to Burkina Faso by tagging it on to a trip to Mali. With Mali now off-limits, the bottom has fallen out of regional tourism.

Rerouting circuits to other nearby countries is the obvious solution but this is difficult. Neither Niger nor Côte d’Ivoire is particularly secure. Togo is small and undeveloped. Benin's tourism infrastructure is improving, but it lacks the mythical appeal of Timbuktu and the Dogon Country.

That leaves Ghana. On paper it is the ideal travel companion to Burkina. Its beaches complement Burkina’s landlocked terrain. The slave forts provide insight into an important page of modern history. The bustling metropolis of Accra, Ghana’s capital, offers a glimpse into what the future of Africa looks like, less evident in Ouagadougou, Burkina’s sleepy capital.

But Ghana is Anglophone, and French-speaking Burkina-- like its former colonial power-- has not taken to English. Local guides rarely speak English well enough to shepherd visitors around. They also need an international driving license to drive in Ghana-- unnecessary in its Francophone neighbours-- and vehicles require a special registration permit. Both of these must be renewed every year.

Those in the business say that Burkina’s tourism authorities should do more to promote the country as a safe destination and foster links with Ghana. For many 2012 has been their worst year. One hotelier decided to go back to his native France to work through the summer season to make ends meet. But with a military intervention proposed in Mali next year, things will only get tougher for Burkina Faso.

Meanwhile France is coming to the rescue, even bombing the legendary city of Gao, deep inside rebel-held territory. And starting tomorrow so are Mali's African neighbors. Hopefully, they'll be more successful than this automated news report:



France itself has beefed up domestic security in anticipation of Islamist terrorism at home. Britain has pledged to help France logistically (as has the U.S.) and the Islamist rebels say that the war against "the Crusaders" is just beginning. "This is a holy war. The deaths are normal," said Sanda Ould Boumama, spokesman for the rebel group Ansar Dine, which is linked to al Qaeda. "Our fighters are prepared to die for our cause," he told CNN by phone. People aren't hearing much about the Tuaregs and their role-- their desire to hold slaves again-- primarily because the Western powers want to turn them against their Islamist allies and don't want to demonize them in the press. Pretty sick!

This report makes more sense, is more up-to-date and more comprehensive:

Beneath The Glitz And Dazzle, Air Emirates Can Be Pretty Grubby

Perhaps you saw a resuscitated 2010 interview with the guy who soon became Egypt's first democratically elected president, Mohamed Morsi. During the interview he was against a two-state solution and called negotiations with Israel "a waste of time and opportunities" as Arabs and Muslims get nothing out of engagement with "the descendants of apes and pigs." Gee, and he's upset because tv satirist Bassem Youssef-- Egypt's Jon Stewart-- said something mildly snarky about him!

When I booked our flights to India on Emirates Air several months ago, Roland said he didn't like the idea of giving some "dirty terrorists" and crooked oil barons our money. I understood where he was coming from but the overriding consideration for me was that Emirates has an excellent reputation-- although completely overhyped one, as it turns out-- as an extraordinary airline. They're actually pretty ordinary, almost on a level with Singapore Air or British, but better than Delta or Air India. More to the point, though, Emirates was offering the only flight from Cochin to L.A. that didn't entail an overnight layover. The Emirate flight from Cochin flies at 4:35AM, connects 4 hours later in Dubai (7:05 Dubai time), entails, instead, a painless one hour and 15 minutes wait for the flight that goes direct to L.A. at 8:20AM. At least, that's the theory.

I was flying business class, Roland economy. The flight took off 30 minutes late from Cochin. No big deal, right? Wrong. The airline agents in Cochin told us there would be "no problem" making our connection and that the reason the flight was late was because of a problem in Dubai. Although we got to Dubai over an hour before the plane to L.A. actually took off, they refused to let us board. They had already sold our-- "our" meaning my seat and the seats of the 2 other business class travelers from Cochin going on to L.A.-- seats to some other people. Someone met us at the gate and told us they had rebooked us for the next day. "What about another flight?" we all asked at once. "Impossible" was the reply. Everything was impossible, in fact, except being bundled into a car and driven to a shoddy airport business traveler hotel, a Millennium... with a Cactus Jack's restaurant.

Roland, meanwhile, disappeared and I had to work two hours against a hideously uncooperative Emirates staff to find someone willing to help me figure out where he was. Somehow, for someone traveling in economy it wasn't impossible to rebook onto another flight. Roland was flying off to L.A. while I was pissed off in Dubai.

On The Other Hand...

When dealt lemons... The rule about the Travelers Century Club is that in the quest for 100 countries to have visited, a stop over in an airport counts. I don't care; in my mind it doesn't count. So my 3 hour or so stay in the Emirates Lounge a few weeks ago on the way to Delhi didn't, in my mind, mean I could tick Dubai off my list. But here I was with a day to "kill."

Usually study up on places I'm going way in advance and plan trips so that I don't miss the bets features. I was unaware of any features in Dubai except that it's garish and a shopoholic's paradise. So I asked the concierge what was the best thing to see in the country. "Dubai Mall," he answered without hesitation. I hate malls... more than hate, I'm horrified by them, spiritually dejected by their celebration of cheap gawdy, soul-destroying materialism. But the Santa Monica Mall, I recently discovered has one of my favorite restaurants in L.A., Matthew Kenney's M.A.K.E. And, lo and behold!, Dubai Mall has a pretty astounding healthy organic food store and cafe as well. But that isn't why anyone goes there. Where do I start?

It's the biggest mall in the world-- and across the street from the world's tallest building, the Burj Khalifa (2,722 feet; Empire State Building is 1,250 feet tall and the Eiffel Tower is 986 feet tall). There are over 2,000 shops and it's a carnival of brands, not just every brand name in America, but every brand name in France, England, Japan, Germany, Italy... It's actually the world's most visited shopping and leisure destination-- more people than the entire city of New York!-- and boasts a mammoth aquarium (with over 30,000 marine animals to gawk out while you shop and eat) and an incongruous ice-skating rink. And, of course 4 floors of shopping and eating, from Bloomingdales and Marks & Spencer to Galeries Lafayette to a Virgin Megastore. I would have preferred to have flown home on schedule but I had a fun time sightseeing in Dubai for a day... so not a total waste. Nice subway too-- clean and sparkly.

Kerala-- Where To Eat in Cochin

Kerala doesn't have a restaurant culture. People eat with their families at home or are too poor to eat in what we would call restaurants. When I first visited in 1970, I recall the food being very spicy and served on banana leaves. Kerala has been developed into a major tourist destination since then and there are a lot more hotels and restaurants catering to the needs of both domestic and international tourists.

Getting into the native foods of the places I visit are part of why I live travel so much. And the food of South India is very, very different from the food of North India, the food people in the States and Europe are usually talking about when they mention "Indian food." And the food in South India is different from region to region. In Kerala, the Malayalam cuisine is obviously based on the local ingredients-- coconuts, spices (cardamom, chili, tumeric, coriander, cloves, ginger, cinnamon, pepper, cumin, etc), fish, rice, fruits and vegetables...

The tourist guide books for Kerala all celebrate the restaurants in the luxury hotels. With no real restaurant culture, they've long been the places where you could get hygienic and good-tasting food. But not remotely Keralan food. The Keralan food served in the 5-star hotel restaurants is made for elderly Brits and German-- very nearly tasteless. To say the spice factor is cut back to a minimum is a joke. Top rated restaurants in Ft. Kochi (Cochin) are expensive and attempt to be as European-friendly as they can. Fodor, for example, recommends The History at the exclusive hotel, Brunton Boatyard. It wasn't bad-- not at all-- but it was completely forgettable, uninteresting and way over-priced. We ate there on our first night. After that we asked everyone where we could find the best authentic Keralan cooking. There was a consensus and we found the Pavilion at the modest Abad Hotel in Chullickal, a one dollar tuk-tuk ride from Ft. Kochi. We ate there half a dozen times, and not because it was so shockingly inexpensive. We ate there so often because the food was absolutely delicious-- and because they didn't tone it down just because we're white.

Neither of us even had so much as a loose movement the whole time we were in Kerala. The food was healthy, clean, delicious and nutritious. As long as I'm bringing up body functions, there is one thing I want to mention. This is the "cool" and "dry" season-- relatively-- but it never drops below 90 degrees and it's so humid that nothing gets dry. So we're drinking water all the time. And sweating out out. I've rarely consumed as much water but rarely pissed as infrequently. It all gets sweated out. It's essential that if you visit Kerala you drink a lot of water-- a lot more than usual.

Ayurvedic Treatment In Cochin, Kerala

This is the logo for tourists-- run the other way

Traditional tourist guide books all say Cochin in central Kerala is a beautiful town but they them give it the bum rap of claiming it's the kind of place to stay for a day or two before moving on to see the rest of the state. That may be a good way to go-- but it surely isn't the only way to go. Cochin (Kochi) is a dreamy, mellow tropical paradise, an idillic place to just veg out and relax. The food is delicious; the prices are still inexpensive and the people are educated, sweet and very attractive. We've been here over a week and it would be lovely to stay for another week.

As I said earlier, we rented a flat facing the beach and everything is either within easy walking distance or-- at most-- a $1.00 tuk-tuk (motorized 3-wheel ricksha) ride away. People while away the days getting into Kerala's rich cultural heritage-- like taking Malayalam cooking lessons or art lessons or massage lessons, or by going on cruises on the gorgeous inland waterways, the glorious backwaters, or by shopping, going to see the wild elephants, site-seeing, relaxing...

And that massage I mentioned, it's part of a serious and ancient medical treatment. Well, most of the "ayurvedic massages" I see offered here are for tourists and they're probably not really as serious as they are just wonderfully relaxing. But I get a massage every week in the U.S. and I'm always eager to try massages in different cultures. And as for illnesses that need treating... I've got as many ailments as anyone. The "best doctors" in the U.S. have assured me there is no cure for hives and I've had chronic hives for a full year. I got it after a bout of dengue fever I got in Mérida (Yucatán) last year. I wondered if the ayurvedic approach would do me any good.

When I was still back in the U.S., I found a government-run ayurvedic hopsital online and e-mailed them. They didn't respond. When I got here I found it was just a mile down the road from our house so I went over. The doctor was sick so it wasn't open. Then I happened on a quasi clinical practice and tried that. It was a 90 minute oil massage for around $20. It was good. But the next day I found a serious ayurvedic clinic and the doctor understood how to treat hives. I was surprised. She gave me a topical cream and some herbal manjishtadi kashayam tablets (which claims to be good for skin diseases, obsesity, gout, syphilis, eye diseases and the common cold). And then the massage.

The guy who gave me the massage had studied for 2 years and then worked in an ayurvedic hospital in Mumbai for almost 4 years before moving back to Ft. Kochi. The clinic-- though filled with mosquitos-- is very clean and well-organzied. The massage was inexpensive (around $18) and absolutely expertly done, good enough for me to make appointments for every day for the rest of our stay in Kerala. The thing I like about it are the long stroke-- like one powerful stroke from the neck to the ankle or one the entire length of the spine.

Vedic medicine goes back thousands of years and the vast majority of people in India use it to at least some extent. They know what they're doing and the Indian government takes it very seriously in terms of licensing and research. There are 8 categories of Ayurvedic medicine and the one I found is rasayana, which deals with rejuvenation and immunity-- as opposed to ophthalmology, surgery, toxicology or even psychiatry. The fascination with balance in Hinduism and Buddhism have had a big influence on the evolution of ayurvedic medicine. It's the ultimate holistic approach to medicine.

The place I would recommend if you're in Ft. Kochi is the Soorya Panchakarma Ayurvedic Clinic. You can e-mail them at sooryapanchakarma.ayr@gmail.com/ It's too early to know if my hives are actually cured. But after just a couple days of the medicine and massages, all the hives that have plagued me all year are gone. The head of the department at UCLA that deals with chronic hives (so not the allergic reactions that last a day or two, the long term stuff) told me there is no cure and that if I'm lucky it'll just disappear in a year or two. I think I was lucky to try the ayurvedic way... although we'll see what happens when I'm back in L.A. with no medical massages and when the medicine runs out.

Kerala-- Where To Stay In Cochin

The last time-- and only time until this week-- I was in Kerala, a long skinny coastal state in southwest India, was 1970. I had left Goa, after a fantastic couple of months of recuperating from the arduous drive across Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and northern India, and was headed towards the island paradise of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). Kerala is between Goa and what was then the ferry point you could take to northern Ceylon (long closed due to a civil war that raged for almost the whole time since I left until very recently).

I only remember 5 things about the week it took me in 1970 to traverse Kerala, not counting how abysmal the roads were. I remember the state was lush, green and gorgeous with incredible unspoiled beaches and no tourists. I remember visiting an old French colony called Mahe in the northern part of the state which was administratively part of Pondicherry, the 3 scattered ex-French enclaves in India, and that it was far more orderly than the rets of this chaotic and completely dysfunctional country. I remember that the spicy cuisine was delicious and simple and served on banana leaves (although some rudimentary roadside slop houses weren't high-falutin enough for banana leaves and would put the food directly onto the wooden tables... pretty revolting and seared into my memory. I never saw any silverware in Kerala.) I also remember visiting a shuttered on Jewish synagogue in Cochin that some local boys opened up for us but they couldn't speak much English and we didn't learn much other than that the Jews had all gone to Israel. And finally, I recall that south of Trivandum, the state capital, some inept dacoits (bandits) tried to waylay us with a giant boulder rolled into the middle of the road. There was enough room to drive around it and escape.

Kerala has come a long way since then. It's a relatively wealthy state now and has been successfully promoted the way Florida was in the U.S. in the 50s and 60s-- a beautiful, unspoiled tropic vacation paradise. The explosively expanding Indian middle class likes vacationing here. So do Europeans. When I checked out the best hotels on Ft. Kochi, one of the islands that makes up Cochin-- the best of the islands-- they were all over-priced and booked up. Our first choice in any case is to rent a house. So we did. This one is a brand new apartment overlooking the Arabian Sea, a little way (5-10 minute walk) from the hustle and bustle of the real touristy parts of the island. It's nothing too fancy but there are two bedooms, with their own bathrooms, a kitchen/dining area, a living room and air-conditioning units for each room. The owner, a young guy, Varghese John, somehow pronounced Valdez, lives downstairs and is a perfect host-- as well as a great cook. A lady comes in and cleans every other day and does the laundry, changes the bedding ,etc. The hot water works and so does the wifi-- more or less. The electricity goes out for half an hour twice a day-- from 7-7:30 every morning and from 9-9:30 every evening, but that's a function of Kerala, not the house. His e-mail address is varju@rediffmail.com/ If you want to visit Cochin and stay here, mention this blog or my name to Verghese and he'll give you a 10% discount.

Roland and I are only the second guests to have stayed here; it's that new. Two weeks ago Cochin had a big music festival-- it's in swing 'til March-- and M.I.A. (Maya), a U.K. pop star/rapper-- from Sri Lanka-- headlined and she and her family stayed in our house. They were the first guests. Her father was a well-known Tamil activist. She got into some kind of twitter argument with Anderson Cooper after she felt he implied she's a terrorist (which she isn't). Her 2007 second album, Kala a U.S. dance-electronic hit, went gold. Outside of the underground dance world she's best known in the U.S. for having written "Give Me All Your Luvin'" with Madonna and for performing it at the Super Bowl XLVI half time show. This video isn't that. "Born Free" is considered, like M.I.A. herself, controversial. I wonder how she went over in sleepy, very Christian Cochin.

Would You Stay In A Hotel Named Eros?

The Delhi subway system is fast and cheap-- but best avoided unless there are riots up top

Not counting teenage hitchhiking adventures to Canada and Mexico, the first time I traveled abroad was right after my 20th birthday. My girlfriend and I got special $99 tickets on Iceland Air for Luxembourg. (If you stopped over in Iceland, you got the $99 price-- and we were delighted to stop over in Iceland and spend a week driving around the dramatic lunar-scape of an island.) Anyway, when we got to Luxembourg we had no idea where to go or what to do. The next day we had to take a train to Weisbaden in Germany to pick up our VW van. So we checked into a cheap hotel near the central station that seemed, in the dark night, medieval and charming. It turned out to be one of those hotels where working girls brought their tricks for an hour. You live and you learn.

So I'm in Delhi for a week, waiting for Roland, enjoying India's fantastic capital-- great sites, nice weather, old friends, amazing restaurants and a wonderful place to get used to India before moving on to more exotic parts of the country. I was last here 2 or 3 years ago and I stayed at the Intercontinental and loved it. It was the least expensive 5-star hotel in town and it was a hassle-free enjoyable week for me and, most important, it was really close-- 10-15 minute walk-- to the center of town (Connaught Place). So, of course, I wanted to book us rooms there for this trip. But it was gone. Online, the hotel had ceased to exist. I finally tracked it down and it was now called Eros. That put me off. Was it some kind of weird sex hotel for Arabs and sleazy Indians? No, as further investigation showed me, it is heavily advertised as being managed by Hilton. OK, I figured Eros must mean something different in India.

It's part of the Eros Group and, as their website says, it's "a company, which needs no introduction!" Apparently they're giants in the real estate industry and in the hotel world as well. "Hospitality Industry (Eros Hotel Managed by Hilton at Nehru Place, Shangri-La's-- Eros Hotel at Connaught Place, Hotel Double Tree and Hotel Hilton at Mayur Vihar- city's most prestigious 5 star deluxe hotels)-- are an absolute spectacle of immaculate architecture. Group is also coming up with a new Residential Township-- Eros Sampoornam (25 acres) in Greater Noida (Noida Extension) and five star hotels-- Eros Radisson Blue Hotel (72000 sq ft) in Faridabad and RJS Hotel (4.5 acres). With more than six decades as a leading maestro in real estate promotion and town planning, the Eros Group ranks as the natural choice for smart decision makers like you. With Eros Group one can take excellent complex environment for granted." OK, what could go wrong?

The hotel's website says it's "centrally located at Nehru Place, with easy access to business and tourist destinations." Sounded like the place I stayed in, although I wasn't 100% positive. I called and they said, yes, they took over the old Intercontinental. The price was decent and the on-line reviews sounded fine. When I got here, it was 4AM and it looked the same. Emirates Air-- the most over-hyped airline ever-- had a car drive me from the airport to the hotel and it didn't seem like he was going the right way, but what the heck. Most of these cookie cutter business hotels seem the same and they were kind enough to check me in at 4AM. The room looked exactly the same as the Intercontinental, although the place seemed very remodeled. It wasn't until the next day-- when I tried walking to Connaught Place for lunch-- that I figured out I was 10 miles from Connaught Place and that there had been two Intercontinentals and that the one I had stayed in is now the Lalit Hotel.

This one doesn't suck-- except for their internet use scam. It's just not a hotel I would normally stay in if there were better choices (which, in Delhi, there are-- dozens of better choices). Roland arrived a few days after I did on the same Emirates flight that got him here at 4AM. Instead of welcoming him and showing him to his room after an 18 hour flight, they figured he would be ripe for a rip-off and told him it was be $200 to allow him into his room before 8AM. Luck of the draw. I had a kind desk clerk; Roland got a crook. (When we complained to the manager she told me that Roland's experience was the normal one and that what had happened to me was "impossible.")

Roland pays attention to toiletries and he says the hotel's stuff-- by Peter Thomas Roth-- is top notch. I never heard of them. What I do know is that the hotel charges $10/day for their internet connection and their internet connection is beyond horrible. It's barely useable and, on average, it takes me 20-30 minutes to open and e-mail and reply. Something like 75% of the replies then vanish. Google mail works better than AOL, which has been almost impossible to use here. Twitter and reddit don't function at all and basically, if it isn't google-related, it doesn't work. Most of the name there's no connectivity. A couple goofs from the IT Department came up to my room and installed a booster, which didn't do any good at all.

Instead of a 10-15 minute walk to Connaught Place, it's a 20 minute subway ride (with a transfer). I don't remember Delhi-- or anyplace in India-- even having a subway system. Turns out this one got started in 2002, although the line out to where I am opened in 2010. They're still building. It's the most crowded subway I've ever been on anywhere... ever. Words can't describe. They haven't quite figured out how to sell tickets-- which involves gigantic lines and amazing amounts of wasted time. This being India, the world's most defiantly dysfunctional place, they don't allow you to buy return trips. Fortunately, the first car on every train is strictly reserved for women. If you don't think that's important, the biggest story in Delhi for the week we've been here so far-- dominating the front page and next 4 pages of every newspaper-- is about a young woman who was gang-raped on a bus and how common it is for women to be sexually harassed. The whole city had practically been shut down by the protests over the episode and the woman was so brutally assaulted that she may die and has already had her intestines removed.

People blame the police because they spend such an inordinate amount of their assets protecting a couple hundred VIP families and leaving the rest of society to fend for itself. What's odd about that is that Delhi is the most paranoid city I've ever been in when it comes to security. Every opportunity there is for a pat-down and an x-ray machine, you find someone patting you down and x-raying you. Every subway station, every hotel, every bank... these people are insane. The real lack of security is that the subways are so packed with sick people that disease must spread like wildfire all the time. Every time I get off one I take a few Mushroom Science Immune Builders, my own kind of paranoia prevention. It didn't do any good in the end and I came down with a bad cold or something.

The Metro got us to Chandi Chawk, the main drag of Old Delhi, a short and fascinating walk from Jama Masjid, the biggest mosque in India, completed in 1656 and pictured (with me in the foreground) above

Religious Fanatics Destroy Timbuktu's Cultural Heritage

Far right "Christian" fundamentalist Bryan Fischer is one of America's noisiest and most virulent anti-Islamic hatemongers. Barely a day goes by when he isn't tweeting some crap about how Islam is not a religion of peace because some crackpots do something outrageous in the name of Allah. Fisher's rage against religionist excess, he never seems to understand, is what lumps him and his followers in with the loathsome Muslim fundamentalists and extremists he derides. He is them; they are him.

A few years ago, Roland and I spent a month traveling through Mali, a unique and edifying experience. Since then, the country has fallen apart... literally. The northern two-thirds of the country have been taken over by the Islamic version-- but religiously and politically-- of Bryan Fischer and his thuggish crowd. And what has ensued should give Americans warning of what would happen if radical right sociopaths like Fischer and the politicians he supports ever get their hands on the levers of power in our own country.

Aside from a couple of superficial mentions by Mitt Romney in the foreign policy presidential debate that doomed his campaign, few Americans have ever heard of Mali. They confuse it with Bali and Maui. No one I tell I went there has a clue where it is, let alone anything about how significant it was historically-- in terms of providing the gold that helped fuel Europe's Renaissance and the music that created American rock'n'roll. But when I mention "Timbuktu" there's usually a glimmer of light behind the eyes-- not that anyone knows where that is either. But at least they've heard of it, usually as some legendary place like Atlantis.

Sunday The Telegraph reported on the latest news in the on-going the Bryan Fischerization of Timbuktu. This is what religion always devolves to:

The rebels' ruthless implementation of their version of Islamic law comes just days after the United Nations approved a military force to wrest back control of the conflict-ridden area.

"Not a single mausoleum will remain in Timbuktu, Allah doesn't like it," Abou Dardar, leader of the Islamist Ansar Dine group, told AFP. "We are in the process of smashing all the hidden mausoleums in the area." Witnesses confirmed the claims.

Anything that doesn't fall under Islam "is not good. Man should only worship Allah," Mohamed Alfoul, a member of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), said.

The vandalism of the Muslim saints' tombs in the UNESCO World Heritage site came a day after other Islamists in the northern city of Gao announced they had amputated two people's hands.

The continued strict application of sharia law is seen as a sign that the armed Islamist groups are unfazed by the UN's green light for the African-led military operation.

Planners have said any intervention cannot be launched before September next year. French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian however told Monday's edition of La Croix newspaper that he thought it could be launched in the first half of 2013.

In July, Islamists destroyed the entrance to a 15th-century mosque in Timbuktu, the so-called "City of 333 Saints."

"The Islamists are currently in the process of destroying all the mausoleums in the area with pickaxes," one witness said.

"I saw Islamists get out of a car near the historic mosque of Timbuktu. They smashed a mausoleum behind a house shouting 'Allah is great, Allah is great'," another resident told AFP.

As well as in cemeteries and mosques, the revered mausoleums are found in alleyways and private residences of the city, an ancient centre of learning and a desert crossroads.

Catherine Ashton, the European Union's foreign policy chief, condemned the Islamists.

A statement from her office said she was "deeply shocked by the brutal destruction of mausoleums and holy shrines in Timbuktu...

"Their destruction is a tragedy not only for the people of Mali, but for the whole world."

Ansar Dine began destroying the cultural treasures in July.

Cadillac Commercial Through Morocco's Atlas Mountains At The Dadès Gorges

I started visiting Morocco in 1969 and I've been there over a dozen times since. At some point it can't just be about laying around Marrakesh, Essaouira, Tangier and Fes. So some years ago I set out across the Atlas Mountains south of Marrakesh and discovered Taroudant, which is kind of what Marrakesh was like in the 1960s before it became so cosmopolitan. I loved it and kept going back. From there we'd set out for Tiznit and even Sidi Ifni further south and east and then, eventually for Ouarzazate, Zagora south and west and even Mhamid right at the edge of the Sahara, the last stop before the 2 month camel ride to Timbuktu.

I just saw the Cadillac ad above with the driver going through the Atlas Mountains at the Dadès Gorges. We did hire a camel driver and his son to take us out into the Sahara Desert... but not as far as Timbuktu, which we did eventually get to-- in a jeep. As for the curving passes of the High Atlas... oh yes; we did that, several times in fact. But once was a time I'll never forget. We weren't going nearly as fast as the Cadillac in the ad-- nor did we have nearly as good a vehicle-- but we were descending pretty briskly when... no more pavement. The asphalt suddenly gave way to gravel.

You know what happens when the asphalt suddenly gives way to gravel? It had never crossed my mind 'til then either. But we spun right out of control and headed for one of those drops you can see in the Cadillac ad. In fact, the bottom of that gorge is filled with cars and trucks that did go over during the years. I'd like to say it was my reflexes and skillful driving that saved us-- and it may have been; who remembers anything but the sheer terror? But I think it was just luck. The car came to a stop an inch from the deadly drop. Within seconds a dozen old Berber men appeared out of nowhere and were swarming all over us, as though they came out of the sides of the rocky crevices. Each one wanted to touch my heart. For luck I guess.

Nothing much in M'Hamid but flies, sand and camels