Log> Lemurs galore

Goodbye Madagascar. It was fun. And productive. I found this charming little B&B called Country View Guest House between the dirtiness of the Antananarivo and the emptiness of the airport, in a quaint countryside location it's been a perfect place to unwind and gets some thoughts on paper. The guesthouse is highly recommended anyway - it's close enough to the airport and you get to experience the city too (if you really, really want to, up to you) and Ockie, the South African owner-operator is very knowledgeable and can organize any trips you might fancy. You can't miss him - he's the big guy running around in a Chuck Norris t-shirt. He also has a hotel on Ile St. Marie for a more rustic experience, and discussing the relative merits between Nosy Be (where I stayed for 5 days for diving) quite well convinced me that St. Marie could be a place to go. If one comes to Madagascar at all, that is.

The nature is beautiful, once you get to it - deforestation in all but the protected or almost inaccessible areas is massive. Logistics are terrible - the roads literally disappearing into dust at times. Granted, the flora and fauna have features not found anywhere else on Earth. But something about the local culture and the general vibe has felt quite inaccessible to me. It's a language thing partly, but partly a mentality thing as well. People are really laid back. Very relaxed indeed, but in a strange way I also got the feeling something was expected of me all the time but that nobody would or could verbalize it. Maybe it was all positive, but I got bothered every once in a while, not being used to attention. Uh, that sounded uncharacteristically humble of me, but true.

I'm loving the trip, though, with all my heart. And I got to see some Lemurs, oh yes. Very cute and curious.

Sights> Sausage from Switzerland

This photo taken in Thun, Switzerland (I think) surfaced from Timo's camera from the Battlelore tour. I didn't remember it until I saw it. The sausages were indeed wonderful, and so was the whole tour. Love you guys.

And this post comes from a wonderful little B&B in Central Madagascar called Country View Guesthouse. I've only been here for two hours, but I was greeted with a cup of gorgeous coffee, and I'm a sucker that way. I'd love to post photos from Mad already (the few I've taken) but the connection is painfully slow of course, so be content with the sausage. Oh - here is the trip photo album.

I spent less time and more money than I meant to on the island of Nosy Be. This was partly due to realizing that I haven't been diving enough to aim for the Advanced NAUI certificate quite yet, and partly because in Nosy Be you end up paying first world prices for third world quality. I'm not terribly picky, but I'd rather get what I pay for. And the fact that I can't get along with French (the language, not so much the people :) is aggravating at times - me and the hotel staff communicated mostly in sign language the 4 days I was with them.

The dives were good, though it took me a day to get breathing and buoyancy right. We spotted some kingfish, barracudas, lionfish and many blue-spotted rays and two occasions of eagle rays, the first being about two and half meters long from the head to the end of the tail. Above the surface we followed some mangrove dolphins around our boat - we were told not to dive in as they are very shy.

Log> The value of intuition

There must be a certain amount of karma that gets credited in your account when you just strap yourself to a backpack and go humbly out into the world, waiting expectantly for whatever it offers or throws your way. Landing in Madagascar, following my intuition I again managed to get myself a small change of itinerary - going after a bird, sure, but an extinct one: I was recommended to go and seek out the site where only recently Rahona Ostromi, the missing link between birds and dinosaurs, was discovered. That will mean trekking into the limestone 'tsingy' of Northern Mad where the national park infrastructure is quite underdeveloped according to legend. An hour before hearing about this I had extended my stay in the North of Madagascar to span as much of my time in the country as possible, 8 days in total.

A couple of words on this saying 'yes' thing that got me in trouble in Mauritius already - of course this doesn't mean saying yes to every taxi tout, salesman and beggar, but to proposals of genuine interest and potential, anything that tickles my fancy, so to say. Ahem. This will likely get me in trouble, but so be it, the better the stories. And on the topic of stories, I'm still writing trivial things having changed my initial storyline and, well, even topic. I have a gallery of characters running around in my head and they will need to find their places - I'll go mad otherwise. The pieces have slowly been falling into place before this so I'm keeping my fingers crossed (while not on the keyboard).

And Antananarivo is a mess. Cities in third-world countries are rarely a positive experience, and whereas I've only met nice people here, had good food and slept in a reasonable (compared to the previous palace) accommodation, the city itself is a place of poverty and filth. I'm flying to Nosy Be for the advanced diving course now, and I'm partly afraid that it will be a nice, built-up resort-styled island. It would just be so unfair.

Log> MRU-TNR

I left Mauritius behind four days later than I had planned, primarily thanks to two lovely, lively, beautiful, funny Finnish girls who invited me to stay at their ocean-side resort bungalow since they had 'a few extra bedrooms'. I hadn't planned a resort stay, but what the heck, you know, and it wasn't half as bad as it sounds, trust me, including a boat trip to a private beach with some deep sea fishing, poolside cocktails and nightly lizard invasions to keep us active. No, of course you don't believe me. Fine, I'll post photos at some point.

Madagacar is a different kind of a place for sure. I haven't formed an opinion yet since I only landed today, but will post more once I have the photos in order too. Tomorrow Nosy Be, an island in the north of the, uh, bigger island I'm on right now.

Log> LHR-MRU

Yesterday was the beginning of my Journey. And the signs were promising. I had a 7-hour stopover in London to take care of some paperwork and to give an interview about my part in Tribewanted to people from ShineTV. I also had lunch with a friend, and waiting for him in an Indian restaurant in Soho, I saw Michael Palin walk past - like a blessing, a karmic signal that I'm doing the right thing. I almost rushed out to shake his hand.

I'm typing this from Port Louis, Mauritius, where I'm purchasing my RTW ticket with the local BA office and hanging out for a couple of days. Surfing isn't too good, so I'll just acclimatize and recharge for the dive course in Madgascar. It's a good start.

Log> Evernight over Europe pt. 6

That's all, folks. The Evernight Tour is coming to its bloodied conclusion after tonight's gig in Lubeck. The casualties this far are one house, one tree, one glass landscaping creation (that looked just like one was supposed to park a bus on it), a cymbal, numerous guitar strings - and finally, the bus.

We were stopped by friendly German police who told us they would like to take our bus to their vehicle inspection facilities after it had spewed oil and small metal parts on them as they were driving behind us. In the vehicle check, they gave a list of faults and hazards over a page long, and took our plates away. Many of the faults were severe enough to have the bus taken off the road, but the funny thing is that the bus had been inspected in Finland two months ago or so. The bottom had rusted through in parts, the breaks didn't hold pressure and the support beams in the chassis were badly damaged - so I'm guessing it had been a bit of an underhand inspection. I have their contact info, in case you need to get a through-rotten death-trap on four wheels through vehicle inspection in Finland. Unless someone sues them first.

We rented a new bus with a local driver, who again speaks no English, but speaks German very very loud, so we're getting along. He shouts at me until I get it. We still need to get the entire backline (instruments, amps etc.) on board the ferry and to Finland, which may prove tricky since we have no vehicle and the current bus will just dump us in Rostock harbour, and we can't carry all the stuff at once. We are considering buying a van and selling it in Finland. That's how desperate we are. Cross your fingers.

But this is likely to be the last post for a while, and other than a reflective summary or summaries later, likely the last post from the tour. I'll have other things on my mind on completely different continents. 20 days until the start of an Advanced Diving Course in Madagascar's Nosy Be!

Log> Evernight over Europe pt. 5

Returning from rainy Switzerland to sunny Germany was at first like a slow death, only slowly getting better. The bus hit a wall while backing up, I dropped a broken cargo hatch from the bus and I've generally been hitting the wall myself. The sound engineer kept experimenting with different levels in the middle of songs for example managing to create a long feedback that sounded like it's coming through a bit shifter.

The promoter of the Earthquaker Festival spoke no English. Like, not a word. I've met car mechanics who don't speak English, fine, but the head of a 1,500 people venue? That's just a reminder to me that I should be prepared to get along with other languages than English, Finnish and Spanish. And measly bits of French and Swedish. And my enormous patience. The two years of German lessons from 12 years ago have been coming back, but too slowly to create coherent communication. Of course, the rest of the local gang were very helpful with dealing with the cops (yeah...) and general interpretation, so we managed.

The gig in Dortmund was slow and dirty but a hell of a lot of fun. Again, the nicest people around at the venue. And our promoter had fangs, can't beat that with a stick (but maybe a stake would work?). Partied until very too late, and yesterday in Stuttgart was like hell on toast, though the gig was excellent. Today Marburg, tomorrow Eindhoven, then Rockmania Festival in Marksteft.

My mind is starting to wander to other things than just the tour, a combination of the tour responsibilities turning into routine and my round the world trip starting in... one week. Hell yes. What a dash this has been - I feel like I need to rest and relax even more than I would've had I taken off straight from work at Google. I mean, there might have been vampires there, but at least nobody at 76 Buckingham Palace Road had fangs.

Thoughts> London Cocoon

The people at Heathrow Airport
are more beautiful than the people at Stanstedt Airport.

In London there are many of these brackets
and they are clear and marked by certain
amalgamations of brands, cars, styles of music
like
before you get into the Land Rover and Porsche territory
from the streets parked with Opel Corsas and Fiat Puntos
it's sport Minis, big Golfs and Mercedes E-class for a few blocks
as the middle class struts its rainbow plumage
in all colors of metallic silvers, graphite and shiny black

London is the metropolis of all the villages in the world
chained together and sprawling and spread out
and with boundaries that are as
intangible as the global accents in laughter
echoing the walls on Saturday nights
oscillating as the whims of the interior design community
yet immutable by any a pair of hands you'll ever see in the daylight

Roaming betwixt and within these borders are
the latest, the neatest, the greatest
having come to live the flux that threatens to become a limbo
the constant movement in circles not being much better than
potential immobility
with the exception of keeping the mind occupied and the legs likewise
in a loop of intention with deficient deliberation
spending so much on jeans and designer mojitos
they are suddenly too poor to pay any attention

So, within London there are towns and borders and streets
parked with varying cars
and the walls reverberate an exotic laughter
and this is all very good
and not everyone needs to be in the loop
or in the wheel
as the City keeps rolling around and reinvents itself
South the River or in Hackney for a change
and if one takes a slow walk through these faces
some young, some old, some already asleep and waiting to be awakened
they can run their cold fingers along
the light fine fabric that wraps it all up
an essence of this collection of hamlets and sheds and people in motion
and feel the quaint vibration
the anxious caress that envelopes and gyrates around one and around all.

Log> Evernight over Europe pt. 4

I've managed to start uploading photos finally. I also have three hours of various video material, but post-production takes time. I will put up videos of the tour though, so stay tuned. In the meanwhile, here's Tommi about to get on stage in Budapest and a link to a really random photo gallery. With two professional digital SLRs in the tow, I've concentrated on capturing random live footage. And it's proving to be random indeed.

A personal musing here - I've had a great opportunity to meet and hang out with the various fans of the band. Some are superbly dedicated, some recently converted, but all very nice people. The scariest-looking ones are the nicest, too. I have definite favorite bands that I feel strongly about and try to see in concert, but it's been long since I've been properly fanatic about a band. I may have outgrown it, not to say I couldn't see it happening again.

With Amorphis, about 1994-1995, I was a bit of a fanatic. I read everything I could about the band, saw all the shows I could, wore the t-shirts and read up on Kalevala and Kanteletar, the Karelian (area in Eastern Finland and Westernmost parts of Russia) epics Amorphis based their lyrics on back then. I even called Tomi Koivusaari at home once, and I think it was only to ask where I could get the same Ukonvasara-pendant (Finnish-style Thor's Hammer) he wore in a promo shot for Tales From the Thousand Lakes. His girlfriend answered and told me Tomi was rehearsing with the band. I was awed at this - he was rehearsing that great music right now and couldn't speak with me. I felt the presence of grandeur. Then they came out with Elegy, I was disappointed and moved on. So only marginal phone stalking, but that was my most intensive fan experience.

Log> Evernight over Europe pt. 3

Rocking the Friday night in Switzerland! This comes from a packed Late Night Club in Thun, and the gig is in solid form. Henkka the drummer wasn't feeling too good during the day and I could swear the first few songs sounded slower than normally on a gig, but I think he's been picking up the speed by now.

But I can't believe we lost the frigging backdrop somewhere in Germany. The marketing guy in me is still sensitive to issues of presentation and branding, and it's just better when the 200 people watching a band's gig also see their name in the background - at least better when compared to a stained brick wall. Of course, we should screw branding and go for a more creative approach: heavy metal bands in general are thin on visuals. Battlelore draws so much from a fantasy setting that there could be a lot to do (and not just the plain old swords-and-sorcery imagery). I keep getting ideas, but knowing that I'll just wander the world without a permanent home for at least a year from now efficiently puts me off any implementation.

Dammit, I can hear half the audience singing along to Sons of Riddermark. Horselords, the men of Rohan, allies of Gondor the land below... to the battlefield!

Log> Evernight over Europe pt. 2

This one comes from Munich, from behind the Battlelore merchandise booth. The night looks a bit slow, a combination of beautiful weather, long weekend ending, tickets being a bit pricey, and Deathstars & Mortiis playing in the same town tonight. D'oh. But the night is still young, and the Battlelore audience is quite good with their merchandise purchases, so it ain't that bleak.

And speaking of bleak, we just drove (well, Toni did) 700 km from Budapest where the guys played at the Gothica Festival. The gig was good (although again at the same time with Mortiis which deducted from the audience - I wish I was making the terms for BL's tour contracts...) and the festival itself quite interesting. The whole gothic scene in itself is a bit of a joke to my thinking - and I can say that, having donned a long black leather jacket with Sisters of Mercy paraphernalia during a more misery-ridden period of my youth. It can be fun, provided that most of your daily existence revolves around being bullied, trying to balance off your anti-socialness on MySpace and brooding in your room with herbal tea and two cats named Lilith and Bela Lugosi. You get the point. Now, I don't know if that holds in the Easter Bloc, but at the Gothica Festival everyone was bloody gorgeous. We ended the night by getting ushered out from the backstage area, decorating Mortiis's bus in proper Wappu attire and running naked around the Budapest City Park.

The gig is slowly getting better as I'm typing this, the second support act being really good. Quite regular but solid heavy rock mixed with prog and new metal influences, and the female vocalist duo makes it so much more interesting. Christ, I think the week spent in bus is starting to show through... Well, anyway, here's Concept Chaos. Good fit, at least Maike (other female lead) seems to dig Amorphis and Ensiferum, both from Finland too.

Alright, have to get ready for the changeover. Tomorrow it's Kontanz, and then a free day since the Milan gig got cancelled. Boo. But yes, we need a laundry day soon.