Backpacking & Baguettes

Baguettes. What is it about them that the French are so obsessed with?

I set out to reveal the truth behind the phenomenon during a backpacking trip around France. Within a few days I was making headway. What makes a good baguette? Why do the French consume so many? After munching about 20 I reckon I had it.

After careful deliberation I concluded it was all about the ‘crunch chew’ factor. The crispiness is paramount in a good baguette. Although there has to exist a vacuum of dough in the hollow nest of the crispy case. It is this fluffy consistency, the airy and delicate state of the dough, that is the go.

In my first two days I had consumed roast chicken baguettes, brie and fresh olive oil baguettes, steak, french fries and sauce combo baguette, toasted aubergine baguettes, shaved ham and mustard baguettes and plain fresh warm baguettes. Mini baguettes, massive baguettes. A baguette bonanza. Too many b’s. Introducing Brian Badongy....



The days in France rolled around the baguette bonanza. They became a morning ritual. A trip down to the local bakery, share a laugh about how hot the baker girl is and some crude joke about a bun in the oven, then wander home along the sun baked road.

The baguette could be enshrined in Frances constitution for all it mattered. (just as the italians have next door have with their parma ham) Life evolves around the crusty bread sticks, like pillars holding up the foundations of society. Everyone pops into the Boulangerie each day to buy their bag I began to understand why and what it meant to share some of this bread. Maybe Jesus is in my Backpack? (see two posts below) Was it only the French that picked up on his lasting legacy of sharing bread....

Hey Mr, Nice Baguette

But its these little rituals I enjoy when getting to know a place. Its the slackpacker in me. Wanting to get under the skin of a place. Wanting to really know how the locals live. What they do and why they do it.

The baguette proved to be my telescope into the kaleidoscopic world of France.

Market Madness in Italy

my first footsteps in italy took me off wandering through a morning food market. it wasnt so much the diverse fresh produce that caught my attention what was even more amusing was the flavor of the italian personalities.

As i wandered through the rows of hanging chorizos & parma hams and fresh orange trees growing outside the stalls of wall to wall cheese, these characters seemed to jump into life...
“ahhh giavani, blah blah blah blah” whilst waving his hands in the air
giavanni replying “ahhh franco, blah blah blah ha ha ha” ad-mist a flapping of flabby arms
both of them chuckling away as one wandered past the other. i couldnt help but think of that scene in family guy where peter trys to speak italian. classic.



i watched as big fat franco wandered down the closed off street, taunting and touting with various characters behind their stalls.
they had the banter. smiles were chucked round and the parma ham slim slices handed out. the atmosphere was jovial as i set off jostling in ad-mist the general hustle and market bustle.



wandering off down the street i became consumed with watching these italian market vendors. one moment i was watching a pretty lady being chatted up by a market vendor, my ears then dragged me round to a lady dishing out some gruyere cheese, ahh grazie.
i made my way across the street and ran into the same young italian dude carrying the pretty ladies vegetables to her car. it was comical and a beauty to watch. this very attractive italian women striding across the road with her prada heels, mini skirt and sun kissed legs. the young dude bouncing along besides her with a smuggy grin smudged across his greasy face. two cliches in one.

it was then when a conglomeration of shrills and shrieks cast my eye back across the road. a large white market van blocked the middle of the narrow one lane road. four or five people on its right hand side were waving their hands in the air. only this time, it wasnt old franco and giavani having a laugh.

i bent down and to my horror, a dog was pinned under the front wheel. for a moment of chaos, maybe a few seconds no one knew what to do. my eyes flicked back up and caught an elderly lady standing there, a shocked and stricken look pulled down over pale face, in one hand her prada handbag, in the other a dangling red dog leash with no dog on the other end. she was looking up to the sky as if to say ‘wheres my dog gone’ or at least that what it looked like, she was probably either praying or cursing her italian gods.

the collective screams and shouts grew louder over those strange long stretch of seconds, and then finally the driver inched forward to pop the small dog out from under its rubber.
i turned and looked away. i had seen a family cat and a dog suffer the same fate.

(actually in hindsight i can laugh, but our cat was ran over as it sat on the top of a parked wheel, when it popped back out, its skin had been ripped off and it was convulsing, its carcas spasming out on the bloody concrete with my family standing on the steps watching unfold like a bad movie. my little sister suddenly stops crying and starts cry-laughing, “looook, hadlees alive, hes still moving” sadly, the rest of us knew hadlee was long gone.)

but needless to say, i turned away at that moment, it threw me off a bit, the whole mornings market banter slipped quietly from my mind as i wandered off, trying to shake those two poignant images from my head.

backpacker illusions from italy

Is Jesus in your backpack..?

This video caught my eye mainly because it was shot in the town a few kilometres away from where i live. However, i was originally intrigued by the coverage of such a different side of backpacking that is very rarely unearthed, travel and its religious undertones.



Since the dawn of time, travellers have set out on 'missions'. Sailing across oceans, crusading across lands, all with the same intent - to bring the 'good news' to those they encounter by enlightening those that they meet on their mission. A mission bestowed upon them by a higher being.

When will the bible have a facebook fan page or does the big guy upstairs already use twitter to relay these messages?

Its all very controversial to say the least. Call me what you want, but pressure preaching is definitely not my cup of tea. Nor is the blind ignorance that someone can 'know it all' and have absolute unshakeable faith that their faith is 'the one and only' with little to no real substantial evidence.



Historically missionaries are held partly responsible for bringing death and disease to countless worldwide communities. From Africa to Latin America, the long arm of religion has spread its dirty paws. Needless to say the shaky dependence on this 'good news' that a saviour is coming or that the next life will be a cushy little number is still an empty promise. Its been 2000 years and still no cameo appearances..

I have travelled enough to see the effects of different religions on different societies, different individuals and religious organisations. I respect them all. Although I fail to respect those who blindly impose their beliefs on others. Its a fine line but i am generally skeptical of travellers with a 'religious message' for others who are generally less fortuante than them.



However, it is at the end of the day, each to their own. The slogan 'Live and let live' should be a religion. A backpackers religion. Nah, lets retweak that, if backpacking had a religion, it would read, 'live to travel, travel to live...'

So, was Jesus a backpacker? Safe to say, he was not a flashpacker....

Fairtrade Travel...

Fairtrade fortnight is coming to an end. Im always a big campaigner for fairtrade coffee and bananas. I buy them religiously at the supermarkets. Its been rippling through the consciousness of shoppers of late, this wave of 'think before you buy' mentality is overwelmingly positive. However the road is long. Fairtrade products make up a pathetic fraction of the space on supermarket shelves.

Its has always been glaringly apparent to me that whilst traveling, fair trade is so paramount in a humans mind. To the point that one will go to such extremes to ensure they are receiving a good deal that they end up crying or yelling; making such a fuss over miniscure amounts or raging because they think they have been taken advantage of.

Markets all over the world, shop fronts, street traders and vendors rely heavily upon tourism as a livelihood.
Tourists, travellers, backpackers, unfamiliar track hackers, content stragglers and market hagglers...we all expect a fair deal when we engage in trade on our travels. It shouldn't stop there. Bring that mentality back to your supermarket.



Its nearly the end of fairtrade fortnight but theres still time, only another 140,000 to go until the million and one mark.

Jump on the website and register your fairtrade swap pronto!!!

Heres the deal:

"Swapping your usual stuff for Fairtrade stuff is a brilliantly small step to making the world a fairer place. It means that you get to show your support for developing world producers through what you buy. Two billion people - a third of humanity - survive on less than $2 a day. Unfair trade rules keep them in poverty, but they face the global challenges of food shortages and climate change too.

Fairtrade believes that developing world producers should be in control of their own lives, by getting a better deal for the work that they do. This is a different way of doing business. It's a way that puts the poorest of the world first..."



Im sure the majority of those reading this will have traded, bartered/haggled over something in s foreign country before. Its an exchange, a swap, a fair deal, between two parties, a common agreement reached by balancing both parties needs and wants.
Ethical travel. Backpackers do travel like this. Backpackers tap into that global consciousness. Theres an Ethicalpacker in all of us.
Make no mistake. World trade inhibits and dictates the way we all live.
Over a third of humanity does not get a fair deal at all.

Make your week a fair week. Join the revolution in demanding more fair trade products on the shelves of local supermarkets!!

Then maybe 2 billion people might have an opportunity to fulfil a dream, like travel....

http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/thebigswap

Cashed up...cash in on the real thing...

Travel is the biggest blessing ever bestowed upon my life, and ultimately my character, who i am today, what i do tomorrow.


Having travelled for many years, the feeling that i could embark on a lifestyle like this forever was very real. Then the money dries up. Plans become more and more stringent and less complicated, often transport and food options begin to take the back seat. (Pun intended.) Then the inevitable day finally comes....you reach into that wallet and pull out the last twenty note. Its a day you knew was coming, but chose to ignore. Yet the reality of it hits you like a slap in the face with a cold fish.

Ive had many of those moments in my traveling life. However, i quite enjoy them. The parody is my enjoyment from such an unfortunate and anti climatic incident. What strikes me as somewhat humbling in a non self gratification manner, is that looking back on these 'moments' when at the time my world as i knew seem to be crumbling down around me, i was projected, forced, swept down another path in life, one that has always borne very poignant memories.

I have had some of the best times of my life when completely and utterly broke. I stand by this solidly. If anything it proves to me one thing. That money is overrated. Easy to say, hard to live by. Not that i live by this premise at all, but its a lesson i have learnt during my travels. A blessing. A teaching. A principle that i try to take with me in my rucksack of life. The first thing i pack into my backpack when i leave traveling. This principle is like solid gold to me. Because the minute i get consumed with money and what it can do for me on the road, i begin to miss the simplicity of it all. I bypass the things in life that dont cost anything. I never meet as many beautiful and memorable people as i do when my pockets are filled with dinero.

When we travel, its the people that make the difference. Meeting them costs nothing. I dont care too much for money cos money cant buy you love....

Travel Terminology gets funky....

Neologisms. Coin-phrases, stereotypes and lots of hype. There are so many names for certain flavours of travellers. 


There exist such a melting pot of people that hit the road in search of adventure, in search of understanding, in search of different cultures, languages and lessons to be learnt.

Its hard to categorise all travellers and some resist the tags imposed on them by others. But I believe there is a real trend emerging. Backpackers are no longer one homogenous groups of travellers. The explosion of flashpackers onto the travel scene has caused many ripples across the traveling pond and in 2010 more will emerge...


Here are a few fun terms that have seeped out of the travel industry in the past few years alone....


• Babymoon: "One last trip" taken by an expecting couple before the arrival of travel-thwarting offspring.


• Couchsurfing: Flopping for free on a stranger's couch. Connections are usually made through the website couchsurfing.com, which has corralled more than 1 million members across the globe.

• Flashpacker: Someone who travels with a little more disposable income, where no cost is too great in the pursuit of travel happiness.


• Girlfriend Getaway: Adult version of a sleepover in which grown women fly to a destination, eat junk food, shop and complain about men.


• Silverpacker: Eccentric retired individual who perpetually coasts around reliving the dream.


• Narco-Tourist: A traveller, often bound for Amsterdam, who bases his or her destination upon the indigenous drug scene.

• Sightjogging: The healthy art of sightseeing whilst running (see also: tripping and falling).


• Slackpacker: A traveler that likes to get under the skin of a place, someone who stays awhile, not there for ticking off the boxes and grabbing the t-shirt, this traveler has time on their hands and uses it wisely to get the most out of their experience.


• Testosteroaming: The exclusively masculine pursuit of wandering around with a group of buddies in search of male bonding activities, i.e. hunting, playing pool and ogling women they don't stand a chance of getting.

• Transumer: An excessively rich tourist who approaches the world like it's an extended shopping mall.


• Voluntourism: Interactive form of travel in which do-gooders pitch in and build schools, educate locals and save the world.


Do you have any others, feel free to add them?
Happy travels, happy days

6Billion others...

We share this planet, with 6 billion others.
We eat and drink, fart and stink, just like 6 billion others.
We cry and we die, we live and we get by, like 6 million others.

We enter this world with nothing, we leave this world with nothing, just like the 6 billion others.
What we do on this planet, what we say on this planet, how we act on this planet, effects 6 billion others.


If we think before we act, if we speak before we retract, maybe then, there is hope for the 6 billion others.
Sadly at this pace, this so called civilised rat race, there is no room for 6 billion others.

How can we sustain, how can we refrain from hurting 6 billion others.
Compassion alone will not do, nor will pessimism on the other shoe.
We share this world with 6 billion others.


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Visit 6 Billion Others @ http://www.6billionothers.org/

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Check out this amazing piece of work from Yann Arthus-Bertrand, the creator of the movie "Home"

It brings those 6 Billion others a whole lot closer

Paz