Madventures/Blog

Gringo clubbers should not forget to give credit where credit’s due.  The rhythm originates in the whole continent, but especially in West-Africa good beats are impossible to avoid. These are the hoods where such superstars as afrobeat creator Fela Kuti, eighties sensation Youssou N’Dour and Mali duo Amadou & Mariam come from.

Lesser known, but from equally soulful cradle of life rises Afia Mala, whose roots are in Togo.  She has dominated the music scene since the 70’s. She later emigrated to France and has been building career in both Europe and Africa. In 1992 she was chosen as the best female vocalist in Africa.

Her latest album was recorded in Cuba, combining the Caribbean rhythms with ancient African musical canon. Madventures recommends a true aural trip from the french speaking – and singing – Africa!

Lome is a typical African port town. The hustle and bustle never ends, the heat, the humidity and haze hits you like a hammer as you try to make your way through the multitudes that all seem to be selling, buying, exporting or importing something.

It’s no wonder Lome is also the home to a Akodessewa fetish market – a veritable supermarket of bones, body parts and mummified versions of every African animal imaginable.

The practitioners of voodoo – that is, most of the country – find everything they need in their ceremonies in Marche des Fetishes.

We visited a local healer, a bokor with uncanny powers of observation. Without telling him, this medicine man right away noticed that we had underwent through a powerful ritual recently and he asked for our confirmation.

A bit taken aback, we told him about our Ayahuasca experience in Brazil. The bokor nodded knowingly. Hand on heart, there was no way he could have known about something that had took place on the other side of the Atlantic earlier.

Despite the crazy stuff we do in the show, Riku especially considers himself a man of reason and science, but when the bokor told him he must undergo a healing ritual to finish what Don Francisco started in the Amazon basin or otherwise the malevolent spirits might possess him anytime, even Riku felt a cold sensation running down his spine.

We decided not take any risks – this was clearly a serious man who had pride in his profession and I’ve been raised to respect my elders. So, the next thing we know Riku is getting rubbed by a live chicken and standing starkers in the medicine man’s yard, where he started to poke tiny holes in Riku’s love handles with what can be best describe as voodoo vaccination needles.

We’re glad to report that it worked; Riku has not been possessed by any evil spirits since that day.

Africa is often called the Dark Continent. And although the noted explorer Henry Stanley meant it was unknown terrain for white men, the description also fits literally. The fact that the days are mostly filled with almost blinding sunlight only seems to make the darkness more impenetrable.

Traveling through the African night, our thoughts were constantly drawn into the scenarios of the childhood adventure books. Hungry lions stalking in the grass, restless natives pricking their ears to the sound of distant yet threatening drums, the sense of high adventure carried by the night wind.

Of course, the truth is very far from that image.

Colonialism has been happily over for a long time, the tribes cling on to many traditions savage to westerners but massacre of strangers, especially of the Caucasian persuasion, is not one of them. And the lions – I guess they are just too scared of the population centers, cars and other modern conveniences to do much stalking near them.

Yet the point of view of Edgar Rice Burroughs, even Ernest Hemingway and especially Hollywood and all the rest who looked at Africa through a very narrow cultural eye seems to prevail in our minds. Africa still carries the stigma of darkness.

Do yourself a favor and travel there. You might just see the light.

The first two questions this week come from Ryan, who articulated very clearly what many of you have been wondering too. So, without further ado…

1. Are you locked in for 2010 in the USA?

RIKU: First of all, we’d like to thank each and every one of you who has appreciated Madventures, given away your time to watch it and given us feedback or even praise – you just don’t know how much it means to us!

It’s been extremely hard to work with a foreign language and to make a genuinely different “no-compromises” show for American TV and after your feedback, we’re more than happy with where we are now, no matter the dramatic events of this week – this all has been worth the effort!

Especially thanks for those who have expressed their opinions to the Travel Channel, via e-mail, Facebook, Twitter or TC’s own message board.

I’m sure they will appreciate direct feedback, too. After all, Travel Channel was the channel that decided to give green light to a fresh but controversial show, so let’s not diss ‘em too much for what happened, huh? Right now there’s a lot of changes going on there, check out the latest news here: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ad8ed368-bea2-11de-b4ab-00144feab49a.html

So, finally, to the answer: we’re not yet locked in for 2010, as there will probably be a lot of changes to their programming anyway. But all of us: me, Tunna, the whole Mad team and our great producers in the Travel Channel want the same thing: the triumphant return of Madventures – most probably in the first half of 2010!

The same situation in the UK – programming is not locked yet, but 2010 it’s a go.

And soon we’ll be able to give you other interesting news about 2010 stuff…

TUNNA: Yeah. What Riku said. : )

2. Will you continue to run this blog?

RIKU: Sure! We’ll keep on trucking, updating this blog weekly, sharing clips and pics, posting in Facebook & Twitter and delivering all the news to the friends of Madventures!

TUNNA: Absolutely! Although I myself will soon be in a total radio silence for a month or so, somewhere in the deep tropics, locked inside my hammock. I’ve been editing our huge DVD box for the last two months like a lunatic and now it’s time for a holiday!

3. Jahcure has a question about the latest blog entry, where we discussed the Aghori.

Do these men believe themselves to be above or even beyond local law? Has any sort of government authority ever approached these men, or are their “sacrifices” far and few?

RIKU: When you read Indian newspapers, sometimes you notice news about the most hardcore actions in Aghori sects: human sacrifaces.

Human sacrifice is pretty rare and you’ll have to remember that there’s more than a billion people there – many things can happen, especially when there’s extreme poverty, illiteracy, ignorance and fundamentalism, especially in the rural areas…

According to our research, most of the Aghori taboo-breaking has to do with shocking people, not really actual murders etc. But of course we do not know what kinds of acts Dhobia and his followers have really commited.

One would guess that even in the countryside India you can’t easily get away with a murder. Here’s more about human sacrifice in India.

TUNNA: I assume that Dhobia Baba meant that God will forgive them seven murders, even if people will not.

4. Have you seen Sadventures, the parody made of your program?

RIKU: Yeah! Laughed my ass off, good job guys! You know you’ve reached a certain level of notoriety when there’s a parody about you!

TUNNA: I’ve heard a lot about the parody and people said it’s funny. I just haven’t had time to watch it. Ok, I’m gonna watch it right now!

SADVENTURES

TUNNA: Okay, that IS funny. They must have been watching our show a lot to be able to imitate us so perfectly! Great tribute guys!

My vocabulary seems to consist of one sentence: What the fuck? Well, they are three great words, what else you need!

5. Plans for the rest of the year?

RIKU: I need to rest and get my infection fixed. It’s been around since PNG, got an abrasion while trekking in the jungle and it got infected… There’s been an open wound – from all af the possible places – in my ASS for six months already. Bombo claat!

Can’t bike, can’t sit for a long time, can’t have a sauna, can’t travel into the tropics this winter… Of course this is not really dangerous and I’m lucky to have a good health after all we’ve done, but I have to admit, this starts to get on my nerves.

Today, I go for the operation #4 – time for the good old epidural again.

Until this heals, there’s three assholes in Madventures instead of the obvious two!

TUNNA: What the fuck?

See, I told you those are the only words you need.

No, seriously, my plans are as much hammock as possible.

And that’s it for this week, you all have good weekend.

R & T

EDIT: As I’m uploading this, Riku sent an SMS from the hospital – the operation went well and he should be back home later today. – A

I think I have understood Hinduism correctly when I say that it is eternal, all-embracing and flexible enough to suit all situations.

– Mahatma Gandhi

Hinduism: hundreds of Gods and Goddesses with thousands faces, interchangeable yet individual, all facets of the same Supreme One and playing important roles in the eternal law of reincarnation and karma and dharma. And then there is Tantra, the Hindu mysticism where our whole universe is the tangible manifestation of divine energy that must be ritually channeled.

Normally, those sacred forces are rerouted and administered through animal sacrifice.

Normally.

We went to India to see if human sacrifice still exists.

Some hundred years ago, the notorious crime organization called Thuggees robbed and murdered traveling men all around India. The M.O. of theses vicious scoundrels and shitheels was to slaughter a large number of folks in a single operation. Many believe this band of highwaymen and at steppas were actually a religious cult, whose thirst for claret was explained by Kali worship.

A more recent example of human sacrifice is a tale from the year 2002, which involves a girl who was allegedly tranquilized, gagged and tied by a group of Kali worshippers. It is said that she was stripped naked, shaved, sprinkled with holy water and rubbed with cooking fat. Then the rank bastards sawed off her hands, breasts and her left foot.

Apparently she bled to death immediately, as the villains left her mutilated body in front of a photograph of a blood-soaked Kali idol.

She was said to be only 15 years old.

So are beheadings, dismemberments and burnings in the name of Kali really still occuring in the 21^st century India or are these just murders of the more secular kind, disguised as something more mystical in order to receive whatever gain violence and brutality gives to the deranged fuckheads that exist among humanity, be it India or Indiana.

Posing as true tantric monks some ruthless conmen, cold-blooded blacklegs and other incurable impostors promise the poor and uneducated of India that Kali will look after those who look after her. She will give bring bread to the impoverished, justice to the oppressed and anklebiters to the childless, if only they turn to human sacrifice to end their misery.

In many of these cases it has nothing to do with real mysticism or spiritualism.

It comes down to pure and simple greed of those who are willing and able to exploit those who are desperate and superstitious.

They are not true Sadhu babas, devout mystics who have dedicated their lives to achieving Moksha, the liberation from the cycle of reincarnation.

These days there are four to five million of these spiritual adventurers around, constituting about half a percent of the country’s total population.

These occult rebels are spokesmen of the gods and sometimes even worshipped as ones.

But can you reach holiness by being unholy? In Varanasi, we crossed Ganges, the river of life and death in search of some very strange mystics attempting a direct and personal experience with God on their own terms.

Both Goddess Kali Ma and Shiva are said to inhabit cremation grounds. Along with cemeteries, the burning places reinforce the idea that the body is temporary; flesh and blood are but passing things. They are deemed taboo by most Indians. Those are the places where the Aghori dwell.

Aghora is the left-hand path of tantric mysticism, the most hazardous path there is.

By breaking and transcending all taboos, both cultural and social, the Aghori are trying to penetrate the illusion that is the world.

They worship Shiva with alcoholic and cannibalistic rituals. They fornicate with lower caste women during their menstrual period. They are known to fish dead bodies from Ganga and feast on their bloated flesh in order to make themselves immortal and gain superhuman strength and powers.

The Aghori believe their internal purity protects them while they practice these forbidden practices.

The aghori is trained to see through the illusion of taboo, therefore he can not be corrupted by it.

There is no good and evil for him, only reality. Reality is the only God and that’s why all paths lead to that God, whose name is Shiva.

Kali is the counterpart of Shiva and they both are destroyers of unreality. Shiva and Kali being so close, we hoped to extract inside information on human sacrifice from those holy madmen.

We got more than we bargained for, as we gained access to a midnight puja. The Aghori got drunk and gathered around the bonfire. One of them ripped the throat of a live chicken with his bare teeth. The blood was drunk straight out of the headless chicken. There was urophagia out of human skull and eating of a stray dog carcass. They started speaking in languages. No, scratch that, more like screaming in languages.

What followed was pure chaos and disorder. The madness took hold of us too. We did some of the things they did. It was as if being possessed.

Most of it is very hazy. There were embers from the fire floating into the night and droplets of blood on the lens of the camera. At some point, we were strictly told to leave the puja, because evil spirits were about to enter the area.

We didn’t need to be told twice.

After daybreak, we went back to the scene of the insanity. Here is the transcript of our interview with Dhobia Baba, conducted that morning.

RIKU: Can you explain what happened yesterday in these pujas?

DHOBIA: When we sacrifice chickens, dogs, goats, pigs, sheep or human beings, our crematorium, people and God are all happy and satisfied. This is when Shiva speaks to us directly and we can get whatever we desire. We do this kind of a meditation in secrecy to gain more. Sacrifices allow us to do harm on our enemies. Sacrifice transfers one from Hell to Heaven.

RIKU: I have heard that some Aghori also eat human flesh. Is that true?

DHOBIA: Yes, we do eat human flesh. Dead or alive. If you mess with me, I will chop off your head right now. I will peel off your skin and reveal your bones. Seven murders are forgiven. No hanging, no prison time. That’s the way of the Aghori sect.

RIKU: In the Tantric history there has been human sacrifices. Is that still happening?

DHOBIA: Human sacrifices are for doing good. If you have to save somebody, if someone is in danger or some misfortune has taken place, we sacrifice a human being. To save somebody we have to kill and sacrifice someone else. This is the only way we can save somebody.

We left, in silence. These were the one of the most extreme individuals we had ever come across.

In closing, we’d like to point out that the Aghori are exceptional part of Hinduism and not at all a common sect.

Worshipping Kali does not automatically equal “evil”.

The name Kali comes from the Sanskrit root word Kal, meaning time.

Nothing can escape time.

Love for Kali, the ‘Terrible Mother’ means to conquer the trepidation for death.

She brings the death of the ego.

She brings the death of the delusional self.

She brings the death of the point of view.

Goddess Kali Ma’s symbolism is easy to misread, if seen through bias. It is like saying Christianity is a religion of death worship, cannibalism and torment. Well, the faithful do drink the blood of Jesus, eat his flesh and wear a symbolic torture instrument around their necks.

But that’s not the whole picture, now is it?

Everything dies, because life would be worthless without death. Only through this awareness one can triumph over death and the fear of death.

R & T

1. Ryan asks about your music tastes, what are your favorite groups and artists (and if you know the band Quarashi)?

Brett Wolgemuth also  wants to know what’s on your playlists, so let’s play a game of DJ Shuffle – hit random on your mp3 player and fess up what 3 songs come up first.

TUNNA: I’m omnivorous about music.

For me music might be anything from Hardcore punk to Shamanistic chanting. It depends on the mood and the moment. Swedish pop in the morning, downbeat chill-out when I’m working, Mano Negra for a party, electro for everything, Finnish folk music when I’m homesick.

If I want to get rid of the stress I either listen to Tibetan prayer chants or go to a Psytrance forest party and dance my stress away. It really depends on the mood.

Damn, I don’t have my player with me right now. Let’s do this some other time, okay?

About Quarashi? I am afraid I don’t know any Icelandic hip-hop groups. We have pretty nice underground rap scene here in Finland as well. Most of them rap in Finnish though, so all you English speakers you won’t probably get much out of them.

RIKU: I’m old skool. Mostly it’s maybe reggae, something like Sugar Minott, but it could be also Miles Davis or Gene Vincent or Public Enemy or Bruce Springsteen or Dick Dale.

I’m not that much into electronic music, but then again some Viral Radio dubstep in Amsterdam or just hanging out as a fly on the wall in a jungle trance party has been really brain-opening…

When I’m traveling, I try to grab some local tunes with me. I’m not a world music expert by any means so I ask around. Nothing beats some decent Bollywood Masala mixtape or Manish Vyas when traveling in India.

In Africa, it’s been (of course) Fela Kuti or some other west coast artist – last time I found Afia Mala in Togo. She’s great!

And when I’m homesick, I want to listen to Finnish language.

My all time favourite is Dave “Isokynä” Lindholm, Finland’s answer to Bob Dylan (even though he’s better songwriter than Dylan, I think). Also it’s been weird to listen to Finnish Lapland’s indigenous Sami people’s songs when recovering from Ayahuasca in the Amazonian rainforest.

Nowadays, the best music in Finnish is hip hop, in that genre I might even recognize some newer artists. Here’s one of my favorites (there’s plenty of fantastic linguistics around in this scene in Finland): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQ1IAlFeqPw

Quarashi – I had never heard of these Icelanders until now. Gotta check them out!

My iPod…let’s see the lottery results:

1. Lou Reed – Caroline Says I

2. Björk – Who Is It?

3. The Doors – The Unknown Soldier

Have to admit, I skipped Björk in 20 secs…

2. Jahcure wonders if you will ever visit Honduras, especially the tropical island of Utila?

TUNNA: Unfortunately we haven’t been to Central-America at all. I think it could really be one of the options for Madventures in the future!

We travel by intuition, choosing the places we visit using intuition. Honduras has always sounded very interesting and tempting to me.

After a quick wikipedia-ing Utila, it absolutely looks like a place I could imagine hanging up my hammock for a couple of months!

RIKU: Haven’t been traveling much in Central America, so should some day go to Honduras, too!

3. Maddy has a question for Riku: My boyfriend and I were wondering – we see you heat up the filter on your cigarettes before you start smoking them, what is the reason? We are curious!

TUNNA: Riku got that ridiculous habit while doing time in a Russian jail.

RIKU: Yeah, it is a ridiculous habit but not from prison. It stuck with me on those glory days of high school, when I – like the most of us – started smoking because we wanted to be popular among our peers. A very eighties move.

Then again, I guess it sterilizes the filter a bit, so when traveling in the tropics, it might even prevent from diarrhea!

There’s so many positive sides to smoking!

4. What is your opinion on couchsurfing?

RIKU: Hospitality exchange is definitely recommended. There’s Couchsurfing,

Hospitality Club, Servas etc etc, but it could be any network you like – for example people you’ve met virtually and who share the same interest, same hobby etc.

TUNNA: Couchsurfing is a great way to travel! When you visit a different culture or a foreign country that way, you get much deeper connection with local friends and reach completely another level.

I wouldn’t travel anywhere anymore without getting to know somebody beforehand.

5. Was the placenta for real? Isn’t that illegal?

TUNNA: Placenta is one of the most mythical human organs. In our culture many people never see it, even when they give birth. In the west this magical support system of a baby will be disposed as pathological and biohazard waste. For me it seems somehow inappropriate and ungrateful for this organ, which has been keeping the baby alive, to be dumped in the waste bin.

In many cultures Placenta is treated with respect and honor.

All cultures have different beliefs about the placenta. Many 
considered it the baby’s caretaker — in the Ural Mountains when the
tribes clothed the newborn, they also gave the placenta a little shirt.

In Siberia the soul of the placenta visited the babies in their sleep.

But Maori women of New Zealand buried the placenta immediately after childbirth, so it couldn’t harm the child. In Norway, mothers attacked the placenta with knives, believing it to be a terrifying monstrosity that must be killed.

In many cultures, placenta was preserved and saved for the child to eat when he or she reached one year birthday.

For me the thought of eating placenta was really gross in the beginning but when I read more about it, I found that it was actually a great opportunity for me to give some respect to this magical and mythical organ.

I’ve always hated the taste of liver and other inner organs. Placenta tasted exactly like that but much stronger, and the thought of eating human flesh didn’t do it much easier. Though it wasn’t the easiest snack to swallow, it really was a kinda holy moment for me to ingest it.

After eating it I got a strong rush from it and felt like being high, maybe because of adrenalin, but most probably because Placenta is very, very nutritious, superfood in its very meaning! If you are expecting a baby, I strongly recommend to give it a go!

RIKU: Fortunately it’s not illegal – why should you not be allowed to eat your own or your loved one’s placenta?

Actually this scene has had some activity in the 70’s & 80’s, at least that’s what the nurses told me when I picked up the one donated to us. They said it wasn’t rare that the placenta was kept in a fridge before the mother left the hospital and packed the organ with her.

Here’s some philosophy and great recipes:

http://www.mothers35plus.co.uk/placenta-recipes.htm

It’s been a bit of a battle of Thermopylae here on the blog today.

Impossible numbers of free Viagra and other prescription drugs, plus those of illegal and under the counter variety, were in the forefront of the enemy. Behind these chemical masses, scarier monsters hid: links to pedophiliac sex sites, rape porn and other sordid, sickening phenomena Madventures can’t condone to any thinking and feeling human being.

After much killing with the delete button, the hordes of filth have now retreated and the spam attack is over with, but unfortunately for all of us writing this and for all of you who have given your 2 pieces of gold in the comment section, from now on we have to screen all the comments. It’s just too frustrating to see these blacklegs and bootleggers take this place over.

But please, don’t stop your comments because of this, even if takes a bit for them to appear or for us to reply. Your comments mean the world to us.

Mad Team

Strangers came to dig holes in the ground. It all seemed a bit weird for the tribe.

And then the mountains disappeared.

For rocks. For metals. With names like nickel, cold and copper.

Then people got sick. Missionaries tried to help. The tribe was told about how the metals had found their way into the bloodstream of every men, women and child.

They were not allowed to drink from the river anymore. They were not allowed to fish nor wash in it.

It sounded like the work of demons. And in a way it was. Who else but demons would cut down the trees and topple the mountains.

Who else than demons would have such frightening, foreign names.

BHP-Billiton. Nautilus Minerals. Harmony.

Years passed. The water didn’t get better. The people didn’t get better.

The tribes were given consultation by a lawyer from the city.

The tribe could get monies. A significant amount of monies. Billions of dollars.

But what good was billions of dollars, when they never had use for it before?

Two things were certain.

One: The monetary compensation would change the lives of the tribes forever. Some would call it progress.

Two: It will take 300 years to clean up the toxic contamination caused by mining operations in PNG.

Madventures found cannibalism in PNG, but we could have traveled to anywhere in the world, really.

If you scratch the surface, you will find that cannibalism is not rare nor its practice limited to indigenous tribes. It is a human trait that has been silenced by cultural differences, but when pushed, the 250 million year old reptilian brain in us all is willing and able to do what it must to survive.

The Chinese have 4000 years of history in medicinal cannibalism – human organs and flesh being used as a medicine source. In 12^th century Arabia you could purchase human remains steeped in honey – used as an ointment or ingested, again for medicinal purposes. Aztecs flayed and ate their own in sacrifices to their gods, Australian aboriginals practiced infanticide to fight off starvation, Inuits ate first their dogs and only then their old women.

Even today, some shamans of Guyana are known to eat rotten human flesh of victims they have killed and buried, in order to magically maintain the health of the planet.

In the 17^th century Europeans made mummies out of young men killed in battle or executed for their crimes. The process was similar when you cure ham – herbs, honey and spices were involved. Squares made out of human meat were then ordered by finest European doctors for those who could afford this method of treatment.

Just like in the Old Testament original sin was the fault of woman, the PNG tribes’ tradition has it that it was the women of the tribes who first urged the men to kill their fellow human beings for the purpose of eating them.

The wimmenfolk weren’t too keen on the wallabies and boars and cassowaries their hunters brought home, so the guys decided to attack the neighboring village for more tender meat. And the women cooked them, and pronounced them good.

And from that day till now, the men and women of these tribes have always said that the flesh of human beings is better than the flesh of any other animal. This new meat was known as “The long pig”.

Not that tribes do not have special relationship with the pigs of the more common variety: there’s a story the locals like to tell – if it’s true is actually beside the point.

A few years ago, two gringos ran a pig down with their car. They got out of their car, identified the owner of the dead pig and offered their apologies. For their troubles, they were skinned alive.

What makes it even morbid is that the two whiteys were anthropologists and should definitely have known better.

Butchering a man the traditional cannibal way is to cut from anus to neck. Make the wound deep, following the side of the trunk all the way to armpit. From there follow the collarbone to the throat. Now, make a similar cut on the other side, but from top to bottom.

Next, take a stone axe or sharpened wooden stick and through the openings, break the ribs. After this, the chest plate should be relatively easy to lift off. Next step is to cut off arms and legs. Jerk out the entrails – aaand bob’s your uncle.

Among the PNG tribes there are known cases of both exocannibalism – eating revenge victims, enemies or outsiders – and endocannibalism, the eating of accidentally or naturally deceased family members. The latter may cause Kuru, also known as “shaking” or “laughing” sickness. Kuru could be best describes as “mad human disease” and it has wiped out entire tribal societies.

So never ever eat a member of your own family, even if the rationale is to incorporate the departed’s body and spirit with yours forever.

For most parts, the practice of eating the human flesh died out with the arrival of Christianity. But like we proved in the show, there are places remote enough for even the cultural imperialism’s paw.

R & T

1. What exactly the phrase “Travelers can’t afford to be atheists” means to you? What is your relationship with religion?

TUNNA: I don’t belong to any church whatsoever and I was raised as an Atheist. Nowadays I’m kinda syncretistic, I believe there’s absolutely some bigger energies and powers than just us. It’s not necessarily an old man sitting on a cloud or a guy with an elephant’s head. Every religion is aiming for the same goal – to make people love each other and to respect one another.

The more you travel the more you understand how important it is for people to have something to believe in. Faith gives you hope and without hope you’ve got nothing. And I’m not talking about organized religion here, especially not the church.

I also understand Marx’s thesis that religion is opium for the people. I’ve seen enough suppressed poor people who are not rising to demand their basic rights as human beings because the church has lured them not to do so: be humble and you will get to paradise or higher cast in the next life.

Religion can be used and is used very efficiently to suppress people. It’s a great tool of exploitation for the greed and those in power.

Faith is in your heart and religion is in the church. Faith gives people hope. And world is just too unfair place to live in without hope.

As I travel it’s also very much about respecting the local traditions and customs. I want to honor the things people consider as holy. And to be honest when I have to pour the rest of the moonshine for the ancestors in Togo or do the morning Puja before I climb the mountain in the Himalayas I do so because I believe that it really matters and has some significance for both myself and the culture I visit.

And Madventures-wise, I really want to make it sure that all the winds will be blowing on our side!

RIKU: It’s not at all easy to answer this one in short. My personal attitude towards religion and spirituality is very ambivalent.

At times I admire some religious teachings or the inner peace some religious people seem to have achieved. Then again I fear many fanatics, but most of all I loath the corruption very often present in religious systems. Myself, I’m not a believer nor an atheist.

When traveling in the third world, you can’t help noticing how strongly religion and spirituality are usually present in the everyday life of the people. It’s very different from the modern materialism we Westerners are mostly used to.

Many times I’ve been wondering what kind of effect it has to a person, if you e.g. pray five times a day with your neighbors or do the morning pooja at 5 am at a local temple every day before going to work. Of course it might be often that it’s just another ritual of that particular culture, or many of the faithful may just simply think of their own business while they reluctantly fulfill this task. But still, the fact is they are systematically dealing with issues like life and death or sins and virtues on a daily basis. Believing comforts many people there – and it also keeps up structures of oppression.

A traveler can’t afford to be an atheist? Well, of course it was Tunna who said that in the show but I’m down with that. For me, it means that mostly in the locations we travel, religion is always omnipresent. On their turf, I can’t just simply deny it.

If I wish to understand them better and maybe learn something from them, I’d better be open for everything – that includes religion, too.

2. Thomas is about to visit St. Petersburg and wants to ride a recon vehicle like you guys did it in the episode. How can he do it?

TUNNA: I think it’s better Riku answers this – I don’t remember the exact details.

RIKU: As we said in that episode, everything is possible in Russia if you cough up enough

moolah. You’ll find many companies by simply googling something like “driving

Soviet tanks and shooting Kalashnikovs in St Petersburg”.

3. You will time travel. Where, when and why?

RIKU: Finland, Iron Age.

Why? Finland was one of the last strongholds of animism in Europe, and I believe that still has some impact on us. Most of all I’d want to witness a ceremony for hunted bear, as I guess it was one of the most important rituals.

I’d love to hear how the music and singing were like, to have a sauna and probably get drunk and beaten later. And if I forgot to mention, it should be in summer.

TUNNA: I would get a Tibetan Rinpoche with me. We would travel to the late Paleolithic era to give people some true wisdoms from Buddha.

Maybe this would change history and make the world today a lot more peaceful and different than it is now.

On the same trip I’d like to give high five to a Neanderthal dude, another human species that coexisted with our human race. Give it a thought, another human species coexisting with us only 20000 years ago…

4. Tell us a little bit about your tattoos, Riku? Do you have any, Tunna? If not, would you like one?

TUNNA: Riku got his while doing time in Russian jail. For me tattoos are so last year, I’m into extreme body modification. Maybe an extra arm or something…

RIKU: One of my tattoos is a knight, or actually a lancer.

I took it as a reward when I got in the University to study journalism. And that’s what I became after studies, a freelancer.

Then there’s one by my friend Ässä, with my motto, the words Ignis Artis Aeturnus in it. Those wise words are from a tombstone in a Helsinki graveyard…

And then of course there’s the sak yant, the protection tattoo made by a monk in a temple we filmed in in Thailand. Let’s see if there’s more some day…

5. Best thing about this very day is…?

TUNNA: It’s 4:20 at the moment and I bought plane tickets to Mother India an hour ago!

RIKU: It’s Friday, for God’s sake, and so far we are alive!

Madventures has a habit of leaving all the important decisions to the old reliable game of rock, paper and scissors. The Cantonese people of China play their own version of this merrymaking called gosukumi. Here’s a quick index of rules to get you started.

The symbols are god, chicken, gun, fox, and termite. God is the thumb, chicken the index finger, gun the middle finger, fox the ring finger, and termite the little finger.

The sukumi relationships are as follows: with God and Chicken, chicken is sacrificed to god and thus loses. With God and Gun, the gun introduces people to god and thus God wins. The termite eats the God’s statue, as one does, and thus the termite wins.

Confused yet? Good!

The gun defeats the chicken. The fox defeats the chicken too. The chicken defeats the termite. Pretty self-explanatory!

The gun defeats the fox. Other than that, the god and the fox are bosom buddies, as are the gun and termite, and the fox and termite take no notice of each other, so these symbols tie with each other. So the god and the gun rule. And the chicken? Well, not so much.

And that’s all she wrote, really.

Protip: Gosukumi is simple and addictive! Now you have something to kill the time with the next time your stuck in a bus or your plane is forced to circle the airport.