Madventures/Blog

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.

Now that you’ve seen real life cricket Kung Fu, perhaps you were bitten by a bug? Click here for some basics you need to learn before entering the hobby..

Originally published in The Journal of the American Medical Association

By Nicholas O’Teen, MD

One of the emerging 21^st century pandemics alongside H1N1 and HIV is SBSD, more commonly known as Sentient Being Sympathy Disorder.

It has been known to affect outwardly rational people, usually living in the wealthiest nations of the world.

The symptoms include spoken out loud flatulentus cerebellum akin to Tourette’s syndrome. Common examples are “Fluffy is a member of our family”, ”Holy cow, why is there no beef in Big Mac in India?” and “That just proves that they are all uncivilized barbarians in that part of the world.”

Even more common example of SBSD is the artificial labeling of animals between “livestock” and “pets”. Again, this usually happens where polypeptides are plenty and severe energy intake reduction rarely occurs.

Moreover, SBSD often causes arbitrary mental forms and processes such as choosing to call some animals ”he” or “she”, yet others “it”. This is done to feel better about our food choices in the golden age of the industrially mass-produced nutrition.

People suffering from the malady usually don’t know they have it. They have domesticated, even projected emotions on certain animals and are unable to see that in some other conditions and cultures those creatures can be not only a viable, but vital food source.

Many of the claims made under the influence of the disorder towards these cultures are quite incoherent, like blaming some nations “eat pets” – which makes about as much sense as playing petting zoo in a tiger cage, just because one loved Tigger as a kid.

For example, in the early 20th century, eating dogs was common in Germany and some parts of Switzerland, but otherwise Europeans usually frowned upon it. These days such practices are of course unheard of, yet it rarely occurs to people that they might be in minority in their nutritional choices.  In many parts of Africa, canine consumption is not unheard of, simply because there are not enough protein sources running around.

In Islamic culture, eating dogs is forbidden under Muslim dietary laws, but in China, eating dogs is a tradition spanning centuries. It is done not only for culinary, but also for medicinal purposes, since dogs are known to lower your blood pressure and keep you warm.

Indeed, one man’s pet is another’s livestock.

Luckily, SBSD is somewhat easily healed. Open your eyes, broaden your mind, maybe even try traveling to another country, perhaps another continent altogether.

Where Mickey D’s may not be an option.

If you are a fan of this sort of cinema, check out Spirit of Baraka, a website dedicated to films that share those attributes.

Here’s this weeks 5 Q’s and 5 A’s, submitted by the viewers and answered by yours truly, Riku & Tunna.

1. Kelli asked if there were any special precautions to take before entering Pripyat?

TUNNA: What ever you do, don’t forget to wrap your genitals in aluminium foil!

RIKU: Most important of all, you have to know the rules of the place.

Always carry a Geiger counter  with you. Watch your steps. Especially never ever walk in thick vegetation. No digging the ground. Do not leave ANYTHING on the ground even for a short time. Beware of the collapsing structures. Do not touch anything. Do not even think about taking a souvenir with you.

When you leave the zone, you’ll have to throrougly clean your car tires and your boots.

The officials make you go through a measuring gate. If it beeps, shit into your pants and wish a throurough shower helps.

2. Many viewers are interested in the Mafia guys of the EX-Soviet Union tour? Some have wondered who are they working for and where are all their tattoos?

TUNNA: These Guys were active in Mafia scene during the nineties. Nowdays they are honest builders of a new brave Russia…

Umar, our connection (The guy who looks like he’s could be an extra from The Sopranos) was running a hotel/restaurant/sauna in a very remote place in the middle of nowhere by some god-forgotten roadside. I’m willing to bet Russian IRS doesn’t even know the place exists.

The first thing that you see when you enter the place is a huge mounted bear!

We went to sauna with these old school gangstas and the tables were filled with zakuski, vodka and brandy. The Russians never drink alcohol without food.

Riku still had the leech bites on his stomach. Umar and the other ex-mobster were explained, what all the blood was about but one of our hosts were in the john when the story was told. Umar demanded that we would play a practical joke on this guy (Who by the way looked and acted like battle hardened boxer, half punch drunk, half ready to make you punch drunk). The “joke” was that some Russian skinhead had stabbed Riku.

The boxer bought it hook, line and sinker. Next thing he was putting on his clothes. When asked, he said he knew everyone in town and would find the guilty party, then let him taste his own medicine. Umar said we would have time for it later and commanded the guy back to the table to have even more vodka.

I guess Umar got a few laughs out of it, whereas we kind of just waited when we could tell the truth – very uncomfortable situation. Of course, Umar waited until late in the evening before telling the boxer no stabbing had ever occured.

RIKU:  We’d like to emphasize that these guys were ex-mafia. At least that’s what they kept saying to us. As far as we know, they were legit entrepeneurs – running construction, logistics and transport companies. Businessmen. Hmmm…What was Tony Soprano’s business again?

Oh yeah, the tattoos, some people have asked about that before.

Tattoos play a big role in Russian underworld. There’s a great photobook by Kovács Ákos & Sztrés Erzsébet about that topic, unfortunately available only in Hungarian and Finnish… Anyway, the Russian “Thieves’ Guild” (There really is one and that’s its real name!) is centuries old and their tattoos are complicated signs of membership, ranks, punishments etc. Almost everyone who has something to do with the trade or has been doing time, wears tattoos. Almost. But our humble hosts were Dagestanese, from the restless Caucasus. Which means that they were moslems. No tattoos for them!

3. Bryan Monroe asked about The International Madventurist’s Manual, the book that came out in Finland in 2007. Will it ever be published in English?

RIKU: Hopefully! It’s 350 pages, so it’s quite an effort to translate & to do a new layout accordingly.

Maybe a publisher in the US could get involved if there’s enough of you guys interested! It would be cool, as it is – and I’m speaking frankly– one of the best books ever written about independent traveling.

TUNNA: True that – I always take it on wherever I go. I actually use it to remember what I need to pack with me to survive the day to day, or how to build a ground pipe or if I need to use the Swahili equivalent for the phrase “Fuck off, tool – I know Karate!”

4. Taken from the Travel Channel’s Facebook page: “Won’t be tuning in to watch people eat what I think of as pets, that’s for sure.” How do you plead?

RIKU: There is a huge world out there, where keeping an animal as a “pet” is not necessarily a choice. But it’s useless to give dead men medicine – opinions vary, but usually they are the end to thinking.

TUNNA: Meat doesn’t grow on the shelfs of the supermarkets.

RIKU:   If someone gets to question her/his own opinions and POV’s or there’s a discussion about the various ways or the world after watching Madventures, we’re happy. We also know the show is not everyone’s cup of tea. Fortunately, for some, there’s always American Gladiators keeping up the family values!

5. We’re in a bar. What will you have?

RIKU: I’m a boring man with my miserable mannerisms. A beer it shall be.

Sometimes I try to escape my imaginary straightjacket and fool around – then it’s a shot of vodka (lukewarm, please!) but more often Jaloviina (“Noble spirit”, kind of a Finnish Brandy). Lukewarm and straight up, please!

TUNNA: A bottle of some nice Super Toscana red. And a shot of Beluga vodka, Grey goose or Belvedere. Quality over quantity.

Hey, you’ve got a question? Tweet it, write on our forums, go to Facebook or comment on the blog – we pick 5 Q’s for every friday…

R & T

6553 known murders a year in country of 90.5 million and relatively big in corruption, the Philippines is still certainly better than its reputation and truly cleaning its crime rate numbers, if the statistics are to be trusted.

By comparison, for example the United States loses to the Philippines in almost every possible crime category per capita.

But we were not in Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center for the statistics, but to witness a phenomenon that originated in this facility.

At this counting, the original upload of inmates re-enacting Michael Jackson’s Thriller has had 33,820,768 views in YouTube.

Meeting the prisoners and the director of the facility, who had set the whole thing in motion was quite eye opening.

According to the director, this prison has no inmates who wallow in self-pity – he was quite proud of the fact that the CPDRC prisoners have high self-esteem. If you make the prison hell, you create demons. His wish is to release angels back to the society.

Apparently, disco dancing is the way to make seraphs out of the most evil of men.

We were allowed freely among these hardened men, many of them rapists and murderers. No one monitored what the prisoners said to us. The conversations were very relaxed and we had no reason to suspect what we were told.

I guess this time we were the cynics, for the prisoners’ reaction to dancing was overwhelmingly positive. We weren’t expecting that. They did not view the re-enactments as punishment.

Some of the energy the men would usually channel into either fighting amongst themselves or solitary apathy was now routed in to strict choreography, high energy dance steps and togetherness.

Many of them truly believed dancing made them better men.

Not necessarily angels, just men who had been given a chance in a system that wasn’t about to spit them out the same as they came in.

So, Ladies and Gentlemen, once again, big hand for the Dancing Prisoners of CPDRC!

We were crossing over the river Pasig, when the smell hit our nostrils.

The Jeepney driver didn’t seem to mind. He smiled at our discomfort and slowed down enough for us too see clearly the “river” below, the narrow stream in the midst of the Manila’s poorer neighbourhoods. Here and there the river was not much more than sludge of discarded plastic floating in industrial and household waste.

“They call it the dead river,” our driver said.

In the 90’s, the whole river was declared completely lifeless. The most problematic points of this waterway have become biohazardous dwelling place for thousands of Manilas homeless. The government is trying to revive the river that is constantly struggling to survive in the middle of Manila metro area.

We continue our journey in silence.

Once again, our nostrils sense we have arrived before our eyes do. Soon the eyes pick it up too. The air is hard to breathe and the smell makes the water rise into your eyes.

We arrive in Montalban dumpsite. And we have no way of getting in. The armed guards make sure of that. Too much bad publicity and no need for two nosy Finns to add some more.

So we move on. Our next stop is Payatas, another dumpsite. Another set of guards. This time we take a chance. Money changes hands. Understanding is reached.

We prepare our cameras and consider ourselves lucky, until we see what waits us behind the gates of the landfill.

Hundreds of hunched figures shift through the rubbish. What at first gander looks like a flock of gulls, turns out to be plastic bags whirling high in the wind. The birds do come, but only in tides, as if they have to go and get some fresh air every once in a while, to gain some energy to join the damned who are prodding the mountains of waste in hope of finding something recyclable and therefore, sellable.

In the United States alone from 380 billion disposable plastic bags only 1 percent is recycled. And all that is just a tip of the iceberg compared to plastic waste used in bottles and other containers, wrappers etc. Then there’s the rest of the world…

What was just a nightmare prediction when our generation were still children, has become reality: world is drowning in plastic.

Here in the Payatas wastelands, small children scavenge trough this trash, searching for recyclable junk like it was gold. Young men and women join them, for many this is the only way to make a living. We see old people at it too.

On occasion, these high piles of garbage are known to collapse and crush people underneath them.

Most of the people working here also live at the site.

Imagine all the waste you produce daily and do not even give a second thought to. Now imagine living in the middle of all that waste, trying to make your living out of that waste.

It is a sad sight, but when we talk to these people, they have a clear sense of what keeps them going.

It’s the work.

It’s what makes them feel like human beings.

Almost two weeks ago we got word that Payatas and Montalban were places hit hard by the typhoon Ondoy, which brought down month’s worth of rainwater in mere hours, resulting in devastating flash floods and landslides.

This is no time to be eloquent – it’s just so fucking unfair. These people live in shit and then this thing hits them.

You want to do something about it? Here.

At this count, 246 people died and 38 others went missing in the catastrophe.

R & T

Raised as a typical Finnish Lutheran who grew up to be a typical non-practicing Scandinavian protestant who goes to church only to attend weddings and funerals, I never thought I would find myself in a situation straight out of a Mel Gibson movie.

I am talking about the mile-long walk to symbolic Via Dolorosa to the equally symbolic Mount Cavalry in the town of Cutud in Philippines. We were told some other western journalist had tried this before but halfway through the trip chose to keep life, sanity and most of his blood to himself.

I was not quite sure what I was getting myself into.

First, my back was opened with implement called Burdios, a sort of concrete comb spiked with shards of glass. Yes, it hurts, thank you for asking. My head was covered with a hood and a crown of thorns.  I was given a whip made of bamboo and rope.

I am joining the rows of men about to undergo this ritual, each for their individual reasons. It’s usually done as penance for sins and I am just mentally making a list of my own transgressions of divine law, but have to give up as it is go time, entirely too soon for my liking.

I take the first step and start lashing my already bleeding back.

Self-flagellation is a weird thing. First you try to keep the licking light, but soon you realize the harder you whip, more numb your wounds become. So you give it all you got.

I walk and realize after only a few meters, that I’m bathing not only in my own blood but my own sweat too.

Now, when I say it was hot, I realize that word has suffered a bit of an inflation in English language. It doesn’t quite cover the temperatures I was facing on this little stroll. Infernal, hellish, blistering, baking, perhaps even broiling all do a much better job describing the conditions.

I walked the mile barefooted too, and the ground is scorching. So the soles of my feet were burning, adding a piquant little touch to this torment.

I’m about to faint, vomit and scream all at the same time.

What little I can see though the eyeholes of the hood and the stinging sweat in my eyes, it looks like the other flagellants are sleepwalking through this, with no apparent hardship. I think they are just better at hiding it or, you know, hard, noble and strong.

Bleeding like pig, sweating like one too, I walk the mile, whipping the wounds on my back like a maniac to keep the pain away.

At some point, I hear Tunna shout at me from a very far away place, although he is standing right next to me. He is saying I made it. I made it.

I walked the mile.

I was now officially a “penitente”.

But the most extreme form of penance was still ahead.

Kristos are the men who take the imitation of the Christ’s suffering all the way by getting nailed on a wooden cross through their palms and their feet. They believe it will keep them and their families in good graces with God.

We really thought one of us should have through this crucifixion – it would have made the ultimate rock-paper-scissors.

Now, I need my hands for many things, mainly writing and Tunna obviously wants to operate a camera until they pry it from his cold, dead hands. And we didn’t want to end up with those cold, dead hands quite just yet. Every expert on the scene told us not to do it if we fancied keeping the nerves of our palms intact.

So we didn’t get on the cross. But we got some pretty good close-ups of those who did, by infiltrating the crowds guerilla-style and not staying put where the media had been told to stay.

Later we heard that in another town called Kapitangan John Safran (he of the John Safran vs God fame) had actually gone through with the crucifixion ritual.

You can see a glimpse of this in his new series’ trailer.

We salute you, sir. It’s no skin off our backs.

So to say.

R & T

Even as young whippersnappers, we knew the world isn’t always a friendly place. Spend a year on the road and you’re bound to cross some high-risk environments. On those occasions, you don’t place your faith in bible. Instead you make sure you packed a Robert Young Pelton book.

Robert Young Pelton is a legend of conflict area journalism and adventure writing. These days he shares his time between being, and we quote, “Adventurer, filmmaker, businessman, author, writer, director, lecturer, columnist, host, explorer, executive producer, photographer, pundit, vagrant and student of life.”

He’s basic message is not to inflict fear, but instead to educate those who are about to embark on an adventure of their own and may yet harbor some doubt if they will indeed “come back alive”. Robert Young Pelton teaches them how to do just that.

The man is a true inspiration – hey, we even named our production company after one of the phrases found in The World’s Most Dangerous Places – so we thought we offer some links that should keep you busy:

Rolph Potts (another amazing travel writer!) interviews RYP

The National Geographic columns and articles

The American Taliban Interview

Pelton radio interview on “License To Kill”

And of course, his official site with lots and lots to explore:

Comebackalive.com

Including Dangerpedia – check out how dangerous your next destination is!

R & T

1. Many viewers have asked about the music of Madventures. Riku gave away a few tidbits in the forum discussion already, but can you elaborate on the subject in here too?

RIKU: This is definitely Tunna’s and our editor’s, Jussi’s turf. They first discuss the tone, the drama and of course the location of  the episode with our composer Zarkus.

Then a few weeks later this genius emerges from his cave with some killer tunes!

Also some cool Finnish bands have produced tracks for us.

I’m happy to say we can finally put them all together as a compilation – the Madventures soundtrack album, out before Christmas…

TUNNA: Music has always been one of the most important building blocks as we are trying to construct mood and atmosphere to fit the subjective experience we have had with a certain culture.

Even though we are talking TV, reproducing such experience is difficult to do with visuals alone, because a traveler uses more senses than just sight to experience his surroundings.

The tastes, the sounds, the smells, the feel of tropical air on your skin – they are all individual parts of the foreign culture that make the whole. These senses are not easy to convey with mere words. But as the saying goes, music truly is the universal language everybody understands.

We believe, that through music we can transmit all senses and sensations that are integral to a travel show.

In TV, music is often underused, very fast put together and conventional. We try to steer away from that with the fusion of electronic and ethnic sounds to amalgamate our own backgrounds, the travel experience and the feel of the foreign culture.

Amazing musician called Zarkus Poussa composes most of the Madventures music.

In addition we have a group of very notable underground artists producing tracks for us.

2. It’s lunchtime. Your choices are: Balut, bat or Mangrove worm – what will it be?

RIKU: If I’m on the move, my choice is Mangrove worms: a light snack, fresh-and-salad-like (it tastes like asparagus, really)!

If I’m a bit pifflicated or having the morning after, it shall be balut. With lotsa salt and a pint chaser.

Bat sucks actually, never had a good one yet.

TUNNA: Put them all together – that would make a nice burger!

3. First foreign country you ever visited? How old were you?

RIKU: For some odd reason it was Belgium. This was 1976 so I was two years old. After the trip, for months I kept asking the local bus drivers in Finland if the line’s destination is Bruxelles, which made these harsh men’s day and amazed my mom. I still remember their incomprehension and laughter. I used to have a verystiff upper lip before I went to school.

TUNNA: Norway, age of 2. This is one of my first memories, by the way. It’s from a back of a car, flashback of my uncle vomiting on me. No, it wasn’t some sick emetophilia fetish scene. He just got the motion sickness and wasn’t quick enough to open the window.

I happened to lie on a car seat right next to him and on the path of his ralph…

4. Last good book you read?

RIKU: Yesterday I finished one of my favorite Finnish author’s, Kjell Westö’s new novel and it was of course great story – an analysis of my hometown Helsinki and it’s dwellers after the war and into this new era of international influences.

How isolated this nation has been, and still is quite often!

In English, the last good one I read was Aravind Adiga’s ‘The White Tiger’. Excellent but controversial portrait of India and it’s dark side.

TUNNA: Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche: Joy of living

In his first book, Mingyur Rinpoche combines Tibetan Buddhist wisdom with the latest breakthroughs in Western medicine to reveal the scientific basis for how we can achieve enlightenment, relaxation, and happiness through meditation.

5. What is the meaning of life?

RIKU: I’ve never been a fan of science fiction, so at least it’s not fucking 42.

Still looking for the answer.

TUNNA: An end to suffering.