Lviv - birthplace of Ukrainian nationalism

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Vladimir Putin denies the very concept of a national Ukrainian identity. Benedict Anderson conceptualised the modern nation-state as an imagined community in his famous 1983 book Imagined Communities. During the time of the Habsburg Empire Ukrainians were influenced by the nationalism that spread after the French Revolution. The first seeds were sown. The Revolutions of 1848 in the Austrian Empire inspired the founding of the Supreme Ruthenian Council in the city we now call Lviv (Львів). One of the three political requests was that lectures in schools and publishing of government statements needed to be conducted in the Ukrainian language.

From the Supreme Ruthenian Council (1848 - 1851) to the breakup of the Sovjet Union, Ukrainian nationalism survived – between 1917 - 1918; 1918 - 1921 there was even a short-lived Ukrainian People's Republic. In 1991 an independent Ukraine was formed when the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic was dissolved. Not based on ethnicity but as a modern Ukrainian state and pluralistic citizenship laws.

“Fight — and you’ll be victorious,
God is helping you!
On your side is justice, on your side is glory,
And holy liberty!”
— "The Caucasus", Taras Shevchenko, 1845

Lviv is a very modern bustling city with a population well over 700.000, almost as big as Kraków.

I arrived in Lviv after sunset. My hotel was right on Svobody Avenue. The entrance was inside a luxurious shopping mall. Signs with red arrows pointed at the shelter in the basement in case of an air raid. Since 2022 twelve civilians were killed and thirty-two wounded during dozens of attacks on Lviv Oblast.

I was pretty hungry so I entered the first beer pub I saw, the White Lion pub (Білий Лев, Lesi Ukrainky vul. 15). They served smoked pig’s ears as a beer snack and they lend me a paperclip to remove my physical sim card so I could be sure my data went through eSIM.

Soon I discovered Piana Vyshnia (“Drunk Cherry”), a tiny little place selling sweet but not too sweet cherry liqueur. Most of the action was on the street. I was mesmerised by the singing, and two pints of beer and two cherry liqueurs helped lift my mood. I filmed in vertical video format for Instagram.

I have been to regions of conflict before, Kosova in 1991 among others, Serbias had full and direct control of the province, tanks guarded the border, but never to a country which is under martial law. I have often wondered whether I would be able to fight, would I show valour or would I run to the hills? This question cannot easily be answered. In Lviv I was observing people of fighting age. For them the question is not hypothetical.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy sees the need to mobilise more citizens. The average age of the Ukrainian solider is 43 years at the moment of writing. His commanders have asked for up to 500,000 extra soldiers, but this is hard to finance. For each fighting soldier you need six extra people working to pay for that one soldier. Zelenskyy has to find 3 million extra jobs to even make this possible.

Still, every man, or even woman, in Ukraine knows there could be a moment he or she will be asked to serve, possibly on the front. A bill on mobilisation is now discussed in Ukraine's parliament. At the same time conscripts who have served since before the full-scale invasion began are now being discharged and won’t be called up for 12-months. Zelenskyy promised rotation in his speech when he removed general Valery Zaluzhny as commander-in-chief in February.

When curfew was about to start the crowd started singing this song. I didn’t have time yet to ask somebody what song this is and what the lyrics mean.

Lemberg

When Lviv fell under the Habsburg monarchy the city was known as Lemberg and saw a large influx of Austrians and German-speaking Czech bureaucrats. The city became quite Austrian by the mid 19th century. You can still find the Viennese Coffee House in the city center (12 Svobody Avenue), which was established over a hundred years ago. I ordered the ‘business lunch’ menu which consisted of a beet salad, a very good borscht and a Wiener Schnitzel as flat as a sheet of paper: perfect.

Slavik’s Fashion

One moment the war is invisible, the next moment you are looking at portraits of men who very recently died in battle. President Zelenskyy announced in February 2024 that 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed in action since 2022.

Memorial of the Heavenly Hundred Heroes

This memorial, built in 2019, is a reminder that upraising of the Ukrainian people against corruption, oligarchs and Russian influence started more than ten years ago, and consequentially the annexing of Crimea by Russia and the war in Donbas. The memorial is to commemorate the people who lost their lives during the Euromaidan protests in 2013 and 2014. Address: Pidvalna St, 6, Lviv.

The protest did not start in Kyiv, but in Lviv when in November 2013 mayor Sadovy called for students to go on a strike and protest. Shortly afterwards tens on thousands young Ukrainians travelled to Kyiv from West-Ukraine to the now famous Maidan Nezalezhnosti square. In January 2014 protesters occupied the regional government building in Lviv. This led to the storming of regional government buildings all over Ukraine. It still angers me when right (and left) wing idiots claim Euromaidan was a CIA sponsored coup. Lviv as cradle for Euromaidan is argued for by Dutch journalist Michiel Driebergen in this article dated 3 February 2014.

Children on a school trip visiting the memorial.

This statue below depicts merchant and translator Yuri-Franz Kulchytsky. He became a hero in the defence of Vienna from the Turks. As a rewards he received 300 sacks of coffee. When Austria ruled Galicia in late 18th century, coffee culture spread to Lviv and today Kulchytsky, a native of a region near Lviv (back then the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, today Ukraine), is seen as the man who brought coffee to Central Europe, which is most likely not true. But it makes a nice story and a cool statue. Today Lviv has many coffee houses in the style of a Wiener Kaffeehaus.

Lviv Railway Station

My final destination would be Kyiv, the capital and seat of government. My train to Kyiv left at 11:05 pm and would arrive the next morning at 06:19 am at Kyiv-Pasazhyrskyi railway station. Many trains run at night. The sleeping carriages are still heated by coal. The night time atmosphere at the railway station is amazing, the smell of coal, the long trains, up to 17 carriages, the big Soviet era locomotives, it’s unforgettable.

I probably bought a first class ticket because my compartment had only two beds. I bought my ticket online before my journey. It was quite a comfortable night.

The situation of the war shortly before my visit. The front is roughly 500 kilometres distance from Kyiv.

The battle of Kyiv

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The battle of Kyiv was arguably the most important battle of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. If the capital would have fallen, there would have been little hope for recovery. The battle of Kyiv started with an attack on Hostomel Airport with Russian Ka-52 attack helicopters and Mil Mi-8 helikopters carrying paratroopers on 24 February 2022, early in the morning. Shortly before the attack Putin announced a ‘special military operation’ in a a televised speech.

The Russians succeeded taking over the airport but two Ukrainian Su-24 bombers of the 7th Tactical Aviation Brigade managed to damage the runway. Airport staff drove trucks onto the runway, making the airport useless for Russian air support. Instead the Russians used the airport as a forward operating base for ground troops. Satellite images showed no Russian forces inside the airport by 28 March 2022.

Russian helicopters advancing on Hostomel Airport on 24 February 2022.

Despite being overwhelmed by the Russians, Ukraine managed to destroy quite a few advanced Ka-52 attack helicopters.

The next day

On 25 February a small Russian convoy drove through Bucha towards Kyiv, likely accidentally separated from other units, and was ambushed in Irpin and completely destroyed. But on 27 February Russian ground forces advanced into Bucha. After heavy fighting for two weeks, on 12 March 2022, the Bucha City Council announced that Russian forces had fully occupied the city.

Another phase in the battle of Kyiv was the advance of the Russian Kyiv convoy, a large column of Russian military vehicles, to take over the capital. This also didn’t go according to plan. Because of fuel and food shortages and Ukrainian resistance, the convoy was halted. The column was first spotted on satellite images on 28 February 2022. By 31 March the US Department of Defense (DoD) could not confirm the column was still there. It had simply dissolved.

By 31 March the Russians retreated from the Kyiv area, including Bucha. The Battle of Kyiv was over and won by Ukraine.

“We are all here, our troops are here, citizens are here, all of us are here protecting our independence of our country. And it will continue to be this way. Glory to our defenders, Glory to Ukraine, Glory to Heroes.”
— 25 February 2022, Volodymyr Zelenskyy outside the president's office in Kyiv

The road to Bucha

I travelled to Bucha via Irpin to get a sense of the battle and its geography. From Akademmistechko, the final stop of the Kyiv M1 metro line, I took a minibus to Irpin. From Irpin you can walk to Bucha in half an hour but I took a train instead. What struck me most is how ordinary a place like Irpin is. In peacetime nothing ever happens in Irpin.

Irpin railway station

Irpin railway station and the train to Bucha.

From Hostomel Airport to Irpin river is just 12 kilometers. The Irpin river was the last natural barrier before the outskirts of Kyiv. After the river there is a forested area of about 2 kilometres before you reach the residential part of Kyiv. Below is the route the Russians took until they were halted.

Bucha (Буча), Vokzalna Street

Vokzalna street became infamous because it visualised the attempt by the Russian army to take over Kyiv. After the Russian withdrawal from Bucha, press photos showed the full horror of the war: the street was coloured matt black because of the fighting. Ukrainian forces entered Bucha on 1 April 2022, soon the Bucha massacre became clear. In August 2022 the count of civilian deaths was published: 458, the vast majority of the bodies had signs of shooting, torture, or violent trauma.

Polish news team February 2024

Two years later the street has been cleaned up, some houses have been rebuild, some are still being rebuild. What struck me most is how mundane this street is. After walking up and down the street a couple of times I wanted to do something unremarkable. I went to the hairdresser and had a haircut.

Considering the current war this memorial commemorating the Afghanistan war from 1979 to 1989, in Bucha, is pretty crazy. It shows a Soviet BRDM-2 patrol vehicle. Back then Ukrainians and Russians were bothers in arms in the Soviet Army.

The extension of the main shopping street of Bucha has countless portraits of mostly men who died during the Battle of Bucha.

Bucha railway station

Irpin (Ірпі́нь)

Travelling back from Bucha to Kyiv I walked to Irpin. In Irpin I would take a minibus back to Kyiv.

In Irpin the war damage is still very visible. Bucha has gotten more international attention and therefor more funds for repairs. According to Irpin’s mayor Oleksandr Markushyn 115 buildings had been completely destroyed, 698 significantly damaged and another 187 need partial repairs.

If the Russians would have succeeded crossing Irpin river they would have ended up roughly in this part on the outskirts of Kyiv near Akademmistechko. From there it is another 12 kilometers to Maidan square.

The battle continues

Even though Kyiv is safe from Russian ground troops, it is not safe from attacks by air. Below the weapons Russia is still using against the capital: the air-launched ballistic missile Kh-47M2 Kinzhal, the ship-launched Kalibr missiles, guided Kh-101/Kh-102 missiles, S-400 missile systems, the 9K720 Iskander and Iranian Shahed drones.

“Attention, air raid alert. Proceed to the nearest shelter. Don’t be careless, your overconfidence is your weakness.”
— Air Alert app, Mark Hamill, Luke Skywalker of Star Wars

The air defence of Kyiv consists of several different systems. The American Avenger Air Defense System, German Flugabwehrkanonenpanzer Gepard, American MIM-23 Hawks, American-Norwegian NASAMS, Franco-Italian SAMP/T, European IRIS-T SLM and TRML-4D radars.

Even after the initial battle Kyiv was not safe. Kyiv after Russian shelling, 2022-10-10. Photo attribute kyiv.dsns.gov.ua.

Potential Tropical Cyclone 22

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I hadn’t paid too much attention to the dates before my flight back home when I discovered I had one extra night in Jamaica. I thought about staying in Portland for one more night but luckily I decided to spent the extra night in Morant Bay, about one hour from the my last hotel near the airport. I didn’t know it yet, but this saved me from getting stuck in Portland or Saint Thomas Parish after the main road washed away due to 48 hours of relentless rain in the days before potential tropical cyclone 22 hit Jamaica. I expected strong winds but it was just raining and raining.

Want to ready my Jamaica journey in chronological order? Start here.

“Spending Thursday night trapped between floodwaters in her vehicle in Golden Grove, St Thomas, with her four year old child, was not something Tiffany Sobah anticipated”
— The Gleaner, Saturday, November 18, 2023

Morant Bay

It was just too wet to walk around Morant Bay comfortably. The town is engraved into the minds of Jamaicans because of the Morant Bay rebellion in 1865 led by Baptist deacon and activist Paul Bogle. The formerly enslaved population was suffering from an economic crisis and received few civil or religious freedoms. The rebellion is well documented. It resulted in the hanging of Paul Bogle. He is now considered a National Hero. Jamaican dancer Gerald Levy adopted the artist name Bogle to honour Paul Bogle. The name now lives on as Bogle dance, a dance choreographed by Levy in 1991.

The attack on the cout house, St Thomas in the East, Jamaica by William Heysham Overend.

Bogle · Buju Banton, original 1991.

I arrived way too early at my last hotel on Friday. The owner couldn’t remotely open the gate and door for me because of a power cut. There was no electricity and she was living in Kingston. I had to wait until 4 pm for the cleaning lady to arrive. So I waited for almost four hours next to the road in the pouring rain. There wasn't even a bar. Luckily a liquor store was open so I could order some Red Stripe beer, watch the trucks go by and say hello to the people walking past me. Only on Saturday, my final day in Jamaica, the sky cleared.

A short postscript. Looking back to my two-week journey it struck me that Jamaica is a very unique place on this earth. Its people are very creative, something I learned from the Jamaican music I listened to in the past thirty years. But the creativity also spills over in the living language, patois, and the resilience people show when earning a living. Which left-hand drive mountainous country in the world would import those big right-hand drive USA rigs made for the wide and open American highways? Only in Jamaica. No boy cyan make we run left Jamaica.

Nanny of the Maroons

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The year 1655 was a crucial year for Jamaican Maroons. When the British defeated the Spanish, many enslaved Africans escaped into the mountainous interior of the island, sometimes mixing with native Taíno. These Maroons formed rather independent communities from the British and were slowly gaining power to the chagrin of the British. By 1720, a spiritual leader named Nanny, emerged in the Blue Mountains, uniting several villages, which later became known as Nanny Town. ‘Queen’ Nanny fought a successful guerrilla war against the British. Meanwhile the British were also engaged in fighting the Maroon warrior Cudjoe in Westmoreland Parish, which led to a peace treaty when the British realised they could not defeat the Maroons.

Nanny refused to sign the Peace Treaty of 1740, but was able to relocate to 500 acres of land, at a site which late became known as Moore Town. Her body is said to be buried in Moore Town. I visited Nanny’s memorial in Moore Town.

Nanny of the Maroons.

Moore Town is really small. Apart from a cultural centre, which was closed on the November day I arrived, there is really nothing expect scattered residential housing. There was a small shop, which sold cheap but cold Red Stripe beer for only 250 dollars per bottle. I drank beer and watched the roosters parade around in the rain. Some men were repairing a car, hammering loudly.

When I wanted to go back to Port Antonio there was no taxi in sight. I decided to start walking back. The mountain road was beautiful and I didn’t mind the occasional light rain shower. The whole distance was quite far. I got to a junction and started chatting to somebody. I ended up in a small bar and bought several people a beer.

The discussion below was the result of somebody asking me how much I paid for my plane ticket. The man in the pink shirt offered me a ride back to Kingston. Along the way we stopped at a house, were he bought two pigs for Christmas.

Barbecue and jerk

When the Spanish settled in Cuba, Dominican Republic and Jamaica they adopted the Taíno word barbakoa for the raised wooden structure the Taíno used to slow cure meat on hot ash. The word entered the English language as barbecue.

The practise of slow roasting heavily seasoned (jerk) meat is said to have been preserved by Maroon communities who learned the practice from the Taíno, although it is believed that the Maroons used underground fire pits to prevent the smoke to become visible. The jerk seasoning preserves the meat and gives it extra flavour. The practice of roasting seasoned meat is called jerking. The jerk seasoning consists at least of pimento and Scotch bonnet peppers.

Traditional Jamaican jerk is made on a fire pit below sticks of pimento en sweet wood. The meat is placed on the wood and then covered with metal sheets to capture the flavourful wood smoke. It is quite a difficult proces because you need to maintain a low but stable temperature for many hours.

Boston by day.

On my first night in Portland I walked to one of the Boston jerk places. Boston is famous for its jerk, but it is really a cluster of several jerk places. I opted for pork instead of chicken. It was served with ‘festivals’ (=fried bread) and of course I ordered a Red Stripe. The ladies in the background were rather loud. The loudest lady proclaimed to nobody in particular that she was a Christian and that her Lord commanded her to have sex every day and twice on a Sunday. I couldn’t hold my tongue and I told her that I became tired by just listening to her.

She didn’t believe I had so little stamina and when I confessed I was living not far from the red light district in Amsterdam, she really didn’t believe me. I joked that I didn’t want no ‘double trouble’ and everybody got the Beres Hammond reference. The ladies were screaming with laughter. In the end she forced me to buy her a drink. I made it back to my hotel alone, as planned.

Pork jerk and festivals.

Boston jerk kitchen.

Of course I had to remember the name of one of the men the night before - Shane - and he took this as an opportunity to drag me to a small bar a few hundred meters from the road and fleece a couple of beers out of me. Shane was a ‘habitual line stepper’ to quote Charlie Murphy, and the man in the foreground pulled a chair for me so I could drink my beer in peace.

Jerk Chicken in Port Antonio

After the Boston jerk pork I had to try the jerk chicken. This place is just outside the town center of Port Antonio. The chicken is grilled in large batches in old oil drums.

The rain intensifies Potential Tropical Cyclone 22

Portland, Port Antonio

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After visiting the Blue Mountains I decided that Port Antonio would be a good place to spend a few days. When I booked my hotel I didn't realise I booked a hotel near Boston Beach, almost half an hour by car from Port Antonio. Luckily both are on the coastal highway and it is one of the main taxi routes. The hotel was another homestay owned by an Italian guy who married a Jamaican. Both were very welcoming.

The man who drove me from the mountains to Port Antonio claimed to be a maroon and he even had a more outrageous claim: he could command the voodoo of the coconut.

It didn’t become clear what voodoo powers were enshrined in the coconut. He was not so lucky when playing cards when we made a short stop for a Red Stripe beer. He lost a few thousand Jamaican dollars within minutes and blamed “different rules” of the game up in the mountains. When we arrived in Port Antonio he overcharged me. By then I already decided that my photo of him playing cards was worth the extra money. I advised him to be careful for the power of the coconut.

Port Antonio

The capital of Portland predates the British rule of Jamaica. The Spanish called the port Puerto Anton. Henry Bentinck, 1st Duke of Portland, decided in the early 18th century that the city would become a naval stronghold. A fort had to protect the settlers from attacks of the Spanish from the sea and the Maroons from the mountains. But it was in the 1880s that the town started booming when banana boats dropped off wealthy American tourists.

Fish N Rundung

I first had to find breakfast in Port Antonio. After walking around for a while I found a small place with Fish ‘n’ Rundung on the menu for a 1.000 dollars (6 euro). Rundung is Jamaica for any food cooked down (‘run down’) in coconut milk. So fish ‘n’ rundung is a piece of fish simmered down in coconut milk. I’m pretty sure the fish I had was fried before the simmering proces. It was served with cooked banana, stewed vegetables, fried dumpling and some fritters.

By the time I finished my breakfast they wiped Fish n Rundung from the menu. Apparently I had the last Fish n Rundung of the day.

Port Antonio has a population of just 13.000. It just takes an hour to walk the town and there is not much to see. There is a small harbour for yachts but the only building is off limits for the general public. You need to own an expensive yacht to be able to drink a coffee in the building.

In Port Antonio I found refuge in a small Ital restaurant with a view towards the sea, which gave me peace and quiet from the busy road. I asked for a natural juice and the patron picked a bunch of guave fruits from a tree and returned after ten minutes with a glass of freshly make guave juice.

The blessings of travelling off-season. I was the only customer in the Survival restaurant.

I’m not 100% convinced this is guave, but is is what I remember.

Fresh guave juice.

It was too early for lunch so walked for a couple of hours along the coastal highway to return in the late afternoon.

Kidney breakfast

The next day I went to the same breakfast place. They only had ‘kidney’ on the menu. I wasn’t sure if they meant ‘kidney beans’ or ‘kidney’ as in meat. It was the latter and it was incredibly tasty. The kidney was served with fried dumpling, cooked cassava, banana and pumpkin. Jamaican food is rather basic but when cooked right it is packed with flavour. I never had such a good tasting kidney gravy. I asked to see the cook to thank her in person, which I did.

Blue Mountain cowboy coffee

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At Section (alt. 4.000 feet), located on the mountain pass between Buff Bay and Kingston, there is a small coffee house, which has been a family business for over 100 years. The man who built the business was the honourable James Dennis and his legacy is now being continued by Hopie. When I arrived Hopie was roasting coffee beans in a Dutch pot over an open wood fire.

I paid for accommodation and meals for the duration of my stay.

My first cup of Blue Mountain coffee.

I was lucky enough to see a tiny rasta bird, also know as the Jamaican tody (Todus todus). This bird is beneficial for the coffee producers because it provides some pest control by eating the coffee berry borer, a small beetle who lives inside the coffee fruit.

Mountain spring water, straight from the source.

The view from the coffee roasting shack was meditative.

Dinner in the mountains

Preparations for the evening meal started in the afternoon by boiling a pot of beans on the wood fire.

In the kitchen Hopie made dumplings for boiling. In a second pot Hopie boiled banana for the bean stew.

The seasoning of the one-pot bean soup/stew consisted of coconut milk powder, seasonings from an instant soup package, some butter, spring onion, parsley and scotch bonnet pepper. Hopie also added okra.

Everything comes together in one pot: boiled beans, banana, dumplings, okra and the seasoning.

Sunday morning

Best moment of my journey. A mug of freshly made Blue Mountain coffee in the morning. The proces is quite easy. The coffee is made cowboy style. In a coffee pot hot water is simply poured over the coarse grind. The coffee is then poured in a mug.

While I was drinking my coffee breakfast was prepared. Hopie fried saltfish with onion, thyme and pepper, just like you would do to make ackee and saltfish. But instead of ackee he added a can of boiled beans.

The saltfish and beans are served with boiled banana and yellow plantain.

The image of James Dennis is prominently featured on the walls. The photo of the couple is even older. If I have understood it correctly these were the owners a generation before James Dennis.

Before roasting the coffee berries are simply dried on the floor.

The cultivar grown in the mountains is Coffea arabica.

Mountain hike

Since the Blue Mountains are populated you will find many single track foot paths. I went on a hike with one of the men handing around the coffee house. We first followed the main road for a couple of hours. This road is so quiet it almost feels like a hiking trail. Then we ventured deeper into the mountains. Without somebody local, chances are you will find yourself being lost.

On the map I could see that Kingston wasn’t too far away from Section. Yet, when we reached Holywell Park I was amazed to see all of Kingston in the distance.

The coffee plants.

When we almost made it back to the coffee house we visited Henry’s ‘Ever Ready Lawn’, a local dance floor. Family was cleaning the place because one of the elders passed away. The big wooden speakers were out of commission, but the selecter made due with a smaller speaker and a laptop.

The riddim in the video is the Smile riddim made famous by Garnett Silk (Hello Mama Africa, 1993). The version in the video is Come Back Home (1993) by Beres Hammond.

It was fun recognising al the songs being played on the sound system. One of my favourites: Marcia Griffiths version of The First Cut is the Deepest from 1996.

The basic aromatics for Jamaican cooking are thyme, spring onion and lemon. Because of my hike I didn’t watch Hopie cook the chicken and rice and peas.

Next location: Portland, Port Antonio

Ackee breakfast

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Only a few hundred meters from Michael Fabulous’ house in Boscobel there is a tiny beach, we are really talking about five meters between the rocks and the concrete wall of a hotel, so it was possible to take a swim before breakfast. Without the hotel this would probably be a pretty nice beach.

View from the sea towards the beach.

To get to the beach I had to walk through somebody’s backyard. The backyard was filled with chicken and goats. All I could think was: “curry goat”.

Ackee breakfast with roasted breadfruit

The day before we roasted a breadfruit from the garden on the gas stove. The roasted breadfruit is sliced, put in salted water to enhance the taste, then simply fried in oil.

Ackee and saltfish is considered the national breakfast of Jamaica. Ackee is the fruit of the Ackee tree, native to West Africa. The name also has its origins in West Africa. In the Akan language the fruit is called akye fufo. But in Africa the fruit is commonly not eaten because it is toxic. The unripe fruit contains hypoglycin A and hypoglycin B, which are converted in the body to methylenecyclopropylacetic acid. This compound is potential lethal. But when the ackee ripens the concentration of hypoglycin A and B may be 100 times less than the unripe fruit. After picking the ripe fruit the outer shell and the black arils are removed. The soft yellow seeds are then boiled for a short time before the ackee is ready for use.

The taste of ackee and saltfish is mainly provided by the saltfish. Ackee has a beautiful texture and what makes ackee and saltfish so appealing is the mouthfeel of the ackee.

The dish is very easy. Heat some oil and fry saltfish, or tinned salted mackerel, with onion, bell pepper and hot pepper. Then you mix everything with the prepared ackee fruit. The ackee doesn’t need to cook long. Simply serve the ackee with fresh fruit, crackers and fried breadfruit. It is a very satisfying breakfast.

Sun Valley Plantation

I became curious when I saw the name Sun Valley Plantation on the map. I tried to arrange a visit but they emailed me the following: We are closed on Thursdays but since you don't mind doing a half tour let's see what can happen. So yes you may come.

I arrived at the right time, because the owner just started a tour for a group which turned up last minute. The plantation commercially produces coconut for the local market but they have a garden showcasing many different plants. Sun Valley is owned by Lorna and Nolly Binns. Nolly's father bought the property in 1966 to grow bananas for export. The banana export isn’t economically viable anymore.

Lorna Binns, I presume.

Bamboo is not native to Jamaica but was imported by the British to use as supports for banana trees so they won’t fall over.

In 1988 Hurricane Gilbert destroyed the plantation. Only by the grace of special low interest loans the lost trees could be replanted. Gilbert was the second most intense tropical cyclone to hit Jamaica. The mysterious invasive reindeer who roam Jamaica’s forests are actually just six white-tailed deer, who escaped from a tourist attraction during Hurricane Gilbert. Now the population is an estimated 6.000 deer and hunting is encouraged.

A nutmeg and mace, the reddish seed covering.

Annatto is native to the Americas. The seeds can be used for colouring and flavouring food and is used in many parts of the world, as far as Vietnam and the Philippines. In St. Mary is a town called Annotto Bay, because of the abundance of Annatto trees in the area.

Geddes Town, St Mary

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Michael had an idea. Why didn’t I visit Geddes Town to meet Boycott, a friend of his? A cousin could drive me there for 2.000 dollars. He explained to me how such a meeting would be executed. My visit would be announced ahead of time. I had to bring 5.000 dollars, so Boycott could buy some rum for his friends in the village. This seemed like a perfectly good plan. When I arrived Boycott was waiting for me, I slipped him the 5.000 and soon he bought a couple of bottles of rum and cranberry juice.

Wray & Nephew is the rum of choice for most Jamaicans. It’s available everywhere at 1.200 dollars per bottle, about 7 euro. It can be mixed with cranberry juice to make it more easy to drink. Wray & Nephew rum is 63%. I could not drink more than three glasses over the whole afternoon. I declined to smoke. Boycott could manage both smoke and drink at the same time.

Cheers!

Lunch was provided by this lady who was operating some kind of home cooking restaurant from her back yard. She made me some rice and peas and KFC styled fried chicken.

Botanical lessons

During my stay I we talked a lot about all the plants growing in the village. The tree and the fruit below is called noni and is native to Southeast Asia and Australasia. The fruit is bitter and was commonly only eaten in times of famine. In Thai cuisine the leaves are used for curry like kaeng bai-yo or in som tam. In Jamaica noni fruit, also known as duppy soursop, is mainly used as a herbal medicine. Duppy is a haunting spirit of the dead.

In the gardens yam is grown. To determine if the yam is ready to harvest you have to look at the green tops. If they become dry and black the yam might be ready.

Michael Swaby, World’s Best Innovative Coconut Farmer

At one point a car stopped and a man stepped out. Before saying anything he lifted his white tank top and flashed his big gun at me. I was like: “Who are you?”. “Google me”, he said. So I entered “the world’s best innovative coconut farmer” in the search field and indeed, I found Michael Swaby on YouTube. “If you are so famous, I will take your photo’, I said. Thumbs up!

After hours of drinking we took a walk around Geddes Town. I noticed Boycott had trouble walking and he explained his body was smashed up in a car accident not too long ago.

The village provides everything, from fruits and vegetables to meat. Some people raise pigs.

Jamaicans love to argue. If I understood the argument correctly the man sitting down was convinced there were people living in the sky and under the earth. The other man was having none of it and demanded proof.

We talked about geopolitics and Boycott was sharp on these issues. Whether it was the war in Ukraine or the war between Hamas and Israel, I found myself on the same page as he was. I was a little sad to leave the village. I couldn’t take note of all the different plants Boycott explained to me and its uses. When I left Boycott calculated how much he spent of the 5.000 dollars.

Next post: Port Maria

Boscobel and James Bond Beach

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I didn’t feel like loosing myself in a big city, so for me to book the next hotel near Oracabessa in the Parish of Saint Mary was a natural choice. I ended up in Boscobel, less than a ten minute drive by shared taxi from Oracabessa. When I arrived at the hotel it turned out to be another homestay owned by reggae singer Michael Fabulous, born Lansfield Clarke, and his wife Tina. Michael had success with hits like “One Way - and that’s Jah Way”, “Smokey Joe” and “White River”.

I really enjoyed my stay with Michael. In the mornings we spent an hour or so talking. One day he made me ackee breakfast. He has a side-business organising things to do for guests. For me he arranged a two night stay in Section at James Dennis’ Blue Mountain Coffee Farm and a visit to his cousin Boycott in Geddes Town.

Slow starting mornings with tea and a smoke

Michael toured the world since the 1990s and, of course, he also performed in Amsterdam. In his song Smokey Joe he gives props to Amsterdam in the introduction. He stayed in my old neighbourhood the Bijlmer when he visited The Netherlands.

Michael Fabulous performs on a regular base in Africa. He brought some seeds from Ghana and was trying to germinate these in a pot. By the looks of it, successfully.

In his backyard he has a breadfruit tree.

One night Michael travelled to Kingston for the crowning of Admiral Tibet as a life time achievement. Admiral was born in Freehill, Saint Mary, not far from Boscobel. Micheal kept his presence a secret until the very moment Tibet was crowned. Skip to 09:00 minutes in the video for the crowning.

Boscobel

Boscobel is the town near Ian Fleming International Airport and the Northern Coastal Highway runs right through the town. The highway is a two-lane road and has food stalls and small bars along the road. I had my first “hot soup” from the rasta below. Hot soup is a watery bean soup and can be vegetarian or boiled with bones. It usually costs around 500 dollars (3 euro).

Rasta selling hot soup in Boscobel for 500 dollars.

I spent a couple of late afternoons in Boscobel sitting outside a little bar, sipping Red Stripe beer, listening to 1990s dancehall music playing from big speakers next to the bar and watching the people and traffic. I’d rather spent my days like this instead of visiting another waterfall.

Grilled breadfruit ready to use.

I asked several Jamaicans what people do for a hobby. Everyone had the same answer: partying. I have never visited a country featuring so many small bars, practically everywhere you’ll find tiny bars along the roads. Often you will see the following sign: “It’s my intention to apply for a spirit license at the next licensing session to be held in [insert name parish] for this premises”. This also seems to apply to taxi drivers. One time I was waiting for a taxi when a car with white numbers plates pulled up. I asked him why he didn't have the mandatory red taxi number plates. He said he intended to apply for a taxi licence. He also intended to have the passenger seat belt repaired.

One afternoon I decided to visit Ocho Rios, which has a cruise ship terminal. I got off the taxi when we crossed White River. This is the song title of one of Michael’s songs and I wanted to see the river. I had to walk to the town center of Ocho Rios after visiting White River. It was a hot day and after half an hour the heat got to me. I had to sit down to drink some coconut water, this is my favourite drink when it’s hot. During the summer of 2023 I had the chorus of Buju Banton’s song in my mind: “Sip, sip, sip, sip..”

“Sip, sip, sip, sip
Coconut water, good fi di heart”
— Buju Banton, Digital Release date: 06/09/2023

Reggae dancehall star Shabba Ranks was born not far from Ocho Rios in Sturge Town, Saint Ann. It is hard to overstate the popularity of Shabba in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Saint Mary was home for quite a few reggae artists: Capleton, Ninja Man, Sizzla, Lady Saw, just to name a few.

James Bond Beach

Once upon a time James Bond beach was just a stretch of beach owned by Ian Fleming after he bought 15 acres of land in 1946 and named the estate Goldeneye. Jamaican heiress Blanche Blackwell lived next door and she and Ian Fleming became very close friends. In 1961 Fleming offered Blanche Blackwell’s son Chris the job of location scout for the first James Bond movie Dr. No.

The beach in 1962.

Chris Blackwell didn’t stay in the movie business but co-founded Island Records and was instrumental in making Bob Marley an international star outside Jamaica. In 1976 Chris Blackwell bought Fleming's Goldeneye estate including the beach.

I heard rumours that the beach was closed but I was stubborn enough to see for myself. There was a big gate, I opened the doors and sneaked in. The place was deserted apart from a couple of men. I started chatting with one of the men. He worked as a security guard and I kept him talking for more than an hour. He had stories to tell. He knew Bounty Killer, birth name Rodney Basil Price, from his early days. Among his brothers Bounty was the timid one when growing up. And he was thrifty. He made himself a piggy bank out of a metal box. Other stories concerned extreme police corruption and the shooting of Spragga Benz’ son in 2008.

James Bond beach in 2023

I learned that James Bond Beach was closed due to COVID. Basically it never re-opened after the dangerous phase of the pandemic was over. But because the beach was closed I could enter the beach for free. Normally you had to pay a fee to enter. The downside was that the Moonraker Bar was also closed.

The Moonraker Bar.

Ambition

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I felt the familiar feeling of being pushed forward by an invisible hand when the airplane braked hard. I had just landed at Norman Manley International Airport in Kingston, Jamaica. It was dark at 9:51 pm.

My booking on Booking.com turned out to be a homestay. The house was located in a fairly quiet part of Kingston. There was a comical confusion at immigration when the officer asked me the name of my hotel. “15 min from the airport in Kingston Jamaica”. Yes, but the name of the hotel? Me: “I think it is called ‘15 min from the airport in Kingston Jamaica’”. The immigration officer, a bit weary, asked me to call the hotel for the name. Yes, just a moment. “15 min from the airport in Kingston Jamaica”. That was the official name of my hotel.

Shane, my taxi driver who picked me up from the airport, was also the partner of Tamara, the host. The next day Shane drove me around Kingston. Tamara founded the company Sehai All Natural, food Manufacturer of natural seasoning and natural juice in Kingston. She couldn’t afford to produce a new batch of seasoning because food prices at the market were too high at the moment.

I only stayed two nights in Kingston thinking I would return to the city when I had to catch my flight back. But I travelled directly from Portland via Morant Bay back to the airport. So, my experience of Kingston was rather brief.

The porch of my homestay ‘15 min from the airport in Kingston Jamaica’.

Tamara and her products. She made me breakfast twice and by the taste of her cooking I’m convinced her seasoning will taste wonderful. I hope she can grow her business.

The first morning I had to find an ATM. ‘Just don’t walk with your telephone in your hand’, my host warned me. How dangerous is this place, I wondered? I knew about neighbourhoods which shouldn’t be visited unaccompanied like Tivoli Gardens and Seaview Gardens. Later I learned that some neighbourhoods can be even more dangerous for Jamaicans. When I asked a young man if I could just walk into any neighbourhood in Kingston he said: “You might get away with it, but I can’t visit those neighbourhoods”.

Not a coffee but a coffee cup filled with sweet bean porridge.

Sweet porridge stall for breakfast.

Ninja Man, aka Don Gorgon, performing in the early 1990s. This is the dancehall music I fell in love with. Ninja was the baddest DJ of the time. The man jumping on stage seems planned as part of the show. "No don't ever do that security, leave him alone, put him back!! Poor people put me Yah, so if poor people wan skank with me skank and galang.”

Beverly Hills

One Kingston neighbourhood I knew from the lyrics of Ninja Man is Beverly Hills from the song Ambition (album Kill Them And Done, 1991). I was curious to check Beverly Hills out for myself. It is one of the richest neighbourhoods of Kingston, situated high on a hill. Jamaica's Prime Minister Andrew Holness owns a house in Beverly Hills.

View from Beverly Hills to Kingston.

Kingston at the waterfront. In the distance the spit of land on which Norman Manley International Airport is built. The water in between used to be part of pre-1692 Port Royal, once called the “wickedest city on earth”. The city sank into the water due to the proces of liquefaction during the earthquake. One third of Port Royal survived the earthquake only to be destroyed by fire 10 years after the earthquake. Kingston was founded by the survivors of the 1692 earthquake that submerged Port Royal.

Port Royal was the home port of many English and Dutch privateers who were commissioned to attack Spanish vessels. The most notably name was Henry Morgan who was operating from Port Royal. It was during the Anglo-Spanish War (1654–1660) that the Commonwealth of England launched the Western Design against Spain's colonies. The idea was that Jamaica would never be secure until Spain acknowledged England's possession of Jamaica in a treaty. The wealth of the privateers and buccaneers was spent in Port Royal.

Port Royal earthquake 1692 by Jan Luyken and Pieter van der Aa

Jamaicans don’t seem to have the habit to sit down in a restaurant. This small vegetarian restaurant had only a couple of chairs inside, which remained empty. Food is often served in a plastic lunch box and most people will just take the box to their cars and eat on the go.

Veggie Campus on Skibo Ave, Kingston.

Kingston’s modern city plan reflects its original 18th century utilitarian origin. Professor Colin Clarke studied Kingston’s urban development and social change. Both streets and plots were designed to meet commercial requirements. The main thoroughfares, wider than the rest at 66ft, formed free-flowing transport routes between the port and plantations in the hinterland. Further reading: Kingston, Jamaica: Urban Development and Social Change, 1692-1962 (University of California Press, 1975).

Junction King street and Harbour street in 2023. It is easy to imagine how the processed sugar was transported from the sugar mills to the port.

The junction marked in red on a Kingston map of circa 1740.

Marked in red are the places I ended up visiting in Jamaica. After the second night in Kingston I took a minibus to Portland. I didn't realise my next hotel was situated in a different parish so when the minibus turned right instead of left when we reached the coast, I had to get off. Since I was sitting in the back and the bus was packed like a can of sardines, there was no way I could reach the door. I had to climb out of the window of the bus, Indiana Jones-style. Next post: Boscobel and James Bond beach.

Jamaica

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My journey to Jamaica began in 1990 when I took a girl home for the first time and I was embarrassed to play her my heavy metal music cassettes. Luckily a roommate had a couple of Bob Marley cassettes lying around, so I played those albums for the entire weekend: ‘Catch a Fire’ (1973) and ‘Kaya’ (1978). The girl, Huwaida Jibril, was visiting from Somalia and when she disappeared into the bloody civil war of Somalia, which intensified in 1990, I started listening to the lyrics of Bob Marley. I never saw her again and those songs were all I had. I also discovered war had not ended with World War 2.

In the same year I started paying attention to the music my neighbours were blasting from their balconies. Within months I taped albums of Shabba, Buju, Ninja and discovered a whole new world. That of dancehall, by the late 1980s basically a form of digitalised reggae music with heavy bass and wild dance floor antics. Since the early 1990s I knew I had to visit Jamaica one day. In this post I am collecting ideas for my upcoming journey.

Spanish conquest and slavery

As many Jamaicans are living outside Jamaica in diaspora, as on the island: almost 3 million, more than 92% of them are descendants of West-African slaves. On his second voyage in 1494 Christopher Columbus briefly visited the island south of Cuba only to shipwreck on the island on his fourth journey. The Spanish settled on the island in 1509 and managed to wipe out the Arawak, or Taíno, population within fifty years. The Spaniards replaced the Arawak Indians with African slaves. Some of them escaped and settled in the wild interior country of Jamaica together with last remaining Arawak.

The Spanish never managed to develop their settlement and when the English landed on the island in 1655 the Spaniards soon surrendered. This can only be understood in context of the Anglo-Spanish War (1654–1660). A few decades later the English had named the island Jamaica, planted sugar cane to satisfy the new sugar rush back in England, and imported African slaves to work on the plantations. 400 years after the start of the slave trade Jamaica gained independence from the British on 6 August 1962.

But after a short economic boom due to foreign investments in the 1960s, the economy stalled. In the 1970s the country faced braindrain when many qualified people left the island. According to Jamaican government statistics between 2012 and 2017 the household poverty incidence was between 13,7 and 21,6 percent in rural areas. Before the recent pandemic tourism contributed to a third of GDP.

“Look down on my shoes, can you see my toes?
The struggle that we live, nobody really knows
Stop and ask yourself, would you live like that?
And if you had to then, you wouldn’t buss gun shot?”
— Bounty Killer, Look, Bug Rhythm (1999)

James Bond and early tourism

Dr No is mostly remembered for its scene on the beach with Ursula Andress. The beach is located in Oracabessa on the north coast and has changed quite a bit because of tourism. The movie scenes from Dr No were partly responsible for the tourism boom.

Sadly, many beaches are not accessible by the locals. The law that regulates Jamaican rights to access the beach and use the sea is a colonial era law called the Beach Control Act of 1956. In 2020 the Jamaican government stated that “In Jamaican common law […] there is therefore no general right of bathing, or to walk along the foreshore, except where acquired by custom or prescription, nor is there any general right to fish except as provided in Section 3(3) of the Beach Control Act, 1956.”

To protest this colonial law a people’s movement called JAMAICA BEACH BIRTHRIGHT ENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENT is advocating for an amendment of the Jamaican constitution.       

The James Bond movie Dr. No was filmed just six months before independence.

Mountain hiking

Jamaica is also famous for the Blue Mountains national park. One starting point for hiking could be Newcastle JDF Camp, about 28 kilometers from Kingston downtown. Along the road are many guesthouses.

 

You can map Jamaican artists on the map. Barrington Levy spent his early days in the parish Clarendon and went back to the village James Hill in later years.

 

Seaview Gardens is a somewhat notorious neighbourhood home of Bounty Killer, Shabba Ranks & Elephant Man. I am not sure how safe it is to walk into alone.

 

Food

This part of this post will be long. From YouTube: Yvonne & Whitneys Kitchen. Address: Station Lane, Old Harbour Bay, St. Catherine, Jamaica. This small restaurant is run by Whitney (daughter) and Yvonne (mother) and by the look of it, the food seems amazing: curried goat, steamed fish and bammy and more.

From Kingston it takes well over half an hour to get there (40 km).

 

Appeltje voor de dorst

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Often I have wondered how our food table would look like without globalisation and the transport of produce over long distances. A day at Het Keunenhuis, de culinaire proeftuin van Nel Schellekens, gave me an idea. Nel Schellekens sources very local ingredients for her recipes. On the 24th of September she organised an open door day, inviting local food producers and cooks, like the Wenterse kokvrouwleu, local dialect for ‘female cooks from Winterswijk’. The word ‘cook’ is not gender neutral in the local dialect.

The back of the farm is traditionally the place where the action is. For practical purposes the back of the farm was often facing the road. Well into the 1980s farmers would live with the cows under one roof. Het Keunenhuis was built in 1908.

Below is great idea for a campfire. Roast a celeriac, slice it in slices and fry until soft. You need to bring a blood sausage, preferably a version with buckwheat mixed into the blood. Top with apple sauce or sliced apple, which you can fry on the same hot plate. More on apples later.

Celeriac, blood sausage and apple sauce

Karnemelkse saus

This buttermilk sauce is almost forgotten. The food industry never made a modern version, although supermarket chains advertise the recipe, so people apparently still make this sauce. But I didn’t remember ever tasting it. The sauce is made from a good quality buttermilk, flower, for binding the sauce, and fried bacon (‘spekjes’). Nutmeg or black pepper can be added at the end.

The sauce is served with boiled potatoes and lettuce, or green beans, making a traditional, very simple, but tasty dish. I was surprised how good it tasted. To prevent curdling you apparently have to mix the ingredients cold before heating the sauce.

Wenterse kokvrouwleu.

Potatoes, lettuce and buttermilk sauce

The vegetable garde of The Keunenhuis.

Nasi goreng, wheat version

This has all the elements of an Indonesian nasi goreng, but instead of nasi (rice), wheat was used. Hidden under the egg is a piece of fried pork belly, which makes it definitely not halal, very few places in Indonesia allow pork. It was pretty tasty but without a spicy sambal, I would be very sad if this would be my nasi goreng for the rest of my life. But in green houses you can grow rawit in The Netherlands. Something else lacking was the taste of trassi or something umami.

This local beer was new to me. It had a nice bitter taste. The name is Dat Bu-j! which translates to ‘Dat ben jij’ in Dutch. Their slogan is ‘Bier um op te zoepen!’

The goats belong to De Brömmels, a goat farm in the hamlet Woold. The proprietors make a wild variation of goat cheese and even sell goat meat. I guess I’m covered for satay kambing and many African and Caribbean stews in case globalisation grinds to a halt.

I did buy a goat this summer for an Indonesian village, east of Soerabaja. Not for a happy occasion. It is custom to invite family and neighbours exactly one week after burial for plenty of food and prayer. The goat ended up as a thousand skewers of satay kambing and the bones were used to cook a soup.

Flower and hop infusion

I’m not a big fan of cakes because I don’t like sugar, but this one looked so pretty with its edible Oost-Indische kers flowers. Tea was served made from dried flowers or hop. I tried the hop infusion and it had the typical bitter hop taste. When the supply of Japanese sencha dries up, we’ll have to make do with hop tea or delicate flower tea.

The name of the open door day was ‘appeltje voor de dorst’, or ‘nest egg’ in English, which is not the literal translation. That would be ‘an apple in case of thrist’. Going back more than a century, the list of apple cultivars becomes huge. A small group of apple growers are preserving the ancient cultivars.

Black shed near The Keunenhuis. Every farm has plenty of space for a vegetable garden and traditionally all farmers would eat home grown vegetables and some still do.

Pork chop with sweet and sour peppers

In the spirit of cooking locally I bough a thick pork chop from Slagerij Wassink in Winterswijk. I used sage and thyme from the garden.

Next to the pork chop I made sweet and sour peppers. I sautéed red bell pepper and red onion on high heat, sprinkled some sugar on it, kept on sautéing on a high heat and added quite bit of red wine vinegar for the last three minutes or so. Drizzle with olive oil.

The pork chop needs a lot of butter for basting and has to rest as long as you fry it, about eight minutes in total. Add smashed garlic cloves.

Moldovan kitchen and Asconi winery

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There are few traditional Moldovan restaurants in Chişinǎu. For local standards they are not cheap either. I treated myself for dinner in Taifas on Strada București 67, Chișinău. I let the waiter advise me how much to order. I have to say the quality was excellent. The bill came to a little over € 30,00.

The white wine I ordered was a Fautor made from the Feteasca Regala grape, which translates to ‘young royal girl’. Not sure why the Mioritic cheese platter was named after the Romanian Mioritic Shepherd Dog. Possibly because the dog herds sheep and the cheese is made of sheep’s milk.

I ordered the ‘crap ca la Chişinǎu’, which translates to ‘carp prepared the way of Chişinǎu’. The carp is hidden under quite a lot of perfectly steamed, and slightly grilled, vegetables.

Asconi winery

I forgot to book a hotel for the final night (never book your hotels without looking at your return ticket), so I decided to spend the last night at the Asconi winery, just 20 minutes south of the airport. The winery is located in Puhoi, a small village. Population: 5,518 according to the 2014 census. The winery was run by very young staff. Service wasn’t great, there was no option to visit the winery itself or to learn where the grapes were grown. I slept in a blue house, overpriced. But it looked nice and the sun was shining, so I didn’t complain.

It was the first of May and the place was busy with Moldovan guests for the day. For lunch I had two glasses of red wine made from the Rară Neagră grape, which literally means ‘rare black one’. I ordered the seasons vegetables with fresh cheese and pork fat with garlic. The fat was thinly sliced. I once slept at a Romanian farm and they gave me a big chunk of white pork fat for breakfast and a glass of warm milk with milk skin.

Pork fat with garlic.

Puhoi has hardly any centre to speak of. The ‘park’ looked run down and the logo on the local shop was washed out. For some reason the two glasses of red wine during lunch almost knocked me out cold, so I was forced to take a nap in my blue house.

For the 1 May festivities I ordered grilled pork skewers for dinner and stayed away from red wine, so it had to be a white wine instead. People around me were well dressed for the occasion.

The last morning of my geopolitical trip I woke up to the smell of wood burning. Many Puhoi houses are heated by wood stoves and the smoke filled the valley. I took a morning walk in search of the vineyards. There were a few but the vines were pruned back and it was very early in the growing season. Around nine in the morning I positioned myself next to the road and waited for a bus. After an hour I had succes and a minibus actually stopped.

After being dropped off by the minibus I walked the sunny Strada Aeroport in Chişinău to the airport. The Soviet built Moldova Tupolev Tu-134 on display near the entrance was a fitting last image of my journey.

Gagauzia

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Between 1990 and 1994 Gagauzia was an independent republic. The capital Comrat isn’t much bigger than 20.000 inhabitants. The city is home to the Gagauz people. The historical origin of the Gagauz people is not clear. They may be descendants of Turkic nomadic tribes, they could be Turkified Bulgarians or they are of Greek origin keeping their Greek Orthodox religion but linguistically assimilated. What is clear is that the Russian Empire allocated land to the Gagauz in a region of Bessarabia, which lies now within Moldavian borders.

Even today, in Gagauzia Russian is predominantly spoken. Schools are Russian language schools. Everything is in Russian. Gagauz is only spoken by a few Gagauz. The ties with Russia are strong. Many people only consume Russian news sources.

Arriving in Comrat feels like arriving in a dusty Western town. It’s worlds apart from the capital Chișinău. As the capital of the Autonomous Territorial Unit of Gagauzia the town has a lively market and many shops selling agricultural and building machines. It is an excellent place to buy a concrete mixer or a wheelbarrow, if you need one.

Comrat bus station.

Gagauz Republic 1990–1994. Map of the territory claimed by the Gagauz Republic. It did not control all of these lands.

When I arrived in Comrat it was just a few weeks before elections for governor of Gagauzia on 30 April 2023. The pro-Russian candidate for the Șor Party, Evghenia Gutul, won the second round of voting on 14 May. The Șor Party is led by the fugitive oligarch Ilan Shor. He was convicted of stealing $1 billion from the banking system between 2012 and 2014. The Russian President Vladimir Putin promised free gasoline, so it is not surprising a pro-Russian candidate is now governor of Gagauzia.

Below an election billboard of bearded Grigorii Uzun supported by the Socialist Party. He was leading the polls but he lost in the second round with 47.66% of the vote against Gutul who received 52.34%.

Comrat is so small I had trouble finding a restaurant for lunch. There was practically nothing open, apart from a kebab stall on the street and many places just serving coffee and plăcintă-like pastry. In the end I googled a tiny place off the main street. I found some identity papers just in front of the restaurant so I handed them to the girl behind the counter. When I was eating my chicken soup, a man walked in and before I could react, he slapped a 50 lei banknote (€ 2,60) on my table and walked out.

I was puzzled and I asked the girl why the unknown man gave me a 50 lei note. She said it was a reward for handing over his identity card. Apparently she had called the man. I tried to give the 50 lei to the girl with the request to give it to somebody who needs it, but she refused. In the end I used Google Translate to tell her I would donate it myself to somebody on the street.

After lunch I coulnd’t figure out what to do in Comrat. After just a few hours I had walked every street. 93% of Gagauz adhere to Eastern Orthodox Christianity. The bright yellow Saint John the Baptist Cathedral in Comrat lies next to a pleasant park. The cathedral was either built in 1820 or 1840. During Soviet times it was closed and ceased to function as a church until it was reopened after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The cathedral is probably the only tourist attractions in Comrat, unless you want to purchase a concrete mixer.

Pridnestrovie - Tiraspol

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The day after my first visit to Pridnestrovie, I took a bus back to Tiraspol, the de facto capital of Transnistria. I wanted to spend more time in the country to soak up the atmosphere, this time by myself in a slow pace. To get an idea of the size of the city, as of 2015 Tiraspol had a population of 133,807.

The bus dropped me off at the Green Market in Tiraspol, painted in a strange green hue. It is a modern food shopping center combined with a farmer’s market. All I could buy was a small (recycled) jar of pickled chili peppers, to bring home to Amsterdam. I wish I could have stuffed my luggage full of fresh cheeses.

Don’t just buy tomatoes, buy tomato plants. The economy is not great in Transnistria. Many people grow vegetables at home to make ends meet. But its economy witnessed a seismic shift because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. On February 28, 2022 Ukraine closed its border checkpoints on the Transnistrian part of the Moldovan-Ukrainian border.

As of late 2022 Transnistria exported 76 percent of its goods to Moldovan and EU markets. The Russian-Ukrainian conflict has driven Transnistria further away from Russkiy mir. There now is full integration of Transnistrian trade into the legal framework of Moldova. This also means goods produced in Transnistria can be labelled ‘Made in Moldova’.

Inside the market are countless fresh cheeses.

I tried to find similar cheeses in Amsterdam but so far, I didn’t. These fresh cheeses are great.

City marketing: Тирасполь Только лучшее … Tiraspol Only the best…

Diplomatic ties

Below the representative offices of the Republic of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The Republic of Artsakh also recognises Pridnestrovie, but has no representative office.

Transnistria parliament building in Tiraspol. The statue depicts Vladimir Lenin.

Shrinking Pridnestrovie

The population of Transnistria has shrunk from 706,300 in 1990 to about 475,665 in 2015 when the last census was held. In 2015 27,7% of the population was above working age, almost one third of the population are pensioners. In 2012 there were 0.75 workers per one pensioner. The pensions are supplemented by Russia. There is plenty of Soviet nostalgia in Tiraspol.

Most cars in Transnistria are modern cars. But this "Moskvich" Москвич / АЗЛК 2138 from 1976 (?) looks very well preserved.

War memorials

In the center of Tiraspol there is a rather large war memorial commemorating several wars. Not easy to overlook is the World War 2 era T-34-85 Soviet tank with the text За Родину! For the Motherland!

За Родину! For the Motherland!

In 1979 the Soviet Union was slowly sucked into a war in Afghanistan to support the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA) against the Mujahideen. Roughly 15.000 Soviet soldiers died during the 10 year conflict. Compare that to the casualties in the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The latest estimate is roughly 200.000 casualties in one year’s time! And that is just Russian soldiers.

The memorial also commemorates the Transnistria War of 1990 to 1992.

Catherine Park

The survival of Transnistria has depended on subsidies from the Kremlin. According to estimates about 70 percent of the state budget was provided by Russia. But by 2015 aid from Russia was diminishing. Even so, in 2018 a brand new Catherine Park was openend in Tiraspol. Catherine the Great famously annexed the Crimean Khanate in 1783. The Russian Federation annexed Crimea in March 2014.

The symbolism of opening a Catherine the Great Park is obvious. In the 1926 census only 13.7% of the region was ethnically Russian. According to the 1989 census 25.5% of the population of Transnistria was Russian, 28.3% Ukrainian and 39.9% Romanian. In 2015 the percentage of ethnic Russians was 33.8%.

Catherine Park, Tiraspol.

Transnistrian ruble

Below is the 2006 building of the Transnistrian Republican Bank. The central bank issues the Transnistrian ruble (PRB). This currency has no ISO 4217 code and cannot participate in any card processing network. The currency however is fully convertible and via a 1997-Memorandum is recognised internationally as a national central bank.

Between the Sheriff FC football station and Tiraspol’s centre, a Russian Army base is situated, right on the main road. When I walked past the base, workers were repainting the unofficial, only used for marketing purposes, logo of the Russian Army on the walls of the base in fresh paint. I am not sure this was done in preparation for the 9th of May Victory Day.

One of the stranger souvenirs I bought in Tiraspol is a Putin refrigerator magnet with the following quote made by Putin: “Why do we need a world, if Russia is not in it?”.

“Зачем нам такой мир, если там не будет России?”
— Vladimir Putin in the film World Order 2018 by Vladimir Solovyov

Monument to Aviators: MiG-19 fighter. Postcard sent from Tiraspol to The Netherlands.

Sheriff (Шериф) rules the town

The local oligarch is the Moldovan–Russian businessman and former KGB officer Viktor Gushan. His holding company is called Sheriff and, according to Wikipedia, owns a chain of petrol stations, a chain of supermarkets, a TV channel, a publishing house, a construction company, a Mercedes-Benz dealer, an advertising agency, a spirits factory, two bread factories, a mobile phone network, the football club FC Sheriff Tiraspol and Sheriff Stadium, a project which also included a five-star hotel.

I am not a football fan, so I missed the news. But in 2021 FC Sheriff Tiraspol won against Real Madrid in the Champions League, which apparently stunned the football world and had everyone scramble for a map to look up Tiraspol.

Transnistria’s origin is the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Empires tend to fall slow. Its first president Igor Smirnov (1991 - 2011) was in favour of a Russian annexation of Transnistria, but failed to do so during his presidency. After the annexation of Crimea new plans were made to facilitate a future annexation of Transnistria by Russia. This could have triggered an armed conflict with Moldova, like the War in Donbas (2014–2022).

The current president of Transnistria (since 2016) is Vadim Krasnoselsky who has expressed his pro-Russian sentiments on many occasions. He was supported by the Sheriff conglomerate and received 62% of the vote. Because Transnistria is so dependant on Russian money, any leader has to be pro-Russian or risk cuts in pensions and salaries of state-employees. In 2019 Krasnoselsky attended a ceremony when Russian minister of defence Sergei Shoigu visited the Operational Group of Russian Forces in Transnistria.

But with the Russian invasion of Ukraine the future of Transnistria might be geared towards the EU. After Putin’s defeat in Ukraine I would not be surprised if, in time, Transnistria became an autonomous territorial unit in Moldova like Gagauzia.

Photo Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation. Attribution: Mil.ru.

Pridnestrovie - Bender

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This country is better know in the English speaking world under its Romanian name “Transnistria”. Modern history of Pridnestrovie – its Russian name – began in 1989 when the Supreme Soviet of the Moldavian SSR adopted Moldovan as the official language. Under leadership of Mikhail Gorbachev, different national groups within the Soviet Union demanded more autonomy. Ethnic Russians and Ukrainians feared that Moldova would reunite with Romania and on 2 September 1990, the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic (PMSSR) was proclaimed as a Soviet republic.

Two months later Moldovan forces entered and in the ensuing fights, the first three locals were killed. By 1992 the Soviet Union has ceased to exist and the Russian 14th Guard Army moved in, which led to the bloodiest battle of the conflict in Bender. Even the ultra-nationalist Ukrainian National Assembly – Ukrainian People's Self-Defence fought alongside Russia against Moldova. The following quote is attributed to the Russian Lieutenant General Lebed of the 14th Army: "I told the hooligans [separatists] in Tiraspol and the fascists in Chișinău – either you stop killing each other, or else I'll shoot the whole lot of you with my tanks"

The Moldovan army was not in a position to defeat the PMR and the 14th Army. On 21 July 1992 a ceasefire agreement was signed, which lasts to this day.

Monument to commemorate the war of 1990-1992, BMP-2 infantry vehicle of the PMR.

Bellow a rare photo of the Battle of Tighina (1992). Many images of the war are video stills. It is estimated that one thousand people were killed in the conflict. Wikipedia: Transnistria War.

Attribution: Mid.gospmr.org

Moldovan BTR-80 destroyed.

Transnistria is only recognised by Abkhazia, Artsakh and South Ossetia. The Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs therefor deems the country too dangerous to visit. Not even Russia recognises Transnistria as an independent country, although Russia has an army base in Transnistria and Russian ‘peacekeeping’ forces are operational. In practice Transnistria is perfectly safe to visit.

My first visit was on a booked tour with Татьяна (Tatania) as my English speaking guide, even though her German was even better. Her father was our designated driver. There was another person on the tour, associate Professor Thomas Mohr of University College Dublin. Bender (or Bendery) is located on the western bank of the Dniester River and this is the first town after the border. Bender is also located in the buffer zone between Moldova and Pridnestrovie.

“The color code of the travel advice for the Transnistria region is red. This means that it is too dangerous to travel there. Whatever your situation, don’t go there.”
— The Netherlands, Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Bendery Fortress

One of the tourist attractions is Bendery Fortress, also known by its Romanian name Tighina Fortress. The earliest version of the fortress was built during the reign of Prince Stephen the Great on an even more ancient site. In 1538 it was conquered by the Ottomans under command of Turkish sultan Süleyman. After the Russo-Turkish wars, the fortress fell under the Russian Empire, but also lost its strategic importance. Between 2008 and 2012 the fortress was restored, but with little regard for historical accuracy.

Charles XII of Sweden spent time at the fortress after the Battle of Poltava (1709), which he lost. The Swedish defeat at Poltava marked the beginning of Russian military rule in the Hetman state (modern central Ukraine) and the founding of the Russian Empire. Charles XII, together with 1500 of his men, lived among the Ottomans for five years until he overstayed his welcome. He was captured during the Kalabaliken I Bender (Skirmish at Bender) and later released.

Below is a monument for Baron Munchausen and his cannonball. The historic Baron Munchhausen participated in the Imperial Russian army under the command of Burkhard Christoph von Münnich during the Russian-Turkish war of 1736-1739. Münnich tried to capture Bender fortress, but failed to do so. At least Baron Munchausen’s buste made it to Bender.

Russian ‘peacekeeper’ in a small military museum at Bendery Fortress.

The top billboard is an actual photo of Nicholas II of Russia and his family taken in Livadia Palace, Crimea in 1913. The text is difficult to translate because it is written in old literary Russian but can be translated as “Tsar, forgive your children, who lost the [correct] way.”

The lower billboard says: Защитникам Отечества всех времён… Defenders of the Fatherland of all times...

View of Bender fortress from the road.

Russian presence

It is actually the Unified Control Commission, which manages the buffer zone between Moldova and Transnistria and consists of Moldovan, Russian and Transnistrian soldiers, each about 500. Russia has an official mandate to keep 500 peacekeepers in this territory. But, according to International law, Russia also keeps 1500 soldiers illegally in Transnistria divided into “peacekeepers” and the Operative Group of the Russian Troops, OGRT. Between February and April 2023 these troops undertook military manoeuvres without coordination with the Unified Control Commission, heightening tensions in a time of war.

Farmer’s market in Bender.

Home grown produce is sold at the market.

Just like Moldova, Transnistria is landlocked. But fresh water fish is sold at every market.

Inside Столовка СССР in Bender, a Soviet nostalgia canteen.

Bender has about 91.000 inhabitants and feels like a small city. Trolley buses are the main form of transport. There is even a trolley bus line all the way to Tiraspol, well over 15 kilometers. Google Maps shows Tighina as the name for Bender, which is the Romanian name.

We were invited by Tatiana to have lunch at her parents’ house. The house was in Parcani, also known as the ‘Bulgarian village’, which is located between Bender and Tiraspol. The village has a population of whom 95% are ethnic Bulgarians. Another piece of the geopolitical puzzle. These are Bessarabian Bulgarians who settled in this region after moving from Ottoman territory to the Russian Empire because they supported the Russian Army during the Russo-Turkish wars.

We took a trolley bus to Parcani. Her mother had prepared an amazingly fresh lunch in the comfortable house. Her father Dumitru operated the wine dispenser, filled with home made wine. I much prefer the Moldovan home made wine. The alcohol percentage must have been quite low because I lost count after five glasses and I didn't get completely hammered. But the mood became very jolly.

Front door of the family home in the Bulgarian village.

The ubiquitous Plăcintă, apparently a Latin word which means ‘flat cake’, filled with cheese and herbs.

Potato-meat stew.

Moldovan “Zeamă” chicken soup. This version was better that the other versions I had in local restaurants.

Fresh spring onions from the garden.

I was pitted against Thomas of Dublin in a contest to win a jar of homemade marmalade for showcasing our drumming skills on tambourine. I think it is safe to say we were both equally ill-equipped when it came to keeping rhythm. As a consolation we both won a jar of home made marmalade. I barely managed to smuggle the marmalade through customs at Vienna Airport. It took two custom officers to decide that the marmalade was safe to import into the EU.

Dumitru, Tatiana’s father loved to sing and play the accordion, Sergey popped up out of nowhere, he apparently was a seasoned musician. We didn’t find a common language, but his artistic energy surpassed language. Despite the tambourine humiliation, I enjoyed the hours in the “Bulgarian village”. The food and wine was great and it became clear that Moldovan food is best tasted home made.

Chișinău

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A springtime journey across the geopolitical fault lines of Europe. After the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic (1940–1991) ceased to exist, the republic fell apart in the Republic of Moldova, Pridnestrovian Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic (1990 - present) and the Gagauz Republic (1990-1994).

I landed at Aeroportul Internațional Chișinău on 26 April. I simply choose this destination to make the list of countries I have visited more complete. Besides, I visited Romania in the early 1990s several times and I always wanted to visit the region again. The city bus tickets were still being sold by, sometimes very frail, women pensioners, at 6 lei per ticket (30 eurocents). Chișinău as a city is a pleasant surprise.

Between 1918–1940 Chișinău was the second largest city in the Kingdom of Romania. The city underwent vast renovation during that time. Even so, some of the current architecture still resembles that of a small village. Few cities I have visited have such an eclectic architecture, not to be confused with eclecticism. Within minutes you’ll walk by buildings from the belle époque, tiny crumbling village houses, 1980s Soviet buildings and buildings so new, the paint is still wet.

Strada Cojocarilor 21, Chișinău.

Strada Alexandru Hajdeu, Chișinău.

Strada Maria Cebotari, Chișinău,

The building below was built between 1901 and 1903, so during the time Chișinău was the capital of oblast Bessarabia of the Russian Empire. 1903 was also the year of the Kishinev pogrom.

Strada Armenească 96 A,B, Chișinău

Strada Vasile Alecsandri, across my hotel. Some old photos depict synagogues, possibly destroyed during the pogroms of 1903 and 1905.

‘Russian Plan’ to Regain Control of Moldova

In the months before my journey it became clear that Russia had drawn up plans to destabilise Moldova. In a document that appears to have been written in 2021 by the FSB’s Directorate for Cross-Border Cooperation, a 10-year strategy is documented to bring Moldova back under the influence of Russia and away from the EU. Russia claims the document is a fake.

Even worse, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy revealed that Russia was planning a coup d'etat. The plot involves forcing a change of power in Chișinău “through violent actions disguised as protests of the so-called opposition,” using Russian, Belarusian, Serbian and Montenegrin citizens, according to Moldova’s president Maia Sandu on February 13. Consequently a Montenegrin boxing team and Serbian soccer fans were barred from entering Moldova.

February 09, 2023

Moldova is, after Ukraine, the second poorest country in Europe. The city center has its fair share of high fashion streets. Some residents supplement their income by selling home grown or home made products on the street. The average net salary is € 443 per month.

Intersection Strada Vasile Alecsandri and Stefan cel Mare si Sfant Boulevard, Chișinău

Chişinău bus station Gara Centrala: the central bus station was a ten minute walk from my hotel. Practically all buses in Moldova are mini-buses. Even when I didn’t need to catch a bus I still went to Gara Centrala for breakfast: a black coffee and a plăcintă, filled with cartof (potato) or brânză (cheese). I love hanging around busy bus stations.

A bus to Bendery (Бендеры) in Transnistria, with Transnistrian number plates.

Soviet Chișinău

Many housing projects were built in the Soviet era. Some Chișinău Soviet buildings are beautiful brutalist examples of an era gone by, most buildings are quite standard apartment blocks. The spaces between the buildings are green and generally devoid of car traffic. It is difficult for me to asses the exact age of these buildings. During the 1964-1982 Breznjev years, 5% of the building cost was spent on art, usually mosaics depicting idealised Soviet citizens. But most apartment blocks are examples of post-Stalin Soviet functionalism devoid of any ornaments.

House-Museum of A.S. Pushkin

The Russian poet Alexander Pushkin spent a few months in Chișinău, of three years in Bessarabia, after being exiled by Alexander I of Russia when writing some incendiary poems. The small house where Pushkin stayed is now a museum. At the time Bessarabia was province of the Russian Empire. Being used to his life in Saint Petersburg, Pushkin reportedly hated his time in provincial Chișinău. It was Pushkin who first renamed Sankt-Peterburg to Petrograd in one of his poems.

“Самовластительный Злодей!
Тебя, твой трон я ненавижу,
Твою погибель, смерть детей
С жестокой радостию вижу.

You autocratic psychopath,
You and your throne do I despise!
I watch your doom, your children’s death
With hateful, jubilating eyes. ”
— Alexander Pushkin, Ode to Liberty

Molda Restaurant

Ciorbă din costițe de porc. The first evening I had dinner in restaurant Molda, not far from my hotel. This soup with pork ribs was excellent. As a main course I had lepure în sos de frișcă, stewed rabbit in cream sauce. The pickled peppers in Moldova are better than anywhere else.

Lepure în sos de frișcă,

Cricova

Close to Chişinău are countless old 15th century limestone mines. The limestone was used to built the city. After the mines were retired, the caves provided the perfect conditions for wine storage. In Cricova a grid of caves, more than 120 kilometer in length, 60 to 100 meters deep, houses 1.3 million bottles of wine. According to a 2020 Forbes article the wine cellar kept Vladimir Putin’s wine, who celebrated his 50th birthday in Cricova. I was intrigued. Cricova is a popular day trip from Chişinău. A city bus reaches the village.

Of course in 2023 the photo of Putin was removed from the world map of world leaders who have visited Cricova. I was told that every world leader who visits the cellar receives space to keep 500 bottles of wine. Volodymyr Zelensky has visited the wine cellar. His photo is among dozens of other leaders.

I arrived unannounced so I had to take the tour in the Romanian language. You cannot visit the caves unsupervised. The guide did translate some in English on my behalf. In the caves a number of dining rooms are furnished for important guests and for wine tasting. Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin visited the The European Hall. Other dining and tasting halls are the Presidential dining hall, Sea Bottom tasting hall and the Fireplace Room.

The European Hall

A small part of the million plus wine bottles.

I found an image online of Putin’s former wine collection at Cricova.

Cricova winery also produces sparkling wine according to classical French method, by secondary fermentation in bottles. The bottles are horizontal position for at least 3 years. The production facility of sparkling wines is also located in the caves. I took a few photo’s before I was told that I shouldn’t photograph the production. There is also a factory located a few kilometers from the caves and I assume most of the production is done in the factory.

Of course I had to order a glass of red Cricova – nomen est omen – wine made from the rară neagră grape, 150 ml for 36 lei (1,83 euro). This grape is also known as băbească neagră. It is a late-ripening variety that gives red wines a light-bodied, fruity character. This is what I prefer in a red wine and this particular wine was very good.

On the banks of the river the limestone is visible.

Unification of Moldova and Romania

Cricova village

For some people the idea of a unified Moldova and Romania is still alive. The text in black says: “Moldavian, therefor Rumanian.” Somebody crossed out “Rumanian” and sprayed the word “Daci”. This refers to the Dacian Kingdom of 88 BC to 106 AD. It was explained to me that the message was simply that Moldova should stay independent. It is an anti-unionist message in red spray paint.

Destination Mekong

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The Mekong Delta contributes more than half of Vietnam’s rice production. The delta is economically important because of aquaculture fish farming. The Mekong Delta was also the place were the first uprising began against the South Vietnamese regime of Ngô Đình Diệm.

“Fish splash the pond - but where have the dragons gone?”
— Trần Dụ Tông, seventh emperor of the Trần dynasty

On my last day in Vietnam I took a one day trip to the city Mỹ Tho and one of the islands in the Mekong river. I wanted to take a local bus by myself, but that proved difficult, so I was booked on a tourist tour. You loose control over your time, but gain the company of some fellow travellers.

The tour was touristy. Before I knew I had a boa constrictor snake around my neck, only moments before I was holding a brood frame with buzzing honey bees for a photo opp. I felt a bit embarrassed because those are not the photos I normally take. I prefer not to bother animals.

The tour also comprised of several boat rides, which was fun. The tour guide was trying to learn us Vietnamese but with the language being a tonal language I was pretty sure I completely screwed up any tonal inflection. I did learn about the coconut religion, which is a fascinating story.

The islands in the Mekong river are traversed by narrow canals. The canal below is on Cồn Phụng, which translates as Island Fenghuang. Fenghuang is commonly translated as ‘Phoenix’ in English. It is a mythological bird found in Sinospheric mythology.

It is easy to imagine that the warm and wet climate of the delta is favourable for the production of rice and other produce. But when, after the war in the late 1970s, the hungry country needed rice, the Mekong delta was suffering from acidified soil. With the help of Dutch Wageningen University & Research the soil was restored. But the ecosystem is not safe. Climate change leads to flooding and the salinisation of the soil, which has already led to the reduction of rice cultivation. Rice is being replaced by different crops and the cultivation of shrimp.

Long read: Mekong Delta: Vietnam’s rice bowl transitions into a diverse food basket

One of the travellers on the tour was Santanu Kumar Deo (photo below) and his friend (the one holding the snake below). During lunch he choose the vegetarian option, which let me to mistakenly think he was a vegetarian. Turns out he is a devotee of Hanuman, which means you should (or can) eat vegetarian only on Tuesdays and Saturdays. It was a Tuesday. I was curious whether his family were devotees of Hanuman, but it shows the religious fluidity of India when he told me he choose this path by his own choice.

Coconut religion

Graduated as a chemical engineer Nguyễn Thành Nam (1910-1990) became a mystic and founded the Coconut Religion (Đạo Dừa) in 1963. Ông Đạo Dừa (Coconut Monk), as Thành was also known, or His Coconutship, built a floating pagoda in the ‘Coconut Kingdom’ on Cồn Phụng. According to legend he only consumed coconuts for three years. His religion gained up to four thousand followers, but was banned in 1975 by the communist regime for being a ‘cult’. The floating pagoda still exists. I saw a glimpse of it during the boat tour, but being on a tourist tour there was no time to visit the pagoda.

The floating temple of the Coconut Religion, photographed in 1969.

Tourism in Mỹ Tho resolves around four islands in the Mekong river,

War tourism

Another popular one day tour from Ho Chi Minh City, in the direction of Cambodja, is visiting the Củ Chi tunnels. At Củ Chi about 120 kilometers of tunnels used by the Viet Cong have been preserved. The museum is both a war memorial and a strange tourist attraction, which almost feels like an amusement park. I had expected a more solemn atmosphere, considering the deadliness of the tunnels. For fun you can even buy ammunition and fire an AK-47 Kalashnikov. When visiting the tunnels you can hear constant machine gun fire in the background. I had mixed feelings about the place.

Some of the tunnels were dug as early as the 1940s when the Vietnamese were fighting the French colonial authority. In the 1960s the Viet Cong expanded the tunnels as part of their successful guerrilla fighting tactic. In 1968 the tunnels played an important role in the Tet Offensive, which, although a military victory for the Americans, led the United States to the negotiating table.