10th Dec '08 - Auschwitz

5am -

Yesterday took the bus to Auschwitz and took a guided tour. 330 000 Jews from England were designated to be killed by the Nazis, once they took that land. The list was on display showing where the eleven million Jews they planned to exterminate came from. It was all terrible. 400 000 official prisoners at Auschwitz and Birkenau. 200 000 died there, often recorded as from natural causes. Though many unregistered were also killed. For example, at Birkenau they were sorted straight from the train. Those who were fit to work (approx 25%) and those who went straight to the chambers of death. 1.1 million Jews and a total of 1.6 million people were killed at these camps. There was a wall at which bullets were put in the back of prisoners heads, with pistols... the wall of death. Too much to write about. Hair and teeth removed from the dead. Hair for textiles. Shoes, clothes, suit cases, utensils, piled up ready for export.

The development of it all. First the Polish elite were prisoners at Auschwitz. Remove the identity of the people. It was on 20th Jan 1942 that the "final solution" for the Jews was decided upon. 1940 they planned on shipping them to Madagascar. 1941 to Siberia. Extermination was easier. 1944 seemed to be the most efficient time of the killing, particularly of Hungarian Jews - off the train in Birkenau and sorted like cattle. Going to the gas-chambers not fearful of what awaited them. They were being given new land to live on. First they needed to be disinfected/showered etc. Naked they went into the rooms, where shower nozzles hung and motors ran outside to drown out any noise of those before being killed.

The death was an internal asphyxiation, the gas preventing the passage of oxygen (I think) from the lungs to the blood, or the blood onwards. Twenty-three minutes all in the chamber would be dead. After thirty minutes they opened the doors.

Bikenau, purpose built (Auschwitz was an old Polish army barracks), had sections for women, Jews, Gypsies etc Triangles showed your reason for condemnation. I remember pink was for homosexuals, two triangles forming the star of David for Jews, and another for those of the resistance...

One hundred and forty-four prisoners escaped in total, out of about eight hundred who attempted. Those that made it, by being out of the camp working, or stealing an SS uniform, helped get the news out about what was happening. If prisoners escaped others were punished, not just those who aided the act.

Most prisoners of war could not be taken to places like Auschwitz and Birkenau because their motherlands had signed the Geneva convention. They went to other camps. Colditz, for example. However, the Russians had not signed this convention and I believe three million of their captives were killed (or is that the total number of Russian soldiers that died during this war?). They were the only soldiers at Auschwitz and Birkenau.

Well, I cannot get emotionally involved with it all. Horrible. Shocking. But a part of what humans do... perform a task and shut out the affect on others. It goes on now in different guises. The Americans go to war in Iraq and (whether for "greater good" motives or not) the commanders shut out the killing and pain they have to cause. Oil companies side with Burmese Generals to get a contract, somewhat supporting the regime and its ruthless government. They say if they didn't less scrupulous companies would be in the country. My point is that in life many a blind-eye is turned and that these atrocities were more concentrated examples. I'm not saying oil companies shouldn't be in Burma (not for oil though!)... I'm largely ignorant...

8th Dec '08 - Catholic Kindness

740am - Wandered Krakow and got bored yesterday. But found Empik. Great bookshop with a coffee shop. Bought Haruki Murakami's After Dark, which I enjoyed reading over two large lattes... whiling the time away.

Two young women sat on the same counter, a little down and opposite me. Finally I plucked up the courage to speak a little with them. One had sensuous lips and wanted to engage with me. She spoke good English. They were, perhaps, young nineteen year olds.

Later, I went to Kitsch to look for some night-life. It was dingy, liberal, air of the night type of place. But few people. All these bars and clubs but little activity, other than I'm told at the weekend. Some lesbians fondled each other and danced, between bouts on the sofa. A couple pairs of girls danced, heterosexual looking and classy. A few guys sat or stood.

Walking back to my bed I was met by some Norwegian guys looking for somewhere to go. I took them to Carpe Diem Klub and we danced a little. Krakow has some great and confident young dancing folk. But I ended going back to bed feeling despondent.


330pm - Hitched a ride from a woman called Annetta, who I'd met at breakfast, and a guy called Paul, to the Salt mines. A nice day. Good to be in the company of wholesome people. The old time religion in me does spark a connection with "godly" people. They were devout Catholics.

At the salt mines the English speaking tour guide was incredibly adept in his role. After the tour of two and a half hours and another hour tour of the museum I sat outside and he came out to smoke and we chatted a little. Pleasant and decent chap.

Annetta and Paul dropped me off to get a minibus back to Krakow, as they were going to see a shrine.

"What more happiness can a man have than to be healthy, debt free, and with a clear conscience?" - Adam Smith

7th Dec '08 - Memories and musing

4am - Up again before the crack of dawn. The disco beats have finally stopped and the young drunks ended their shouts. In the corridor one lad is sleeping with his bottle. And I'm listening to snores of my fellow dorm occupants. It smells rough in here - all men!

The fear up on the snow yesterday made me look to "God" and wonder why I want danger. It was a glorious view and exhilarating but I thought, "I want to live". My heart went upwards. And all my foolish pretence of knowledge was insignificant.

Back in town, Damien Rice on my MP3 bringing me in the last few miles, I felt good. The happy tourists to look at. Almost all Polish. Healthy women in their shiny boots - high-heeled power symbols but practical in cold Poland. Some dancers in a shop window, advertising Puma and trying to seduce costumers. I sat in the low afternoon sun before walking up the street and settling on a bar to spend a few hours. Time to drink 19zl worth of Zywiec, yet again the foreigner without the wonderful hospitality of Asia that I've come to expect when I travel.

Many memories come to mind on this lonely holiday... of Aon, Fon, Dad and much more. My sins and failings and longings and happy times. Glorious memories, some.

Read some more of Suzuki's informal talks on Zen while I was drinking in the afternoon. Never quite seems to add-up. Sitting in the correct position is enlightenment, or Buddha mind. Well, I suppose I can kinda grasp it. The focus required means that to do it right brings you in that state - to be one-hundred percent doing something. Wonderful! To be lost in a moment, a task. I like that. Though Buddhism requires faith in it's karmic rebirths and what not. The practice of presence of mind, Buddha mind, if that's the same thing, seems blessed. I love the calm acceptance of it - the joy and resignation.


10am - On the bus, soon to depart for Krakow. The snow falling gently passed my eyes and onto the wet ground. It settles in parts. Branches, roofs, crooks and crannies, car windows. An artist walked with me from the hostel on his way to get coffee. He shook my hand heartily as I walked onto the station. Calm pleasant morning. Looking forward to the city.

6th Dec '08 - Mount Geiwont

330 am -

The sailing instructor came in drunk and talking of Polish people... "So many people around me, they don't understand... only one hundred and fifty bears... ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY!!!... ****ing Polish people... our country is dying... they don't care about rubbish... I'm smelly, I know, but I don't care..." and he rambled on.


5pm -

Got out on the mountains (Geiwont), up to the snow line and beyond, to where it came up to my waist and I was fearful of an avalanche, as the sign had warned me. I didn't give into fear until sense told me too... sloping deep snow and me taking hold of the tops of buried bushes. I'd pushed myself upwards for two and a quarter hours of serious exertion.

Sat in the high snow and drank lemon tea and ate bread rolls, a doughnut, on top of the lion bar on the way up. Well stocked with carbs. At my acme I looked out and smoked. Beautiful, glorious, alpine scenery. I felt good stomping back into town, exhausted but having achieved something.

5th Dec '08 - Life's Canvas

4pm -

Whiled away the day, watching the mountains and the people. Reading Kerouac's Big Sur - the madman he. It's an advert to warn against the dangers of prolonged drinking - days on end.

Then I moved to Zen Mind, Beginners Mind by Suzuki. I liked the idea of the waterfall... the separated droplets will join again with the body of water at the bottom.

Death will be the end of suffering. But while alive use the time. For no purpose other than experience, which will vanish away, memories and all. It's not that anything is gained or not. The insignificance of life... it's a blip, a twitch. We all reach nirvana whether we try or not.

I'll live now. Use the moment, the canvass. The paint dries. The sun sets. The river doesn't think. Lao Tzu my teacher.

A dred-l0ck beard baldy once told me that the enlightened monk leaves the monastery.

In the end back with the mother waters and the twinkling of the stars and the slurping of the deer at the rivers edge. We will be the river, the deer, the slurp.


8pm -

A blue whirlwind had started up spinning in Deeds Grove front room and Jert was nonchalantly doing something... "Look Jert a ****ing whirlwind"... and I woke up to the wind howling outside.

5th Dec '08 - Hiker's Haiku

530am-

Got some kip and write now in darkness, with my blue mini torch, feeling coldified. Me thinks not much walking today. Yesterday the acme was reached of my altitude seeking view lust. Got up Krapowy in the double legged cable-car, along with the throngs (and thongs), up to 1900 metres plus, and walked out across the snow, laughing at the sight of the mountain peaks, snow covered range of the Tatras, looking out to Slovakia, seeking mount Ryssy, the highest in Poland at 2400 metres but not sure for definite which one it was, and getting up on a rock and then down in a wind-shielded groove looking out alone, me and the sun reflecting snow and jet crossed sky. I did some standing and staring and wandering and went into the restaurant for coffee and french fries. Two hours up there and then down to Kuznice. From there I went along the track I'd done my first day here but in the opposite direction. I planned to go further but the aching and fatigue grew until I thought the two hours hard pounding, feet and foot hold picking walk was enough.

I'm now in a hostel. Two guys are in my dorm. One speaks good English and arrived about 9pm last night, a little drunk and talking of wanting to climb Giewont and of his art... he wants to draw the scene of a fish swimming up river, jumping, but exchange them for bottles, refuse etc. He said he's here for the winter.


Haiku by Natsume Soseki

Morning chill
Evening chill
Human warmth

Morning chill
Evening chill
Alone I travel

No sake
No poem
Silence of the moon!

Small amount of sake
Remains in the bottle:
Chill of the night.

Family and world left behind,
No-mindedness myself: nevertheless
This severe blizzard!



1140am-


Cappuccino Massimo

Gosh, it's hard
Easing my way through Cappuccino Massimo
Double Handled
Kerouac's gloom mingling and dancing with mine
Swirls on the eyes from the written word
Outside's cold
I'm lonely
My sick body may not want the booze medecine

4th Dec - Naked Skies

4am -

Slept one-thirty till eight in the evening yesterday, before finding a slow drawn Murphy's stout, in the lonely self-conscious bar, followed by McDonald's (all the while looking on the screen at cocoa Rihanna and her ilk... beauties, temptresses... moulds of art!). On to Prestige Music Bar. Techno. Lost in my tabled partition, with expensive JD and coke and then a pint of Lech. All the while trying to overcome. Angry, self-interested, cold. Hungry for sex and touch and love. Without direction... all the others have been here before. Too many stories. Too many people. You in your own backyard... unknown.

Slept again from midnight till two. So up to read Kerouac and stand naked on the veranda, looking down on the town and up to the clear skies now ("I might be able to get up the mountains later"). Down on my bed to write and hope words formulate and that I grow child-like and tender and that one day I help the beggar or give glory to something, someone. Reasons reasons. And I think I don't need reasons. Only strength of body and mind to climb and sing and get drunk and caress. To sink down one day with thoughts of my beloveds. And our memories.

Memories of bike rides through the jungles back from Burma, talking to Long Necks and surveying smouldering vegetations, the smoke rising with the hot air and Bob my brother waxing lyrical. Hysterical laugher. Explorers. Bikers, in the warm muddy air. Hard as Fuke. Or out on the east stretching Himalayas, with my buddy of a week or so, getting high in the good air. True sages of the moment because everything was concentrated down to walking, breathing, surveying. Onwards. Zen.

4pm-

Got up the old mountain and a walk around. Then a sit in McDonalds perusing Zen Haiku by Soseki. Oh aching legs, feet, back, and brain. Feeling better though.