Trip to Central Asia (5-25 September)

The past few years I only had one dream destination: Uzbekistan. This was mostly inspired by the Registan square in Samarkand, but I was also genuinely interested in Central Asia as a region. The culture is such a special mixture of Middle Eastern, Russian and Asian influences. This year I finally went there. Since I wanted to visit more countries in Central Asia and it's quite complicated to do things on your own with public transportation and arranging everything with the visa, I joined a group trip to Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan.

Turkmenistan

I started off in Turkmenistan. You should know that this is a fairly isolated country with a very strong government. The country is sometimes compared to North Korea and I can understand why. There is a lot of burocracy, unwritten rules you need to follow and for example Facebook and Whatsapp are blocked by the government. On the first day I joined a guided tour in Ashgabat. In the morning we visited the opening of the horse-racing season. When we entered the stadium things were a bit chaotic and suddenly we were told to go outside again and wait. We were taken to another part of the stadium and suddenly we were made guests of honor. This meant that the people who were already sitting on the front row were forced to leave their seats, we got free tea and Turkmen snacks and a tv crew of the national television came to film us. So after making my debut on Serbian national television in 2009 I now made my debut on Turkmen national television too.
In the afternoon we visited the highlights of the city and stumbled on a wedding photo session in the park. I got talking to the brother of the groom for a while and it turned out that he was working for a Dutch company and often visited the Netherlands. He explained a thing or two about traditional Turkmen weddings. It was a nice experience.

Uzbekistan

The next day we flew to the north of Turkmenistan to visit some ruins and drove to Uzbekistan. We visited the fortified old town of Khiva (where the picture of me below was taken) and then moved on to Bukhara. In Bukhara I met up with Akmal: a local who I found on Couchsurfing and whom I asked to meet up. It was nice to talk to a local because I had some questions about Uzbek society and culture. We were joined for dinner by an Argentinean man living in Austria who was on his way from his home town to Tashkent by bicycle. Obviously he had some interesting stories to share as well. I did feel a bit sorry for him, having to cycle hundreds of kilometers through the desert with temperatures of up to 40 degrees Celsius...

After having Bukhara the next stop was Samarkand. These two cities were the main cities I wanted to visit in Central Asia and they didn't disappoint. Unfortunately I wasn't able to make a picture of the Registan square without people, but even with people it looks amazing:

Or maybe "magnificient" is the more appropriate word.

After a day in Samarkand we went to Tashkent where I met my friend Zarina, who could answer my last remaining questions about Uzbekistan. So now I know everything about the official and the unofficial exchange rates, how the country deals with so many different population groups (did you know that not Uzbek or Russian but Tajik is the most spoken language in some Uzbek cities?) and why the national dish plov is supposed to be cooked by men even though the gender roles in Uzbekistan are quite traditional. I learned quite a lot of new things during this trip!

Kyrgyzstan

After visiting the nature park Aksu Zhabagly in Kazakhstan we went to Kyrgyzstan for a week. We started in Bishkek, which is certainly in my top 3 of most unattractive capital cities I visited (together with La Paz and Podgorica). Luckily I could meet up with my Kyrgyz friend Meerim the first time I was there and go on a crazy souvenir hunt the second time I was there, so I wasn't bored.

Another excursion I was looking forward to in Kyrgyzstan was the excursion to another nature park in the mountains - in case you didn't know yet: Kyrgyzstan is a country with very high mountains of up to nearly 7500 meters and the lowest point in Kyrgyzstan (435m above sea level) is still higher than the highest "peak" in the Netherlands - that involved sleeping in a yurt: a traditional tent in which the nomads used to sleep. Some people still live in yurts even today. After a long and slow drive over dirt roads we arrived at our camp. Unfortunately just after we arrived it started raining heavily, so we couldn't really explore the beautiful nature that surrounded us in the manner we would have liked to explore it. It was almost October already, so also the temperature was getting lower. We were told that it could be up to -13 degrees at night. And indeed it was quite cold at night. Luckily we had two thick blankets per person: more than enough to keep the body warm at night.

After a night that was still reasonably comfortable we could head to Karakol: the biggest city around the Issyk-Kul lake. Karakol itself is not the most beautiful town. It's built in typical Soviet style and there is not much to see or do. The area around it is pretty cool though. Lake Issyk-Kul for example is the second-highest big lake (only Lake Titicaca, which I visited in 2013, is higher) at an altitude of 1600 meters. The most beautiful part is the nature. On our second day in Karakol we rented an army truck (with driver of course) to go deep into the mountains for a walk. Just look at the amazing beauty of the nature over there:

Kazakhstan

We were going to fly back home from Almaty so in the end we spent two more days in Kazakhstan. I, as a true Dutch speed skating on ice-lover, really wanted to visit Medeo: an ice rink in the mountains close to Almaty where the circumstances are so unique that more than 100 world records were broken here. So even though I was very tired from the long trip I caught a local bus and went to Medeo on my own. When I arrived back at the hotel and wanted to rest, I got a message from my Interpals-friend Dana who wanted to meet up. I was tired, but in the end she convinced me to visit a viewing point close to the city. The view there was nice, but unfortunately on the way back - on the last thing I did during this trip - my camera fell out of my pocket in the taxi. I noticed this immediately, but the taxi was already gone. Due to the burocracy of Kazakh police (I was disappointed to see that apparently Kazakhstan is nothing more than a truly ex-Soviet state as well) I couldn't file a report and therefore I will never get my photos back. The photos you saw above are the ones I made with my phone and a few that I got from somebody who was in the group with me (thanks Serge!).

Obviously this was not the best way to end my trip through Central Asia, but I do look back at the trip with a satisfied feeling.

So now it's time to start planning the next trip. :)

Why 77 Bombay Street was playing at a shopping center in De Meern last Tuesday

Two weeks ago I read in a Facebook-update from my favorite band, a Swiss band called 77 Bombay Street, that they would be coming to the Netherlands soon. I was excited to read this: the last time they were here I only found out about it one week after they had their concerts. I learned from reading the post that this was not going to be an ordinary tour. They hadn't booked any official venues and were asking their fans to invite them for a concert in their living room. I immediately started daydreaming about my favorite band playing in my home. My living room is not huge but big enough to host a small concert, so I sent an e-mail to the management of the band.

The initial proposal was for the guys to come play on Thursday 30 July at around 5pm. I'm going to start in a new job per 1 August and how cool would it have been to invite my colleagues to a concert at my place after my last working day, before heading to the center for some beers? Unfortunately the guys from the band would already be going home on Thursday, but they did offer to play a short session in a park close to my work around lunch time on Tuesday. Of course this was a great alternative for me! Unfortunately the rain seemed to spoil things. It was quite rainy on Tuesday and for a long time I didn't know whether the concert would go through at all. In the end the guys contacted me that they were going to play at a shopping center in De Meern instead of the park. This shopping center was being renovated and therefore the guys had to play in a construction site, which was a fun experience for them as well, especially because construction workers were passing by from time to time. This is what the venue looked like:

As you can see the concert was pretty small. Due to the rainy weather and the uncertainty whether the concert would go through at all, only 5 other fans from Facebook showed up. Luckily I had been able to motivate quite a few colleagues to come with me to this little concert so we still had a good crowd for the guys. And they made some new fans as well! All of the colleagues who were there (plus one who couldn't make it but checked out their music on YouTube) liked their music.

After the concert we talked a bit with the guys and I got a photo with the band plus a signed album with the message "Good luck with the new job!". I can tell you now that I will certainly be there when the band comes back to the Netherlands.

In case you never heard about 77 Bombay Street before and got curious, here are some music videos by them:

Up In The Sky
Follow The Rain (to give you an impression of how well they sound live)
I Love Lady Gaga
Long Way

Love all around the world

Yesterday it was Valentine's Day: an international day of love. For some people it was a day full of love and joy, for others it was a day like any other day. For me it was a day to look up some untypical love traditions from all around the world.

Love and shame go hand in hand in Scotland

You might be familiar with a traditional Scottish wedding. The groom wears a kilt, under which he may or may not wear underpants. There is one other far more interesting Scottish wedding tradition, involving the bride. A few days before the wedding, the bride gets kidnapped by friends and family. They will make her black and throw all kinds of dirty things (rotten eggs, raw fish, syrup...) over her. When they are finished, they put her on display so all the people from the village can see her. You can imagine that this is quite a humiliating experience, but that's exactly the purpose of this tradition: if the bride can live through this humiliation, she can face any problem life throws at her during her marriage.

You may think that this is an old tradition, but in some villages this tradition still takes place today.

Sharing a wife with your brother in Nepal

Sharing a wife with your brother, Who would want to do that? In some villages in the Himalaya it is a common practice. It's very difficult to earn a living as a farmer in an unfertile area like (parts of) the Himalaya. The farmer needs to do a lot of work in order to make enough money for one family. And because there is so much work that needs to be done, the man doesn't have time to go to the market and sell products. That's where the brother comes into the picture. In this triangle-relationship we have one man working on the land, his brother selling the products and their wife to manage the household and take care of the children.

A love-hut in Cambodia

Many teenage girls think that their parents are a bit narrow-minded when it comes to love and relationships. Girls from the Kreung-tribe in Cambodia never have such a problem. In this tribe, fathers will construct a love hut for their daughters when they reach the age that they start to be interested in boys. In this hut a girl can receive young men, to find out if he is the one for her. They try out a few boys and then in the end they get married to their Mr. Right. It may sound crazy to us, but reportedly girls from this tribe are very happy with this practice and say that it makes them more independent at a young age. And even though many people would not approve teenage girls to be sexually active at such a young age, both the number of sexual harrassents and divorce rates are lower than in many western countries.

Addicted to Valentine's Day in South Korea

In South Korea they love Valentine's Day. Therefore they decided to have a special edition of Valentine's Day every month. It starts on 14 January, when people buy their boy/girlfriend a diary to write down all the lovely memories that will be created in the coming year. On 14 February girls will give a present to the boys, and one month later boys will give a present to the girls. In April it's time for the singles to do something: traditionally they eat noodles with black sauce to feel sad about their loveless life, but nowadays many singles celebrate their independence on this day. This continues every month until we reach Hugs Day on 14 December and start all over again in January.

People say that it were marketeers who invented all these additional editions of Valentine's Day. It may be true that this tradition mainly started as a commercial invention, but nevertheless it's a cute tradition.

The songs that didn't make the cut for ISC#6...

I hope you all enjoyed the latest edition of ISC. From the people who voted (and even some who didn't vote) I got many positive responses about finding a great song they liked. As you can imagine, there are many other songs that weren't part of the contest for some reason. Here are some examples.

Softengine - Yellow House (Finland)

This is my absolute favorite song of 2014. I first heard about Softengine in Eurovision, where they reached the final with their great song Something Better. I liked the song, but I immediately knew it was not going to be my favorite by this band. I heard so much unfulfilled potential in their song that I couldn't wait to hear other songs by these young lads. Yellow House was my clear favorite, which is why I will share it with you today.



Klapa Cambi - Jidra Mog Vapora (Croatia)

An amazing song from the Balkan. This song would have been in my contest without a doubt, if it wasn't for that other even more amazing Croatian song about the girl named Zorica. The song is more traditional and sang by a choir, so it's certainly not the kind of music I normally share via my blog. But it is a good song, so why not give it a try?



Leslie & Ivyrise - Je Te Donne (France)

Another song that would have been very likely to be in any other contest if it wasn't for another great entry from the same country. The following song may be a bit too much of a pop-song for some people, but one cannot deny that it's a catchy and cheerful tune.



Andrea Demirovic - Odlazim (Montenegro)

Espcially for people who love movies like Step Up or dancing in general, it might be nice to watch the following video. I don't especially like dancing or dance-movies, but even for me this is a beautiful video. And a good song as well.



Kabul Dreams - Chill Morghak (Afghanistan)

I bet the following song is not at all what you would expect from an Afghan song. But also in muslim countries there are young men who like rock music. These guys sound so talented, I hope to hear more from them some day.

Results of ISC#6

After almost two weeks of voting, it's time to announce the results of ISC#6. You can watch the voting process via this link.

Congratulations to the winner!

International Song Contest #6

Welcome to edition 6 of the International Song Contest: a contest in which I share music from all over the world with you. I wish you lots of fun listening to the songs (hope that you find something you like). And if you have the time and energy for it I would really appreciate it if you could vote for your favourite songs in Eurovision style via the form below. Since there are usually not many voters in this contest, your vote WILL make a difference for the results of the contest, which I will publish after the voting is over.

Voting rules:
- Voting goes via the traditional Eurovision-system, see below.
- You can vote for your own country, as long as you promise to vote honestly.
- You can vote until 1 February 3:00pm CET.
- Voting tip: personally I find it easy to rate the songs I like 1-5* while listening to the recap video and rank them afterwards based on this rating

After the voting has ended I will publish the results on my blog and make a fancy animation of the voting process, to give the viewer the feeling that he or she is watching the results of the real Eurovision song contest.

Recap video:

List of participants:

1.	Netherlands	Rigby	Earth Meets Water
2.	Australia	Bobby Andonov	War Is Love
3.	France	Fréro Delavega	Le Chant Des Sirènes
4.	Italy	Violetta Zironi	Dimmi Che Non Passa
5.	Namibia	Shishani	Raining Words
6.	Albania	Miriam Cani ft. Alban Skenderaj	Ende Ka Shprese
7.	Hungary	Paddy & The Rats	Pilgrim On The Road
8.	Germany	Nica & Joe	Build A Palace
9.	Switzerland	Eliane	Venus And Mars
10.	Russia	Sofiya Fedorova	Muzika Lyubvi
11.	Malta	Airport Impressions	Berlin
12.	Colombia	Fanny Lu	Fanfarrón
13.	Croatia	Mejaši	Zorica
14.	Finland	Sturm und Drang	Molly The Murderer
15.	Denmark	Tim Schou	Supernova
16.	Estonia	Traffic	Für Elise
17.	Norway	Silya & The Sailors	Extraordinary
18.	USA	The Civil Wars	Kingdom Come
19.	Czech Republic	Jaro Smejkal	Never Mind
20.	Malaysia	Putri Norizah	Hi Sayang
21.	South Africa	Riana Nel	Glass
22.	Moldova	Ionel Istrati	Eu Numai, Numai

You can click on the song title to watch the video on YouTube.

Voting section

Voting is closed.

Funniest Dutch commercials ever

Today I watched the annual award show for the best Dutch commercial of 2014. In the Netherlands we are quite creative when it comes to thinking of good, interesting or funny commercials. And I'm a kind and giving person, so I won't keep all the fun just for myself. So today I will share some of my personal all-time favorite Dutch commercials.

5. Pearle Optician - Shouldn't you get glasses?

Not much to write about this one: it speaks for itself. Since it's all in Dutch, let me translate what they are saying a bit.
Man in the truck: "Shouldn't you get glasses?"
Other man: "Why? Do you know how much that costs, man?"
Voice-over: "Look. That's why Pearle has the Budget Selection. (...)"

4. Centraal Beheer Achmea - Prison guard

Insurance company Achmea has been known for coming up with creative commercials every year that end with "Even Apeldoorn bellen...", which can be roughly translated to English as "Just call us...". Every commercial starts off relaxed, but then somehow the main character of the commercial ends up in a situation where things go wrong. And then all you need to do to make things right is to call your insurance company.
In the following commercial we see a prison guard who wants to impress his colleague on his first day, but again: things go wrong. Not sure how much Achmea can help in this particular situation, but if the guy has a health insurance with Achmea, at least he doesn't need to worry about the hospital bill...

3. KPN - Generation KPN

Watch and see how the current generation plays hide and seek...

2. Heineken - Walking fridge

This commercial puts a smile on my face every time I see it. I can watch it 10 times in a row: the smile is always there. It may be internationally famous, but it's originally a Dutch commercial (I can tell by the house owner's accent) so I can still put it here. Enjoy!

1. Cup a soup - Sjors

I present to you: Sjors, my childhood hero. I used his quote "Hij is weer heerlijk, Coby" ("It's delicious again, Coby" - which he is saying to the lady in the cafetaria next to the soup machine) from this commercial for several years whenever my mother (who is not named Coby) had cooked a delicious meal. It drove her crazy, by the way.

About the commercial: when the new brand Cup a soup entered the market, they wanted all offices to buy a Cup a soup machine. They tried to achieve this by introducing the character of Sjors: the big shot manager who is achieving many great things all because he has a cup of soup every day at four o'clock.
Watch and see what happens when people interrupt Sjors while he is having his "moment" at 4 o'clock...