Rio de Janeiro: Açaí, Praia e Grafite

Well I made it to the promised land! The land of good music, great culture, and amazing bodies. The process for getting here wasn't all too easy however. Normally the travel time from BA to RJ is about 5 hours door to door but since I flew through Sao Paulo it took about 13. In the end it was kind of worth it because seeing Sao Paulo, the world's 2nd largest city, from the sky is mind-blowing. In any case, the airport seems to be as crazy as the city itself, easily the most cluttered, unorganized airport I have ever been to in my life. Upon landing is when I realized how much Spanish I know. Portuguese is craaaaazy. Fortunately I had a good 4 hours there and was able to get to my connecting flight to Rio with plenty of time to spare.



I was hoping to have a daytime landing in Rio because the view is supposedly out of this world but I landed at about 7 and it was already dark. It's funny when you land in a new city at night because the next day when you look outside there's all this stuff you passed and had no idea. In any case, I arrived at the hostel, Casa Carioka, run by an Australian woman Alegra and her husband Fabio, who is from here. This past Saturday was their monthly Couchsurfing sponsored party so it was great timing, within less than 2 hours of landing, I had a caipirinha in hand. The party was a lot of fun, people from all over the place, and a lot of cariocas (Rio natives). I had a long day but managed to stay up until 4 am dancing, in true Brazilian fashion.

I woke up on Sunday to get started on the project I was here for in the first place, documenting graffiti artists and their work. Karina (my friend here in Rio that I met working the pubcrawl in Buenos Aires) and I headed down to Praia Vermelha (Red Beach) to meet up with Leandro, who goes by Tick (pronounced Cheeky), to take photos of him working on his newest piece. Watching graffiti artists at work is very interesting. You would never guess the finished work to look as it does based on how it starts. The piece that Tick was working on was of a face of a black kitten. There's always a story behind these artists works, sometimes good, sometimes bad. This cat apparently had been beaten by some kids in his favela so him and his friends tried to nurse it back to life, apparently staying up all night trying to help it. Unfortunately in the end it died, but now lives on on a wall.

The next day Karina and I headed to the Santa Teresa neighborhood to check out some works by some other artists that we would be working with and get some food. Santa Teresa is a very, very nice part of town, but just like everywhere in Rio, has favelas all around it. The way you get around is by a trolly that takes off from the center. The views from it are incredible. Here is a picture from the restaurant where I had my first feijao (traditional bean dish).
After going around taking pictures for a bit, we headed back to the hostel, where I was able to take a nice long nap, before heading out to the Marina da Gloria for a party hosted on a boat, which by Argentine standards cost quite a bit. The party was not too incredible, but seeing Rio from the water at night was amazing so it was well worth it in the end.

Since this was not so much a vacation but work (albeit a very fun job), Tuesday ended up being the only day of my 9 days in Rio that I got to spend entirely at the beach. Rafael, one of the guys that works at the hostel, had his day off so we went down there together. Really cool guy, been living in Brasil for about 3 years now and has perfected his portuguese, and is such a Brasilian expat that he teaches his own capoeira classes to kids in the favela. Anyways, we spent the whole day at the beach with a really nice Japanese guy in the hostel and a hilarious young Irish couple. We spent the whole day swimming, drinking beer, and lounging. Couldn't have come at a better time. One of the funniest things about Ipanema beach is the amount of vendors. One constant theme in Latin America is that because of the amount of vendors everywhere, any successful ones have developed their own style. My favorite was the abacaxi (pineapple) guy whose tactic was to go up to unwary sleeping beach patrons and screaming AAAAAAAAAAAbacaxi in their faces. I guess he's so well known that people don't get mad at him, they just laugh and end up buying a couple. It's all in good fun anyways, and I'm really happy I got a nice picture of him, he really enjoys his job. One thing I found hilarious about Rio culture is that because the beach is such an integral part to life, there is actually a salutation specifically for people on the beach, boa praia, good beach, or good beachday to you, love it! To round out the day, we headed to Lapa that night, the neighborhood where samba originated and continues to have a strong presence. It was a blast, we spent the whole night dancing in the street while local musicians gathered around a table at a bar and jammed out. Samba could quite possibly be the most beautiful music I've ever heard, and since a lot of the songs are standards, everyone knows the lyrics so it's like an interactive concert. So much fun!

Lapa is also neighborhood to the famous steps that Snoop Dogg filmed a video at and to a lot of graffiti, especially by Ment one of the artists I would be working with.

This being said, I went down during the day with my camera (definitely didn't take my camera anywhere at night...) and went around shooting his work as well as general shots of the neighborhood. It's a very beautiful neighborhood and even though I haven't been there, reminds me exactly of what Havana looks like. Very old buildings with a lot of character.

The whole way that this project came to light is that Karina volunteers in a community center in Tabajaras, a favela in Copacabana, with Tick, who teaches graffiti to the little ones. Through Tick, she got in contact with all the other artists, since they all seem to know each other, mostly from seeing each other doing work on various streets and walls. I decided to go up with her to check out the project and wait for Tick so I could go around with him in the favela and take some pictures of his work. While we waited we had some work to do: organize the library! So for an hour or so, we organized books into different sections and hung out with the kids a little bit. When Tick arrived we headed out and wandered through the maze of the favela. He has work all over the place so there was a lot for me to shoot. I really wanted to take pictures of things going on in the favela: old guys playing dominoes, kids flying kites, gangsters sitting around smoking weed, etc...but I respected the fact that I was an outsider and that cameras are not seen as very positive, so I stuck to just taking pictures of the work. Walking around the favela is amazing, it's crazy how easily he navigated around. If I had been alone I would probably still be trying to figure out how to get out! At certain points, we had to knock on people's doors to see if we could use their roofs to take pictures, no problem. Tick still lives in Tabajaras, now with some friends from all over the world. There's Alex from Cape Verde, Pablo from Colombia, and Emily from England. Their house is great, and seems like a lot of fun. We ended up having a big dinner of feijaoda (feijao but with linguica sausage) and rice that Alex made. Damn good cook! It's really funny how mellow the favela was, how the threat of something bad happening never occured in my mind. This is not to say that bad things don't happen, but if you respect the rules, seems like it's not such a bad place to be. When speaking with richer Brazilians, the favela is about the scariest, worst place one can go. And I would go as far as to say that about 99% of those people have never set foot in one. Go figure...

At this point I had only gotten to meet one of the artists, even though I had plenty of photos of the work of the other three I would be working with. Karina and I got up early Thursday morning to head out to Rio Comprido to meet with Acme, one of Rio's most prolific and well-known street artists. Taking the bus to this neighborhood, which is quite inland, felt like going to another world. Once you are away from the tourist attractions and the beach, you realize there is another Rio out there. Acme recently had a baby and has saved enough money to get his family out of the favela where he grew up. Him and his wife now live on the outskirts of another favela, in a nice little apartment with a balcony for him to do his work (he sometimes sits outside and watches bullet traces at night between the two rival factions across the way from him) and a nice studio inside as well. We spent all morning, about 6 hours, watching him create some canvases that he was preparing for an exhibition he was doing that night. Every artist has a different approach to the work and different subject matter, and Acme's is quite political. He has a massive Che Guevara mural in Tabajaras and most of his work reflects the sentiment of the government forgetting the people, discrepency between rich and poor. He could have chosen a life with the narco-traffickers, but in his own words, "picking up a spraycan was better than picking up a gun". For a lot of these artists, the streets are the best canvas and the best place to truly express themselves. Acme and his family were awesome. His dad ended up cruising by for lunch, and we all ate together. Even though I don't speak portuguese that well, I could tell how proud his dad was of what he was doing, that he has found success in art. We unfortunately had to cut the afternoon short and I wasn't able to see him finish the piece he was working on, but I'm sure it came out great. We now had a meeting with yet another artist, Cash, way across town in Tijuca. On our way out, I got my first look into the drug game, when two kids who couldn't have been older than 14 or 15 rode by on a scooter with gigantic semi-automatic rifles. Karina has spent quite a bit of time in the favelas and seen her fair share of guns, but this was the first time she had seen kids outside of the community that armed.

Upon meeting Cash, I was surprised by his appearance. Out of the four artists we worked with, he was the only one not from a favela. He was small, 20 years old, and white. None of this matters though, he is an amazing artist, and is respected by all street artists in Rio, from favelas or otherwise. His work is much more cartoony and visually enticing. He is still from the big city after all, so his work is a reflection of day to day experiences and encounters. When he started to work on a wall at a park, the lighting was bad, so I wasn't able to get any pictures of him painting, I did however go the next day to see what he had done and was bummed I didn't get to see him create it.

In the meeting with Acme, we had arranged to meet in his native Pavao so he could take me around and show me his work. The favelas here are interesting because of their proximity to rich neighborhoods. You turn the block and all of a sudden you are in a different world, loud music blaring, little kids with fireworks every 5 seconds, people selling everything you can imagine. I took a mototaxi up to the Museu da Favela to meet him, but he never showed. It is Brazil after all. In any case, the 45 minutes I spent waiting was entertaining enough just watching the world go by at the top of hill. On the way down I ran into Felipe, a local kid I met at the Couchsurfing party when I first arrived, who is from Pavao as well. When he saw me walking through the community he called me over and was like "O quê você está fazendo em o morro", translated to "what the hell you doing up here on the hill?" as in he was surprised that I was just walking around up there by myself. I told him I was looking for Acme, who everyone knows, and he said he wasn't going to be showing up. It also turns out that Acme teaches graffiti to kids in the Museum, which he started, and that Felipe is one his students. Small world.

Later in the day I was in the complete opposite of a Rio favela, as I moved into my friend Stephanie da Souza's family's apartment on the border of Copacabana and Ipanema for the weekend. What an amazing place! After moving in, it took me about 15 minutes to head to the beach and get me one of those amazing caipirinhas and go for a walk on the beach and just kind of remind myself where I was. Later that night I met up with my friend Lexi, a fellow Duck, that now lives in Rio. We hit up a fun club in Botafogo and once again got my samba fix before hitting the sack.
I got to sit down with Ment on Saturday and talk to him about his work and take photos. He is also very well known and very prolific. His style is amazing, out of all the artists, his work really spoke to me. One of his expertises is doing memorial walls for Brazilian musicians that have passed away, famous or not. One in particular is of a guy that few people knew the name of but was one of the most important Samba composers of Rio. He didn't even know the guy, but his family found the mural and sent him a picture with them posing in front of it. Anyways, very cool guy and a real inspiration. I can see BucketFeet getting some ideas from him for sure. Saturday night is Baile Funk night, so that was the plan. Funk is a very popular Rio favela music and it's standard to have the parties outdoors but unfortunately it started pouring rain so it was cancelled. We thought we were going to go so we were given the list of rules of what NOT to do at one of these parties. Even though it is a fun party, they are set up as a front to sell drugs, this means that everywhere around are gangsters. Here's the list of rules, at least for us gringos anyways:

-No cameras
-No phones
-No doing drugs
-No getting drunk
-No speaking or dancing with pretty girls (you never know who they are related to or dating...)
-No eye contact with gangsters
-No speaking during moment of silence for fallen gangsters
-No peeing on random walls, only designated ones

It would have been a great experience to just be there and see what it's really like but, hey, can't control the weather. Fabio, our friend that was going to take us to the party and who is from that favela, knew about a birthday party of a friend so we went there and in the end became the best night of the trip. The people there were so warm, so friendly and had a gatorade sized cooler full of amazing caipirinhas. They also had the barbecue going so I ate to my heart's delight: linguica, chicken, steak, miscelleneous meat products (chicken hearts, etc...). The night turned well into morning, with all of us dancing to Funk and Samba in a tiny little room, having a blast. The night was most definitely saved.

The rest of the trip, the next two days, consisted of me editing my photos and taking notes down for the blog. I did get up to Cristo and I did have as many acai's as possible before taking off. The experience was unforgettable and I am definitely going back, sooner rather that later it's looking like. There is going to be an exhibition for this project and it has been postponed for another month so since my Visa will still be valid, I'm going to try to get back up for it. This time by bus I think...

I apologize for the length of this post but it was necessary. I hope it finds you all well! Boa Noite!

For pics on facebook go here
Hi-res pics coming soon!

BucketFeet in the newspaper!!

As most of you know, I have been pushing my hand-designed shoes here in Argentina, and to great success. I was recently interviewed by the largest free English-language newspaper in Argentina, the Argentimes, and the article is now out! To read it click here:

http://www.theargentimes.com/reviews/theconsumer/bucketfeet-watch-this-space-/

Thanks for all the support, and if you wouldn't mind, spread the word!!

I am writing this post from Ezeiza International Airport, waiting for my flight to Hee You Chee Djanayru (phonetic pronunciation of Rio de Janeiro), I'm screwed haha. Surely there will be quite a lot to write about when I get back!

Hope the 4th of July finds you all well, chau!

Silicon Fly Interview

Brazil, here we come!

Some of you readers might know that I am heading to Rio de Janeiro on the 4th of July for a little over a week for an absolutely incredible photo project, where I will be shadowing a collective of Favela graffiti artists. In order to enter the country as a US citizen, it is required to have a tourist Visa, a direct reciprocal action for the Visa requirements we impose on them. In order to get the Visa, you need roundtrip airfare, application form, bank statements, passport photo, credit card, and most importantly, the fee ($147US). I was under the impression the process would be kind of difficult, or at least take a long time, inside the consulate, but it went very smoothly. Where it got tricky was making the payment. It was one of those TIA moments (This Is Argentina). You can only go to two banks, both of which are mere blocks from the consulate. I arrived thinking it would take 5 minutes. Nope! The place was absolutely PACKED, no seats at all. You had to pull a number to see a teller, I got number 69. They were on 45. Well whatever, I'll wait. The problem was that at about 52, the machine went all haywire and began going out of order, thus creating the problem of the person with the correct "number" going to the window, even if it meant they were skipping 8 people who should have gone before them. After about 45 minutes I finally got my turn, and paid the fee, 30 second transaction. So now, with Visa in hand, I will be setting foot in Brazil in a mere few weeks. YES!!!!!

Viva Argentina, Che!: Tranxgo

Most people know that Argentina's greatest contribution to the world of music is Tango. To this day you can wander around any of Buenos Aires' neighborhoods and find milongas, where people of all ages dance to the classic music. What has happened in recent years however is the world of electronic music that is also beloved by the Argentines, has been introduced and mixed with the old, traditional style. Mixing violins, bandoneon, piano and old vocal samples with hard drubbing, heavy-bass laced tracks produces an amazing, original sound. Three main groups that have taken this new genre (sometimes referred to as tranxgo), Bajofondo, Tanghetto and Gotan Project, have come out with countless amazing tracks. I was fortunate enough to see Bajofondo play live in a free festival to celebrate 200 years of independence in Argentina a few weeks ago, and goddamn, they are sick! Here are a few tracks to download, enjoy and let me know your thoughts!

Gotan Project-Santa Maria.mp3
Gotan Project-Epoca.mp3
Gotan Project-El Capitalismo.mp3
Gotan Project-Mi Confesion.mp3
Bajofondo Tango Club-Grand Guignol.mp3
Bajofondo Tango Club-Naranjo en Flor.mp3
Bajofondo Tango Club-Exodo II.mp3
Bajofondo Tango Club-Duro y Parejo.mp3
Tanghetto-Enjoy the Silence (Depeche Mode Tango Remix).mp3

Young Squondra Comes to Town: BA and Colonia

The plan when Sondra got here was to make at least two trips to places within the country. Iguazu down, we were going to try to make it to the western wine-country city of Mendoza but it was just asking too much. Decided not to do it for various reasons, one of them being that if we went, she wouldn't get to experience a full weekend in this madness that we call a city. We did make it to Uruguay for a day though, to the city of Colonia. We decided to do this because it's a nice day trip and also because I was at the time an illegal alien and wanted to get that feeling off my chest. Fortunately, the rules are a bit more lax here than they are in the States. Consequences for overstaying your tourist visa is now about $80US, up from the $18 that it used to be a month ago. You get a slap on the wrist and then you're given a pass and another 3 months in this wonderful country. Here are some photos, with captions, of our day in Uruguay...
The view over Rio de la Plata from Puerto Madero, Buenos Aires before getting on the ferry

Street scene

Sondra showing off her wad of "play" money that is the Uruguayan peso on her hog...we couldn't rent mopeds as originally planned since we didn't have our driver's licenses with us...

Just some of the many many street dogs around the town

That's me sneaking into the grounds of an abandoned bullring; interior of the bullring

The rest of Sondra's time here consisted of shopping in ferias, pubcrawling and fortunately, on her very last night, the Grand Opening of Fusion, our very own nightclub/restaurant. Well, it's not technically mine but Dustin, my good friend who started the pubcrawl company, put together this place with some other friends. Will be doing a blog update about this new spot. It's so cool! All in all had a great time with her here, and sounds like she had a good time too because she's hoping to come back in the summer (winter for you Northerners).

3 Videos from the Bicentennial Celebration

There will be a longer post coming but for the time being here are three videos from the Bicentennial Celebration Free Concert at the Obelisco in the middle of the city. La Bomba de Tiempo and Bajofondo performed, it was amazing. La Bomba is an incredible percussion orchestra and Bajofondo is one of the most well known bands to have incorporated Argentina's beloved Tango music with electronic and dance music. EPIC!







This video is of a couple that broke into an impromptu Tango dance during Bajofondo's set. Love that this kind of thing just happens...

Whoa...she's eating STEAK??

For those of you who have known Sondra for a while, you know she has been a pretty staunch vegetarian. Well, while in the land of the best steaks on Earth, she decided to cross to the other side, if but for a moment (and wouldn't you know it, she thought it tasted GOOD) Thankfully there is video proof.

Iguazu Videos

El Tigre y Sus Manchas feat. German Varela

This is a great video Sondra shot of my roommate Tigre's band, El Tigre y Sus Manchas (The Tiger and His Spots) featuring our other roommate German Varela of the pretty well known rock band, Silicon Fly. German absolutely rips it up! This is performed at L'O Bar in San Telmo, Buenos Aires.

HYPE!

This is a promotional video for a party I work at. All the still images were taken by me...it's pretty cool!

http://blip.tv/file/2175126/

OH SNAP! Barrios: Puerto Madero

Located between San Telmo/La Boca and the Rio de La Plata, Puerto Madero is easily one of Buenos Aires' most aesthetically pleasing and unique neighborhoods. Whether you want to go shopping, hit the clubs, eat the most amazing churrasquitos or choripan, ride bikes in an ecological reserve or even go to Hooters, Puerto Madero is the place to be.
Here is a collection of some of my favorite shots of the old wherehouse district:

OH SNAP! Jardin Japones

Located in the middle of Palermo, near the Bosques de Palermo, lies the Jardin Japones. Donated to the city by the country of Japan many years back, the park is a beautiful, tranquil place to spend an hour. There's a big pond with lots and lots of massive koi, a Japanese restaurant, and a greenhouse where you can buy plants and Bonzai trees. It costs $5 to get in, but it's worth it. It's located at Av. Figueroa Alcorta and Av. Casares, not terribly far from the D line subte.

The Last Seven and a Half Months in Photographs

This is a compilation of my favorite shots since I've been down South America way...

http://www.pbase.com/afirestein/saafaves

Young Squondra Comes to Town: Iguazu

In the 7 months I've been in Argentina, I've had plenty of visitors come through. The month of May marked for the first time, however, that someone of the family came down. Sondra arrived at about 6:30 am on the 10th of May, as opposed to the 4 am time that was originally thought. It was fine though since I work in the nightlife industry (sounds weird when I put it that way) and I was up anyways. I got to the airport at about 3:45 and was actually able to sleep on a bench until her delayed flight landed. Next stop was the hostel, the Milhouse, which is located on a street unpronounceable by anyone who is just visiting. The street is Hipolito Yrigoyen, pronounced EE-PO-LEE-TOE EERIE-GO-SHEN. Anyways, this just meant that anytime Sondra needed to get back to the hostel, I had to go to the cabbie and tell him. The first few days in BA were spent pubcrawling, eating, and basically lounging around watching TV since the weather was pretty crappy. This was all good though as we decided to bus up north about 2000+ kilometers to Las Cataratas de Iguazu, or in English, Iguazu Falls with my good friend Freddy.

Getting to and from Puerto Iguazu (the actual town) is fairly easy, as is most travel in Argentina. The only issue is that distances are so deceptively big here, that most bus trips to anywhere of interest are between 15-20 hours from Buenos Aires. We hopped on a 6 pm bus on Friday the 15th and got in at about 11 am on the 16th. It's always good to take buses that take as long as this as an overnight option. That way, you aren't losing time and you don't have to pay for a hostel. Sondra managed to sleep like 15 hours or something ridiculous. The buses are THAT comfortable. So we arrived, checked into our hostel, and planned our first day. Unfortunately because we arrived a couple hours before check in time, we missed out on being able to go to the falls that day. So instead we ended up walking across the street to an animal rehabilitation center that ended up being really interesting. It is mostly full of birds, but there are monkeys, coatis, and other strange animals that have been injured in some way. It ended up being that most of them were taken illegaly from the Brazilian rainforest to be sold around the world and were injured in the transit process. Some had been rescued from as far as Madrid. After doing the tour of the center we headed back to the hostel for a big asado and Brazilian dance show (which would later prove to be HILARIOUS).

The asado was good, not great. Either way it was a fun night. We met some really nice Canadian girls and a really obnoxious guy from New Jersey (who we later found out used to be a pimp, or at least claimed to have been one). Now onto the Brazilian dance show. The town of Puerto Iguazu is on the "Triple Border" between Brazil and Paraguay. The show was put on by dancers from Foz do Iguacu (the Brazilian side) who came over to Argentina to do this weekly show at the hostel. The guy was dressed in perhaps the most sparkly shirt I've ever seen and the "women" might not have been women after all. Good thing they get all the guests liquored up on caipirinhas before the show, otherwise no one would stick around for the embarassment that would ensue. This "show" is more of a ploy to get drunk tourists to get up and look stupid. Fun right? It's the kind of thing where they pick you out of the crowd to samba with the dancers. Fortunately
almost everyone had to go
through it so it's not so bad. I came in second in the guy's samba competition (woohoo!) which was fortunate because the winner got a very weird, nasty lapdance from the "women". After the show, everyone ended up outside at the hostel's poolside bar. Yes, there was a big pool, complete with volleyball net. One of the most unhostelly hostels I've ever been to. The dance party was pretty uneventful but a funny thing did happen. There is an outdoor individual bathroom by the pool. At about 3 am, I ended up going in to go to the bathroom. Unfortunately I didn't realize that on the other side of the door, the handle was missing. So after about 20 minutes (no lie) of trying to figure out how to either get someone's attention or get out of the bathroom, I used my drunken strength to wedge it open. It would have looked pretty funny because there was a tiny, little window facing the bar outside and every time the music would stop I would flail my arm out of the window and scream for someone to open the door. I really thought it was going to be my bedroom for a moment.

Image: Sondra sitting at the triple border. Left is Argentina, middle is Paraguay and the right is Brazil.

Sunday was the day of the falls. All I can say is WOW! You see pictures, you hear stories, but until you see them with your own eyes, you can't full understand just how amazing they really are. We also didn't realize it was such a big park. You really need at least one full day to explore the whole thing. Some of the main highlights:

1. Butterflies.
Never in my whole life have I seen so many butterflies and so many different kinds. Amazing!



2. Boatride.
One of the main attractions of the waterfalls are the speedboats you can take UNDERNEATH the massive falls. Terrifying but so thrilling.

3. Garganta de Diablo (Devil's Throat). The biggest fall in the park. The viewing platform overlooking it is amazing. Apparently a lot of people commit sucide there...

4. Giant bug. Not so much a highlight, but a funny story. The way you get around the park is with this little tram thing. As we were walking to go to the Devil's Throat, Sondra noticed this gnarly ass monster of a bug on this woman's neck. She obviously had no idea it was there. I felt the obligation to let her know, being the concerned citizen. Her friend upon seeing it reacted instantly and flicked it off her neck, RIGHT AT ME! Some grateful people they were...

After the day at the falls, Freddy treated us to an amazing meal in town. Being that we were still in Argentina (if not barely) we had to get some bife de lomo. We did also get some amazing river fish, the name of which is escaping me. The three countries are separated by rivers so there is a lot of good river fish. We were pooped after the full day in the sun at the falls and a big meal that I think we ended up passing out at about 9 pm.

The next day we contemplated going to Ciudad del Este in Paraguay for well, no real reason. Apparently it's a seedy, Tijuana-like border town, known most for having a physical black market where you can buy anything from guns to cheap electronics. Unfortunately, to get there, you have to pass through Brazil, for which we didn't have Visas. We ended up just taking a walk around the dinky little town and catching an earlier bus back to BA. This busride had some moments on it that made me feel quite anxious. Because of the unmonitored border between Brazil and Paraguay, there is a lot of drug trafficking. A lot of which ends up in BA. This meant that there are frequent police checkpoints. Within an hour we had been stopped 3 times. Each time, a new policeman would come on board to check our passports. The first two guys were very nice and quick. The 3rd guy however had a real chip on his shoulder. He must have looked over my stamps about 3 or 4 times. This would have been fine, but I was illegal at the time, having overstayed my 3 month visa by about 3 months! I was sweating a little bit. Apparently he didn't notice. Fhew! In any case we made it back in one piece, even though the return bus took about 20 hours...