Travelling with Milan

Celebrating his 59th birthday in Abri, the oasis town in northern Sudan, Milan is also celebrating his 20th year on the road. Coming from the Czech Republic, international travel was never an option for him. He has made up for it as Africa overland marks his sixth and, for him, final continent. He left Cape Town for four months and has fairly zoomed his way overland (like myself - barring Ethiopia, although he did try crossing overland from Kenya).

A most humble farmer he is also an incredible thinker and philosopher. Days and nights are intense, but he has been a quality travelling companion. He has given up drink and meat (his farm and beehives are all organic), thrown out his television (to the utter disgust of his wife, son and grandchildren. He won’t contemplate a computer or mobile phone. He is interested in the Amish community, but won’t join anything – including the Communist Party which did him no favours following the Russian invasion in 1968.

Milan closes his farm for the winter months and travels on a tight budget. He won’t pay more than US$12 for a room, choosing bus stations or parks as an alternative.

He is fascinated by the British and is totally delighted to cross-question me about completely everything. I keep reminding his i have been non-dom for 20 years, but he doesn’t care. His dream is to attend some philosophy lectures at Oxford University, and although i encourage him to go for it, i warn him i fear he will be very disappointed.

Milan is really out there. The mass media is designed to deprogram the human brain and dumb us up. The World is run by just a hanful of families, and Noam Chmsky is just a political puppet to appease people who try to question stuff more in-depth. Nonetheless he says it’s all natural and the maintenance status quo is essential. Almost every time he appendages his sentences with “but i might be completely wrong”.

He wants to stay in touch with me, although he can only do this with his land-line telephone, so i pass him my fsther’s telephone and ask him to call me in three months. Meanwhile, he heads to Alexandra before trying to catch the ferry to Venice on Sunday.