This concludes my vacation. I'll try to summarize briefly. I've been to 11 countries (Norway, Czech Republic, Ukraine, Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Qatar, Sweden, USA, Dominican Republic and Haiti). I met one person whose philosophy appealed to me: "I trust people. If you can't trust people, the world is shit. And I don't want to live in a shit world." I've been careful, but chosen to trust many persons, and it's worked out wonderfully. I've met countless of new people, many of which I'm still in contact with. I've paid for accommodation twice now in 65 days (in Diyarbakir and Santo Domingo), and practically never had to eat a meal alone, which I think goes to show that humankind is pretty good after all :)

Cathedral in Higüey.

Higüey.

Banana street, Higüey.

Punta Cana.

I sit next to Alexis, a 25 year old Haitian whose job is to move steering wheels of imported cars from the right side to the left. During the 11 hour trip we become friends and he invites me to stay at his place for the night. He lives with a friend, another Haitian, on around 12 square meters in a suburb 30 minutes outside Santo Domingo. The living conditions are VERY basic. He prays to God every day to show him an exit, a path to a better life. It's a very moving experience.

Haitian.

Sugar cane salesman in Haiti.

Head for sale in Haiti.

The kids in the village are very curious about us blancos (Jason and me). They stand at a short distance just staring at us. One little girl is terrified and starts crying every time she looks at us. The people here are mostly dark dark black. For example, on our way home after dark we see at a stop sign on the street, only it's not, it's just a very black man with a stop sign on his t-shirt. For dinner we once again have an amazing home cooked meal at the orphanage. Then we head out to party at Jet Set in Petionville.

I really like this country... people are so warm, friendly, curious, inviting. Similar to Iran in a way, yet with many differences. One being that girls here are much more free, so it's easier to talk to them. In the Middle East I mostly just spoke to guys. Another being that Haiti is not particularly safe. There's plenty of crime and kidnappings here, and Jason and I attract a lot of attention. Except for the UN staff in their heavily armed trucks, we haven't seen a single white person. Moreover, police officers are virtually nonexistent, and the ones out there seem to be up to no good anyway. (The one we saw today was making out with a girl on the street.) For these reasons, we always go accompanied by at least one local, and usually in a car with the doors locked.

Having a snack in the village.

On the way to the beach.

The beach.

Local boys at the beach.

Man at the beach.

Fishermen and the catch of the day.

In the village. This is the girl who's afraid of us.

Kid being cleaned.

Reading stories in the village.

Party.

In the evening, Jason and I go on a quest for pork. After having had so much chicken lately we're craving something else. We find it on the street not far from Natasha's home. The food here is really tasty, with a lot of spices.

In the slum.

In the slum.

With Natasha.

Kids at the orphanage. Natasha on the right.

View from Natasha's brother's girlfriend's house.

Kid eating sugar cane.

Pork.

Tonight we're having a new year's party at Natasha's place. Jason and I spend most of the evening cooking and grilling. There's also beer and dancing. Suddenly it's 2009 and everyone is hugging and kissing. After midnight I leave with two Haitian girls to a club called Jet Set in Petionville, a rich suburb. There are plenty of westerners here, something you don't see in other places in PAP, they turn out to be from the UN peace keeping Mission in Haiti. It's a good day. A great end to 2008 and start for 2009!

Kids in the orphanage.

Kids in the orphanage.

Making coffee.

Street.

Barbecuing.

Jason, Natasha, me and some of Natasha's friends.

Dancing.

This photo shows our delicious salad and Haitian rum.

Life is good.

The border is set next to a lake. Somewhere before the border, the black packages disappear without me noticing. As we've passed, we see a huge black guy without much clothes rowing like a mad man over the lake. He rows towards us, and I see that the black packages are stuffed in the boat. They're quickly loaded on the bus, and we continue towards Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti. When I arrive, I call my Haitian friends and they come and pick me up. I'm staying with a Haitian girl called Natasha. There are always a lot of people in her house; friends, family and also another blanco: Jason who happens to be a computer engineer from San Francisco.

At the Haitian border, and the bus and some people I travel with.

Outside Natasha's house.

View from Natasha's place.

At Natasha's.

At Natasha's.

At Natasha's.

I arrive in the Dominican Republic at around 2pm. Unfortunately, I land in Punta Cana, about as far away from Haiti as possible on this island. I am supposed to be in Haiti tomorrow, but have no idea how to get there. (I deliberately didn't prepare in order to make things more interesting.) I exit the airport and find a guagua (local bus) which takes me to a bus station where I find a bus for Santo Domingo, the capital. The bus takes 3-4 hours during which I make friends with the bus driver. In the capital, he takes me to the hotel where he's staying, then we meet with his friend the taxi driver and the three of us go out to eat, they give me a short tour of the city and tell me how to go to Haiti. Great! They're very hospitable, although one difference between them and all the Iranian people I've met recently is that they're happy to see me pay for things :)

Philadelphia.

I have breakfast here.

Airport in Punta Cana.

Street in Dominican Republic.

Yes that's right, I've been making myself at home in the wrong fracking apartment!! I get up to the correct flat, meet with Najaf and have some coffee, chat, etc. After around an hour we leave to go to the souk. Outside the house there's a man in his 50s, not sure from where, I'd guess eastern Europe. He's furious, yakking about having left his key under the doormat this morning for the cleaner to pick it up, but now the key is missing and he's tried to get hold of the cleaner for one hour. In fact, the key is still in my pocket. Najaf and I discretely place the key outside the caretaker's room and tell the man "There's a key on the ground here..." We quickly take off, thinking it's better not to be around when he realizes someone has been to his flat. I keep thinking I'm lucky the man didn't get home while I was showering or watching TV... situation could have been quite bad.

Apart from this incident, I try to see as much as possible of Doha today. In my opinion, it's very similar to other cities in the gulf, e.g. Manama, Abu Dhabi and Muscat, but even more boring. My favorite place is the Islamic Cultural Center where an albino Arab gives me a free personal tour of how ablution and prayer are done. During the siesta (1-4pm) I meet with Tunde, a Hungarian girl living here, and we stroll along the corniche and souk. It's sooo nice here, sunny and 23 C, corniche lined by palm trees.

In the evening, Najaf and I meet up with Dr Ahmed (Egyptian born and raised in Qatar) and Hin Yeong (Singaporean). I haven't had beer for 9 days, so we're determined to get some. There are a few bars here at the international hotels. We're first thrown out of Ramada because Dr Ahmed carries a knife, but at Sheraton we have more luck. It's a nice ending to this first part of my vacation. Around midnight, the trio drives me to the airport in Dr Ahmed's car. I fly to Stockholm at 1.10am.

Stranger's apartment that I was using.

Street.

Man in the souk.

Qatari feeding pigeons. Islam Cultural Center in the background.

Old Qataris in the souk.

Me and the pearl monument.

Villagio shopping mall, like a small Venice.

Najaf, Dr Ahmed and me.

In the evening I reunite with Ali and his friend Arash and we go to a really cool qalyan place, then we have dinner and cruise the city in Arash's car listening to underground Persian pop at maximum volume :) Underground means music influenced by the Great Satan, and/or about illegal topics (which is kind of hard to avoid here).

I also spend some time online trying to figure out what to do with the last week of my vacation. Since I've been freezing every single day of my vacation so far, I'm thinking some place warm, tropical, where I can just relax on the beach with a good book. The choice is obvious: Haiti. I leave on Dec 28.

Mountains north of Tehran.

Iranian version of the statue of liberty.

How to defy the Great Satan...

Ali and me smoking mint qalyan.

The qalyan place.

Back in Shiraz I buy a ticket for a 15 hour nightbus to Tehran and do some sightseeing, but most things are closed since it's Friday (Islam day of prayer). A girl comes up to me on the street and invites me over to her house.. I can't recall ever receiving such an invitation back home (except for the prostitutes in downtown Oslo). I talk to Shirin again and she says she'll show me around town on Sunday. Oh! And she loves skiing and says she could take Monday off work and take me skiing north of Tehran. I love this country!

Me and Persepolis.

Persepolis.

Persepolis.

The kids who take me on the motorbike.

Minibus in Marvdasht.

Shiraz citadel.

Creating a billboard in Shiraz.

After everything I've seen today, I feel that I don't need another day here so I buy a ticket for the night bus to Shiraz. In the evening I call Shirin, a friend of Mohammed (Iraq) who lives in Tehran. She says she's interested in meeting me when I get back to Tehran. I'm surprised by how open, flirtatious even, Iranian girls are. I had not expected that.

Jameh Mosque.

Old man outside the bazar.

Sheikh Lotfollah Mosque.

Imam Mosque.

Koran quotes like this are all over Iran.

Si-o-Seh Bridge.

Not much happens in the evening, we go around the city a bit, buy my bus ticket to Esfahan for tonight and meet with one of Ali's (girl) friends. At one point, Ali and I pass a huge army building. It's lit up and looks very impressive. I can't resist the urge, so as Ali continues walking, I pull up my camera and point it through the fence. Ali turns around and sees what I'm doing; "Max, don't do that!!" he yells. Seconds later, a soldier comes running towards me with a machine gun, shouting in Farsi. He quickly relieves me of my camera. The next 20 minutes are spent arguing whether I'm a spy or not. Then all of a sudden I get the camera back and we're allowed to go. Ali whispers "Go go go, don't look back!" He says we were very lucky; another foreign friend of his was deported after a similar incident.

I leave to Esfahan at midnight and the trip takes 6 hours.

Eating sheep head.

Smoking qalyan.

Imam Khomeini square. They used to hang people from the statue.

Me, Ali (right of me in the photo), and two of his flatmates.

Fruit store.

Ali has to work in the evening so he arranges for me to meet with his friend Reysan. She suggests we go to a coffeehouse where we have some coffee and pizza. Outside, the snow is bucketing down, the first snow of the year incidentally! I walk Reysan home and she suggests I come up to her apartment. Thinking about the Iranian police, I tell her I probably shouldn't. I get back to Ali's place around midnight and he says it was very wise since she could have gotten into serious trouble. The day ends in "Iranian style", I brush my teeth with salt and hot tap water and sleep on the carpet on the floor.

I've bought an Iranian SIM card by the way and my number is +989373693430.

Tire shopping mall.

My wallet after I change 100 euro to Iranian rials.

Reysan.

Snow.

On the Iranian side, I share a taxi to Piranshahr with Abobakrmahmode and the other Iranian who came with us from Erbil. Abobakr takes me to his brothers store; he creates gravestones. Then he invites me to his house for lunch. It's pretty cool, he lives together with his 3 brothers, 2 sisters, dad, wife, daughter and probably more people. There's a sitting room where we spend all the time. No furniture, just a carpet on the floor and cushions against the walls. Not at one point do I get to see the women, they keep in the kitchen, and when the men need something (tea, fried eggs, soup, etc) they just yell. When it's ready, the youngest brother goes to get it.

Only Abobakrmahmode speaks English, but still not really. He has a phrase book that he keeps flipping through and mixes phrases like "I am twentyeleven year old" and "This was an exquisite meal". The brothers are thrilled to meet a foreigner and they take me around town in their old beat up car, show me the garage where one of the brothers work, their fathers antique shop, etc. I give Abobakr a fluorescent keyboard that I brought from Sweden. He's really happy, even though it's in Swedish and not Farsi. In the evening we have dinner at their house and then they take me to the bus station where I'm getting on a night bus to Tehran. Abobakrmahmode tries to convince me over and over to stay at their house in Piranshahr, but I have to continue. He tells me "You go, I sad" and "Thank you for shiny keyboard", he kisses my cheeks three times and they all wave me goodbye as the bus leaves. I think I'm going to love Iran.

Mountain at Haji Omaran border crossing.

Taxi driver taking us from the border to Piranshahr.

Main street in Piranshahr. The gravestone store is first on the left.

English phrase book.

Dinner with Abobakrmahmode and his family. Abobakr is rightmost.

In the evening, Mohammed takes me to Hawler Restaurant, the most upscale restaurant in town, where we have excellent food, whisky and smoke narghilea. After two hours, we get the main course. The owner of the restaurant, who is a friend of Mohammed, joins us to smoke. He has a deluxe narghilea, bigger and with a much wider tube so he can smoke more. He also has family in Sweden and has been there himself. His brother was the former leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party. Mohammed knows an insane amount of people. As we get home, Bush has just got attacked by shoes in Baghdad. The Iraqis can't stop laughing about it.

Tomorrow I'll try to enter Iran through the Haji Omaran border. I'm not sure if the border is open for westerners. I've done a lot of research and haven't heard of a westerner that has passed here. I've spoken to one who's tried though, a war correspondent who's been to Iraq 8 times. He tried to cross earlier this year and was not allowed through. But I think I'll make it. I leave tomorrow morning.

Mohammed's car with the engine running.

A huge amount of cars stolen in Europe end up in Iraq.

Big mosque.

Street sign.

Fruit seller.

"Doctor street"

I meet up with David at 10.30am for a tour of the citadel, a huge fortress on top of a hill in the city center, 8000 years old. David is working on the preservation of this thing and is trying to make it a world heritage site. Most of the citadel is closed to public, but that doesn't bother David. As we climb over one of the blockades, peshmerga (Kurdish military) comes towards us with a machine gun. Amin, a Syrian guy working with David, translates: "He say we can not go". David ignores him and mumbles "We're UNESCO, we can go wherever we please". Afterwards we have lunch, mutton and rice, courtesy of UNESCO.

I spend the afternoon sightseeing the city center and the bazar. The city is a bit chaotic but still enjoyable. A lot of people are curious about me and ask where I'm from. Almost everyone has a relative or friend who lives or has lived in Sweden, so I'm very well received. As it gets dark Mohammed picks me up and we go play bowling with Zatan & co. Then we have dinner, Iraqi pizza, mostly in darkness due to a blackout. We drink tea, drink tea again, then head home to Mohammed to watch some TV.

Steve calls me at 10.30pm and asks if I'm married. Apparently he can set me up with an Iraqi woman if I come back to Dohuk. I tell him thanks, but I'm heading to Iran. He says "be safe man, you might get killed".

The Erbil citadel.

Sador, from the Iraqi/US special armed division.

Erbil seen from the citadel.

Men in Erbil.

Street in Erbil.

Inside the bazar (market) in Erbil.