نحن قوم أعزنا الله بالإسلام ، فهما طلبنا العزة بغيره ، أذلنا الله

We are the people whom Allah honoured through Islam, so whenever we seek honour other than it, Allah will disgrace us.

The blog is under slow transition to http://specifichumidity.wordpress.com

Friday, March 24, 2006

Berjalan, musafirlah..

assalamualaikum warahmatullah..

hari ini, aku telah membulatkan tekad. insyaAllah, aku akan pergi ke Bosnia ESOK!!! entah, usai membeli tiket kapal terbang ke graz beberapa minggu lalu, aku diserang mimpi aneh bertubi-tubi. hampir setiap malam, ada sahaja perkara yang bermain di fikiran. dan setiap malam, ada sahaja mimpi yang mengganggu.

tekad aku.. aku perlu ke tanah Balkan. suatu tanah misteri, yang insyaAllah mampu menguraikan misteri yang mengusutkan fikiran aku kala ini.

entah, aku sendiri tidak pasti apa yang aku cari. aku sendiri tidak tahu apa yang akan ku temui. namun, bukankah itu tujuan bermusafir. memastikan segala ketidakpastian. bertemankan sebaik-baik teman, aku yakin, jawapan kepada misteri aku ada di sana..

mungkin aku akan pulang, bersama hikmah mirip kata-kata hamzah fansuri..

Aku berulang kali Pergi ke Mekah (Kaabah), Tapi Aku tak jumpa Allah di sana. Sebaliknya Aku jumpa Allah di dalam rumah..

pastinya, aku sendiri tidak tahu apa yang akan kutemui. namun, aku tahu apa yang aku cari.

rasa kebersamaan dengan Allah, dan keyakinan dan kepercayaan aku utk bertawakkal dan redha pada taqdirNya

the truth is out there...

Wednesday, March 22, 2006

ALHAMDULILLAH, SYUKUR

alhamdulillah...

syukur alhamdulillah, rasanya, ucapan ni telah banyak kali disalahgunakan oleh para artis malaysia.

"syukur, alhamdulillah kerana saya telah berjaya menyiapkan album yang terkini. mengandungi 13 lagu hit serta disko..."

syukur, alhamdulillah saya ucapkan, kerana telah berjaya menyiapkan 2 coursework bagi tahun akhir pengajian. kedua-duanya sekitar 3500 patah perkataan mengingatkan saya pengalaman menulis extended essay ketika di KMB dulu.

essay yang pertama, berkaitan Non-technical failure. saya masih menunggu pensyarah untuk datang supaya tugasan ini dapat terus dihantar kepada beliau. tiadalah nanti persoalan sama ada saya berjaya menghantar laporan ini on-time atau tidak. bak kata pepatah, penantian itu satu penyeksaan.

essay yang kedua, bukan essay sebenarnya. ia adalah sebahagian dari laporan projek tahun akhir kami. saya ditempatkan dalam kumpulan seramai 4 orang, bagi membuat satu feasibility study bagi satu structural health monitoring system yang masih dalam peringkat research. saya telah melakukan sekitar 7 eksperimen yang belum pernah dilakukan oleh mana-mana pihak di dalam dunia ini, setakat yang saya sedar (dan supervisor saya sedar). sekiranya result kami valid, mungkin satu paper boleh ditulis dan dimasukkan dalam journal yang bereputasi tinggi.

syukur, alhamdulillah..

syukur, syukur, syukur ya Allah
syukur, alhamdulillah..

Friday, March 17, 2006

My new 'life'

since my computer broke down couple of weeks ago, i have started to use Manor Hall's computer room rather regularly. well, one might say that i am now a more permanent feature of the room. having so many coursework and assignments due before the end of this term, i spend at least 5 hours in front of a computer.

spending 5 hours a day can be rather boring and exhausting. the condition of my not-always-critical short sighted eyes have become worse.. alhamdulillah, someone did mass-produced TFT flat screen couple of years ago, and they more affordable these days. i have to stick to these screens, otherwise i would have needed a new pair of glasses.

i also picked up this new habit, of listening to BBC world service while writing my reports. they are 'informative', and give me this leap ahead of my other friends when it comes to news. more importantly, i don't really have to spend time reading BBC news or Independent.

although BBC are informative, they fall quite badly when it comes to entertainment. for this, i switched on IKIM.fm, where entertainment comes all the way from malaysia, broadcasting many nasyeeds from many recently-produced albums.

well, better get back to work.. bye...

Wednesday, March 15, 2006

A Scary Referrer

assalamualaikum

Checked my referrers list last night, and guess, what i found out..

Someone was searching for "wanita arab bogel" and somehow he/she was directed to my blog.

hmm...

p/s: wondering if this blog should be classified as an Adult Material.

Tuesday, March 14, 2006

WHY DO WE NEED ICE?

I have just finished reading this article. It talks about ice an how we are losing more and more ice in the Arctic.



Why do we need them? Is Europe not cold enough?

Ice is one of few things that can actually reflect radiation from the sun. It's coefficient of reflection is 0.8 (that is 80%). As the surface of ice absorbs radiation, the absorptivity drops. This will prevent more ice from melting. (Imagine trying to dissolve more and more sugar in water). However, if there is enough energy to maintain heat conduction, ice can definitely melt.

Other materials tend to simply absorb radiation, expecially water. 2/3 of the Earth's surface is covered by water. Is it not enough absorption already? For this reason, Ice in the Poles are really crucial in stabilising the temperature of the Earth.

The main problem is, there can hardly be any ice re-formation. Ice can reflect 80% of radiation. But once it melts, it will become water, which will absorp almost 100% of the energy (compare 80% reflection to 0%). Once the absorption process stars, it will keep on warming the water, hence ice re-formation is quite impossible.

Home Experiment:
Try melt a block of ice in a microwave. You will find that ice hardly melt inside microwave, simply because it does not absorb the microwave radiation. Only the first few micrometres will be warmed. but it should not be warm enough for the ice to melt immediately, considering the amount of energy being radiated onto it.



If you use thaw function in your microwave, please realise that the microwave is automatically switched on and off (listen to the sound). This is because, the time interval is required to allow heat conduction, so that heat can penetrate deep into the core.

Monday, March 13, 2006

Ilmuwan Islam: Kisah pengembaraan Ibn Battutah bersifat global

Sumber: Berita Harian

ABU ‘Abdillah Muhammad ibn Abdillah ibn Muhammad ibn Ibrahim al-Lawati atau Ibn Battutah adalah pengembara terhebat di kalangan pengembara Arab.

Beliau merakamkan pengembaraannya yang panjang selama 29 tahun merentas tiga benua iaitu Afrika, Eropah dan Asia bersama-sama penulisnya yang dilantik oleh Sultan Abu ‘Inan iaitu Ibn Juzayy.

Ia bermula pada awal 1354 selepas beliau pulang daripada pengembaraannya ke kota Fez, ibu kota Maghribi (ketika itu) dan tamat pada 13 Disember 1355.

Maka lahirlah karya Tuhfah al-Nuzzar fi Ghara'ib al-Amsar wa ‘Aja'ib al-Asfar atau lebih dikenali sebagai Rihlah Ibn Battutah yang menjadi sumber maklumat mengenai Ibn Battutah, pengembaraannya dan tamadun dunia Islam pada kurun ke-14 Masihi.

Ibn Battutah lahir di Tanjah (Tangier) dan tinggal di sana hingga umurnya meningkat 22 tahun. Beliau memiliki sifat takwa yang mendorongnya untuk menunaikan ibadat haji dan mengembara.

Minat mengembara membawa beliau ke negara seperti Mesir, Syam, Semenanjung Arab, Afrika Timur, Asia Kecil, Rusia Selatan, India, China, Andalus (Sepanyol) dan juga negeri orang berkulit hitam (iaitu Mali dia Afrika Barat).

Berdasarkan pengalaman yang ditulisnya, Ibn Battutah menetap paling lama di India dan dilantik menjadi kadi selama dua tahun. Begitu juga seterusnya di China, beliau sekali lagi memegang jawatan kadi selama satu setengah tahun.

Ibn Battutah menceritakan semua orang yang dilihat dan dikenali di kedua-dua negara itu terdiri dari kalangan pembesar dan wanita terhormat serta rakyat jelata, lelaki atau wanita.

Beliau juga menceritakan pakaian, adat resam, budi pekerti, cara menyambut tetamu serta peraturan makan dan minum yang diamalkan masyarakat di sana selain kisah peperangan, ekspedisi ketenteraan, pemberontakan serta pembunuhan sultan.

Beliau juga adalah orang pertama yang menjelajahi bumi Afrika dan memberikan maklumat yang amat bernilai mengenai benua itu.

Selepas pengembaraannya, beliau tinggal di Fez, Maghribi dan berkhidmat dengan Sultan Abu ‘Inan, salah seorang pemerintah daripada kalangan Bani Marin.

Ketika menetap di Fez, beliau menceritakan apa yang dilihat dan didengarnya sepanjang pengembaraannya yang lalu kepada orang ramai menyebabkan sultan menitahkan beliau menulis semua kisah pengembaraannya.

Catatan Ibn Battutah walaupun dihasilkan lebih 670 tahun lalu tetapi masih boleh diguna pakai hingga sekarang kerana catatan beliau bersifat global dan kontemporari.

Kebijaksanaan Ibn Battutah juga terserlah kerana beliau berupaya menerangkan sesuatu hal dan peristiwa dengan begitu terperinci.

Kehebatan Ibn Battutah pernah diakui National Geographic yang memartabatkannya sebagai Prince of Travelers dalam edisi Disember, 1991.

Penulisnya, Abercombie mengakui bahawa Ibn Battutah sudah mengembara tiga kali ganda lebih jauh daripada Marco Polo (1254-1324).

Karya Rihlah Ibn Battutah yang kini berusia 649 tahun menjadi khazanah ilmu dan harta intelek dunia yang paling berharga bagi bidang pengembaraan dan eksplorasi dunia, kosmologi, kosmografi, geografi dan kronologi.

Baloch (1997) dalam bukunya yang berjudul Great Books of Islamic Civilisation menyenaraikan karya ini dalam 81 karya agung dalam pelbagai bidang ilmu yang menggambarkan kegemilangan tamadun Islam.

Institut Kefahaman Islam Malaysia (IKIM) turut menerbitkan buku terjemahan Pengembaraan Ibn Battutah dari teks asal berbahasa Arab ke bahasa Melayu yang mengambil masa 10 tahun untuk disiapkan.

PROFIL
Nama: Abu ‘Abdillah Muhammad ibn Abdillah ibn Muhammad ibn Ibrahim al-Lawati
Gelaran: Ibn Battutah
Tarikh Lahir: 703 Hijrah/1304 Masihi
Tempat Lahir: Tanjah, Maghribi
Meninggal Dunia: 779 Hijrah/1377 Masihi
Sumbangan: Pelopor pengembaraan dengan pengalaman dan menghasilkan karya Rihlah Ibn Battutah.

Friday, March 10, 2006

Syiah, Wahabi, and Sunni

assalamualaykum,

duduk buat projek NDT ni, memang time consuming. kadang-kadang, aku masuk lab pukul 7 pagi, dan hanya pulang pada jam 10 malam.

sambil dok bosan-bosan, aku bersembang dengan seorang kawan. dia seorang syiah. dalam berdiskusi dengan beliau, ada satu ayat beliau yang aku rasa aku takkan lupa.

i think, most sunni's are ignorant. their scholars don't teach them about syiah, apart from the distorted information. look at iraq. those sunnis are killing the syiahs, but none of the suni scholar stands up to condemn those act. on the other hand, when syiahs were about to retaliate, syiah scholars immediately stand up to calm the people, and condemn public killing.

i know there were skirmishes between safavid and ottoman, but those were rather political, not on personal/individual basis.

terdiam juga aku mendengar pendapat dia. bila ulama' sunni keluarkan fatwa tak boleh bunuh civilian (seperti mudafi' mazlum), publisiti tidak diberi. tetapi bila ulama keluarkan fatwa boleh suicide bombing, dapat publisiti plak.

kemudian dia menambah

u know what is behind this? the wahhabism. they promote killing and intolerance. i used to live in saudi. the saudi government dont allow us to pray in the mosque, where our ancestors used to pray for more than 1000years, simply because we are syiah.

and in saudi, everyone (the government officials) is in denial. they were saying that there is no such thing as wahhabi. the term was invented by those people who are jealous at us, for whatever reasons.

upon hearing that, i stood up, and told them that you cannot deny the fact that there are groups in saudi that promote intolerance amongst the society.

well, that's wahhabism for u, summarised by few words from my saudi friend. and i told them, for sunni, we always believe in the middle path. as much as we think that syiah is a different group from us, some (or many) sunni scholars will say that those wahhabis are not part of ahlussunnah wal jamaah either. but, it is important to remember that both groups are our brothers, simply because they are muslims. i do not know what fatwa the wahabi scholars use to legalise killing syiah muslims.

wassalam

p/s: wahabi, satu nama baru, tapi penyakit lama yang telah wujud dalam umat islam beribu tahun..

Thursday, March 09, 2006

I'm Hajjaj, I'm the son of Yusuf



peace be upon those whom follow the guidance,

as many of you are aware of, a play will be performed by members of the Islamic Society of the University of Bristol, titled: THE SCHOLAR AND THE TYRANT

this play was written by a great scholar Syakh Yusuf al Qardhawi, narrating the story that went on during the time of the umayyad caliphate. Hajjaj ibn yusuf was a governor appointed by ibn marwan ( if i am not mistaken), and up facing him were series of rebellion by many islamic jurists and scholars, and one of them was ibn Jubayr.

what happened? how did the confrontation end? the play will answer it for you..

come to the UNION BUILDING (MR5C) this THURSDAY AND SATURDAY, BROUGHT TO YOU EXCLUSIVELY BY DRAMASOC & BrISOC

Wednesday, March 08, 2006

to let myself loose in the balkans..

assalamualaikum,

bismillah, alhamdulillah, i ask Allah to give me the strength that i used to have... the strength to rely on nothing but Allah alone.

alhamdulillah, Allah has helped me, at least in this first part of my journey.. few minutes ago, i bought one ticket to Graz, a city in east Austria.

From Graz, i'll try the coach to Zagreb, maybe stay there for a night or two, and make my way further south to Sarajevo. I just want to make myself loose in the country, going from one place to another, see how the muslim communities are coping with life after the tragic war.

InsyaAllah, i'll try to make my way to Dubrovnik, the only port in the 'christian world' that was allowed to do trading with the Ottoman empire, i was told. I have to do more research before heading to the foreign land.

Went to a lecture by two speakers about Chechnya Day. InsyaAllah, one day, I'll try to visit the region.

wassalamualaikum.

Monday, March 06, 2006

hari ini tahun lalu

assalamualaikum,
lama, sangat lama aku tak update benda yang lebih personal dalam blog ni.

semakin lama semakin sibuk, sibuk dengan tugasan, cuba mencari ruang untuk memberi sedikit maklumat kepada insan di mana-mana, yang mungkin ada mengambil berat tentang khabar baik buruk ku, suka duka, susah senang..

hari ini tahun lalu, aku mungkin masih cuba menyiapkan project Finite Element Analaysis. hari ini tahun ini, aku masih cuba menyiapkan project detectability of defect for real-time Structural Health Monitoring system..

entah, aku tidak begitu peduli. cuma, ibarat, terkadang terasa sunyi juga. terasa bersalah dan menyesal juga. namun, apa yang telah berlalu, tak mungkin dapat diulang. hampir genap setahun, kawan baik aku menghilangkan diri. entah masih hidup, entah tidak. wallahua'lam.

terkadang aku berasa sedih juga. apakah salahnya dalam bertanya khabar? andai ada salah silapku, bukankah kemaafan itu lebih aula? sedang alquran sendiri menyarankan kita agar saling memaafkan. tetapi, realitinya cukup mengelirukan. tidak perlu berbicara panjang. cukuplah sekadar bertanya khabar. namun, mungkin itu terlalu sukar bagi insan yang hidupnya diisi detik-detik di ambang perkahwinan. semoga bahagia hingga ke anak cucu.

berbicara soal kahwin, wah, musim panas tahun ini, insyaAllah seorang 'junior' yang ku kenal sejak di KMB akan melangsungkan walimah. perkenalan mereka cukup lama. dan semoga perkahwinan kalian bertahan jauh lebih lama. semoga perkahwinan kalian diberkati.

andai kalian terasa entry ini ditujukan kepada kalian, maka sudi-sudikanlah menghantar email pada aku..

wallahua'lam, wassalam..

p/s: teringat seorang sahabat pernah berbicara:
"bersahabat itu untuk seumur hidup. andai kita tiada jodoh, aku harap suamiku bakal menjadi sahabat karibmu. isterimu bakal menjadi sahabat karibku..."

Saturday, March 04, 2006

CONSPIRACY CONTINUES

well, i have been spending too much time in this computer room, trying to sort out my 3000-words essay, which until now is still merely 500 words long.

with week 18 of the academic term starting on this coming monday, my final-year-project related experiments have to be completed and concluded within next week.

with all deadlines coming up, i am still in this computer room, going to google video website, looking for more conspiracy videos..

well, i guess, conspiracy would not benefit us as much as other things.. however, there's this small part of me who really wants to know all this extra out-of-the-world theories and speculations.

i hate to say this.. but i simply do no want my children to come up to me one day, telling me that i am so stupid to believe in the US government version of 911 or JFK assassination.. the conspiracies may not benefit you as much, but at least, it will not make you look stupid if they are proven true..

wlm

Wednesday, March 01, 2006

VARDAR MACEDONIA V : Goodbye Albania

::The Traveller’s Log::
VARDAR MACEDONIA
V : Goodbye Albania


‘The film "Wag the Dog" was recently a box-office success in the USA. The film is about an American president faced with a sexual scandal he wishes to conceal by all means because the electionsare coming. As a way out, his secretary suggests a declaration of war. "But against whom?" the president asks. "Albania", says she. "But, they have done us no harm". "They have done us no good either".’ [AIM]

Snow melted under our boots as we made our way to the Macedonian border post. I noticed a few pairs of other footmarks, freshly made, and felt a little bit of relief. Their was no public transport, except taxi, serving Tushemisht from the Albanian side, but once in Macedonia, the border guards would give Ohrid a call to arrange transport if there is enough number. No scheduled transport is available, and the two of us would have to wait for ages until other foot travellers, or someone kind enough to give us a lift, arrive.

A jeep and then a battered car drove passed us; none of the drivers seem to care to notice the two hapless backpackers. We continued until we reached the post. There were more Macedonian officials being stationed here. Despite the border conflict between the two countries and ethnic Albanian clashes, both countries exhibited a remarkable level of calmness. The Macedonian police and custom officials directed us to the appropriate window for passport inspection. One of them spoke English.

“Where are you from? China?” he asked me.

“No, Malaysia,” I corrected him. No custom officials ever guessed my country of origin correctly.

“Ah! Malizia. Far away!” he made a gesture with his hand, and a clucking sound. “Working here?”

“No, I am here as tourist,” I said that with much disdain. I never consider myself a tourist. For me, tourist and tourism are modern invention. Materialistic in their nature and contents, they represent the anti-thesis of my idea about as-siyar, the Muslim word for travelling. But delving into philosophical discussion here may not be a good idea. I had to secure my pass first.

He turned in his chair to face a long board with list of countries. “Malizia, Malizia, where is it?” he murmured to himself. I could spot the name right away, before he could locate it, and saw ‘No visa’ written clearly next to it. That means, Malaysians do not need visa to enter Macedonia.

He turned back back to me, “You need no visa, OK? So don’t worry. There is no problem.”

He scribbled something in his log book, stamped on my passport, and returned it back to me. I was about to leave when he called back and handed me two sets of booklets, one on the tourist attraction in Macedonia and another a colourful map Macedonia, with drawings and pictures on some of the historic sites. “For you and your friend, and welcome to Macedonia.”

“We finally have arrived in Macedonia!”, I winked to my companion. “Look here, the Macedonian stamp: Sveti Naum border crossing. Lawakan cop dia?”

I have always wanted to visit Macedonia. When I was six years of age, I had read my brother’s history books. I consider my brother instrumental in inculcating in me the love of history. I remembered that almost every morning in the car, on the way to school, he would start quizzing me on some names from the books. If I could not answer, he would kindly supply me the details. Soon, I could tell my father, who also taught history, what had happened at Teluk Ketapang even before my brother could come up with an answer.

Macedonia came into my vocabulary through such casual exercises. In one chapter I read about Muhammad al-Fatih, the conqueror of Istanbul, on a war horse, complete with turban and brandishing a slender Arab sword. In the next, I read about Alexander the Great, who was drawn in a Trojan soldier (a misleading picture since he was not Greek) red and gold warrior uniform. In his biography, it was mentioned that his father Philip of Macedon, had saved his father’s kingdom from disintegration and formed the ancient kingdom of Macedonia. It was the military genius of his father and the stability that he brought to Macedonia that had formed the key to Alexander successful conquest of the known world.

Today’s Macedonia however is smaller than Philip’s Macedonia. Philip’s Macedonia, the Macedonia proper, has now been divided into three parts. What constitutes modern Macedonia, except a small area in southern Albania (including Pogradeci), has been traditionally called Vardar Macedonia, because it stretches along the valley of the river Vardar. This part was annexed by Serbia to later become part of the Yugoslavian Federation. The eastern part, Pirin Macedonia lies as far as the foot of Rhodope Mountains, and now is part of Bulgaria. The Aegean Macedonia currently is a territory in Greece. When the Republic of Macedonia (Vardar Macedonia) was proclaimed in 1991, Greece perceived this as Macedonian expansionist view trying to claim its province that bears the same name. The dispute between the two republics has lead Macedonia to change its official name to FYROM, Former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia. Greece, however, is not impressed still.

The Muslims, when they conquered this part of the Balkans, did not seem to give the Macedonian ethnicity a special distinction. In one map printed in Malta 1902, the whole traditional Macedonian area was put together with Albania in Wilayah al-Arnaut. Al-Arnaut is what the Arabs called anyone of Albanian stock, although sometimes the term was also extended to other racial group in the Balkan. The Bosnian Muslims for example were oftentimes called al-Arnaut although their administrative territory remained to be known as Busnia throughout Ottoman rule.

A late 1800 firman, on the other hand, did not mention anything about Macedonian, despite it relation to the affair of the people around Veles, a city is eastern Macedonia. Though this could have happen following the city’s folks throwing votes, in the first free referendum in the Balkans ever held by the Ottoman, in favour of the Bulgarian Exharchate over the Orthodox Church, the discovery of the document has initiated a bolder Bulgarian nationalists’ claim over the whole Macedonia.

The hundred of years of Ottoman hegemony over Balkans are still forming gaps in our knowledge of the caliphate. For seven centuries, the Ottoman remained on centre stage as both European and Asian power, a feat not yet challenged by any other empires. To understand the modern history of the world, the role played by the Ottoman in every parts of the world, especially the more than twenty-two modern sovereign states that were once within its border must be understood.

The Balkans had fallen into Ottoman’s hand at about the same time as Damascus, Jerusalem, Mecca and Medina. Baghdad and most of Mesopotamia were wrested from the Safavid Persia later, followed by North Africa, Caucasus and the Crimea. These energetic expansions of the Ottomans may have seemed unlikely partners for their European Christian allies. But the evidence is clear. Valois France and Jagellon Poland-Lithuania quite often found their Turkish allies a mainstay of their regimes. Nor was Tudor England averse to selling canons, gunpowder, lead and woollens to the Ottomans. Even far-off Sweden sought Ottoman or Tatar support whenever she contemplated warfare against Muscovy. Only the Spanish and Austrian Habsburg and the wealthy Papacy sough to stop the Ottomans before they undermined the entire European system. The Ottomans, threatened bya crusade after the failure of the Fifth Lateran Council (1512-1517) took control of Southeast Europe, and aided and abetted the spread of the Protestant Reformation.

As such, this trip was inspired by Ottomans history. It is not difficult to fell in love to the Ottomans. Having read their history and the many mention of events or people related to the region, one should expect to be found woken up at night, repeating the mantra ‘Balkan! Balkan!’

The magic word, Ottoman, and another passion, was why that day we found ourselves at the Sveti Naum crossing. That border was much well-maintained than their Albanian counterpart. There was a money exchange facility from whom I got a good, better-than-Skopje exchange rate, a rarity for a border moneychanger. There was no toilet though. I tried to hang around inside the building that sheltered the police booth and the money changer, hoping to benefit from their warmth, but the police chased me out back into the coldness.

Nobody else arrived after us and the group of Albanian elders whose footmarks I saw in the snow except a lorry carrying boxes of oranges from the Macedonian side. It was allowed to go through after a half-hearted inspection by the custom officials. If there was any bribe passed, I did not notice it. Anyone who might be in hiding or smuggled inside one of the cases had passed unnoticed.

An hour passed, and then the nice man in the custom booth came out to announce that one minibus would arrive soon. In ten minutes he said, but it arrived 20 minutes later.

Putting our best foot forward, we started on our Macedonian odyssey, leaving behind Albania and its heaps and heaps of rubbish, lines and lines of Enver Hoxha’s bunkers, and tonnes and tonnes of memories behind. Oh, that’s for sure.

We love for a while,
We are sad at parting,
We say to each other don’t forget me,
Yet perhaps we will never see each other again.


(from the Macedonian poet, Blazhe Koneski’s, Parting)

[For those who love this country, please visit MacedoniaFAQ, a highly informative website on Macedonia – the map was taken from there]

VARDAR MACEDONIA IV : Tushemisht

::The Traveller’s Log::
VARDAR MACEDONIA
IV : Tushemisht


Finding him wandering in the deep darkness of the night, his friend asked Khoja Nasruddin what he was doing. Khoja thought for a while and replied, ‘Good question. If I know the answer, I would have gone inside and be in bed.’
[Oral Islamic tradition]

The train conductor, a kind-hearted man that he was, had already told the restaurateur that we needed a taxi to get to the small settlement of Tushemist, where the Albanian custom post is located, that morning. I merely mentioned Tushemist and Macedonia, and he was already on his way out to find a friend whom he said would drive the taxi. While we waited outside the restaurant, we took pictures of the town, deep in snow. The town people were welcoming it too. A few circles of men in long black, woollen dark coats and hats, stood happily outside, chatting and puffing out smokes from cigarettes, while a few kids, multicoloured gloves and snow caps on, played on pieces of cardboards that served as slides.

This was the first time snow appeared during our travel. Although it was high winter, the weather in Albania had been great for us; sunshine was plenty and rain, if it ever happened, was short and slight.

The restaurateur came back but without his friend. ‘Soon he will arrive,’ he said. We took pictures with him and waited some more. Five minutes went by and finally the taxi came. ‘Pay him 5 Euro,’ the restaurateur told us and waved us off.

We left Pogradeci behind, and passed rows of houses, and then rows of farms and trees, and then forested areas, all covered in snow. The taxi driver wanted to chat but I could not even recognise the language he spoke. At last, we fall into silence again. It was frustrating for me. Never had I found such great difficulties with languages in my other journeys. Previously, I could always fall back into the few basic words of Arabic and the beginner’s French I have learnt at secondary school. In the Balkans, the second language seems to be Turkish, followed by Italian or German, none of which I knew. The only English-speaking individuals we have met here in Albania was the son of the hotel owner in Berat, and an Albanian religious student of a Syrian madrasah we encountered by chance at the Edhem Bey Mosque in Tirana. Entering Macedonia, another country with a different language, and in addition to that, an unfamiliar writing script, suddenly was a great, daunting challenge.

What am I doing here? I began to question myself, again. Had I wanted holiday, I could have gone to one of those Western countries where tourist facilities are modern and many people speak several different languages. Transport system is great with clear timetable and definitely not rickety trains.

Alternatively, I could have gone to Algeria as was originally planned. The country was also just being opened to travellers, so adventures would be in abundant, especially I desperately need one, not to mention the advantage of being able to practice speaking French again and picking up a few more Arabic words. Trains and buses are as good as Tunisia and Morocco, they said. And although most Westerners are adviced not to go beyond Algiers, I was rest assured by many Algerians that trip to Mostaghenem and Tlemcen, both great centres of the Shadhiliyyah-Alawiyyah Order, would be trouble-free for Muslim. That sounds perfect to any self-proclaimed, spiritual, barakah-hunting traveller, right?

So why am I here? Just for the sense of adventure and freedom? Being footloose and fancy-free? Or, as one friend put it point blank, ‘simply trying to be stupid?’

I turned to my companion, who had been quiet today and looking morose. I had been doing most of the talking on this trip, while he busied himself with picture taking. He had mentioned, by comparing to his short solitary trip in Italy, from where he joined me on the ferry from Bari across the Adriatic to the Port of Durresi, how he enjoyed Albania more. Travelling with him was great; he made it clear that he did not want to involve in decision-making and would follow whatever I thought good. I did solicit his opinion now and then, more for courtesy rather than feeling compelled to ask. Being easy-going, his manner today was quite unseating. Have I done anything wrong?

“No.’ A short reply. Quite typical of him.

“Do you think we are too rushing?” I had promised him last night before going to bed that we would take a walk around the lake in Pogradeci before leaving. But I did not know it would snow.

“No lah. OK.”

“If everything is OK, then why do you look so gloomy? Cheer up.”

“No mood lah. This snow, and cold, makes me sick. Pening. Otherwise I am fine. If only I can get some sleep.” I retreated and let him took the rest he needed.

Soon, we arrived at Tushemisht. I half-expect it to be a large area, but apart from one wooden restaurant, a shop and a few small café, there was nothing else. The whole settlement seemed only to serve the few travellers and locals who crossed the border, and as it was winter, and snowing, none of them was opened.

I paid the taxi driver 5 Euro, suspiciously thinking that he would ask more by claiming a different charge for our baggage, a tactic employed by a minibus driver in Berat, but no, 5 Euro was all he wanted. That was about £2 each, for the 15 minutes drive; big money already for Balkans standard.

We walked to the small, border control which was manned by two armed soldiers. Both were smoking, unsurprising for people in the Eastern Europe, the Balkans included, are known as heavy smokers, and in the case of Albanians, chain smokers. I handed over our passports. The soldier inside the miniature box hardly ever looked at it, and let us through. I almost complain of the smoothness of the whole process. No questions asked? That was unbelievable. Is not Albania supposed to be hard to get in, hard to get out? That was what one entry at a traveller’s forum warned us about.

Between the Albanian check-point to the Macedonian, there was a stretch of about 2 kilometres walk, on a new tarmac road, along the southernmost periphery of Ohrid Lake. We passed the ‘No Camera’ sign, and walked on until we reached the actual border marked with two welcoming signposts, one each for both republics. Fortunately, the weather had obscured the view, and feeling certain that guards on both end would not be able to notice us taking pictures beneath the signposts, we posed and snapped pictures of the historic moment.

The road that we were on was not part of the Roman trading highway, Via Egnatia, serving the Port of Durresi, on the Adriatic shore, to the port of Saloniki (modern Thessaloniki), on the Aegean Sea. That road, after leaving Elbasan, went via the northern side of Ohrid Lake, to Ohrid city before moving on to Bitola.

However the route that we were on could have been used by the celebrated Muslim traveller and geographer, al-Idrisi, during his travel in the Balkans. He had left Durresi to go to Gjirokaster in southern Albania before visiting Ohrid. In his travelogue, part of Kitab al-Rujiyya, (Book of Roger; so named in honour of the Norman King Roger I of Sicily, in whose court al-Idrisi served as a favourite royal scholar) which today is the top medieval historical reference on the region, he wrote,

‘The road from Durresi to Gjirokaster leaves Durresi on the Adriatic Sea and pursues an inland route in the direction of Constantinople. It passes over Tabarla (??), a distance of two days. This is a town located on a summit of a mountain and it is four days distant from Ohrid. Ohrid (Ukhrida) is a mighty city. It is amply housed and populated. Broad in its scope in trade and in commerce. It is located above pleasing mountains. Near to it is a lake wherein fish is caught by fishermen in skiffs. The lake is situated to the south of the city. It takes three days to circumvent the lake and some of the city is situated by the lake side.’

Idrisi provides valuable information about the Adriatic coast of Yugolavia, including such ports as Kotor, Ragusa (Dubrovnik), Trogir, Sibenik, Zara and as far north as the regions to the south-east of Venice and Trieste. He also supplies an especially valuable itinerary inland from the Albanian port of Durresi towards Constantinople.Also interesting in his account are references to Black Sea coast. A number of these routes meet at key localities, whether the final destination be Belgrade (Bilghradun) or Thessaloniki.

The thought remained a fanciful imagination. Idrisi certainly did not mentioned Pogradeci or Tushemisht in his travel book; both only got mentioned in modern maps and literature after the establishment of Albania and Macedonia borders in recent times.

While I had the chance, I tried to take pictures of Lake Ohrid, one of world oldest lakes. They were all no good. Though it looked great through our eyes, capturing a lake enveloped in thick fogs was a surmountable challenge in my amateur hand. My companion, despising having to wait unnecessarily longer in the snow, sulked and nagged,

‘Wei, hurry up lah. That’s enough lah!’

‘OK, OK,’ I gave up after a few more tries. Ohrid, here as I saw it in its natural settings was grand, and I know very few outsiders passed here to witness Ohrid’s winter beauty. It is no wonder the Miladinov brothers, the Macedonian nationalists fighting for the revival of Macedonian language, wasted no praise for Ohrid,

‘No, no, I can’t live here (Russia); I’m not
The one to fight these choking fogs.
But give me the strength of eagle’s wing
With the majesty to make that homeward flight
To Ohrid’s lake and Struga’s stream.
Where even dawn is warmth to the soul
And the setting sun kindles the peaks,
Beauty itself is native thing
The crystal lakehas a milky cast
Or the wind puts all in an ink-blue shade.
Regard that field and the leafing hill
To see their splendour all aglow.
If my heart could skip to the piper’s notes
As the sun goes down - my dying would be easy.’

T’ga za Jug (Longing for the South)