Explorer Mikael Strandberg

I met these ladies on the way to the gym.....

The evening muezzin is calling for prayer over Old Sanaa, dogs are barking, kids are playing football on the street below my window, I can see straight in to the backyard of a neighbor, a covered woman washing clothes, cars are giving noise a new dimension and motorbikes seems to try to set world records in highest speed in most crowded environment. I am sitting in the dark, another electricity brake is hounding the city and I am eating laban, a kind of a salty, thin youghurt with a taste of smoked milk. It is one way to add protein to the body. But building muscle and power in Sanaa is no easy thing, basically due to that it is hard to find enough protein. I eat a lot of eggs, youghurt, milk, but it ain´t enough. I have in a mere three weeks lost so much power and at the gym today I had to fight with ridiculous weights. So I am not surprised that all the young men who train there don´t have neither muscle or strength. It isn´t easy in an adventurous city like Sanaa!

Everyone needs a gym card....here´s mine!

Just walking to the gym is kind of an adventure, mainly due to the traffic which is really a world of its own, but it is good for training as well, since you spend most of the time dodging buses and avoiding to get run over by a speeding motorbike occupied by at least three young men. But you also pass through some spectacular souks full of life and when you eventually arrive at the gym, having stopped, conversed in poor Arabic a few times, one is really tired….

The gym....

No women are allowed to train in the gym, only men dressed from toe to top. Most of them have no idea how to train and it makes me distressed to see them doing it all wrong. Too heavy weights and using the wrong muscles. It will take a life time, if ever, for most of them even getting close to the body builders, who´s posters dot the walls in the gym. The favorite is a Facebook friend of mine, The Lebanese Lion, Samir Bannout. The gym in itself is ok, barbells and dumbbells which is fine, but a bit disorganized. But, full of extremely friendly Yemenis which at times are so friendly I don´t even get a chance to do my reps properly.

Selling sweets...not good to eat after a workout...

I train for an hour and than I slowly cruise back home through the souk and once back home in my room, I am more tired than ever. Not through the traing session, but through the enormous input of fantastic images gathered in my head going back and forth to the gym!

To find out more, why a train in gyms in preparation for the Big Expedition, see http://preparingforthenextexpedition

A lad I met who wanted to have his photo taken....

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Next Expedition, see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3GI-YeZP5E

I got my first Manchester United jersey when I was 5 or 6 years old. My sister was married at that time to an English bloke who turned me immediately into a Manchester United supporter and he used to send me, as a Christmas gift, either number 7 or 11, a shirt number which belonged to the 5th Beatle, George Best. I have kept a close eye on them since then. But it took 47 years for me to make it to Old Trafford, a dream I shared with my brother and his son. Together we spent 4 days in Manchester, not the most exiting cities in the world, but it was a complete visit to Man Utd land and we quickly realized that we were not the only supporters who wished to have a feel for the club. Many Asians, like these Vietnamese ladies on the photo, had spent a lot of money to come and visit the Theatre of Dreams – Old Trafford. It also turned out the most dramatic of games!

However, I did have some time to read and finish my book about Wilfried Thesiger, who I consider as one of the greatest modern explorers, who, even though he wanted fame and recognition like all of us, he did a serious job to discover, explain what he saw and experienced and most of all did his very best to blend in with the locals and lifting their way of living to heaven. Like me, he didn´t understand the sporting aspect of adventure. he was genuinely a true explorer. A definition which, according to Consise Oxford Dictionary is somebody who travels to learn and discover, to inquire into, to investigate thoroughly. But, there is always a but, of course, there is always a backside to everybody, no matter how good we try to be, there´s always a dark side to everyone. We are after all, only humans. The saddest thing with Thesiger, if I am to believe Michael Asher, his biographer, isn´t that he was a misogynist and seemed to lack humour, it is the fact that he seemed to become very bitter in his last years. Just because he couldn´t accept that the world was changing in a way he thought was disgusting. Therefore, I ask myself, what in earth did he learn from his brief visit to earth? In my eyes, bitterness is the evil on earth, no matter what you have gone through. Life is too short to waste your energy on bitterness.

One guy who is not bitter is my very good friend Marcin Gienieczko, the fast and strong Pole, who have returned home from his Expedition to the Kolyma where he has done a fantastic trip! And, it turned out he fell in love with the Kolyma as well. Please do see his film on Youtube. I like this guy a lot, he is so full of spirit, joy and like all Slavs, he understands the backside of life as well. He will go very far in life. He sent me this piece this morning which gave me a lot of warmth inside:

Whatever I do, when trying to find a new idea where to set up my next Expedition, Siberia turns up in my head the most mysterious ways. This morning I receieved a request from a Polish Expedition, who´d like to explore the Kolyma. One of many after Johan and my Expedition along this great river 2004. He´d seen my film, or parts of it, on Yout Tube. It was one of my best friends, Ollie Steeds, who showed me You Tube. He is one of the modern versions of a true explorer, but he is using the new techniques to get his messege across and whilst helping him to do a few slots about the Samí situation, this great Nordic people, when he was doing a job for Al Jazeera, he showed me how to use You Tube. And he said, why not set some Siberia slots up there, for people to view, which I have done. I have, since then, received a lot of response worldwide. It seems like a lifetime ago and I really wonder, what can I find to equal the Kolyma? because, the thing about exploring is of course that for every Expedition, you want it to be the best you´ve ever done. But still today, this hour, the Kolyma seems unreachable. Do see the 7 programmes we did from the Kolyma for a Swedish Television sit com. They´re all in Swedish, but footage should be enough. Just click here.