Bald and Bankrupt

In Mauritania there is a train journey that is legendary for being so brutal on the body and spirit that few can make it to the end of the line. Open box cars full of iron ore dust, freezing nights and scorching desert days...I decided to jump on board an open boxcar and see just how brutal it was...

As a vlogger you are always a little nervous about filming in public. Occasionally people ask you politely not to photograph them, occasionally they throw vegetables at you, but nowhere is quite like the capital of Mauritania where filming yourself gets the locals screaming at you! What a bunch of Mauritanian madlads! Fortunately the people got a lot more chill on the road to Nouadhibou.

If you would like to visit Chernobyl and explore Pripyat then please visit SoloEast travel at https://www.tourkiev.com These guys are the best at what they do and will take you where others won't Not far from the Chernobyl reactor is the town of Pripyat which housed the plant's workers and was abandoned due to high levels of radiation not long after the disaster. I went there on a miserable winter day to see what traces of the past remained...

What do you think of when you hear the name Cuba? Well for me it brought up romantic notions of revolutionaries, rum and steamy tropical nights. But what was life like on the island for the common man living in modern day Cuba? Well myself and Alinchik flew there to find out. Join us on a small town Cuban adventure that nobody else has shown you...Viva the revolution!

Do you hate the morning commute to work? Well I doubt you have it as bad as Cubans we joined on their morning commute. An hour standing in what is basically a cattle truck that rattles over broken roads that even locals struggle with. Bring your sick bag!

Most of us have access to the basic essentials in life. We take being able to use an ATM for granted, that the trains won't run out of petrol and be cancelled or that milk will be available in a shop when you visit. But the people of Cuba are not so lucky. They live under a different system and to be honest, it's not working out well for them...So tell me, could you handle live under that system?

Cuba; land of cigars and rum and random nutters who throw your beer on the floor. Join me as I show you the behind the scenes from our trip through this perplexing, frustrating but friendly and fascinating country.

Whilst travelling through Cuba we saw a malnourished kitten walk under a speeding truck. Somehow it survived and so we adopted the kitten and named him Fidel. For the next two weeks we travelled together across the country with the kitten and despite the food shortages in shops where even milk was hard to find, we nursed him back to strength. But then the holiday was over and we had to fly home to Europe. But what about our little cat who had been our constant companion? Leave him alone on the streets again? Well we did the only thing we could do, we headed to the airport for our flight home and hoped our cunning plan would work...Join us in the greatest action adventure since Papillon. Fidel now has his own Instagram page so you can follow his adventures @furry_bandito and Alina has started a little merchandise shop to raise money for Fidel's veterinary fees: https://teespring.com/stores/la-chica-de-fidelcat

The western world is in panic at the invisible enemy out there, holidays are being cancelled and people are being forced to stay home in self quarantine. And so I thought it would be the perfect time to head off on holiday to the Caucasus and board the midnight train to Georgia. And then I realised that it's not just the west that is worried about the big Corona...Oh and I discovered an abandoned military base too. Random vlog time.

It's Soviet adventurising time again and we are in a new republic for this episode: the ancient mountainous land of Armenia where I heard some stories from the past and up in the mountains discovered the holy grail for Soviet explorers...Join me on the journey.

With my flight out of Armenia cancelled and finding myself with an unexpected extra few hours left in the city of Yerevan I jumped in a taxi and headed to the centre to look at some sights and try some local wine and food...I kind of wish I skipped the food part!

The whole world is taking precautions, keeping people safely inside, practicing social distancing, right? Well no...In Belarus they do things differently. Bars and restaurants are open, few wear face masks outside and today they had a big celebration with crowds. So I went to take a look...Join me in the country that does things its own way.

There are six towns in Belarus which have their own breweries. They are Brest, Lida, Vitebsk, Rechitsa, Bobruisk and Minsk. And so I decided to go on a grand tour and try them all...in the cities where they are brewed. Join me on the no lockdown grand Belarus beer hunt.

'Would I like to go and visit an abandoned Soviet pioneer camp?' my friend Niall asked me. Well what a daft question. Of course I would! And so we set off across no lockdown Minsk in search of a bus out of town and ended up completely lost. But that's a good thing because it meant we met some random Belarusians on the streets of the capitol including a certain famous actor...

Allow me to share with you some of Belarus' history; Khatin and the story of the village the invaders wiped off the map, Studenka where Napoleon's Grande Armee met a watery end and the story of the European Stork who call Belarus home every summer. Oh and of course we found time for a quick look at a small town's 'wall of hotties'. This is part 1 of a two part journey.

Whilst wandering through a remote forest in Belarus I saw an old gate post and then soon after stumbled into an abandoned cottage where the inhabitants had seemingly left in a hurry leaving their belongings behind. Well I did what anyone would do; opened a bottle of Soviet champagne and took a look through the things I had found.

Dobri den from Prague, the world's greatest city where the beer is cheap but the apartments aren't. I came here to recover from my recent illness and have not been filming but when a friend invited me to play football-golf I thought I would film the experience. I didn't know it would be so humiliating. Also get ready to meet a ginger celebrity you may remember... Check out my blog for behind the scenes photos and stories. Here: lostgopnik.com Fidel the cat is on Insta @furry_bandito

When I was growing up I became fascinated by the mysterious and little known country of Albania on the southern edge of Europe. A land which at that time few outsiders had visited due to the paranoid Stalinist leader Enver Hoxha. Well things have changed now and the borders are open so I decided to head there and to see where state paranoia can lead...

I don't usually make food videos but whilst in Albania I met a couple of good lads who invited me to try some Albanian specialities at their restaurant and so how could I refuse? Join me in the sunny town of Vlora as we try some delicious, and not so delicious local specialities... Blog: lostgopnik.com Instagram: realbaldandbankrupt

Welcome back to beautiful Prague, capitol of Czechia and now known as the city of Vietnamese alcohol shops and the region of Pankrac, known as the Venice of Central Europe. I have returned to look after a Cuban cat for a few weeks and whilst here was invited to chat to a very nice chap called Thomas about...well all kinds of things. Oh and he took me for a ride in a weird contraption you have possibly not seen before. I hadn't. Enjoy!

Hola Señor y señoras from Mexico City. I have flown here for a week of tacos and tequila with my YouTube friends Harald Baldr and Simon Wilson. Join me on what is bound to be some random drunken adventures in the big daddy of Central America. Viva Mexico!

Ask any resident of Mexico City where they would avoid visiting and the answer always come back: Tepito. A barrio of counterfeit markets and dark alleyways where the hoodlums run the streets, the Barrio Bravo ( Ferocious neighbourhood ) is a place I was told not to go to if I valued my life and possessions. But could it really be that bad? There was only one way to find out. I had to go and investigate.

Sinaloa; the word alone conjures images of cartels and violence. A place that anyone with an ounce of sanity would avoid, especially a bunch of tourists who would stand out like a sore thumb. Well fortunately me and my friends don't have much sense so we decided to head deep into cartel country disguised as Mexicans. Join me in part one of a drunken adventure to the home of El Chapo...Culiacan, Sinaloa. Please check out Harald Baldr's and Simon Wilson's YouTube channels for their films from Mexico.

We all love Mexican food, right? Tacos, enchiladas, tequila...but whilst in a small village north of Guadalajara I ordered a local beverage of unidentifiable flavour...we decided to call it the Mexican blood pint. Join me on a trip deep into cartel countryside...

After a journey down from the altitude of Mexico City, we finally reached the tropics of Sinaloa. Home to the Sinaloa Cartel it is a place we had been warned not to visit, but I wanted to see Sinaloa behind the headlines. Was it as bad as we had been told or not? Join me on a road trip through Mexico's narco state...

Ever wanted to know what life was like in mysterious Central Asia? Want to see what kind of hotel rooms a couple of $ will get you? Well join me as I drive across Kyrgyzstan in search of a town called Miley Suu and on the way meet a host of characters in the semi-abandoned villages of the country. Oh, and I found a nice apartment block for us all to move into. Instagram: realbaldandbankrupt

️ The Soviet Union had a policy of closing towns and cities of strategic and military importance off to the outside world. Even Soviet citizens couldn't enter Maylisuu due to its Uranium mines which were so important to the nuclear weapons program. Well I decided to head to deepest Kyrgyzstan to see what a formerly closed city looked like back then and see how life was progressing now. Join me as I become one of the few foreigners to ever enter Maylisuu.

I left Kyrgyzstan's worst hotel and headed towards the high peaks of the Ala-Too mountain range on my way towards the radiated town of Mailuu-Suu. And for once I had a friend with me. Join me on a Central Asian road trip...

In the 1960s American spy satellites photographed a huge leviathan craft docked in the Caspian Sea. The CIA dubbed it the Caspian monster. It was however a top secret Ekranoplan that was built for war. It remained in a naval dockyard under lock and key after the USSR collapsed until recently when it broke free and washed ups on a beach a few hours to the south near the Russian city of Derbent. I flew to Rostov and set off across the varied landscapes and cultures of Southern Russia in search of the infamous Caspian monster. Kalmyk song on radio is called Eejin Duun by Okna Tsahan Zam and is on YouTube if you search it.

Hola todos! Culiacán, city of the Sinaloa cartel, cocaine and for a brief period, Diego Maradona. But the one thing they never tell you about is the orgasmatron lady of the city centre or the terrible table manners of Simon Wilson who barges into cafes throwing his Jugo Chavez all over the place. So if you see him coming to your restaurant and you are a waitress then avoid this man.