When I was a kid, I often played with some of my mates, and one of the many games consisted in projecting on a wall, with the help of a ray of sunlight or with the artificial light of a light bulb, figures we made with the hands. If you looked at your hands, you would never understand what it was, but looking at the shadows that formed on the wall, a butterfly, an elephant and other images appeared. We called them by their name, Chinese shadows, but we were unaware of the fact that Chinese shadows were actually a real theatrical art form, mostly performed by itinerant people, that developed in China a hundred years before the birth of Christ.

At the train station

In Chinese shadow puppetry performances, still popular both in China and in other Southeast Asian countries, the figures cannot be seen directly; what you see are only their shadows reflected on a white cloth. Italian writer Tiziano Terzani, in the book ‘Behind the forbidden door’ wrote: “In China, what you see is merely the shadow of a thing, and what seems to be the reality, often it is just theater”. Personally I would not be ready to confirm Terzani’s words, I was in this country too little time to be able to make such a net judgment on the theatricality of these people. I only spent two weeks in a part of one single Chinese province that is biggest than France, and since I cannot give a complete and realistic framework of a country so extensive and varied, what I can report are only impressions. Shadows more or less defined of a reality far more complex and difficult to understand than what I experienced. Hence, only shadows and even not so sharp; Chinese shadows, just like when I played as a child, but this time in that new adult game that is travel, which is just as instructive.

A relax moment for carriage manager

Once in Kunming, my first thought before starting to enjoy my well-earned rest was to arrange next day train ride to Chengdu in the Sichuan Province. The problem was to explain it to the guesthouse manager, and the solution arrived thanks to technology. I had installed a Chinese SIM card in my phone, but I had been told that I would not have coverage since it was still out of range. To my surprise, I managed to connect and with the help of the online translator I was finally able to communicate. The train would leave at around 9am the next morning and in ‘just’ 22 hours it would take me to my final destination.

And so, the art of backpack traveling enters the age of technology. The modern backpacker continues traveling with makeshift equipment and without a well-defined organisation behind him, sleeping in hostels or cheap guesthouses and trying to keep expenses to the minimum. However, he then gains orientation with google maps that achieve a precision of within only a few meters from the actual position, and he communicates with simultaneous translators that also have the sound option for when the reading becomes difficult. If this traveler also runs a website where he publishes his travel diaries, now called ‘ blogs’, technology rushes again to his aid: no more bulky notebooks and hundreds of written words, there is a microphone application that allows recording thoughts on the spot, and to later take them down in complete relax during a break, and to publish them, if needed, with the help of a simple ‘tablet’.

One could argue that in this way the journey loses some of its romance, and a bit of that poetic essence that reflects that sense of the unknown that you often get when you enter a different, unknown world. Actually, this is not correct: in a changing world that develops with an almost maddening speed, progress helps improve the quality of even the most spartan journey, facilitating communication with people, increasing the resources devoted to the orientation, and even increasing the chance of contact with the rest of the world.

The landscape from the train window

After all, travellers in all ages made use of what the best contemporary technology offered – be it a compass, a sextant, or even the observation of the stars – to orient themselves in their wanderings; be it one way of communicating that would start from the ‘me Tarzan, you Jane’ followed by a series of gestures that simulated friendship, peace, hunger or sleep in order to establish an initial relationship with the locals; be it the dispatching of letters through more or less reliable postal services in order to send newspaper articles or just news to their families.

What modernity cannot yet change, and what to me is the essence of the journey itself, is the contact with people, the admiring of monuments, buildings, works of art that tell you, if you have eyes to see and ears to hear, stories of a present and a past civilisation that, in spite of man and his progress, speak a language as old as the world, communicate moods and convey emotions. No image seen on a computer will ever give the same feeling of being in person in a Tibetan village or in front of newborn baby Pandas that waddle towards each other.

The observation of the behaviours and habits of the people of a particular place, albeit susceptible to misunderstanding if caught within a period too short to allow you to deeply understand them, homages the observer with images that mingle with his sense of imagination; fragments of local life, pieces of a mosaic that, if you can complete it, speak of people, of lives to be listened to or just imagined. That elderly gentleman who walks upright with a proud look, was he part of the Cultural Revolution? Did he, like so many of his peers at the time, wave his Little Red Book in the streets? I will never know, of course, but with my imagination I can draw a story that perhaps he has never lived, or perhaps he has, a story that I like to grant to him. A story made of hopes, perhaps fulfilled, perhaps disappointed; of private episodes that are intertwined with the history of his country, moments of glory and of sadness, of light and of shadows. Hidden shadows representing a veiled reality, filtered through a white screen and projected by a beam of light: Chinese shadows.

Station Manager

At the Kunming train station, I buy a ticket without understanding what kind of seat I would get, and I find myself on a carriage with hard seats and quite crowded with people and luggage. A kind of third class, I would say, yet very clean and well-organised. Each carriage has its own manager who, before the train leaves, stations outside its door to give directions and to check that everything is running smoothly. It is one of these managers who suggests that I move to a bunk-bed. Somehow he informs me that I can change place as soon as the train leaves, so I pay a modest price difference, receive in exchange a regular receipt issued by a portable machine, and I find myself sitting on a bunk in a six beds compartment. Just like inside buses, train bunks are fixed and do not turn into seats during the day, yet the train offers more space and the chance to move from time to time and stretch the legs a bit. Once more, what strikes me is the organisation and the cleanliness: each carriage has its own water kettle so passengers can prepare the inevitable tea; with a certain frequency, uniformed staff come to clean aisles and carriages, and I often notice that even those in charge of a carriage help to keep clean the space placed under their jurisdiction.

From time to time, local grocery sellers pass with their trolleys full of rice and other foods literally sunk in coloured and very attractive sauces that give out particularly strong odours. I immediately judge these to be preposterous to my taste, perhaps wrongly. My alternative to a forced fast comes from a cart selling only fruit that passes countless of times during the trip, and that I welcome every time with a deep sense of gratitude. I even ask the seller, again with the help of the phone translator, if it were possible to have a bottle of water; at the following round, he is back with the coveted bottle, sporting a satisfied expression.

I alleviate my hunger with oranges, bananas and grapes, munching them here and there during the course of the trip. I rape my Italian need for coffee with tea, and I can finally dedicate myself to enjoying the views and to observing my occasional fellow travellers.

Passing of a Chinese train station

If I had expected something particular or characteristic in other travellers, I would be deeply disappointed. Beyond some sympathetic smile or a few cliches in Chinese that, for a change, I do not understand, they blissfully mind their own business: there are those who sit on the aisle folding seats sipping tea, those with a tablet, and those who simply look absently out of the window. Patiently, they let the time pass slowly, indifferent to things that to me are a huge attraction instead. They eat, lie down on the bunk, reach the smoking area. The railway staff is always in motion, always alert. When the train stops at a station, they have already arranged bathrooms to be locked and one of the two entrances of the carriage to be blocked. They then drop the toilet trash bags on the sidewalk and stand behind the only open door, looking with zeal to what is happening before their eyes. All uniformed, of course, and all with their stern, mask-like look: if anyone asks them for some information, they do not hide a certain kindness and professionalism, despite a tone of voice that sounds like a barked order.

Impenetrable faces that retain their states of mind and do not let their emotions or their impatience to arrive at destination leak. Faces decorated with almond-shaped eyes that hide their reality behind a white sheet of discretion: Chinese shadows.

Instead, it is the landscape that passes before my eyes to reveal all its variety and its beauty, needless to hide the feelings that it conveys. It is China, it is a Yunnan that mile after mile turns into Sichuan. A majestic landscape made ​​of mountains and hills, valleys and rivers, towns and countryside villages that, fleeing in the opposite direction of the train, abandon themselves to my quick and perhaps indiscreet look.

Along the way

Cities that perhaps are not even mentioned on maps, crossed by wide roads with little traffic, dotted with skyscrapers and modern buildings that act as a background for old, traditionally low houses; neatly cultivated fields, with their shades of green and yellow, form patches of colours and drawings like in paintings, fields where bent farmers are engrossed in their work, distracted only by the passage of the train to which they throw a curious look; industrial and mostly coal-mining areas with their chimneys that here and there scar the blue sky with their plumes of black smoke; country cottages made of bricks, at different degrees of dilapidation, that in some places seem to recall the landscapes of the Italian Po River valley, where you often see cobs, corn and peppers dry on their roofs, or when peering into the opening of some of the walls, one can see bundles of wood that will be quite useful in the winter.

Then there are the stations, with their liveliness, their people getting on and off, their local produce sellers.

I borrow, once again, the words of Tiziano Terzani from the book ‘A fortune-teller told me‘:

The author relaxes on the train

“Traveling by train (…) over large distances set back my sense of the world vastness and above all made ​​me rediscover humanity, the one of the most, the one we almost forget the existence when we fly: that humanity that moves laden with boxes and with kids, that humanity to which the planes and everything else pass over its head. (…) The train, with its ease of time and its hardships of space, gives us back the disused curiosity about the details, and sharpens the focus on what you have around and on what flows out the window. ”

Thus, hour after hour, landscape after landscape, sunset comes and paints its pastel colours over the world, shadows lengthen and the night inexorably lower its dark veil on the various forms that Chinese nature offers us. By now there is nothing left to see. Some travellers eat a plate of noodles in soy broth, others sip a tea. I, in absence of coffee, smoke a Chinese cigarette bought when I was still at the border, and later end my day on the cot. Sleep comes fast, helping me to spend the last hours on the train, and when I wake up, the very first light of dawn mixed with the last lights of the city inform me that the train is arriving in Chengdu.

Photos by Guglielmo Zanchi (Pluto)

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At the China-Laos border

Sitting on a curb waiting for a bus to Kunming, immersed in my thoughts on how to continue the journey, I stop to look at the building that houses the customs office. In front of it, the red flag with five stars is flying, almost proud, against the backdrop of a blue sky. Even in a remote outpost of the Empire, in a border post forgotten by all but the trucks carrying goods of various kinds and some tourists – mostly Chinese – visiting Laos, China seems to want to show right from the start its best image, and it succeeds no doubt. Beyond the efficiency shown by the customs officers and the cleanliness that prevails inside the premises, the structure in itself looks majestic and modern, a worthy entrance to a country aware of its power and that still has great potential to be expressed.

I look at the passing of vehicles waiting to be inspected, and the impression is that everything takes place in a certain order, with a certain regularity and with relative speed. All under the watchful yet not too severe eyes of a soldier in green uniform – lighter shirt adorned with showy red epaulettes, darker pants – who verifies each vehicle’s documents and license plate number, performs a quick check and then gives the go-ahead. On the opposite lane, the one for traffic exiting the country, a woman driving a red truck, her hair tight in a ponytail, waits patiently for her turn, while a tour bus unloads two dozen people who rush to reach the passport control.

A woman driving a truck waiting at the custom

Crossing the street, a woman in a black jacket wearing a shoulder bag comes up to me and tells me that she wants to exchange my currency. I am a bit hesitant, I do not know if I can trust her; as I ponder, other people approach, their haversacks full of cash. I had already noticed them on the other side of the street approaching people, and I had also seen that most people trusted them and without fear gave out their money to be exchanged, only bargaining a bit the exchange rate. I relax and do the same: I bargain, I manage to improve the rate and at the end I exchange Thai Baht at a rate of five point three. It will prove to be the best exchange rate of my entire stay.

Tireless, the ‘improvised bankers’ approach other people and carry on with their job: they buy Yuan from those who come out for Dollars, Euro, Baht or Laotian Keep, and resell them to those who enter in exchange for the same currency. It is the first practical application I experience of Deng Xiaoping dogma, “getting rich is glorious”, and I’m pretty sure that at the end of each day, working at these rhythms between arrivals and departures, the friendly bankers return to their homes full of ‘glory’.

Lunch with pork, rice and mushrooms

Of course, work is not always without its drawbacks: suddenly, with an all-Chinese calm, the ‘currency exchangers’ leave with indifference: some walk away, others depart on silent scooters. I raise my eyes and understand the reason for the exodus: a patrol consisting of three soldiers in a single line with a higher rank officer besides them is approaching, goose-stepping in war-like style. They pass by my side, intentionally avoid eye-contact with me, and reach the group of runners who had stopped a few dozens of meters away. The higher rank officer seems to be muttering something to them, perhaps he is expressing a doubtful zeal. Eventually he performs an about-turn and decides to return to base after having closed one eye, probably both of them, and having showed some tolerance and understanding. Needless to say, as soon as the patrol disappears from view the ‘currency exchangers’, attracted by an incoming bus, return to the front lines.

Chinese sleepers bus

I deploy myself to the front lines too this time: on the bus windscreen, in Western characters, a ‘Vientiane – Kunming‘ sign is affixed, and I see in those names a real chance to move away from the border. If the language problem with the currency converters was solved with great ease thanks to the help of a simple calculator, communication with the bus staff highlights my first encounter with serious difficulties in this trip: “Is there an empty seat ?”, “What time do we leave?” , “How much is it?” ,” What time do you get to Kunming?”. In front of me, neutral faces that reply with sounds that I just cannot understand; they may have understood all my questions and they may be replying in an appropriate manner, especially since I denote a certain willingness in them, but I simply do not understand them. If the situation does not get me depressed is only because it is not the first time I travel and I have always managed communication pretty well. Especially because in all the countries I have been to, most spoke a little English that was more or less understandable, but it was still English. Not here. No-one speaks it, and there is probably a logic behind it: a nation of nearly a billion and a half people, about 20% of the world population, may as well have the right to speak their language in their motherland.

A building along the way

My solution is unveiled with the help of two young Chinese students who study in Laos and can understand a bit of English and a bit of Thai, so I find out: that the bus will leave in a short time, that it will take about twelve hours to get to Kunming and above all, to my delight, that there are seats available. Actually, being a sleeping bus it is only fit with sleeping berths, so I will have a place to lay down. Fortune, which seems to have taken the right fold from the start, keeps helping me: at the back of the bus, on the upper floor, there are five great beds free and, apparently, at my disposal.

The bus leaves only to halt a few minutes later: we stop in the center of Mohan for a lunch break of about half an hour; I eat a quick meal and I take the opportunity for a hurried visit to the town, which appears to be clean and well kept. The houses, mostly with two or three floors, fully reflect the Chinese style to which I am accustomed: the business is based on the ground floor while the upper floors represent the living area. Shops, guesthouses, restaurants with food exposed to the outside, normal tables inside a room and a few tables down on the sidewalk where groups of three or four people share their meal accompanied by rice and by the inevitable tea. In a small lane off the main street, some people are playing on two pool tables on the edge of the road. Mohan is a quiet border town, unpretentious, with its activities, its laziness and its slow rhythms.

food buffet

The half-hour is gone, but the bus shows no signs of leaving. Most of the passengers are comfortably lying inside the vehicle, the driver is sitting nonchalantly outside, chatting and smoking with some other travellers. One of them kindly offers me a cigarette, lights it for me and tells me something. I nod, smiling – what else could I say? –  and I get ready to patiently kill time.

The two students who had rushed to my aid a few hours earlier explain that some passengers are missing and so we have to wait for them. We start a broken conversation with the little vocabulary we have in common; they tell me that they hail from a city in Yunnan where they could not continue their university studies, so they went to Vientiane where they began studying law. I am puzzled: they study Chinese law in Laos? No, they study Laotian law, they clarify; I believe they are just making a virtue of necessity when they say that they like Laos and that at the end of their studies they plan to keep living in Vientiane. I can easily believe it: what could two lawyers who studied the laws of Laos do in China?

They are very friendly and willing to confront with a European; one of them helps me to buy a Chinese SIM card; the process requires to register with a document, and he does not hesitate to show his identity card and guarantee for me. I begin to like Chinese people, and despite the initial difficulties with the language, albeit not insurmountable, I feel that it have started a journey that will not disappoint me.

The author on the bus to Kunming

After a false alarm and a delay of more than an hour, the missing people arrive and are welcomed by total indifference and by no sign of impatience by the rest of the passengers. The bus finally departs. I lay diagonally in my spacious room, taking on the position of an ancient Roman, half-lying on a triclinium. I get ready to enjoy the views, until sleep do us part.

As if frames of old movies, China rushes at my side through the windows: a variety of mountains and hills, banana, rubber and other plantations, towns and villages comprised​of country homes that alternate with large dormitory buildings accompany my passage. A road sign informs me that we are cruising along the borders of the largest tropical forest in China. This, and some of the buildings we pass that have unmistakable Thai style roofs, remind me that the Thai population is native to Yunnan, and make me go through some sort of trip down memory lane of the country that has been hosting me for twenty years.

Dinner stop in a local restaurant

The journey continues without surprises, only a few stops to eat or for a visit to the toilet until about halfway when, during one of my moments of ‘deep concentration’, the bus stops, the door opens and I am awakened by a sharp barking of orders in the usual unknown language. Two pretty policewomen wearing camouflage clothes have entered the bus and, apparently somehow roughly, are asking all passengers to show their documents. Berth after berth they are approaching me, the only European in the bus. I notice that, upon seeing me, their grim expression gives way to a more good-natured one. Politely, in a very rough English that draws a smile even to the scowl of her military colleague, one of the two asks for my passport. Helping each other, they formulate a couple of standard questions in English about my destination, and then, perhaps satisfied by their linguistic performance, they both let go to a friendly smile, say goodbye and leave the bus.

The trip gives away no further distractions, with the evening and then the night relentlessly falling onto the landscape. After another stop for a check to the bus cooling system, at around midnight we arrive at Kunming bus station, surprisingly ahead of the estimated arrival time. Amongst the various people around who offer me a place to sleep, I choose one randomly and after about ten minutes, I am transported through the half-deserted streets of the town suburbs on board an old minibus. Eventually, I find myself in a guesthouse with only a few rooms, clean enough, where waiting for me, along with a sleepy clerk, stands a poster of Chairman Mao.

Photos by Guglielmo Zanchi (Pluto)

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On the way to Laos

It is 7:30 in Laos, and the morning bodes well: the sky is blue and the first rays of sunshine accompany my slow steps up the slight rise in the land of no-one where, after passing a welcome sign in English with a glaring mistake, manicured lawns tell you that you are entering China. It is just a few minutes walk and a one-hour time zone ahead, but in this hour and in the two or three hundred meters that separate the two countries, it almost feels as if you have made ​​the I.

I savour this short transit like a Chinese enjoying a cup of tea; I linger to admire a yellow butterfly motionless among the leaves, I look at a few Laotians and Chinese who move from one country to another, trucks waiting in line to see their goods inspected. Only then do I realise that I am the only European around. I ignore an electric car that for a few pennies gets you comfortably across the short distance that separates not only two countries but two conceptions of life, two realities that, though united by a common ideology, cannot be more different one from another. It’s like going in a brief moment through two seasons both beautiful in their diversity: from a sad fall in pastel colours in Laos, to a lively spring the color of flowers in bloom.

I am welcomed by a modern border crossing semi-deserted given the time; only a few guards are presiding it. I head to the first I notice; he is kind and smiling, he enters my passport into a scanning machine, he adds the visa number and suddenly, to my surprise, a metallic voice in Italian invites me to press the button and print out my immigration card. I smile amused and begin to get the feeling of being in a different world, a modern Alice in Wonderland.

I continue my walk until I arrive at the passport control desk where another customs officer, also polite and also smiling, performs his check, applies his stamps and returns my passport. His eyes then point towards a machine placed on the counter to my left: 4 emoticons like the smiley faces used in the chats, a range from ‘very sad’ to ‘very happy’, underlined by some to me incomprehensible characters that I assume ask you to give an assessment of the service received. Under the satisfied gaze of the guard, I pass him with flying colours, and after a few more steps, backpack on my back, I finally enter China.

The trip, which from a certain point onwards would be strictly by land, had begun the previous day on a local bus from Chiang Rai in northern Thailand that covered about 130 km to reach Chiang Khong in a little over 3 hours, driving amongst rice paddies, plantations and the restful green of the Thai hills. With a tuk tuk I reach the Mekong River, which marks the border between the two countries. A few dozen kilometers to the north-west, the Golden Triangle and its splendours, and in front of me, beyond the river, once again Laos.

It is a simple local boat that in only a few minutes takes me to the other shore of the Mekong and, between the slow flow of the river traffic, I see the coast getting closer, I see the people busy in their activities of loading and unloading goods grow bigger in front of me, I see Laos getting closer.

Lao girl with her daughter in the market

Laos does not seem changed since the last time I visited it about six years ago: the landscape is still fascinating, with its hills, its mountains, its pathways made ​​of ups and downs, its villages with small wooden houses, located on the edge of the road where they appear here and there as if to break the monotony of an excessively green scenery.

Life goes by according to the rhythms of all times, the rhythms of a rural life marked by nature and made ​​of days almost all equal to each other: at dawn small groups of people in a line reach the plantations by road; in the local markets, made of cheap goods and lots of fruits, a slow activity bustles. People meet, talk, buy, sell. Outside of a few huts converted in shops, young and old spend their lazy day watching the traffic go by and conversing with each other, while the children, like all children of the world, play and run, still partly carefree, waiting for their time to help in the fields.

The sun surprises the peasants bent in the rice fields, planting or harvesting the precious offer from the land, the main resource in the “Kingdom of a million rice fields”, or plowing the fields with old plows pulled by water buffaloes helped by the thrust of men with their heads covered by traditional wicker cone hats. Often, some woman on the roadside wash clothes in streams flowing nearby, while others walk towards the market with an empty basket on their shoulders, which should return full for the dinner; a young monk in saffron robes approaches on a bicycle; old men sit on the houses threshold and look absently the playing children and the world around them, engrossed in some kind of thoughts. I like to imagine their mind roaming through memories of youth gone by now, a youth that for many of them has represented war, deprivation, suffering and bombs. On the side of the streets I can see wild dogs and piglets that lazily let life pass them, sleeping or eating.

Meanwhile comes the sunset: people come back from the fields always in a line, with their humble bundles and their tools on their back, the market sellers remove the goods and start to close, the shops get a few more customers who like to linger with glasses of local liquor while children, only them, continue to play peacefully, no matter how little peace of mind the poverty that surrounds them gives out. They are all waiting for the next day, for the beginning of another day.

You can clearly notice the presence of young people in rural areas, unlike in the near and more modern Thailand, where young people tend to urbanise, finding a viable life alternative in the cities. In Laos this alternative seems to be missing. Apart from the capital Vientiane and a few places where tourism has developed more, like Luang Prabang or the so-called 4000 islands, the country maintains its predominantly agricultural nature. The lack of access to the sea also limits higher developing models. For travel and transportation there are the roads, which I would call more than acceptable, and above all the channels and the river. All this means that rural Laos looks same as ever, a country where changes are exasperatingly slow compared to the world that surrounds it, and that instead runs in a frantic.

Seen from outside, the beauty of Laos, as well as in the temples of Luang Prabang, is just in this: a journey back in time, a population almost untouched, rhythms regulated by a nature that for us westerners seem to be much more on a human scale, and a form of spirituality that you can still breathe today in every corner of the country.

An old French colonial saying, which describes pretty well Laotians and their proverbial calm and serenity, reads: “The Vietnamese plant rice, the Cambodians watch it grow, Laotians listen to the rice growing”. If it is true that rice is in this region the main source of food, and therefore of life, this “listening to the rice growing” seems to want to conjure up images of a people attentive in listening the essence of life itself.

When I arrive in Luang Namtha it is already dark. I have a light supper at the local bazaar, and a black coffee without sugar, which little differs from poison. I drink it before going to sleep in a very cheap guesthouse waiting to be heading towards the so longed for Chinese border. All this makes me savour the taste of the journey that has just begun.

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Macau – a Chinese temple

China, a short five-letters name, yet in these five letters dwells the name of the largest and most powerful nation in Asia, the fourth in the world in size. A country rich in history, culture and art, a country that for one reason or another, most people wants to visit, fascinated by books, films and comics that have always presented China to the world in their own way. From Marco Polo to the Kung Fu movies that were a big hit in the past, to the well-known Last Emperor in Bertolucci’s masterpiece; from Mao‘s Little Red Book of Thoughts to Corto Maltese’s trip from Hong Kong to Harbin, nearly each one of us, for one reason or another, has been attracted by this partly mysterious country caged, up to a few years ago, by an inaccessible ‘forbidden door’.

Those were different eras, of course, because China has always been there; not always visible to the world perhaps, but always present, like a Damocles’ sword which we need to confront with sooner or later.

“China is near”, it is often said; perhaps with a hint of fear by those who see this majestic nation as a looming threat, or with a certain admiration by those who are moved by its arts and culture. Huge amounts of people queue up to see the XiAn terracotta warriors when they are taken to exhibitions around the world; many who passionately follow the Maoist ideals that made ​​inroads in the 70s, still look with pride and hope at the affairs of the homeland of non-soviet communism.

Personally, the fascination for China reached me almost 20 years ago when I was living in Italy and China was not close at all, but was in fact approaching thanks to my relocation to Asia.

Woman praying in a Chinese temple in Bangkok

I started to see China in the countless Chinatowns of the places I was passing through: Bangkok, Penang, Kuching. Extending my gaze beyond an impenetrable horizon, I saw, or rather I imagined, its far shores from the Thai banks of the Mekong River; I saw its door, no longer forbidden, at the border posts in Macao and Hong Kong, countries that belonged to China but that have already been barbarized by the previous presence of foreigners.

China was always there, almost within reach, an open door inviting me to enter, whispering in my ear: “come in, come.”

Like Oscar Wilde, I too ‘can resist everything except temptations’, and China is an unfair temptress, setting traps during years and years, throwing hooks and waiting for my arrival, patient as a Chinese citizen, sitting on the edge of that proverbial river. And I, for years, watched China secretly, as one peeps the generous cleavage of a busty lady, playing indifference, pretending not to show interest yet admiring, with the corner of one eye, this shrewd Lady of the nations with the air of one who still feels too inexperienced to enjoy its grace.

Now that I am a grown up and mature enough to court her, and my approach is just a few days away, I realize China is so terribly big that the preparation of a journey inside its borders presents a hardship far greater than difficult visa applications. “Where do I start?”, is the question that has been haunting me for the last few days.

China Town – Penang (Malaysia)

I look at a map, I read a name without conviction, then I say: “I want to go there”, then the eye continues to run greedily on the same map, I read another name and with equal conviction I add: “Yeah, I also want to go there”. But time, as you well know, is an evil tyrant, and the little of it I have at my disposal forces me to make some hard choices. There is an infinite number of names, and they all convey feelings, exoticism, culture and somehow poetry. I need to pick one, and one only. In the end I choose Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province…

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Penang; a name that for most of the expatriates living in the south of Thailand represents a kind of nightmare, a small place where they feel they expiate the sins of living in one of the most brilliant countries of South East Asia. Penang is where you go periodically to renew your visa, be it for tourism or business, and to be able to continue living in the Land of Smiles. Almost every day I meet a friend or an acquaintance who tells me, with a mixed expression between sad, bored and irritated, “damn, I have to go to Penang tomorrow.” They prepare themselves psychologically for that long and tiring journey, the cheapest and fastest, complete with minibus, bureaucrats and lots of waiting time. A one or two nights stay characterised by boring walks back and forth along Chulia Street, long hours lounging on the guesthouse bed waiting for time to pass, and frequent visits to the guesthouse counter to ask if the yearned for visa has arrived. And in the end, when finally the passport is returned decorated with the coveted stamp, they pick up a ready-to-go backpack that was never unpacked, and rush to get a minibus back to Thailand that was dutifully pre-booked upon arrival in Penang.

I was one of them. I came to Penang dozens of times during the twenty years I have spent so far in Asia. I did it also with the same spirit that seems to be passed down from expat to expat, with the same desire to return as soon as possible, each time seeking the fastest and cheapest way to tackle this ‘journey to hell and back’.

Then one day I asked myself if Penang was really a place so hideous that it does not even deserve that I leave the confinement of Chulia Street. If it was really so boring as for me not to devote even a few days longer than strictly necessary. After all, if UNESCO included George Town in the list of World Heritage places, there must be a reason. And you can find that reason out of a brochure: in Penang, and precisely in the historical city of George Town founded about 200 years ago, there are more than 1700 buildings of historical interest that refer to the various ethnic groups that make up its population: a city whose soul is composed of Chinese, Indians, Arabs, Malays, Acheenese, Thais and Europeans, who live together peacefully and with an absolute mutual respect.

If you walk along Chulia Street with your mind free from the obsession of the visa renewal, you have a totally different picture of the lane that, for several years, I have watched with a gray and sad filter in my eyes. Chulia is a lively and bustling street, a parade of people of all races, a hub for arrivals, meetings and departures. A world of colors, of pungent food smells that follow the visitor from alley to alley, from street to street, almost like a menu of scents that invites you to taste the flavors of a good part of Asia. In the evening, Chulia Street turns into a big open-air restaurant made of stalls offering the most delicious Chinese hawkers food where, with just over 1 Euro, you can eat a hearty noodle soup with soy ravioli and thin slices of pork, and drink a fresh fruit smoothie, getting up from the table with a satisfied feeling. Or you can enjoy a beef stew with red curry and a couple roti dipped in a yellow curry sauce, followed by a spiced coffee prepared according to tradition in a modest and small Indian restaurant, all for about 3 Euro.

All around you are buildings constructed on the old Chinese model, shop-houses where, in their ground floor, craftsmen, mechanics or sellers of various wares carry out their activities. These are shops where various tools or boxes are stored in an orderly disorder, businesses that are invariably protected by altars set with incense, liquor or food used to honour ancestors or pray to the gods. Stores where in the night the owners bring in bicycles, scooters and sometimes, where the space allows, even cars before closing up the shop and moving to the upper floors.

By day, the street comes alive even more and it becomes the pulsating heart of this old corner of Penang. Traffic noise is the only discordant note that is in contrast with what is offered to the eye: markets where all sort of food, fruit, clothes and various knick-knacks are traded. Some houses have peeling walls and faded signs, and others have facades restored with pastel colours, while maintaining a traditional style. There are several coffee shops housed in old and new buildings, interspersed with old restaurants that can be defined ‘historical’ without exaggeration, and old guesthouses, historical as well, where travellers coming from everywhere and watching their pennies can still find a bed in a dormitory rooms for small money.

It is right there, a step away from the guesthouse where I always stay, that you turn a street corner and find yourself, as if by magic, in another country. Little India supplies you with a different image of Penang, at least different from the George Town you expect. The way to dress up a bit sloppy and unkempt of the Chinese gives way to the elegant saris of Indian women; the noise of traffic is covered by a loud music coming out of different stores, creating a Bollywood movie atmosphere, and statues of the Trimurti gods look out at passers by from shop entrances. Different smells, different people, different ways of living, different gods that Muslim Malaysia approve without conditions, consistent with its slogan ‘Malaysia, your second home’.

A ‘chapati‘ and a few steps and you’re already out of Little India, the  Chinese characters are back on shop signs, a mosque seems to be there to remind you that there are also Muslims, after all men in white tunic, Islamic headdress and long beards do not go unnoticed; nor do women dressed in brightly colored tunics enriched with colorful designs, some with a floral decoration made with Henna on the back of the hands, their faces wrapped in those veils that, though denying a hint of coquetry and probably hiding a nice haircut, become frames that enhance nice features in often delicate faces.

I keep on walking until I reach the seafront, where I head towards the wooden piers not far from the ferry to the mainland. Here are houses that belong to fishermen, to merchants, to old Chinese dock workers. Entire families live in wooden buildings on water with altars and temples, their boats docked outside on piers that date back to the 19th century. Living conditions have changed since then: the TV is a must – from some of the houses you can hear out voices of typical Chinese soap operas – and houses are often turned into souvenir shops for tourists, hence this village is now an inescapable tourist destination. Yet the sense of tradition is still alive in these people who live their lives to the rhythm of the tides, their time marked by the sound of the surf under their beds.

How about attractions out of the heart of George Town? The usual brochure suggests 29 destinations spread out in different locations. These are enough to spend at least 10 days in Penang. Local travel agencies offer tours of the island that reach some of the most interesting places, but I prefer a more ‘DIY’ freestyle. I pick two places and I venture out on a local bus. The next morning I head to Batu Feringgi, home of the most beautiful beaches and the higher category hotels. My destination is the Terapung mosque, built on a tongue of land which disappears at high tide and supported by concrete piles extending out to the sea. It is not praying time so I can get around in the public area without creating nuisance. The mosque has a mixed Middle Eastern and local style, with a large prayer hall that can accommodate up to 1500 worshipers, and open spaces where people can stop and sit under gazeboes. Man and women are strictly divided in separate groups both on the prayer hall and on the baths where every good Muslim must make their ablutions before their prayers.

In the afternoon I head to the opposite direction, tossed by the jerky pace of a local bus, and after a 45 minutes torture ride I reach the Temple of Snakes, a Chinese temple that dates back to 1850. An island onto itself, this would just be like the hundreds of similar Chinese temples in Penang, hidden amongst houses and skyscrapers, if it wasn’t for a peculiarity: it is home to an indefinite number of pit vipers living in a semi-free condition. Their bites, according to a temple keeper, are lethal; I politely decline the invitation to a souvenir photo clinging to a python, which I gladly leave it to Japanese tourists, and I observe the vipers. There are 30 of them in one of the rooms, lazily lying on the support beams. They eat once a week, I am told, and after their meal they spend their time motionless in order to properly digest. There are other vipers in the open air, twirling around trees and stones in an area protected by a high wall but still visible by the public.

I move to the sacred area of the temple and, perhaps because it is Saturday, I notice a constant stream of worshippers who light incense, pray and make their offerings to the altars, being almost covered in the process by a blanket of smoke produced by the several incenses and candles lit. A kid accompanied by his father burns some paper with printed Chinese symbols in a furnace: “this is paper money that we send to our deceased ancestors so that they can use it in the afterlife”, he explains in plain English. A sort of Wester Union in paradise; always quite practical people, the Chinese.

I leave the temple satisfied, yet there is one more surprise in store for me. To my left there is an attracting tower painted in peach decorated by statues of all kinds; it is an Indian temple that is not mentioned in the brochures. By it entrance, a decorator patiently paints over a statue of God Shiva; inside, amongst colourful statues of deities leaning on walls of a bright grey, a teacher educates smiling young disciples who, sitting on the ground around him, listen with expressions of interest. I immerse myself in this orgy of colors, quite a hitting scene after the predominant reds of Chinese temples.

The day draws to a close and I prepare myself for another shaky 45 minutes bus ride back. The day comes to an end and so does my short stay in Penang, a place that no matter how many times I have seen it, I realise I have just begun to know. My next visa run is scheduled for January, but this time I think I will not be so much in a hurry…

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It was with a hint of excitement that we embarked on the highly recommended Santubong Mangroves Swamps River Cruise, a three hours cruise on a PVC motorized launch that navigates the several branches of the Santubong River and Salak River delta systems that come together before joining the South China Sea.

A beach, a solitary palm: a piece of paradise

This tour, sometimes called Santubong Wildlife Cruise, is best taken at high tide, and it combines a mangrove cruise with a visit to the Santubong River mouth in search of the rare Irrawaddy dolphins and for a chance to see some of Sarawak’s fascinating wildlife that inhabit the mangrove swamps, namely crocodiles, mudskippers, crabs, shell fish, proboscis monkeys and more.

The minivan transfer took us from Kuching Town along the highway that crosses the Santubong peninsula to the Sarawak Boat Club, from where the river cruise boats depart. Our boat hosted 20 people and included the captain and 2 members of the crew that also functioned as knowledgeable guides. We were accompanied by private guide Wayne, courtesy of the Sarawak Tourism Board.

The boat navigated in slow motion due to the low tide, indeed not the best conditions for this tour, but it was the only time-frame that we could accommodate. We cruised past small colourful fishing villages and had great views of Santubong peak and the surrounding lush hills whose shapes and silhouettes were accentuated by the lowering sun.

Our boat roamed the mangrove-lined river looking for wildlife, while a gentle breeze caressed us and made us realize how quiet it was all around. Dusk was approaching tainting the water brown, water that peacefully hit dark-grey sand shores that, thanks to the low tide, revealed huge mangrove roots. The guides continued feeding us information: these heavily silted mangroves and the tidal swamps in which they thrive are often mistaken as a wasteland, used in the construction industry for piling and also as charcoal for cooking. Coal production was also a huge mangrove decimator in Thailand before the Royal family declared mangroves a protected tree species. Mangrove swamps in fact sustain many different species of trees, including the versatile Napah palms, and enjoy a symbiotic relationship with prawns, fish, lizards, and other coastal organisms.

As we absorbed all this data, a small monitor lizard appeared, stood motionless and looked at us head up, patiently waiting for our boat to pass. Big mudskippers slid and jumped on the muddy shore as if in a toboggan at a

a colorful local fishing village

fun-fair, a fisherman tried his luck with a fishing cane from his wooden boat, while fluffy clouds started towering above us, and an eagle glided in search of preys, before disappearing behind one of the peaks. This tour was providing a unique view of the picturesque riverine life of Kuching surroundings, and of nature of course, which was confirming itself as the main character of a supreme environmental design.

It was past 6,30pm; crew and passengers looked out attentively for a sighting of proboscis monkeys, since small groups are often seen in the treetops at the water edge at this time of the day, settling down for the night. No luck. Birds chirped and cicadas sang, the boat kept flanking the shore in search of wildlife until, past the last meander, the open sea showed us its immensity; in the distance we could spot the two islands Pulau Satang Besar and Pulau Satang Kecil part of Satang Turtle Island National Park.

We knew we had reached the vicinity of Salak village when we heard roosters singing; there we enjoyed the sight of Malay houses on stilts, each painted in a different lively colour, and of the local Muslim population meeting in porches, men chatting, women cooking, kids playing. We marveled at floating fish farms, at a local market scene and at a majestic mosque, all forming part of the scenic landscape. It is not the Amazon of course, still you cannot help but think about the lifestyle of local communities living here with no running water or electricity, at barely 30 minutes from the biggest town in the Malaysian Borneo, commuting daily with their small wooden boats to the Sarawak Boat Club where their wheeled vehicles are parked, and traveling daily to town to sell produce and buy goods of first necessity for the village.

The cruise continued its slow navigation along the river, and finally dark descended upon us; we kept an eye on the waters around the boat but there was no sight of the unusual looking Irrawaddy dolphins at the place where they are often spotted. These marine mammal inhabits rivers, estuaries and shallow coastal areas, and the Santubong area is one of the best places in Sarawak to spot them. These dolphins are wild creatures of course, and therefore sightings cannot be guaranteed, but the guide informed us of their high success rate, so it was down to our luck. I was not disappointed at all, there were so many features that I was enjoying, but the lulling made me feel so sleepy – I needed a boost; I did not expect a hornbill, but at least a croc snapping out of the water, a monkey jumping on the boat and creating panic, anything please…

The guides were now after fireflies and crocodiles! Crocodiles are a protected species here in Sarawak, and are often seen on these mud banks; and passing a torch light over the river often guarantees the sight of brightly shining eyes; no luck here either.

An impressive sunset over the Santubong Mangroves Swamps

After the crocodile search was over, the boat proceeded back upriver to a spot where fireflies gather at night. There were so many of them, moving around the branches of the mangroves and momentarily lighting up the pitch-dark night sky; the whole place gleamed with a magic aura.

It was time to return to the Sarawak Boat Club. We did not have much luck in terms of wildlife sightings, with that small monitor lizard being the only really wild animal we encountered. I was left to imagine these elusive animals that cannot be controlled and timed. Nature is just like this, and Sarawak is not Africa. Yet on an average this cruise has a high record of wildlife spotting, so I am confident I will schedule a future visit to this great Malaysian province that is Sarawak and will repeat this superb cruise hoping to see more.

In the night, as I packed my bags for my next day early morning departure, I did so with the joy of having had the luck and the chance to be there and enrich my travel memories with one of the best travel destinations I have experienced so far in my life.

THE TOUR

Santubong Mangroves Swamps River Cruise runs 3 times per day: at 8am, 2pm and 5pm. The morning cruise touches Satang Turtle Island National Park to watch turtles. The evening cruise have the option of a gourmet seafood dinner at one of the waterfront seafood restaurants overlooking the Buntal River. We were hosted by professional CPH Travel, check them out on www.cphtravel.com.my

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At times, it is a series of random happenings that toss us from the everyday life to a totally unusual situation. A thin thread that binds words together to form sentences, and sentences to form proposals. With a bit of imagination, the step from proposal to action is short. So today, without any notice, as if by magic, I find myself transported from sitting at my desk in Krabi to sitting in the balcony of a hotel room in Damai, nearby Kuching in the Malaysian Borneo. I am looking at the bay, eyes fixed on a flat lazy sea, enjoying a cup of coffee and the sunset. The excuse, or rather the reason, is the Rainforest World Music Festival. While browsing the internet we come across this musical festival considered to be among the top 25 in the world. A chat with Thomas, only a short exchange of words, then an email sent to the organisers and it’s a done deal: in a short while we receive two media accreditation as reporter and photographer… not even the time to think twice, as the fate has already made ​​up its mind for us: are you ready? Let’s go.

Music and tradition

We feel great as soon as we get there; there is a great vibe in the area: volunteers who tend to their tasks, groups of musicians who arrive in dribs and drabs from different countries, reporters, photographers and organisers. The whole world of folk music seems to have gathered here in Sarawak, the land that since my childhood, thanks to the tales of Italian writer Salgari, has always aroused in me its supposed charm. Of course, there is no longer room for his Malaysian pirates or headhunters, there is only music, drums and art. Nevertheless, someone like Mathew Ngau Jau, an icon of the festival to the point of being depicted in the official posters of the event, maintains that haircut and the way to dress typical of the old local population. Its people are no longer called Dayak, a name that evokes at least heavy headaches, but Iban, which is not a bank code but a more politically correct name; Mathew does not chop off heads, the last to do so in his family were probably his father and his grandfather. Mathew is confined to filling heads with musical keys, with sounds and melodies that come out gracefully from his instrument, a kind of locally handcrafted guitar called ‘sape’. We wander aimlessly amongst various areas of the hotel, simply enjoying the surroundings, allowing ourselves to absorb the variety of people getting lazy under the sun, besides the pool or at the beach, sipping a drink, registering at the reception or gathering information at the Rainforest Festival desk. People of all races, coming from countries far and near, but all united by the same passion: music.

Globalised music

It is funny to think that, in a world where we tend to globalise, to flatten, to adapt to a particular and more anonymous idea, here at the Rainforest World Music Festival compound, a different situation occurs: the navel of the musical world are the local realities, the folk, the ethnic and the regional style that impose the strength of the artists’ identities to an international audience eager to absorbe them. An audience that, in the space of three days, will empathise each day in different musical traditions, making them their own. So, to cite the ‘Berlinese’ Kennedy, today here we are all Africans, then all Croats, and then a little bit Koreans, and tomorrow all Colombians. There will be no room for anti-Americanism when the Pine Leaf Boys will sing the songs of Louisiana accompanied by violins and accordions; the Iranian nuclear issue will surely be a lesser priority when Mohsen Sharifian & the Lian Band from Iran will perform on stage their songs and their traditional dances, explaining between one song and another that religion interpretation in their country does not allow them to represent their art in their own homes, hence they are able to hold, albeit with difficulty, only concerts abroad. They are almost touching these Iranian guys, for the genuine passion they feel towards their traditions and with which they expose their day to day hardships. It is true, nobody is a prophet in his own country…

A meaningful festival

We notice instead that other groups feel prophets both at home and abroad, and can afford the luxury of talking about less particularistic and more international issues. In Sarawak, it is clear that the priority matter is the rainforest, so mistreated in all parts of the world, but taken good care of by the local governments in this region. It is no coincidence that the first ceremony we took part in saw us planting young shrubs in an area of ​​town that was mostly lacking, and it’s rather significant that words like forest, nature and protection find here their practical applications and a meaning that goes beyond the demagoguery. The authorities are quite strict in maintaining their natural assets, a local guide told us. To put it in a nutshell, you can generate revenue for all using the natural resources around us rather than exploiting them, squeezing them like lemons and then crying because we have lost them. And they can do it with a certain coherence and style if what we were told is true: that the Government, for instance, visit and compensate the victims of the attacks by a protected species: crocodiles.

Music from all over the world

Therefore, in a region where nature is considered our real mother, songs dedicated to the forest by Kries (Croatian), by Chet Nuneta (group of French origin but multi-ethnic both in its individuality and  its music production) and by Dizu Plaatjies & Ibuyambo Ensemble (South Africans) is not out of place. Not to mention of course the music of the various groups of Sarawak, people for whom the earth resources have always been the only real wealth; they represent a Soundtrack both appropriate for the spectacular environment that surrounds us, and for the definite efforts made ​​by those who administer the region, fortunately with some success.

All the rest is music, music and more music. Music that flies between east and west, musical keys generated by traditional and modern instruments that are combined together in a harmony between past and present. And who on Earth ever said that a ‘Diple’ (a kind of bagpipe used by the Croats) or an accordion cannot have an electric guitar, a bass or drums as accompaniment? Everything that is produced here is melody, keys, sounds, no matter where they come from.

The festival, taking place at the Sarawak Cultural Village, a 45 minutes drive from Kuching, is spread over three days. There, among the stalls selling typical Malaysian food, tattoo artists and souvenirs vendors, press conferences where the various bands take turn, interactive seminars where the audience assumes the role of protagonist, and the evening concerts. The afternoon seminars certainly aroused a great interest and a major turnout. After all, it cannot be otherwise since guitarists or drummers of each band are working together to present their tools, some well known and others that are mysterious objects created by some kind of indigenous muse, but when they start playing together, they become one with a communal harmony that makes listeners shudder.

In other workshops, artists give demonstrations of traditional dances, and the Australian Aborigines with their painted bodies are the masters of the genre: they launch themselves into brief but suggestive dances that recall the daily life in war and in peace. The group of South Africans is not less effective: they move on stage with the grace of gazelles, with an innate sense of rhythm, with the lithe and sensual movements of their women that match those of their males counterparts in an alliance of forms and gestures that leave you breathless, especially if accompanied by voices that penetrate the soul deeply.

Concerts, and more concerts

Finally, at night, the concerts are given plenty of attention; they take place without interruption and last for about five hours in total each night. The opening stage is entrusted to local musicians and to their songs, often prayers or gratitudes to the gods; to musical instruments that you would never have believed existed, like the nose flute; to their traditional costumes that take you back, for a short time, to a past era that continues to bring back memories. It is then the turn of foreign groups to gratify the public and to be gratified in turn with shots of enthusiasm, with emotional involvement, with lots of dancing. Each band obviously reflects the characteristics of its world through musical instruments, rhythms and the ability to manage the scene; all, without exception, give cause for elation to an audience eager to get exited, expressing themselves to the fullest and proving to be the first to have fun: like the Colombians, who have the rhythm, music and cumbia in their blood and it seems that they cannot do without it, or like the Danes, a real mini orchestra made ​​up of strings, brass, keyboards, guitars and accordion singing and playing tunes that make you feel like you are ​living the atmosphere of a smoky pub in Copenhagen.

Epilogue

In my opinion, the most exciting moment, the peak of a festival that has offered tons of emotions, has to be the performance of the South African group, and the words of its leader as a tribute to Nelson Mandela, followed by the songs that they have dedicated to him. Behind me is an audience waving enthusiastically to the rhythm of drums, and in my mind surfaces the awareness that the African fever is like malaria, it periodically recurs…

The three days of music have flown past, taken away by the notes that have filled every leaf of the forest. The music is over and the people leave… Those musicians who have finished their show start to leave as early as the afternoon of the third day, and at the end of the last night the stage lights go off the and the curtains fall on the Rainforest World Music Festival. Calm descends on the Sarawak Cultural Village and on the hotel that has hosted us and the musicians. A silent goodbye that feels like a farewell. From the balcony of my room, I observe the same sight as the one I marvelled on the first day here, but now it is at night; I am struck by the silence, the absence of music. All of a sudden, a distant accordion, percussions… is it an illusion? No, it is a cumbia! Colombians have music in their blood and are there to finish it off in style; we join the last few people by the edge of the pool and embark once again in a journey of sounds and dances; after a little while, a Danish violin and an accordion join the fun until the wee hours of the morning, and the magical atmosphere of this Rainforest Festival is set to continue for the rest of the notes, changing a sad farewell into a goodbye: goodbye till Rainforest World Music Festival 2014.

For next year dates and line-up, browse www.rwmf.net

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Mae Sai, Chiang Saen, Tha Kee Lek, Don Sao: the first two in Thailand, the third in Myanmar and the fourth on a river island in Laos. Names that do not say much, if anything at all, less so if they are associated to the area of ​​Sam Liam Tong Kam. Nevertheless, this location takes on a very different meaning and above all a more suggestive one if we indicate it with its given name: the Golden Triangle, an area that conjures up images of poppy fields and opium dens, of caravans of smugglers and of drug traffickers, hill tribes, and of forest trails through which anything would travel.

It also evokes images of that wonderful movie, ‘Night Moves’, where Gene Hackman in the role of an old American officer at the helm of a handful of soldiers that with the help of a local tribe gang of drug traffickers enter Laos to free his son from a POW camp.

Fast boat on the Mekong River

The Golden Triangle is the meeting point of three countries: Thailand, Myanmar and Myanmar, all bathed in a big river artery, the Mekong, which flows from China to Vietnam. A river that became known not for being a resource for six Asian countries (the sixth being Cambodia), but for the clashes and battles that have seen it as an unaware setting during the Vietnam War.

Nowadays the Golden Triangle is merely a tourist destination exploiting the myth of the past, where trades are developed and souvenirs are sold. A place where the visitor has to travel a lot with the imagination to find, amongst the stalls of pestering Burmese vendors who pester you trying to sell you anything between Mae Sai and Tha Kee Lek’s, a glimpse of the world that somehow recalls the atmosphere and legend that have transformed the stretch of a river bordering three countries into the Golden Triangle.

On the border between Mae Sai and Tha Kee Lek, legends die out, and the sign that stands in a Burmese town’s square that in a realistic Socialist tone invites everyone to ‘join in to achieve a drug-free zone’ sounds more like hypocrisy, a useless warning in a place where the most offered drug seems to be Viagra.

Burmese vendors on the Thai side of the border

I arrive in Mae Sai on an early afternoon after visiting the villa and gardens of the Queen Mother at Doi Tung. Moving from Doi Tung to Tha Kee Lek is like getting from Switzerland to hell in just 35 kilometres. Three quarters of an hour in Myanmar only to get back into Thailand with a Dantesque feeling that ‘and hence we came forth to see the stars again’. The King’s Mother passed out a few years ago, and her residence has been transformed into a museum of sorts, with its flower gardens so well manicured, and with a royal project a few meters away where crops of vegetables and fruits are grown to support the local tribes.

A walk in the midst of those artfully designed flower beds that include cyclamen, poinsettia, roses and the common orchids, as well as dozens of other species of unknown names, was almost an escape from reality through an itinerary of colours, of order, of waters that flow from hanging showers or from simple bamboo canes. All surrounded by hundreds of people, mostly Thais, who crowd every flowerbed, every floral sculpture and every greenhouse as if to bestow a further tribute to the already revered mistress of the house. Everything is perfect in this corner of the world protected by the Royal Family, especially the villa where, from time to time, the Queen Mother spent her days. A kind of wooden chalet surrounded by potted flowers, a house which beauty lies in its simplicity, in the picture of this ‘Grandmother of the Nation’ that can only inspire fondness when you stop to watch her image, serene and always with a gentle smile on her face. Anyone could see their own grandmother in her, so much that you can almost expect to see her appear, ready to offer you a sweet, perhaps made with those strawberries that are plentiful in this area.

After lunch, I reach Mae Sai and the Burmese border. Thais harbour prejudices against the Burmese: centuries of wars, of warded off invasions when the Burmese were a florid warrior power, and other more recent episodes, leave scars.

Buddha watching over the Golden Triangle

Today, Myanmar is the shadow of the country that once was. A nation crushed by the weight of a military dictatorship where free elections were held only recently, where people and monks’ protests were often suppressed by the use of force, and where the opposition leader has recovered only a few months ago her freedom after years of house arrest. However, one can see small signs that may lead to a better future.

Mae Sai is an anonymous border town where markets and stalls thrive, where trades more or less legit happen, and where tourism bring over the stench of Myanmar poverty. Entrance to Myanmar costs about 20 US Dollars, plus photocopies of your passport and a few paperwork formalities. The difference is plain to see through border guards’ behaviour: Thais are kind, smiling, and fast to give information. Their Burmese counterparts are just as kind but a bit colder and less smiling, diffident to the point of declining, albeit politely, even a harmless souvenir picture.

Then there is the bazaar, with its dirt, its miseries, its beggars always nagging in offering goods of all kinds: from the inevitable Viagra to decks of cards with the image of Saddam Hussein, from low quality stones of to pornographic movies. The immediate feeling is that Myanmar has nothing to do with its backdrop of wonderful temples, and that those nice kids you immortalise smiling and innocent, instead of representing hope they look like the image of a grey and anonymous future, and their smile will be turned off amongst the stalls of a local bazaar.

Tha Kee Lek local market

Chiang Saeng is the focal point of the Golden Triangle. From its shore you can make out the coast of Myanmar and Laos, and only eight hours by boat to the north lays China. The Mekong flows undisturbed with its brownish color further intensified by the sunset light. A one-hour tour with a local speed boat takes me to touch the three coasts, with a stopover at Laos’ Don Sao market.

Laos is less pretentious then Burma; entering the country only costs a few UD Dollars and no formalities at all. I do not even need a passport for this kind of clandestine entry, and the customs officer, if you can call him so, also poses for a souvenir photo. I walk casually among the stalls, glancing on simple local products amongst which Chinese-made items and spirit bottles with cobras, centipedes and other similar creatures inside, as well as silk of a decent quality.

Laos is a poor country that is finding its way, but its poverty seems to be quite a discreet one. It seems that people are aware that after the American bombs that have made this country known to the world only thanks to the services of war correspondents, there may be a tomorrow thanks mainly to tourism which brings people to visit Laos’ most valuable gems: Luang Prabang, and the 4000 islands where the Mekong River widens to form a sort of delta in the southern part of the country.

In the small village behind the market, a group of men are having fun playing a game of traditional takraw with a woven rattan ball, four women chat on the side of a stall, and only a bear locked in a cage reveals all its misery for a lost freedom. It looks like the image of the Laos of the past, but I cannot help but think that it reminds more of the image of the Myanmar that I saw today.

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A coffee and bakery haven in the heart of Chulia Street –

Traveling is an art, a passion, a commitment and an enjoyment. Yet, traveling is tiring at times, and travelers need their moments of peace and familiarity that a few places provide while ‘on the road’.

One of these places has to be The Mugshot Café & Rainforest Bakery. The brainchild of friendly old-time mates Tristan and Jesse, this is the place to come to when craving proper coffee and bakery products.

Located in an old traditional heritage Chinese shop-house in the heart of Unesco endorsed Penang’s Georgetown, the Mugshot features an artistic deco with giant blackboards on walls where menu items are chalked up, tables, chairs and the bar are made from recycled pallet wood, and food is cooked in an open kitchen and sports a black wood-fire oven.

You may be surprised to hear that the main products at The Mugshot Café are bagels – that’s right! A popular bread option in some European countries, bagels were little known in Penang but are quickly hitting the local population and travelers alike. Round-shaped and with a hole in the middle, bagels are baked, topped with poppy seeds, heated up in the wood-fire oven until brown and crisp, and filled with a variety of creamy cheese, salmon, eggs or meat. I tried the one with corned beef with rocket and discovered a flavor long forgotten by my taste buds. Yummy! The one filled with turkey and cranberries is also a popular choice.

Aside from the signature bagels, home-made thick and creamy yogurts are served in glass jars with a choice of delicious topping like fruits, syrups and nuts, a complete meal in themselves. Croissants, muffins, brownies and more products from the bakery complete the excellent choice of food in the menu.

Last but not least, the range of coffees is extensive, and their taste is so proper thanks to the owner’s choice of great, locally-roasted coffee beans from a reputable producer. The funky music playing by the café’s loudspeakers completes the job and makes the place so popular that you often have to wait for a table!

So what’s the story behind The Mugshot Café? Tristan and Jesse spare a few minutes to tell us of their years in Europe, of Jesse’s quest to find the perfect bakery there, of his dedication during the time spent working at an extremely popular London organic bakery and of his subsequent search for products variations in Paris and parts of Italy; and also of Tristan passion for coffee and his path to become a proper ‘barista’. They surely returned to their hometown Penang with plenty of skills and ideas that eventually converged in the opening, 4 months ago, of this great eatery.

We congratulated Jesse and Tristan and sat on the outdoor seating area, sipping a strong coffee and watching the bustling Chulia Street scene; The Mugshot Café is indeed one of these ‘on the road’ treats that we so strongly need at times. Thumbs up!

The Mugshot Café – 302 Chulia Street, 10200 Penang, Malaysia

Tel：012 4056276 – Facebook: The Mugshot Cafe – Business Hours：9am – 9pm

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DAY 2

I had set the alarm clock early in order to take a photo shooting of the local morning market, a few blocks away. There, barely at dawn, you can get a glimpse of ordinary Burmese social life. I covered the distance on foot, witnessing Buddhist worshippers partaking in early morning rituals at local temples, and the timeless processions of barefoot monks of different ages in red and orange robes, collecting offering from the locals inside their alms bowls.

The market area, covering several noisy and smelly blocks to the south of the palace, buzzed with energy and activities as hundreds of stallholders exposed their locally grown produce spread out on both sides of roads: meats, fish, flowers, fruits, veggies, rice and noodle meals, and other items, some never seen before, such as sweets, dried meat and fish, and exotic fruits and spices. Shoppers arriving by rickshaw, on motorbike or on foot negotiated prices and carried their colourful shopping in plastic bags. Monks walked through the market to collect alms or to purchase items needed in their monastery. I stopped at one of the several coffee houses and tucked into a bowl of Shan noodles, a chappati and a dark coffee, rubbing shoulders with the locals.

At 7:30 the sun was rising fast and the traffic on 4 wheels was intensifying: tractors full of vegetables, old trucks carrying iron, wood and people, rusted buses so full with locals returning to nearby villages that some passengers hanged precariously out of their doors, with ticket sellers and drivers shouting names of destinations. Dozens of bicycle rickshaws invaded the streets, waiting for passengers loaded with plastic bags full of food. It was like being at a theatre, and I enjoyed the convulsed sight while sipping another tea in an open-air tea-house, munching on a vegetable samosa, until the sellers started to pack up.

I was on my way again; I wandered aimlessly towards the east, block after block until, along a side road, a young chap in longyi, bare-chested, bold-headed except for a thin and long hair pigtail at the back of the skull, tattooed with Chinese motives and sporting a few short hair growing right in the middle of his right cheek, spotted me and approached to offer me, in an undistinguishable language, a bite of betel, skillfully prepared by his young wife at their derelict roadside stall. I admit I knew very little about betel nut (called kun-ya in Myanmar) apart that it made your teeth red, that it was an appetite suppressant, and that it could get you intoxicated. Oh, I forgot, and that while chewing it, lots of red saliva forms in the mouth and needs to be expelled from time to time. No wonder streets in Mandalay are stained with millions of red blotches.

The guy’s wife held up a vine leaf, laid it on a wooded board and started working on it. She first spread a little lime paste on the leaf, then added cloves, aniseed, cardamom, tobacco marinated in alcohol and some crushed betel nuts. She skillfully wrapped the leaf and handed it to her husband, whom handed it to me, a complacent smile in his face. I put the leaf in my mouth and started chewing on it, and an enormous amount of saliva immediately filled my mouth. I approached the side of the road and spitted the red liquid, with my new friends laughing approvingly. They packed two more pieces for me to take away, and did not want to get paid at all, not even a little tip, bless them. I finished chewing the lot and spit out the remains – after so much spitting it was not fun anymore in the end -, washed the mouth with water, and started walking again. I experienced a slight tipsy feeling and I guessed it was the effect of the betel nut. Not the best amongst legal intoxicants, I though. I later read that chewing betel nut regularly causes oral cancer, a growing problem in Myanmar…

Early that afternoon, I kept on walking the streets of Mandalay in search for the mystic Mustache Brothers. This is the art name of 3 comedian brothers that have been performing political satiric puppet shows for over 30 years. Their shows have often infuriated the totalitarian regime to the point that they have a collection of arrests, years of jail and forced labour (seriously!), and a total ban on performing in public. As a compromise the 3 brothers, now freed, have accepted to perform only in English and just from their home in Mandalay.

I met with Lu Maw, the only English-speaker of the three, whom has hence become the spokesperson for the group. He was spending a quiet afternoon with his wife and nephews and accepted to have an informal chat. We sat on modest chairs and I was offered tea by his wife; I observed the house walls covered with puppets of different size and clothes, political propaganda and framed articles of foreign newspapers and magazines featuring the comedians.

Lu Maw proved to be an affable man, but understandably he did not want to go too much into details about his incarceration and hardship over several years of his life. After a few jokes about the military junta and their intelligence, whom he calls KGB, he suggested I bought a 10$ ticket to his evening show, and kindly saw me to the door. I had heard his shows were very popular amongst tourists, with audiences of between 10 and 50 people each night, all crammed into his small living room.

Sunset approached, and I felt worn out but satisfied of what achieved and seen in the 2 intense days spent in Mandalay, where I met lovely people whose source of happiness seemed to be based on their ability of being contented at all times despite the odds.

It was worth experiencing the magic of Mandalay before the hordes of tourists descend to the town. With new airline connections to the city, and that includes low budget Air Asia with popular flights from KL and Bangkok, and Air Mandalay proposing new regular routes to CM and beyond via Yangoon, the city is certainly on the way to an explosive success as a great travel destination.

THE END

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DAY 1

Back to my visit, after the practicalities in a newly decorated airport so silent you could hear a pin drop, my passport stamped by kind immigration officials, my baggage collected from the luggage belt, I walked out to an almost empty parking lot where drivers of old taxis and combo minivans sold their services without that pressure so present in other south east Asia towns. The fairly long journey into town was characterized first by a long stretch of a newly constructed highway used by very few vehicles, surrounded by countryside, hills topped by pagodas and farms. And later by the total mess of the town outskirts, where roads are pot-holed, pavements are disjoined and home to locals who check out goods in small roadside shops selling anything you can possibly imagine. As we approached the town, the road got smaller and busy with cars, bicycles, rickshaws (here called sai kaa), trucks – some literally falling apart – emitting unhealthy dark fumes, people, dogs; women carrying wicker baskets filled with food on their heads, and men dressed in longyis – the traditional Burmese long sarong worn by both men and women – in a cacophony of sounds that invade the eardrums.

After settling down in a downtown hotel, I started my visit with a walk around the corner where, near a fruit shake vendor and a few men sitting down on plastic chair and chatting the day away, I met who would be my bicycle rickshaw driver and guide for the day: Jue, a calm and smiling dark-skinned middle-age man whose slim body displayed the hardship of years of pedaling his three-wheeled Chinese-made bicycle. Jue’s English was good enough for simple conversations, so I agreed on the fare and hopped on the seat of his vehicle.

Jue firstly worried about my hunger and took me to eat in a modern-looking restaurant where I was served fish curries, marinated prawns, small side dishes of all kinds of vegetables, all accompanied by spicy and non-spicy sauces. I ate till I dropped! With Myanmar cuisine being influenced by neighbouring countries like Thailand, China, India and Laos, a generous array of hot and cold dishes can be enjoyed seasoned to your taste with condiments like chilli sauce, shrimp sauce, soy sauce or lime juice. Local markets are the perfect place to see (and taste) Myanmar produce such as okra, long and green beans, and the speciality mohinga dish, a fish soup with fresh rice noodles which locals love to eat at breakfast; Mondi, a Mandalay favourite, is a yummy rice noodle dish with chicken curry; Shan noodles are another must-try dish.

I hopped again on Jue’s rickshaw and we left for another destination. Mandalay grid-patterned roads are busy with a kaleidoscopic mix of thousands of bicycle rickshaws (the city have 13,000 of them registered!), and Jue negotiated the crossings (most having no traffic light) with Japanes mopeds, low riding jeeps and modern cars, with a raise of the right hand to ask for the right of way. He stopped shortly after in a gold leaf workshop where we were able to observe the city’s skilled artisans at work: the precious metal is still hammered by hand thousands of times to produce gleaming paper-thin sheets that are bought by locals and rubbed onto Buddha sculptures at the temples.

Jue then pedaled along the city moat to catch a glimpse of the walled off Mandalay Palace, and stopped at an open air tea shop where we enjoyed a steaming and spiced Indian tea and I smoked my first Myanmar hand-made cigarette: a cheroot. Aromatic and spiced, these conical, slim and green cigarettes were very popular amongst the British during the days of the British Empire, with travelers through the ages referring the Myanmar people as “having the air of princes as they regally go about puffing on the cheroots”. Jue told me that a local woman can make up to 1500 cheerots per day.

Jue kept looking at his watch and eventually informed me that it was time to head to Mandalay Hill. On the way we made a stopover at Kuthodaw Paya, a unique and amazing temple compound that features a large gold pagoda. But the main feature are the 729 intriguing marble slabs inscribed with the entire 15 books of the Tripitaka, the sacred scriptures of Buddhism to be learned by all monks.

At the foot of Mandalay Hill I faced a dilemma: hike the 1729 steps to the top, or take the easy way. As the sunset was pretty near, time did not allow for the first option, so I paid the fare to a local motorbike-taxi who rode at an amazing speed along the switchback road, narrowly avoiding locals descending on foot, and let me off at the departure point of an escalator that covers the last few meters. I finally got to the top right on time to enjoy a bird’s eye view of the city below, as well as the amazing sunset with its palette of colours painting over the town and the surrounding countryside.

It is there at the top of the hill, at 240 meters above sea level, that the Buddha is said to have made a prophecy that in the year 2400 Buddhist Era, a great city would be founded at the foot of the hill, a prophecy that came true when Mandalay was founded by King Mindon in 1857. Once my Canon was happy with the shots taken, and my eyes content with the stunning sunset views, I started the descent of the hill on foot (barefoot!), which took me about 30 minutes. On the way down, I was rewarded first by a huge standing Buddha, his outstretched hand pointed in the direction of the royal palace, then by the sight of many temples, spirit shrines, places to stop for a drink and a rest, and souvenir stalls, which by that time were closing their trade for the day.

It was pitch dark by the time I got to the bottom, my feet swollen from the effort, and Jue was patiently waiting for me at the entrance, smiling, ready for the 4km ride back to my hotel. I paid him his fare, a tip, and waved goodbye. I went to have a meal of Indian chappati and mutton curry in a local roadside stall before hitting the bed early, totally knackered but filled with images and memories of the long and exiting day…

PART 3 FOLLOWS…

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No! you won’t ‘eed nothin’ else

But them spicy garlic smells,

An’ the sunshine an’ the palm-trees an’ the tinkly temple-bells;

On the road to Mandalay . . .

“Rudyard Kipling”

Burma, Birmanie, Myanmar. The country conjures up serene cultural and tropical images on the traveler’s mind. My memories floated to the past for days, after a friend from Bali proposed a short trip thanks to Airasia Airline new route: Kuala Lumpur to Mandalay.

Myanmar is often on the news nowadays. Its once totalitarian regime opening up to the world has given way to unprecedented growth fuelled by both International investments and the arrival in flocks of tourists.

Mandalay in itself reminded me of the many times I have tried to imagine it as a romantic place, before I realized that Kipling never visited Mandalay, that the poem was about the nostalgia and longing of the British Empire for Asia’s exoticism, and finally that the place at the time was not romantic at all but rather small, dirty and dusty.

Located on the banks of the mighty Ayeyarwady River, Mandalay, a town of 800,000 inhabitants, the country’s second city in size after Yangoon, and the capital of the last independent Burmese kingdom, is indeed one of the main travel destinations of Myanmar. Mandalay is renowned for a rich history despite being only 150 years old in a country of a thousand years old towns, and is undeniably the cultural center of Myanmar. Attractions include stunning sunset views from Mandalay Hill, traditional music performances, skilled craftsmanship, and incredible out-of-town destinations.

I felt I had enough information for my short Burmese adventure in Mandalay….

PART 2 FOLLOWS…

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