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Serendipity is a funny thing. The mind-blowing intersections of fate and intention that lead a person down paths heretofore unconsidered is, without question, my favourite aspect of travel.
We sat, last evening, in the formal dining room of Sir James Wallace, a Knight of the Realm, so honored for his philanthropy. How did we come to be sitting there, eating off his privately commissioned silver, discussing art and opera? We picked up a hitchhiker.
In this case, a hitchhiker who turned out to be a micro-biologist and one of the most interesting travelers we’ve run across in a long while. He tossed his pack into our van and regaled us with stories of crossing China, a protein-per-penny breakdown on the nutritional value of chickpeas, and how Shakespeare and the Brownian theory related to travel. It seems he impressed Sir James as well. He’s now ensconced in the Knight’s mansion-cum-art gallery as the “artist in residence.” He’s creating a planetary mood ring on commission. I can’t tell you how, that would spoil the surprise and endanger his beautiful idea, the intersection of art and computer science.
When considering who he might share his good fortune with, he thought of us, and so we were invited to a private piano concert earlier this week, and dinner last night.
This has got me thinking:
The path would have been entirely different if we’d said, “No,” to any number of tiny questions along the way.
I’m a believer that the Universe conspires to help us, but we have to give her some material to work with.
Serendipity is one of the reasons we travel: in search of those unexpected, delightful connections between worlds that we would not otherwise have a door into.
Have you experienced this? Talk to me about serendipity and where it’s taken you!
In the past few months, I have complained several times about the current status of travel writing and how it does not satisfy my needs.
In this sense, it would have been too easy to just sit there and complain without actually doing something about it. And that’s exactly what I did by joining forces with British travel writer Tom Coote.
We sat down and worked hard to create a new digital magazine: Wicked World.
You can access it by clicking here.
Wicked World exists to promote the kind of travel related writing that wouldn’t normally find an outlet in more mainstream publications. We’re not here to sell expensive guided tours, round the world tickets or travel insurance. On the contrary, we are here to provide a showcase for honest, alternative and irreverent writing, with a particular emphasis on internationally oriented underground culture. And we of course accept related, inspired submissions from like minded travel writers and adventurers.
If you want examples, the very first issue of Wicked World has articles on: the burgeoning black metal scene in Bangladesh; the rarely visited Meroe Pyramids in Sudan; mine clearance in Cambodia; a haunting return to Vicksburg, Mississippi; the resurrection of a mummified monk in Thailand; a bizarre encounter with the police in Kyrgyzstan; System of a Down’s self-financed film about the Armenian Genocide; and a festival for hungry ghosts in Malaysia and Singapore.
In the future, we are planning to provide a syndication service for travel related articles, and to experiment with publishing the kind of eBooks that wouldn’t normally find an outlet through more mainstream publishers.
If you would like to get involved in Wicked World, or would simply like to know more, then send an email to either marco@wickedworld.net or tom@wickedworld.net
My travels in northern France have always provided vivid reminders of the battle for Normandy, which raged from D-Day through the summer of 1944. Though partially healed by the decades, scars still remain in the rolling countryside, picturesque villages, and gentle beaches.
Sixty-nine years ago today, the Allies waded ashore on the beaches of Normandy, France, and began the liberation of Europe from Hitler. A US veteran of the Normandy campaign said recently, “Out of my squad of 13, only 3 survived.” His story was not unique. The fighting was ferocious, and casualties on both sides were severe.
Normandy, France, today. Peaceful and pretty.
On each of my visits to this beautiful area, I have been struck by the locals’ affection for Americans. The French are not normally known for their liking of the US tourist, but in Normandy, the appreciation for the US sacrifice is strong. Several coastal villages fly American flags and bear plaques in the town square commemorating the day of their liberation by US troops in June of 1944.
D-Day in Normandy–June 6, 1944
Some reminders are particularly evocative for me. For example, I find few sites as poignant as the rusted ports lurking in the waves just off the coast of Arromanches-les-Bains.
Not far from the immaculate rows of gleaming marble headstones of the US cemetery at Omaha Beach, the tiny beach village of Arromanches-les-Bains was chosen to be the main port of the Allies. Still visible in the surf are the ghostly hulks of the prefabricated ports known as “Mulberry Harbors”, designed to move those millions of pounds of Allied men, vehicles, and supplies from ship to shore in the fight against Hitler.
“Mulberry” Port in action on D-Day
The skeletal iron beasts, now rusted and worn away by decades of tide and salt water, serve as a reminder of the world-changing event that came to Normandy’s shores. And they remind us of the ordinary people—most now passed away—who found themselves swept up in the gale force of history.
A ghost in the waves.
The years go on, but the echoes remain.
As a fan of great museums, England, and historical stuff in general, I’m excited about a brand new museum that has just opened this week.
Located in the historic dockyard of Portsmouth on England’s picturesque south coast, the Mary Rose Museum houses the sixteenth-century hulk of the HMS Mary Rose, the pride of Henry VIII’s navy. Built in 1511, the massive warship sank off the coast of England in 1545 while fighting the French fleet. After ages under the waves, her remains were resurrected from the sea by marine archaeologists and installed in the new museum. A museum that, incidentally, is situated in the very dockyard in which the ship herself was constructed.
Remains of the Mary Rose
But it’s the collection of objects from within the ship—thousands of sixteenth-century items being called the largest trove of Tudor-era artifacts ever assembled—that are the real stars of the museum. By a stroke of fate, the silt of the sea floor created a virtually airtight tomb for the small objects within the vessel. The resulting collection of relics is so well preserved that it has been dubbed “the English Pompeii” for its quality and poignancy.
Sixteenth-century artifacts from the Mary Rose
The artifacts on display within the hull include miraculously preserved musical instruments, rosaries, board games, silverware, weapons, book covers, medical equipment, furniture, coins, and even the remains of several of the Mary Rose’s sailors. Facial reconstructions of the recovered skulls put a human dimension to the 500 men who perished with the ship, as do the everyday items they used. Combs with Tudor-era lice still trapped in them are also in the exhibit, as are the remains of the ship’s dog.
Taken together they are sure to tell a story of lives lived and lost within a sixteenth-century ship’s creaking timbers.
I can wait to see this for myself.
Burmese Light - Impressions of the Golden Land
by Hans Kemp and Tom Vater
Visionary World, 2013 (buy on Amazon)
“Impressions of the Golden Land” is quite an apt subtitle for Burmese Light as this book literally brings to the table (a coffee-table, to be precise) two kinds of impressions. The visual impressions of photographer Hans Kemp, and the personal travel impressions – translated into words – of Asian-focused writer Tom Vater. If that was not enough, even the publishers’ name, Visionary World, further sanctions the direction of this volume’s journey: a pictorial trip through the Southeast Asian country that has been twitching, boiling, and changing more than any other in recent years. And, to give credit where is due, the impressions “Burmese Light” is made of come from the minds of two adventurers with a long, exciting past of Asian discovery and residence. Believe me: you, the reader, could not find better guides to tackle the lights and shadows of Burma/Myanmar with.
Kemp and Vater have taken an accurate, sensitive and contemporary picture of Burma. This book comes to fill a gap in the travel literature by directly digging back to its own early sources. The volume, in fact, is peppered with citations of writers and scholars who have lived and loved Burma before the authors. Kipling, Orwell, Gascoigne, Wheeler (not the Tony of Lonely Planet fame, to be precise) are just some of the names gracing each chapter’s introductory pages before giving way to the array of powerful visuals provided by Kemp’s camera and Vater’s razor-sharp descriptions and highly graphic prose.
Light and darkness, as I mentioned previously: because the authors decided to present their own take on classic Burmese destinations (Yangon, Inle Lake, Mandalay, Bagan), without forgetting to explore other lesser-known places (Mrauk-U and cruising down the Irrawady river). However, this book is not just a particularly vivid travel memoir, as it also presents well researched chapters on many aspects of those traditions Burma is still rich in. Understand about monkhood in the country, learn to respect the cheroot – the most loved local kind of cigar – as a cultural symbol, spread thanaka all over your face, and enjoy the descriptions of street life and food at the intersection of the Southeast Asian and the South Asian worlds. By flipping Burmese Light’s pages I got intensely taken back to the time I ventured along the same dusty potholed roads, finding my way in a completely blackened downtown Yangon that resonated with the rhythmic chug of electric generators. And even if you are not as brave as the authors, be sure that you will feel your armchair blaze in shades of Burmese jade and gold, as long as you will keep this volume open on your lap. This book is a necessary addition to the libraries of all those who consider themselves to be lovers of Southeast Asia.
Check out a video book trailer here
Cost per day (for a family of five): $68
Strangest things we’ve seen lately:
Back home, before 2011 when we hit the road to become The Nomadic Family, we used to not move without seat belts. I would allow the kids to unbuckle only when the car came to a complete stop in the driveway, and not a second earlier. Today, after hitchhiking on the back of banana pickup trucks throughout Central and South America, our motorcycle accident in Cambodia, and most recently, after sitting on the roof of a jungle expedition truck in Gopeng, Malaysia; we no longer regard transportation safety a parental concern. (God help us!) Strangest thing I’ve seen lately, is all five of us on the back of motorcycles on the curvy mountain roads surrounding Da Lat, Vietnam, with not a care in the world. I’ve spent my entire motherhood telling the kids how motorcycles were death traps, and here we are, with the Bull Riders of DaLat, on motorcycles. Strange, and liberating, indeed.
Cost/day: $65/day
What’s the strangest thing you’ve seen lately?
The strangest thing had to be the view looking down at the tree tops when doing a superman over them. The superman zip lines were over a mile long through the mountains and they provided a uniquely strange – but amazing – experience.
The following story happened too many times along the back roads of deep Asia. And today, it got me inspired…
They offered me a cup full of hot water and they poured some tea leaves in there, too. It was too hot to handle so I put it down first while I kept observing the surroundings; so many people living in such a small room, kind of bound to it, but blessed by the unique rural environment of families providing for each other. I emptied my glass slowly as it was very hot, as I felt warm eyes all over me and my friends. When it was time to go, the family asked me to take a picture with them and we posed in front of the doorstep, smiling. When I look back at that picture today, I can’t help but laugh looking at the crown of tiny limbs creating a forest of motion behind me. Those naughty kids…
Then, it was time to go back on the road. We passed next to a column of women dressed in traditional clothing and head scarves. They transported wooden baskets full of weeds or small stones on their backs. Observing them, I tried to figure out if in my home country of Italy such kind of menial work is still conducted the way those women did. I quickly came to the conclusion that no, it belongs to the past. Or to an undefined dimension that makes some parts of Asia places where a bad wizard has cast a strong spell, and time just slipped down the crack in between the third and a fourth, incredible dimension.
In these moments, you feel lucky to be able to witness a relic of a world that is gradually losing its very own differences.
Please, if you go to such places, try to preserve the spell. Or just don’t go. It would be too sad for me to return one day, and see begging hands, instead of friendly locals willing to share a little part of their world with me, the incautious foreigner that just stumbled in their world.
As a first stop during my “charity discovery tour” in India I visited the village of Sujata, just behind Buddhist pilgrimage center – and Tibetan refugee colony – Bodhgaya, in Bihar state. If Bodhgaya is a bit more developed, although desperately poor, Sujata represents a real Bihar’s backwater: the kind of Indian village where houses are half built, their walls covered in thick cow dung’s cakes, and most people roam jobless looking for something to do under the scorching sun.
I was a host of Dinu, a young chap I met through Couchsurfing. He has been helping a local charity school, Lord Buddha, to develop and raise the foundations of the building thanks to the offers of a few foreign contributors. Dinu is still a young student: he dedicates his time to the school project for the poor kids of the adjoining villages, and he is trying to study Chinese besides the dearth of opportunities to find updated textbooks in Bihar.
Dinu also would like to be able to build a small “Couchsurfing Hostel” where he may be able to host many people passing through Bodhgaya, giving them a chance to volunteer participating to the schools’ activities. So far, the only thing Dinu has is some free land space, and some tons of bricks generously provided by a Canadian donor. Although having a vision, Dinu lacks funds, and needs help.
This post has the sole intention to let you know Dinu’s story and open up a channel in order to contact him, if interested. If you could even send him an English-Chinese dictionary or textbooks, he would be extremely thankful. Regarding the Lord Buddha school, I had a chance to visit during India’s Independence Day 2012, as the little kids put up a parade in front of the – for the moment being – single storey school building. Parents and families from the surrounding village were all present, flags were raised, dances and songs were performed, and everyone had a very sweet and entertaining morning.
I urge people to get in touch with him, at least to give some encouragement or practical tips, as this young fellow is really dedicated and has a very good heart: you can write an email to dinusinha(at)yahoo.co.in and get in touch regarding the project, or make a donation by contacting Dinu and using Paypal.
Cost/day: $100
What’s the strangest thing you’ve seen lately?
For the first time in ten months, North Korean soldiers came down from their posts and took pictures of each other right outside the conference building joining North and South–while I was getting a tour inside the building.
However high the tension between the countries, it seemed trivialized by the bright blue paint and perfectly immobile South Korean soldiers in their teal uniforms and round helmets. It felt as if we were all acting in a play, not treading one of the highest security areas in the world.
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