A passport photo is NECESSARY! Unless... - Hong Kong

An old 20 HKD banknote and a passport picture

Usual stop in Hong Kong to get a Chinese visa. Usual stay at the Nathan road mansions, where the foreign hasslers who come here to start a new life are getting more and more annoying and the smell more and more pungent. The beehive cell-like rooms haven't gotten bigger by a bit though. Only the prices might actually have been increased. 
The Forever Bright agency at the New Mandarin plaza by Tsim Sha Tsui East MTR station is way more crowded than the last time I was there. They have even hired a guy who wears a suit and a tie and stands by the door and mounted a movable structure for the customers to form an ordered line. 
The situation at the counter is chaotic: it's a mess to receive the forms, to get information about the fees and to hand in the application papers.  I was planning to get a six-month, multiple-entry, business visa but in just a few years the fee went from 600 to 2000 HKD. I opt for the three-month, single entry, tourist one which only costs 500 HKD. 
"You need to give me a passport picture."
"Here you go!"
"No, this one has a white background, we need one with a blue background."
Shit, the blue background...

Silence is not an absolute necessity

The restaurant (in Thailand).

You're having dinner at a nice little restaurant, vapors rising from the iced bottle of beer mixed with the aroma of the spices that soak the seafood laid out in front of you stroke the flushed skin of your cheeks. The breeze of a distant fan intermittently struggles to divert the course of the beads of sweat that are gliding down your brow. It's stifling hot. The heat of a season that will end soon, swept away by the violence of the monsoons, but you've learned to fend those heat waves off and keep them out of the peaceful and cool cocoon where you like to hide yourself away. Maybe it's your ancestral spirit of adaptation, or maybe some of the nirvanic skills of the Buddhist monks have been finally absorbed by an unidentified spiritual element hidden somewhere inside of you. You might even be able to enjoy the moment. Because it is supposed to be a nice, enjoyable moment. You might, as I said, if it wasn't for the vibrations of an electric guitar and the catlike yelling of a singer hitting your eardrums pointblank. You realize that this place is really changing you when you notice that instead of cursing and insulting them you are actually singing the refrain between a mouthful and the next one, while your right sole keeps the rhythm under the table, chasing away a cockroach or a rat that had come to feast on the leftovers.

It's here, among us, all this - Northern Laos

The Plain of Jars is already behind us. The journey from Phonsavan to the main Vientiane-Luang Prabang route is many hours long. Actually it's only a short distance, more or less a hundred kilometers, but it will take a day to the Korean bus to cover it. These roads have not been asphalted yet, they are made of a clay that becomes a bog with the rain, and weave with curves and switchbacks in and out the mountain range that wrinkles the body of the country. The roadway is very narrow, like an ordinary lane that has to accommodate the traffic going both ways. Looking out of the window, on one side you're faced with the rugged wall of an excavated mountain, on the other your eyes can span across the landscape that dominates a steep and deep ravine. There is not any protection and it looks like the soil is going to yield at any time. When we cross another vehicle the bus is forced to proceed along the edge of the road, with its wheels dangerously playing between the rim and the air. The passengers often get off the bus, partly because they want to stretch their legs and partly because of the apprehension caused by the acrobatic maneuvers. Sometimes the bus drives so slowly that it is possible to follow it on foot at a normal speed. 
The aisle is jammed: sacks, bags, baskets and boxes are heaped on the floor. I'm sitting in the back and I'm thinking that walking all the way to the door is like advancing upstream on the rocks of a creek. I take a look around, I open the window, I climb up the seat and jump outside. We have to proceed side by side with a column of cars, bulldozers, trucks: the traffic jam will last for a while. Together with the other passengers I walk along some kind of path that runs along the flank of the mountain, one meter from the road. We chat, walk and look around. Only a few old people and a bunch of ladies are still on the bus. The driver is steering the wheel with care, just missing the other vehicles, utilizing the narrow space between metal, soil and slope, making the bus slide like an eel amid rocks. He manages to get past the difficult parts of the route without complaining or making faces, while he's eating a cucumber without even chopping it, as if it was a banana. The remaining passengers advance along the path with the same sort of fatalism. 
The sky is shiny, your eyes need to get used to the light before you can look at it right in the heart. Even the clouds are of a fluorescent shade of gray. The scenery helps to fend off boredom, which at any rate is - and must be - present as an excipient in the composition of traveling. 
Luang Prabang is still far, but Laos is here, among us, all this.

Northern Laos, November 2001

Bogged down - Muang Ngoi, Laos

American unexploded bombs, by Fabio

You set down a foot and control your muscles in order to be ready in case you slip. But you got it all wrong. The clay of Muang Ngoi streets is of an unusual type: after weeks of monsoon rain it turns into glue. A mixture that some chemistry laboratory - if they still haven't done it - should definitely analyze.

You don't have any problems when your sole touches the ground, as that slush clings to the rubber of your shoe like the almost dry concrete of a new sidewalk. At that stage your balance is guaranteed, your foot doesn't slide by a single centimeter. The situation changes when you take a second step and you shift the barycenter of your body to advance. Your head moves forward, your chest as well, your hips follow suit, your thigh and knee are also dragged along. But at ankle level something goes wrong. The first foot is anchored, stuck, welded, thermofused. You still don't realize how strong that bond is and you give a sharp tug, thinking that you can make it, as you have made it pretty much everywhere so far, with or without monsoon. The only thing that seems to yield though is the structure of your shoe: obviously its body is more likely to come off the sole than the latter is to get unstuck from the street. You fear the worst. You know that a violent move will leave you barefoot, so you try to keep calm while you carry out an outflanking maneuver, something that you learned long ago when you were lying on a dentist chair: a sequence of gentle circular pulls, hoping to loosen the grip before proceeding with the extraction. You already quit being afraid of looking ridiculous when you took a look around you a moment ago. You can't spot any Laotian stuck to the ground: either they are all at home or they have found out the way to skate on rubber cement. On the other hand the street is full of foreigners in the same situation as you. The scene makes you think of a museum hall where some kind of Blue Fairy by means of a few skillful touches of her wand has brought the statues to life, but has also played a dirty trick on them: one of their feet is still petrified, connected to the pedestal. All of them are flinging themselves about, maddened with joy for being finally able to move their limbs after so many centuries, but at the same time panicking for that last constraint that nails them down to the ground.

Finally you make it, the sole gets unstuck, you lift your foot and manage to take a step. You know that you won't go far though, that sooner or later the straps of your sandal will give in. Your intuition is confirmed by the footwear graveyard that lies in front of you: soles of other sandals, flip-flops, trainers and even trekking shoes appear here and there, thrust into mounds made of something that resembles home made chocolate ice cream, with a thousand times higher thickness and adhering power. 

I had already been in Muang Ngoi a few years ago, in the dry season: a completely different story. It's a little village built around few dirt roads, without any traffic, where you can only get by boat from Nong Khiaw, another small place not far from here. A little paradise, slightly spoiled by tourism maybe, but still retaining its charming atmosphere. Now it's unlivable. Hanging around the houses built with the American bomb shells is complicated and visiting the caves and the hills nearby is unthinkable. Tomorrow I'm gonna get on a boat and go back to Luang Prabang. 

By way of some grass paths and often walking barefoot I manage to reach a temple: some chicks are scratching around the yard and in a corner I can spot a gong-bell made with the remains of a bomb. I meet some nice guys from Bologna who manage to convince me to stay one more day. Alright, come to think about it with some nice company this place is not so bad.

The next morning after waking up I go and look for them to have breakfast together. They have already checked out of their hotel. I take a look around and all I can see is leaden clouds, leaves dripping with rain and a never ending expanse of quick-setting mud. Hard as I try I can't recall what the nice side of it that I could see yesterday was.

The next boat is leaving tomorrow, I'll have to stay here another day, bogged down in every sense of the word, with the only company of a book and a jug of coffee, while the Italians who convinced me to stay are enjoying the comforts and the French-colonial atmosphere of Luang Prabang. 

As for myself, the only French thing that is left here is a vaguely mocking saying: c'est la vie!

Muang Ngoi, Laos, August 2007

A success story - Vientiane, Laos

At a bar in Vientiane, on the Mekong riverfront, a South-Korean tourist is telling me a story. "Have you ever seen some Kolao motorbikes or trucks?" The name rings a bell but it's a little blurred in a cloud of Chinese sub-brands and fakes. "About ten years ago a Korean man came here, he racked his brain and sensed an opportunity: he started to import bikes and vehicles from his country. The idea happened to work, he built up some capital, then changed his strategy and opened his own factory." Nowadays Kolao is a small Laotian Honda. That businessman was nobody when he embarked on that trip, now in Korea he is a success story. This sounds like a tale from a different era, of pioneers, gold races or post-war time. And actually that's what Laos was some years ago: out of endless conflicts...a land of conquest.

Photo of a motorbike at the Buddha Park - Vientiane, by Fabio

That pointed finger - Vientiane, Laos

A knobby vehicle stops by the curb. It's a modified motorbike, with added wheels. The guy who drives it, bony and dark-skinned, gets off and starts to move on all fours. He hangs about the tables of an alfresco café, stops near the customers and waits for their charity. People don't mind him and keep on chatting. A tourist who notices him puts a hand in his pocket, fishes out a note and hands it to him. The beggar doesn't take it and shakes his head. The tourist waits, then puts the money away. The Laotian snorts and makes for the bike, then stops, turns around and starts to yell. He's speaking English, insulting, swearing. People fall silent, the waiters come out. The tourist is stunned, he takes all the abuses, nailed to his embarrassment by that pointed finger. It's a delicate situation, the circumstances are odd, every reaction at hand is a double-edged weapon. He looks away hoping that it will end soon. It was a small denomination note, but it was the only one that was offered to him. 
Why that scene? There can be many reasons. This kind of people have complicated issues: they sink in the abyss of synthetic drugs and alcohol. Another explanation, more general and just as sad, is that Vientiane is no longer a remote destination. Expensive cars, modern gadgets, fashion clothes, new trends. On the other side of the river the lights of Thailand shine. Organizations and tourism bring in money and globalization. Along with living standards, vice and confusion increase. A city beggar is not a montagnard from a village: he can turn down a tip and angrily shrug, point a finger at you and start swearing in English.

Photo of a beggar in Bangkok, by Fabio Pulito

Boosting one's mood for the day - Vientiane, Laos

I look up from my book and focus on a sentence: sometimes Henry Miller can be quite psychedelic. My neck reaches out, a bit giraffe-like, I bite the straw and I pull a sip of the best fruit shake that can be found in town. I look at the street where a bus drives by: the very last window is framing a face. A chubby red oval, a shaven head, only one shoulder is covered by the orange robe: it's a Buddhist novice, one of those child-monks. Tiny hands grab the edge of the glass, while wide-open eyes stare at me or the whole world. I can't take a photo but I nail him to my mind. 

Year-long journeys in countries like Laos - among other things - have taught me this lesson: one just needs to relax and sharpen one's senses in order to boost his mood for the day.

Photo of a young monk in a temple at Chiang Mai, by Fabio Pulito

An itinerant zoo - Towards the Plain of Jars, Laos

(Autumn 2001)
The Songthaew (*) drives along the Ho Chi Minh trail, on its western flank, the Laotian one. There is no trail, maybe there never was, just an imaginary path between jungle and napalm. When we'll arrive to Phonsavan is for no one to know. We spent a long time at the departing town: if the truck is not full the driver will wait. We stop quite often along the way: some people get off and others get on, breaks for snacks and toilet needs. For the past few hours though the layout hasn't changed. Tied to the foot-board, as if on charcoal, a black-skinned pig is snarling and grumbling. Fowl is pecking among cases and sacks, while a furry animal rests in a wicker cage. 

Some of the passengers are trying to sleep, others are lost in an absentminded trance. The car hits a hole and we become alert. I look at the cage with the open door. The owner notices that as well, he starts to worry and goes down on the floor. He sticks his head under the passengers benches, moves the bags and lifts the chicks. The animal runs along the edge of the truck, when the man backs him up against a corner, he waits for him and then bites his hand. The man swears, turns around and chases the beast. At last he manages to put him back in the cage. Everybody laughs, then switches to offline mode. A snoring hippie is surrounded by flies, a local burps while eating black eggs, the hens are cackling and the pig is grunting. It's almost twilight, we're in the middle of nowhere, with an ample zigzag among old bomb craters, an itinerant zoo snail-like slides away. 

(*) Songthaew: Asian version of a bus. A truck with two long benches in the back to accommodate the passengers.

Photo by Philipp L. Wesche (CC), from wikipedia.org