Moth Smoke - Mohsin Hamid

I had already read and reviewed another book by Mohsin Hamid: “The reluctant fundamentalist”. That was a pleasant surprise, as I had never heard of this author before. “Moth smoke” confirmed my first impression. Hamid's stories always feature some young, well educated, smart Pakistani who migrated to the USA or is friend with someone who went there. I suspect that this is an autobiographical touch.

Police surcharge - Bangkok, Thailand

There is a little street in Bangkok, a few dozen meters from one of the most touristy roads of the country. In the past ten years I've heard its funny name - Rambuttri - mispronounced in several ways: Rainbow street, Rain on tree, and there was even a movie-version, Rambo 3. There is a place in that street that for the sake of anonymity - without keeping it too vague though - I'll just call SH. Back when it opened the SH used to be a guest house for low-budget tourists: two stories, a few rooms and a simple restaurant located near the main entrance. The owners are smart: they keep developing their place, which expands continuously over the years. A travel agency is added, the restaurant is open 24 hours and at night it becomes a bar with plenty of atmosphere, with soft lights and music that you can listen to in the coolest clubs of New York, Paris or Ibiza. The menu is divided into a Thai and an international section and the cocktail list is so long that an alcoholic could get bored just half-way through it. In the mid '00s they add a sort of a mezzanine floor, with pool tables and air-conditioning (the rest of the seats are outdoor). Later on the restaurant expands its boundaries and takes over the lower floor of a building two blocks away, next to a bank. A few more months and the gap is filled: the house that causes the solution of continuity is torn down and its place is taken by a large room decorated with Siamese and Balinese sculptures. As a last touch tables pop up along both sides of the alley, around a stall where a foreign guy prepares and serves shishas, water-pipes filled with flavored tobacco.

Confiscation - Bangkok, Thailand

I pay the quick lunch that I just had at a small roadside restaurant, I turn around and I spot a waitress who is handing a gas cylinder to a man in uniform. He grabs it and gives it to his colleagues, who are standing on the back of a pick-up truck. What's going on? Since when are the cops collecting cylinders to be refilled? The vehicle is advancing slowly and another agent passes a stack of Lonely planets (photocopied ones) to his mates. I take a close look at the truckload, there is a bit of everything: bags full of t-shirts and pants, swimming trunks, folding chairs, a metal table, the travel guides and the cylinder. The truck is going past a massage parlor now. A few deck chairs used for foot reflexology have been placed on the road side, across from the shop. The cops choose one of them, get rid of all the cushions and towels, fold it and put it in the truck.

High-altitude scalpers - Medan, Indonesia

Crossing the morning sky, by Docbudie (CC)

We're done with Sumatra, we tick the item in the list and we proceed with our next destination: Java. We get back to Medan and we start to look for a flight. At the first travel agency a bored employee tells us that the flights to Jakarta - and to any other Indonesian city - are all full, for a few days.

"How...all of them?"

"All of them!"

This guy doesn't want to work, we all think at once while we start to look for another agency. Maybe the workers of the local tourism sector are lazy and bored, but this has nothing to do with flights availability. Due to some holiday the Indonesians, the students in particular, are traveling, migrating, flying. To go home, on vacation, to visit some friends, nobody knows where exactly, what we know is that they have completely jammed the national air traffic.

But we belong to an ancient breed of tough travelers and we won't give up that easily. We reach the airport with a rickety taxi. The national departures area is a bedlam of people who are camping everywhere, hoping for a waiting list to be cleared soon. We try the ticket offices of some airlines but this time we are not surprised by their answers: all full! A female scalper who got wind of the opportunity to cheat three pale-faced fools draws near us and offers us three boarding passes for a huge sum.

Dr Jekyll exists, and he lives in Phnom Penh - Cambodia

(From my 2004 diary)

The traffic light turns green and our bike gains speed but after few meters we come to a stop. We have been around for eight ours at least and we got caught at dusk, when we were almost back. The policeman smiles and approaches us. We already know what he's looking for and we decide that first he will enjoy our show.

He throws a glance at Lorenzo's licence, then ask if we have an international one. We pretend that we can't speak a word in English, that we are also quite nervous and rather dumb. When he asks for the papers we look at each other, we slowly translate his words in Italian, then finally grin and hand in the same licence. He points out again that this one is not good, that we need to have a document written in English. Once more we throw amazed looks at each other, then we patiently explain him that this one is Italian.

After five minutes of this slapstick show he finally invites us to make a donation. When we hear the word “dollars” we smile and yell, as if we had finally understood what he means. A beam of satisfaction brightens his face, as he sees his efforts bringing back a reward. But it's a short-lived joy and his frustration is back when we pull the rental contract out of our bag.

After a few more more minutes of this back and forth, we decide it's enough and we bargain the price. He pockets the money without writing a fine. You can tell by the way he's greeting us that the daily sum was a well-earned one.

The next day we're reading a local paper in English. A journalist writes about corruption and bribes. Part of the article is an interview with an officer, who explains that the problem is a serious one. At the end of the column there's a photo of the cop. The man is proudly standing next to his bike. A shiny white helmet, U.S. Air Force shades, a confident smile and a thin black mustache.

We look at the picture and try to make out that face. We wonder if the author could possibly know that the nice Dr Jekyll who was talking to him, is the same Mr Hyde who entertained us.

Image: Richard Mansfield in The strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Henry van Der Weyde (PD), circa 1895, from Wikipedia.org

The Balinese extortionists - Bali, Indonesia

(From my 2003 diary)

The traffic is heavy on this stretch of road. A few meters ahead we spot a cop. He seems to be relaxed, and doesn't do much, just lazily observes the cars passing by. When he spots our faces through the shiny glass, his body stirs, he steps forward and with his hand he motions us to stop. The look that the encounter has painted on his face is the one of a fox breaking into a roost.

A colleague of him has joined the scene. The confab they hold while they check our papers reminds of two pirates studying a map. When they have verified that the licence is all right, they move on with a thorough overhaul of the car. Once they have made sure that there is nothing wrong, they start to mumble about a mysterious offence. We are amazed, we smile and try to explain that this is just a rental car. But soon we understand that it's a useless try and that we're only making fools of ourselves.

They have already seen this, and they even look bored when they list the absurd consequences that we might face. We cut it short and ask how much. They shoot a figure and wait for our laughs. We keep them happy and start to bargain, we even joke while we negotiate. At the end we pay and they let us go.

A few hours later, when we're back from Ubud, we happen to drive past the same place. The scene of the morning is staged once again, only the actors are different ones. Before the policemen start to check our car, we tell them straight that we've already paid. They look at us a little surprised and without any shame they ask us how much. Lorenzo tells them a puffed-up sum, and we observe the indignation permeating their faces. They ask us to follow them inside the station and to try to recognize the greedy ones.

That's how we ended up helping those guys to find the colleagues who didn't share our bribe!

Bangkok's every night show - Bangkok, Thailand

Only Bangkok can stage shows like this everyday. While the first light of dawn turns the world greasy and gray, the last tipsy customers sway out of the club, dragging their feet as well as their tongues. They linger on the road, skirting taxis and touts. The groups are dynamic, with a fluid sort of quality: one loses a member, then gets two new ones, while another large party, bit after bit, dwindles to a couple and then to a last drunk, who will finally drift without too much noise.

The veranda of this restaurant is a perfect spot to dominate undisturbed the entire set. Lorenzo sips a refreshing fruit shake. Without facing each other, we sit side by side, watching the numbers unfolding in front. Behind a fortification of bottles of beer there hides a face of complicated make. The synthetic touch, the mud-gray hue, the distorted lines of mouth, nose and eyes, must be the result of a hard-lived night. The four or five liters of Singha beer, whose evidence lays empty and wet on the table, are likely to end a long chain of events, which probably started in a hotel room, and swerved through a streak of dodgy and dark dives.

The guy doesn't move and stares right ahead, though what he sees might be nowhere in sight. Then, very slowly, his left arm moves, while the rest of the body remains icy still. He's reaching for a tray placed next to him, but a waitress springs and arrives there first. She grabs a fresh bottle and refills his glass. He lifts it and shakily brings it to his mouth, finding the target after a couple of tries. Between two lengthy swigs of beer, he puts out a cigarette on a filthy ashtray. He places the stub on top of the mound that has been raised with zeal in three hours at least.

It's not easy to tell how old he is. Although he looks somewhere between fifty and the grave, part of that figure might be due to these nights. The waitress is guarding him from behind, and refills his glass any time he needs. The last bunch of people are now leaving the street and walking to a bar squeezed somewhere upstairs.

In Bangkok the clubs should be closed by three, but there is always some place which will open all night. All they need to do is convince the police, and the agreement normally consists in a bribe. Still, when some top brass is in a bad mood, the place might be asked to close anytime. This also happens if a new bidder shows up, and he is bringing along a richer gift.

This is the way things often work down here. But one should remember that a country and its culture need to be understood and criticized as a whole. Corruption, instability and a bit of filth, are counterbalanced by a happy and relaxed atmosphere.

I've been to some clockwork-like places before: it's true that I could hardly spot a cockroach, but I've often ended up flying off dead-bored.