Amp

This evening I should publish a post about temples, rice paddies and children ...

I should write a nice page on Cambodia describing places that make you dream.

But I will talk about a page of my life, and I will devote it to an angel I met tonight.

It's 10 30 pm and I am in a remote village near Bangkok.

I left from Cambodia at 7 am and I was supposed to get to Bangkok at 7pm...On time for a very important skype interview at 10 pm.

But that’s what happened:

- phone lost on the first bus:

- seven minivans changed on the way to Thailand;

- accident with a truck overturned on the road,

- four-hour delay;

- Almost missed my job interview (for which I gave up three days of relax on an island...)

What happened then ...?

I met one of those angels who wait at the roadside, who doesn’t speak your language but understand your heart, who doesn’t need your ID card to trust you and  watch your sadness healing your pain…

My angel’s name is Amp, she doesn’t speak English and doesn’t even know my name.

I met her on the street: she was coming home from work, I was walking on the roadside, desperately alone, seeking for an internet cafe '.

After realizing that I would never be in Bangkok before midnight I went off the bus in a remote thai village.

Amp saw me, tried to understand what I was saying and finally took me to her house.

She gave me the keys (!) and guided me into a fantastic internet point.

...

Tonight she will to sleep at a friend’s: I will sleep in her house, a perfect stranger that she has welcomed home. The only thing I managed to say was the warmest thank you form my heart…

Phnom Pehn

Describing Phnom Penh is difficult: you end up with a bitter taste in your mouth, sucked into an inevitable memory, submerged in a future development, insatiable and unchecked. Radical chic restaurants and bio-ethical shops, wide streets and shopping malls, Lucky supermarkets and Happy Herb Pizza.

It’s easy to find yourself lost, disoriented, wondering in which part of the world you happen to be. But there are a couple of things that can help you to make up your mind: the Tuol Seng Museum and the Choeng Ek killing fields are places that you will never forget.

April 17, 1975: the Kmher Rouge entered Phnom Penh establishing a new government. In three years of power more than two million people were killed.

"I am legally responsible for the deaths of more than a thousand people and I pray for their souls." We read in the testimony of a hierarch of Democratic Kampuchea.

How to accept, how to understand this?

Let’s drink the bitter cup of the memory, swalloying it with Angkor Beer, while listening absent-mindely to a Coldplay song. We stare out in front of a city that we cannot understand, without identifying its boundaries of sense, wondering if it is kneeling to capitalism or hiding its true nature in narrow streets, drowing it in open sewers, forgetting it in fashionable clothes and mixed fruit shakes.

We are leaving tomorrow, heading to Siem Reap, to admire the enigmatic smiles of Angkor temples.

Remebering Saigon

5.25 am

The sun rises on the coast of Vietnam, while my taxi run to the airport of Danang.

What am I looking for in Ho Chi Minh City?

Maybe just memories.

Colonial memories hidden in few ancient buildings, in the Christian churches, along the wide tree-lined avenues. Remembrance of a past that burns in shreds, concealed in awkward memories of a war, covered up by the traffic and the rows of motorbikes.

And then the silence: a guilty, empathetic, resigned, still silence in the eyes of visitors of the War Museum. Torture, dioxin, napalm, malformations.

Forgotten words of declaration of principles.

They are disappearing, running far away, falling empty in the centuries, reflected in the horrors of today’s wars, so similar to pictures of forty years ago.

The wounds remain, without words.

We will learn one day.

Meanwhile, we try to be reassured by the other face of this land, by the green fields of the Mekong Delta, by its light blue sky. Floating markets, tropical gardens and water hyacinths, rice fields, boats, bananas and children, suspended wooden bridges: a motorbike darting through lotus fields, fighting cocks and ducks shepherds.

I close my eyes on top of a mountain, curled up in a hammock, facing the sunset.

And a bell rings far away…

Smell of ginger...

                                                                                          Vietnam, Hoi An

Smell of ginger ...

Of ginger and fresh fish, the stalls lichi, avocado and dragon fruit. Tourist shops, T-shirts, bookmarks and sleeping bags. Triangular straw hats, colourful vegetables, smiling old ladies: a kaleidoscope of emotions.

"Come, look for a scarf" "Do you want a foot massage?", "Italy, football."

And then a narrow little street, a door to another world.

So I enter it slowly, allowing time to admire the life that flows on the river.

I sit on a plastic chair, sipping a fruitshake, suddenly realizing that I don’t need to run in order to understand. On the contrary, there are lots of things that can be grabbed only when we stop.

Tonight I said a prayer to the river.

A little old lady looked at me and gave me three coloured lanterns, which I let go away…

How to describe Hoi An?

A caress of warm wind, soft lighting of candles on the water, live music on the roadside.

I cannot describe the magic of red lanterns, colourful lamps on the trees, the poetry of Chinese kites on a bridge.

A spell for tourists, maybe ... But it is still magic.

Goodbye Cat Ba

It's raining over the bay: It has been raining all day long.

And for various reasons It Is raining also in me.
Smell of fish, intermittent bursts of water, a warm wind, a sky spotted with black clouds. Some boats are still in the harbor, little lights moving away. Among them there is also our little junk, where we will spend two days, probably under the rain.

"There is no bad weather: it’s all a matter of suitable clothes”, The Norvegian motto came back to my mind. Surely this time I haven’t a suitable dress. Flip-flops, two shirts and a pair of trousers: that’s all I brought, keeping in mind that “The lighter you travel, the farer you will arrive”.

True, but not this time.

Luckily, my three Hawaiian friends lend me a k-way, a real treasure in these days of monsoon. A small red junk that seems to have just came out of a fairy tale book, a crew composed of two Vietnamese who don’t speak English, a young local as a cook.

Let’s the adventure start.

...

Islands, islands, islands, like falling stars in the dark water of the Gulf of Tonkin.
Unexpected visits to underground caves that we explore together with groups of Chinese and Thai. They talk all together, louder that the pop music of underground tourist shops: a picturesque affresco of different cultures mixing together. And then a good swim in secluded bays, a close encounter with transparent jellyfishes, morning showers with rain water and canoeing among colorful houses, guard dogs and bamboo bridges.
We sail zigzaging between remote islands, admiring their tropical vegetation, greeting other colorful boats, dreaming above this incredible turquoise water.

A strip of blue sky, and the sun rises, just when we are coming back to the port….

Goodbye Cat Ba: we will come back soon…

Luang Prabang: candles, monks and gold dragons 9.30 pm. A full moon night.

Luang Prabang, Laos 

The sound of raining is mixing with the note of gong from Buddist temples, while the city is preparing to rest. Here life unfolds with other times, other rhythms, a different consistency. Small candles illuminate gardens and stone guardians of Buddha temples, their faces lost in an ethereal smile.

Monks walk around dressed in orange, their head shaved, their dark eyes speaking. Three coats, three baskets for offerings, a belt, a razor, a toothpick, an umbrella: they are not allowed to own anything more.

They walk barefoot, quiet in the streets.

At dawn, they receive offerings in a silent procession through the streets of the city.

In silence they pray, bowing in front of high statues of Buddha.

You can see them learning English in their monasteries, running under the rain or chatting under a tree, smiling at curious foreigners. They work in their courtyards, make jokes with children, getting angry with dogs, smoking a cigarette in a moment of privacy.

On the other side of the river there are restaurants and clubs, shops and bars with live music, selling crepes and pancakes, coffees and Lao Beer. Laundry services and wi-fi, Tour operators organising eco tours, trekking, kayaking, massages and aromatherapy, cooking classes and elephant riding: the other side of a city of temples, candles and gold dragons.

Flying thoughts, between buses and boats ...

We wait on the bus: it will leave when full. Many women on board, young girls coming home after school, ladies with shopping bags and an old man with a military green hat, the word “Vietnam” on his t-shirt, a packet of fried bananas in hand.

The women talk, leave their plastic bags on the bus and continue shopping while waiting for the departure. They pass each other leaflets and visiting cards: I imagine them sharing advices on hairdressers and phad thai shops.

Looks, smiles, a few universal gestures: coming back to the essentials on a old bus with no door.

A bow to the king, who looks at us in front of the market: we are finally ready to go.

Let’s the journey start.

...

Crossing into Laos: slow boat from Huay Xai to Luang Prabang, sailing on the Mekong with Italian, Spanish, Hawaiian ...

Water, wind, sun: so many hours together with strangers, which are strangers no more.

Finding yourself talking about God, in the middle of nowhere, remembering the things that really matter.

A small village to stop for the night: the boat for Luang Prabang docks here every night.

It has brought Internet, cappuccinos, mini-shampoos and hostels that at sunset contend for the arriving tourists. However, not far from the port old wooden houses remain, together with wild gardens and exotic flowers, with cocks giving the good morning and a lush forest.

The brown waters of the Mekong flow quiet underneath: it will be a beautiful day tomorrow.