Nomadic Gatherings: Travels in Asia and Australia
Nomadic Gatherings by Michel Guntern
Nomadic Gatherings
- by Michel Guntern.
If you enjoy reading the online chapters of Nomadic Gatherings a hard copy is available on Kindle.
Chapter 1 - Taking Off:
To Japan, where so much of Japanese
life seemed uniformed with rules, rituals, and ceremony; keeping grace
and saving face. I bowed; they giggled.
Chapter 2 - Kimchi and Gold Medals:
The Olympic ceremony was on in Seoul, and the event was being
transmitted live to the on-board television above the driver.
Chapter 3 - Little Sister:
Taiwan was a brief stop en-route from Seoul to Hong Kong. They found it
amusing that I was heading for China.
Chapter 4 - Colonial Gateway:
Between the modern financial offices of Central Hong Kong, old trams
trundled along Des Voeux Road. No-one stood still. I had to get a
visa for China.
Chapter 5 - China Travel:
Buying train tickets in China can often be a problem with five-day waits
and people camped at the station. And what if you can't speak the
Chinese language?
Chapter 6 - The Northern Capitals:
Japan invaded Manchuria in the early 1940s, and the Soviets followed in
1945. Some of the dome-shaped architecture still remains from the
Russian period.
Chapter 7 - Grasslands to Terracotta:
It is a hard existence for the people of Inner Mongolia, forcing many to
give up their nomadic way of life to pose for tourists, or prospect for
gold.
Chapter 8 - Central China:
Workers ploughed, hoed and fine tuned the cloggy soil, while their
children carried straw baskets on their backs to help with the work
load. Further on, fishermen punted small craft on a river. One of them
pulled up his net, but the train had passed before I could inspect the
catch.
As with the rest of China, the day in Chengdu starts early. Still in the dark of night at six in the morning, figures swing through a restricted motion in a space between the trees; Tai Chi is a physical, meditational, art form popularised by the elderly. It seems a way of keeping fit without the need for fitness.
Chapter 9 - Minorities and Tourists:
The area in the deep south of Yunnan Province, bordering Burma and Laos,
is inhabited by a dozen of the minority tribes. CAAC flights are
notorious for cancellations, and when that happens in remote areas, a
two-day bus journey is the only alternative.
The daily flotilla of tourists from Guilin has turned Yangshou into a Chinese Capri, complete with English menus and 'traditional Chinese massage'.
Chapter 10 - Leased Lands:
I had flown into Britain's leased land, left it by train, and now I
would return on the waterway that many Chinese have risked everything in
an attempt to float down undetected by the authorities.
When the British used aggression against the Chinese in the Opium War, the Portuguese diplomatically kept out of it; and today Macau finds itself the poorer relation of a more dynamic Hong Kong.
Chapter 11 - Down Under:
I was not emigrating, but as I flew from Hong Kong to Melbourne I was
just as apprehensive about the land I was approaching: the World's
largest island and smallest continent, with a red centre and the largest
monolith on earth, the largest coral in the world, and snow-fields
larger than those of Alpine Switzerland.
Sophisticated commercial centres alongside outback cattle-stations and flying doctors; modern films, theatre, and music juxtaposing ochre-toned bark-paintings, and Aboriginal rituals; mixed with the imported colour and culture of the Mediterranean Europeans, the Lebanese, and the increasing number of Asians.
A young nation seemed to be making an old land work.
Chapter 12 - The Track:
After Adelaide's social event of the year, the Formula One Grand Prix,
it was time to hitch-hike up the Great Interior.
Chapter 13 - Alice and Nurses:
A car crash after my visit to Ayers Rock blurred events at The Centre,
and I was flown to Alice Springs by the Flying Doctor Service.
Chapter 14 - The Top End:
Even without a railway link between the two major Northern territory
towns of Alice Springs and Darwin, traffic on the road was still slight.
Chapter 15 - Queensland:
The road quality changed at the Queensland border. The bitumen was only
wide enough for one lorry. When two trucks passed, both had to drive
half on the dirt edge. If a car came, the lorry-driver held his course,
and the smaller vehicle drove on the dirt.
Chapter 16 - A Trip to Cairns:
The reason for hitch-hiking was not to save money, but to get the whole
of the country's nothingness into perspective and perhaps unearth a few
local gems by meeting the natives, or at least those on the move or on
some personal mission. Albert was one.
Chapter 17 - South No Schedule:
I only had a directional skeleton plan, but I was subject to outside
influences that could not guarantee time.
Chapter 18 - Along The Coast:
'Beachies' may look for work, but they prefer having fun in the sun on
the sands of Noosa, Surfers Paradise, Byron Bay and Coffs Harbour; also
known as the Sunshine Coast, Gold Coast, and Holiday Coast.
Chapter 19 - City of Culture:
Whole books are written about Sydney, yet I try to condense the
conscious capital into a chapter. With so much going on, I hope that
I've managed to pull it off.
Chapter 20 - Moving On - Two Islands:
The beauty of moving is that you find something different, and somewhere
among the sheep and the scenery of New Zealand, I hoped to find the
people.
Chapter 21 - Return to Oz:
The return flight to Australia. I was told that anyone who spent more
than a week in Canberra, the diplomatic meeting place, would find
themselves attending the House of Representatives for entertainment. But
the capital in the parkland was also the place to finalise visa
formalities for onward Asian countries.
Chapter 22 - The Indian Pacific:
A two-night party of a train from Adelaide to Perth.
Chapter 23 - Bali - Tourist or Traveller:
Tourist or traveller? Paradise or an attempted retreat from the prying
eyes and long lenses of the world's press?
Chapter 24 - Surabaya to Singapore:
The crowded island of Java. And most of them seemed to be in the streets
of Yogyakarta to see the Coronation and parade around the Kraton of the
new Sultan.
Where was the genuine smile in Lee Kuan Yew's towering-modern-triumph-in-the- tropics?
Chapter 25 - North Borneo - Not The Jungle:
"The Jungle?" the Dutchman in Jakarta had shown surprise when I
expressed a desire to travel to the Philippines, via North Borneo. In
fact there is a preposterous oil-wealth, alongside
houses-on-stilts-in-the-water poverty, and a King with two wives.
Chapter 26 - Catholics and Communistos:
The only Catholic nation in Asia, Filipinos take their belief seriously;
to the extent that in San Fernando, Pampanga, they are prepared to
flagellate themselves and carry out genuine crucifixions on Good Friday.
The baranguay (local) elections were also approaching, and the 'risk areas' were in their thousands. The media contemplated rebel strongholds and announced the daily shooting toll, guerrilla leaders were being arrested, and Cory Acquino's holiday movements would not be revealed.
Chapter 27 - Days Between Night Trains:
From Kuala Lumpur to Bangkok, via Penang and Koh Samui.
The best trains are the long-distance overnighters, where everybody lives on it for the moment. The restaurant car, sharing a bite to eat or a drink or two; the queue for a trickle of water to attempt to wash and clean your teeth in the morning, when no one looks quite how they like to present themselves; and the time-passing occupations of the passengers with their guard down.
Chapter 28 - A Splashing New Year:
The three-day New Year in Laos and North-East Thailand. The Vientiane I
found was nothing like Paul Theroux's visit, where 'a naked waitress
jumped on to a chair and puffed a cigarette in her vagina by contracting
her uterine lungs'.
Chapter 29 - The Saigon Scene:
The Vietnamese march of communism in South-East Asia was retreating in a
bid to restore its ravaged economy. Even Communism needs capital, and Le
Tho could return confidently with an US passport and his Dollars, twelve
years after his bid for freedom.
Twelve years on, people were still sailing for the unknown; stories of piracy and almost terrible conditions did not deter them. Perhaps in ten or fifteen years time they too could return with an adoptive passport and gifts for relatives.
Chapter 30 - The Return:
On my return to Bangkok, I needed to think about where was home.
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