Day 25-7:Frustrating day @ Chinese border.
I am excited to enter China, for the first time without requiring a visa. However, an inflexible officer tells me I am not allowed to carry the 13 tablets I have with me. I am only allowed to bring in electronic equipment for my "personal use". That means 2 tablets and 2 laptops. I explain that I need tablets for my research, I show him photos of my fieldwork, but he doesn't change his mind. I see no other option than returning to Almaty to try to ship the tablets to Papua the next day. Khazakh border officials are surprised I've been refused entry, so they carry out extensive checks. I end up staying the entire day at the border. I manage to get the last bus to Zhankent, and from there I take a shared van to Almaty, for another 3-hour drive. I arrive rather exhausted at a hostel close to the coach station.
The next day I try to ship the tablets for an entire day but costs are astronomical. So I leave them with my colleague at the University.
I enter China the day after with no control on my electronic equipment. 40/
In the evening I go to see the Zhongshan Bridge. It is considered a landmark of Lanzhou and the whole of China. The first bridge over the Yellow River was built in this very location 500 years ago. The current bridge was built in 1909 by a Germany company, which shipped all the materials from Europe.
I think this bridge is a metaphor of today's China. On one side of the bridge lie a traditional temple with the decorations typical of Chinese tradition. The other side is dominated by the new cementified face of China, dominated by rather anonymous high-rise buildings. 43/
I reach the South Coach station in Kunming after half an hour on the metro. They tell me there's a coach leaving for the Golden Triangle in an hour. I have no idea where the Golden Triangle is. I find out that it's a point where Laos, Thailand, and Myanmar share a border. it's a deviation from the North-South route I'm travelling on, but it'll save me some days of travel. So I jump on the coach. As in 2019, there are bunk beds on board! After 12 hours of overnight travel, I have a veggie breakfast at a roadside restaurant in China. It ends up way too spicy, but it´s good. Finally, I leave China and enter Laos, not without a lot of questioning at the border as the reasons for my slow-travel.
You can watch videos of my journey on my YT channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0pJz61Yugg&list=PLJL-sRWA7R4--Dp2bFilC5zc-f2mXp0e4 47/
#RefuseToFly #Decarbonise #ClimateEmergency #ClimateAction #slowtravel #TrainTravel #China #goldentriangle #OvernightCoach
The Golden Triangle is a surreal place. It's basically a big entertainment area - including casinos and other possibly murky activities- in a Laotian free economic zone. This type of gambling/entertainment is banned in China - except for special areas such as Macao. That´s why this kind of activities must take place on foreign soil. In fact, one has to go through a thorough passport check when entering the entertainment area. The yuan is accepted everywhere. The Laotian government has rented all this area to a Chinese business man, suspected by some as being the boss of a criminal gang.
I visited the entertainment area the night before. It looked to me like a Saint Petersburg on the Mekong river. There was a colossal beer stand in the middle of the entertainment area. The casino was almost completely empty and dozens of game dealers had nothing better to do than chatting with one another. I shared the taxi with 3 Kazakh girls who could speak fluent Chinese and English. They told me about their jet-setting life style: one week here, one week in Vietnam, another week in Thailand. I had them listen the Kazakh folk songs I had recorded on the train, but they didn't seem that interested. What their work was wasn't clear. Or perhaps it was all too clear.
The Mekong river is as red as red can be. It´s because of the sediments it carries, so I am told. After only a couple of minutes of crossing I enter Thailand, the tenth country touched in my journey. 48/
After 3 days of nearly uninterrupted travel, the visit to the Buddhist temples in Chiang Mai is a little treat. I get carried away by the afternoon prayers of the young Buddhist monks at Wat Panthao. The melody seems to go nowhere, it goes on in never-ending circles, as if its aim was not to tell a "story" but rather it attempted to capture the essence of sound itself. I am left wondering about how different my life is from that of these young monks. The wooden structure makes this temple a special one. It's much smaller than many other Thai temples but it has a grace in itself.
Close-by is the Wat Chedi Luang Temple, probably the most significant - and oldest - temple in the city. The famous and sacred Emerald Buddha used to be hosted here, before being transferred to Bangkok. Though partially ruined by an earthquake in 1545, the temple’s imposing chedi is still impressive. It reminds me that nothing is permanent, but that solid buildings can withstand the vagaries of time. 49/
Day 38 of my no-fly trip from Italy to Papua New Guinea: I only have a few hours to spend in Bangkok before my train to the far south of Thailand departs at 3 p.m. In this precious time visit Wat Arun, the Temple of Dawn. It is every bit as impressive as the Royal Palace and Wat Pho, the Temple of the Reclining Buddha. I must say that I am torn between the magnificence of the place (the stupas are covered with countless pieces of uniquely crafted ceramics) and the awareness of the immense economic and political concentration of power that the construction of this temple must have meant. From time to time, I simply try to let myself be carried away by the beauty of the colours and the philosophical meaning of approaching the central stupa... I also try not to think that Bangkok is at the top of the list of capitals at risk of being submerged by sea water within this century. All cities at the confluence of large rivers share this common fate, and the excessive use of aquifers by the expanding population contributes to this bleak future. The colours of the Chao Phraya River blend beautifully with the soft tones of the temple, but it won't be long before these same waters could bring this temple to ruin, unless we stop our mad rush towards fossil fuels, deforestation, and cementification.
#refusetofly #SlowTravel #decarbonise #climateemergency #researcherlife #TheResearcher #ClimateAction #Bangkok #Overnighttrain #StrictlyPublicTransport #AFuoco 52/
dr. gianluca grimalda