These are the countries which are close to my heart and in each one of them there are conflicts of one sort of another: all politicized, whether it is the virus or long standing social conflicts.
These are the countries I would like to visit
ISRAEL
FRANCE
BRASIL
COLOMBIA
INDIA
CAMBODIA
MALAYSIA
MYANMAR
you can see that with the exception of ISRAEL and FRANCE , none of the others are bastions of democracy.
Brasil under the governance of an extremely right wing President and his cronies has let many Brazilians unnecessarily die..
Their vaccine acquiring programme and dispersal has nothing but a sham.
The same applies to India, which is more of an autocracy with religious undertones than a true democracy
Cambodia has had the same leader since 1979 and Malaysian mechanism of democracy would make Putin proud! In Malaysia, they should have a Chinese Lives Matter or Indian lives matter..
Colombia where there is a continuing protest against the government, police has killed dozens of protesters.
The worst of all is Myanmar, which has killed nearly 1000 of its own citizens.
I look myself in the mirror, then why do I travel often to these countries.
ISRAEL and FRANCE
easy to answer
Family
Why Myanmar?
I would like to stroll down the Anhwarata Road, through Indian town, past piles of biryani sold by bearded muslims who cannot remember where they came from (Came here at a time when Burma was part of British India) , to the corner street area where U Tun Tun and his family has a repair shop: with their precious singer machine which furiously work stitching your torn handbag or trouser..
U Tun Tun, his teeth bloodied by the red of the Betel Nut, with a checkered longyi tied over his prosperous tummy in the typical indian fashion , one day confessed to me that while he is now a Muslim, his ancestors had originated from Tamil Nadu (he has no idea where it is precisely) and the family had carried the name Doraiswamy to British Burma. They had converted into Islam and he married a Bamar Muslim women and has a fairly large family, of whom I have watched two grow up: Osman and Aysha both of whom have also Burmese names.They are burmese to the hilt, except their religion distinguishes them from the majority Buddhists. They speak only Burmese, their food is burmese and they speak no other language other than Burmese.
The people of Burma are close to my heart. many of my burmese friends have double names such as Nwe Nwe, Yin Yin..
I miss them all and wish to see them when the world settles down from the conflicts which envelop it..
I began travelling to South East Asia in 2001, with my brother Eliyahu. At that time both Vietnam and Myanmar were exotic and Cambodia and Laos were only blimps on the tourist itineraries.
Thailand, Laos and Vietnam became very popular but they were geared for another type of traveller. Myanmar and Malaysia became my favourite.
There is a lady in front of the old market in Siem Reap where you turn right on the bridge over the river to go to the Night Market. She began making nice fruit juices for me and over the many visits, each night she would give me a gift of some fruits. I got to know her family, the daughter now in school who wants to be a doctor and she always had a smile for the tourists she invited to drink a fresh juice she made for them.
I do miss her, adding to the list of many others i miss in Siem Reap, Cambodia .. Stef the painteur naif, the children at the Rakseay Laundry, my burmese brother Ko Maung Maung.. servers at the restos that i visit,, PO or Uncle .. Kandall Organic and also the friends who give a good foot massage at Gekko..
When you are in a country like Cambodia, you know in the back of your mind that the joy you have being there has some misery of the local people associated with it and the repression of the government that had caused it.
Malaysia is special to my heart, I feel very much at home in that country and usually is mistaken for a Malaysian. My best friend in Asia lives in KL the capital with her Portuguese Mozambican husband and we have shared wonderful times with the likes of the personalities: Ho the ex president of the Mahler society and a Go champion, Abid the talented content maker, the brooding Brijesh and his intellect and his multi talented wife, Aparna and the list goes on and on .. despite their toy democracy and squeezing of the hardworking chinese and indians, i will always love Malaysia .
In Myanmar, Cambodia and Malaysia .. they have not been able to control the Covid virus and are under strict lockdowns (Myanmar a different scenario).
So i have no hope of traveling to these countries anytime soon.
I was hoping to spend the end of the year in Cochin, like I did the year 2019 going into 2020 at the seaside hotel, Bristow Bungalow.. Over the years and multiple visits, I have gotten to some very good quality people in Cochin and some of them have become good friends and have introduced me to the cuisine and scenery of the neighbourhood.
I miss not visiting Cochin, a very long absence indeed . in 2019 I might have visited Cochin about 5 times. The locally cynical people ask: why do you come so often if you have no family or relatives here.. I just like it here, I tell them, they do not believe me.
Brasil which has brought us some stormy dictators in the past, gifted us with this current president, you can only chuckle at his judgements but in his carelessness he has killed thousands of people at the altar of Covid , much like his buddy the Orange Menace to the North (thank God he was voted out).
I has a flight booked to Sao Paolo in Brasil but that was just as the surge of covid was becoming a Tsunami taking with it thousands of people. It was not an auspicious moment to meet friends..
But I am eager to go as soon as possible, as this fourth wave of infections come down and before the fifth wave starts or the imbeciles leave office or forced out.
This is the destination I want to get to. But will have to wait for the vaccines to reach Brasil (Last year the government refused an offer from Pfizer and currently their Sinopharm vaccine production is stalled)..
I also look forward to practise my newly acquired vocabulary in Portugese ..
Colombia and especially the town of Leticia at the confluence of the three amazonian countries: Brasil Colombia Peru is very close to my heart and have visited the area along the Amazon river up to Puerto Narino where the local hostelry is owned by a cuban music professor . I miss my Ticuna Indian friends and it is always nice to be present at 5 30 pm at the Santander Park when the parrots return back from their day hunting in the Amazon forest.
Covid is beyond control and the country is in the midst of a turmoil of unexpected protests.
Two safe countries from my list
ISRAEL and within a few weeks , hopefully everything will be calm down in that little country subjected to so much abuse by its neighbours for the las 70 plus years.
I have already booked my ticket to go to Israel.
This morning I received a photograph from Quiberon on the Brittany coast of France. On this saturday, there seems to be lots of people visiting Quiberon.
I want to be among them, as soon as France recognizes my vaccine status!
in 2019 we did not know about Covid 19 and i had travelled with abandon, as an inner voice told me that I wont be able to do this for the coming 18 months..
Cuba
Bresil
France
Israel
Here I come..
this is what I woke up to, in Miami, this morning. I am truly grateful to have spent the isolation from Covid 19 in Miami. While the travel life and social life completely ceased, it was nice to be somewhere where there was a guarantee of food, shelter and with a bit of luck, a good glass of wine and refuge from the madness of the politics of this country. Lack of individual interactions also meant, you had no chance to hear the imbecilic ideas of some of the Cuban emigres about the pandemic and its response. A good proportion of the Americans are sensible, friendly, logical, unselfish, hospitable, innovative and generous as witnessed by the kind, gentle government they chose to have.
Thank You.
Thank you, my dear friends, who kept me company on line throughout the pandemic from
Belgium
Brasil
Malaysia
India
Cambodia
Thailand
Cochin, Kerala
Dali City, Yunnan
My extended family in Portland, Or, Lakeport, Wash and Aventura, florida
My UmonHon, Lakota, Kickapoo, Ticuna friends
and most importantly the daily dose of affections from that great bakery in the sky, CUBA.
dedicated to 16 July 2020
