Lonely Planet Travel Anthology

• Publisher: Lonely Planet
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781786576132
• Topic: Letteratura
• Subtopic: Collezioni letterarie

Lonely Planet: The world's leading travel guide publisher A collection of great travel writing by authors from around the globe, including original stories set in Scotland, Thailand, Malaysia, Moldova, Tanzania, Austria and beyond, edited by long-term Lonely Planet collaborator Don George. The 35 impassioned stories included in this collection - of fortune tellers, tribal baboon hunters, a friendly Japanese family, and other notable characters - span a worldwide spectrum of themes, styles and settings, but all show how travel in its unexpected turns tests and teaches us, making us aware that we are resilient, that we are not alone, and that there is so much love and connection to be had if we open ourselves up. This collection affirms that if we follow the compass of the heart, we will always find our way. Whether you read the book on the road or in an armchair at home, these tales are sure to entertain, amuse and inform you, and resonate long after the book is finished. 'As you travel through these pages, may your mind be widened, your spirit enlivened, and your own path illuminated by these worldly word-journeys.' --Don George With sparkling contributions from some of the most acclaimed names in contemporary fiction and travel writing plus some new voices from around the world, including: Ann Patchett, Francine Prose, TC Boyle, Karen Joy Fowler, Pico Iyer, Torre DeRoche, Blane Bachelor, Rebecca Dinerstein, Jan Morris, Elizabeth George, Jane Hamilton, Alexander McCall Smith, Keija Parssinen, Mridu Khullar Relph, Yulia Denisyuk, Emily Koch, Carissa Kasper, Jessica Silber, Candace Rose Rardon, Marilyn Abildskov, Shannon Leone Fowler, Robin Cherry, Robert Twigger, Porochista Khakpour, Natalie Baszile, Suzy Joinson, Anthony Sattin, LH McMillin, Bridget Crocker, Maggie Downs, Bishwanath Ghosh, Jeff Greenwald, James Dorsey and Tahir Shah. About Lonely Planet: Started in 1973, Lonely Planet has become the world's leading travel guide publisher with guidebooks to every destination on the planet, gift and lifestyle books and stationery, as well as an award-winning website, magazines, a suite of mobile and digital travel products, and a dedicated traveller community. Lonely Planet's mission is to enable curious travellers to experience the world and to truly get to the heart of the places they find themselves in. 'Lonely Planet guides are, quite simply, like no other.' - New York Times 'Lonely Planet. It's on everyone's bookshelves, it's in every traveller's hands. It's on mobile phones. It's on the Internet. It's everywhere, and it's telling entire generations of people how to travel the world.' - Fairfax Media (Australia) Important Notice: The digital edition of this book may not contain all of the images found in the physical edition.

ON DREAM MOUNTAIN

BY TAHIR SHAH

The journey ended in a story.

Not the kind of story you hear any old day.

But a tale conjured from the farthest reaches of fantastic possibility – a kind of sci-fi grimoire….

A tale that slipped out slowly from between the lips of Mustapha Benn.

In the dozen or so years that I have lived in Morocco, I have heard all manner of stories.

Stories of Jinn, afreets, and of princesses locked in enchanted towers.

Stories of honour and chivalry, of lost hope, destiny and enlightenment.

Stories about stories.

Some of them are true or, rather, are presented as a form of truth. Others are clearly fiction. But the ones I hold most dear are those which are a hybrid of the two.

A blend of fact and fantasy.

A factasy.

Through a primitive alchemy of their own, they suck you in. Seep into your bones. Sing to you. Seduce you. Torture you. Enthuse you. Bewitch you.

All the while, they affect the listener – in the most profound way.

Hear the story told in the right conditions, by the right person, and it changes you – from the inside out.

That is how it was with the tale told to me on Dream Mountain by Mustafa Benn.

But, before the tale could begin, a zigzag of raw adventure was necessary.

A journey as unlikely as the tale itself.

It began a little before dusk on a day of heavy winter downpours. The air had been rinsed and rinsed again, the ground beneath it pooled with puddles and mud. There was a stillness, as though the world were locked in limbo between evil and good.

I was standing in the slender lane outside my home in Casablanca, a house said to have once been infested with evil Jinn. I can’t quite remember what had lured me out. But the reason was unimportant. What mattered was that my feet were standing there when the dim shadow of a man approached.

In Morocco, people believe that the future is written. You can bob and weave your way through life but, ultimately, fate prevails. There’s nothing you can do about it. Indeed, they say that the harder you try to evade what is destined for you, the faster it will grab you.

The strange thing about fate is that you never quite know how or when it will strike. A chance encounter or random phone call can lead to a door opening – one that was invisible only moments before. In the same way, any amount of preparation and planning can lead to a dead end.

The shadow advanced fitfully.

First along the whitewashed wall, then over the mud, which stretched from my front door until the road a good distance away.

I watched it, taking note of the way it moved.

So preoccupied by it was I, that I failed to notice the man to whom it belonged. It was as though the shadow had a presence of its own. As if it were unconnected to anything by itself.

Six strides or more before reaching me, the man gave greeting in a low muffled voice. Before I knew it, I had replied – ‘Wa alaikum salam. And peace be upon you’ – affirmation that he had come as a friend and was to be received with hospitality. His face and clothing were as worn out as the voice.

Tired watery eyes.

Skin as tough as elephant hide.

A nose sloping ungraciously to one side.

An old jeleba robe patched and patched again.

We stood there for a while in silence.

After all, a man who comes in peace needs no reason to visit.

I was about to say something, when the man held out a clenched fist. Not in anger but in friendship. The fingers were curled up, as though gripping something – a gift.

Squinting in the approaching darkness, I leaned forward.

The fist slackened and the fingers drew back, revealing a dark leathery palm.

An inch across, a round object was sitting upon it, like an island surrounded by a flat furrowed sea.

A seed.

About the size of a walnut, but oval in form, it was red on one side and black on the other.

‘Take it,’ said the muffled voice. ‘It is for you.’

As anyone who has made their home in Morocco knows, a favour may not be asked until a gift has been presented and received. The gift may materialise in the shape of an object or an introduction, or even a fulsome line of praise. What matters is that the act of giving is completed before a request is made.

It was for this reason that I had become weary of receiving unsolicited favours or gifts – especially from strangers. In more usual circumstances I would have politely declined. But there was nothing usual about that evening, or the guest who had arrived.

This was made clear a moment after the seed had been revealed. Our guardian happened to be brushing past just as the large oval seed was being offered.

Never one to be given to emotion of any kind, he clasped a hand to each unshaven cheek, his lower jaw hanging down, mouth wide open in stupefaction, and eyes wide.

‘An honour,’ said the guardian, choking for breath.

‘A seed,’ I said.

‘A special seed,’ corrected the muffled voice.

We repaired to the garden and sat on damp stools.

Many pots of sweet mint tea followed, poured into glasses little bigger than thimbles. There was much conversation, most of it garbled and indistinct. My ancestors were praised, as was my health, and that of my family and friends. The visitor’s hand threw a few grains of incense onto the embers burning in the brazier. Pungent smoke took me back to travels far away.

Now clenched in my own fist, the seed seemed to tingle as the tea was drunk, and the conversation made.

Occidental training urged me to ask whether the object had a purpose. The old man grinned at the question, his mouth an uneven chequerboard of black and faded white.

‘You will know its use when you have found it,’ he said.

‘But shall I plant it?’

‘If you wish.’

‘What will it grow into?’

‘It is not that kind of seed.’

‘Not a plant?’

‘No.’

‘I don’t understand.’

The fingers that had first placed the object into my own, blurred as they waved left, right, left.

‘This is the seed of a journey,’ said the muffled voice.

‘A journey to where?’

The visitor shrugged.

‘The destination is not important.’

‘But how would I know when I have reached if I don’t know where I am going?’

Again, the grin came and went.

‘By trusting,’ said the man.

‘Trusting in what?’

‘Trusting in the seed.’

Since earliest childhood I was raised not to think too much. My father used to say that deliberation stifled possibility, just as it slayed the chance of real adventure.

Instead, he would reward me for sipping from the cup of spontaneity, and for following my gut.

Even though my desk was piled high with writing work, and my diary packed with obligations, I felt a calling – the kind that can’t be explained, except to those who have felt it themselves.

It was deep in my bones.

The frenzied gnaw of anticipation.

The desperate urge to travel.

The need to set off without delay.

So, next morning, I packed a small bag, stuffed the red and black seed into my pocket, and found myself in the lane outside my home. Our guardian was sweeping the mud with a dried palm frond. He said that the visitor had stayed up late swapping stories for hospitality. When I asked where he had gone, the guardian looked me square in the eye.

‘He will be waiting for you,’ he said.

‘You mean, here at home … when I get back?’

The guardian cocked his head to the side.

‘No, not here.’

‘Then where?’

‘At your destination.’

I rolled my eyes and, pining for a world that was black and white, I set off.

A journey without planning followed.

Not once did I ask directions or pull out a map. Nor did I give any thought to why I was travelling, or where I was going. From time to time I would remove the seed from my pocket, weigh in it in hand and close my eyes.

It may seem far-fetched, but it was as though the little object had a presence. As if it knew that I was on a journey – that it was both my travelling companion and my guide.

Whenever I wondered which fork in the road to take, I would grasp the seed, close my eyes, and would feel the answer seeping in through my skin.

Through days and then weeks I roamed the kingdom.

During that time, I encountered people and places that changed me in a deep down way.

At a grim cafe in the backstreets of Tétouan, I met a musician who was missing three fingers and a foot. He played a crude violin that he himself had made. As he played, he sang, a deep guttural lament of lost love and forgotten hope.

Once finished with his performance, he hobbled over, sat down beside me, sipped a café noir, and explained he had always dreamed of going away to sea. He longed to witness the sunset with nothing but water all around.

‘We are close to the Mediterranean,’ I said, ‘and so your dream is surely an easy one to arrange.’

The musician seemed glum.

‘I will tell you a secret,’ he said.

‘What?’

‘My fear.’

‘What fear?’

‘The fear that prevents me from ever getting in a boat.’

‘Are you afraid of drowning?’ I asked.

The musician shook his head from side to side.

‘No. Something much worse than that.’

‘Tell me.’

‘Do you promise to tell no one?’ he said. ‘For if it is spoken, a Jinn will surely hear it and taunt me.’

I promised.

Leaning over the scuffled tabletop, the musician winced.

‘I’m very fearful of fish,’ he whispered.

‘Fish?’

‘Yes, fish.’

The musician drained his glass and drifted away.

When he was gone, I took a bus southward, into the Rif, the thought of ocean sunsets and fish in my mind.

After zigzagging through small towns and villages, I came to a hamlet perched on the side of a cliff.

At a tea stall there, I found a farmer with sad mournful eyes and a great shock of white hair. He was bemoaning the loss of his favourite donkey. Having strayed down a steep hillside, the creature had missed its footing – and had tumbled to its death. The farmer said his life would never be the same, that the donkey had been his closest friend.

In a village beyond, I came across an American woman called Joanie. She walked barefoot and was utterly broke, had a knotted mane of dreadlocks down her back, and the kind of glazed look of someone on a spiritual quest. She had difficulty in remembering the basic details of her past, as though the quest had forced her to shun her own history – like a snake sloughing its skin. The only thing she wanted to speak about was a glade deep in the Moss Forest.

When describing it, Joanie’s face was illuminated as if touched by angelic light. Her breathing deepening, she recounted how it was the most enchanted spot in the entire world. Despite my asking over and over, she wouldn’t reveal the location of the forest. All she would say was that a traveller ripened by adventure made discoveries to which raw eyes were blind.

My own journey continued.

Through days and nights I travelled, the red and black seed never far from my thoughts or my hand.

North.

East.

South.

West.

No plan or map to steer me.

Nothing but my gut as guide to a journey of unending possibility.

At the edge of a desert track, I met a lean lopsided shepherd wearing a talisman crafted from a nugget of amber. The size and shape of an apricot, it was etched with the ninety-nine names of God.

In a grove ...