Marco
Travelphilosophy
Marco
I was born on September 12 1983 in an Italian town called Rimini, located in the Emilia-Romagna province along the northern east coast of the Adriatic sea.
I lived there for a few years up to the age of 7 and I then moved with my family to my mother native town Brescia, where I grew up and spent my adolescence.
This idea about travelling around the world came up in 2006, a bit for the curiosity to see places that I watched on TV, when I was a child, and also with the goal to change lifestyle, to face new challenges, meeting and communicate with people of different cultures and learning through travels.
My studies allowed me to move around and finding work pretty easily, since that I have a qualification in the hospitality sector.
One day, I discovered an interest for agriculture while travelling and living in Australia. I think, the scent of nature, leaves, grass or just admiring a blue sky in the morning and a stunning sunset at dusk was much more rewarding than being closed in a boring room.
In these thirteen years or so I have visited and worked in many countries like: Australia, New Zealand, Southeast Asia, China, Europe, North Africa, North America and Latin America. Immediately, this paramount change of life gave me a lot in terms of experiences, exploring new places and acquiring skills in speaking new languages gave me much more confidence. I consider myself more a traveller than a professional worker and I believe that what you gain through travel experiences is invaluable along the course of your life and work career.
During all these years travelling I had to also adapt myself in performing different jobs, living with people of different work ethic, cultures, traditions and religion.
After so many years travelling and living around the world, I always think about "travel" as a philosophy of life and one of the greatest benefits that such an experience can give you are plentiful: for instance, as a westerner, I have always wished to get to know who are the others, the ones that are different from us and, one way, to try to get over this barrier was to try to get closer to them, to follow their customs, to change myself and become a bit more like them. In this way, I got to appreciate them much more, understanding them, sharing beautiful experiences with them, learning their habits, culture and history. Surpassing this barrier makes you feel more concerned about the issues that certain people have in their own country and not being racist toward them.
I spent most of my time in Asia and, I think, this is like my home, now. It does not take a long time to fall in love with Asia, attracted by its diversity and by their welcoming people. Being there, I lived memorable and fundamental experiences, where everything is simplier, essential and being nice, kind, helping each other has still got a profound meaning, it is hard to explain it by words but, coming from a westerner country, I lived again experiences that reminded me of when I was a child and, in this sense, Asia was a tremendous experience for me.
When I travel, I always give myself plenty of time. I like to experience the local life, which is something that we know very little from our own country, because, when we hear news from the developing countries, we just see images of conflicts, war, natural disasters and so on. But the life of the local people goes underreported.
Travelling require a lot of efforts, attention and concentration. Travelling has got a meaning when is a ground of meeting, knowledge and curiosity. I remember, for instance, when I was in China, before setting off to my destination, I had to wait for two days, before leaving one place. When I asked: what time does the bus leave?. The reply was: when the bus is full. This means a very long waiting and within this waiting many things happen. The first word that comes to mind is patience; patience is an important quality while travelling, especially when waiting for your bus to leave the day after tomorrow. From these sort of experiences I learnt how to muster the time by watching at the local people that just do wait and talk with absolute calmness, as they were about to leave. It is a travel within the travel, many things happen; I got offered some tea by the local people sitting down nearby the bus stop and while sipping that tea and talking with these people, the time past by as a pleasure moment. I then found out a room for the night in a rundown guesthouse but still was another great experience. Next door were the guesthouse staff having dinner and I was gently invited to share their meal. The waiting, at the end, was no longer frustrating and turned out to be a pleasant experience.
Another important matter that I would like to express is about the knowledge of the area you want to cover. Before going to some places, it is necessary to prepare yourself to that travel; reading the history, culture, traditions of a place make you to understand the today's life. I always read a lot about the places I want to cover and I only do this for the pictures and myself. To understand what there is behind the fact. Nowadays we are just overwhelmed by information allover the world due to the media but it is only a superficial information together to all the other stuff you watch in that moment, it is a mix of many things and after you have watched it you might have an idea about something but at the end you did not understand what is going on. I learnt myself that experiencing something and watched it on TV the difference is immense. When you see or meet people, a village, a city and you get to know them by watching it with your eyes, smelling the every day life, you transmit a different emotion to people that listen to you. The media always give you a distorted idea of a country, for instance; China is much better than what the western media want you to believe. I always hear about pollution problems, exploitation problems, political problems and so on. But I rarely hear about the positive side of China, about their lovely people, delicious food, beautiful coastline and landscapes.
My interest has always been that one to evade, to go forward, to see. Curiosity for what is different has always brought me far away from the place where I used to live. Also a physical curiosity, in Southeast Asia, the stifling hot, humidity, silence, sunset. For example; a sunset from an ancient temple in Luang Prabang along the Mekong river with those little ringing bells gently touched by the breeze of the night just made me feel great or being inside a typical rundown restaurant on the stilts along the river, sipping a drink, contemplating a sunset, the magical ambiance of that moment was just unforgettable.
Since my first travels I bought objects, statuette, pictures. I was not acquisitive, for me to buy something was a way to know the countries, to get in there. I have a passion for art objects. When I was travelling in China I loved those Jade rings. I love the art to engrave in the little jade of a ring a dragon, a phoenix, or some other Chinese characters. Interesting was also those little vases used to feed the birds. This was an art! Refined little vases, in miniature, to feed the birds at home. The cages of the birds were just marvelous. Made of bamboo or other inlaid wood, with the hook made of brass or iron. Beautiful. In the morning, it was my joy to go to the park to look at these elderly swinging the cages. Then they hang the cage to the tree and with the first ray of the sun they began twittering. It was just marvelous.
Another great breakthrough was the one of the crickets. In China, this is an ancient culture. Chinese people loved to raise crickets, nowadays a bit less, they kept them even in the pocket of their jacket or at home inside a pumpkin. One day I went to the house of a passionate of these crickets, in Beijing, and he had so many crickets of different size and I remember that one was so tiny that I could not even see that. In fact, this man kept the little cricket inside a small ivory box. From time to time this man opened a bit the box to feed it and then he had to close it again otherwise he would have lost that cricket. He also told me that a long time ago when someone arrived at the market with his cricket, that one fought against another one. But what fascinated me most of this culture, was not much the fight in itself but all the gadgets that were involved in this activity. First, the arena for the fight , a little arena made of porcelain.The black one was used to carry the cricket at the market, at the match; but the fight happened in the arenas, beautiful, azure, of a plate size. They also had the house for them made of porcelain with its watering, so small, truly incredible. More incredible was the manual about raising the crickets, that was really amazing, only the Chinese could invent that. I could mention many more for example; the tea culture, with the beautiful set of colourful cups to serve tea to the guests and the enchanting tea ceremony to entertain them. It is something that I really appreciated about China.
How beautiful it is this lifestyle, to have this sense of freedom that I wish everyone could have. Setting off to far-flung destinations, be unknown, evading from the daily routine, carrying just your necessary stuff, with no commitments, anyone knows where you are going, anyone waits you somewhere.
Nowadays we live in such a rush that we do not have time for anything else. We are constantly busy in doing so many things that we lose the time for ourselves. It is good to stop from time to time, to think over, to meditate, to observe things more clearly.
People are too much busy to make money, now, but I must say that about the money I have never gone mad, looking for a job in order to get a better salary. I had some money but I have never been so much attached to them. They certainly play a role in your freedom, if you have no money then you are not free. Even though my budget was pretty limited, that permitted me to enjoy a certain freedom, got me to understand where I wanted to go. I also say that in life when you start to make mistakes, because you did not understood who you are, or because you want to be as someone else, it is a mess. That step determine another one, then another one, and then another one again. It takes a long time to understand who you are, it is not so easy.
I just want to confess that as a pastime I had that one of the casino. I spent some hours of my life in the casino. It is hard to explain such an interest, I do not even know why I got so interested in spending hours inside it. It was again the ambiance. It is a bit like the story of contemplating a sunset on top of a temple in Southeast Asia. I did not go there to gamble because, as I said, I did not care to win money. Inside a casino I did win and lose so I was even at the end. It is like a different world. You get in and leave the time behind you. You do not know if it is day or night because you do not see outside, there is no window. You are constantly in another time. Inside the casinos I have seen everything, young escort with old man, entrepreneurs that spent a fortune to win, desperate people crying, drunk people laying on the floor.
I did win in the entertainment, because in the casino this is what it is you start to lose, lose and lose and then you get back to win again. The ambiance, as I said, was all about.
To live a life. A true life, a life in which you are yourself. A life in which you feel it is yours. I love to look for quiet places, to stay with the local people and learning something different from my travel experiences.
"This blog is dedicated to all those memorable travellers and writers who inspired me along the course of my life to travel and see the world with my own eyes".