Corvara, Dolomiti

The car journey from Trafoi to Corvara in the Dolomites took a good part of the day. I stayed at Camping Colfosco, which was less intimate than the camping in Trafoi but still had the right vibe. I arrived in seemingly stable weather, but this was soon to change.

24 July 2020

The first day in Corvara the Alps were covered in a big cloud of heavy rain, reaching all the way from München to Venezia. There was no escaping the rain. I mentally prepared myself to lay in my tent all day. Luckily in the afternoon the rain largely stopped and I walked into the forest to prepare some Dan Cong oolong tea just keep myself busy.

Camping Colfosco in Corvara has some beautiful views of the mountains.

There was no escaping this rain front. The temperatures in Corvara dropped to below 15 degrees Celsius.

Making some spring 2020 Ya Shi Xiang Dan Cong (“Duck Shit Aroma”) in the forest with natural mountain spring water.

Parco naturale Puez Odle

25 July 2020

The second day in Corvara the sun was shining as if the day before never happened. I walked a stunning round trip from Passo Gardena (2,136 m) through Puez-Geisler Nature Park to mountain hut Utia de Puez at 2475 m. and back through Val Longia and Wolkenstein before climbing back to Passo Gardena where I left my car.

Ascent from Passo Gardena.

Mountain hut Utia de Puez (2.475 m).

Pasta with Hirschragout and some flowers in Utia de Puez.

The valley Val Longia below, and the village Wolkenstein in the far distance.

Certainly one of the more beautiful roundtrips I walked.

Next destination: Bergamo Alps and Lake Iseo.

Trentino-Alto Adige

‘There is always Italy.’

With all my original travel plans cancelled due to COVID-19 I took the opportunity to go on a hiking trip to the Alps. I drove to the Reschenpass/Passo di Resia between Austria and Italy in the province of Trentino-Alto Adige or Trentino-South Tyrol. Beyond that I didn’t really have a plan. The pass was a bit underwhelming so I drove onwards to a small camping place in Trafoi, just below the mighty Passo Stelvio. Camping Trafoi. Via Tre Fontane, 1, 39029 Trafoi BZ, Italy.

The camping is a cosy hikers’ place. It also attracts bikers who are drawn to Trafoi for the 48 needle curves of the Passo Stelvio on the eastern side. Camping Trafoi also is close enough to the mountains to venture into the mountains directly from the camping.

20 July 2020

The first day I hiked up to Goldsee, about 1,2 vertical kilometres. From Goldsee you can follow the Goldseeweg with magnificent views leading to Forcola refuge, which is located about 700 metres above Trafoi. The whole round trip takes about 9 hours if you are in no hurry.

In the left of the photo the Stelvio pass from a walker’s perspective,

Goldseeweg between Goldsee and Forcola refuge.

21 July 2020

The second day in Trafoi the weather was less than ideal. I walked to Berglhütte/Refugio Borletti (2188 m.) for coffee and cake but the afternoon passed by while hiding from the rain in the village.

I learned that Sigmund Freud received a message of the suicide of one of his patients, struggling with sexual problems, while staying in Trafoi, which lead him to his analysis of the Signorelli parapraxis by linking Signorelli to Botticelli and Boltraffio. Freud’s analysis seems like an outdated word game to me. Somehow the bottom line is always Tod und Sexualität.

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Ötztaler Alpen

22 July 2020

The last day in Trafoi I drove to the small resort village Kurzas, 39020 Maso Corto, Bolzano, Bozen (2.011 m), just past Lago di Vernago, almost 1,5 hours by car from camping Trafoi. I walked from Kurzras to the Schutzhaus Schöne Aussicht - Rifugio Bella Vista (2842 m), a hike of about 800 vertical metres.

In 1991, just on the other side of the mountains, a body was discovered in the melting ice. Amazingly the person had died around 3300 BC. The body was well preserved and contained a treasure trove of information about the living conditions of this dead person who lived more than 5300 years ago. Even his full genome has been sequenced. Kurzas is not the correct starting point if you want to visit the actual Ötzti Fundstelle. The mountain ridge between Bella Vista and the Ötzti Fundstelle cannot be hiked.

Rifugio Bella Vista.

Fried potatoes and egg at the rifugio.

Above is the mountain ridge behind which Ötzi was discovered. It seems like a very remote place but from the valley it’s only half a day’s scramble. The photo below shows the foot path, which connects modern Italy with the Ötztaler Alpen in Austria over a mountain pass. Only a small stone hut marks the border.

Ötzi lived in the chalcolithic when in Europe the first metal tools were crafted from copper. Later it was discovered that by adding tin you can make bronze, which is harder than both copper and tin. A 99,7% pure copper axe was found near Ötzi. This must have been a very valuable tool. The copper mould was made from ore mined in South Tuscany.

The mummy is now on display at the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology in Bolzano, Italy.

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Passo dello Stelvio (2.758 m.)

The Passo dello Stelvio is somewhat famous. The pass was originally built by the Austrian Empire (1804 to 1867) in the 1820s to connect the Austrian province of Lombardy (currently Italy) with the rest of Austria. After 1867 the Austrian Empire was succeeded by Austria-Hungary and in World War I the pass saw some heavy fighting due to its strategic importance. Italy entered the war aiming to annex the territories of present-day Trentino and South Tyrol. After the war the pass lost its strategic importance.

23 July 2020

Today the pass on Route SS38 is famous with cyclists and motorcyclists. Since my next destination were the Dolomites I didn't need to cross the pass but decided to drive my car up the pass nonetheless just for the adrenaline kick. How could I not? In 2008 the TV show Top Gear declared the Stelvio Pass in Italy one of the best driving roads in Europe. I am macho enough to not let that opportunity pass.

It was a thrilling experience indeed, especially because the road was quite busy with countless motor bikes, cyclists, other cars, campers and even the occasional line bus. Driving uphill each corner is a blind corner, because only at the last moment you’ll see oncoming traffic. The only two gears you will need are first and second gear. It takes about half an hour to reach the top.

The pass itself has several tacky tourist shops. I thought my car deserved a “Passo Stelvio” sticker for the rear window, but only eleven days after my holiday somebody crashed into the rear of my car when I was standing still in a traffic jam on the motorway near Amsterdam. My Renault Clio IV Estate was a total loss. I thought it was a bit ironic, having completed the 48 switchbacks (and many more mountain passes in Italy and Switzerland) without a scratch and then my car being totalled by just being stationary.

My focus on this trip was not on food but this clear broth with Speckknödel in a restaurant on Stelvio pass was just perfect. With all the corona measures still in place I didn’t want to visit restaurants indoors. I mostly cooked in front of my tent and had lunches at mountain huts if I could sit outside.

Next destination: Dolomites.

SARS-CoV-2

Just before the International Toy Fair in Nürnberg at the end of January 2020, there was a foreboding that the new virus discovered in Wuhan not so long before, would bring about change. And the world would change. This is my first pandemic and Europe is the hot spot at this moment. I can't get the first pages of Albert Camus' La Peste out of my head.

“After the fourth day the rats started to emerge in groups to die. They came up from basements and cubby-holes, cellars and drains, in long swaying lines; they staggered in the light, collapsed and died, right next to people.”

— Albert Camus, The Plague

People are dying and SARS-CoV-2 is not contained. We are in the delay phase, which means we are buying time by slowing down the spread of the virus. In Europe we screwed up the containment phase by not taking the threat serious enough.

Around this time I would have booked an airplane ticket for my first holiday of 2020. I wanted to visit Vietnam. Or maybe the United States, or India. It is now irresponsible to fly. I can still go to work and do my groceries shopping, other than that I pretty much have confined myself in my house. If the outbreak lasts months rather than weeks I will have to rethink my holiday and drive to a remote place in Europa for a few weeks of hiking. It will be a lonely holiday. Not looking forward to it.

Changed world map on 14 March 2020.

The chart below shows why it is so important to close everything down and practice social distancing before things get out of hand. Complacency is deadly.

Source: Tomas Pueyo analysis over chart from the Journal of the American Medical Association, based on raw case data from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention

July 2020

This map show the travel recommendations by the Dutch government. The orange countries can only be visited when travel is necessary, although you get to decide yourself if your trip is necessary. Local quarantines might be in place. Since I decided not to travel by air this year, I’m stuck with the yellow countries for this year’s holiday. Luckily the Alps are accessible this summer.

I used to be able to travel 24.859 miles to be here.

La fête du Train au Pays des Grands Noms

My work usually takes me to Germany but December 2019 was an exception. Every three years Denis Thomas, Président Office de Tourisme de Meursault, organises a model train fair named ‘La fête du Train’. The company I work for was present with a stand. Meursault is a small wine village in Côte de Beaune the southern part of the Côte-d'Or department and region of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté in France. When I arrived in the afternoon there was a pretty dense fog. The surroundings were completely hidden behind a grey wall. It was clear the beginning of December was off-season. Many restaurants were closed and not much work was done on the vines. The hotel I booked was a small private house right in the center. It was really a perfect place to spent a leisurely afternoon on my own.

Meursault wine

Around 98 percent of wines produced in Meursault are white wines. Most wines are 100% Chardonnay although AOC regulations allow both Chardonnay and Pinot blanc. Several climats or lieu-dits are classified as Premier Cru vineyards. Meursault is pretty much synonymous with Chardonnay and the quality of a Meursault Chardonnay is excellent. The price of a bottle starts with approximately 16 euro and can easily go up to 70 euro or higher for a Premier Cru. I think those prices are too high. For 20 euro you can buy a very good ‘buttery’ Chardonnay from Meursault thanks to extended oak ageing.

Hotel Restaurant Le Chevreuil

Address: 1 Place de la République, 21190 Meursault

The second day I took our new agent for France, Guy Coessens, out for dinner. After a few too many aperitif (Chardonnay & pastis) in the local pub, we settled for Restaurant Le Chevreuil for diner.

Demi-lune de foie gras poêlé, duxelles de cèpes, bouillon de queue de bœuf aux arômes de champignons

Pigeon de Corton en deux cuissons, châtaignes rôties et mousseline de potimarron.

Château de Meursault

On Saturday evening were invited for diner at the Château. This was an amazing experience. The annual La Paulée de Meursault after the harvest is legendary. La Paulée was launched by the Meursault wine producer Jules Lafon in 1923. The reputation of this wine fest reached far and since 2000 La Paulée de New York and La Paulée de San Francisco are being hosted by American sommelier and wine entrepreneur Daniel Johnnes. The diner I attended borrowed quite a few things from the post-harvest fest. Music and singalongs were provided by the Joyeux Bourguignons, Each course only started after the communal Ban Bourguignon and at the end of the evening everybody raised up and waved their napkins to the "Marseillaise bourguignonne".

Tatin de St-Jacques aux petits légumes au coulis d’olive.

“Notre mission : chanter le vin et animer vos festins !”

— les Joyeux Bourguignons

Carte des vins

• Meursault “les Tillets” 2017, Domaine Yves Boyer-Martenot.

• Baune 2017, Domaine du Château de Meursault.

• Pommard 2016 “Les Noizons”, Domaine Gilles Lafouge.

Filet de Boeuf Rossini sauce Périgueux, foie gras et pommes Anna.

At the end of the evening everybody raised up and waved their napkins to the "Marseillaise bourguignonne".

Brussel Wereldtentoonstellingen

When I travelled to Brussel for a weekend trip I didn’t have a particular theme in mind. It was the first weekend of the Christmas market, a huge market with over 240 stalls. I booked an apartment just 500 meters from Le bâtiment Berlaymont, which houses the headquarters of the European Commission. When I realised the Royal Museum for Central Africa was established after an exposition during the world's fair of 1897 I became interested in the world’s fair (“world expo” after 1967) phenomenon. Brussels hosted no less than four world’s fairs. Two fairs were intimately linked to Belgium’s (or King Leopold II’s) troublesome colonial past.

Wereldtentoonstelling van 1897

De Onafhankelijke Congostaat / État indépendant du Congo (1885 - 1908) wasn’t an independent African state but privately owned by the Belgian King Leopold II. In 1908 Belgium took over the Onafhankelijke Congostaat from King Leopold II and renamed it Belgisch-Congo. For the Brussels International Exposition in 1897 Leopold II built a colonial exhibit in a specially built Palace of the Colonies. After the exposition a bigger (and current) building was finished in 1910, which became the Royal Museum for Central Africa. The museum has one of the best collections of African masks and applied arts. The collection encompasses 120.000 ethnographical objects and over 10 million natural specimen. In 2013 the museum closed for renovation and after reopening in 2017 the museum reflects a new dynamic in which Belgium had to come to grips with its, often brutal, colonial past.

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Wereldtentoonstelling van 1958

The world expo of 1958 was held just two years before independence of Congo and only a good decade after the war. There was a general feeling of “never again” and a new optimism in science, technology and the connection of people. The first sketches of the Belgium pavilion were needle shaped structures but they were put aside as being ‘not original enough’. But then André Waterkeyn came up with a brilliant idea: a building shaped in the molecule for Fe (iron).

Even today the Atomium is a fascinating building. I was sceptical and was afraid it would feel like a tourist trap. But I loved it. After entering you are being catapulted to the highest sphere at 102 meter by an elevator. Only after taking the elevator back to ground level you can access the escalator to work your way up to other atoms. It very much feels like wandering about in a science-fiction building with one added dimension to the normal three dimensions. It’s confusing and fun.

1958 is a long time ago and it is difficult to grasp the mindset of the vistors of the Expo 1958. My parents were in their early and mid 20s. Much emphasis was laid on the Belgiums to learn foreign languages so they could communicate with visitors from the other countries exhibiting. But when the Belgium government flew in a group of Congolese évolués to perform ‘traditional’ dances and be part of the exhibition, they were ridiculed by Belgium vistors. Bananas were thrown at the performers and they had to change their dress from European dress code to grass skirts.

The Congolese were not only observed by the Belgiums, they also observed the Belgiums themselves. For the first time they were confronted by ordinary Belgiums who had to work and could be quite poor. The myth of the ‘white man high in hierarchy’ was broken and Belgium-Congo would be independent just two years later. Mobutu Sese Seko (president of Zaire 1965 - 1997) was among the visitors of the fair as a journalist. When he travelled back home nothing would be the same ever again.

The leadership of Mobutu didn’t work out too well for the Zairians. A stark reminder of the saying: Power is eaten whole.

“Le pouvoir se mange entier”

— Troupe Théâtrale Mufwankolo of Lubumbashi, Johannes Fabian. (1990). Power and performance. Ethnographic explorations through proverbial wisdom and theater in Shaba (Zaire).

Human zoo at the world expo 1958.

Cagliari

Cagliari

The history of Cagliari goes back more than 5000 years. Much later the city became the capital of the Kingdom of Sardinia. In 1720 the kingdom was composed of several states including Savoy, Piedmont, Aosta Valley, Nice, Oneglia and Sardinia. By mid 19th century the Kingdom of Sardinia became an important force in Italian unification. In 1860, Piacenza, Parma, Tuscany, Modena, and Romagna voted in referenda to join the Kingdom of Sardinia. On 17 March 1861, law no. 4671 of the Sardinian Parliament proclaimed the Kingdom of Italy.

A landmark of Cagliari is the Bastion of Saint Remy built between 1896 and 1902. It was developed from an idea developed by Sardinian architect Gaetano Cima. The structure was damaged in the Second World War but rebuilt from 1946. Only after climbing the stairs it becomes clear part of Cagliari is built on a hill.

Modern Cagliari is a pleasant city of less than half a million if you count the Metropolitan City. Cruise ships dock in the harbour and I wouldn’t want to be there in summertime. In the quiet November month the atmosphere was relaxed.

Mercato Di Sanbenedetto

Address: Via Francesco Cocco Ortu, 46, 09128 Cagliari.

This food market was frustrating for me. All those beautiful fresh fishes and I couldn’t buy any! In the end I bought some chestnuts and fregula. The most popular fish were orate (gilt-head bream) and muggine (flathead grey mullet). The roe of the latter is used to make bottarga. But there were plenty of other fish. I saw red mullet, striped red mullet, sardines, tuna, swordfish, octopus, squid, skate and plenty of shrimp and crabs.

‘Trigliole’ are baby red mullet (‘triglie’). At the time I didn't think much of it, but Mohammed Benzakour, my fishing friend, became angry when he saw this photo. Fishing baby fish before they can produce offspring is not sustainable.

Aperitivo

Originally a northern Italian habit, but very much alive in Cagliari: aperitivo. For 5 euro they serve you a good glass of red wine including bread, cheeses and a selection of assorted dried meat, or an Aperol Spritz with plenty of small bites. I had drank Aperol Spritz before but strangely never a Campari Spritz. Campari is much more bitter than Aperol and has an alcohol content of up to 28% as opposed to 11% for Aperol. The alcohol percentage depends on which country both drinks are sold. I have to say I prefer Campari Spritz. Both cocktails are nowadays served in a big ballon glass instead of the more traditional Old Fashioned glass. But any old wine glass will do.

Supramonte Mountain Range

I had planned to spent time hiking in the Sardinian mountains but due to some very rainy days I just had one day. The Supramonte Mountain Range has the second highest peak of the island. Monte Corrasi is the Supramonte highpoint. The mountain is made of limerock, which is quite similar to that of the Dolomites but much older and therefor more eroded. I choose Nuoro as base camp and the town to spent a few nights. Traffic wise Nuoro is an extremely confusing city. I was amazed I only got one parking ticket. Part of the city center is off limits without a special permit during some hours of the day. Camera’s enforce this rule. Several times my navigation led me through a maze of narrow streets on a hill. The proximity alarm was beeping and the dashboard lit up with red warning lights. But not a scratch.

Before I arrived in Nuoro I visited the Roman Aquae Ypsitanae thermal baths of Fordongianus on the left bank of the river Tirso. The sulphurous waters are pretty hot and flow into the icy cold river. In the river somebody made an artificial bath with a ring of stones. A group of Germans traveling by camper van were bathing in the river. I joined them after burning my feet directly in the thermal water. The ancient thermal bath itself was closed. Apparently prayers are carved in the stones in honour of the Nymphs, Greek water divinities protecting Aquae Ypsitanae, and of Aesculapius, Greek god of the medicine.

Aquae Ypsitanae in Fordongianus.

Locanda Del Muggianeddu

Between Fordongianus and Nuoro I stopped for lunch in a local restaurant called Locanda Del Muggianeddu in Tonara. No website. The address is as follows: Via Monsignor Tore, 26, 08039 Tonara Nuoro, Italy. I arrived too early for lunch, wasn't allowed to sit down, so I walked around for half an hour. A few minutes after opening time the place was already half full with locals. In the fireplace a log was slowly burning.

I ordered antipasto della casa, which was a rich plate filled with: smoked cheese, melted cheese, pickled vegetables, fried vegetables and meats, all perfect quality. The truffles ravioli was not available so I choose something which seems people would eat at home: flat bread doused with tomato sauce and a fried egg on top. For desert I had to go for torrone. Torrone di Tonara is famous and there is no better place to eat it than in Tonara. All in all another excellent lunch, with a little help in German from a villager who had lived in Zwitserland as a migrant worker.

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Mountain hike

Days are short in November so I knew it wasn’t going to be a very long hike. I tried to drive up to what seemed to be a parking place on Google Maps. In reality the road leading to the spot was a goat’s path and I had to turn around with all the proximity warning sounds of my Volkswagen Golf beeping like crazy. I parked somewhere much lower and hiked up to the place, which wasn’t a parking place at all. From there on the paths were pretty much at the same elevation. It took a few hours to get to the highest peak. The next day more rain was predicted so I stayed on the mountain as long as possible, just sitting there watching the sea in the distance.

Nuoro is the town on the far left side of the frame.

Punta Corrasi (1463 m.)

View from the highest peak of Supramonte Mountain Range and the second highest peak of Sardinia.

Strada Statale 125 Orientale Sarda

I had to make it back to Cagliari for my flight. The SS 125 is a somewhat famous road in Sardinia. Total length of this coastal road on the eastern part the island is 354 kilometers. The section until Santa Maria Navarrese takes you over a high mountain pass, which was supposed to be spectacular. After the Swiss Alps I wasn’t particularly impressed and driving across the pass was not a Top Gear worthy challenge. But you do pass cheesemaker Gruthas who sells pecorino cheese directly from the farm. Of course I bought a big chunk of pecorino. They sell both sheep and goat pecorino. But now I can’t remember whether I bought sheep or goat pecorino. Probably goat, since I had to fend off a flock of goats who were trying to steal my lunch an hour earlier.

Sardegna - Oristano

November is really one of the least appealing months to travel in Europe but I had to take my last five official holiday days of this year. Destination Sardinia was pretty much coincidental. In the summer I listened to an episode on the Sardinian kitchen (guests: gardener Luigi Pitzalis, his son Samuele Pitzalis and Leonardo Pacenti, chef restaurant Toscanini) on my favourite radio programma Mangiare! and the words ‘Sardijnse keuken’ stuck in my mind.

The airplane touched down at Cagliari Elmas Airport at three o’ clock in the afternoon. The next day it was raining. I drove from the capital Cagliari to the province of Oristano on the west coast. On the way to my bed and breakfast in Oristano I took a long detour into the hills of Montiferru to have lunch in Agriturismo Montiferru.

The province of Oristano is home to Tharros, a very ancient city. Once said to be founded by the Phoenicians, but recent findings direct the origins to a much older nuragic settlement. Not much is known about this Bronze Age culture. All there is left are roughly seven thousand of Nuraghe, tower like structures. After the Phoenicians, the Punics and the Romans settled in Tharros. In 1070 the city was relocated to modern Oristano under the pressure of Saracen raiders. Many stones from Tharros were re-used in the city of Oristano.

When standing on the ruins of Tharros it is easy to see the appeal of the location, but also its vulnerability. Many of the artefacts can be found in the Archaeological Museum at Cagliari, in the Antiquarium Arborense in Cabras and in the British Museum, London. The two columns were rebuilt in modern times. The temple area has both Punic and Roman ruins and the original position of the columns is not clear. The most visible symbol of Tharros is a modern interpretation. The capital on top of one of the columns is original though.

On that November Monday morning I was the only vistor of Tharros. This was both a blessing and - somewhat - lonely. What else was there to do but look past the ruins and stare at the golfu de Aristanis? Tharros felt like paradise but like all prosperous cities of the past, the streets were eventually soaked in blood before being abandoned.

A better view of the temple area of Tharros.

Roman road in Tharros.

Wave surfers just south of S'Archittu.

Cabras

Less that 15 minutes from Oristano is the coastal town Cabras on the Stagno di Cabras, a lake connected to the sea. Cabras was also founded by people fleeing from Tharros in the 11th century and resettling on the shore of the lake.

Bottarga di muggine

Cabras is famous for bottarga, dried and cured fish roe from grey mullet (muggine). If the bottarga is of lighter hue, you can slice it and eat it on bread, if the bottarga is dark and dried for a longer time, you can grate is over a pasta dish, like spaghetti con vongole e bottarga.

Due to the season all trattoria in Cabras were closed. I found a small restaurant open, hardly a trattoria. They did offer fresh fish off the menu. Orate is the Italian name for gilt-head (sea) bream (Sparus aurata), or goudbrasem in Dutch. The fish was poached for me in white wine with olives and tomatoes.

Agriturismo Montiferru

Address: Str. del Monte di Sant'Antonio, 09078 Scano di Montiferro, Oristano, Italy.

It was thanks to a small entry in the Lonely Planet I visited Agriturismo Montiferru, hidden in the hills of Montiferru. This restaurant opens only once a week for a Sunday lunch. Reservations are essential, which posed a serious problem. Nobody on the phone spoke English. The place has no website or even an e-mail address. When I drove into the rainy hills I didn’t know if I had a reservation or not. I assumed not. The restaurant was fully booked and I was about to turn around and walk back to the car when I was greeted and led to a table with one chair. Somehow my reservation got trough.

What followed was nothing short of amazing. For three hours they filled my table with antipasti, two (!) courses of primi piatti, two (!) courses of secondi piatti, desert and three cookies of which I could only eat one, I was completely stuffed. This was quintessential Sardinian farmer’s cuisine: soft cheeses, pork, wild boar, garden beans, purple potatoes, forest mushrooms, Sardinian pasta, the list goes on. Every single dish was perfect and stayed true to tradition. There was not one single false note.

Antipasti

Primi piatti

Fregula with stewed mushrooms. Fregula (also spelled fregola) is typically Sardinian and consists of semolina dough that has been rolled into tiny balls and toasted in an oven. Because it is semolina based you have to cook it between 10 and 15 minutes.

Secondi piatti & contorni

Dolci

Below: Sebadas (o Seadas)

People's Vote

“Our future is greater than our past.”

— Ben Okri, Commonwealth Memorial Gates.

The biggest political story in Europe in 2019 is no doubt Brexit, Britain’s exit from the EU. When I read about the People’s Vote March on October 19, I decided that weekend should be the moment to revisit London. It was in the late 1990s I visited London for the last time. After the break-up with my then London girlfriend May Oduah I didn’t feel much like visiting the city afterwards for a long time. Memories and so on. But after twenty odd years I was ready for the city again.

In January of 2019 I started following Brexit. The 29th of March was the moment the UK would withdraw from the EU after invoking Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union (2009). This was astounding to me. Why on earth would you give up power voluntarily? This is practically unprecedented in politics. Soon I was spending two to three hours every day following Brexit. Of course, 29 March came and nothing happened. On 21 March the EC extended the deadline until 12 April 2019 but mere days before the PM asked for another extension.

By then Parliament had rejected the negotiated Withdrawal Agreement three times, the third vote was on 29 March. The deadline was extended to 31 October. The new European Commission would take office on 1 November so the final weeks before 31 October were to be very significant.

“Britain has two strong alliances, it has a great alliance with America and it’s part of the European Union, which is the biggest political union in the world and largest commercial market in the world. What on Earth would induce you to think that you’re going to gain by giving up that relationship. It’s an unbelievable act of self-denial. For me, it’s just a very simple thing, power is power.”

— Tony Blair, May 2019

Boris’ new deal

It became clear there would be a meaningful vote on Saturday on a new ‘deal’ Boris Johnson agreed upon with the EU27. This was the first time since the Falkland war in 1982 Parliament would assemble on a Saturday. 19 October was to be a ‘super Saturday’. If Johnson could summon a majority in the House of Commons the UK would be on track to leave the EU on 31 October to start a decade long process of negotiating new arrangements with the EU.

Letwin amendment and Benn Act

But then there was former Tory minister Oliver Letwin. He put forward an amendment to withhold approval of Johnson’s deal until the legislation to enact it is passed. There would be no approval of Johnson’s hastily cobbled together deal until the European Union Withdrawal Agreement bill (WAB) of 115 pages and 126 pages of explanatory notes was scrutinised and voted for. The WAB gives Johnson’s deal legal status. MP Sir Oliver Letwin is no remainer. In fact, he supports Johnson’s deal. In his mind his amendment was an insurance policy against crashing out of the EU of 31 October.

Passing the Letwin amendment would also trigger the Benn Act. The Benn Act, officially know as EU Withdrawal (No.2) Act requires the prime minister to ask the EU for an extension to the Article 50 negotiating period, to avoid a no-deal Brexit on 31 October. The 19th was the deadline imposed by the Benn Act. When I arrived in St Pancras International station it wasn’t clear at all if the UK would still be a member of the EU two weeks into the future. The scene was set for the weekend.

The People’s Vote campaign group was launched at an event in April 2018 with the aim to unite anti-Brexit groups. Among supporting groups are For our Future's Sake (FFS) and Our Future Our Choice (OFOC). The October 2019 People's Vote March was the third London march.

One of the people who shaped my ideas on Brexit is Femi Oluwole. I have been following his Twitter account @Femi_Sorry since 2018. Femi is co-founder of Our Future Our Choice (OFOC).

A People’s Vote is the only way out of the deadlock but has no support in Parliament. In the ill-advised 2016 referendum 51,89% voted to leave the EU and since then there has been no consensus on what the future relationship with the EU should be and whether the UK should stay in the customs union and the single market or not. In fact, there was no idea before the referendum how that relationship should look like if people voted for leaving the EU. The referendum was likely won by Facebook micro-targeting campaigns by Vote Leave (a cross party government campaign co-founded by Dominic Cummings) and Leave.EU founded by Arron Banks and Richard Tice. Vote Leave has been fined £61,000 after being found guilty of breaking electoral law during the Brexit campaign. Many of the micro-targeting adds were simply untrue.

Facebook has settled with the U.K.’s data protection watchdog, the ICO, agreeing to pay a £500,000 fine. The ICO concluded that Facebook “contravened the law” — specifically the 1998 Data Protection Act — “by failing to safeguard people’s information.” Data on 1 million UK Facebook accounts might have been used by Cambridge Analytica in the 2016 referendum campaign. Vote Leave put out one billion political adds to 7 million users in the last weeks of the referendum.

UKIPs “Breaking Point” bill board mixes the refugee crisis of 2015 with the issue of economic migration.

The march

The People’s Vote March assembly area was Park Lane (Hyde Park) and the march led to Westminster Square. I arrived a couple of hours early in Hyde Park. At that moment only a group of Scots had gathered at the foot of the Statue of Achilles (Wellington Monument) waving Scottish flags adorned with the 12 golden stars borrowed from the EU flag. The statue commemorates Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington (1769-1852). Somewhat ironically Wellington had a multinational “European” army to his disposition consisting of Dutch troops, the King's German Legion and units from Ireland, Hanover, Brunswick and Nassau when he fought the Battle of Waterloo.

During the march news broke that the Commons voted for the Letwin amendment. There would be no meaningful vote on super Saturday. On Monday 21 October the Withdrawal Agreement Bill would be published for the first time. On Tuesday 22 October MP’s approved the Withdrawal Agreement Bill for a second reading but minutes later in a second vote on a fast-tracked timetable for the bill, Johnson was defeated, again. On Tuesday it was clear the United Kingdom would not leave te EU on the 31st of October. Johnson could have let Parliament debate the Withdrawal Agreement Bill but instead withdrew the Bill and everything went back to the EU for a new extension of the Brexit-deadline, which led BBC-presenter Andrew Neil to say: “Kids are fond of dressing up as zombies at Halloween… but for this zombie Parliament, every day is now Halloween”.

Addendum 30 October: The EU agreed to a January 31 Brexit extension in 2020 and days later a General Election on December 12 was approved in the House of Commons. Everything now depends on the outcome of the GE. It is clear there will be no confirmatory referendum before the election. An election is a hell of a risk to take for the opposition.

Banner by Led by Donkeys.

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Quote by Donald Tusk, President of the European Council, February 2019.

Boris’ new deal revived Brexit, barely.

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Brixton Market

Whenever I felt hungry in London I hopped on the Victoria Line towards Brixton. I love Brixton market which is technically a collection of Electric Avenue, Brixton Station Road Market, arcade Brixton Village and arcade Market Row. I didn’t find all the Jamaican food stands open at the time of my visits but at least I was able to get some oxtail soup with mostly brown beans and potato. My trip was too short to try proper oxtail stew and ackee, but I will save that for a trip to Jamaica hopefully in 2020 but depending on my mood.

Street food on Electric Avenue.

Jamaican Oxtail Soup

Electric Avenue.

Only after my trip to London I read about Stormzy’s favourite restaurant: Bluejay Cafe on 2 Market Parade Portland Road, South Norwood, London. Apparently they serve the best Caribbean cuisine, including curry goat (never goat curry), ackee and saltfish and jerk chicken. Something to remember for my next visit.

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Cheap beer as ‘Brexit benefit’

On my first day I visited the Wetherspoon pub The Knights Templar. JD Wetherspoon’s boss, Tim Martin, uses the pub chain for his political pro-Brexit message. Wetherspoon News magazine is full of rather positive articles on Brexit. He cut the price of a pint of Ruddles ale by 20p to illustrate “Brexit benefits”. A pint could cost as little as £1.39. I ordered a Ruddles but after the barman figured out what I was trying to pronounce, he said: “We don’t do Ruddles”. So I ordered another ale which cost me £3.29. It was clear Wetherspoon prices vary greatly depending on the location. The Knights Templar was located near Fleet Street, so no “Brexit benefit” for me.

“In fact, this will be the first FTA in history that loosens economic ties, instead of strengthening them. Our agreement will not make trade between the UK and the EU frictionless or smoother. It will make it more complicated and costly than today, for all of us. This is the essence of Brexit.”

— Statement by President Donald Tusk on the draft guidelines on the framework for the future relationship with the UK, 7 March 2018

Conservative Michael Heseltine (born 1933) was one of the speakers in Parliament Square. An excerpt of his speech:

“Our accession led to Margaret Thatcher's pivotal role in the creation of the Single Market. She insisted that our voice at the table was heard alongside France and Germany. She would have been appalled to see us excluded from the top table, and we saw it so clearly on Thursday. Mrs May's dash across the channel begging bowl in outstretched hand, excluded from a lengthy meeting of our former partners. The take-it or leave-it offer.
That is what the Brexiteers have done to our country. A national humiliation made in Britain, made by Brexit.

I look back over the years. 70 years of peace in Europe. 50 years of European partnership. The fascists have gone from Spain and Portugal. The colonels have gone from Greece. Communism hardly features in European politics. 29 parliamentary democracies working together, with power based on a shared sovereignty far in excess of anything any one of us could achieve individually.”

Pfälzer Weinsteig

At the turn of the millennium the Romans brought wine to the Pfalz. The Pfalz is one of the thirteen wine growing areas of Germany. Around 22% of the grapes being grown in the Pfalz are of the Riesling variety. The Pfälzer Weinschorle is famous, especially for being poured in huge half liter glasses called ‘Dubbeglas’.

I drove to the Pfalz for a one day hike. I stayed at Campingplatz Wachenheim, which is right on the Pfälzer Weinsteig. I walked from Wachenheim to Neustadt an der Weinstraße via Deidesheim, famous because Bundeskanzler Helmut Kohl (1982 - 1998) liked to entertain his guests in Deidesheimer Hof and served the likes of Margaret Thatcher, Boris Yeltsin, John Major, Václav Havel, Jacques Chirac and Mikhail Gorbachev Saumagen, stuffed pigs stomach.

Die pfälzische Saumagen-Diplomatie

Below Deidesheimer Hof where Kohl invited Michail Gorbatschow in 1990, almost exactly a year after the Mauerfall on November 9 and only weeks after German reunification on October 3. Kohl believed that the cosy atmosphere would prove to be more productive as opposed to a pompous state visit in the capital Bonn. Kohl and Gorbatschow had indeed a lot to talk about. That summer Kohl went to Moscow and Stavropol to seal a deal on German reunification with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. The main point of contest was if Moscow would allow a unified Germany to remain part of NATO. Gorbachev agreed in principle. But it would cost West Germany between 25 and 40 billion euros to be paid to the Kremlin to gain the East-German territory.

Kohl couldn’t quite create the same atmosphere when Margaret Thatcher visited Deidesheim the year before in April 1989. The German leader was very much in favour of the European Union and wanted to bring forward disarmament talks. The Iron Lady wasn't very interested. Kohl: "Mein Eindruck war, dass Margaret Thatcher bei allen Themen, die wir besprachen, grundsätzlich nur die Interessen ihres Landes im Auge hatte und auf Empfindlichkeiten anderer Länder kaum reagierte." Source: Die pfälzische Saumagen-Diplomatie

Deidesheimer Hof

Michail Gorbatschow in Deidesheimer Hof (10 November 1990).

Helmut Kohl was known to love his Mercedes S-Klasse der Baureihe W 140.

Pfälzer Weinsteig

The Pfälzer Weinsteig is a typical German long distance trek. If you walk the entire length you are looking at 172 kilometers of mostly single track in dense forests, through vineyards and wine villages. The walking path was only opened in 2010. You will find plenty of forest restaurants along the way. During lunchtime I ended up in Altes Jagdhaus Looganlage which serves local food and Weinschorles in a Dubbeglass. I spied when they were making my Weinschorle and my rough estimate is that my glass contained about 0,3 litres wine and 0,2 litres Sprudel. I drank two of these glasses for lunch and was lucky the path was mostly winding since I couldn’t walk straight for quite a bit. The day ended in Neustadt an der Weinstraße about 25 kilometers from the camping. I was able to take a train back to Wachenheim.

Pfälzer Saumagen

Neustadt an der Weinstraße

Parco nazionale del Gran Paradiso

The second park I visited was Parco nazionale del Gran Paradiso in Italy. The trip from Écrin to Gran Paradiso took just three hours but I arrived at the camping after noon. In the valley of Aosta I had to buy some bread and wine. The camping Gran Paradiso Dr. Franco Caviglia is located quite high in the mountains and offers the best starting point for many day hikes. It is a real mountain camping offering spots in between trees and offering little luxury.

Camping Gran Paradiso Dr. Franco Caviglia

I spent the afternoon with a fruity local red wine and antipasto Piemontese consisting of cauliflower, carrot, paprika, olives, green beans, artichokes hearts, capers, onion and tomatoes. There is no fixed recipe for antipasto Piemontese. You basically boil tomatoes put through a food mill together with vinegar and olive oil and add a selection of vegetables cut to bite size. Boil until the vegetables are tender, put the mixture in sterilised jars and let it sit for at least a month. This type of antipasto was just a way to preserve vegetables for the winter.

Hike 4: Refugio Chabod and Victor-Emmanuel II

This was just a stunning long day hike. You can tell Gran Paradiso is a protected nature area. The landscape was pristine. Total time for this walk was about 10 hours.

Refuge Frédéric Chabod

I didn’t quite expect to find a caffè and blueberry pie in a mountain hut but there it was.

Rifugio Vittorio Emanuele II

The second mountain hut on my hike was Rifugio Vittorio Emanuele II. This is the place where you sleep when you attempt to climb the Gran Paradiso (4061 meter) summit.

Hike 5: Rifugio Città di Chivasso

On the last day I hiked from Pont to Rifugio Città di Chivasso on Colle del Nivolet. After a steep climb the route led mostly through green pastures. I found the whole park just stunningly beautiful. The routes I hiked where of the E category (E = escursionistico), which is a category higher than T (turistico) and below EE (escursionistico esperti). For EE you might need light mountaineering equipment to cross small exposed sections.

Parc National des Écrins

The Écrins massif is the southernmost massif in the Alps with a summit above four thousand meters. The massif lies in the Écrins National Park, the parts just outside the park perimeter are used for winter sports. After a tip from a running friend, I chose Puy-Saint-Vincent as my first destination. The distance was too long to drive in one day so I camped at the lakeside of Lac d’Annecy on my first night. Sunday I reached Dutch owned Camping Croque Loisirs, which is a lovely, green camping at an elevation of 1450 meters.

Camping Croque Loisirs

Hike 1: Tour du Bal

The first day I hiked an easy route starting from the camping. There was basically one tour which matched my criteria, climbing up to a ridge at about 2700 meters, following the ridge for some time and then down to the camping. It was clearly not a popular route, I just met one other hiker who told me I was walking Tour du Bal. Later I found that the route crossed the Col du Bal, hence the name.

The ridge at noon.

Hike 2: Glacier Blanc

The second day I hiked to Glacier Blanc, the longest glacier of the park. The snout of the glacier is quite close to a mountain hut. This hut is a starting point for climbs to the Barre des Écrins (4,102 m) and guided hikes on the glacier. The route is quite busy with climbers carrying rope and helmets. This was the only day the weather turned a little foul with low clouds and the occasional rain shower.

Starting point is a parking spot at Pré de Madame Carle at 1874 meters. Le Refuge du Glacier Blanc is located at an elevation of 2550 meters. The 676 meter climbs takes about 2,5 hours and is quite steep at times, steep enough to need metal chains to pull yourself up.

At Pré de Madame Carle I had one of the best salade Niçoise with French mustard dressing. You can make a similar dressing by whisking (optional: garlic and/or shallot) mustard and white wine vinegar together. Whisk in the rapeseed oil, then add the water (whisking continuously) to emulsify the dressing. 1 tbsp Dijon mustard, splash white wine vinegar, 3 tbsp rapeseed oil, 1-2 tbsp warm water.

Hike 3: Lac de l'Eychauda

My last day in Écrins I hiked to Lac de l'Eychauda in the blazing sun. About 3 hours to reach the lake and 3 hour back to my car, so a pretty easy hike. The view during the ascent and decent was beautiful.

This journey continues here Parco nazionale del Gran Paradiso

Merchant city Xiamen (Amoy)

“Amoy is nu te zien: het gegons wordt luider, het tussendek is leeggelopen op kisten, kooien, manden en enkele doodzwakken en stervenden na, die in hun vuil liggen. Velen herkennen nu de kust, en de bruine helling van de hoge stenen van Kau Lung Seu. Anderen hebben Amoy nooit gezien maar herkennen het toch. Bijna niemand zal er blijven, Amoy zuigt landverhuizers in en spuwt ze weer uit, in en uit, uit en in.”

— J. Slauerhoff, Het Leven op Aarde

I do love Xiamen, once known as Amoy in the Hokkien language. Xiamen is built on an island. It has a distinct dialect and cuisine. Xiamen also has a subtropical climate and the people of Xiamen love their plants. The old part of town has few high rise buildings, many small alleys and a food market to explore.

Dutch poet and novelist J. Slauerhoff painted a dark, grim picture of Amoy in his book ‘Het Leven op Aarde’ (1934). Much has changed since the 1930s.

“Nacht, zwaarheet en sterreloos over land en zee. De lucht, volgezogen met een hitte die zij nergens aan af kan staan, aan het geblakerde land niet, aan de zee niet, met de gloed van een lange dag verzadigd, worgt het leven. Niets beweegt. ”

— J. Slauerhoff, Het Leven op Aarde

City marketing in Xiamen.

The people of Xiamen love their plants. My hotel was at walking distance from Zhongshan Park which had fine collection of bonsai trees. The park was opened in 1931 to honour Dr. Sun Yat-sen in China known as Sun Zhongshan, instrumental in the overthrow of the Qing dynasty, the last imperial dynasty before the Republic of China (1912–1949) was established.

Xiamen food culture

Xiamen has a distinct cuisine, influenced by overseas Chinese over the centuries. The Chinese diaspora in Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and the Philippines originates from the south-eastern part of Fujian Province. There is peanut sauce and Sha Cha Mian (沙茶面), which reminded me of Laksa soup. Sand worm jelly (土笋冻) is basically a street food. The sand worm is cooked in water and it releases its natural gelatine in the water. The worms and water are poured into moulds. As it cools down the jelly forms. Mine was served with soy sauce, chilli powder and fresh coriander leaves.

Fresh crab

I had a crab prepared for me, which I could choose among many crabs from a fish tank. I was a bit sceptical when the restaurant owner was weighing the animal; you pay by weight. But the dish looked stunning afterwards. It was very difficult to eat however. They were surprised I couldn't crack the shell with my teeth like a proper human being, so they gave me a pair of scissors.

Dazhong Sate Noodles

On Zhongshan Road 49 there is a small shop serving Sha Cha Mian (沙茶面) a peanutty soup with Malaysian flavours. The Sha Cha Mian was served in humble paper cups.

Xiamen is packed with small eateries. For a quick lunch I had noodles mixed with peanut sauce and a bowl of wonton soup. I love these noodle shops.

The last restaurant I went to was another noodle place famous from television if I understand the poster outside correctly. In the ‘kitchen’ you were able to choose the stock and select your toppings. I had planned to get a similar soup similar to Sha Cha Mian, but for some reason I ended up with a more plain meat broth. Still, it was a great noodle soup. I selected blood cake, tripe, lung pipe, small eggs, fish balls and greens as toppings.

Anxi Tieguanyin Tea 安溪鉄観音

After Longjing and Wuyishan, Anxi was the third well known tea area I visited in China. Anxi is famous for Tieguanyin or Iron Goddess oolong. Anxi is a county about 50 kilometers north of Xiamen. I booked a hotel on 805 Datong Road, which was by coincidence on a major tea sellers road. Before I arrived in Anxi I had a romantic idea about the tea village. The village was in fact a rather large city with many high rise buildings.

But I arrived late in the evening. It was a bit of a hassle to reach my hotel. There were no taxi’s in Quanzhou. Well, not entirely true, the taxi’s where men on motorbikes. I took bus instead, which got stuck in traffic almost instantly. Gridlocked in the afternoon rush hour. After checking into my hotel pretty much every restaurant was closed. I walked into a street side restaurant, which indeed had closed, but they had some duck stew left while tomorrow’s duck stew was already on the fire. The owner had to run cross the street to get some rice and soup for me. The beer was not kept in the fridge and was too warm to drink.

Chinese Tea Capital

The next morning I visited the whole sales tea market called Chinese Tea Capital on Hebin North Road, Anxi County. Farmers bring fresh oolong to the market in big plastic bags. At that moment I wasn’t sure about the quality of the tea which was being sold. Later I learned that it was not the premium teas which end up at the market. Still, it was serious business, with potential buyers smelling and tasting the teas spilling tea leaves all over the place.

Just outside the tea market there are small shops in where farmers sell the tea directly. These teas are a step up in quality, but still very affordable. You can have a proper tea tasting session. I walked into one of the shops. The daughter of the owner did the talking. I asked to taste two teas: a Tieguanyin - of course - and a roasted oolong tea. Tieguanyin is the Chinese translation of the bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara and there is an origin myth connected to the Tieguanyin tea. The owner prepared both teas for me.

Waiting for the tea to steep.

By the time I arrived in Anxi I had a serious cold. My sense of smell went out of the window. I simply decided to buy both teas and back home in Amsterdam I was quite happy with my choice. The daughter of the tea farmer sent me some photos of the farm - and presumably her father - via WeChat. My trip resembled Phileas Fogg’s journey. The tea villages high in the mountains are difficult to reach without a car. Buses run services into the mountains but they are slow. I didn’t have a spare day.

Special Economic Zone Shenzhen

Shenzhen’s population exploded from 30.000 residents in 1980 to almost 13 million in 2017. How did this happen? In 1980 Shenzhen became the first Special Economic Zone of China (SEZ). This meant Shenzhen could profit from free market-oriented economic policies and flexible governmental measures, making the area attractive for trade and (foreign) investments. Money, and subsequently, people poured into the former market town.

Shenzhen now boasts the biggest (wholesale) electronics market in the world , in the Huaqiang-bei (华强北) subdistrict. The market consists of thousands of small shops in several high rise building in one street. Each building has many floors of shops. You can buy literally any hardware you need. One shop has hundreds of different on-off-buttons, the next shop is packed with USB-cables and yet another shop sells RAM in all shapes and forms imaginable.

I spent a long afternoon walking each floor of the electronics market - which took many hours. I had nothing to buy, but wanted to soak in the atmosphere. The place was relaxed and buzzing at the same time. Delivery men on electric scooters were picking up and delivering small packages left and right.

Start-up companies flock to Shenzhen because of the easy access to hardware. If you want to built something, nowhere in the world you can do it faster. Speed is everything. And most importantly, a lot of R&D is done in Shenzhen and China in general.

Huaqiangbei (华强北) subdistrict.

IoT is ramping up for 5G.

China wouldn’t be China if you couldn’t get a cheap meat broth with rice and some fried duck in the back alleys of the market. I have to say, KFC and Starbucks were also very present in the electronics market.

Build Your Dreams

Shenzhen hosts the headquarters of Chinese electric carmaker BYD Auto. Built on a company which made just batteries in 1995, BYD - short for: Build Your Dreams - is now a major player in the electric car and bus industry. In BYD’s homecity 21.000 taxi’s are battery powered. Not without problems, not all 21.000 electric BYD taxi’s are operational at the moment because the charging infrastructure isn’t ready yet for that many electric vehicles. Still, there is a fair chance your first electric car will not be a Tesla or a Volkswagen but a Chinese BYD.

Yum cha 飲茶 in Guangzhou

Guangzhou (广州市) is the capital city of Guangdong Province. Population: 15 million in the city and 25 million in the metro area. From 2017 to 2018 the city grew an amazing 3,8%. The city is also known as Canton. It was by far the smoggiest city I experienced in China. By the time I arrived in Guangzhou I wasn’t feeling hundred percent due to lack of sleep, in the first few days I couldn’t fall asleep until 3 AM; pesky jetlag. In Guangzhou my throat hurt and I lost my sense of smell.

View from the hotel. It is not just the dirty window, the air atmosphere in Guangzhou did not feel good.

Guangzhou is all about trade. Between 1757–1842 the city served as way for China to control its trade with the West. The Yīkǒu tōngshāng (一口通商, "Single port trading relations") meant that all trade between China and overseas traders had to go via Canton. The Canton System fell apart after the First Opium War in 1842 with the Treaty of Nanking.

Guangzhou kept its position as a trading hub. The streets are littered with small shops and tiny electric scooters are buzzing on the pavements and roads delivering packages and takeaway meals. The bigger shopping streets are upmarket and busy on a Sunday. The shopping area felt like the Kalverstraat on steroids. About 30 kilometers from the city center the Guangzhou Economic and Technological Development Zone (1984) promoted the development of Guangzhou as a manufacturing hub.

It looks like a simple stew but this was packed with flavour. The vegetable is kohlrabi cooked in meat stock with (fish?) balls and bits of meat, tripe and lung pipe.

No, I didn't get a ‘massage’, I just like the colourful lights.

Yum Cha

On a Sunday morning in Guangzhou there is only one thing you have to do: yum cha (‘drink tea’). Guangzhou restaurant 广州酒. Original branch:- 2 Wen Chang Lu, Liwan district 总店- 荔湾区文昌南路2号 was not so far from my hotel. The place was pretty busy but they sat me at a big round table which was reserved for other small parties and solo-eaters. The menu was in Chinese so I showed the waitress photos of the standard dim sum I wanted to try. I selected aged pu’er as the tea. I have to say, this was the best dum sum I ever tasted. In the true spirit of Guangzhou as a trading city on Sunday’s there is a 20% surcharge on the bill.

Of course I went to more than one ‘yum cha’ restaurant in Ghuangzhou. Chicken feet are a classic, and so is jellyfish. You can never eat enough shumai so I always order some of that.

Canton Tower

For a brief time Canton Tower was the tallest tower in the world. I took the elevator to the lowest observation deck at 433 meters. With an entrance price of ￥150 the Chinese visitors are definitely not the working poor. Everyone is making selfies. That’s what we do these days. Make selfies.

Run East factory visit

My visit to China didn’t stay unnoticed for long. A few days after arriving I received a WeChat message from our contact for one of our producers, Cathleen. “I saw you are in China now, why don’t you visit Run East?” At that moment the Run East factory in Guang Dong Province was still some 900 kilometers away. Nonetheless, I decided my next destination would be the factory. Taking a fast G-train got me to Shenzhen in half a day.

Cathleen and general manger Zhu FuLin kindly picked me up at the train station in Shenzhen and drove me to Qishi town (企石镇) and the factory. Plastic injection machines can easily be bought on the market anywhere in the world. Making the actual moulds (‘molds’ in American English) for the injection machines is highly skilled work. China is one of the few countries where skills to do the tooling, relatively cheap labor and the plastic injection facilities come together. To produce a highly detailed train model in 1/87 scale, you need precision moulding, which is quite different from making a mould for the production of, let’s say, packaging.

Ground floor: mould storage, mould making (‘tooling’) and plastic injection

The moulds, archived for later use, like reruns.

A computer numerical control or CNC machine mills the mould from a slab of aluminium.

The actual mould.

After the CNC-drilling the mould is undergoing more work to make it ready for the injection moulding machine. For detailed projects like ours extra steps of engraving is usually needed. The tooling for injection moulding is expensive.. For this reason you need to be able to sell high numbers to keep the end consumer price affordable and the profit margin for each party reasonable. Because of rising wages in China and the recent trade war between the USA and China (possibly affecting our business indirectly at the moment), this is an increasingly difficult balancing act.

The injection moulding machines

Making the plastic spruces is a relatively quick and easy step in the process once the tooling is done. Not so long ago, next to each machine an employee took the plastic sprue out of the machine. Now each plastic injection machine has a brand new robot arm to take the sprue out of the machine.

First floor: spraying and painting

The painting process is also made more efficient. The shift from manual labour to robot arms is underway. One-colour tampon machines are being replaced by four-colour tampon machines. These steps are necessary to remain competitive. Price matters. Our customers are only willing to pay a certain price for our products.

A new robot arm being tested to replace workers spraying the models.

Tampon printing machine with four colours

Against the wall are tampon machines for one colour. They will be replaced by machines which can do four colours each. This saves on operators.

Some of the fine detailing cannot be done by machine at the moment. Some parts can only be reached by a fine brush.

Second floor: assembly and testing

The assembly floor was relatively quiet. If the model is motorised, the final stage is building in the pcb (printed circuit board) and electric motor, soldering the wires and testing the functions.

Office floor

One floor was dedicated to office space. The office of general manager Zhu has a dedicated tea table. When I expressed my interest in Chinese tea I was gifted an enormous amount of various teas, including a ripe pu’er cake from 2008. The office floor had a Taoist type of altar with what seems Guan Gong（关公) as deity. Guan Gong means ‘Lord Guan’ and is in fact Guan Yu a general in the late Eastern Han dynasty of China. Guan Yu is worshipped as a bodhisattva in Buddhist tradition and as a guardian deity in Chinese folk religion and Taoism.

I noticed Zhu’s office had more Taoist and folk symbolism, like a glass piece of a variety of Chinese cabbage called ‘bok choy’ (which is a Cantonese name, in The Netherlands we know this vegetable as paksoi). Cabbage 菜 (cài) has a lucky connotation because phonetically 财 cái also means ‘wealth, money’.

After the factory visit I was invited for hot pot, 火锅 (lit. fire pot), in a local restaurant in Qishi town. The fire pot was a yin-yang style of pot with a vegetable broth for stewing mushrooms and vegetables on one side, and a fierce broth (a big chunk of palm oil was dissolved into the broth) for cooking meat on the other side.

A Run East branded bottle of ‘Chinese wine’ was opened on my behalf, which actually fell into the category baijiu, a distilled drink much stronger than wine. I loved the hot pot. Plenty of tripe, blood cake, spicy condiments and small glasses of baijiu, which you definitely don’t drink alone. Zhu brought a dedicated driver so he could drink with me.

Wuyi tea factory

Joy, the owner of the guesthouse, invited me to visit a tea factory owned by her family, located a short 20-minute drive from the city. It was a lovely evening. She showed me the whole process of oolong tea making, or at least the 24 hours after harvesting the tea leaves, and we picked wild strawberries.

Step 1: sun drying

After the harvest the leaves are spread out so dew or other moist can evaporate. In the sun at midday this proces takes about 10 minutes, in the evening a bit longer. Good quality oolong cannot be harvested by machine. During harvest the first three leaves are picked, excluding the bud.

Step 2: oxidizing the tea leaves

Oolong is semi-oxidised tea, therefor the leaves are oxidised by putting them in a big rotating metal drum. Hot air is blown into the drum. Now and then the drums are opened and the leaves are tossed around by hand. This proces takes many hours until the desired oxidation level is reached. I was also allowed to put my arm in and toss the leaves. The leaves smelled floral, like breathing in hot air saturated with moist and freshly cut grass.

Step 3: fixing the tea leaves

The machine below exposes the tea leaves to high heat which stops the oxidation proces. This fixes the tea leaves. It basically deactivates the enzymes in the leaves preventing further oxidation.

Step 4: rolling the leaves

When the leaves are fixed they are rolled. For the best quality batches this is done by hand, but normally the rolling is done by the machine below. Wuyi oolong is rolled for a shorter time than Anxi oolong, which is rolled until the tea leaves resemble small balls.

Step 5: further drying and removing stalks and impurities

The belt dryer further removes moist and impurities like stalks can be sorted out. After that the leaves are tossed in big bamboo baskets for removing stalks and further drying.

Step 6: roasting the tea

This proces takes place within 24 hours after the harvest. For Wuyi oolong this is only the beginning of the process. A tea master will roast the oolong over smokeless bamboo charcoal and repeat that process several times depending on the desired taste profile. It can take half a year before the tea can be sold, sometimes a year or even more.

The room below stored old bamboo drums for oxidising the leaves - they have been replaced by metal drums - and flat bamboo baskets for sun drying and hand shaking the leaves. Hand shaking nowadays is only done for very small batches of high quality leaves. This part of the tea processing is really men’s work. Joy couldn’t contain her laughter while demonstrating handling the baskets. The baskets were indeed quite big for her.

Picking wild strawberries. I was wearing my ‘city’ shoes and had trouble climbing up the muddy steep slopes to pick the berries. It’s great fun though.

Tea room

The tea room at the tea factory was peaceful. The room was dedicated to tea drinking and the window looked out over the tea fields. I live in a two room apartment in the city center of Amsterdam but have been dreaming about a room like this for more than a decade. A room without distractions. I shouldn’t complain though, I have a roof over my head.

An oolong called ‘Buddha’s hand’. This tea was supposed to smell of pears but Joy couldn’t recognise pear and neither could I.

View from the tea room.

I’m I stayed at the factory until nightfall, so the family invited me to eat. This was not your average Chinese restaurant food. Sixteen dishes were prepared, many made from vegetables but there was also fried pork, a fish stew, and fried peanuts. Most dishes were spiced with hot chillis and the flavours were much stronger than I ever tasted. I thought it was brilliant.

Mount Wuyi

My first destination after Hangzhou and West Lake was Wuyi-shan, or: Wuyi Mountains, another area listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site for cultural, scenic, and biodiversity values. I blasted towards Wuyishan Shi (city) on a fast G-train via Fuzhou (福州市) in Fujian Province. Wuyishan Shi proved to be another city with electric scooters, electric buses and separated bicycle lanes. A pleasant and clean city.

I am fascinated by city planning and traffic. Possibly because Amsterdam is such a bicycle friendly city and a worldwide example. Still, Amsterdam never went as far as to abolish all motorised scooters in favour for electric scooters.

I booked a room at the Wuyishan Zaijia Guesthouse near the city centre. In the lobby of the hotel was a tea table. I was invited for tea tasting, and I was not alone, there was also a group of Russian travellers interested in, and knowledgable about, Chinese tea. The owner, her English name is Joy, turned out to be from a tea producers family. Chinese who interact with foreigners usually adopt an English name to make communication easier, hence the name Joy.

I spent close to three hours slurping tea. I asked Joy to reserve some hand rolled Wuyi oolong for me to buy. On the last day of my stay Joy packed my tea, 50 grams of each. These teas are expensive at roughly € 1000 per kilo. One is marked Keng Jian Rou Gui from 2018, Rou Gui 肉桂 (cassia/cinnamon) is a cultivar, Keng Jian is possibly a geographical area. The other tea I bought is Lao Cong Shui Xian (老欉水仙茶) from 2018: a Shui Xian cultivar made from old bushes that may be as old as 200 years. The taste and appearance will signify it as an even darker Oolong. The Lao Cong Shui Xian was significantly more expensive at ￥3500 per 500 gram.

I also tasted a Zheng Shan Xiao Zhong, also called Lapsang souchong, which is a smoked black tea from Wuyishan. Smoking the leaves over pine wood greatly enhances the flavour. The tea smelled exactly like a complex Scottish peat whiskey, which makes sense since the damp malt, the barley grain, is smoked as well. It was hard to believe tea could smell so intens. She only had a small batch for private use and didn’t want to sell this tea. It probably would have been too expensive anyway.

Three kinds of Wuyi oolong tea, two hand rolled (left) and one machine rolled.

National Park Mount Wuyi

On the second day I hiked in the National Park Mount Wuyi. I entered through the East Gate where you have to buy an entrance ticket and an additional ticket to take the shuttle buses in the park. Despite the light rain I choose to walk. First stop was the Water Curtain Cave (水帘洞), which is more a waterfall than a cave. The cave played an important part in the development of neo-Confucianism.

The Hall of Three Sages. One of the sages is Zhu Xi, famous for his - at that time unorthodox- commentaries on the Four Books.

Da Hong Pao

From the Water Curtain Cave I took the hiking path to Da Hong Pao (大红袍, literally "Big Red Robe") valley. In this valley, surrounded by steep rocks, you can find some of the most expensive tea bushes of China. There is no specific Da Hong Pao cultivar, the name “Big Red Robe” refers to the legend in which the mother of a Ming dynasty emperor was cured of an illness by the tea of these bushes.

On a secret mission in 1849 British botanist Robert Fortune acquired seeds from the Da Hong Pao bushes. Britain at the time had a great trade deficit with China, and a thirst for tea. When the emperor banned opium, the trade deficit became even bigger. After the first Opium War Fortune was sent on his espionage mission, which was not entirely successful. Most seedlings perished but he brought over technology and knowledge, which helped the Indian tea industry.

The original 300 year old tea bushes are still growing on Tianxin Yongle temple land, most agree there are just 6 bushes. These bushes have not been harvested after 2005. In 2002, a wealthy purchaser paid ￥180,000 for just 20 gram of Da Hong Pao tea from those ancient bushes. The original bushes are said to be of Qi Dan (奇丹) cultivar and this cultivar has since been propagated. However there are few Qi Dan tea bushes so true Da Hong Pao is hard to find. Blends of different cultivars are usually used to make Da Hong Pao.

The tea harvest from the valley is transported by foot.

You will find many shrines in Wuyishan tucked away in cave-like small buildings.

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