In 1976, journalist Tiziano Terzani was told by a fortune teller: “Beware! You run a grave risk of dying in 1993. You mustn’t fly that year. Don’t fly, not even once.”
A Far Eastern correspondent for Der Spiegel, Terzani had been reporting wars and revolutions in Asia for 20 years. His job often required him to travel to cover politcal coups and natural disasters, and not being able to fly would be a huge inconvenience. But in a Laotian forest, on New Year’s Eve 1992, he submitted himself to the prediction and decided to travel by any means possible – as long as it did not require a plane, glider or helicopter. Surprisingly, he managed to do it without sacrificing his job.
Terzani’s undertaking yielded many surprises, and this colourful book documents stories of border crossings, the joy of poring over maps, getting up close with humanity that airplanes merely fly over, and the unhurried delight of land travel. Wherever he went, he sought the expertise of soothsayers and shamans. In the process, he learned to respect and understand traditional Asian belief systems once foreign to him.
The journey took him to remote places in Burma, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, China, Mongolia, Japan and Indonesia. The gamut of personalities he met along the way ranged from one of the most wanted men in the world and the warlord of the Golden Triangle, to an enlightened ex-CIA agent-turned-Buddhist monk.
Sadly, that same year 15 journalists were killed when a UN helicopter went down in Cambodia, including a colleague who took Terzani’s place. Coincidence? Maybe, but the soothsayer changed Terzani’s life and perhaps even saved it.
Maida Pineda
