Budget aside, there are many, too many factors that influence the choice of a place on the globe as a center of dreams or cultural interests. There is no doubt that an important factor is the media invasion of tour operators, who have an interest in advertising tried and tested destinations, or others that are opening up to tourism with fascinating attractions and still affordable prices.
But for those who think they have already exhausted the tourist basics, the problem of choice becomes difficult. Paris and London once a year, just so as not to miss out on the latest trends, but then they need strong emotions: they want the new, the unexplored, adventure, but if this comes at the price of some discomfort, they often pass it by.
Because the Canadian and the eighth-hand Deux Chevaux were adventures, but organized by us, and with a few thousand kilometers at sixty kilometers per hour, we really explored. But now that Zagora has transformed itself from a caravan center for Timbuktu to a tiny Hollywood complete with festivals and film productions, we might as well choose any Disney.
In short, we will never admit it, but we dream of stellar emotions, but also starry ones. And we no longer believe in online advertisements showing unspoiled places, after which we even have queues in the desert.
But a spark, a flash of inspiration, is necessary to ignite the engines of the brain.
For example, it would be fun to know how many tourists book trips to Malaysia to follow in Salgari’s footsteps. Of course, they will travel through dreamlike nature, forests worthy of fairy tales with a strong flavor, postcard-perfect waterfalls, animals, but adventures must be created in one’s own mind: Malaysian Borneo is an immense green stage where endless stories can be staged. Unless you prefer botanical references with a pedantic tone.
You can buy one- or two-week tours, but for the Sandokan-dentro, the intercontinental airport in Kuala Lumpur is just a springboard: the dream is to try to reconstruct adventures, even if they turn out to be unlikely.
The center of the capital is a maze of luxury shopping malls, and the adventure is the attempt to cross streets with almost no crosswalks and non-stop traffic. Two million inhabitants, two Petronas twin towers that have become the symbol of a city without character, with a run-of-the-mill central market, Buddhist temples of little interest, a Chinatown that is, essentially, a group of shops identical to those found all over the world.
So we try Malacca, on the river of the same name. Colonial expectations are reduced to modest Portuguese and Dutch ruins, reached by a boat that passes under an improbable Rialto bridge. But then we fly to Kuching, the most interesting city in Malaysian Borneo, with a modern, interactive museum that tells the story of this large island poised between tradition and a future of emerging artificial intelligence.
A moderate and multicultural country, with temples, churches, and mosques of little value, as if to say that those who come here are eager for forests, not altars and minarets. Tourists are divided into the curious and those thirsty for thousands of shades of green. The latter will last two weeks in the middle of woods whose differences can only be grasped by decent botanists, but their dream is to fill their eyes with green, as recommended by a romantic lady born in the years of the Great War.
The others, at the hundredth scientific reference by the delightful guide, begin to sigh inwardly and, of the four routes proposed by the young man, they will choose, with some embarrassment, the shortest. But they will definitely take the Tibetan bridges.
This, however, will happen later, below Mount Kinabalu, 4,080 meters, 726 meters lower than Mont Blanc. The designer-clad hikers will boast about all this, omitting to mention that they walked with Himalayan equipment just above 1,600 meters. However, before reaching this legendary peak, they will have crossed forests by the sea, reaching them by small boats and navigating through mangroves and dipterocarps (everyone knows what they are, of course) in search of proboscis monkeys and their adorable young.
Many, many rainforests, with fiddler crabs and, perhaps, Orang Utans, never guaranteed by tour operators, who are not always informed about the daily moods of the dominant male. However, he will show up, and how, at the conservation center in Semenggoh.
Here, food arrives at fixed times, as in a boarding school, and the animals will show up punctually for the tourists, who will feel a bit like those in Disney comics, but avoiding flash photography, which is both prohibited and useless.
A fixed idea of the Western traveler in distant lands is to observe customs and traditions, eat “like them,” spend a day with the Tuareg in the Sahara or with Orientals living on islands, preferably somewhat remote ones. The modernity that can be perceived along the roads of Borneo should give pause for thought, but tour operators must also show ‘ramshackle’ villages to keep these Europeans disguised as little explorers happy. So they take them close to the border with Indonesian Kalimantan, where there is a parking lot as full as a supermarket on a Saturday afternoon, but, once you climb a wooden staircase, you will find yourself in contact with the Dayak tribe, who live in middle-class style on shabby but nonetheless fascinating stilt houses.
The perplexity increases when, many tens of kilometers away, you visit a random fruit and vegetable market whose interest raises serious questions.
Americans love summaries. Fake adventures in places where everything you have imagined is concentrated, parks where you can experience historical fictions, but very enjoyable ones. And Malaysia adapts: MARI’, MARI’: the Malaysia you might not expect (anymore), meaning come, come, is a village with friendly and entertaining guides who show the life of ancient tribes with great credibility, original huts and equipment added to measured irony. All this in places where forty degrees is the least compared to the humidity.
On the slopes of Mount Kinabalu, the one we mentioned, the air is a little cooler. And if some animals didn’t show up for the appointment, we can hope to spot the Rafflesia, the official flower of the state of Sabah. It’s unlikely you’ll see a real one, but there are photos everywhere.
Now, however, we descend and finally the adventure begins, exciting and, what’s more, restful. We fly to Sandakan and immediately look for the connection. There is one: Emilio Salgari named his hero Sandokan after this town, which he never saw. But neither do the hordes of tourists heading for the second longest river in Borneo: they will leave the airport, avoiding the town, and then drive two hours to Kinabatanga. Wake up at five to see the elephants in the light of dawn, evening outings to see fireflies, monkeys at all hours, even walking on the roofs of the stilt houses where you will sleep.
The groups now feel vaguely indigenous, and everyone is looking for rare animals that they are unlikely to spot on the long boats with their telephoto lenses at the ready. But the dream is a mixture of crocodiles longer than a meter, snakes, majestic eagles, and who knows what else.
If culture is what remains after everything else has been forgotten, the names of zoological and botanical species will vanish in a very short time. What will remain are the memories in our minds, the photos, the numbers of the guides with whom we will exchange greetings, invitations to Italy, montages of Malaysian sequences with a child sneaking in, laughing comically.
And the marì marì of those who invite us with their little hands and smiling faces.
