Roger Rambler 8           Roger Rambler Class Page   Class Pages

It was kind of strange.  All the way across Pakistan and then India, I had my nose pressed against the window.  Waiting for the Taj Mahal to come into view and that sort of thing kept me glued.  Bangladesh was the greenest place that I had ever seen.  Myanmar was strange and unbelievable while Thailand was outstandingly beautiful. and sometimes a bit spooky.  Myanmar

I guess after a hundred hours or so of viewing the landscape crawl by for helicopters are quite slow, I had become bored with sightseeing.  At the moment, we have just taken off from the lovely beaches of Phuket, which is in southern Thailand.  As we lift off I can't help but stare at white sand and waving palms. I wave back and we are on our way to Singapore.   Do I have my nose glued to the glass?

Not anymore.   I am into Inside Africa, a wonderful story by John Gunther, who has been simply everywhere in Africa.  At the moment, I am reading about the overthrow of the Sultan of Morocco.  It is a gripping tale of ghastly events you wouldn't want to know about.  Morocco has been described as a cold country with a hot sun.  Not many people realize this but the Atlas Mountains are snow covered for at least part of the year. 

I admit that occasionaly, I do glance out the window.  At the moment we are over the sea and I can see a catamaran skimming the waves.  Oh, now I can see a trimaran overtaking the catamaran.  The sailboat that is lagging behind is obviously a monohull.

The more I read about the overthrow of the Sultan, the less I understand about what is really happening in Morocco.  Taking a moment to glance out the window, where I could see the tall skyscrapers of Singapore on the horizon, I cast Inside Africa out and and pick up a story about Marco Polo.

Marco Polo, 1254-1324, was an adventurer, the likes of which have not been seen since.   Marco Polo accompanied his father and his uncle to China.  He left Venice when he was seventeen years of age and did not arrive in the city that is now called Beijing, until he had turned twenty.

Eventually, the tales of Marco Polo's travels were published.  It seems that Marco went to Myanmar on a mission for the Kulbai Khan.  Marco did not just tell about the places that he had been.  He provided information about inventions and was probably the first outsider to write about the black stone that burns, which of course we know as coal.

Prior to sailing the ocean blue in 1492, Christopher Columbus read Marco Polo's book several times.  Columbus took Polo's book with him when he sailed for what he hoped was the Indies. 

If you really want to know the full story, you need to learn about how Marco came about telling his story.  After spending 24 years in travels to the Far East with much of that time taken up with duties for the Kublai Khan, then the ruler of the biggest empire the world had ever seen, Marco found himself at home in Venice. 

He arrived just in time to become involved in a battle between Venice and Genoa.  The result was that Marco Polo and a writer named Rustichello ended up in jail together.  It was Rustichello who wrote down Marco Polo's unbelievable adventures. 

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