Epilogue - Past Tense and Present Calm

Wednesday May 28 - Taipei

In my cabin on the Hiryu early yesterday evening, as the Taiwanese coast loomed in the grey near distance, I packed my bag in my usual way. I go through the same procedure every time I enter a country, even if returning to the UK from a short-break in France.

I lay all my possessions out on the bed, as if a military kit inspection is imminent, and then meticulously check each item, make it as small as possible, pack it in the most appropriate place and then never let my bags out of sight until I am safely in the country.

There is nothing particularly odd about this, you might think. It is a way of making sure that nothing important has been accidentally left in a cupboard or kicked under a chair. It also means that the right things go in the right places and that space is used efficiently. But the main reason I do this is that I have a totally irrational fear that someone has planted a hideously illegal item in my baggage that will be uncovered by customs and guarantee me a long prison sentence.

I have no idea of the origin of this paranoia but it is real. Or rather it was real until I found an article that I’d ripped out of the Observer a few weeks before I left the UK. It was written by the famous travel writer Paul Theroux and I had totally forgotten about it. It was dog-eared and rumpled at the bottom of my small backpack. Mid-way through my packing last night I sat down and read it.

It was a rather pompous article and I found myself objecting out loud to some of Theroux’s statements. For instance, I took his 1975 book, The Great Railway Bazaar, with me on my journey because it includes an account of Theroux’s trip on the Trans-Siberian. I didn’t even get to the relevant chapter because I couldn’t believe that his accounts of experiences and, particularly conversations, were true to life; they were simply too detailed.

I know from my own experience that even if you make copious notes immediately afterwards, the best one can hope to do is recall key points and phrases, not whole conversations. Yet Theroux maintains that there is no fiction in his work; it is a faithful, accurate, verbatim and complete account of what he saw, heard, smelt and felt. My response to this was ‘bollocks!’

Anyway, I gave him the benefit of the doubt – largely because Theroux is regarded as the definitive travel writer by many – and read the article to the end. And I am glad I did because his final thought summed up how my trip has changed me. He wrote: ‘I think travellers are essentially optimists, or else they would never go anywhere.’

It suddenly struck me that the habitual unpacking, checking and packing of my bags before going through customs is an extreme form of pessimism. I have never carried drugs, firearms or endangered species across national borders, nor has anyone planted such things, so why the hell should I worry about it?

And my intense anxieties in the Eastern European leg of the journey, so severe that I very nearly turned for home, were further indication of my innate pessimism. As I tossed and turned in my bunk somewhere in Poland, I imagined that every possible nightmare scenario – from capsizing boats to rampant food poisoning – would afflict me at some point in my journey.

And yet, as I watched the dreary Taiwanese port of Keelung draw ever closer through the porthole of the Hiryu, I realised that my journey had been a breeze from start to finish. It had been plain sailing and everything had clicked beautifully into place. For the whole three weeks, for every one of the 8,500 miles, through the ten time zones and nine countries, nothing had gone wrong.

The most annoying part was undoubtedly getting out of Vladivostock (see day 15) but even that was bearable, thanks to the journalistic value and the great company. But for the rest of the time, the food was plentiful and edible; my health was fine; I didn’t get robbed, bored or arrested; the sea crossings were calm; the people I met were friendly, amusing and inspirational companions; I didn’t run out of money; my credit card was never rejected; and even with my minimal language skills, I managed to communicate effectively.

Some of my good fortune was down to planning, which obviously included meeting up with friends along the way – notably Jeremy and Tracey in Moscow, and Jimmy and Miwa in Tokyo, and of course, doing the Trans-Siberian with Fizle, all of whom assisted me immeasurably in dealing with foreign countries – but I realised that there was also a huge element of fate or positive coincidence, call it what you will.

The gods smiled on me from day one to day 22, and at every crucial step, it was new people that made the difference. Gerhard in Germany; Dimitris, Natalia and spooky Eddie in Eastern Europe; the inspirational Joe Cheng in Russia; Slavic in Siberia; William, Umon and the others on the MV Rus… I met all of these people without any prior planning, and in each case, whether they know it or not, they eased my passage and helped convert me from a pessimist into an optimist.

Final confirmation of the divine blessing of my journey appeared just before I began my paranoid packing on the Hiryu. I really fancied a cup of English tea so, with little hope of success, I dug into my small backpack and pulled out my emergency food bag. All that remained, among the wrappers, was a solitary PG Tips Pyramid tea bag.

Before I left Cardiff, I had grabbed a random handful; I hadn’t counted them and I had not rationed myself on the journey, but there was one left. I cannot begin to explain how elated I felt. This otherwise trivial piece of good fortune epitomised the trip; whenever I hit a barrier and needed something to happen, it did.

As the skipper of the Hiryu captain completed the nimble manoeuvring alongside the dock at Keelung, I screwed up Theroux’s article and tossed it into the rubbish bag. I drained the last of my last cup of PG Tips tea and jammed my plastic travel mug into my backpack. Through my porthole, I saw three hard-hatted Taiwanese dockworkers stub out their cigarettes, slip on their protective gloves and begin to move the walkway into position.

Three weeks earlier, almost to the hour, I was boarding a train from Cardiff to London, a journey I had done a hundred times before. With each subsequent phase of the journey, I went further out of my comfort zone and yet, once I had dealt with the anxieties in Eastern Europe, I felt increasingly comfortable within myself.

The concept of a physical, external ‘home’ – familiar places, faces, smells and language – evaporated and was replaced by an inner safety. No matter what tomorrow brings, I realised that it will be a positive experience and any problems would be surmountable.

The greatest revelation was that nationality is a largely ridiculous idea. National borders are human constructions and never in the whole course of history have they been static. What is permanent, however, is the innate ability of people to get along. My experience on the Cologne to Moscow train, the Trans-Siberian, the MV Rus and the Hiryu showed that, irrespective of the country’s name on the front of the passport, the people I met were, without exception, warm, helpful, compassionate and generous.

Yes, nationalities do look different and cultural differences do exist – the Russians, for example, seem to be rather reserved to begin with and the Japanese tend to be more deferential in comparison to Western Europeans – but, in the last three weeks, the similarities between nationalities far outweighed the differences. In my experience, so long as you can say ‘hello’ and ‘thank you’ in another person’s language, and combine these words with a genuine smile, the door to their heart will open and they will treat you with the same respect as anyone else.

‘Hello’ and ‘thank you’ are just about the only words I know in Chinese, the most impenetrable of any of the languages that I would experience on my trip. As I presented my passport to a lightly-perspiring immigration officer sitting with a colleague behind a glass screened booth in Keelung, I greeted him with a smile and ‘Nin hao, ma?’ He nodded and almost returned the smile.

He noticed that I hadn’t completed the section marked ‘date of departure.’ I explained that I have a two month extendable visa. ‘I might be here for six months,’ I said, ‘so I didn’t know what to write. Can you help me?’

He rubbed his chin, bit his thumbnail and said something in Chinese to his deadpan colleague. They conversed for a moment and then looked at me inquisitively. I smiled. The deadpan face smiled back, said something else in Chinese. In excellent English he then told me that I should take my passport to the Taipei immigration office two weeks before my initial visa expires and they will sort out the extension.

Three weeks ago I would have been infinitely nervous in such a situation. I would have imagined the cataclysm of deportation, probably with a night in a sweaty cell, all because I couldn’t tell the authorities when I’d be leaving. But now, with twenty-two consecutive days of positive coincidences under my belt, and having met numerous helpful, friendly and welcoming people, I just knew that these Taiwanese officials would look at me favourably.

The perspiring officer handed his colleague the official stamp. He then positioned it carefully opposite my visa, paused for a moment and then slapped the palm of his hand downwards. ‘Welcome to Taiwan, Mr Merrill,’ he said. ‘Enjoy your stay.’

I then lugged my bags the short distance to the over-staffed customs X-ray machine. I smiled at the four operatives and the most lethargic told me to put everything on the conveyor belt. As my possessions disappeared into the machine and successfully reappeared on the other side, I went through the body scanner and looked around the terminal at the unreadable signs.

I caught the eye of the most self-important of the customs officials – he with the smartest uniform – and raised an inquisitive eyebrow. ‘OK?,’ I asked as I picked up my backpack. He just waved me towards the exit.

Taiwan represents the end of this journey but it is simply the beginning of the next one. But I am a very different person to the one that left the UK. Although I didn’t know it at the time, I was then a habitual pessimist and, as Theroux noted, that is why I had not done any serious travelling since I spent seven months in the US way back in 1985. For the last 23 years, I much preferred the predictability of the known.

But now, as I walked out into the sticky chaotic streets of early evening Keelung, unable to speak more than a clumsy sentence of the local language, I knew that whatever happens tomorrow, optimistic fatalism will win the day.