Word: huan
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...abandoned, one of the few vestiges of an empire all but forgotten. When Zheng He's ships first called on Champa, the powerful Hindu kingdom had dominated central Vietnam for more than 1,000 years. The haven described by the fleet's Chinese chronicler Ma Huan was the rough port town of Qui Nhon, where sarong-wearing, wiry-haired Cham ivory merchants and slave traders plied their wares. Yet in 1471, less than 70 years later, the northern Annam kingdom of ethnic Vietnamese conquered the Chams, driving them south and scattering them. Some remained Hindu but many in Cambodia...
...bookshop near my old home, I find an obscure monograph on the history of Cochin that provides more clues to the tiles. The author suggests they were presented to the Cochin Raja by the Chinese traders who were accompanied by Ma Huan, the treasure ship's chronicler, and an unnamed ambassador (probably Zheng He). The tiles, he claims, were meant for the Raja's palace, but some clever Jewish merchants spread the rumor that Chinese use cow's blood to make porcelain and the King, a devout Hindu, had to give them up - to the Jewish merchants...
...plane, I'm in a much more respectful frame of mind. Calicut, after all, was the objective of the admiral's great voyages; this was Ma Huan's "great country of the Western Ocean." The principal city of the magical Malabar coast, it was a necessary port of call for traders and adventurers alike. Marco Polo visited Calicut on his way back home from Kublai Khan's China. The Chinese didn't just stop here, they built homes and warehouses. But driving in from the airport, I can't see a single building that might be more than 100 years...
...lashed by the elements. He lost many ships in raging tempests - some were reefed against the African shoreline and the survivors may have set up colonies there - and hundreds of men succumbed to disease. Zheng He, too, died on his final, seventh voyage and was buried at sea. Ma Huan, a translator on several of Zheng He's expeditions, recalls how Saint Elmo's fire once blazed atop the mast of the treasure ship, prompting a shaken Zheng He to offer more lavish sacrifices to Tianfei...
...even more remote and challenging adventure, try the Chilai Ridge trail, a rugged pathway along the mountainous spine of Taiwan. The walk begins at Ho Huan Shan hostel, on the northern cross-island highway (#14) about 60 km from Puli. From the hostel hikers need four hours and a lot of stamina to reach the 3,200-m summit of Chilai Ridge. The ridge trail, which then proceeds due south over a succession of rocky outcrops, is regarded as the most dangerous trek in Taiwan, but is unrivaled in beauty. In some places the ridge is sharp as a knife...