Scented Travels

L'Art d'un Nez...

2006-04-01T17:14:00.000+02:00

...or the "Art of a Nose," because part of my stay in New Caledonia was spent pondering about perfumery as an Art and learning some very basic techniques of perfume-making during my encounters with Sandrine Videault, a perfumer trained by one of the most legendary composers of perfumes, Edmond Roudnitska. Spending time with Sandrine was such an amazing opportunity to learn about an art, which dazzles the crowds but is still misunderstood by many. I had always imagined perfumers as chemists (I think many of us do), standing in front of a lab bench with many odoriferous chemical compounds lined up in small glass bottles from which the perfumer pipets a few drops to add to the mixture he is working on. I had always wondered if perfumers knew the chemical structures of all the compounds they were mixing- were they able to work out what type of reaction would occur if they mixed one of these compounds with another? Would this allow them to know how the product of the reaction would smell like? Nowadays, many schools that provide training in perfumery also require that applicants have some sort of background in chemistry. I really wonder why, because when I saw how Sandrine works, I realized that composing a perfume has absolutely NOTHING to do with chemistry! Sandrine is an artist, at times a philosopher when pondering about perfumery as part of the Beaux-Arts system, maybe even a writer but definitely not a chemist. I say writer, because perfumers often say, when they are composing that they are "writing" a perfume. And, very much like a writer or even a poet, they hope their readers will express certain feelings when smelling their creation.

When smelling a compound, an essential oil, a flower concrete or absolute, a vanilla extract, Sandrine doesn't really care if it's an aldehyde or predominantly a benzylic smell. She concentrates a lot more on the images or feelings the smell brings to her mind. Is it an apple-like smell? A warm smell? Does it remind her of her grandmother? of a filthy street? of a candy? of a field of wheats? a bouquet of dried flowers? Because to create a perfume that has almond notes, it is more important to know that benzaldehyde reminds one of sweet almond oil, of frangipane or of "Calissons d'Aix" (an almond-based sweet from Southern France) rather than to know that it has a benzyl ring and a powerful, slightly oily smell typical of aldehydes.

So, yes, to become a perfumer, one does need a special nose, in the sense that one has to be able to memorize and recognize the odor of a large number of raw materials as well as the images or feelings these generate. From my understanding, most perfumers are not born with extraordinary and an acute sense of smell. It is only after many years of training, of learning how to smell and to perceive the various layers of an odor that one can start to try to be a perfumer. A good perfumer is not necessarily one that has a highly developed sense of smell, it is rather he or she who knows how to master the various raw materials. One has to know how to combine 20-30 raw materials, to know how to play with the proportions to have one smell stand out over the others, to have another one last longer, but most of all to create a harmonious mix. So it seems that a good perfumer composes less with his nose than he does with his mind. What actually really impressed me was not Sandrine's sense of smell, but it was her patience, perseverance, artistic sensibility and critical thinking. And it is no wonder that perfumers reach the climax of their careers in their 60's, when they have an entire lifetime of experiences to reflect and draw upon.

Smelling session with Sandrine.

Perfumery is an art, like photography, painting or music. It is a way for an individual to express oneself, to arouse specific feelings in his audience, to make a statement. Perfumes may be used to enhance messages, like in an invitation, like in a theater show, to create an atmosphere. Perfumery has recently been accepted as part of the Beaux-Arts system. Yet, to me it seems that perfumers are prisoners of another system- the luxury industry. They have to limit their artistic creativity to a certain trend, to a market that's determined by the big luxury houses, and they are not always free to use whichever raw material they wish because of the price limitations imposed on them by these houses and their markets.

Two great books to read if you are interested in twisting your mind thinking about the philosophy aspect of perfumery (both in French though)

Le Parfum, Que Sais-Je, Edmond Roudnitska

Une Vie au Service du Parfum, Edmond Roudnitska (which is a collection of various articles E. Roudnitska wrote on Perfumery)

Feel free to suggest more by posting a comment...

If you want to contact Sandrine directly: sandvideault@freesurf.fr

Stunning landscapes

2006-03-28T17:05:00.000+02:00

The Grande Terre is the 3rd largest island of the Pacific and is known to have one of the largest lagoons in the World, with a well-conserved coral reef (at least in comparison to other places in the World), with over 1,000 fish recorded. So it’s a heaven for snorkeling! But beware!!- there are some nasty things under water, like the “tricot rayé,” a snake whose venom is deadly, same for the “Poisson Pierre” whose dorsal fin injects a deadly venom if one steps on it, the beautiful seashell “Cone” also has a deadly venom… I had always wanted to scuba dive, so I surpassed the initial fear of these deadly animals and put on a wet-suit, goggles, the tanks- and took an intro course in Noumea. And now I can say that I’m addicted!!! Being under water is such a wonderful feeling, time seems to go much slower, actually no, there is no time. Under water, life takes on so many different shapes and colors- the light pink anemones with long tentacules, brown sea cucumbers (which look like a loaf of bread), the red and white clown fish (Nemo is everywhere!), the multi-color parrot fish, the fan-corals, the peaceful and sleepy reef sharks, the remoras, ... it's really beautiful! Unfortunately, I have no pictures to show. And anyway, pictures just capture these shapes and colors, while there is so much more to it! The silence, or should I say, the sound of your own breathing, the reaction of the fish when they see you (some stare, others leave rapidly), the feeling of water- floating, i guess it would be a bit like in space. The first time I saw the drop, 20 meters underwater, where the coral reef stops and the ground is really really deep, I was strangely attracted to that deep seemingly infinite blue. It seemed so impenetrable, but I remember thinking that yeah, it wouldn't be such a horrible death (as people often talk of the divers' syndrome) to go deeper and deeper and deeper.... So I quickly went back to the group.

Since I don't have any pictures of the under water world, here are a few of the water from above:

Turquoise water in l'Ile des Pins

La Baie d'Upi in l'Ile des Pins

Baie de Kanumera in l'Ile des Pins (I was camping just next to that beach)

On land, the biodiversity is also very large, especially the flora with 3380 indigenous species, 80% of which are endemic! For example of the 19 araucaria species known in the world, 13 come from New Caledonia. One of them is the "pin colonaire" which is found profusely throughout the territory and more especially on l'Ile des Pins (hence the name!). And so there are huge possibilities to find new medicinal plants and for sure scents as well.

The famous pins colonaires, but that picture was taken in the Baie des Tortues in Bourail on the Grande Terre.

La "Roche Percee" in Bourail, a couple of hours north of Noumea.

La Poule (the hen) de Hienghene.

A sunset on the way to Hienghene.

I was personally amazed by all the flowers. Here are a few I liked (if you know what type they are, let me know and I'll add the names). Too bad I came after the flowering season of the famous flamboyants. I had a chance to see one of them, covered with its red flowers, it seemed that it had pulled on a bright red comforter.

A "salmon-colored" hibiscus- there are so many different colors of hibiscus in New Caledonia (white, red, pink, salmon, purple...)

A red one

In French we call it "Queue de chat", or "Cat-tail"

Casse pas la tête…

2006-03-23T15:18:00.000+01:00

… which literally translates from the French to “Don’t break your head!!” basically meaning “Don’t worry!” or “no rush!” It’s a motto by which the people live their lives by. And honestly, in a place as beautiful as their home, I don’t blame them! Coconuts to quench the thirst, a daily dive in the water to catch some fish (for those on the islands) or a walk in the forest to hunt a deer (although, they are becoming rarer now) and then a few yams (ok, those you do have to cultivate), Pandanus trees (a sort of palm) to make mats on which to sleep, sun, warm weather all year round, and delicious tropical fruits (mangoes, passion fruits known as “pomme liane”, “pomme cannelle” for which I don’t know the name in English). What more could one ask for?

La Baie de Jinek in Lifou, where the neighboring family regularly came to fish at dusk. It's a really cool place to snorkel too!

Kids in their playground- in Lifou

Grande Case in Lifou.

Decorations in the garden of the Grand Chef de l'Ile des Pins

The Kanak mentality is so different from the Western-capitalist-individualist one. It's no surprise there was so many clashes in the history of colonization. From my understanding and through my few encounters with the kanaks, most of them are happy with what they have and do not necessarily aspire for more. And so that's why they're not interested that much in tourism- I guess they don't want to be bothered by hordes of Australian, French or Japanese tourists, and they don't make much effort to please the few adventurous. Apparently, there is very little sense of ownership, because youngsters are to have devout respect for the elders (especially for their uncle, the maternal uncle if I remember correctly). So anything that belongs to you, also belongs to your uncle and the elders. Hence, if someone wants to start a business (say a petrol station) it is almost certainly doomed for bankruptcy, as there's nothing to say if elders from the tribe want to come and get petrol without paying. So people are having a hard time combining their traditions, where the tribe is a lot more importand than the individual, with the capitalistic system that was brought by the French.

Fete des ignames in l'Ile des Pins. Each year, at the beginning of the yam harvest, yams from the different tribes are combined, blessed and then redistributed among the tribes of the island.

The annoyed Caledoniens, Zoreilles, or Asians would say that half of the population is working for the other half. Because, while it is true the kanaks are happy living simply with fish, fruits and yams, most don't look very hard for a job so that they can receive government aid. Maybe it's a wrong assessment, but it's what I could sense in the 5-6 weeks I spent on the territory, talking to people and seeing the life in some tribes. At least one thing is sure, social dynamics in New Caledonia are extremely complex, and it would require a few years of living there to really understand what's going on.

I personally only had one somewhat uneasy encounter with a Kanak (and it actually didn't have anything to do with me being a tourist). Turned out he was the Chef (the chief) of one of the districts in Lifou. I was passing in front of his house when he saw me and told me to come and see him. I was a bit ashamed, because I hadn't done the "coutume" yet. Normally, when a visitor arrives in a village (or a tribe), he has to pay a visit to the chief and show his respect by giving him something (a manou which is a piece of cloth and tobacco are the usual gifts). So I excuse myself and do the coutume. The chief was completely drunk (and it was only 11 am!!!)... Really really drunk and he didn't make any sense. In me, I was thinking that this behaviour is definitely not worthy of a chief- it disgusted me. I obviously kept my feelings for myself and continued talking to him. Since it was lunch time, he told me to stay for lunch. I couldn't refuse- but seriously, I've never felt so uneasy. The whole way through I struggled to keep my mouth shut to not tell him what I thought and thus be disrespectful of the great chief of the district!!! Alcohol and marijuana are serious problems within the indigenous population. Many men are addicted, which makes them lazy and worse, very violent... Most 20-30 year olds in the North of the Grande Terre seem completely schizophrenic, because they've been smoking marijuana for so long that their neurons went completely "bizurk"!! It reminds me of the problems withing the aboriginal community in Australia.

All other interactions with the Kanaks were amazing!! For example with the women of the Tribu de Neami in the North of the Grande Terre near Kone, while they were collecting Niaouli leaves, with the workers of the sandalwood oil factory on l'Ile des Pins or with the Vanilla producers in Mucaweng and Hnathalo in Lifou.

The Women (and one guy) of the Tribu de Neami in Kone, after collecting Niaouli leaves.

One day, one of the elder women of Hnathalo decided to follow me in my investigation of the vanilla production system. She decided to introduce me to all the people that she knew grew vanilla in Hnathalo. So the whole day, we hitch-hiked together to visit different producers. She probably didn't have much else to do anyway. Many times I would tell her she should go to catch a ride before dark. To my concern, she would just answer "Ahh... Casse pas la tete!". When hitch-hiking, which is a common practice in NC, especially on the islands, people would always take me all the way to where I need to go, eventhough it may have been completely out of their way!

New Caledonia: a restless paradise, struggling for independence

2006-03-14T17:13:00.000+01:00

In Australia, most people opened round and surprised eyes as I told them my next destination was New Caledonia. I realized most non-francophones have no clue where this place is. So here’s a bit of geography: New Caledonia, a French territory soon (or maybe not) to be independent, is located in the South Pacific between Australia and Fiji, one of the farthest places I could be from home, literally at the opposite side of the globe. I wasn’t sure what to expect. I had seen paradise-like postcards of the area, with turquoise and transparent waters, isolated beaches with fine white sand and of the lagoon around the Grande Terre, (the biggest of the 5 islands, the others being Ouvea, Lifou, Mare and L'ile des Pins) which is one of the largest in the world.

The lagoon upon arrival

I arrived in Noumea on a Sunday, and as all French cities, there wasn't a shop opened. The busy market place had shut down around noon and so I was left eating Ramen noodles... Even more depressing was the completely dead city center. And even though I was 20,000 km from home, it felt no different from one of the cities on the Cote D'Azur. The sweet and juicy mangoes as well as the flashing red flowers of the Flamboyant once in a while came as reminders of the Pacific. The youth hostel (the single one in New Caledonia) was filled with French expats, just out of university or a bit older, wanting to get away from France and trying their luck in this idyllic place! Many ended up staying at the hostel for a long time while trying to find a job or an appartment. So there were a lot of chill nights playing "belotte" or cooking together. A nice change from India where I ended up being alone with my book in my hotel rooms.

The view from my room in the youth hostel.

New Caledonia was first encountered by Europeans in the late 18th century by James Cook, who thought the coast line reminded him of Scotland, hence the name New Caledonia (Caledonia meaning Scotland in latin). I don't know where he got that impression from, maybe from the cliffs in Hienghene, because the turquoise-blue lagoon definitely did not remind me of Scotland. After this first encounter, the few Europeans that inhabited the island during the first half of the 19th century were sailors, whale traffickers, adventurers. And it is only around 1840 that a number of French catholic and English protestant missionaries came to convert the indigenous population, the Kanak tribes. Like always, the French and the British didn't agree, but this time the froggies won. And around 1860-1870 Napoleon III sent France's political prisoners from the Paris Commune and from the Kabyl insurrection in Algeria to New Caledonia. An Algerian woman I met in the plane from Noumea to the Ile des Pins actually made a very poignant documentary on the Algerians that had been deported. It's weird to think that this paradise-like island was such a hell for so many prisoners, so far away from their home and their families.

An example of this paradise, "la piscine naturelle" or "natural pool" gets filled up at high tide and when low tide comes, tropical fish are trapped- amazing snorkelling!

By 1900, the Bagne was terminated and the liberated prisoners were "encouraged," actuallyin many cases, they didn't have much choice but to stay in New Caledonia. Many French officials were also sent to act as a colonial administration... Asian immigrants came to provide the labor force needed for the mining of Nickel (still on-going to this day, with tremendous ecological damage). As a result, the population in New Caledonia is extremely diverse: Melanesians (including the indigenous Kanak population), whites (descendants of the colonizers, of the liberated prisoners that were forced to stay, les Caledoniens, who have lived in NC for 4, 5 or more generations; as well as French expatriates, commonly called les "Zoreilles", who came to New Caledonia in recent years, probably seeking a different life in the Pacific) Asians, Polynesians, Wallisians, Arabs, etc... A great mix!

But, I was quite surprised to see that there wasn't a lot of social "mixing" between the Caledoniens and the Kanaks. In Noumea, it was really clear which were the Kank hang-outs and which were the Caledonien or Zoreilles ones. "La Baie des Citrons" with all its bars and restaurants right on the beach front reminded me so much of Southern France. There, one would rarely see Kanaks (especially at night). The Place des cocotiers centre ville (completely deserted at night) is mostly a place where Kanaks hang-out. When I took the bus to go to the North of the island, to Kone, or even within Noumea to go to the Mont Dore (a bit outside town), I was always surprised to be one of the only white people, which definitely showed something about socio-economic disparities between the different ethnicities.

Place des Cocotiers

The Kanaks were actually always very vocal against the French colonization - not surprisingly. Throughout the 19th century, there were many revolts, and then again in the beginning of the 20th century. After WWII, during which NC was a military base for the Americans in the War in the Pacific, the Kanaks hoped to gain independence especially during France's decolonization movement (Indochina, West Africa and North Africa). But France is determined to keep the colony, and the Nickel boom in the 70s brings even more French immigrants to the territory. The 1980s were particularly violent years. In 1988 a group of independentists takes hostage of 22 policemen in Ouvea, which resulted in a bloody assault by the military in an attempt to free the hostages A year later, the president of the FLNKS (Front de Liberation Nationale Kanak Socialiste), Jean-Marie Tjibaou was assissinated by a radical who blamed him for signing the "Accords de Matignon" in 1988 with their opponents in the fight for independence.

So in 1998, the "Accords de Noumea" were signed. They gave the territory more autonomy and stated that a referendum for or against independence would be conducted in 2018. Right now, most of the products are imported and the only industry is Nickel mining (which, by the way, has had many negative impacts on the environment, both the forest and the coral reef). Aquaculture and the cultivation of fruits and vegetables are the biggest agricultural acrivities. Various efforts are made to develop agriculture on the islands like in the islands where Avocado (Mare), Coprah oil (Ouvea) and Vanilla beans (Lifou) production is encouraged. Will this be enough to provide for its population of 200,000? One wonders what will become of the territory if it choses to be independent- I think most "Zoreilles" will have to leave, for sure- and the acces to manufactured goods will be reduced. Maybe, people will go back to living simply, without any materialistic needs, which isn't that bad in the end, and any way, this is quite often the case outside of Noumea, in the bush.

Source: Wikipedia

The Australian Outback

2006-03-01T12:22:00.000+01:00

Since most people I had contacted for my project had not given me any sign of life, I decided to limit my stay Down Under to a short two weeks. To maximize my time there, I decided to take part in a tour of the Outback- 8 days driving in the desert, 3200 km from Adelaide to Alice Springs, which is right in the middle of this huge country. At first, I was a bit reluctant to take part in a tour, I would have rather rented a car with some friends, but considering the short amount of time I had and also that I was alone, I had no real other choice. The trip turned out to be AMAZING!!!

I flew from Sydney to Adelaide, a day before the start of the trip. I had a whole day to stroll around this small town- very clean and with seemingly no great activity. The streets were very quiet probably due to the heat of the day. I did go to the main market- I was pleasantly surprised by the huge variety of fine quality foods available; fruits, vegetables, breads, but best of all (especially after all this cheese craving in India) there was loads and loads of really stinky cheese, so good!

Adelaide down town.

As I was strolling around, I bumped into a woman who was selling soaps and lotions she had made herself. Most of her products contained essential oils so I asked her where she had gotten them. I ended up spending the afternoon with a perfumer, talking about his job and how it differed from that of perfumers in India.

The next morning, our Wayward bus set out on its journey early one morning from the dormant cowboy town of Adelaide- 1st stop, a winery in the Clare Valley. I tried to put to use the little I remembered from what Barry Lydgate was trying to teach us about wine-tasting back in Wellesley. The wine wasn’t that great at all- especially since it was all bottled in those screw-cap types of bottles. The woman from the winery kept on telling us that it was much more reliable than bottling the wine with traditional corks. It’s maybe the French in me, but it didn’t convince me- because half of the pleasure of drinking wine (well, maybe not half, let’s say a ¼ of it, or at least some of it) is to hear the “plop,” as the cork is released from its glass prison. Anyway, a wine-tasting session as early as 11 am set the mood for the rest of the exploration in the Australian Outback.

Clare Valley Vineyards

As we left the picturesque vineyards, we drove through dry farmlands and slowly entered the desert. The landscapes I saw during this trip were absolutely breathtaking!! There was the rugged hike of Mt Ohlsen Bagge at Wilpena Pound, the dried salted Lake Eyre, hot water springs between Maree and William Creek the underground houses of the opal mine capital in Cooper Pedy, the moon-like landscapes on the way to Uluru. For hours we drove on flat land, seeing no tree, no house, and barely a few cars. In one such places, our bus broke down- of course!!! We stayed a few hours stranded in the middle of nowhere, hopefully waiting for the single car that had crossed our way to come back from the nearest town with the missing part.

An Emu strolling along the road

Apparently, in the center of Australia, there are huge underwater reserves. In some areas the pressure is just too great and little springs pop out here and there...

The "Red Center"

The unending road and the very flat horizon

Interesting geological formations.

At night, we camped in tents or swagged under the naked sky. The desert is definitely the best place to be star-gazing... or to be contemplating a moon rise. Those were probably the most beautiful sunrises and sunsets I have ever seen, when all of a sudden, the whole area surrounding you takes on a pink-orange shade and the birds start to sing almost all at once as the first rays of sunlight emerge on the horizon.

A sunset... speaks for itself.

One of the most stunning sights was the sun setting on Uluru, in a time span of only 10 minutes, the colors shifted from orange, to red, to pink, to purple and finally grey. Some people choose to fly to Alice Springs, drive for a couple of hours to spend one day in the Kata-Tjutu- Uluru National Park, then drive back to Alice Springs and fly out the next morning. I found that the magic of the place was in part compounded by the fact that we had spent so much time "struggling" on the road to get there. And the journey in itself was fabulous.

Sunset on Uluru

Uluru is a sacred place for the indigeneous population of the area. Different places around it are reserved for specific rituals, either for the men and the women. The actual rituals are kept secret from other clans but also from the other gender of the clan. The hike of the rock is one of the rituals young men do to reach adulthood. So people are asked, out of respect for the traditions of the indigenous population, not to climb the rock. So we walked around the rock, which took us about 3 hours. If anyone ever ends up in the dead middle of Australia, don't only go see Uluru but also go to King's Canyon- it's stunning!

King's Canyon

After this week away from big cities, I flew back to Sydney, but had the chance to stop in Melbourne to get enough of that cosmopolitan, european and laid back feel of the city- too bad I didn't have more time to explore!

Inside a building in Melbourne

Clean and Tidy Sydney

2006-02-28T01:05:00.000+01:00

After 4 months in India, I finally left this mind-boggling country at the beginning of February. In the car to the airport, as we were driving one last time through the streets of Delhi, I felt weird. I had gotten used to the noise, to the pungent smell in the streets, to the constant flow of people, to the cows chewing on plastic bags, to rikshaw drivers harassing me, the tchai vendors, the sound of the women’s bangles or anklets... And so my arrival in clean and tidy Sydney was a bit anti-climatic.

As soon as I got out of the airport, I was pressed by the heavy heat- February, in the southern hemisphere, it was the middle of summer. All the girls went about wearing their tank-tops, mini skirts or shorts- their Abercrombie type of attire. It’s weird to say, but it shocked me. I should have been more comfortable in this culture, which is much more like mine, I should have been relieved to finally be able to wear a tank-top without having all the men stare at me; but after 4 months in India, where I did not dare to wear a tight shirt without a scarf on top of it to cover my breasts, I felt out of place.

Famous Bondi Beach

The Opera House and Harbor Bridge

It took me a good deal of time to get re-used to our Western culture. For a few days, so many details surprised me: people kissing in the streets, large cars and their tame driving, the presence of toilet paper in all public bathrooms, the lack of buzzing life in the streets, the smell of nothingness in those same lifeless streets, the drunk girls at night... There was both relief and nostalgia, as people no longer came up to me to ask my name and the place I come from or even asked me to tell them about my culture. So my first impression of Sydney was not great- I found the atmosphere to be snob and superficial. Though, I have to say, it is a beautiful city where the quality of life is probably the highest of all the places I have been to.

Sydney's Skyline

The Royal Botanical Garden bordering the amazing harbour, is just a few steps away from the city center. And so, at noon, it is flooded with businessmen and women jogging just a few strolls from the famous Opera House. I enjoyed people-watching on the famous surfers’ beaches of Bondi and Manly, admired aboriginal art at the New South Wales Art Gallery, got enchanted by a modern staging of Mozart’s "Magic Flute" at the Opera, and indulged myself on the city’s delicious sushis- because at that time, I was completely fed up

The Opera House

Still in Delhi: Water Democracy and His Holiness the Dalai Lama

2006-02-08T06:36:00.000+01:00

The highlight of my stay in Delhi was a lecture I attended that was given by the Dalai Lama! Many Tibetan Buddhist along with a few foreigners like me came to attend this teaching on the “Twelve Links of Dependent Origination,” which is a theory that is common to all schools of Buddhism. “Dependent Origination” is the belief that all happenings arise in a mutually interdependent way. For example that without effect there is no cause, or that without Evil there is no Good, and vice versa. In addition, His Holiness stressed the fact that Buddhism is not only about faith and prayer, but also about “using one’s intelligence to the maximum” especially when establishing what is reality. He underlined that all problems are usually caused by ignorance. I have to admit that I did not think his talk was mind-awakening. I did find him extremely humorous and of an inspiring humbleness. And there definitely was this special atmosphere that comes about when a large crowd sharing the same belief gets together. It was extremely powerful when the Dalai Lama arrived and we all stood at once, most Tibetans bowing repeatedly.

I also attended a conference organized by the environmental activist group, Navdanya entitled, “Building Water Democracy, Resisting Water Privatization”. Most of the speakers at the conference Navdanya was founded by Dr. Vandana Shiva who is a character! She studied nuclear physics and holds a doctorate in theoretical physics that she obtained in Canada. After completing her doctorate, she took a break to go back to India to learn more about the interaction between science and policy. Thinking she would go back to physics and become a professor, she first wanted to understand how it could be possible that India, although it has “the third biggest scientific community in the world” is still one of the poorest countries. She never went back to physics and is now one of the leading environmental activists in India. As she says in an article I found online, she doesn’t “want to live in a world where five giant companies control our health and our food.” And so she is devoted to fighting for “seed sovereignty” (against the patented GMO that force the farmers to buy new seeds for every new harvest and render them completely dependent on big corporate companies), “food sovereignty” (food security and sustainable agriculture, ie. organic farming on small scale) and “water sovereignty,” which was the focus of the conference I attended.

Big dam projects as well as river linking projects (in India, but also in China, and other countries as well,) divert the water from rural areas to bring it to the cities where it is lacking. In the big Tehri dam project, located in Uttaranchal (which is by the way an earthquake-prone area, so definitely not the best area to construct a dam of such a size!) approximately 42 villages will be completely submerged and 72 partially, a total of 13,000 families may have to be displaced (about the Tehri dam)!!! Hence such projects mean more water for the cities, for the more wealthy, but it also means the loss of not only land but also livelihood for many farmers- so the water is being stolen from the poor and given to the richer. The argument put forth is that behind all this stand the large multinational corporations like Suez, hence the need to resist water privatization... So what’s the solution? Better water management through extensive action at the local community level, through rainwater harvesting, watershed management (recharging aquifers for example, by building reservoirs) and better waste water management. One speaker was underlining the fact that all water eventually becomes waste-water so in a way, by increasing the supply of water one will inevitably increase the volume of waste water as well. And so a better management of waste water is desirable. He also pointed out that in some communities (for example in the Calcutta wetlands) waste water is not considered as a pollutant but as a resource. Nutrients present in waste water are used in fisheries and agriculture. Fish feed on the algae that pick up these nutrients. Some info on the Calcutta wet land integrated waste-water recovery.

Somehow I feel that this might work in a small community, but not necessarily in a larger one. I feel that if people do not need to pay for the water, they will waste it- at least that’s what happens in Western societies. Maybe there is the need for both- privatization to some extent combined with local action. No?

After all this water talk, I am completing my stay in Delhi by visiting the Toilet museum!! Definitely the only one of its kind in the World! ... and then I will head to Australia for a short visit of 2 weeks!!

Small World!

2006-02-07T19:34:00.000+01:00

After I left Kannauj, I came back to Delhi, where I was supposed to stay for one day, before heading north, once again, to Dehra Dun. In Dehra Dun, I was in touch with an institute that had agreed to let me their laboratory, so that I could analyze some of the essential oil samples I had collected during my voyage in India. To make a long story short, I wish they had told me from the beginning that it was actually not possible given my timing, because I ended up waiting in Delhi, calling them over and over again, waiting for their authorization, which after a week, ended up being no. So I stayed in Delhi a lot longer than what I had initially planned. But it allowed me to type up my report on India, which took quite a while, because a LOT happened in 4 months here!

In Delhi, I stayed with Jai and Siri, a young couple working at the US embassy. I randomly met them in an internet cafe in early November when I was still in Kerala. they had come to the internet place to call one of Jai’s family close friend- Xan’s (a close friend from Wellesley who is from Kerala) father!!! That was the first (insane!) coincidence, the second being that Siri also graduated from Wellesley, 6 years ago! Small world!! It was a lot of fun staying with them, in their comfy apartment after having stayed in so many filthy and lonely guesthouses all over India, and to eat some non-spicy Western-type food (my stomach was happy). They also have a very cute dog. Mmmh... actually Cassie (the dog) is a crazy handicapped dog – she still manages to be cute though, at times. They found her just after she had been hit by a car, she could not move at all as she only had one good leg (2 were broken from the accident, and the 3rd one is too short by birth defect) That’s why they called her Cassie (from the French “Cassé”, which means broken). Although she has this shorter leg, she is so muscular and can jump around just like a cat!!! At times, who know what goes through her head, but she starts running back and forth on the couch, putting all the cushions on the floor, then when the phone rings, she howls like a wolf until someone picks it up... I’m not sure if she loves me or if she is really afraid of me- every time I come in she starts jumping on me wanting me to pet her... but then, when I’m alone in the house with her and I approach her, she lowers her ears, as if she were submitting, then she starts backing up, wiggling her tail from left to right more and more rapidly, and when I start petting her, she urinates... So I’m not sure what dog psychologist have to say about this- I’d be curious to know!

Here are some other pictures from Delhi:

The Qutb Minar, a red-sandstone muezzin completed in the 13th century is about 72 meters high and ornated with Arabic inscriptions. Like Humayun's tomb, it is also on UNESCO's World Heritage list. It was built to celebrate the victory of Mohammed Ghori over the Rajputs in 1192.

Details of the Qutb Minar

In the Qutb Minar complex, there is also the Quwwat-ul-Islam Mosque, which is the earliest extant mosque in North India. The pillars have actually been taken from 27 Hindu and Jain temples that had been destroyed by Qutbu'd-Din Aibak.

Also in the complex, Ala ‘i- Darwaza was built in the 14th century as a gateway to the Mosque.

Kannauj: Perfume capital of India

2006-02-06T07:13:00.000+01:00

Shri Munshi, a poet and former governor of Uttar Pradesh once wrote:

“If you want to visit a pefumery town, visit Kannauj. It is art, it is culture and it is heritage”- This is exactly how I felt when I visited Kannauj at the end of January.

Traditional distillation units in Kannauj.

Kannauj is to India what Grasse is to France: the country’s perfume capital!!! Grasse has been the center of the perfumery industry in France ever since the 17th century and is now considered the birthplace of modern perfumery, where natural extracts are blended with a myriad of synthetic odoriferous chemical compounds. But in Grasse, the traditional techniques for extracting floral oils, such as enfleurage have been abandoned. Since the beginning of the 20th century, the perfumery industry in Grasse has never ceased to be modernized as fine perfumery was getting more and more popular throughout the World. I visited Grasse two years ago, like thousands of tourists do each year, on a day trip from the beach on the Côte d’Azur, eager to embark on a voyage through odors and maybe to a place where the daily routine of the people would be in unison with the flower picking and the various practices used to harvest the odorant substance from these flowers... But it seemed that the only remnants of this traditional livelihood (an old distillation apparatus and some chassis for the enfleurage technique) had been relegated to a display in the Musée International de la Parfumerie.

And so, when I arrived in Kannauj, famous for its sandalwood-based attar-making industry, it felt like I had undertaken a trip back in time- I had finally found what I had been looking for when going to Grasse!!! There, the attars are still made exactly like they were a few centuries ago, with the same equipment!

A worker is squeezing vetiver oil (Khus Ruh) out of a mop.

At every street corner, it seemed, there was a sandalwood oil distillery, and so as I was walking through the city, my sense of smelling was awakened by the sweet and woody odor of sandalwood. Every morning, I was amazed to see a group of few men bathing in the water, still charged with fragrant molecules, that the distillery disposed of in the streets. Indeed, in Kannauj it is well known that sandalwood oil is an excellent antiseptic, and so bathing in this water ensures to keep away from skin diseases!!!

Kannauj, located near the confluence of the Ganges and Kali river is thought to be right on the routes that brought perfumes, spices, metals, silks and gems from India and China to the Middle East. It reached the climax of its glory during the 7th century AD when it was the capital of the empire led by Harsha Vardhan. It is during this period that Kannauj started to play an important role in Indian perfumery. Later, the perfumers of Kannauj provided the Mogul emperors with scented oils.

Perfumers in Kannauj are famous for making sandalwood-based attars. An attar is the essence of a flower (of a root, or even earth) that is captured in 100% sandalwood oil. Sandalwood oil is used as a base material because it has a strong fixative property and can keep the floral essence over a long period of time. Attar making is a type of hydrodistillation, where the plant material is placed in water in a copper still (Deeg). The still is covered by a copper lid (Sarpos) which is sealed to the Deeg with a mixture of cotton and clay. A bamboo pipe (Chonga) insulated with twine connects the still to a receiver which is placed in a cold water bath.

A few Deegs with the bamboo pipe leading to the receiver placed in a cold water bath.

In one of the factories, a worker is preparing for the next distillation, putting the bamboo pipe in the receiver

The plant material is placed in water in the Deeg. The still sits on a fire and upon heating, the odoriferous molecules from the plant material vaporize along with the water. The fragrant oil and the water condense in the receiver where the oil is trapped in the sandalwood oil as the condensed water sinks to the bottom of the receiver as it is denser than the sandalwood and the floral oil.

Under the Deeg, firewood is used to heat the water and the plant material.

Once the distillation is over, the odoriferous oil trapped in the sandalwood oil is placed in the sun in a leather bottle. The bottles used to be made out of camel skin, now they are made out of buffalo skin. And so the water is being evaporated through the buffalo skin.

One of the leather bottles where residual water is dried from the final product.

I visited many attar and sandalwood oil factories. The smell of these attars is very strong and can be associated to a heavy oriental perfume. But it is subtle at the same time, as behind the rose or the jasmine odor, one can sense the sweet and woody note from the sandalwood. A very special attar is Attar Mitti. Instead of distilling plant material such as vetiver roots, rose or jasmine flowers, half-baked clay is being distilled. The clay is first collected in neighboring villages, where little clay cakes are made, they are then dried then baked and placed in the Deeg. The odor is a very sweet mixture where the woody and oriental note of the sandalwood is complemented by an earthly smell. Many inhabitants of Kannauj like this smell because it reminds them of the smell of wet earth after the monsoon.

Cakes of clay are dried in a neighboring village.

Originally, attars were used as such on the skin. The Moghuls were especially fan of the Gulab attar (Rose attar). Nowadays, however, since sandalwood oil is edible, they are mostly used in the flavouring of chewing tobacco. To be honest I thought it was quite a pitty that such fine perfumes are used for the chewing tobacco industry. But let's face it, anyone who's been to India has realized that this is a HUGE industry (all the shop stands in the streets have garlands of small alu packs of chewing tobacco) and that people are more willing to spend their income on these small packs than on a perfume.

With the shortage of sandalwood trees in South India, the attar industry in Kannauj is seriously being threatened. The perfumers of Kannauj have sought to find alternatives to sandalwood oil as their base material. Many have found that liquid paraffin may also be used successfully as a base material- unfortunately, the attars now lack this full and round woody/sweet and milky note given by the sandalwood.

Some References:
Dr. Agnihotri, G.K. Perfume history.
Gode, P.K. (1961) Studies in Indian Cultural History, Vol. I, Hoshiarpur.
Kapoor, J. N. (1991) Attars of India- A Unique Aroma Perfumer and Flavorist, 21-24

Delhi: first steps in India

2006-01-23T13:48:00.000+01:00

Ever since my arrival in India (about 3 months ago), I have never ceased to be mesmerized by this country; the people, the culture, the spirituality, the food…
My first impressions of India were based on my experience in Delhi. I stayed there a few days, waiting to find a cheap flight to Cochin. Right away I experienced the amazing hospitality of the people here, which I continue to be spoiled with these days. During the flight from Hong Kong to Delhi, I started speaking with my neighbor, a businessman from Delhi, hopping from one place to the next, barely having the time to take a breath between two business conferences. As I was planning to spend the night in the domestic airport to catch an early flight the next morning to Cochin, he kindly offered that his driver drop me off there. On the way, we stopped at the businessman’s home, where I was kindly invited in for tchai (this delicious sweet milk-tea that you can find at every street corner throughout India), - at 11pm!!! Knowing that I would spend the night at the airport, the businessman’s wife insisted that I stay at their house for the night… that’s when I started realizing that traveling alone as a woman may be difficult and dangerous at times, but in the end there is always someone who offers you hospitality- or maybe, it is just how it is here, offering hospitality to a traveler.

The next morning, as I traveled to Paharganj, a bazaar close to Old Delhi, I was able to notice the craze of the city, the few tourists strolling around, the busy merchants carrying heavy loads of rice or wheat on their heads, and the cycle rikshaw feverishly ringing their horn as they pass by almost bumping into me. Here it's not like in the US where the cars somewhat respectfully yield to the passers-by, but it seems that the cars, or the rikshaws almost want to hit the people on purpose- it takes some serious skill to cross the road. It's the same in China, actually.... and one of my first thoughts as I was leaving the airport was that there isn't a lot of difference between the driving in China and the driving here in India, even though people are supposed to drive on different sides, in the end, everyone ends up in the middle of the road!

Busy Chandni Chowk in Delhi

A first walk in the streets of a city like Delhi (or any big city in India as I found out later on) is quite the experience. In addition to the beeping cycle and auto rikshaws, I was amused by the cows silently chewing on some plastic bag, I was overwhelmed by all the smells- the burnt oil odor of fried samosas, the cardamom of warm badam milk, as well as the toilet odor due to all the urinating in the streets... and the beautiful sarees of the women with their shining bangles and golden nose rings really dazzled me. And in the midst of all of this, I always had to fend off some persistent guy asking: "Rikshaw, madam?" Delhi is filled with bazaars such as the Chandni Chowk bazaar where shops of cloths line the streets, Dilli Haat, or Sarojini nagar. There's also a ton of monuments left by the British or by the Mughals...

Humayun's Tomb

On the steps outside the mosque- Jama Masjid

Rashtrapati Bhavan built under the British

China: the end and thoughts

2006-01-23T12:31:00.000+01:00

I left Xishuangbanna just before the Chinese National Day on October 1st. This time of year is supposed to be hell for any travels within the country and so I decided not to go to Beijing, some 5,000km from where I was, as I had originally planned. I went back to Kunming, bid farewell to the people who had helped me get all the contacts for geranium, citronella and eucalyptus oil and hopped on another 26hour train journey to Guangzhou. In Kunming, I did take the time to explore the surrounding hills, but everywhere was packed with tourists coming from other parts of China. In the hostel, I celebrated the Jewish New Year with the many Israelis that were in Kunming for the 3rd of October. Eventhough I am not Jewish, a few of them insisted that I celebrate the dinner of Rosh Hashannah with them and be “Jewish for a day”. And so, in a relaxed, friendly and spiritual atmosphere, I learned about the symbolism of the pomegrenate, the apple with honey, the sweet bread, the dates…

Rosh Hashannah celebrated in the hostel in Kunming.

And then, I was back in Hong Kong, this city that I thought was daunting and overwhelming two months earlier now revealed its secrets and I very much enjoyed the week I spent there while waiting for my Indian visa to be issued. I explored the more laid-back atmosphere of the New Territories, the cafes filled with expats working in business, finance or consulting in Central, the magic of the lanterns in Kowloon Park while taking a dive at the public pool…

A Buddhist temple in the New Territories.

And to anyone going to Hong Kong, I highly recommend spending a few hours at the Hong Kong Museum of History, which presents a complete history of the area, from the evolution of the geological features, the invasion of the British, the culture of the indigeneous fishermen, to the handing-over back to China and the completion of the new airport in Chep Lak Kok a few years ago.

So now is the time to share my impressions on China. Earlier, I described Hong Kong as a city of contrasts- the meeting point of two cultures. Well, I think this description can be extended to the whole of China (well to the small glimpse I had of the country, in the three provinces of Guangdong, Guanxi and Yunnan). The difference is maybe that in Hong Kong the westerners who have lived there for many generations are “sinofied”, where as in mainland China, the Chinese are westernized and long for this Western culture. All the cities, big and small, Zhuhai, Guilin, Kunming, Jinghong, look like any newly-built western city. Unfortunately in cities like Kunming, the charming old houses have been replaced by square, impersonal, concrete buildings. And then, in the countryside, while the teenagers in the city look for the new Nokia model, the laborers in the rice field still plow the land with their cows. Throughout my stay, I was always feeling that the society is trying to catch up with the very rapid economic boost. In the villages, the people have ditched thair traditional clothing for the western-style clothing- such a shame!! they take out their traditional dresses only to please the tourists- it used to annoy me so much! But then, completely out of the blue, I would run into a few retired men and women, who, to spend their time on sundays would meet in the neighborhood's park and put on a Chinese opera show. The following picture was taken in a small park in Kunming- a few people gathered and spend one hour putting their make up on before starting to perform!!!

Chinese Opera in a park in Kunming

This first trip to China left me with a mixed impression. The country houses some of the most beautiful landscapes I have seen in my life, but unfortunately, it still bears the marks of the Cultural Revolution as many heritage sites have been destroyed. Sometimes I felt that the people also beared these marks as they are trying to escape from their culture by adopting more of the Western culture. I may be wrong, though, because in fact it was quite difficult to really interact with the local population- language being the biggest barrier! One thing is sure, I will definitely go back to explore the more autonomous provinces of Tibet and Xinjiang.

The Story of the "Ylang-ylang Village"

2005-10-11T09:37:00.000+02:00

A few days before I left Xishuangbanna, I visited a village close to Jinghong where up until last year ylang-ylang essential oil was produced. I'm writing about this visit because the story of this village is an extremely good example of the completely unsustainable management of a project involving essential oils that was initially meant for the development of the local economy. On all three aspects of sustainability- social, economic and ecological- the ylang ylang oil business just outside of Jinghong proved a complete failure.

Ten years ago an entrepreneur arrives in Jinghong and decides to plant around 50 hectares of ylang ylang trees. The climate is ideal for growing ylang ylang, the world market demand for ylang oil is very high, so this business promises to be very prosperous. So in 1995, the trees from the rainforest on a few hills around Jinghong are cut down. Thirty six families (who anyway had lost their land) are displaced from the Simao prefecture (another prefecture in Xishuangbanna, about 8 hour-drive from Xishuangbanna, where labor costs are much lower than in Xishuangbanna). These families are placed in a newly constructed village at the foot of the hills where ylang trees are to be planted. This is the village I visited. That's why it is called "ylang-ylang village," because before the start of the production, no village existed in this area.

Everything in the village was built towards the production of the ylang ylang oil: the distillery, close to an attic where the freshly picked flowers could be placed while waiting to be distilled.

To plant the trees, harvest the flowers and then distill them, the farmers were paid around 300 yuan a month. As soon as the trees were tall enough for the flowers to be harvested and the oil to be produced (around four years ago), the entrepreneur stopped to pay them. He was facing financial difficulties as, even though the oil was of good quality, none of the international fragrance houses wanted to buy it. As a result, he could not pay back his loan to the bank. Soon, the land was sold to another entrepreneur. The farmers that had first been displaced, and who then planted the ylang trees had to cut them down. These farmers had nowhere to go, no means of subsistence and were left to the mercy of the first entrepreneur that came up.

Where the rudimentary distills used to be.

This time, the entrepreneur wanted to plant rubber trees. So the hill just outside of Jinghong, which was once covered with a lush rainforest is now covered with rubber tree seedlings.... The industry might go on for another 30 maybe 40 years, after which, the entrepreneur may face the same problems the ylang entrepreneur faced. And once again, the farmers may have to cut down the rubber trees and probably leave the "ylang soon to become rubber village" because the soil will have been completely depleted of its nutrients from the rubber tree monoculture.

The new entrepreneur with the leader of the village planning the new rubber plantation.

Rubber tree seedlings in a corn field, where the ylang ylang trees once stood.

Rubber Tree Plantations in Xishuangbanna

2005-10-10T12:33:00.000+02:00

As soon as I left Da Sha Ba, Yinshi Qi and Wu Kai, I hopped on a bus towards Jinghong- the capital of the Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture. Xishuangbanna shares borders with Laos and Burma and his home to 27 ethnic minorities including the Dai, the Hakka, the Hani, the Bulan. Because of its unique location at the meeting point of temperate and tropical climates, Xishuangbanna has an extremely diverse flora and fauna. After being in the mountains close to Tibet, Xishuangbanna felt so irreal with its heat, humidity and tropical forest.

The forest in Xishuangbanna

A Bulan village at dawn

Drying rubber seeds and rice in a Dai village.

In Jinghong I visited the Tianzi Biodiversity Research and Development Center lead by a German ecologist, Josef. Josef runs the center with his Chinese wife, Minguo. I initially contacted them because their website mentioned that they were making essential oils from plants native to Xishuangbanna. In fact the essential oils are just a small part of their research. But on a Friday morning, I show up at the Center, which turned out to be Josef and Minguo's home. We chatted for a while about their research and about my project. This conversation went pretty well as later this afternoon, they offered me to take my stuff from the hostel in Jinghong so that I could stay with them for a while. During my stay with them, I learned a lot, mainly about the rubber industry and its negative effects on the tropical forest in Xishuangbanna but also about sustainable agriculture. I took the opportunity to question my project and in the end decided to slightly change its directive line.

Life in the Chinese countryside is tough. Now that people need cash money to buy clothes and other commodities, farmers can no longer rely on a subsistence-style of farming, where farmers could survive solely from the crops they grew. To address this problem, the government provided the farmers with a very attractive solution: rubber. Once the rubber is planted, the sap can be collected once the trees are 7 years old and every year for 30-40 years. We calculated that every year, depending on the size of the farmer's allocated land, the rubber harvest represents an income of over 1,000 Euros and may reach 3,000 Euros. This is a lot and up until now is the most lucrative source of income for the farmers in Xishuangbanna.

A house in the rice fields

A teenager collecting the rubber sap

However, rubber poses a number of ecological problems. In order to plant the seedlings, thousands of hectares of rainforest are decimated and replaced by monocultures of rubber trees. Furthermore, rubber sap is toxic for a number of insects and plants, and so the rubber plantations are a serious threat to the biodiversity of the Xishuangbanna rainforest. So the researcher's idea is to find new economic uses for native species: using banana flowers as ornamental plants or selling essential oils of rare plant species... Then the production of a variety of plants could potentially be as lucrative as rubber, and a mini forest composed of these diverse species could replace the monocultures, hence increasing the biodiversity.

The forest (right upper corner) is threatened by deforestation

During my stay with Josef and Minguo, we went on many trips to the forest, smelling different plants. We tried to distill the leaves of a very peculiar ginger- but the yield was extremely low.... We also visited local villages that had been producing ylang ylang oil, the botanical garden, the tropical plants institute...

The distillation apparatus we built from what we could find to extract the oil from the rare ginger species

I ended up staying with Josef and Minguo much longer than what I had originally planned. It was hard to leave this homely and conducive-to-learning environment... but I have to move on, and so I left, a few days before the Chinese National Day, October 1st.

A collection of pictures from the forest:

We took the picture VERY quietly...

What I call a "bubble gum" caterpillar.

Another weird guy.

I almost walked in its web... ahhh...

A rare orchid species. Josef, who collects them to cross them, was in heaven.

A very fragrant flower from Josef and Minguo's tropical garden.

A banana flower from the Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden.

Da Sha Ba: Citronella Distilleries Taking a Break

2005-10-10T05:21:00.000+02:00

It's been a long long time since I last updated the blog and so, as you can imagine, a LOT has happened since then. I am now in Hong Kong, waiting for my Indian visa. This means that my adventure in China has come to an end. I can't believe it!! time is really flying by!

More than a month ago, after spending a few days in Kunming, I left for DaShaBa, accompanied by Wu Kai, an entomology Masters student at the Yunnan Agricultural University who had accepted to be my interpretor. We reached DaShaBa after a 4 hours bumpy bus ride from the city of Mojiang, known as the capital of tea in Yunnan. DaShaBa is a small village (not more than 1,000 families) perched on the hillside next to the Black river which flows down to Vietnam. My main interest in visiting DaShaBa was to observe and participate in the production of citronella essential oil. I was expecting to arrive in a village surrounded by rice paddies and occasional distillation units placed in the middle of citronella fields as in Binchuan where the geranium essential oil was produced. So I was surprised when the bus dropped us off somewhere along the dirt road on a hillside covered with trees. On each side of the road, there were small concrete houses with tin roofs, but absolutely nothing around the houses resembled a rice paddy or a citronella field. On the contrary, it seemed that the houses had been crammed on the hillside, in an area that I could guess had earlier been covered by jungle. Later, as I was strolling around the village, I realized that trees that were now covering the hillside were no longer strangler fig trees or giant oaks but they were all rubber trees.

What I thought would be an active stay in DaShaBa, helping the farmers with the citronella harvest turned into a two-day observation of the villagers' seemingly laid back life. Around DaShaBa, the citronella gives an extremely good oil, but it is in direct competition with the rubber harvest, which is far more lucrative. When the international market price of citronella oil is below 60 Yuan/ kg, the farmers prefer to concentrate all their efforts on the collection of rubber. And so, when I visited DaShaBa, the few distillation units in the mountain were inactive.

Yinshi Qi, the head of the family that hosted me, holds a small convenience store in DaShaBa. He also buys citronella and anise seed essential oil from the farmers of DaShaBa and of the neighbouring villages. Hence, when he is not travelling back to Kunming to sell the oils to a larger company that refine them and then trade them with international customers, he spends his day in his shop (a room in his house, just in front of the kitchen) waiting for the occasional customer to buy a pack of cigarette or a pound of noodles. So he ends up playing Chinese chess all day in front of his shop. His wife, apart from doing house chores, spends time on the front porch chatting with the other women of the village, nibbling on sunflower seeds or watching the latest Chinese soap opera featuring love and of course martial arts. The store and the oil trade brings the family enough revenue to have plenty of food and to send the children to school. It seems that Yinshi Qi and his wife's only ambition is that their children do well in school. The children are under a lot of pressure because competition to attend university in China is fierce, and Yinshi Qi realized that the only way to secure a future is by attending university.

Eventhough my stay in Da Sha Ba was completely different than what I had imagined, it was extremely enriching. It gave me a better idea of the different layers in the Chinese society. I was also able to "talk" about Chinese politics with a veteran of the Vietnam war who is now a member of the Chinese Communist Party. To "answer" my questions, he kept on telling me how great France is, because for him, France is synonymous with "beginning of Communism". I guess he is referring to the events of the Commune in Paris in 1871.

The day before I left Da Sha Ba, I was excited to go to the rubber tree plantation to see more closely how fresh and unprocessed natural rubber looks. At that time, I didn't realize that these neatly arranged rows of rubber trees that seemed to blend in so well with the landscape, are actually one of South-East Asia's most important environmental threat.

Mount Kawa Karpo, a holy mountain at the entrance of Tibet

2005-08-31T06:35:00.000+02:00

This past week has been absolutely amazing, thanks to the very unique encounters I have made along the way. After a tiring two day trek in the "Tiger Leaping Gorge," I stayed in Lijiang for a couple of days in order to plan out the rest of my farm visits. Instead of directly going back to Kunming to continue my investigation on eucalyptus and citronella oil, I decided to go North from Lijiang, to the start of the Tibetan world.

Hence, I hopped on a bus from Lijiang to Zhongdian, where I was lucky to meet an English guy who spoke perfect Chinese. Zhongdian is a small city marking the beginning of the Tibetan world. It is surrounded by treeless hills, where sheep and yaks graze freely in the middle of large white Tibetan houses, which are so welcoming with their colorfully decorated wooden doors. The dark and cloudy sky that seems so close to the ground as well as these endless fields bear the marks of a region regularly sweeped by cold waves. In the streets, most of the women wear traditional clothes, the most impressive part being their hair-do. They roll up their braided hair around a very pink hat... I'm always amazed by these women, working in the fields, carrying weights twice as heavy as them and then at night, dancing with all their energy to Tibetan tunes on the main square of the old city. During these dances, the normally quiet and empty square fills up with people, both men and women who follow each other in circles, hopping from one leg to the other. Some moves actually reminded some of Greek dancing, or it may just be the very friendly atmosphere.

From Zhongdian we explored the biggest Tibetan monastery in the Yunnan province. This monastery looks a miniature version of the Potala palace in Lhassa. It houses about 780 monks, who may enter from the age of 5-6. As we were strolling through the many rooms of the monastery, observing Buddhist paintings representing the Buddha or Buddhist hell with a myriad of colors, we bumped into the chief monk who kindly invited us into his abode. There he offered us some tea and cheese- you all know how much I love cheese and especially stinky cheese, but this one was just pure fermented bacteria and was almost inedible.

The best part of my expedition to the North-western part of Yunnan came about during the following two days. We left Zhongdian to go to Deqin, the last city in Yunnan before entering the political border of Tibet. Zhongdian and Deqin are located in this county called Shangri-la, where the majority of the population is ethnically and culturally Tibetan. On the way to Deqin, we stopped in this little village, Benzilan, lost in the middle of very dry hills covered with cacti. It was surprisingly warm in Benzilan, maybe the region has a microclimate of its own. Anyway, at times I had the impression of being in a hilly Arizona. When we arrived in Deqin, we were a bit disappointed, it was just another Chinese city. Ok, this time it was a small Chinese city (which is quite rare, at least for European city standards)- but it was a city nevertheless, busy, crazy cars, people spitting everywhere. At least it was cold, very cold and I had to wear my fleece to keep warm.

We left the city as soon as we arrived, and headed south, where we stopped 10km later, close to another monastery, but most importantly at a place where we could have a breathtaking view of the Kawa Karpo, a holy mountain that reaches heights of more than 6 000 meters. In Tibetan Buddhism, Kawa Karpo is sacred, not only because lamas used to pray and meditate in front of it, but also because to this day, no one has ever been able to reach its summit. During the last attempt, the 17 courageous climbers were killed in an avalanche, only 200 m from the top. The mysterious part is that most of the bodies haven't been recovered, and some of them have been found on the other side of the moutain...

So we sat there all afternoon, waiting for the clouds to unveil the peak of the mountain covered in snow. Apparently, in the past weeks, people had rarely been able to see the summit as the clouds always hung around it. When we arrived we could already distinguish some glaciers through the clouds... we waited and waited... and little by little the clouds moved and let us see larger parts of the mountain.

While we were waiting, we met three Tibetan pilgrims. I was quite lucky to be with Tom (the English guy who spoke Chinese) because without him I would have never been able to interact with them. Originally from Western Sichuan, the three brothers had been walking for the past 4 years on a pilgrimage to Lhassa. They walked, carrying their tent and covers and pulling their mother in a poorly made wooden cart. They had arrived in Deqin a couple of months earlier. There they started to walk around the base of the holy mountain Kawa Karpo. They went around the mountain twice, which apparently took them two months. Later, when the clouds revealed the summit of the mountain, I realized that they had been crawling (not walking) around the mountain twice. As soon as we were able to distinguish the peak, the three brothers started to bow and lie in front of the mountain, just as they did when going around it.

Later that night, they invited us in their tent for a cup of tea. We asked them to write down their names for us first in Chinese script and then in Tibetan. They had great pain to write in the Tibetan script. It is such a shame, and I suppose this is what happens with most minorities. Their culture is that of Tibet, they speak Tibetan at home, but at school, they only learn Chinese script... I'm not sure what role the government plays in that, but if it does then it's probably not in favor of the Tibetan culture. When we left, they gave us a prayer bracelet, one that they had kept with them during the past 4 years. I felt so inappropriate- for sure I don't deserve this gift of huge sentimental value. I was completely blown away by their devotion and their will power. Soon they will go back to Sichuan where they will work in the fields with their father.

I'm now back in Kunming- and leaving tomorrow to a small village lost in the Southern part of Yunnan, in the Xishuangbanna county. There I will work on a citronella farm for a couple of days and then visit a tropical plant research institute. At this institute, they study the potential of producing essential oils from rare tropical plants, which apparently will disappear if they are not made useful.

Geranium fields and medieval cities.

2005-08-23T06:34:00.000+02:00

It's been such a long time since I wrote my first entry, and so now, as it is drizzling outside, is a nice time to update you about my adventures in China, where every time I cross the road or hop on a bus seems to be the last, where I have tremendously improved my hand-speaking and drawing skills, and where I always need to be on the look out not to step in someone's spit on the floor.

I very happily left the craziness of Hong Kong for mainland China where I visited the leading company in essential oil exports in China. I went there on a saturday, when David, the person I had contacted over email, had time to show me around. David is in charge of all foreign trade, and so he was not able to explain to me in grand detail the actual plant design. The most interesting part of the visit was when he told me about the history of the company and how it was affected by the Opening-up policy of 1979, when China took a first step towards a more capitalist system. The company is located in the Guangdong province, which many refer to as the "factory of the world" as it is where many "Made in China" goods are produced. It is a booming province, which welcomes many young Chinese graduates who need a job. That's why most companies are equipped with dormitories where the young workers can stay as they are so far away from home. After the visit of the factory, I was eager to go further upstream, to the fields where the peasants produce the crude oil that is then refined by companies like the one close to Hong Kong. So I headed towards Yunnan, a province in the South-West of China that shares borders with Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam. There they produce most of the Chinese geranium, eucalyptus and citronella oils.

Since the train journey from Guangdong was going to last 2 days, I decided to stop on the way in Yangshuo, a small village in the Guangxi province, lost in the middle of limestone karsts. To get there, I got on a 12-hour bus ride, and so I was pleasantly surprised when I found out that the bus had beds. I was almost as tall as the bed, and so I thought how miserable Xan and Rory would have been on this journey.

In Yangshuo, the landscape was absolutely breathtaking. It looked exactly like the hilly landscapes of Chinese painting scrolls. I stayed there for a few days, while waiting for seats to free up on the train to Kunming, the capital of Yunnan. In the meantime, I tried rock climbing- it was quite hard, especially under the 35 degrees C sun... but I thought of you Fanny, and you really would have been in heaven here with all the rock-climbing opportunities. Yangshuo was an interesting place, a highly touristic place where both Chinese and Western tourists mingle. Hence, in the past 4-5 years, the local population has rapidly adapted to the tourist industry. I was constantly harrassed by people who wanted me to follow them to their guesthouses, or older women trying to sell their bottled water.

After a 24 hours train journey, I was happy to arrive in Kunming, where the temperature was about 10 degrees lower than what it had been in Guangxi, Guangdong and Hong Kong. Yunnan is a very interesting province, as it is home to 28 minorities including the Bai, the Dai, the Naxi, the Yi, each with their own religion, language, and food. Yunnan was always considered by the Chinese dynasties as a far-away province in which they did not take much interest. So Yunnan was always very independent from the rest of China. In Kunming, one can see the Muslim heritage from the Mongol invasion, and apparently down South in the Xishuangbanna region, language and tradition are very close to the Thai culture.

The day after my arrival in Kunming, I met a woman who is in charge of a geranium distillery in the fields surrounding the medieval city of Dali, home of the Bai minority. She took me to her house, lost in the tobacco, geranium, corn, rice and orange fields . It was so nice to go through the fields, and here and there smell glimpses of a sweet and bitter odor, the freshly distilled geranium oil. It is too bad I had not thought of bringing a small vial where I could have taken a small sample of the oil- for sure I ll think about it for later. There I visited the distillery and was able to ask many questions thanks to her cousin, an English teacher who nonetheless did not know how to speak English very well. This was the first time during my trip in China that I really sensed the language barrier. Eventhough I had an "English translator" I could not communicate directly with the farmer and this was a huge handicap, especially when asking more technical questions.

I was hoping to stay there for a few days and work with the farmers on the field and in the distillery, but when I asked if this was possible, the only answer I obtained was general laughter. They didn't see the point for me to do this, it would be too complicated and how would I know what to do since I do not speak Chinese. I persisted thinking this would maybe be my only chance to work with geranium oil in China, but abandonned as I sensed I was annoying them. Needless to say, I was really disappointed. I guess this is part of the experience. So I left Dali and while I was in the North-West of Yunnan, I decided to go more North, closer to the Tibetan border.
I am now in Lijiang, an old town which is now on UNESCO's World Heritage list, with small houses and their pointy slate roofs, paved streets passing by food vendors proposing dog meat (no I haven't tasted it yet, but soon...), fried caterpillars or "baba" the local type of pancake. It is home to the Naxi minority group, which is extremely interesting as it based on a matrimonial system.
I just came back from a two day breathtaking trek, along the Tiger Leaping Gorge. We hiked up very steep hills in the mountains surrounding the Yang Zi river, which starts in Yunnan and ends 6 000 km away in Shanghai.

I'm staying here for a couple of days, trying to see if other geranium farmers would agree that I work with them, and then I'll head back to Kunming from where I should visit eucalyptus and citronella fields.

Hong Kong

2005-08-05T07:07:00.000+02:00

So that's it! This year of travelling around the World following the trails of essential oils, this year I have dreamed of and thought so much about has finally started. On July 31st, I hopped on the plane to Hong Kong and arrived in this bustling city 12 hours later.Hong Kong is divided into 4 main areas, the New Territories from which you can access China by land, the Kowloon peninsula south of the New Territories, Hong Kong Island, the island south of Kowloon and the Outlying Islands including Lantau Island where the new International airport is located. On my way from the airport to the city center, I was able to admire the islands covered in a lush vegetation which was replaced by clusters of tall and thin buildings as I got closer to the center.I got off the bus in Mong Kok, the most densely populated neighborhood (120,000 inhabitants per square km) of Kowloon. I was overwhelmed by the never-ending flow of people, the incessant sounds of the red lights telling the people when to cross the streets, by the numerous shops packed with cell phones, digital cameras or with beauty products.

My first impression was similar to the one I had when I first arrived in New York, oppressed by the tall buildings around preventing me from seeing any bit of the horizon. But here in Hong Kong this feeling of entrapment is enhanced by the neon signs in Chinese characters, which crowd the potential free space above the streets and which make Mong Kok at night seem as bright as during the day. The hot and humid weather that makes breathing difficult doesn't help either.

After this rather unpleasant first encounter with Hong Kong, I reconciled with the city as I ventured to the Central district (the financial district) on Hong Kong Island. It's not that I prefer streets lined with expensive shops, filled with men in suits and topped by 30-40 storeys glass buildings, but it gave me some perspective and made Hong Kong seem so much more interesting than simply a city of outrageous consumerism (I have never seen such a high density of malls in a given city before).

Hong Kong is a city of contrasts, a city where different worlds evolve parallel to each other. These worlds are materialized by the subway stations, cleaner than some of the buildings where I've visited a few hostels; by the busy businessman on Hong Kong Island not far away from Aberdeen where a few fisherman families have settled their homes on boats; or by the teenager feeverishly seeking the latest Nokia or Motorola model in one of the many malls entirely devoted to cell phones in Mong Kok, not far away from Kowloon park where some people regularly practice Tai Chi. I was told that in the New Territories, the city doesn't seem to be as much of a "consumers' heaven." It supposedly hides some beaches and many hiking trails. I'm sure Hong Kong still has many secrets to unveil, but for this, I will have to stay a much longer period of time.

This stay in Hong Kong has been a good transition between home and China because the culture here is Chinese, but with a heavy influence from the West. Also, many people speak English as many only speak Cantonese, which gives me a first taste of what I will be faced with in China where almost no one speaks English. Also, I've met quite a few travellers who gave me a number of tips for travelling in China.

I am leaving tomorrow for Zhuhai in China where I will meet with one of the leading producers of essential oils in China, but I will be back to Hong Kong when I leave for India.

Itinerary

2005-08-02T14:05:00.000+02:00

There were some changes in my itinerary, so I'm posting it here once again so you have an idea where I am on the globe:
August 1st- October 13, 2005: China
October 13 - January 31, 2006: India
January 31- February 26: Australia
February 26-March 31: New Caledonia
March 31- May 1st: South Africa
May 1st-July 1st: Madagascar/Comoros
July 1st- August 1st: Egypt