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      A Fortune-Teller Told Me

      Earthbound Travels in the Far East

      Tiziano Terzani

       For Angela, always

      Table of Contents

       Cover Page

       Title Page

       CHAPTER EIGHT Against AIDS? Raw Garlic and Red Peppers

       CHAPTER NINE The Rainbow Gone Mad

       CHAPTER TEN Sores Under the Veil

       CHAPTER ELEVEN The Murmurs of Malacca

       CHAPTER TWELVE An Air-Conditioned Island

       CHAPTER THIRTEEN A Voice from Two Thousand Years Ago

       CHAPTER FOURTEEN Never Against the Sun

       CHAPTER FIFTEEN The Missionary and the Magician

       CHAPTER SIXTEEN Hurray for Ships!

       CHAPTER SEVENTEEN The Nagarose

       CHAPTER EIGHTEEN Buddha’s Eyelash

       CHAPTER NINETEEN The Destiny of Dogs

       CHAPTER TWENTY A Ship in the Desert

       CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE With my Friend the Ghost

       CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO The Peddlers of the Trans-Siberian Railway

       CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE Better than Working in a Bank

       CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR The Rhymeless Astrologer

       CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE TV for the Headhunters

       CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX New Year’s Eve with the Devil

       CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN The Spy who Meditates

       EPILOGUE And Now What?

       Index

       About the Author

       By the Same Author

       Copyright

       About the Publisher

       CHAPTER ONE A Blessed Curse

      Life is full of opportunities. The problem is to recognize them when they present themselves, and that isn’t always easy. Mine, for instance, had all the marks of a curse: ‘Beware! You run a grave risk of dying in 1993 – You mustn’t fly that year. Don’t fly, not even once,’ a fortune-teller told me.

      It happened in Hong Kong. I had come across that old Chinese man by sheer chance. When I heard his dire words I was momentarily taken aback, but not deeply disturbed. It was the spring of 1976, and 1993 seemed a long way off. I did not forget the date, however; it lingered at the back of my mind, rather like an appointment one hasn’t yet decided whether to keep or not.

      1977…1987…1990…1991. Sixteen years seem an eternity, especially when viewed from the perspective of Day One. But, like all our years (except those of adolescence), they passed very quickly, and in no time at all I found myself at the end of 1992. Well, then, what was I to do? Take that old Chinese man’s warning seriously and reorganize my life? Or pretend it had never happened and carry on regardless, telling myself, ‘To hell with fortune-tellers and all their rubbish’?

      By that time I had been living in Asia solidly for over twenty years – first in Singapore, then in Hong Kong, Peking, Tokyo, and finally in Bangkok – and I felt that the best way of confronting the prophecy was the Asian one: not to fight against it, but to submit.

      ‘You believe in it, then?’ teased my fellow-journalists – especially the Western ones, the sort of people who are used to demanding a clear-cut yes or no to every question, even to such an ill-framed one as this. But we do not have to believe the weather forecast to carry an umbrella on a cloudy day. Rain is a possibility, the umbrella a precaution. Why tempt fate if fate itself gives you a sign, a hint? When the roulette ball lands on the black three or four times in a row, some gamblers count on statistical probability and bet all their money on the red. Not me: I bet on the black again. Has the ball itself not winked at me?

      And then, the idea of not flying for a whole year was an attraction in itself. A challenge, first and foremost. It really tickled me to pretend an old Chinese in Hong Kong might hold the key to my future. It felt like taking the first step into an unknown world. I was curious to see where more steps in the same direction would lead. If nothing else, they would introduce me, for a while, to a different life from the one I normally led.

      For years I have travelled by plane, my profession taking me to the craziest places on earth, places where wars are being waged, where revolutions break out or terrible disasters occur. Obviously I

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