Tan Wee Cheng - Hot Spots and Dodgy Places

Cover art by Opal Works Co. Limited

Design by Rachel Chen

Copyright 2009 Marshall Cavendish International (Asia) Private Limited
Reprinted 2010

Published by Marshall Cavendish Editions
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National Library Board Singapore Cataloguing in Publication Data

Tan, Wee Cheng.

Hot spots and dodgy places :travels through North Korea, Sudan and distant lands /
by Tan Wee Cheng. Singapore : Marshall Cavendish Editions,c2009.

p. cm.

eISBN-13 : 978 981 261 969 3 (pbk.)

1. Tan, Wee Cheng Travel. 2.Voyages and travels. I. Title.

G465

910.4 dc22 OCN427798416

Printed in Singapore by Craft Print International Ltd

My thanks to my many friends scattered across the world who have assisted and advised me during my journeys; those who had accompanied meE Kelly Cheng, Gary Choa, Kenneth Loh, Tan Eng Teck and Kris YapE in what otherwise could have been lonely ventures to remote parts of the world. Also thank you to those among my friends who have encouraged me not only in my travels, but also helped to turn this book into reality, in particular, Vernon Voon, who spent many tortuous days reviewing and proofreading the book. And to my parents and sister, who have been most worried for my safety and well-being during the past decade or so of my nomadic wanderings. Thank you, everyone!

While the stories in this book are records of my travels and encounters, certain names and circumstances have been modified to preserve the privacy of those concerned.

All preconceived notions and beliefs concerning cosmology, history, politics and society were made ridiculous by the new discoveries. The world had been opened up by the fanatical self-confidence of visionaries, and had proved to be wilder than their wildest fancies. Now kingdoms were to be had for the taking.

EW. Raleigh, The English Voyages of the Sixteenth Century

North Korea, classified as a sponsor of terrorism by the US for most of the last few decades. Seen by the West as a brain-washed state ruled by what the West sees as a reclusive, isolationist dictator who occasionally threatens to nuke all his enemies.

Sudan, seen by many as a religious fundamentalist state ruled by brutal rulers accused of murdering hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians.

In short, North Korea and Sudan are at the pinnacle of global hot spots, the very opposite of nice, gentle Orchard Road in Singapore.

Why would anyone want to go to North Korea and Sudan?

My first foray to a political hot spot began one morning in late May 1995, in Ljubljana, when I got into a train for Zagreb, capital of Croatia. I was still a novice traveller, on my first journey to Eastern Europe. I had begun my journey in Vienna and gone south to Slovenia. My plan was to make my way to Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey, skirting around the war-torn mess that was Croatia, Serbia and the other former Yugoslav states further south. In fact, dad, who was getting concerned about my never-ending nomadic inclinations, had warned, Dont you step into Yugoslavia. Too dangerous!

But Zagreb is only 130km away from the cafs of Ljubljana, the idyllic capital of Slovenia, the northernmost of the former Yugoslav states. Slovenia had gotten away free from the clutches of the Serbian generals after a ten-day war in 1991, whereas Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina were now bitter battlegrounds. I thought hard about whether to cross the border, but what the heck, a ceasefire had been in force for two weeks . if I didnt go then, when would I do it?

And so I got onto a quiet train, during which I learned proper Serbo-Croat pronunciation from a Bosnian refugee. Marko, 37 years old, who once lived in Sarajevo but was now a refugee in Zagreb; a jovial fellow whose jokes I only half-understood due to his thick Slavic accent. Even then, it was that one-hour long pronunciation lesson that taught me the finer tones of the Slavic vics and js. Marko also reminisced about the green pines and spires and minarets of multi-ethnic Sarajevo, which sparked off dreams of visiting this former Winter Olympic city.

bombed the city when Croatian forces took over the small Serb region of Western Slavonia in a sudden offensive which was their first major military victory in the war.

The chessboard national flag of Croatia flew everywhere while a band played in the central park. Soldiers patrolled streets marked by massively-fortified garrisons at every corner. Sandbags and barbwire were commonplace. Yet this beautiful near-Parisian city had a surreal atmosphere, as teenagers roller-bladed in the park, and pensioners and lovers strolled along its wide boulevards sparkled with cafs, like people do everywhere else in the world. Little did I know that in less than five months, the Croatian-Bosnian forces would rout the Serbian army, and the war would be over in Croatia and Bosnia.

There werent many tourists I only saw one, an African-American who jokingly wondered when the next bomb would fall. The cheapest hotel in town with available rooms was charging US$100 per night refugees occupied the rest, and only diplomats and peacekeepers on expense accounts were in town. I contemplated going south to Dubrovnik but it was too dangerous then. If the ceasefire had broken down, I would have been trapped in a region surrounded by enemy artillery. And so I hopped onto an overnight train to Budapest, Hungary.

Hot spot. A google search revealed a website that defines it as a place of political unrest and potential violence, although it is a term that has increasingly been taken to refer to places where one could surf the internet through wireless means.