"I have not told half of what I saw.”
-Marco Polo

So here I stand, only six days away from the beginning of my most ambitious adventure so far, traveling for 3 weeks, all by myself, on the intriguing and far away country of China.

For well over two decades I have dreamed about visiting the “country of the Three Kingdoms”. My fascination with China first started when I was about seven years old, and my mother (a travel junkie herself) presented me with a colorful children’s book about the great explorers and conquerors of the past. In fascination, I read about the adventures and exploits of Ferdinand Magellan, Alexander The Great and many others….But the extraordinary journey of a young Venetian from Europe to all the way to the Far East, and his almost 20 year long friendship with the mighty Kublai Khan (The most powerful man in the world at the time) captured my heart and my imagination in a way that no other explorer or adventurer has done since. As a kid, staring at the colorful (and idealized) pictures of Marco Polo on the pages of the book my mom had given me, I longed for nothing more than to be just like him. Back then I could even picture myself on the back of a house, riding east towards lands that I had only heard about in legends, meeting the weirdest people, speaking the strangest languages and doing the most incomprehensible things. And that my friends, seemed VERY fun to me. If a genie had appeared in front of me at that moment and offered me a single wish, without hesitation or second thought, I would have asked for nothing else, but to be Marco Polo and be able to see, like he did, the incredible wonders and beauty of Asia of the 11th century.
So nothing more fitting than, 25 years later, to name my first travel to China “Project Marco Polo” in honor of one of my greatest heroes, and the inspiration that drove me to try this adventure.

Of course, before anyone says anything, I want to be clear that am not implying that this trip has nowhere near the same significance, charm and thrill of the original journey of Marco Polo from Italian peninsula to China (and back). Millions and millions of westerners make this trip every year, within the comforts of an airplane coach seat and enjoying the delightful food served by the airline (and even watching a crappy Hollywood movie on a lousy screen while traveling). So, it is indeed hard to put myself on the same league as young Marco, leaving Venice riding on the back of a mule, with no Ipod, no maps, no “Lonely Planet” guide to China and no VISA or MasterCard to bail him out of trouble. Indeed, compared with how he made it to China, to call my trip an “adventure” and one even worthy of a name such as “Project Marco Polo” might sound preposterous to many.

However, the goal of this trip is not to change the world, to bridge cultural, diffuse the Taiwan crisis, cure the bird flu, find a vaccine for SARS, stop copyright infringement in China, or anything else that could be placed on the same league as the achievements of Marco Polo. It is instead of voyage of self discovery, of pushing my internal limits and figuring out how to learn, make friends and have fun on a country that has a culture that is very different than mine and in which, most of the population cannot speak any language that I can comprehend (or vice versa).

Like Marco Polo 800 years ago, I head east looking for the magic and wonders of the Orient. Unlike Marco Polo, much of the magic that I will find in China will be in the form of fake brand name clothes, dollar store items, traffic jams, pollution and very crowded cities. Yet, I know for a fact that China still guards much of its secrets and beauty away from the eyes of the regular traveler. Somewhere away from the neon lights, hotels and night clubs of Shanghai and Beijing, I know that one can still find vestiges of the “REAL” China. All you have to do is move a little away from the beaten path, from the tourist guides and the shopping centers. In the shadows on the rising economic giant of China, one can still find the fascinating old China. The China that still have a lot left of the “Romance of the Three Kingdoms” in it. And with Project Marco Polo, I know I will find it. I am only 6 days away from my greatest trip yet, and I can barely hold my breath.