Hong Tsz Ling is not the usual type of tourist who comes to Marlborough. Known to everyone he meets as Bosco Hong, he is walking from his home in Hong Kong to London by some very circuitous routes.
He could get to London from Marlborough in a few days, but his aim is to walk for a year to highlight the plight of the world’s refugees and to support them by raising money for the United Nations’ High Commissioner for Refugees. He began his walk on October 5 last year and will be outside Buckingham Palace on October 5 this year.
What, Marlborough News Online asked Bosco, inspired him to spend a year walking for this cause? “My father and grandfather had to flee from mainland China to Hong Kong. The British government saved them and I am walking to London to say thank you.”
Their escape was in 1972 during the violence and killings of the Cultural Revolution: “My father and grandfather had land and money the government wanted to get hold of. Threats were made that they would be killed.”
Being allowed into the British colony of Hong Kong as refugees saved their lives.
His route would give even the best travel agent nightmares. He began in Hong Kong and walked to Beijing and onto Mongolia. Then he took the Trans-Siberian Railway to Moscow. There he hit his first visa problem.
He wanted to walk on to St Petersburg which would have taken about two months. But the Russians would only give him a two week visa. So instead he took the train to Helsinki and walked to Berlin.
For the European Schengen nations – the open borders area Britain is not part of – he could only get a three month visa. So he flew to Cork, walked to Belfast took the ferry to Scotland and walked south through England to Swindon.
On Saturday (June 21) he walks to Salisbury on his way to catch a ferry to France for his second three months of walking through Schengen countries,
Bosco is 26 years old. In Hong Kong he is a journalist and writer. He has published one biography and has two more waiting to be published. And he has written three novels.
No great surprise then that he is writing a book about his year-long walk: “I am comparing the cultures of the countries I go through.” He has publishers lined up in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan: “But I’m still looking for a publisher for the English language version.”
And he is collecting plenty of material for his book. “Refugees,” he says tactfully, “are a sensitive subject in many countries. In Sweden, for example, I met people who would not give money for refugees.”
He has found collecting funds for refugees very difficult indeed and smiles ruefully at the money raising targets he set himself before he set out: they simply had too many noughts.
Bosco found the Finns friendlier than the Swedes – the Swedes friendlier than the Danes – the Danes friendlier than the Germans. He finds the British very friendly. Goodness knows what he will make of the French and the French will make of him.
So far he has only had one spot of bother: “In Russia I got some trouble because I needed to find a train station to get to Helsinki. A guy tricked me into taking a wrong bus – going with him to the countryside.” He slices a finger across his throat.
“Luckily I checked with someone else and they said ‘Don’t take that bus – it’s very dangerous’. So I escaped.”
Whichever place he is in, wherever it is on his scale of friendliness, Bosco has always found someone to offer him a bed for the night: “I’ve never had to sleep outside. And I don’t expect to have to.”
How did he get on in Marlborough? He met a woman in Swindon who had a friend in Marlborough and she tried the College, but they had no bed for him. But a round robin email found College art teacher Vincent Stokes and he and his wife Helen gave him a bed for two nights.
So he was able to take Friday as a rest day and became a tourist in Marlborough.
Bosco is optimistic his feet will take the strain. Sponsorship from the Hong Kong clothing firm Nikko provided him with walking shoes that have seen his feet safely through every sort of weather and temperature from minus 35 degrees in Mongolia to plus 25 degrees in China.
He will be back in Marlborough in October on his way to London where he hopes to hand his “Thank you” note to David Cameron – on behalf of his father and grandfather who were just two of the modern era’s many, many millions of refugees.
Just this week it was announced the world now has more refugees – people forced to leave their homes – than at any time since the Second World War.
If you want to support Bosco’s fund raising for refugees you can find his simplygiving page here.
And he updates his Facebook page daily – if he misses a day or two his friends will contact the police to make sure he has not got into worse trouble than meeting a shady Russian who wanted to take him to the countryside where he could rob him – or worse.
