Sidenote: As I was writing this piece I asked on Twitter for people’s favourite knick-knacks—I’ve pasted some of them in below.
First used way back when in 1682, the Oxford Dictionary of English defines knick-knack as “A small worthless object.” The dictionary is one hundred percent wrong on this. Knick-knacks are invaluable.
My knick-knack hoarding began when I picked up a pocket-sized black idol at a pyramid outside Mexico City. A thief later liberated it from me on a night train in France.
In the Marshall Islands a map like this replaces Google Maps. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
Taken with the black appearance, I replaced it with a ball of lava (not molten) I found on a Lanzarote mountain slope. I lugged my lava all through Europe, till, weary of its weight, I threw it into the Mediterranean at Ölüdeniz in Turkey. With it went a Russian wedding ring that somehow slipped off my finger as I threw the lava ball. Four of us swam the pebble-strewn sea there looking for the ring—but all we ever found was the lava. We left it in the depths.
Knick-knackless, I picked up a few vintage Turkish LPs—the perfect thing while you’re backpacking. Later, back in London, when my apartment was robbed, as with the Mexican idol, by Turkish LP collection left for shores unknown.
Save a bottle of Newcastle Brown Ale, I left London again knick-knackless. Bound for India though, I knew many a small worthless object lay in wait.
A beaded necklace from Agra, made of bone I was told, only to find later out it was plastic. An Irishman sold me ruby in Goa—don’t ask. A jade deity, the jade as fake as the god, purchased from a street stall in Mahabalipuram. Towards the end of three months in India, robbed again. It was time to say bye-bye to the Newcastle Brown Ale—which I had been lugging planning to drink in Pokhara—and the ruby.
Easy come easy go.
Big? Bulky? Fragile? Sounds perfect. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
An endless stream of “silver” bracelets and a stone chillum in Pokhara. On the Annapurna Sanctuary trek I picked up another solid sized rock, we cast it into Pokhara Lake afterwards. In Chitwan, I bought a rhino carved from baked dung.
“I’m on a road to nowhere” embroidered into the back of my denim jacket in Kathmandu. The words looped around a pair of eyes modelled on those at the Boudhanath stupa. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but upon reflection, it wasn’t.
Thailand! The mandatory lapiz lazuli necklace, fake Birkenstocks, more beads. Fisherman pants. A velvet vest—don’t ask. A beautiful cut-throat razor—also later stolen.
By the time I got to Laos and Vietnam, I’d moved onto more bulky relics. In Saigon an opium pillow I still use to store negatives in. In Luang Prabang a small lacquered chest—it cost me about $40—one of the most expensive things I’d ever purchased. It is still going strong.
More deities—soapstone temple guardians from the Cham Museum in Da Nang. It escapes me where I picked up the ceramic temple lion that watches over me as I type this. Sri Lanka maybe?
If you’ve picked up on a recurring theme of stone and gods, you’re on the money. So imagine my joy when I finally got into Cambodia. In no time I’d picked up an eight-kilogram replica Khmer head that I dragged around with me for the next month. Today it sits beside the ceramic lion. At least it is too heavy to steal.
Back to Thailand, palm leaf scrolls from back-alley stores in Chiang Mai. An astrological chart from Burma that I still gaze at on occasion. Balinese lontars, Indonesian ikat from the east, shadow puppets from the west.
As my trips became more frequent but shorter, my pack shrank to a 25-litre knapsack. Bulky fragile items grew in inconvenience and it was then I discovered the joy of snow-globes. People scoff, but they’re far harder to find in Southeast Asia than say an eight-kilo sandstone head. My collection is small but growing, and I can’t wait for travel to restart to add to it.
A portion of my entourage. Yes, I’m also a notebook hoarder. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
Then there are the knick-knack gifts. An Iraqi cigarette box. The navigation chart of seashells from the Marshall Islands. A deck of Saddam Hussein playing cards. A broken compass. I’m not sure what the thinking was behind that last gift.
Knick-knacks can be small, but they need not be. They are, however, never worthless.
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Couchfish: Knick-knacks