The Seach For The Tabula
Or how to make friends with Go

As soon as we had exact ideas of the kind of Backgammon we wanted to present to you, fine materials as well as unique shape, our search for it began and became an oriental adventure...

The game itself is played and offered for sale at nearly every basar. On one of our trips we noticed two old men, dressed traditionally in caftan and turban, sitting at a small table, making serious faces. From time to time one of the two made a short motion and felt back into stoic silence immediately. As we came closer to the scene, we noticed a pefectly built Backgammonboard put on a shimmering silk cloth. We knew at once that we had found what we had been looking for.

But thinking our search for the tabula had come to an end now was a big mistake. The board did not belong to any of the two men but was borrowed from one of the two mens' brother in law who himself got it as a gift from his brother.

Now this brother had got it from a salesman who himself got it as a gift from his wifes' uncle. It took us a long time to find out the place where this perfectly built Backgammon board was manufactured.

And finally as we entered the house we were looking for, we had the feeling of being in a living room instead of a workshop. The whole room was filled with the smell of fine woods and, as our eyes got used to the gloomy light inside, we saw men with wide robes, working with concentration.

As it slowly became dark, we were invited to have a seat at their table, even before telling them our request. We ate, drank and laughed a lot this evening, talked about business and within a few hours became friends. They told us that they would appreciate building boards for us and we had to promise that our next trip would take us to their house again.