The train I went on, Paris to Istanbul in 1985, the 100^th anniversary of the Orient Express, has been found, abandoned in Poland ! 

www.cnn.com/travel/article/orient-express-mystery-solved/index.html 

How a train fan solved a real life Orient Express mysteryThe cars were painted a distinctive night-blue hue once associated with the Orient Express, the famed long-distance trans-Europe passenger train synonymous with 20th century travel glamor.www.cnn.com

In 1984, I was called by TC Swartz, the President of TCS Expeditions.  “Tim, we need help.  We have this train going from Paris to Istanbul next year .. it’s the abandoned Orient Express and we have found it and are putting it back together and doing it up … would you be willing to come and give us a hand and travel with it…?”  

 Well, kind of DUH !!  And they even paid me.

Now of course, it is being refurbished yet again and folks will have the thrill of bouncing along and for a huge amount of money too. But it is the real thing.  Agatha Christie fans can have an orgasmic trip for sure, working out just who will be murdered when and by whom.  At least we did not have that problem, but stopped several times and did sightseeing etc and when possible, we went in to a siding, in the middle of the night, so that folks could get some sleep.

 The wagons, which had been scattered all over Europe, were freshly painted in a classic deep blue, with a lot of gold scrollwork and if you could read, then you knew it really was The Orient Express. Everything was polished up to a dizzying shine, the tiny pink lampshades in the two dining cars’ tables glowed warmly at night and the barmen turned out gallons of vintage cocktails and fine wines. Sometimes we would stop in stations, probably for a change of drivers (all very unionized with hours of duty), so folks who were just waiting for their commuter train, suddenly were staring at us, chattering away and downing martinis like Prohibition was starting tomorrow. I am sure some families wondered later, exactly what did Dad have to drink on the way home? Sometimes we found ourselves stationary and parked right next to a train on another track. We were a sort of rogue train, getting in the way of all the regular train traffic, so we were the one that had to wait. Just seeing the expressions on faces in the other trains was priceless.

The chefs, paid volunteers from posh Parisian hotels, who took the challenge, to turn out 100 individual souffles using cast iron and wood fired ovens, bouncing along at 50mph, was simply amazing.   And those were just the first course of several.   Dinners were beautifully long and there were complementary digestifs too … all to make them sleep in a rattle trap train.

At the start of the trip, I escorted the group from JFK to Orly, on a lovely old B707.  There were only about 20 on the official Air France flight and most of them filled First Class.   I had a minor row with Madame le Chef de Cabin, who did not like the fact that some irk from the steerage wanted to come into the sacred FC domain, break open the iron curtain and give info to HIS guests as to what would happen on arrival in Paris. As we filled 10 of the 12 seats there, I felt I did have some right.  And in the end, when I told her what was about to happen, we were amis, so that was good and I had a nice glass of champagne in the front galley to cement the fact.  

 There were a couple of bags missing in Orly… dummies who had a one hour transit in JFK from their Braniff flight from Houston, so of course I knew the chance of that bag connection was minimal.  It was the first time I had heard, when they filled out the form, that you could spend $500 on a cashmere sweater at Nieman Marcus… such facts were unknown to my pedestrian Long Island existence. I had barely heard of NM of course.  Don’t forget this was 1985  !!!

We started with festivities in Paris, at a very fancy chateau hotel next to Versailles (where memorably, for me, when I closed my door on the departure morning, I heard a huge crash inside, so went back in and found that the whole bathroom ceiling had pancaked down … yikes. All the fancy plaster moldings and some pipes right in the spot where, ten minutes ago, I was brushing my teeth. …. hopefully this was not an omen).  

I remember at the first breakfast, when I could see there was an ordering problem, involving a large Texan lady and loud too, with her possibly Algerian waiter, think Manuel of Fawlty Towers.  I went right over.  She wanted Grits.  Give me a BREAK lady, we are in Paris! What the hell would replace grits in France?  I suggested in my best French that perhaps ‘le porridge’?? was available .. a total stab in the dark . . it existed ….we settle for that.   I just thought “It can’t go on like this …?? 

 Well ……………..

So, we set off.

After only two hours on the train, we descended in Rheims, the center of the Champagne area and decamped to chez Mumm. We drank flutes of their best champagne in their vast, dark and dank cellars, using those monster Jeroboam bottles that you always see but don’t think ever get used; we forced down some foie gras and exquisite tournedos and a nibble of local cheese and macarons; we waltzed in Vienna with dancers from the Opera; we heard Mozart in Salzburg (where to my snob horror, I found out they really wanted to see where The Sound of Music was filmed … fortunately, a downpour nixed that);  we sloshed through Budapest (the weather did not cooperate for the first half of the trip)  …we went to the Castle of Bram in Romania and were frightened by the Dracula legend … it was just a fest all the way.

One of the features of a trip like this, was that we would have a doctor with us at all times.  Great sense of security with that.  We had a 30ish French doctor, who had studied in the US and who had perfect English. Parfait. The first night on the train , he is summoned.  Little of his training had prepared him for his patient.  She became known as Mrs Piggly Wiggly.  Those of you who are not from the south of the US, will have no clue about that name.  Others, of the Southern persuasion will know.  Piggly Wiggly is a huge supermarket chain in the southern US.  If you say Tesco to a Brit or Aldi to a German, they get it.  Well, we had the grande dame of the Piggly Wiggly wealth with us.  Perhaps she had seen A Streetcar Named Desire too many times, but she sure was Southern Frail.  The lightest breeze might have carried her off and she wore suitably gauzy outfits that would look good in any slight draft .  SO .. first night out, the MD is summoned to her cabin.  He enters and finds the new Blanche Dubois in her negligee … she is at least 80 years old.  She is having an attack of the Southern vapors, for which there is not much in any medical school can be called upon to cure.  Being a professional, he places his stethoscope on her chest to check.  Quick as a flash, her left hand rises and clamps itself onto his crotch.    YIKES !!!!!!!     He declares that she will live and whenever she demands medical intervention, one of us, usually me, had to go with him to protect his honor. 

You can’t invent all this.

And so we progressed, quite royally across Europe. We were waved to and we waved back with abandon. Of course not the silly little bouncy wrist wave of the Chinese, but more the elegant raised arm, hand facing inwards, of any proper royal family. It was the least we could do.

And finally, our arrival into Istanbul was so fantastic.  The railroad station there had been built as the terminus for The Orient Express.   The local publicity machine worked well for the arrival.  OUR TRAIN IS COMING BACK!!!   They replaced the modern diesel engine that had been hauling us for the last week, with an original Thomas the Tank Engine genuine old toot toot steam locomotive.  We all closed out eyes to the fact that the modern locomotive was now repositioned to the rear of the train, to give a push if needed, but the tiny little engine, tooted its way, white smoke streaming out of a tall smokestack, through the underbelly of Istanbul and people were waving out of their windows, with flags and some even had carpets hanging down to shake as well.    We all waved royally back.

We steamed in to the proper iron-girdered station, which was festooned with French and Turkish flags and masses of flowers and dancing girls throwing a million rose petals all over us, as we descended, flushed with the success of the whole trip. The Istanbul commuters stood in awe.   I have never forgotten it.

The train was staying the night and then repeating the trip the other way with a whole new load of rich and happy punters.  We had one couple with us, on honeymoon no less, but a tad too garish, lots of new money. We knew about that …old is good, new often is not, who were so excited about the trip that they asked if they could return and do it all again backwards.  By sheer luck, there had been a last-minute cancellation that day, so they spent at least one night in a bed that wasn’t moving for any other reason and next day set off back to Paris.

It was all magical.

In Fall 1971, I decided with my friend Liz, from the UK, that we should visit India.  Neither of us had been before, so a trip was planned, going around the country anti-clockwise, thus starting in New Delhi and ending in Calcutta. All the way down one side, across the bottom and up the other, with a quick side-trip to Nepal at the end.  It was all a wonderful revelation to us and we were in love with India immediately.    

We ignored the then current political problems between India and Pakistan, as they had been rumbling for months and looked like they would just continue forever.  We were not to be put off.  

The trip ran like clockwork until the last few days.  Our plan was to visit Calcutta last and then do a quick trip up to Nepal and return to Calcutta for a night and then back to London for Liz and NY for me. 

We had arrived in Calcutta already feeling like old India hands and took the Indian Airlines bus to somewhere in the city.  First problem: taxis on strike.  A lot of Indian head bobbing. “No taxi, sahib.. Taxi wallah on strike.  You taking rickshaw.  Very safe, Sahib.  Me fixing”.  Our hotel was too far to walk, so the solution was the genuine rickshaw wallah, who literally ran, barefooted between the shafts, with you sitting up high on the back. They were all small, wiry guys, in ragged shirts and dhotis, the cotton wrap around that all the Indian wore then. As we each had a suitcase, even the toughest could not fit the two of us plus bags in to one rickshaw, so we each had a private transfer.  The guys just shot off in opposite directions, yelling and grinning to each other and it looked like we would never be seen again. 

We were.  It was at a hotel selected at random from my trusty ‘Arther Frommer: India on 5 and 10 Dollars a Day’ – honest.   And we had hit upon one of the most unique watering holes a traveler could ever have fantasies about.   The Fairlawn Hotel, 13A Sudder St, Calcutta.   I think it was the ‘A’ that intrigued me.  Was there a 13B next door?    

This grand building dated from 1783 and had been passed down the lines of British colonial Indians and was now run by Major Ted Smith, late Northamptonshire Fusiliers and his powerful wife, Violet.  We had unwittingly discovered the Indian version of Fawlty Towers!  They ran everything and were never out of sight, especially her. She had ‘Management’ written all over her and had a helmet of strongly enhanced dark hair, with enough hair spray to keep it in place for ever.  We later fantasized about just how many cans of spray she went through in a week and if Calcutta is now found to have a mysteriously extra large hole in the ozone layer, we can point out just why. The staff also all seemed to have been there for ever, no one looked under 45 and I discovered that one mature looking ‘boy’ was still on approval. 

You entered through heavy metal gates, with a guard of course, who had a large stick and there was a short sort of driveway, much festooned with lined up potted plants, many of which looked in extremis. The sorts of tall straggling plants, with three leaves hanging on grimly, that most people would have given up on, had found an abode here.  Perhaps we had stumbled upon a Home for Aged Plants?  (In Sri Lanka, years later, I came across a ‘Home for Aged Cattle’). It was also possible the plants may have been having severe reactions to paint, as you soon realized that anything in this building that was not going to be moved, was painted, mainly a rather bilious green.  (Later I spotted a small man, paint can and brush in hand, squatting down touching up a couple of pots… I’m sure it was a full time job).   

Mrs Smith was in place to welcome us and stood over the poor man who wrote our names into the huge ledger (straight out of Dickens) and we were informed of the RULES.  These mainly concerned eating and drinking, as we were on full board (I doubt if there was any other option) and so we were instructed to listen for the gong which would summon us to a communal dining table.  For breakfast we had a little leeway, but at night, it would be bashed at precisely 7pm and we had 10 minutes to show up, or we would be FINED!  We were both so traumatized by this information that we dared not ask just what the fine would be?  You had to love this place!  Only Manuel was missing. 

Downstairs was quite open plan, as Calcutta weather is always warm, so the reception desk was tucked away under a grand and very polished teak staircase, which many household names had padded up and down, with signed film star pictures, in black and white of course, on the walls to prove it. The jungle from outside was doing its best to creep in and I am sure there was a gardener whose sole job was to fight back the bougainvillea and ivy and other tropical plants that were invading, 24 hours a day. There was practically no more space on any walls for more photographs and prints.  It was like being in the house of some batty aunt, who lived surrounded by memories and nothing could ever be thrown away.   

There was a sort of open-ended lounge complete with very uncomfortable and old rattan chairs, all of which were held together by generations of the infamous green paint.  I lived in slight terror that perhaps one would just collapse when I sat in it and the wrath of Mrs Smith would come down upon me, greatly.  We needed to keep her on our good side, as you will find out later on.  

For reading pleasure, The Fairlawn had huge bound copies of British second world wartime newspapers.  The lower end of the market too, so not The Times, but the Daily Mirror, which provided hours of wonderful perusing.   

The bedrooms were upstairs and of course were chintz on a severe overdose of drugs.  We were in a sort of rose garden dream fantasy and it was spinning out of control.  Now I knew what it was like to be a bug sitting in the middle of a heavily flowering rose bush, but the place smelled slightly of mothballs.  The family photo theme continued in to the bedrooms and also period books mainly from the 1920-40’s were piled up.  Liz discovered with great amusement that there was a textbook from Bedford High School for Girls, which she had attended and there were dates inside it from which she worked out the original owner, probably a Smith daughter, had been there a couple of years before her.  Now that is REALLY making you feel at home. 

We kept our ears open for THE GONG, in great trepidation in case we did not hear it.  We DID.  It was a mobile gong and bashed roundly by one of the staff, walking around, so all the residents shot down the stairs and I expected to have to show I had washed my hands.   The maitre d’ wore the most imposing and very colorful turban we had ever seen, including a strongly starched quiff appearing from off-center, that made him look 7 feet tall.  His rule in the dining room was clearly absolute and not only were the staff intimidated, so were the guests. He and all the waiters wore white gloves.  Nobody said anything.  It was rather like being in church, with food. 

There were about a dozen of us around the table, some of whom were clearly permanent residents.  I felt perhaps we had been brought in to the amuse them.  The food was British boarding school at its almost worst and caused us great mirth as we felt we had been there and done that and now it was chasing us.  We had some watery soup, provenance unknown, fried fish with soggy chips and cooked fruit, which had been so thoroughly overcooked it was a mush and served with the world’s weakest custard, which appeared to have been made with 50% water replacing half of the milk.  Then the bizarrest thing happened.  As a complete throwback to Victorian days, rather than being offered cheese, we were presented with a hot savory. Small triangles of toasted bread and cheese… a sort of Welsh rarebit to end with.  There was a young Russian couple at the table who took one look and bolted.   

One of the permanent residents was a little sparrow of a Brit lady.  She was minute and never seen without an equally old and bedraggled dog under one arm.  She appeared to live in a sort of shed at the end of the driveway (I am NOT making this up!) and only came out for meals.  She had a tiny, high pitched, quavery and very posh voice and I tried to find out more.   The one big statement was: “I came out to India in 1924 to marry.  I had never left England before and I have never returned”.  Clearly, she had been part of what was referred to back than as The Fishing Fleet.  Young ladies, usually from middle and upper class families with too many daughters to feed. Don’t forget WW1 had shrunk the eligible male population considerably, so these girls, sometimes just in their teens, were packed off to India to pick up suitable husbands.  1924 would have fitted perfectly, as India was under the total military and civilian control of the British, thus there was an inexhaustible supply of suitable very single and sexually frustrated ‘chaps’ just waiting to get hitched.  There is a great book actually called ‘The Fishing Fleet’ by Anne de Courcy, which is full of amazing stories as to just how well that system kept everyone happy. It is a fun read. Some of these ‘gals’ did not even wait until they reached India, which most of them knew virtually nothing about.  The voyage was long and they moved in, at sea, on young men returning from ‘home leave’ and pounced on them.  So much for chaste and retiring polite British young ladies. 

As we had two nights in Calcutta, after doing the ritual city sightseeing, like the enormous Victorian iron railway station, where hundreds of thousands transited through every day, and which I could have hung around in for many days, we also walked across the magnificent Howrah Bridge, a total relic of Imperial power and might, complete with enormous steam locomotives raining soot down upon us. We rested our tired feet reading the newspapers of 1943, when we were both born and generally admired all the ‘stuff’ that was lying around.  It was like living in a small family museum. 

Mrs Smith was interrogated by Liz re the Bedford school books and I think we went up in her estimation.  As we were now going to Kathmandu for three days and returning at the end of the week, she was positively beaming, ready to welcome us back. 

Which she did.  Though there was now a major problem.  We were genuinely at war and arrived back in the early evening to find a blackout.  If you think Calcutta is crowded and confusing enough by day, you should try getting around at night, in darkness, without any light.  Happily the taxi drivers had ended their strike and somehow, we made it back to The Fairlawn and had to work out What To Do.   As were both airline employees, we were traveling on space available, subject to load tickets.  This is not a good idea in wartime and being very far from home too.  We knew we had to get across the country to Bombay and decided that we would break all the rules and actually BUY tickets to get us that far. We were getting low on funds (this was way before credit cards) but desperate measures needed to be taken.  Next day, Indian Airlines, the domestic carrier, was happy to sell us a ticket in two day’s time.  Much head bobbing as ‘all flights are full due to war” so on a Saturday morning we had nicely hand written tickets for Monday morning, but of course we could go to the airport and go on standby (which was our usual m.o., so nothing new for us).  Next morning we bade Mrs Smith a hopeful farewell and went to the airport.   

Long story short, we were accepted for a flight and boarding passes in hand, which of course were all hand written, were sitting at the gate.  No one had invented security yet.  Seated there, we watched our elegant Indian Airlines Caravelle (my then favorite jet plane, made in France)  come in and turn on the stand.  We also observed many people running around with the aircraft as it turned, pointing at the nose.  When it came in to view, we saw why.  There was a large hole in the nose.  This was not a good thing and I knew immediately this plane is not going anywhere; sometimes it is a good thing to have a foot in that business. Turns out that it was not a nasty Pakistani, but a large bird had collided with it just before landing.  There are many vultures in India, freeloading on hot air coming up… they don’t even need to flap their wings much but just ride the hot air waves. 

Fortunately, we fast remembered, we still had reservations on the flight next morning, so we rushed over to the Indian Airlines ticketing desk and reconfirmed our seats like crazy, promising come what may, we shall be here.  And then we went back to Mrs Smith.   

We were scraping the change out of the bottom of backpacks by then.  She didn’t seem to find this a problem, so later we sat out in the dark and balmy night air and tried to make plans.  Somehow a bottle of Scotch turned up (technically the hotel was dry) and she tucked in and so did we.  The little old lady was seen tottering off to her shed and I tried to find out just what the story was, but Mrs Smith would not tell. Of course, I could have invented many scenarios on that theme and it was frustrating not to know just what had gone wrong. 

Next morning, waving what we hoped to be a real final farewell to Mrs Smith and some of the staff too, we returned to the airport and checked in and were speedily on board a B737 and off we set for Bombay.  What I noticed within minutes of taking off, was that we were not going west and climbing, as we would do on any flight.  The aircraft appeared to be twisting around, flying anywhere but up, up and away and not gaining any altitude.  I suddenly got the feeling that we were being chased by a Pakistani fighter and this was evasive action.  It went on for about 20 mins and I had gotten to the state of “Shoot us down and get it over with…”   And then we climbed as per normal.  My old mate Captain Speaking came on and explained that we had had to keep low, as there was military activity above us.  That was nice to know! 

So we landed in Bombay and managed to get from the domestic terminal to the international one and what a sight met us.  It was packed with foreigners and many Indians too, all refugees from several days of cancelled international flights.  Practically all the major carriers that went through BOM had pulled out, so there were all these people with real tickets, worth thousands of dollars and then there was us, space available on Air India.  By Indian aviation standards, the lowest of the low. It looked very grim. 

I did manage to talk to a very sweet young lady from AI, who was so professional.  She could have told me politely, of course, to get lost, but she did volunteer that they had planned one departure to London in the early evening and possibly another at midnight.  That was as much as she knew, except to add that they were both very fully booked.   We stood by for the first flight, as you must always try, but of course with no luck.  We went back to sitting on hard seats and swatting mosquitoes.  Many of the ‘real’ passengers managed either to find flights on other carriers or just gave up and went to hotels or home.  We had virtually no money for that sort of luxury. 

And then our luck changed.  The midnight flight was planned to route from Bombay via Delhi and Moscow and Paris to London.  It was just a B707, so not too many seats to play with.  It did not look good, but the bulk of the passengers were joining in Delhi.  The departure time came and went and finally they made an announcement that due to military activity in the Delhi area, it would not be stopping there and it would fly straight to Moscow, thus anyone who wants to go could be accommodated.  Phew.  In fact the aircraft was half empty and about 9 hours later, we landed in the bleak early morning snow of Moscow and the whole plane erupted with cheers.  We were then entertained by the gloomy looking women who came on board to clean us up.  The comparison between the exquisitely elegant Indian flight attendants in gorgeous saris and the heavy looking and drearily clad babushkas was so evident that we all started to laugh… sheer nervous tension and even the babushkas joined in, metal teeth and all.   Onwards we went, to Paris and finally the 45 mins hop across the English Channel.   There were only about 30 of us left by now.  

But, again, I got that sensation that we are not going forwards but around in circles.  The English coastline came in to view and then 15 mins later came back into view.  What was up?  What was up was fog in London. End result was that we were not returning to Paris, as by now, that was fogged in also, so we would land in Amsterdam.  I think we may be in the GBofR’s for the longest nonstop flight from Paris to Amsterdam as we landed there approximately two and a half hours after we took off from Paris. 

There the lovely, organized and friendly Dutch took over.  I think they saw us as refugees from a war and were expecting casualties with bleeding wounds and suppurating bandages and instead we were all very healthy and happy. They marched us off as a group through the building, we did not touch immigration and were put on a bus and within 45 minutes of landing we were in a super clean, efficient Dutch airport hotel.  Liz and I did wonder how some of the more local looking Indian passengers would cope, but we were so exhausted that our eyes were soon closed. 

As I had a free Pan Am ticket from London to JFK, I wondered if I could just use it from AMS to JFK, so I called Pan Am and they said yes, so I bade Liz farewell.  The Air India crew would be rested and they would continue later. I ran back to the airport and was soon airborne on a lovely empty PA B707.  Our India saga was over. 

As a footnote, I did manage to return to The Fairlawn Hotel many years later with my good mate Carolyn.  We were going to Dhaka, but that is another story.  The hotel was still there, in all its glory.  It just had a lot more paint.  And it is still in business in 2021, so Google it and hit the Expedia link and there is a mass of pictures, green paint and all.

Iceland is not too far from here and has a lot that is familiar and a lot that is new.   When I discovered that they would let me in by showing my vaccination certificate and I would take another test on arrival and be a good boy and go to my hotel for a few hours, I knew I was going.  So I did.

The Hotel Alda was fine.  Soft down duvets on the beds bring a touch of home and I even managed to work out how to construct my shower, as two of the ‘walls’ were folded against the wall, so I could have  more room in the bathroom …. just WHY I needed more room I was not sure about but it was very comforting to know that had I decided to entertain there, then we would have enough space to be adequately accommodated.  But there was still only one place to sit.  I ate my regulation Icelandic skyr for breakfast (think yoghurt) and of course felt very Ice-better for that.  Ices like their food which everywhere is very fresh and wholesome.   I ate a LOT of cod, but that is a good thing as I like cod and this is the WHQ for it.  There is always a ‘fish of the day’ on the menu and it is always cod.  It may be the law.

Reykjavik is a manageable place as it is really just an overgrown town, now with lots of suburbia.  They do love cube shaped buildings, often with much smaller windows than I would have expected. I began to think of it as the new Legoland, except that the big ones are all a dreary grey.  It reminded me in a way of Warsaw, which is ALL dreary grey buildings.  But the older individual houses are very cute as they like to paint them all colors, so just walking around the inner part of downtown, it is quite a mass of color.  I noticed that the traffic lights change faster than in the rest of world, which must the most useless bit of info you are receiving today, but if you come here and hire a car, it might just save your life.  Everyone is driving new cars and I even had my first Tesla sighting. Not that I really get excited about cars, but I just thought I should mention it here.

I went to several restaux and bars with Bjorg, as we were often meeting up with some of the crew members I had met when they operated the private jet trips, so it was great to see them.  Ice ladies are FUN !  We ate and drank and laughed a lot.  And I discovered that not only does Ice have good vodkas, they are quite in to some very different gins.  There was barely time to scratch that surface….

One day we went driving out of the city and went past a prison (which is probably a 3* facility) and also a cod liver oil factory.  I just hope they do not have what the French would call a ‘salon de degustation’ as that would not be to my taste. We inspected a lovely old wooden Lutheran church, set on a small bluff virtually on the lava rocks beach.  In dim winter light, it would be a perfect set for an Ingmar Bergmann film and Death would have been sitting right outside.  And there we bumped in to the lovely blonde Sigga, who I had been drinking champagne with the evening before.  Iceland is quite small ! 

 

And we stopped at the Þingvellir National Park to see the waterfall and also the celebrated crack in the rocks which stretches for miles and show just how platetechtonics work once they come out of the sea.   Note that funny looking letter.  It is the Ice. equivalent of ‘th’, so do not pronounce as Ping but Thing.   This may be on the test.

On the coast, the Arctic Tern’s swooped around overhead.  They are so elegantly shaped and are more like small fighter planes than birds.   There are a LOT of dandelions everywhere.  Ices see them as pretty yellow flowers, whereas I was brought up to kick the heads off to prevent the seeds spreading..  One man’s meat is another man’s poison.

The south-western part of Iceland, which is where I was, is really just one huge lava field from previous eruptions, over hundreds of thousands of years. In winter, it presents a very boring grey look but come Spring, aka now, then the mosses start to grow back and with a few days of rain and mild temperatures, then the whole place will become green. Walls are built of lava and soon they will all have a green cap.

One day we had lunch in the middle of a working tomato farm.  Cherry tomato vines going up about ten feet above us. All in the huge heated greenhouses, so a damp and very tomato scented atmosphere.  The menu mainly featured tomatoes too, so you can help yourself to as much tomato soup and home-made breads as you wished.  We then had some barrata cheese and huge thick slices of enormous yellow and red beefsteak tomatoes.  I am sure we were glowing a good pink afterwards.  Some cute Icelandic horses outside liked their heads stroked.  They have the regulation short legs and are very friendly and are slightly cave-man-picture like.

And then I had some more cod.   When I asked what the fish of the day was and the young waiter replied ‘cod’, I feigned huge shock and he thought I was very funny.  I suppose the locals just take it for granted.

We went to a very realistic audio/visual presentation called Fly Over Iceland.  It had all been filmed from a camera slung under the nose of a helicopter. We were strapped into our seats and suddenly it was all huge screen and we were whooshing up and down, over the edge of mountains and practically through waterfalls.  It was all VERY realistic and made you feel you were sitting on the front of the helicopter.  With my total fear of heights, I just had to shut my eyes often or I wudda passed out.  I am not sure if the seats moved, it sure felt like it and they even managed a sort of misting effect when near a waterfall, which was amazingly real.  The power of auto-suggestion. But the scenery was fabulous and the Ices are all going to see it and it is not just for forangs.

We inspected the still being built apartment complex where Bjorg and her husband Haldor have bought. (and here is the test… if you read all this, let me know, otherwise I know you only look at the pix … tisk task)  We were allowed to climb around the concrete floors etc without anyone asking us just who we were and what were we doing there.  Not far away is a newly developed bath/pool (kind of like the celebrated Blue Lagoon).  Using natural hot mineral water that just comes up from underneath, you could spend hours just sitting in it.  The building is roofed in sod, like the original buildings were in both Iceland and Greenland.  Turf basically is very good at keeping the cold out.

Before I could leave the country, I had to go for another Covid test and again a small sample of my brain was removed and part of the back of my throat too.  This info then goes to your phone and you show it to the check in agent at the airport and that permits you both to leave and also to be allowed to arrive at the other end. There is a HUGE global Covid business and not just in hospitals.

And then I came home.
Tim

ps.  Try the cod.  It is very good.

pps   The report on my visit to a certain erupting volcano is still being worked on.

Apologies for the time lapse …. no excuses.

So here Nelly and I are arriving in the middle of the night in Yerevan, the capital of Armenia.

The local agents are there to meet and greet. Alexander (or Sasha) and his wife Elvira. Oh my oh my, how I wish you could all see Elvira as she really is a sight for sore eyes (no, probably a sight to GIVE sore eyes). She is scrag end of mutton done up like lamb chops of the youngest variety. A mid-forties woman tarted up like an 18 year old and boy does it show ! Tousled blonde hair a la Brigitte Bardot, for those of you old enough to remember that look. Basically she had spent hours making her hair look like she had just got out of bed. She had about every type of makeup that you can image, applied by the trowel and the mascara over the false eyelashes is in veritable clumps. Looks like the oil you see on the news washed up on beaches from spills. There was so much stuff there, she could have probably balanced a dead seagull too. Lips are full and two or even perhaps three tone. The body is that of a middle aged woman but we are in denial. so the chest pushed up, up and away and there is a cleavage on a par with the Grand Canyon – a vast dark abyss. I try not to stare but can’t help it…. I bet she has a Victoria’s Secrets catalogue at home. The top is black and white knit, and around the midriff it is all white see-through, so the spare tire can be appreciated in its full glory. The pants are toreador tight and you can feel the stitching screaming. But the best are the gold shoes. We are on stilts, with the super pointed mules that everyone here is tottering around in. I wonder why they look vaguely familiar. as who do I know who could even stand up in them. let alone walk ??? Then the penny drops.. they are out of the Topkapi Museum in Istanbul ! The points were so long at the front that they had turned up at the ends, to give an ever more Ottoman appearance. It just had to be seen to be believed. But having said all that, she was very sweet and we got on tres well .. and amusingly in the end, it was battered Arabic that brought us most in contact as it turned out that she worked also for Syrian Airlines, so I called her habibi and we are now mates for life ! I just don’t want to go shoe shopping with her, as I saw no less than three pairs and they were all a disaster.

So we are kissed and warmly welcomed and jump into the battered old Lada and lurch into town. Most amazing sight half way was a mini Las Vegas … I kid you not. Lines and lines of garish casinos (casini ?), all with neon running amok and many people around and it is 4.00am. Seems we are big on gambling around here. The enormous Armenian Brandy factory is much pointed out .. they are very proud of it. My old-style Russian hotel is big on ceilings and short on creature comforts and a sort of Armenian Manuel takes me to my room and makes a big production of showing me how to open the door with the card, which I was prolly doing before he was born. I am allowed to collapse for 4 hours. as WE HAVE STUFF TO DO.

And so it goes on for two days … was supposed to be 2 and half but have you ever heard of an airline rescheduling its flight no less than 14 hours EARLIER than your ticket ? Well Siberia Airlines did and I was not happy. Instead of departing at 1630, we are now going the same day, but at 0230. That is not my fave time of day and it cut down on vital time here. But there was no escape. (I did find out later when I went to the airport to see what the aircraft handling would be like, that everyone’s flights were resked as they were doing runway work for three weeks, which may also have accounted for the plowed field that we landed on – and more worrying too. we will try to take off from again…I DO worry about these things and just hoped that will remembered to take all their shovels home with them ….).

Anyway we spent one and a half action packed days seeing what there was and it’s not bad. Yerevan wud be quite a pretty place if they were not digging the whole town up. It has been decreed that the trams must be gone, so all the old lines are being removed, which of course is sad as they give character as well as being a cheap and fuel efficient and non polluting way to move the masses around, but probably they are seen as backward and we want modernity. Pity that someone didn’t tell them that places like Zurich and Vienna still have them and would not give them up for anyone.

Two tour guides became attached to our mini expedition, one Lily (and of course very dark of hair and eyes) and another whose name defeated me. Both young, I had them giggling pretty soon and they said afterwards that they had not had such a good time showing the sights ever and I was welcome back anytime. The said Lily, I suspected, was also after, shall we say other pleasures. as I suddenly got the wink and a very direct LOOK and she had to sit next to me at dinner and all that sort of stuff. I was expecting the hand on thigh routine…. It was too late to invent the wife and kids and grandchildren which I have been known to concoct when necessary…. (and in just in case you are worried. I escaped unscathed.. ).

There will be more …

Anyway last time I left you was in Samara and it’s semi-nude river bathers .. about as far away from La Grande Jatte (if you know what that picture looks like) as you can get.

Me and Nelly eventually escaped in the middle of the night and in a totally packed TU154 (the Russian equiv. of a 727 but bigger and with less power .. a great combination as you then have to accelerate like mad and go a great long way down any runway just to get into the air and even when that is achieved you seem to do an anal tour closer to the ground than usual. The fight was AWFUL and I was tres happy it only lasted two and a half hours. Packed out with about 150 (half of them children) and Nelly and I fought to keep the seat between us empty .. more to N’s efforts who was in her grandmotherly and VERY formal way telling people where to sit.

The problem had started with the fact that we had seat numbers and again the crew decided that it was better to abandon them . wud just love to see a BA 747-400 boarding under those circumstances !!!! So chaos reigned and the crew hated us all to a man, even before we got off the ground. It was just grim and I was tres happy to land in Yerevan at some ungodly time in the middle of the night…. and it’s a rough runway there (why should I be surprised ???) so felt like the wheels had been removed and we were running along on fast eroding legs.

But the worst thing was and this really gave me the willies. was the fact that 1 realised that as we were skimming over the threshold that no less than three of these grim looking flight attendants were happily standing up in the longitudinal front galley, with the open flight deck door ahead. Had we landed with a bump (or more of a bump than usual) they wudda accelerated fast onto the flight deck and hit the those nice levers that put on the power and we would have gone accelerating to an uncertain end. Boy, did 1 give them my best black looks when I got off….

On arrival in Yerevan, capital of Armenia (in case your geography around here is not up to date) we were actually allowed to walk from the aircraft to the terminal, which was a first, as they have a love of buses all over the old Soviet empire. And they like to make you suffer too. It is considered quite normal to put 60 pax onto a 45 maximum-by-law bus and then keep them slowly roasting, before even launching off to or from an aircraft. Inbound they had us crushed on the bus and then made it a double whammy at the other end as when we arrived at the terminal and were obviously just getting to know all our sweaty neighbors’ armpits, they kept us dangling and then when we got off, we had to wait for someone with a key to unlock the door …only plus was it wasn’t raining ! Honestly it’s an adventure every moment of the way and anyone who complains in Europe or the USA does not have much of a leg to stand on with me.

Well we gets off and in and get to immigration.  I am well prepared with my visa, but of course no one on the plane has given us any forms and of course form filling here is a way of life. esp when international travel is concerned. So I looks and looks and there is nothing .. the line at immigration is positively zipping along by former-Soviet colony standards, so I shows the passport, open at the visa as they will never find it and the man just looks at it and I am IN … what is the world coming to ??? I’m still expecting someone to tap me on the shoulder with a handful of forms. which of course will only be in Cyrillic. Bags of course take ages and when they do come I discover that practically everyone travels with identical bags .. hardly Samsonite or the like, but the thin striped blue and red nylon bags that are the staple of the third world. Of course they are all identical and no one has ever had the idea of putting a bit of ribbon on the handle or painting their name along the front (which I am sure Mrs Amarida Ghosh of blessed memory would have done), so all is confusion and it is very hot and we have all had enough of the night already. When my green Travelpro pull along thingy turns up, it is riding around in state.

This is more than enough for now … just wait until you meet Elvira, 45 at least, with the push-up bra and enough make up to paint a hoarding…

So we landed in Samara and the fun and games began … you were not expecting this just to be a routine story I hope? Nelly and I walk from the domestic terminal, lugging our bags, to the international one next door, avoiding the potholes and general air of dilapidation and beer cans that are a feature of all Russian airports and were expecting a 6 hours layover, which was bad enough but then discovered that it was worse and it was now 1500 and our flight to Yerevan would be leaving at 0020 …. ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh I am not happy (surprise surprise) but as this is all a spin off from the old Aeroflot days, then passengers are expected to accept the news and go bugger off and don’t complain. N had done all this without me and by the time she came back and told me, and I had thought a personal interview with the Air Samara gang would be in order (silly things like customer service, rights of passengers etc etc and more practical things like food and drinks) they had closed the door and were playing gone fishing, so perhaps they knew I was on my way over.

So there we stood looking forlorn and hot (it was about 85F) and wondering what to do, We had already interrogated the lovely Natasha in flight about what to do for 6 hours and she had happily told us that the city itself was no less than 60k away …. well to cut a long story short, I made the executive decision that much I like airports, there were too many hours to spend and I was going to go barmy (all right, barmier) sitting in a scruffy airport like this for hours, so we hired a very very clapped out taxi and N negotiated a rate to take us to town and back and generally show us around. Of course the roads were dreadful, with no lane markings, so was kinda like being back in Iran with traffic deciding how many cars abreast you drove .. better just not to look, but sitting in the front, I had no choice. Rolling green hills eventually gave way to urban sprawl a Ia Russe … awful bleak tower blocks of stunning lack of any imagination and suddenly there was a space rocket sitting on the middle of a roundabout … u just never know what you going to see I tell you… turns out Samara is where they make rockets and they want you all the know. Very nice it looked and I was suitably awestruck.

And then around the next bend there was the mighty Volga River rolling along and v impressive it was too… suppressed an urge to sing the V Boatman Song or even Old Man River and could see why such hugeness inspired great big music too. Locals swimming around and generally disporting themselves, this being a Saturday afternoon. Women in bikinis who mighta looked great 30 years ago but gravity had taken over in all directions and guys too wearing little enuf to have them arrested on an Amurrican beach, but this is Ia Russie and we are dedicated to turning pale pink to brown at every opportunity and I spose if u all look as awful as the next person then it really doesn’t matter.

Houses of all shapes and sizes – some like old Siberia, small wooden things with carved and decorated fronts and not looking too happy. Some splendid churches with several golden domes which look fabulous against the black clouds which suddenly arrived and a downpour ensued, just as we had decided that we would get out here and the man would come back at 8pm and pick us up.

The place had a very quiet look for a Saturday but I reckoned that it was hardly exactly hopping at any time. Old trolleycars wandering along their tracks too, all looking like they were driven by 17 year old girls. Pretty wooden houses, decorated a la Siberienne with extra pieces of carved wood around the windows and running under the eaves. And some old crones selling produce from their gardens … huge HUGE bright red strawberries that I knew wud be the same color all the way through and taste superb and then piles of jumbo black currants and I had an attack of childhood nostalgia so we bought far too many of each which we later on took with us to a restau and Nellie had them washed and after some blinis, we gorged until I was frightened for my inside and knowing that we had another 3 hr flight ahead of us and did NOT want to have to get caught short in a TU-154 lav which wud prolly NOT be the closest thing to cleanliness amongst other things, so we actually had to leave a third of each behind.

Anyway we wandered the deserted streets, I wanted some cash and Russia is awash with cash machines but they are mainly INSIDE the banks so if it is closed that you s.o.o.l. Doesn’t  make much sense to have them behind locked doors but many things don’t make sense around here. Thought possibly I would try to find an internet cafe and the resourceful N started to interrogate strangers on the street, all of whom looked totally blank at the idea. I suggested the teen population would be a better target and even they had no clue…. had we finally arrived at somewhere sans internet ? Well in the end we did find one, in the post office, totally unmarked outside as to the fact that there was such a facility within, so no wonder nobody knew it was there, which had every impression of being closed and u had to push on all the doors to find the magic open one and then up the big stairs, with no one around, feeling like intruders.

Had a small panic attack on being arrested for breaking into the PO of Samara and being thrown in jail there and effectively disappearing off the face of the earth in consequence. Anyway suddenly there were some machines and they worked tres bien. There was also an ATM, so this was a doubly good stop and I said many spasibas to the poxy looking woman running the place. I thought her fuzzy pink mules certainly brightened up the Mother Russia/Soviet drabness of the surroundings too. Nothing like a Soviet style concrete, grey, slightly evil smelling and empty Russian post office to make you appreciate color.

Meanwhile outside a middle aged couple, bright pink from the sun and clutching beer cans were staggering back from the riverside. If you were to sew together the total amount of fabric used to cover them, you would have not come up with very much …. but there was an awful amount of them….

Golly, where does the time go ….lm now writing from the indisputably most miserable airport hotel I’ve ever stayed in, which is outside Domodedovo Airport which I’m sure you all know if fast becoming Moscow’s best airport … nice name isn’t it Domodedovo ? You actually pronounce the last ‘o’ as an ‘a’ if you are a real purist. Domodedova. Or just refer to it by its three letter code of DME.

Anyway I’m jumping ahead here and may just finish this message here and leave you dangling for all the news of latest shoe fashions in Yerevan, capital of Armenia and what life is like on board an Air Samara TU-1 54 and a sister ship operated by Siberia Air, where some of the crew distinguished themselves by standing up for the landing and thinking it was normal …. honestly, I nearly died ….

Golly —-  I am sitting in the slightly less than beautiful airport of Samara, which is about 1000k east of Moscow. Hardly know where to begin. It is midnight and I would much rather be in bed.  Basically our TCS plane came to St P. and the weather cooperated and apart from the zillion or so other visitors, we had a good time. We had a wonderful dinner in the Throne Room of Peter the Great’s palace at Peterhof.

This epic man (6ft 8 ins tall no less) had been to Versailles and said he wanted something better and it’s a 50/50 toss up which is grander. It’s baroque on Speed I can tell you, with exquisite hand made 18th century Chinese silk ‘wallpaper’ and much much more. As the dinner was on July 4th, I had brought some good Amurrican flags from Brooklyn to go on the tables and the pax thought that was the icing on the cake. The room itself is all gold and mirrors and totally over the top and they were all blown away by the grandeur and agreed that they would never ever again dine in somewhere so grand.

Anyway, I am now en route to Yerevan the capital of Armenia, doing a scout for a trip next year. I am with me ole mate Nelly, and it’s like traveling with an over solicitous maiden aunt….I shall have to tell her soon to stop asking me if I am alright ……

We started this morning, having waived bye bye to my plane, which went off to N Finland and all the mossies looking for fresh blood up there. We, meanwhile, bravely checked in with the sullen Irina for the Air Samara flight to … yes, Samara.

Nothing like my big bag being able to be checked through on our connection to Yerevan. This just doesn’t seem to happen in Russia, so u are perpetually claiming and rechecking your bag .. only good thing I spose is that you do know it is hopefully progressing along the line with you. No such luxury as seat numbers either, but the resourceful Nelly has had a word with someone and we are going to have protected seats .. “Ha” I said, fat chance …. but the reality was we were bused out to the plane and then stood in a line in the sun, which is another nice Russian practice and can be carried out in rain or snow also. They force you off the bus, which will drive off in a cloud of cheap fuel exhaust and then it gives you the chance to check the plane with a close once over and kick the tires etc etc. Nelly meanwhile wormed her way to the front and when we were permitted up the steps I held back as I know all would be well.

Boarding just about last, I met the adorable Natasha who probably was a big baby and has gone forth and grown ever since … boy, she was BIG and her vivid blue uniform, a Ia KLM, did not help. She was semi-overwhelmed at having a foreigner on board and had about 5 words of English. She must have told the boys up front as in flight they took it in turns to come and stare at me. N and I sat two rows from the front with the backs of the empty seats ahead of us pushed down, so I happily put my feet up after take off as they would not have cared if I had done it before either and the rather pouty young slip of a thing opposite, with much in the way of streaked hair, pulled out her cellphone in flight and made a call, which wudda had her arrested in the USA.

We were most comfortable (well as much as you can be on a TU134 aircraft). N had warned me and I had already suspected that leaving at noon on a 2.30 mins flight would probably mean drinks only, but having made a sweep down the cabin with water and juices (and half bottles of J Walker Black for your inflight purchase and consumption) then they reappeared with styrofoam snack boxes and we had more food that a transcontinental flight gives you in the USA. I was even offered more salami should I care and we all became buddies. I even managed to do a swap (with the help of N) with a pair of World Airways wings for Natasha’s rather cheap looking tin ones, which the collectors will be fighting for I know.

Here endeth this lesson.  Just wait for the near naked sunbathers on the banks of the River Volga in Samara.  Average age 50 and not slim… oy oy oy.

Well, here we are in Russia    August 2003 to be exact.

I don’t somehow think it will ever become one of my favorite countries. It’s the people really. They are just so heavy going. It’s all in the blood and unless there is some mega transfusion, there will never be a change.  

They also are the world’s most uninspiring looking gang. I’ve had enough time today to walk some streets in St Petersburg and take a good looksee at the inhabitants and they really are a grim looking lot. And the way they dress does not do them any good either. Mutton dressed up as lamb may well have started here. There are sights that just make you stop dead in yr tracks and go ‘ NO – whatever were you thinking of when you bought That ??” And even most of the lambs are pretty grim too.

They have taken the style of long pointed women’s shoes to a dizzy height (or really length) and coupled with some high heels that are closer to stilts than heels and then deciding that mule shape is best so nothing between about an inch of toes into the shoe and you have the picture…. pretty grim – dunno how they don’t just all fall flat on their overpainted faces. I was somewhat horrified to see that even the mod boys have long points to their shoes too … where will it all end ??? I know that I shall stick with my current footwear and shall proudly carry the ‘Old Fogey’ label. The women here are just grimly dressed; that is all I can say and u gotta come see for yourselves.

Anyway, I arrived here yesterday from Copenhagen. Light flight and cheerful crew and 2 hours later Mother Russia clasped me to her bosom. My Mother Russia is one Nelly, whom I feel like I have known for years.  Much clasping of my body to her 65 year old ample frame at the exit from customs and an intro to someone whose name of course I have forgotten, who was from the airport authority (I think) and walked me around to see where we would arrive (which I had already worked out, as it is the domestic bit of the airport where I arrived last time) but I stood there rather like Dubya listening to a warmly welcome speech, while he droned on and on – only the bouquet and massed crowds were missing.

Then I meet my new best friend Victor and his clapped out Volvo Estate.  Sweden would be in shock I can tell you. He, me and Nelly get into this very battered bright red car and then he had to get out to hot-wire to start it .. welcome back to Russia !!! We then lurched off (I wud imagine there were clouds of steam and smoke behind but I dared not look back)… so me and Nelly are in the back trying to catch up (and she is better in German than English, which she lapses into that the whole time, which is very frustrating) and I am going to be with her for the next week as she will accompany me to Armenia, so that’s just a tease and trailer for forthcoming attractions….be patient and Vera get the atlas out dear…). 

Anyway, we are driving along and I gets this message to the brain from the nose saying ‘something’s burning’ and so does Victor and he pulls over and opens the hood/bonnet and pokes around generally. I make plans for instant evacuation as don’t fancy being a charred corpse on a Russian road but anyway we continue and all appears well. (A later note, the next day, the same huge smoke smell arrived and was located in the cigarette lighter, which for some reason had decided it was a good idea to show it worked and heated up the area of the dashboard to prove it.

But, who can hate a country which produces canned gin and  tonics? Honest, Mr. they do.  I spotted cans in a line of kiosks which are the best way of describing shops near the hotel and of course, in the interests of science and general global knowledge, I purchased a couple to put to the test. They pile up everything they sell against the glass and helpfully put nice big price labels, so in a country where speaking and reading the language is a definite challenge, you can do the whole transaction by pointing and showing how many on your fingers.  

The final transaction is actually done through a hole about 12 inches square located in some cases almost at crotch level.. the same works even for the currency exchange place next door … we don’t want anyone actually coming into our space here. At a cost of USD.75 each, these g and t cans looked like a good deal, esp as they are a half litre too. Mega cans of g and t’s .. Granny Sybil (my mama) would be giving it the thumbs up. Mind you, public drinking especially late in the day, is a very much a normal everyday activity in Russia .. not just the boyz but the gurls too are often walking along the streets, happily swigging from a beer bottle or even a g and t can on the way home. Just think what the 5.55 from Charing Cross to Orpington or the 6.01 from Grand Central to White Plains would be like if half the pax turned up carrying their own alcoholic refreshments ? … well that is what Russia is like. Shocking isn’t it … and I have to tell you that the canned g and t’s turned out to be stronger on the t rather than the g, but as I have my own bottle to beef them up, then all is well….  

Enough here for starters … there is a lot more to come from a three week trip across Russia … and it is BIG, with 10 time zones.  First off, Samara, a city most sensible people have never heard of or would ever visit.  I had little option.

Well here we are in rainy Timika, Irian Jaya, Indonesia. The Qantas flight had all of 14 passengers and was a FIRST for me – an all female crew – not just the two cheerful “G’day Mate” girls in the cabin, but both flight deck occupants were ladies too, so more G’days from them too. Thus we zooted off at midnight for a remote tropical jungle location.

The arrival procedures were tortuous to say the least. It took nearly an hour to clear all 14 of us ! What they would do with a huge mob of 96, as we could turn up with, is something to have a worry about. Everyone’s bags had to be gone through and anything like a drug container looked at hard. My cellphone was also regarded as suspicious. Oy oy oy.

The luxurious Sheraton Timika was only 2 k’s away and is not your average airport hotel by any means. Built in 1995, it serves as a base for business visitors to the vast local copper and gold mining area here.  It is the ONLY reason it is here. In fact, it is the copper they are after and the gold is a subsidiary operation, to the tune of FIVE MILLION DOLLARS A DAY III!

And if you want to see GREEN and TROPICAL foliage, then come on over – this place receives an annual rainfall of a cool 35 FEET. It is lush and steamy and it IS a jungle out there and if the hotel didn’t keep on cutting it back, then it would be taking us over pretty fast. It makes the Amazon look like Central Park. And right outside my window, there was nice family of wild pigs having a root around in the undergrowth. For the moments when it does stop raining, then the insects sing out and best of all are the butterflies, some of which are really huge, with iridescent cobalt blue wings or black and white blobs.

The only trouble going somewhere where they have not had tourism on any scale before is that I have to work VERY hard, so those of you who think I am permanently anchored by the pool with cooling libation to hand, are DEAD wrong. It was a great runaround trying to put things together in a place that is not very organized to begin with. And it was so WET – incredible amounts of sheer torrents of water coming down for the best part of the first two days and later on the third – not good for glasses wearers, as the moment you walk out of the a/c, then the lenses just fog up in 1.5 seconds.

I was driven off for nearly 2 hours of lurching along a long series of interlinked potholes (here called a road) to visit a remote village which is the scene of an annual arts and crafts show and which we may be able to sked for one of our visits. Total third world, half naked snotty nosed kids in rags and a feeling of real end of the world. There was a large boat tied up in the river, offloading cargo that was the biggest excitement – it was really a larger version of the African Queen, with a lot more rust. Many huge sacks of onions coming ashore.

The arts show would be tremendous for the right pax and if it does come to pass that we can be there the right day, then we shall have to be careful how we advertise it so that only the right ones come – Gucci sandals-land this is not. But for collectors of knockout pieces of carving and at prices that are lower than low, then the right ones will be wetting their knickers. Dealers from Jakarta come for this show, so I know that any of our gang could outbid them in a flash. There were things here that would be thousands of dollars in a gallery in NY, which here go for $50. And fortunately, there is DHL so they can send their 30 feet pieces of carving home that way.   Don’t worry, I have seen that done.  On a boat trip around here several years ago, a young couple with oodles of money, bought a huge and long traditional war canoe and had it SHIPPED on Fedex back to the States.  It would have taken up about three pallets on the aircraft and the cost must have gone in to thousands. 

But the basic logistics will probably defeat this visit as of course there are NO TOILETS.  That is one of my questions I ask everywhere and here it is behind the trees … my babies don’t get on with that !

Hopefully we shall be able to fix a visit to the copper mine itself – the logistics of this place are beyond believe – how do you run the world’s second largest copper mine on the top of a 13,000ft mountain in a totally third world country? Well somehow, they do and we shall want to go see. I am hopefully going to go back in Jan by which time we can organize an invitation so I can go to see them and try to make it their idea that we should come to visit.

(Note from later)  Mine owners absolutely vetoed anyone not connected with mining to come to visit.  Even pleas from the mining biggies in SYD and NY fell on deaf ears, so it never happened).

Well now, here we are in sweaty Saigon Airport (it may technically be Ho Chi Minh, but we old timers still call it Saigon and so do most of the locals). Arrived here on the Vietnam Airlines, A320 from Singapore, where I had my usual night of luxury chez Raffles. They even sent the maroon stretch BMW to find me, so I had a chauffeur in a peaked cap and had to resist waving to the masses from my acres of room in the back. Oh boy, I can be bought !

I had come up there from Darwin on the Qantas, just a 4 hours hop. Very ancient 747, one of their originals and a fairly similar vintage crew too, but they were good and even managed to do the meal service at the right time! Changi airport is still working miracles, though I should have a whinge and say that I had to wait at least 4 mins for the bags to come up and mine was only number 7, so seems like things are slipping a bit!!!!

Anyway, Viet Nam (I have gone bush so it is two words) is of course great fun for the likes of me. The immigration form has a few pearls of wisdom on the back – many instructions as to what is permitted to bring in, so along with the standard ban on narcotics and ammunition (good thing I had left mine at home), you should be warned that also the import of “subversive materials, children’s toys having negative effects on personality development, social order and security” are also going to get you into deep dudu, so just watch out when traveling with kids in case you end up in an immigration holding pen here (which would probably not be very nice). You should also leave behind all “toxic chemicals and species of wild animals” – so much to remember already! You might just never leave home. Anyone walking off the aircraft with a tiger on whose back are strapped a dozen hand grenades, will not be warmly welcomed.

The crew on the aircraft were very sweet, the girls in their traditional au dai – flowing very thin satin pants, tight at the top and bell bottom as they go down and then the high necked, long sleeved, skin tight top, which divides into two long floating panels front and back. As the pants material is both sheer and tight, I can tell you that nice Vietnamese ladies wear full sized knickers, of the types that Bridget Jones did not favor for a hot date ! No bikinis or thongs around here please ! Well, I just thought you would like to know … inquiring minds and all that ….you never know, facts like this could be on the end-of-season-test.

In SGN (see they haven’t even changed the three letter code to HCM) I was met by me ole mate Huy, who is a very switched on 30 year old local guide, who seems to find me the funniest thing on two legs. Whatever I say to him, has him totally creased up. We once spent a week together and he was still laughing at the end, so he gets a medal for hanging in there. I had thought he was coming to Danang with me (I am just in transit today) but he has to stay here and another poor soul will be waiting for me there. We went over the road of a beer, in a very very sweaty airport restaurant – amazingly non a/c, which I wudda thought was impossible around here, so we drank beer and dripped it out simultaneously, as it was pouring outside and the sweat was just running down my legs.

I am now perched in the domestic deps. area, along with what seems to be most of the population of SGN. Hard to believe that Vietnam Airlines uses prerecorded departure announcements and the English tape is done by a perfect sounding English female voice who could get a job at the BBC, so carefully enunciated is her delivery. Good thing too, so that I am not trying to listen out for a fractured Vietnamese voice which is unable to pronounce any consonants – these p.a’s, done by someone with nothing but vowels to offer, can be total mysteries and you have to keep going and hunting someone down to interpret them. And the flight is one hour late too, so plenty more time to observe the scene.

Now there is a huge thunderstorm raging – sort of thing that would close JFK for hours, but here it is so normal that the flights are still operating – not a place for the faint hearted flyer around here!

We finally staggered off the ground and the storm must be going the other way, as its quite smooth. Fortunately most people who were originally booked on this delayed flight moved to another one which was leaving a whole 10 mins earlier – I played a hunch and thought that a full 767 would NOT go when they said and that an empty ATR would, so stayed put and won, as the 767 was still there when we leapt into the tuft. Stick with moi and I shall get you there first.

So anyway, I’m here in Danang and have been running around like a soul possessed. Super deluxe hotel like something out of Bali, with vast areas of open sided polished hardwood floors, but full right now with an Australian incentive group – they are all successful! supermarket owners, so somewhat far removed from my type of client – in fact the very opposite end of the spectrum – brings out the worst snob in me I know and I just want Hyacinthe Bucket to arrive and give them a few clue on social behavior.

Anyway, time to send this down the wires, or you just will never get through it all and I should be spending my time writing up everything I have been taken to.  But you just should see the acres of white sand beach, the celebrated China Beach from the VN war days, which at 7am, is being raked by cheerful VN ladies, huge floppy hats, long gloves ready for the opera and Mexican Pete bandeleros, armed with huge rakes. Their aim is a perfection that would make a Japanese weep. I went and looked at the un-raked-since-yesterday-area and apart from a few footprints, it was as perfect as they left it.