Back flying around upside down, cos I’m in Australia. They invented Gravity here, did you know ? That or we wud all be heading for Antarctica right now.

I arrived into sunny Sydney yesterday morning, doing the long haul 10,000 miles from JFK in one long bit of flying, with just a change of plane in San Francisco. Flying west at night means hours and hours and hours of darkness, so plenty of time for a drug induced coma to take over and still, when you wake up, you are dangling 7 miles above the ocean and the world has to all intents and purposes ceased to exist.

Finally, the blush of dawn comes up over the port wingtip and ahead are the lights of SYD and a whole host of 747’s circulating like predatory sharks, all cruising the air and wanting to get the first bite to land. SYD has a jet ban at night and they don’t wake up til 6am and as their scheduling committee are mean, they let everyone schedule their arrivals from 0601 onward which means by 0530 there is a lot of airborne machinery cruising the heavens.  Fortunately. this time we were amongst the winners and did not taxi in behind a line of others, so the arrival process was relatively pain-free. No, I don’t have any drugs … would I confess if I did? Quick stop at the inbound duty free (wish every country did this, so u don’t have to lug it around all the time) for a bottle of Mr Gordon’s Stomach Libation and Cure for all that may ail thee – girl at the check out needed my inbound flight number. which of course I knew, and hadn’t I come in on Thai ? and I said No and that would be TG992 anyway and she wasn’t even impressed that an inbound UA pax knew another carrier’s flight number into SYD – sometimes I think I should go on Mastermind and show the world !

Again at customs/agriculture, I am cross examined about where I have been, as the Quarantine folks are still on a mission ref foot and mouth – there is a fire in their eyes (I mean they are always keen, but now they are exceedingly hot to trot) and I feel they are all just waiting to catch THE person who has been rolling around in a field full of dead cattle and has 10Ibs of raw salami in his backpack – then and only then. will they all be happy. Having been behind the scenes in Cairns airport, when fixing things for our arrival there once, I saw the vastness of this operation – it employs hundreds of folks, all in Smokey Bear outfits, like the US National Park Service and probably attracts the same keen types who want to be in that outfit. We are def. on a mission to save Oz and Mankind. It is so huge that it is self-perpetuating and there are graphic posters on the walls as to what will happen to Australia Fair if so much as an errant seed or fruit will penetrate their shield – nuclear war is but a sideline as far as these good folks are concerned …but somehow they let me in and I am free to pollute at will,

Traveled in to the city with a cheerful Bangladeshi taxi driver – you never know what you gonna get here and they are always appreciative of someone taking an interest in their backgrounds. I knew to sit in the front seat next to him, rather than be a toff in the back. I had never really thought much, I must confess, about  comparing Sinney with Dhaka, but now I could write a paper, so chatty was my new best mate. Full of praise for his adopted land but still hankering after going back and sorting out home. I suggested he was better off staying here and the lack of tidal waves and typhoons clinched the deal. “Much raining” I am told, in B’desh and I am agreeing.

The lovely people in the Regent Hotel knew I was coming and had a room too, which was highly unusual and much appreciated, so I remove the clothes I have been wearing for the last 26 hours and go to bed for four hours.

Took myself off to the Sinney Opera House in the afternoon and was pleased to see a packed house for a concert by the Aus. Chamber Orchestra – who said they don’t have kultcha downunder ? Good Bach and Mozart program and had a private sing along with the Mozart Requiem which is always good to hear. They done well. And then to come out into the late afternoon winter light and see the sweep of the harbor sparking away, ferries shuttling coming back and forth, well, that’s worth the trip alone.

I watched the intrepid souls who pay good money to be chained together and put in convict-like overalls and then walk to the top of one of the arches of the Harbour Bridge.  As I have zero head for heights, as far as I am concerned, this is proof that there is one born every day. I am slightly dizzy when standing on top of a chair and don’t ask me to climb a ladder pleeeeze, so taking a view from somewhere that you have to be chained to … ahhhhhh it’s the stuff that nightmares are made of ! I feel quite queasy just thinking about it. And I am no better going deep down, so if anyone is thinking of clubbing together for me to go take a look at the Titanic, then if it’s OK with you, I’d much rather NOT.

So next day, in the bright light of 0630, I was on my way to the airport – remembering that Ansett’s Biz Class lounge has a full range of goodies to graze upon, I denied myself the pleasure of the Regent hotel’s expensive brekkie (as we say down here) and instead went off with my Shanghai born taxi driver, to the airport. His Chinese English, now with an Oz accent, was near impossible to penetrate, so in the end, even I shut up.

The AN lounge is a very comfortable place to while away time. It comes complete with more food than anyone can want and an excellent view of the coming and goings of the airport, so what more do I need? I was happily ensconced, fresh toast in hand, unlimited amounts of flat white (again I lapse into Ozspeak) and watched the aviation world at work. Very camp agent in the lounge finally manages to insert my UA number into his computer, which is a hot one (the UA bit, not the camp dearie) as this flight will push me over the edge of 100,000 miles on Star Alliance this year and now they MUST take me seriously – we shall see !!! Went off in search of new timetables for my collector mates and was happy to lay sticky fingers on a handful! of pocket ones and also the new Virgin Blue. Eventuallee I prized myself away and boarded the B737 that was taking me up to Darwin with a stop in Alice Springs, just to remind us all that there actually IS a town in the middle of all that nowhere. Took 3 hours of much flying over nothing to arrive, so you do kinda feel sorry for the locals living there, esp when There seen from the air looks to be exceedingly small – apart from the Flying Doctor service, it has little to offer in the way of excitement. I DO know, as we have, in a weaker moment, taken our plane there and I was v hard put to come up with anything of excitement to while away an afternoon. Staring at the Flying Doctor station is marginally more exciting than watching paint dry, but not a lot so.

Anyway our stop there was slightly longer than sked, as AN decided that they would do a bit of mantenance on the plane, so we were granted an extra 45 mins of ground time. The Biz lounge there was run by a large lady, of a commanding presence shall I say. One hapless man. trying to access his emails and plugged himself into a phone on a desk, was immediately informed (and so were all of us. an unwilling Greek chorus to this main drama) that that phone was for local calls and every time he tried to dial out, it made HER phone ring on HER desk and this she would not have. He took refuge in the bar, or wudda shall we say, but the glass fronted chiller containing much in the way of local beers plus wine, was LOCKED – shock horror all around – BUT it was not yet 12 noon local and that’s when the pubs open and until that time, the same rules applied here. Such is life in Alice Springs. As we were delayed over the magic moment of 12 noon, there shudda been a roll of drums, as madame produced a ring of keys worthy of a Victorian jailer and the bar was duly opened. Being in Oz, I expected many alcohol deprived natives to descend upon it. but I think we were all too shy to make a move and be branded as a lush, so it remained unsullied. And then we left anyway.

Captain Speaking welcomed us back with many cheery greetings and then kept on thanking us for our patience until he was certainly stretching my patience at being thanked for being patient… Harold Pinter wudda made a whole play about it. But after the 3 hours from Sinney to here, this was only one hour forty to the Top End, as we say around here (some of these phrases may be on the test, so please pay attention) seemed but small fry. Same crew waiting for us – senior lady, of many millions of AN miles and a pair of powerful buck rabbit teeth too, demanded to see my boarding card “for security reasons ” and I felt like pointing out that I had just spent 3 hours in her company and had chatted to her about the world in general on a variety of subjects, but once we had left the plane, then obviously her computer mind just blanked out and she had to start again. And then she thanked us for our patience several times, by which time I was VERY impatient about the whole thing. Being nice was def. starting to wear thin.

We were lunched – as Chinese food is the bottom of my food chain, of course they decided that they had finally run out of all the possible permutations of AN Rubber Chicken #’s 1-5 and now they are going CHINESE – Oh joy unconfined – come back RC, all is forgiven.  We were given ‘Peking Duck’ …. well from a caterer in Alice Springs, this may be the dizzy heights of in-flite cuisine, but idda setled for a nice kangaroo samie thank you v much. Observing my seat mates, they were all sucking it up like there was no tomorrow. And a nice little piece of Tasmanian Swiss cheese -seemed a bit of a stretch from the cantons to Hobart and I’m sure any genuine Swissperson wudda been choking over it. The tooth fairy waved bottles of wine at us and we bravely pointed at the one we fancied – no such luck as a look at the label or anything like that. Yer actual ‘Red or White, Mate?’

So we land in Darwin – a nice 31 C so I shed me pully before getting out of the aircraft. Chubby girl called Christine waiting for me at the end of the jetway (obvious doubts that I would need help in finding me bag). It had been her birthday last time I was here and I had a mini box o’chox in my backpack from the Regent, so I gave them to her and she was much overcome. We gets into the office minivan thingy and the curtains on the windows are in my way, so I swish them forward and they immediately come totally disconnected and there are bits of plastic all over the floor and I am left holding a very wilting curtain – Welcome to Darwin

Am abandoned for the rest of the afternoon and evening. Hotel is in the middle of town so take a walkabout the streets to observe the locals. Nothing to get excited about, that’s for sure. There is really little there, there, in Darwin. It’s hot, tropical, slow and everyone who lives there feels it is an honor and would never abandon it. Sadly a lot of impoverished Indiginous people, many suffering from too much booze – all rather sad. Many, many cheapo travel operators advertising all sortsa trips in 4 wheel drive vehicles into the back of beyond and thus the corresponding numbers of young scruffs who take these expeditions. And each office seemed to have an intenet cafe attached and these are filled with the young all bashing away on keyboards, hopefully keeping ma and pa advised of their whereabouts. German seems to be the predominant foreign language.

And tonight I am off to Irian Jaya, which is all very unusual.  We had a request from some charterer to include the copper and gold mines there on an itinerary.  This was certainly a first and the maps had to come out to work out just where it is.  You will soon find out.

Here I am in the land of Serendip, to give it one of its original names. Now better known as Sri Lanka, laid back, lazy, sleepy, slow walking and at this time of year, thunderous and you would hardly realize that there was a war being fought elsewhere. In fact, it has been almost passing by this place completely … two days ago, I had to search the Colombo newspapers for anything about it and I finally found a write up on page 16, which just goes to prove that all news is local.

I am writing from a balcony outside my room in a small guesthouse in the Fort at Galle, which as you probably don’t have your Sri Lankan geography totally memorized, is at the bottom south west corner of this tear drop shaped island.

I came here by train from Colombo. Not a ride for those amongst you who need peace and quiet and sitting back in air-conditioned comfort, watching the land flash past. This was noise and almost hard seats and plenty of time to absorb the atmosphere, as we did not speed along (well not until about the last 10 minutes, when the engine possibly scented home and like a horse, put on a burst of speed).

Just buying a ticket took no small effort. I had scoped out the station the day before and bounced off various windows, while being given conflicting information as to how to exchange some Sri Lankan Rupees for a ticket. Go here and go there and in the end discovered from the only intelligent person employed by the railways, that you could only buy your ticket on the day and then only about an hour or so before departure of your intended train. Scenting the possible saga tomorrow of ‘ You should have been here yesterday….” scenario, I reconfirmed this a couple of times for safety. The station building is a white wedding cake outside, with a sort of large-scale fretwork design and several platforms inside with even a TV departures board type of thing that kept up a rolling bit of info on which train was going where.

So today I arrived about 45 mins before departure at the 2nd Class Ticket Window and had to shout to the guys in the distance to see if anyone would sell me a ticket. Eventually one did wander over and I paid all of USD .70 (yes, seventy cents) for a ticket to travel for three hours… this was either the world’s biggest travel bargain or I had screwed things up mightily and was about to be dumped at the first stop. I was issued with the old standard Brit card ticket, a leftover from the Raj and it was carefully punched by a woman whose complete joy in life was this transaction. Each ticket carefully examined to prevent or possible revelation of a league of counterfeit Sri Lankan Railway Tickets.

Over the bridge to Platform 5 I went and soon was in conversation with one of those useful types who told me where to stand gain immediate access to the 2nd Class carriages – two of them he said and always full. I had already observed the loading procedures for another train, which, as it slowed down was pursued by potential passengers, who were boarding thick and fast before it came to anything like a stop. This was something I decided should not be attempted by someone with a wheelie bag and a backpack, who would more likely end up under the wheels. But I had a brainwave and employed my helpful guy. who clearly knew the ropes, to board Sri Lankan style and try to protect a seat for me (after all I HAD paid 70 cents for it…). He thought this was quite a hoot and entered into the spirit of things totally by running TOWARDS the train as approached and then flinging himself onto an open doorway and thus my seat was assured. I can recommend this procedure for all potential travelers on Sri Lankan Railways.

Whilst waiting for the train to depart, I also noted that on the opposite platform, where the punters were lined up waiting for the next race in Passengers v SLR, that several decided to jump down on the tracks and came and stood almost under our train. Thus when their train arrived, they were able to effect a boarding from this side and thus avoided the huddled masses who were simultaneously attacking it from the platform side. It  reminded me of the old Errol Flynn pirate movies from the 1950’s, only the swords gripped in the teeth were missing.

I had a window seat on the sunny side, which was also the sea view side and soon after leaving was regretting it, as the sun was streaming in, but fortunately we seemed to take a slight turn which then made the sun come from slightly behind and I am not going to be fried alive. I should point out that there is no glass in the ‘window’. My new best friend, meanwhile was fast asleep and therefore I was spared the ordeal of hours of tortured and fractured conversation that I had thought would be payback for the seat protection. I was glad. They usually tend to be rabid Manchester United fans and cannot understand that I don’t know more than they do about someone called Beckham, whereas of course I know justabout zilch and am therefore considered useless. Anyway, with a cheery toot from the engine we were off. And after three hours, I was cursing that cheery toot, as we were the first carriage and the driver just LOVED his whistle, so by the time we arrived here, what with the tooting and the general noisy clanks as well, I was looking for a cup of tea and aspirin and hopefully a bikkie and a bit of a lie down.

The suburbs of Colombo are just as grotty as the suburbs of anywhere else and reach just about into the carriage .. all the carnage of human life being displayed here, plus today must have been washing day, as masses of same, all lying flat on the ground, within inches of the wheels. The poorest houses were indeed that – hardly more than blown together shacks of cardboard and tin.

We went past the venerable Mount Lavinia Hotel, a great white wedding cake thing, built by the Raj to last and it has and soon are following the coast, with many large ships in view in the distance, including a super huge container one, laden many acres high.  I had taken the precaution of bringing a large bottle of water, which was good as no liquids were offered, but we were offered a nonstop selection of what are called around here, ‘short eats’ (aka snacks to the rest of the world) and I cudda dined on pies, popcorn, things that looked like potato croquettes, served with sliced raw onion, deep fried HUGE prawns and more, we wanted for nothing. Much tucking in going on all around me.

Anything you bought was popped into a nice bit of recycled school exercise book, so my apple’s container had originally seen the light of day as a geography test ! Just remembered, there was a liquid on offer – fresh coconuts, pangered open in front of you and a straw inserted – a wonderfully refreshing and safe thing to drink … the container then tossed out of the windows, which provided maximum airiness

So we trolled along for nearly 3 hours. Many stops and getting’s on and off. Large number of school kids at one stop, Both sexes, all in bright white, the girls with heavy long pigtails, probably done with coconut oil, as they glistened mightily. All of them whistle thin too, not like their American or Euro counterparts. Everyone v cheerful and a generally good time feel was in air, despite Sri Lanka being knocked out of the cricket world cup yesterday. Big thunderstorm at one stage and much rattling of water down slatted window blinds except mine, as the rain was on the other side and we wudda turned into a rolling version of the Black Hole of Calcutta. There were three large ceiling fans fitted but they were non-op – more ossified than oscillating. There may possibly have been some roof passengers, as there were several inexplicable noises off from above. This is certainly a feature of any Indian train, so quite likely down here too.

Finally the end of the line and immediately I descend from the train, the tuk tuk driver tout is there promising me “not a tourist fare”, but I am too long in the tooth to fall for that one and say ‘sure’ and off we jollywell go for the 5 min ride to the guest house I’m booked in and when we get there, I give him 60% of what was advertised and tell him that THAT is the non-tourist and he can take a hike, which rather surprisingly he does. And I am admitted to my first Sri Lankan Islamic Guest House.  This should be an experience.

Where were you on 9/11?  A question that has been asked globally ever since that day.  And one that I received more than many others, when ten years later, I became a volunteer at the 9/11 Memorial site.  Once the designs of the rebuilding had been approved, it was obvious that the site would become a massive visitor lure. As New York City already received millions of visitors, both domestic and international every year, they knew this would become somewhere that everyone would want to visit.

I discovered that they were recruiting volunteers, who would be willing to take part in this mass visitor exercise, so I signed up straight away, not quite knowing what I was getting myself in to.  An orientation a couple of days later gave about 20 of us an idea of what it would be like. It was going to be a challenge, but having dealt with crowds/lines/questions of all sorts for years in my airline background, I was ready.

Where WERE you on 9/11?  As a New Yorker who doesn’t quite sound like one, it was something I was then asked umpteen times, in very hushed, almost reverential tones and my questioner obviously wanted me to reply that I was right here and escaped by the skin of my teeth. The truth, sadly for them, was that I was on a train in China and about as far away geographically as I could be.  Mega let down for them, but at the same time, even on the other side of the world, we had to deal with it.

Back pedal 10 years.  We were five days in to a posh train trip.  How about ‘Beijing to Moscow by Private Train’?  It came at a steep price and about 80 American had signed up.  It was actually two trains.  For us, going west, first a Chinese one and then a Russian one.  We handed over at a border with the group going the other way.  The two trains were on opposite sides of a broad platform. I thought of it as a mass exchange of political prisoners and dosvedanya , have fun, as we accelerated away from each other.

We had started with a couple of autumnal days in Beijing.  A perfect time of year to visit. The trip was running smoothly and as we glided smoothly out of the Beijing station, to the minute, there was no reason to think it would not continue that way.  As the Chinese train had toilets for each compartment, but no showers, this meant we scheduled a hotel stop every other night, which of course also ensured you had a good night’s sleep.   There is nothing worse than a train trip with everyone not sleeping well and slowly running out of steam.

On our September 11^th, we had had a good day, with a stop to inspect wonderful caves and after a multi course Chinese dinner, everyone was in bed.  At dinner, we had made sure that everyone understood that tomorrow, 9/12 for us, we would be going in to Kazakhstan and this would require passports and immigration forms, which we had to hand.  Only problem was that the forms came printed in Russian.  So, after breakfast you all need to come to the lecture car and we will walk you through what to write on each line.

I am fast asleep at 2am, when there was a pounding on my door.  Groggily I opened it, to find the chief Chinese tour guide, David Wang, there.  David and I went back many years and had a great relationship.  He had absolutely fluent English, to the degree he could do puns and we both played practical jokes on each other.  This time, he looked awful.  He held out his cellphone (only the Chinese ones worked), thrusting it at me.  “New York has been blown up”. Not news I could quite understand, but on the other end of the phone, was my boss, Linda, in Seattle, where it was still 9/11 morning.

Linda was always a direct speaker, so the moment she heard me, she started straight away “This line might go at any minute, as you are almost out of China and then nothing will work, so shut up and listen”.  So I did.  This was only about 2 hours after the attacks, so everything was still very fluid in the US.  The moment I heard it, I signaled to David to wake up the Expedition Leader, Eszter from Hungary, who was a couple of cabins away.  Linda talked a mile a minute and repeated everything they knew at that moment.  I got the basic facts:  4 planes going coast to coast, 2 towers, The Pentagon and a field in PA.  All flights were landing. The country was totally locked down and we don’t know if anything else is going to happen. 

One sensible thing they had done very early in the morning was to check if any of our guests came either from NY or if any of them had given an emergency contact there.  We always had these in case of some en route emergency, so that there was someone for the office to be in contact with.  Fortunately, we had only one NY’er and couple of contacts and they had already been called and confirmed they were okay.  Then the line went dead.  We were totally on our own.

I relayed all this info to Eszter and we sat there in our pyjamas, somewhat numb, knowing we did not have much time to work out how to handle a catastrophic situation on the other side of the globe. We had to have  a plan of when and where and what will we say?  Fortunately the need for everyone to be in the lecture car gave us the perfect opportunity.  We would say absolutely nothing ahead of this, to the degree that we would have breakfast and then walk them through filling in the forms, as if we left this until last, we would have lost them and Kazakhstan was looming at midday. 

We knew there would be the immediate desire for many to go home.  With the sealing of the airspace for an unknown time, this was really an impossibility, so we would have to tell them they were better off sticking with us.  The next place anyone could fly out of would be Alamaty, the now former capital and it would be another day before we arrived there.  I knew that Lufthansa flew from there for sure (as I had once come in on their flight) but of course, by the time they would reach Frankfurt, there would be a 3-4 days backlog of the scheduled passengers and they would be alone on the end of a long line. 

Fortunately, all the staff and lecturers were in the same train car, so we managed to have a meeting with everyone before breakfast, so we were all prepared.  Everyone was calm and sworn to behaving totally normally. This is why you need seasoned professionals when taking tour groups anywhere.  All of us knew people in New York and I lived in Brooklyn, but we had to swallow our own concerns and make sure our group got the support we knew they would need.

So we smiled our way through breakfast and reminded them to come for the form completion and at 10am, they were all there, ready.  It was a very horrible feeling to look at them and know that all our lives had changed so horrifically.  All we had to tell them was what I had heard on the phone at 2am, so we were unable to really answer any questions.  We were ready for this.  

The forms were completed and the questions answered. Eszter bravely stood up and had to do the line “Before you go away, there is something you have to know…..”. We had worked out this was the best way to introduce it and even rehearsed it a couple of times.  She repeated verbatim what I had heard from Linda in Seattle.  It was just awful to see the whole group just dissolve in front of us.  Some just looked shell shocked, many in tears and hanging on to anyone.  I walked them through the option of if you want to go home, then tomorrow is the first time and you will be totally on your own.  I must have done a good job, as none of them wanted to leave us. We were already their mother hens and no one was flying the coop! And in terms of our safety, we were better off on our train and basically the trip would continue as planned.  We really did not have other option.

The Kazakh immigration and customs officials came on the train and were very sympathetic.  Their English was minimal but you could see from their eyes that they were as shocked as we were.  It was a very muted border crossing.

Later we were off the train to complete the sightseeing program and this was the first time we saw any pictures of what had happened.  Until now, we could barely imagine it, but here it was on the front page of the local papers.  We all stared in horror and disbelief.

I shall always remember a little old lady in a market, when she realized where we came from, mimed tears coming down her face and she held my hand and kissed it.  I was in tears too. This kind of thing happened for the rest of the trip, which just showed that if you clear politics out of the way, then 99.99999% of people are kind.

Somehow we got through that day, trying not to think about it.  The local guides at least were able to tell us that nothing else horrific had happened, so there was some comfort in that.

When we reached Almaty next afternoon, we were all taken to the biggest hotel in town, where a mass of telephones was waiting.  All people had to do was pick up the receiver and dial the USA.  It was amazing what our agents had been able to do and such a comfort for our guests to hear their family’s voices.  There was a great deal of crying for sure. We also took over eight office computers and in two hours everyone had talked to someone and they all felt much relieved.  They had televisions in the lobby, which were still on a perpetual loop, so for the first time we actually witnessed the full horror.  Afterwards, I thought, we must have been some of the last people on earth to have seen this footage.

So, we lost no one and the trip continued all the way to Moscow, where most of them would leave.  There was a small group of about 20 who would continue to St Petersburg with me for three more days and then we flew home from there, via Copenhagen.   We did not return to the US until three weeks after the tragedy and descending in to Newark Airport, we were all up against the windows as Manhattan came in to view.  At the southern tip, instead of the Twin Towers which would have been so easy to spot, there was still a plume of smoke coming up.

Getting back to my house in Brooklyn, I found my garden full of miniscule scraps of paper, which had been shredded in the blast and carried in any direction by the wind.  There were little bits of handwriting or numbers – nothing that made any sense, except the sadness of knowing that whoever had written this was probably no longer alive.

Now, ten years later, I have my blue volunteer vest on and stood at the 9/11 Memorial site, where the waterfalls are today and was able to talk to people from all over the world.  We had been through training and had a manual to study and had the numbers memorized, so that anything we said was accurate.   I was not the star when I had to confess I was on the other side of the earth and fortunately did not lose anyone I knew.  The slightly amusing thing was many of the visitors wanted to tell us just where THEY were, when they heard.  I have heard some long and boring stories there, from people in the UK and Australia and everywhere in between, who were just doing the dishes after lunch and someone called and said turn on the television  etc etc etc to a degree that you just wanted to yell SHUT UP.

Most of the visitors were so respectful and we, as volunteers, who stood out there is all weathers, were often thanked by them.  Some wondered why we did it?  Wasn’t it just too depressing to come here?  As New Yorkers, we felt that we SHOULD be there, in order to help the recovery that everyone needed, even ten years after the attack.   The crowd control at the entry was another thing, but up on the Memorial, all was so calm and peaceful, with the sound of the water falling. It was tranquil and healing.

Siem Reap, Cambodia, in March 2003, is a steaming cauldron with additional humidity thrown in to make sure you really know you are here. Summer has started a little early and I can only hope that it cools off enough before the punters arrive.

Came here via Bangkok, where a quick change of plane was made. Siem Reap Air had a nice ATR, full of tourists from all over the place and two exceedingly sweet Thai girls beered and watered us and even gave a snack box all in 45 mins and didn’t miss a beat. My seatmate, part of an Amurrican group, sat open mouthed at what we do, as she was not quite up to our financial level shall we say.

On arrival in Siem Reap, the obligatory huge bunch of flowers was presented and the palms pressed together many times, as there were several people there whom I knew – SO good to be back. Glad to see that the visa-on-arrival process still manages to employ eight heavily uniformed persons, the women in full plastered make up and cap badges pushed steeply up, a la Russe, with probably many others behind the scenes, busily transferring all the info from one piece of paper to another.  I progress out of the terminal carrying my bouquet as if I am always carrying a lot of flower heads impaled on tiny slivers of bamboo.  Yes, the hope of this bunch being put in water and adorning my room, is ZERO.

At the wonderfully organised Grand Hotel d’Angkor, one of my top watering holes, everyone came out and the grins were wide – even the waiters in the distance were smiling and waving. A hotel built by the French at the height of their colonial days and which had hosted everybody who was anybody, when Cambodia was virtually unknown to the rest of the world. During the Cambodian civil war, it had come close to collapse and the first time I saw it, in 1993, it was a blackened shell, sans both roof and windows. The saddest of sights, but fortunately Raffles in Singapore, could see the future and plowed a vast amount of money in and returned it to its full glory. It has been almost two years since I was here, which certainly went fast and it appears, I am not forgotten. My usual room, within easy walking distance of the lobby (v useful when u realize 30 seconds before going off on tour that you have forgotten something) – some of the rooms are a hike.  I do not mind having a pleasant view of the staff bike shed.

Nice walk around the little town of Siem Reap next day … growing more and more as they are expecting no less than one million tourists this year. Hotels sprouting up all along the road from the airport. The local market is a joy… well to me, but perhaps not to all. The meat section would convince any vegetarian of the rightness of their choice – the pork is fresh though and the head of the late pig was tastefully displayed, with its curly tail inserted through its nostrils!! Not something you see in the High Street butchers of the world perhaps. Big leaf-lined baskets of precooked noodles, attractively presented in swirls, ready to be popped into the ubiquitous soup and why not buy some nicely smoked cicadas, with two sizes available. The man, who thought I was about to purchase a bagful for lunch, peeled the wings and feet off and offered me a taste, but fortunately I wasn’t hungry so he popped it in his mouth and pronounced it delicious (well I ‘spose he did). Much in the way of smoked fish too, some absolutely coal black and looking past all hope of resuscitation, but I’m sure they can be served up somehow. The twin blackened piles exist all over Africa too.  Hint: never get downwind of them.

Lots of skinny cats around but none trying to raid from the stalls. (By the way, in Myanmar, where I came from, I learned the Burmese for cat, which is miaow !) That one I shall remember and apart for the all purpose greeting of Mingalabar, I shall never master their language, nor Cambodian either, though I can say Air 2000, which is Air Pee Pwan, just in case you need to impress someone.   ‘Yes’ in Cambodian is baa, so you hear people saying ‘baa, baa…”. I always mentally add black sheep.

Always amazing how in eastern market, liquids all go into plastic bags, regardless of how little you are purchasing. In Bangkok in the street market which seem to do the cooking for the entire population they place a metal or plastic funnel into the bag, down which it all goes and then with a quick flick of the wrist it is all tied off with an elastic band and Mrs Housewife ends up with a shopping bag full of tiny see-through plastic bags and I am sure manages to decant them at home without a drop hitting the kitchen floor.

Anyway, back in Sim Reap. the street cleaning ladies have to be seen to be believed. If you can imagine sweeping up leaves plus plus, while crouching on your haunches, using a domestic sized plastic brush and pan, then that’s what they do. The amazing thing is that it IS done at all, as there is skant local awareness of what constitutes garbage in most of these countries, and most things are dropped where you stand. These girls, wearing bandoleros masks around their faces, their bottoms centimetres from the earth, crouch their way around town and I commend them.

I also went staggering out in the heat to take a look-see at a suggested new couple of places for the repeat punters to visit. Tar roads soon descended in quality to the bare scorched earth variety and you could have been anywhere in the hot third world. Nice clean pools/streams with naked small children playing in the way naked small children play around the world .. we are back to the pleasures of a hoop or a ball here and no sitting in front of the telly. Would be difficult anyway, as once u get out of Siem Reap, then there is no electricity either, so just pressure lamps and a generator if you are a bit more upmarket. We took a little walk so I could see palm sugar being boiled down in huge pots over a wood fire – as if it wasn’t hot enough already. The end result is almost exactly like a hard fudge and we bought some to suck on. I could feel my teeth caving in under the onslaught.

Stopped at three sites, two of which are fine, with beautiful temples, not so large, but with exceedingly fine carvings. The third entailed a hike up a mountain path, climbing over large boulders etc. and I was having a slightly near-death experience and knew right from the start that this would not be for us. Anyway, with my clothes stuck to me and much water consumed, we made it to the top and it was all rather nothing. Only sad thing was that thieves had just been up there and hacked out a small reclining Buddha – there was just this gash of fresh yellow sandstone where it had been .. all v sad .. my young guide was quite upset, as he obviously knew more about these things than I would. He said it had probably been ordered by someone, rather than just a local trying to raise some money. I offered myself as an instant sting operation and would have posed as the wealthy collector ready to pay any price, but he said it was probably already out of the country.

Next day, back to the airport for the quick 30 min flight down to the capital city, Phnom Penh and another minder waiting for me, this time a new girl, v young and not long out of the guide school they have and thus a bit nervous. All human life traffic with families of five or even six on motorbikes, with the small/large/small/large seating arrangement and then the smallest one being held on the side. Back into Hotel Le Royal and many old friends immediately surfaced, palms together, grins a mile wide and where had I been and was I alright and how was my health and how was my family etc etc (and I did the same back, so the social niceties seemed to go on for ages) and then in the restaurant, the maitre d’ almost dropped a plate when he saw me coming and was then all embarrassed and I remembered the waitress called Thom (pronounced Tom) who had been pregnant for ever and asked after the baby and she was all overcome that I remembered and nearly poured a glass of water into my lap on the strength of it. A walk around the pool area, where a team of gardeners/cleaners were busy dusting the foliage – yes honest, they were – dusting with long feather flicks and then followed by a bucket and sponge to wash down the big leaves. Now where else could you possibly find such cleanliness ?

Later a quick trip into the spa and a bit of a steam to open the pores and then a salt scrub which is the greatest skin cleaner I know. I was a squeaky clean lad (well sort of) and ready to face the evening. Which only meant several glasses in the bar with the F and B manager and then off to find another bottle of champagne in the room and a very welcoming and cool huge bed. My ongoing birthday celebrations seem to be unending here and at one stage I had 5 bottles of champagne, so it was kinda getting out of control, but two managed to get drunk by the TCS staff next night and I have brought two more to Sri Lanka (where I am actually writing all this).

Anyway, next morning I am carried off to a NEW airline office to meet the boss, as TCS will be chartering them next month for a large group to go up to Siem Reap and it was thought a good idea if I checked them out. Turned out to be all run by Australians, so back in ‘mate’ territory and I was introduced to a sea of smiling faces and many business cards proffered (it’s a bit like Japan here from that point of view, with everyone armed with cards and the two handed sleight of hand exchange, with one card being slid under the other .. only the Asians would make it so complicated, but like chopsticks, you get the hang if it pretty fast). The MD took me out to the airport so I could go look at the plane, which is in a slightly lurid green but otherwise seemed to have the necessary number of wings and engines attached and I raided a couple of safety cards while on board, for the collectors.

And next day our plane arrived, dead on time after a 7 hours flight from Ayers Rock in Australia and off we jollywell went again. Back up to Siem Reap and back into the hotel and the champagne was drunk and the hotel General Manager hosted a delicious dinner for me, including fresh foie gras and we all drank too much (including my good friend Richard Yap, the Front Desk Manager, who was not up to such speed on matters of rich eating and drinking and was a no show for most of the next day on the strength of it. He said he was happy I didn’t have a birthday party too often. 

But I was up like a lark at 0500 to take some of the punters for the Sunrise at Angkor Wat routine, which is always a disappointment as it doesn’t really happen in any big way as usually at this time of year, huge, thunderous clouds show up, but people feel they should do it, despite our warnings of it not being a wonder. And then later the whole day climbing around some of the most amazing bits of stone put together by man. Huge temples, belonging to a civilisation of more than one million people, when Europeans had yet to build Notre Dame.

Good to see that the 82 year old temple sweeper is still in position at Ta Prohm, which is the temple where they have left the trees intact, with their roots and trunks interlaced with the masonry .. it’s all very spooky looking and probably my favorite. This very photogenic guy, almost bent double, was featured in a fancy article in a posh magazine in the States, after the author and a photographer came around with us a few years ago and I finally remembered to bring him a copy so he could see himself in print. We had a miniature presentation ceremony and many of the punters took our snap together. (Back in Bangkok later, I go past a book shop and do a double take, as there is a newly issued edition of Lonely Planet Cambodia and he is on the cover!) Many small children now singing in impromptu groups on the way out, so at least they are doing something rather than standing there with their hands out. I managed to offload all the hotel pens I’ve been collecting for them, along with postcards from New York, which are always a big hit. (Hint to travelers going to places like this… bring postcards of where you live, mainly city views of tall buildings and not rolling countryside and dish out to all and sundry)

Then it was over almost before it had started and we were on our way out on to the front door and it was VERY sad, as who knows when we would be back. 9/11 had killed off our business and this would be the last visit until goodness knows when. All the management staff there, even at 0600, to give handshakes and hugs now, as we are so much part of the place and I cudda cried quite easily. Eszter, our lovely Hungarian Expedition Leader, was similarly affected and we just couldn’t look at each other. Then the hop back to Phnom Penh and I duck under the plane and count our bags out of the hold and off they went with their owners to Osaka and off I went to Bangkok.

But not before nearly being knocked sideways by the glory of the new Phnom Penh terminal, which the French have come along and built, complete with the pre-public announcement three rising tone, bing bang bong notes that I first heard in Orly Airport Paris in 1959 and which always mean La France to me. Gone were the shiny hard seats and the ancient air conditioning unit, grinding away in the corner and unless you sat right in front of it, then the heat was overpowering and you just wanted to be on the aircraft and cool. Replaced by chrome and glass and people perpetually polishing and mopping and upstairs a wonderful handicrafts shop to take the last USD off the pax (which ours of course did some significant money dropping and why not, as the stuff is great and the prices good). And even a cafe with OMG things like latte to drink… in PNH !!!! If anyone had told me that a couple of years ago, I would have doubted their sanity. But of course, the seedy charm has gone and that is always sad to people like me. Soon there will be nowhere left, apart from Yangon, that has any atmosphere or vestige of previous times.

In February 1980, I had persuaded my good BA/JFK mate Carolyn that we should join a small group to go to The Sudan and see the practically stone-age and near naked Nuba people before they disappeared off the face of this earth.  The trip started in Khartoum.  To make the dates work best, we managed to fix Swissair tickets, so just JFK ZRH GVA ATH KRT. 

The transatlantic worked easily as a B747, but we were down to an elderly DC-8 for the once a week flight to KRT.  The SR staff in ZRH were having finger trouble with the system, as they had just bought in to Boadecia, the BA system and it was challenging them.  Getting us onloaded was a problem.  When she realized they did not quite know what to do, Carolyn, who had been using the system for years, was able to lean over the counter, so basically the keyboard was upside down and she showed them the entry that got us fixed.  Just a bit of real interline cooperation. 

We made it to KRT, along with a dreadful 12 years old UNMIN with a cold, who sneezed and sniffed LOUDLY the whole way there. The plan was the group would fly next morning to Juba, in the south of the country, tickets for which were included in our expedition.  Being unsophisticated hicks from New York, we knew nothing about Sudanese politics and were thus innocent of the fact that the north and the south of Sudan were virtually two different countries and about as close to war as you could be without bullets flying over your heads. 

The group of about 12 all duly showed up at the domestic terminal for our one hour flight south.  We are told that it is delayed and ‘come back tonight’… that was about as much info as there was.  We returned to a small hotel in KRT and kill time by looking at the confluence of the Blue and the White Niles, which happens right there. That is about IT for KRT sightseeing.   At 2000, we returned to the airport.  There is still doubt about the flight so we decamped to what was called the ‘restaurant’ upstairs to sit it out.  The restaurant had nice hard chairs and was where all Sudanese flies go to die. It also had a good cat population. We sat there all night. One of our group, a tall and thin Austrian, wearing a very black raincoat, was christened Doom, as he thought out loud about our situation and it was not good. (Diversion here.  About 10 years later, I am at a camel festival in Northern India and who is there ?  Doom, still wearing his raincoat.)

The airport was also being rebuilt around us so the noise and smells of building materials and concrete mixers added to the charm.  In the dawn, we climbed a staircase to the flat roof so that we could watch the sunrise.  We were joined there by a group of Norwegian missionaries, also on our flight, who saw the sunrise as very religious and informed us all of ‘The Glory of God’.  They were spouting all this over the locals, who had their prayer mats out and hopefully did not speak Norwegian-accented English. 

We returned to our hotel and went to bed.  Basically, it was rinse and repeat for another night.  Walking around town made us appreciate not living there.  One diversion for the young men was to look through the bushes and then the chain link fence around the Hilton Hotel pool.  This usually had a few bikini-clad BA crew sunning themselves.  The boys were, shall we say, very hands on at the sight.  BOAC still taking good care of you.

As KRT received a 2-3 times a week VC-10, arriving at something like 0330, one night Carolyn and I did manage to talk our way to a sort of ramp office and met the lonely looking BA guy, in his exceedingly bleak surroundings.  He came from the pool of keen young lads who would go off and wave the flag in strange places and he looked completely ready to quit.  The office was one of those gloomy rooms, lit by a high on the wall neon tube.  It was also very hot and the mosquitoes buzzed angrily against the window.  The only glamour was an old and torn BOAC poster on the wall. All the stuffing had been knocked out of this poor man and he was counting the days to escaping.  

It was only on the third morning, after we had consumed yet more fried eggs (it appeared that this was the only dish in the restaurant), that we were given boarding cards.   Carolyn and I realized this was a once a day flight so now they had three days’ worth of delayed passengers intending to board one very, very clapped out Sudan Airways B737-200.   We circulated the plans to our fellow pax and told them the moment the door to the ramp looked like it was going to be opened then we had to be there, elbows already out at right angles and be prepared to run to the aircraft.   This turned out to be a good idea.  We were all onboard and many others were not.    

We basically then drove and camped from the south of the country to the north and ended up back in KRT.  Carolyn and I were concerned about the once a week DC-8 that would get us out of there.  Somehow we managed to get checked in and through immigration and there was the aircraft, with tables set up half way between the building and it.  It was the cabin crew who did the security check, based on the Sudan’s poor record of nasty things happening on planes, but we all managed to get on board, including the miserable UNMIN from two weeks before, who still had a runny nose and never stopped deep-sniffing.    

At the stop in ATH, they took the two of us off the a/c as technically full from there, but after 30 mins, we were told we could go back to our seats. 

The UNMIN had disappeared and for a long time after, we wondered how his cold was doing. 

It was a quiet Tuesday afternoon in April 1979 at Caledonian Airways in Gatwick Airport.   Only two movements scheduled.  A B707 at 1700 going to Hong Kong, with Chinese seamen, after several ships did a crew change in London and a 1-11 going to Ibiza at 2200, chartered by Club 18-21, low-lives who were considered by the cabin crews all to be escapees from prison.

I am in our ramp office, on the South Finger, which had a great ground floor view of what was on the move.  The Hong Kong B707 was on the original, Central Finger and the 1-11 was right there, nosed in outside the window. Just sitting there, steps on, doors open and going nowhere for the moment. 

The floors above the office were notoriously thin, so whenever an aircraft arrived or departed down our finger, there would be thunderous footsteps above.   Somehow, I am the only person in the office at that moment and suddenly there are the footsteps overhead of a thundering herd.  Seemed odd, as no aircraft had just arrived and there was a dearth of other aircraft out there.  

Outside the window, to my horror, I see a growing crowd of what could only be described as Chinese seamen.  They are pointing at the 1-11.   For once, my brain spun in to action.  These are OUR Chinese seamen, who have decided not to wait for the p.a. to invite them to board much later on and have become an autonomous group and we can see a plane and it says Caledonian on the side, therefore it must be ours.

I charged out of the office on to the ramp.  They were already starting to board via the front steps and were as unstoppable as killer ants.  I ran around the wing and hurtled up the ventral stairs and managed to get in to the cabin before any of them had tried to work out where their seat numbers were.   Doing my best flight attendant two arms visual signs for evacuating an aircraft, I waved at them and yelled “COME WITH ME” beckoning like crazy, so they did.

In the end, 140 non English-speaking passengers walked up the front steps of an aircraft, came all the way down the cabin and exited via the rear steps and went back in to the terminal to await their flight.

The Gatwick ramp authorities did call to ask just what we were up to and I said it was just a drill to make sure our passengers knew how to get out of an aircraft.   My two best staff, Russell and Reevesy, turned up later, having been on an extended lunch break.  “Anything going on”?   “Not much”, I said.

So, the answer to the header question is:  DON’T LET THEM SIT DOWN.

One morning, about 30 years ago, I was in an elevator at the Hilton Hotel in Bangkok,Thailand. Just an ordinary ride.

I had been to pay my bill and was returning to the room, ready to depart. As I entered the empty elevator, I saw a small, wet boy, approximately 10 years old, a towel around his shoulders, running from the pool, so I stuck a foot in the door. He thanked me profusely in English. I looked at him and immediately was challenged as to where does he come from? He didn’t look Thai and he didn’t fit any standard international facial representation. So, me being me, I asked him.

“I come from Bhutan, sir”

I had just come from Bhutan and was high on what a stunning place it is. So I told him this and added that I loved the name of the king, who had the great moniker of King Jigme Singye Wangchuck. His picture was everywhere.

This information was being relayed to him as the doors opened on his floor

Exiting, he turned to face me and as the doors closed, he bowed deeply and said “He is my father.”

Motto. It is often a good idea to ask a question.

ps: He is now King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck. Google him … he is very cool looking.

In the spring of 1966, I made my first trip to the Middle East.  Somewhere I had always wanted to visit, and as I was working for an airline in London, Heathrow, the world had become my oyster.  Middle East Airlines, from Beirut, had super cheap fares for us and I took them up on one.

I was also going to fly on the, to me, legendary, Comet 4.  My first jet flight.  I planned a 5-6 day trip and off we shot.  A quick stop in Geneva, so I could admire the snow-covered Alps and next moment, I was in the gathering dusk of a Beirut night.   I have no memory of how I had a hotel booked, as of course back then, we had nothing in the way of the systems available today.  I suppose I just kind of found one.

Next day was spent exploring and I took a tour down the coast to Byblos and Tyre, both just names out of the Bible for me, but well known to the Romans 2000 years before.

On the second evening, I met two American girls who were staying in the hotel.  Suzy and Marnie, were a couple of years younger than me and doing a sort of modified Grand Tour of the Middle East, as presents from parents for graduating from college.  I soon realized they were both poor little rich girls, Suzy’s father being the chief corporate lawyer for Sears Roebuck and Marnie did one better in finances and was actually a genuine orphan and sitting on a lot of family money.

We hit it off well.  I was not used to Southern Californian girls and my accent still turned heads, way back then.  They had a question for me.  They wanted to go to Damascus, the capital of Syria but were concerned that two blondes would be sitting ducks for the Arabs, so did I fancy going with them tomorrow?   Of course I did.  We interrogated the front desk and they said the easiest way was to take what was called a ‘louage’.  Basically a shared long distance taxi, many of which went daily back and forth over the mountains to Damascus.  The price was right, so next morning we showed up at the louage spot. 

It was not hard to miss.  Lines of very beaten up Peugeot 404 station wagons, with two rows of seats behind the driver.  As we constituted half of the load, it was not long before we were full and off we lurched.  The three of us filled the middle row.  We were not sure if anyone else spoke English, so we did a bit of verbal fishing and one guy behind us had good English and one guy in the front had bad, so we were able to communicate.

The mountains behind the city became very bleak and the car groaned up the incline with clouds of black smoke pouring out of the exhaust.  At the very top of the tallest hill, there was a huge sign proclaiming the glories of Walpamur Paint, which had me laughing.  What was a vast board advertising a standard British paint doing in the middle of nowhere?  Who had put it there and why?  The only plus was that EVERYONE driving this way saw it, so I suppose it worked.  It also had a lot of bullet holes.

Just as we had groaned up one side of the mountains, we shot down the other.   Somewhere there was an exit from Lebanon and welcome to Syria crossing.  Fortunately, in those days, if we were going into Syria for a couple of days, we did not need visas and soon we were coming in to Damascus.  The girls knew all about it (they had been world history majors in college) and thus were bursting with facts and figures.  It claimed to be the world’s oldest continually lived-in city, going back some 3000 years, at least.  We looked suitably impressed.   Our seatmates had already decided that we should put up at The Grand Hotel, which of course always sounds just that and most times turns out not to be.  We are dumped on to the sidewalk and we enter.  

It was my sort of place, as it reeked former glory and was now falling on hard times. The room keys were enormous and heavy and came with a red tassel. They were happy to see us and provided adjacent rooms on the 3^rd floor.  Off we went on a quick orientation walkabout and we all loved it immediately. There was sort of martial music blaring from loudspeakers everywhere and we were told it was the anniversary of the revolution.  “When was that”?   No one knew as there had been so many, they had done a mental merge. The city looked exactly like what we had thought it should.  Like something out of Hollywood, with veiled woman and donkeys and strange smells and oh my God, there is a camel.  And another one. This was all wonderful.

As it was getting dark, we retreated to the Grand and knew we were going to have a great time doing Damascus in one day, next day.  Coming in to the hotel, the front desk man, a senior who was clearly the type who had started there as an 18 years old 50 years before and had never left.  He waved us over and said that we were invited to meet an important man, who was with his entourage in the ballroom at the top of the Gloria Swanson being ready for her close up staircase.  We were immediately escorted up the threadbare red carpet, by an early Manuel, to a set of imposing double doors, which had once been pristine white and gold and now were vaguely neither.

Manuel threw the doors open with a grand gesture – tra la!  Here was an enormous room, made larger looking by the fact there was no furniture.  Just carpets on the floor and seated right on them in a semi-circle were about 20 men, in full Arab regalia.  They just looked so cool and we looked so awful.  At the center of the curve was obviously the Mr Big.  You would have picked him out in a line up anywhere. He oozed charm and was better dressed.  He had a very slim-jim mustache and could have come out of a 1950’s French film noir.  We had found an Omar Sharif before Oman Sharif had been invented.  With a very gentle waive of his hand (a complete ringer of the Queen Mother in the UK acknowledging the masses), space was made for the girls to sit either side of him and me next to Suzy. I realized fast, I was the bump on the log.  We all do a lot of smiling before he starts to speak in slow English.  He is very pleased to welcome us to his country, from the US and UK.  Obviously, we have been talked about.  Another gentle waive and the guy on the outer part of the half circle gets up and disappears behind a curtain and returns with small glasses, which are put down in front of everyone.  Here comes the tea, I thought, as in the guide book it said there will always be tea.

I was wrong.  It was not tea; it was Johnny Walker Red.  This was poured in to the top of everyone’s glasses and  Omar (I shall call him that as we never got to first name terms) raised his glass in that very Russian style of making eye contact with a lowered head and saying “Saha” and down the hatch they all went.  But not the three of us.  We did the toast, but we were not used to knocking back neat Scotch.  Sadly, there was absolutely no way of toasting and then dumping on the floor (a skill I was later to master and it saved my life many times). Omar indicated with another gentle waive of the hand that we were expected to follow suit, so gamely we did so.  Of course, next moment, the bottle is back and glasses are being refilled.

When you are sitting next to someone, it is difficult to make eye contact, but all three of us were trying to work out an escape plan.  I realized that it would have to be fast and sharp and I should take the lead.  “MY goodness is it that time already ? Thanks so much for your hospitality, but we really DO have to go…”    I nudged Suzy next to me hard as I stood up, so she did too and Marnie got the message fast.  I am being disgustingly over-effusive with thanks for this unexpected honor but really, we were now very tired and were calling it a night and kept walking for the door and within a minute, we were safely on the other side and beating it up the stairs like souls possessed.  The last sight we had was of the guys all still sitting in a semi-circle, looking quite abandoned.

Next morning, we were all awake early and as our rooms had little balconies, we were watching all the activity in the square.  Suddenly from underneath us, who appeared but Omar and his gang.  They all were packing stuff into a line of louages, exactly as decrepit as the ones that brought us from Beirut.  Some of them were still in robes and some is western dress.  And right in the middle, was Omar.  No longer looking like he about to ride off into the sunset on his snow white camel, but in scruffy jeans and a beaten up shirt.

It was just such a let-down.  The night before we had fantasized him in to a desert palace, with flowing water, fountains, fruit laden trees, singing birds, dancing girls, the LOT.   Instead, he was now just a scruffy looking local.

We all agreed that we wished we had not looked out of the window just at the wrong moment. Our fantasy had been shattered.

When you are single person, with the closest family 3500 miles away and they are not even American, then you certainly depend on the kindness of friends to adopt you for Thanksgiving. I usually had a good choice of venues and would spread myself around as to what worked best for everyone.

About 30 years ago, I hit a drought. All the people who usually hosted were now going to visit others and not staying put, so when a woman whom I did not know too well, but who lived a few houses away, asked if I would like to join her and some friends, I gladly said yes. She was a psychologist who actually talked to her patients by phone from home. Her friends were coming from Washington DC, so I thought that sounded promising.

Thus, at the appointed time, I was on her doorstep, clutching the obligatory bottle of wine. It was a cold Thanksgiving and I needed a coat, even for the very short walk, so I hung it up and was ushered in. I found eight people, four male and four female, sitting on hard chairs almost in a circle, with a small table in the middle. It kind of looked like a seance. I am introduced and instantly forgot all their names, which were all very pedestrian normal, like Robert and Mike and Gloria and Betty. The men favored loud flannel shirts and the women looked like they had not been clothes shopping in some time. There was a sort of Mormon crossed with Amish look about them. They were drinking sodas or juice. The table had a bowl of potato chips and another of peanuts. That was IT and the the bowls were hardly overflowing.

What was also missing was the wonderful smell of a fine meal coming. I began to feel uneasy and asked if there was a corkscrew, as I was definitely was not going to survive on OJ. Armed with a glass of red, I entered the conversation. Well, that is a bit of an overstatement, as there wasn’t any. They were all just sitting there, staring blankly in to space. I tried a few opening lines like “I hear you come from DC”? Yes, said one of them. Case closed. “Have you been to Brooklyn before”? Yes, said another and it died on the vine.

I am wondering if I have hit an AA meeting and there I am now refilling my glass. My hostess was no more use and I could see her in the kitchen area, so I got up. “Joanne… can I help you with anything”? No, she says. I realize there is no wonderful Thanksgiving smell because there is absolutely nothing being cooked. The stove is off. No sign of anything being prepared either. Perhaps it is all cold and in the fridge ? Then the clincher line came: “I’m going to send out for pizza”. In my book, Thanksgiving and pizza never appear in the same sentence. This was when I knew I had to get out of there pronto. But what to do?

I hatched a fast plot. In about 10 mins time, in the almost silence, I am going to start massaging my temples hard and would lean forward with my elbows on my knees. I might start to do some deep breaths, loud enough to be heard. Perhaps someone will wonder … Is he alright? Nobody did, so I lied through my teeth and said I had all the signs of a massive migraine coming on (which I genuinely had used to suffer from once in a while and they were the real ‘I want to die’ ones.) So I announced that I was so sad, but I would need to leave immediately, as I needed to be in bed in a dark room to suffer it out. No one showed too much concern and they kind of rearranged their legs while digesting the bad news and continued to stare out blankly.

I near ran down the street for the safety of home. And had a large and very strong drink. It was now 6pm on Thanksgiving and there was nothing going on. It was a bust.

Next morning I went to the supermarket and found the 50% off smallest turkey they had. I bought some sweet potatoes, which would go with the other stuff I had in the fridge. I found a pecan pie and some vanilla ice cream. That afternoon, I had my own, day after Thanksgiving feast and boy, IT TASTED FABULOUS.