Going Around the World the other way September 2001. Part 9. I manage to escape from Uzbekistan.

Was put into a small hotel for the day (with a 1000% more in the way of amenities and comfort than the previous night) and I watched telly and finally saw some of the ghastly footage that you have been seeing for a week now. Time doesn’t help there and I am now only just beginning to realise the enormity of it all.

Went to the Biz Center and answered more emails from people around the world asking after me – was v touched how many there were. Everywhere we have been, people have been so kind – little old crones in towns asking if we were American and coming over and showing such obvious sympathy – it’s been very touching and comforting.

And so back to the airport – WHICH OF COURSE IN UNDER RECONSTRUCTION – took three different doors to find the way in and then having completed the security checks and the customs checks (when they repossessed 2 of the 3 customs forms I have completed in the last few days) and then got to the check in counter and discovered that as I was Biz Class, I was in the WRONG PLACE – this fact had escaped the eyes of the several officials who have scrutinised my ticket as if it was some deadly secret weapon. So I had to go back through the system (not easily achieved believe me) and then then for chrissakes, up a long flight of collapsing stairs, with no one to help, so their so called ‘premium pax’ arrive in a state of lather and general frustration … grrr. Finally manage to get checked in by a tarty blonde who wud win the “Miss Uzbekistan I Don’t Care a Damn if you Live or Die Award”.

Then Immigration, which I knew cud be a potential problem. I had come into the country on the Group Visa, basically a huge list of all our pp numbers etc etc and was now breaking free and going out as an individual – COUNTRIES DON’T LIKE THIS and the little man was one of those. I had all the right bits of paper and a stamped copy of the group visa to prove I was a good lad, but of course had nothing in my pp, not even a stamp to show how I came in (and I had this cold feeling that l had absolutely no idea where this place had been, as it was all in the middle of the night, on a remote railway line and our passports were not stamped at all) As far as he was concerned, I had parachuted in from outta space. Uzbek Airlines girl with good English is now invoked and explains my case and the guy is shaking his head and saying Niet and I am trying to work out how I will adjust to life living in a currently under reconstruction Tashkent airport – I meantersay, I’ll have to open a P 0 Box and everything as how am I to receive Red Cross Parcels and Christmas Cards ???? He goes off to confer with higher ups and I am left to ponder my fate. Well, there is a God in Taskent, as he was suddenly all smiles and off I went to face Mother Russia … felt just like getting out of prison !!!!

Business Class “Lounge” had several competitors in the ‘let’s smoke as many cigs as we can before we gets on the plane’ competition. Discovered that the bar (everything had to be bought here) was also the duty free shop, so I could buy a whole bottle and then start to consume it right away, so squirreled myself into a corner, with an electrical outlet for these writing purposes and had a good drink. Plane was called to board 45 mins before departure, which was a good thing, as again we went through more security with all yr bits of paper being re-examined, mainly by people who could probably only read the cyrilic alphabet – my thick card bright yellow boarding card had by now lost both its ends and had been stamped by no less than three different authorities, with each of the other two examining the others handiwork, in case I had been adept at stamping it myself. Good thing it was card, as it came in for a lot of abuse. Then off on the bus to the plane – A SURPRISE – not the nice Airbus as advertised in the timetable, but instead the Russian version, a huge monster called an lluyshin 86, which you enter from ground level and find yourself where the hold would be on anyone else – big area for extra hand baggage ahead of you and another flight of stairs to the left and bingo, you come up through the floorboards, just behind the cockpit. Worst thing was that this was an all Economy configuration, so no nice big seats to wallow in for the 4 hours to Moscow. Crew seemed nonplussed by my complaints, as I seemed to be the only foreigner on board and the locals don’t like to make waves or are so used to it that they just shut up, so I incited a bit of my own Russian Revolution and got the guy behind me to bitch too, which he did v nicely (well as far as I can tell, as it was all in Uzbek) – we knew we had a lost cause, but snot fair, is zit ???? Plane was almost full (they had at least protected the first few rows for us who were more equal than others) and I took a walk about in flight to inspect it. The masses, or rather those who were not severely under the vodka, stared at me hard. There was an empty bottle of vodka rolling around at the rear right door. There were no seat numbers overhead but instead they were on the BACK of the relevant seat, with would cause a few thousand hours of delays in the USA

Before take off, I had to instruct the girl on the jumpseat ahead of me that I would require her to fasten her seatbelt – we were on the end of the runway and she was just sitting in a daze. Made things worse when I suggested that she put on the shoulder harness too – it had obviously not been used for some time, as we were rotating off the ground while she fought with it. Jeeeeeeeeez !!!! You just gotta be there to believe it ! There was ferocious looking woman in black who seemed to be in charge – did not smile once, whereas the girls did throw us the occasional bone of a smile. Much make up had been applied by most of them and their nasty light green uniforms were of a tightness that didn’t ortta be allowed. The bar service in Biz has been upgraded so the former choice of Uzbek vodka, Uzbek wine (a liquid in a class of its own, which would make prune juice seem bitter) and Fanta, has now been augmented by a half bottle of Absolut Vodka, which was demolished immediately and some German beer. Such high living indeed. I brought out my bottle of Scotch and asked for some ice and was quite happy thank you. The meal service was HUGE – boy they like their food in Uzbekland – so we did not starve. Dessert was a bit more Gateau Nationale (quasi chocolate variety), some raisins (v local product and good) and toasted pistachios still in their shells. Cudda made a terrible mess on the floor as this is the society that spits everything out and leaves it right where it fell. No movies, no music, no overhead lights, so we had full plane lighting the whole way and to make it even more better, they played Uzbek music too – ah me, SAS on the way back to the States is going to look very boring compared to all this !

So we lands dead on time in MOW and get bused in – bus cannot leave til it has 150% load factor and also everyone wants to get off first at the terminal, knowing that immigration will be slow, they all stand in the door, so it’s a real rugger scrum. No such thing as being polite here. And inside, amazingly enuf, all the booths are open and we are though in a flash. Bags however take 45 mins to appear and we are serenaded by one of our totally pissed out of his eyeballs pax, who was obviously overcome by seeing a bottle of Absolut in flight. No one took any notice of him. My bag is practically the last to arrive and I join the line in the so called Green channel – no such thing as a walk-through here, so you have to be looked at by Madame la Commisar and selected bags put through an x-ray. Sheeda died if she could see us all strolling through controls in Europe.

And there is my new minder, Vladimir waiting for me, who speaks better French than English, so I have to spool up suddenly to la langue francaise.

But that’s enough for now.

Take the rest of the day off – you probably need it.

Going Around the other way Sept 2001. Part 8. A mysterious drive to a nasty hotel, with its fresh eggs and then on Uzbekistan Airlines.

Anyway I am now sitting in the glory of Urgench International Airport, Uzbekistan, waiting for my local hop to the capital, Tashkent, where I shall leave later to Moscow, so that I can get ahead of the train and be there to have all in order when they arrive in 2 days time. I am surrounded by a silent gang of locals, all eyes glued on my slow-flashing fingers – seems laptops are not in daily use around here !!U

I got off the train last night, after we had spent the day exploring the ancient city of Khive and was driven to a hotel for the night. A bit daunting, as I was suddenly alone with a non English speaking driver, zooming off down unlit streets for what seemed like for ever. I’m not normally nervous about this, but we did seem to be driving an awful long way, when I was expecting a matter of minutes and then I had the awful feeling that the wires had been terribly crossed and he was driving me to Tashkent, which wudda taken all night, so in mixed English/Russian, I established I was being driven many miles to a hotel, so I could be brought back again in the morning.

The hotel was truly DREADFUL. Just wait til I tell the punters when they arrive in Moscow ! It was late and I was knackered, as several nights on trains are not good for my beauty sleep, so I was taken to a huge bleak room. It boasted three single beds and one small table and a huge equally bleak bathroom and that was IT. Discovered that the a/c didn’t work and there was only a sheet for the bed anyway which looked and smelled relatively clean. One small and I should think 100% acrylic towel in the bathroom, judging by its absorbent capacity. As no way of turning out the light from the bed, I had to count the steps to my bed first before I plunged the room into darkness. Later it got cold and I awoke frozen and unable to get warm – no point in looking for a blanket as there was nowhere they cudda hidden it. Oy Oy Oy. Christened the establishment the Minus Four Seasons.

I ran downstairs for my brekkie, as advertised at 0730 and found a grubby table with what was probably yesterday’s bread, a glass of yoghurt, some butter and good honey and a cup of coffee (exceedingly strong Nescafe) black, no milk available. so I wolfed it all down and then suddenly two fried eggs turned up – real eggs too, probably parted company with their maker yesterday as the whites were high and firm and the yolks dark and rich and I instantly awarded the hotel first place for Golden Egg Award for 2001. My minder turned up on sked and drove at breakneck speed, only slowing down for the speed checks, past the donkey carts going off to the cotton fields, driven by geriatric grandmas and grandpas whose skin patina had turned into the same grey shade as both the donkey and cart. If the women had not been wearing the lurid “Let’s wear as many colors as we can all at once…” Uzbek scenario, then it wudda been difficult to know just who was what or what was who. Schoolgirls walking along the road, smaller ones still with their hair tied up on top of their heads in the obligatory white fuzzy bow, which is a throwback to the Russian days. I was dumped at the airport at least 90 minutes earlier than needed and watched the information lady at work. Well this was a bit of an overstatement, as basically she did not care for the human race and had little information, as each supplicant was sent off with a shrug. Later she slopped off in her slippers and was not seen again. Probably having a cuppa and a bikkie and a bit of a lie down

Inflight with Uzbek.

Well I was expecting a nice Brit plane, the 146, but when we were released from the windowless waiting room at the airport, there instead was a nice dilapidated looking old Russian TU154 – slight gulp. Crew did no safety briefing … Oh UA, wherefore art thou ???? But they did give us a choice of Coke or water before take off and encouraged us to shove as much hand baggage as we could into the open overhead racks so that they could hopefully work their way free on take off and bounce down on to unsuspecting heads. ( I saw that many years ago in India, when the biggest and hardest sort of Samsonite briefcase worked its way free and descended almost in slow motion on to the bald pate of a man a few rows ahead – we took off to screams from pax and much blood gushing from him) – but I digress….they have given us a small pizza like thing, which I turned down and what we used to call “Gateau Nationale’ in Tunisia days – viz a lurid piece of sponge cake with garish icing – said icing turned out to be more like Polyfilla or perhaps sweetened spackling paste – denture wearers beware of Uzbekistan Airlines

Anyway we made it to Tashkent – bused from the aircraft – NOT to a terminal building, but rather a hole in the fence, guarded by armed sentries, which heads out straight to the road – must be fun in winter, as those of us with checked bags then had to stand around, waiting for the truck to turn up with same – we then had to walk back through the gates, as the truck had to stop short – I’m surprised that they didn’t make us go through security again !!! OY Oy. And then to make it worse, there was no minder waiting for me and I had 7 hours to kill, so everyone else melted away and left me with a lone taxi driver, nice older guy, who obviously saw me as good prey. But the flight was EARLY (we had taken off 10 mins BEFORE the advertised dep time too), so I waited in the sunshine for a while. Realised that the only way I was going to find help would be to call our agent in St Petersburg, so I whips out the trusty cellphone and within a minute am talking to my old totally over the top florid Russian mate Valentina, who controls all our movements around here and she was on the case immediately, screaming down the other line and had it all sorted out pronto. Breathless young man turned up 5 mins later – he had been caught speeding en route to me and was much red faced and will probably be beaten up by Valentina next time she comes this way. She ex Intourist (and probably SMERSH too) and can probably kill without showing any mark. Only giveaway would be the lingering smell of stale b o and sticky sweet perfume and possibly some angora fuzz from the heavily sequined fuzzy sweaters she fancies – get the picture ? Well you can’t cos the reality is far far worse than anything that you can imagine.

You get a break.

Going around the World the other way. Part 7. September 11 2001.

Now on the train. We departed PEK exactly to the minute (1302 to be precise) and are now whizzing along through the Chinese countryside. Fortunately, the rails seem to follow the roads (or vice versa) so we are not out in the middle of the countryside, but zipping through small towns and villages and seeing all modes of road transportation in between. Overloaded minibuses, with huge amounts of boxes on top, farm tractors, men with bicycles loaded with woven paniers of chickens, local buses packed out, men pulling handcarts full of vegetables, the Chinese Walking Tractor, which is a noisy one stroke engine which can be attached to any old cart – belches forth smoke in best all polluting fashion.

Now in Xian – been to see the Terra Cotta soldiers which are always just amazing – about 6000 of them (only one third unearthed so far) and each one of them with different facial characteristics. And tonight, the ordeal of the Tang Cultural Show – a foretaste of what will be dished out come Olympics time (of course you can buy all the O. t-shirts, caps etc already). This is a garish dinner show – TOO MUCH China for me…. wudda been happy in my room reading a book !

Our hotel has a box in the lobby where you can deposit your “Customer Delight Form”… not sure if I shall take advantage of this. And the mineral water provided in the rooms is called Robust Water, which gives me mental strength at least.

Anyway, it is late at night here, September 9th and I must away to bed, as we leave early in the morning on the train. A long silence for you all – mainly due to long work days and general exhaustion of traveling mainly by train and then the depressing scene at home, so all in all, I’ve been wiped out. September 11 2001, had happened.

Being about as far away from New York as you can be, was really the best thing, as we have not suffered the overload of news that the rest of you have had. But the first two days were spent in a kind of limbo, as we had the basic scene and then were totally incommunicado for 2 days, so there was a lot of angst amongs everyone, in case anything worse (hard to imagine) had happened.

I got the news barely three hours after it all happened, which just shows how amazing modern technology is. I was woken at midnight, on the Chinese train by our chief guide, an amazingly switched on young man called David, with whom we have worked for many years. He just thrust his cell phone at me and said “Call the office NOW – New York has been blown up” !!! Not quite believing such a scenario, I was soon brought up to date with the full awfulness of it all. I in turn woke Eszter, our lovely Hungarian Expedition leader and we sat in shock for a while trying to work out what was to be done. We had visions of the whole lot wanting to abandon train, in the wilds of Western China, but the fact that they could not get into the USA was going to rather nix that. Somewhat fortuitously, we already had a meeting scheduled after breakfast next morning with them all. We were now out of even the Chinese cellphone range. Neither of us slept much that night as it all began to sink in.

Anyway, having walked them through how to fill in the immigration forms for Kazakhstan, which are only ever printed in Russian, we bit the bullet next day. Kind of “Oh by the way, we have something else to tell you..” Of course there were tears and blank horror and we had the thrill of crossing the border from China into Kazakhstan to take their minds off it. I had kind of roughed out a speech for Ez. to say, as she insisted as Exped. Leader that she should do it, whereas I wudda have rather done it myself, but she got through OK and then had a weep at the end. Of course, they had many questions and we had told them that they knew everything we knew, so we had to get on with traveling. The office in Seattle had already called the emergency contact numbers that we have for all the pax, just in case we have a problem, and ascertained that all was well with everyone they knew at home, so before we even told them anything, we said that all was OK there – certainly helped and I was glad that I had thought to have Eszter say that.

Next two days were tough, without cellphones, so of course the strain of not knowing was telling. There was one woman in a market who realized we were Americans and just ran her ringers down her face to imitate tears. Such a simple gesture, but I just had to disappear for a few minutes and get my act back together. We managed to wind up our agents enough so that when we reached Almaty, the capital city of Kazakhstan, we were all taken directly to a hotel, which had amazingly enough managed to lay on a bank of extra phones and gave us all their computers to read emails on and a huge screen TV showing BBC World, so for the first time we were able to see what we had only been able to imagine. That was certainly traumatic.

More tears then and tears of relief too, when they spoke to people at home – the phone bills were astronomic of course but they wudda paid double happily. TCS came out smelling like a real rose on the strength of that and we were truly walking on water !! No one wanted to leave us, or even hinted at it and although we were going to end up only about a hundred miles from the Afghan border, we all realised that we were basically very safe and that life had to go on and there were sights and sites to be seen, so daily life swang back into action. It was just a very tough couple of days.

I don’t need new windows or my gutters cleaned, because I don’t own a car …

… I live in a tall tower apartment. The windows are kind of stuck in place and will open about three inches (which is perfect, as that way Oscar, my cat can get his sniff of fresh air about 500 feet above ground level) and I have no clue if the building has gutters. I have not owned a car for 20 years. I do not want to own a concealed weapon or want to meet a single senior.

So why, in this age of algorithms, is my spam full of ads wanting to replace my windows, clean my gutters, improve my car insurance, let me carry a concealed weapon and meet randy seniors? I have never done an online search for any of these. I just don’t get it. All these folks are supposed to ‘know’ all about me, but clearly they do not. I go in each time and ‘block’ them but this seems to have a hydra effect. Kill one today and three more arrive tomorrow. They clearly know nothing whatsoever about me. And that, in some ways, is very comforting.

But it’s also most vexing and I am sick of it.

Going Around the world the other way 2001. Part 6. Beijing.

Hong Kong was a very wet place – pouring down in great torrents and with the a/c going full blast in the building, it meant that all the windows were totally fogged up – funny not to be able to see a plane! Came in behind a mob from mainland China, right off the farm types and standing there much in awe of the new terminal – goodness knows how they were going to cope with HK. They had had great difficulty in completing the immigration forms of course, even though they are in Chinese and English – poor young tour leader was trying to get them all to fill in their inbound flight number in the right box but it was defeating most of them – felt I shudda given a hand. HKG airport is so friendly that when you come around the corner to the baggage claim area, there is a guy there with a line of carts all lined up facing the right way and wishing you a nice day as a bonus. Sure know you are not in La Guardia !

Dragonair, going from HK to Beijing, is a very organised and sooper polite gang – all smiling young crew would not dare come near you without using your name. Only about half full A330, so nobody had to make any contact they didn’t want to. Watched the slobby business man on the opposite aisle seat give his drink order without once taking his eyes off his newspaper – the girl might as well not have been there – such are the cultural differences around here.

Have my Chinese health form to complete – of course it’s going to be a challenge. I’m required to confess if I have any of the following: Fever, cough, mental psychosis (OK I’ll put down YES), STD, other diseases, vomiting, AID and active pulmonary tuberculosis. They also want to know, amongst other things, if 1 am bringing in animals/animal products/animal carcasses/blood and then a rather confusing bit splitting out plants and plant propagating materials and plant products, not to mention soil and finally ‘waste clothing’. Now some of the t shirts I have are pretty shot, as I often dispose as I go along and buy colorful new ones, so is this ‘waste’ or not? Oh, they do make my life tough.

OK – now at least 2 days later – time seems to go into a blur around here – it’s all too much – so many people in Beijing -13.5 million the last time they all signed on (and a floating population of 4 million just to pad things out), so there is just an awful lot of them and they all seem to be out there the whole time. And in case they all get hungry at the same time, there are now more than 500 McDonalds here in Beijing! Just pushing your way through the meeters and greeters at the airport needs a battering ram – there is a sea of bits of paper being held up for those who are meeting a “big nose” which is the translation of what they call ‘us’. Fortunately, MY meeter and greeter is an old mate, so he was standing quite happily at the back and I saw him and he saw me and that was that. I suspect that the airport is swept later of all those who failed to meet their guest and are still found wandering around, clutching dogeared signs, looking for Herr Schmidt from Lufthansa and Mlle Leblanc from Air France.

Anyways our gang is all here and in various states of jet lag, along with the general senile dementia that goes with traveling with us. So far, no real ball busters, but it is early days yet. There is one Brit specimen who seems to be a total misery and already whines too much. Happily, there are no less than 18 who have been on the jet programs and are already spouting away to the new ones as to how wonderful they are. We are setting off on a trip “Beijing to Moscow, by Private Train”. First half on a fancy Chinese train and then a boarder station many days away, we shall do a sort of exchange of prisoners, as there is another trip going the other way, and we take over the Russian train. So, it is all worked out to be very straightforward. We shall see.

We went trekking off around the bloody Forbidden City in the heat and humidity yesterday. One old dear took a tumble over an unseen step – went flying on to her face but got up and continued – she has been on the plane a couple of times and is pretty tough. We had always (we being TCS) said that we know the world will come to an end when there is a McDonalds inside the Forbidden City – well, don’t worry, there still isn’t, but the hole in the wall has been made and there is now a Starbucks there – oy oy oy.

Checked out the rules of the hotel (just did not want to get into trouble…) – noted that “prostituting, whoring, gambling and drug taking and so on are forbidden and guests are not allowed to bring into the hotel ammunition, guns, inflammables explosives, hypertoxic and radioactive substances, also cutting tools”, so don’t say you haven’t been warned. Round the corner, I found the “Dreamy Cinema Hall,” which for some bizarre reason also sold “trash flower’.

Next episode. September 11 2001.

Going Around the other way. 2001. Part 5 Once more to meet the masses in Beijing.

Hong Kong was a very wet place – pouring down in great torrents and with the a/c going full blast in the building, it meant that all the windows were totally fogged up – funny not to be able to see a plane! Came in behind a mob from mainland China, right off the farm types and standing there much in awe of the new terminal -goodness knows how they were going to cope with HK. They had had great difficulty in completing the immigration forms of course, even though they are in Chinese and English – poor young tour leader was trying to get them all to fill in their inbound flight number in the right box but it was defeating most of them – felt I shudda given a hand. HKG airport is so friendly that when you come around the corner to the baggage claim area, there is a guy there with a line of carts all lined up facing the right way and wishing you a nice day as a bonus. Sure know you are not in La Guardia !

Have my Chinese health form to complete – of course it’s going to be a challenge. I’m required to confess if I have any of the following: Fever, cough, mental psychosis (OK I’ll put down YES), STD, other diseases, vomiting, AID and active pulmonary tuberculosis. They also want to know, among other things, if 1 am bringing in animals/animal products/animal carcasses/blood and then a rather confusing bit splitting out plants and plant propagating materials and plant products, not to mention soil and finally ‘waste clothing’. Now some of the t shirts I have are pretty shot, as I often dispose as I go along and buy colorful new ones, so is this ‘waste’ or not? Oh, they do make my life tough.

Anyways our gang is all here and in various states of jet lag, along with the general senile dementia that goes with traveling with us. So far, no real ball busters, but it is early days yet. There is one Brit specimen who seems to be a total misery and already whines too much. Happily there are no less than 18 who have been on the jet programs and are already spouting away to the new ones as to how wonderful they are. We are setting off on a trip “Beijing to Moscow, by Private Train”. First half on a fancy Chinese train and then a boarder station many days away, we shall do a sort of exchange of prisoners, as there is another trip going the other way, and we take over the Russian train. So it is all worked out to be very straightforward. We shall see.

My one on one with Tutankhamun .. so fantastic and unforgettable. c 2000AD.

About 20 years ago, I was in Cairo. The tail end of a trip around the world for 70 well heeled punters. This was their last stop, so it had to be something good to send them home on a high. These trips absolutely had to end with a strong destination, thus Cairo was slightly problematic. All they had ever heard was it was a scruffy Arab city (this was a year before 2001, which would effectively remove them from the map.)

But don’t forget, Mr. Thomas Cook’s first trip from the UK, with a group, had been to Egypt in, so he had huge seniority on that map.

We would be accommodated at the Four Seasons Cairo. If you know that brand, then all would be well. All singing, all dancing, all American. All ‘How can I make your stay even better…”?

As were just in Cairo, with its horrendous traffic problems (20 years later I cannot begin the imagine…) we had to have a great deal of flexibility there. The big moment would be a PRIVATE visit to the great Cairo museum. A wonderful repository of the last 3000 years’ worth of the best. This enormous building is under attack from every visitor to Cairo, but our gang was not on a $195RT Easyjet fare from Rome or Madrid. They had spent $100,00 a head, so standing on line with the great unwashed, was not an option. We needed exclusive. Don’t forget they did have a B757 with 70 seats just waiting for them … that costs A LOT OF MONEY.

Well the museum will fix things. Basically, put your money where your mouth is. Well how much for being there at 7am on a Tuesday morning. Done. So we dragged these poor exhausted people out of their beds at 5am (they were now so in our power that, after 23 days of telling them what to do, they did it). The Four Seasons of course, was able to provide coffee, fresh orange juice, croissants at 05.15. They staggered on to coaches and where was all this traffic coming from? Well, basically, it Is Cairo … if New York is the city that never sleeps, then Cairo is the city that never goes to bed.

Anyway, we get them there and one door at the top of the huge range of steps is open and we are practically whisked in, without the population of Cairo. It was just us… and the cleaners … solid Cairenes with buckets and mops. But the whole place belonged to US. Imagine the Met Museum in NY or the British Museum in London or the Louvre in Paris and just You. Very special. (and we had hyped it to them of course. Without revealing this is what some of your big bucks went towards.)

Our Egyptologist guides were waiting. In Egypt you don’t get guides … you get Egyptologists. And off they went. The absolute heart and soul of the museum, is the incredible gold death mask of Tutankhamun. The one thing apart from the pyramids and sphynx which says Egypt to us. It is beyond amazing. So our gang hears all about it and take their pictures and off they go. But I linger back. I am the official bringer up of the rear, watching out for who does not turn right. but left. So suddenly, it is just me and his death mask. Sealed in to its case. I am starting to realize, there are not many people, apart from the women with the mops, who can have this experience. Who can have a one on one with him? It hits me like a ton of bricks. The more I look .. no. stare, slack jawed, I realize how amazing this moment is. Just the two of us. In the end, I start to have prickling eyes.

One of those moments I will never forget

Going Around the World the other way. 2001. Part 4. Danang does not want me to leave.

Here I sit in the seriously less than cool Danang airport while Vietnam Airlines decides whether my flight will operate or not…such are the perils of wind and rain in the middle of this country. And boy it is HUMID – thick cloud, no direct sun, but it is like swimming through the air, with your clothes completely stuck to you – forget nicely pressed shirts and trousers – we all look like we just came out of the washer and are desperately seeking the dryer!!!

Yesterday I had one of those long days, which seem to be the norm for me. Had to go to visit the ancient city of Hue, which is a bone crunching 3 hour drive from here. The roads are worse than they were last time I was here, mainly due to the fact that they are doing massive roadworks to try to improve things – frankly I think they will all come apart again the moment they finish, but right now it is a real ordeal of work gangs and stuck traffic and huge overloaded trucks grinding up and down over the hills – that coupled with the Vietnamese driver’s wish to overtake whatever vehicle is in front of him, can make for some hairy moments, so you learn not to look too far forward and NOT worry and somehow you get there. There are the many motorbike gangs that every road is issued with, including the whole family wedged on one bike or perhaps a pig in a basket balanced across the back. Or perhaps madame has been to market and somehow she must have mounted her bike first and then all her huge boxes and bags were then piled around her, as there was no way she could have done it in reverse. One lady was steering her bike with her chin wedged on a huge carton (and all this in pouring rain and she was wearing glasses, so probably had little idea of what was in front her anyway). Such fun.

Vietnam has also perfected the idea of creating jobs for everyone – nothing can be done by one person that would be better off being done by two or three. If you have to pay a toll, then you stop first to buy the ticket … then you stop 100 yards later for someone to tear the ticket in half. Tickets are further color coded, presumably the size of the car, and so have to then be impaled on the right spike, which probably later on will involve someone else removing them and counting them and perhaps even entering the results in a large ledger which will then almost certainly be checked by someone else …… the Victorians would love it and of course an Indian would think it all perfectly normal.

Ha – my flight has just been cancelled – my minder has gone off to see what is to be done …… watch this space.

OK much later cos things got a bit fraught shall we say. To cut a long story extremely short, we were put into a hotel in the middle of Danang for the day – as there was not another flight until 2030, so bang went my shopping expedition in Saigon. Although being very much downtown, it is called the Airport Hotel. “WE’ being a group of 5 and all foreigners -two Swiss, two Oz, et moi and told we wud be collected at 1900 (our orig sked having been 1005). I had my minder with me, cheerful guy with given English name of Jeff but he’s really Tri, so I call him that. We went walkabout in the intense humidity and checked out the market but in the end the heat and humidity defeated us and we retreated to the hotel (after lunch – the VN’s need feeding about every 2 hours and are AMAZED when I say sometimes go to bed without dinner – cud not happen here) – anyway we had a siesta and then went out again and I saw the office of Pacific Airlines and thought I wud pop in for a timetable for my collector friends and discovered they have a flight tomorrow nonstop to Hong Kong which would connect better for my flight to Beijing, so I decided in a rush that this was what I wanted to do – abandon Vientnam Airlines tonight and Cathay Pacific tomorrow (who are having their own labor disputes anyway and the fit cud well be xx or delayed, resulting in me not getting to PEK on sked) SO I decided I would stay here. Easy ??? HA … Jeff thought of all sorts of probs – but I stuck to my guns – “THERE IS A FLIGHT RIGHT FROM HERE TOMORROW AND I WANT TO BE ON IT’ Really, sometimes I have to suck in my stomach and draw myself right up and GET FIRM. So now I shall stay in this hotel tonight and inshallah fly to HK tomorrow and happily connect to PEK.

My minder and I went down to check what this experience would cost from a hotel perspective – should tell you in advance that I have a perfectly normal shaped room, with a/c, bathroom with all the oriental goodies like toothbrush and paste and 2 beds, lights, curtains, tv, etc etc ) He went into a great argument with the front desk kid and in the end I had to take a stand and chimed in with a “what’s the problem, deal?’ and he was trying to reduce the price. When I heard that we are arguing about a package which is DINNER, BREAKFAST AND A ROOM and the hotel wants USD 23 and he thinks it should be 20, I step in, in my best UN mediator role and say that in the interests of world peace etc etc, that I will spring for the 23 figure… ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Such a deal – I could probably get a massage thrown in if I play my little boy lost card … but I am keeping that along with the Get Out of Jail Free one too. ALL FOUR SEASONS READERS PLEASE TAKE NOTE OF THE ABOVE DEAL AND REARRANGE PACKAGES ACCORDINGLY. Have your people get back to my people within 48 hours of receipt…I WANT IT IN WRITING !!

Going Around the Other Way. August 2001. Part 3. Danang or bust, in the soupy summer heat.

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 hour 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, Saigon is of course great for the likes of me. The immigration form to get in 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 material 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.

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. Those 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 leaped into the luft. 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. S000per 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 behaviour. The luxurious Furama Resort hotel, is good and on miles of white sand beach (the celebrated China Beach, which now seems to extend half way up and down Viet Nam’s very long coastline). The beach is literally raked every morning by teams of women, to the degree it seems wicked to disturb the lines. The Japanese must love it.

Going Around the World, the other way, August 2001. Part 2. Irian Jaya … it only gets 35 FEET of rainfall a year. It rained.

Well here we are in rainy Timika, Irian Jaya, Indonesia. The Qantas flight had all of 14 passengers and had 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 -and here we were zooting off at midnight for a remote tropical jungle location, but I quickly got myself out of stupid male mode (knowing that 1 would get a slew of intense criticism from some of my female readers here) and obviously I need to tell the tale, so good onya, Sheilas, which is Ozspeak for well done ladies ….

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 – 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 !!!! And is 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 take us over pretty fast. 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 that has not had tourism on our 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 and sticky runaround trying to put things together in a place that is not very organized to begin with and doesn’t think tourism. And it was 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 our visit. Total third world village, 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 an 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. I did see that happen once. A very wealthy and young couple bought a full war canoe on a South Pacific island and had it Fedexed back to the USA. It was about 35 feet long. Two pallets on the aircraft. It outside their house before they even got home. What the cost was would have been mind boggling.

Hopefully we shall be able to fix a visit to the copper mine itself – the logistics of this place are beyond belief – how do you run the world’s second largest copper mine on the top of a 13,000 ft mountain in a totally third world country ? Well somehow they do and we shall want to go see. I am hopefully going to come back in Jan by which time we can organize an official invitation, so can go to see them and try to make it their idea that we should come to visit. (later note: we abandoned the whole idea of a visit. Security at the mine would not even think about a gormless group of tourists getting in the way and we were being thought of as spies.) But at least I had been somewhere seriously off any beaten track.