Going Around the World, the other way, August 2001. Part 1. In Australia. Going to Darwin. Just don’t even think about it …

I am back flying around upside down, cos I’m in Australia. 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. The gods were with me there, as the B747 was very full, so they upgraded me to Business, which was a life saver. Flying west at night still means hours and hours and hours of darkness, so plenty of time for a drug induced coma to take over and 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 circling like predatory sharks, all cruising the air and wanting to get the first bite at landing. The airport is closed at night and does not open until 6 on the dot. By that time, there is a long line in the air. 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. Quick stop at the inbound duty free 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, I am cross examined about where I have been, as the Australian Quarantine folks are still on a mission re foot and mouth disease. My passport has a lot of stamps in it, so I am a prime candidate for breaking the rules. 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 10lbs of raw salami in his backpack – then and only then, will they be happy. Having been behind the scenes in Cairns airport once, when fixing things for our arrival there, 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 so dressed. We are 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 gets through. Good for them.

I meet a cheerful Bangladeshi taxi driver – you never know what you will get here and they are always appreciative of someone taking an interest in their backgrounds. And in best Oz style, I sit up front with him; only naff out of towners lord it in the back. I had never really thought, I must confess, to compare Sinny 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 be 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.

Took myself off to the Sinny Opera House in the afternoon (well you have to keep going all day, or you will be a lost soul for days afterwards) and was pleased to see a packed house for a concert by the Australian 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 did well. And then to come out into the late afternoon early winter light and see the sweep of the harbor, sparking away, ferries shuttling back and forth; well, it’s worth the trip alone.

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 Harbor Bridge. 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 ever ask me to climb a ladder, so taking a view from somewhere that you have to be chained to…. Ahhhhhh… it’s the stuff that nightmares are made of! 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 am 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. He was not a chatterer. The AN lounge is a very comfortable place to while away time, 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 Oz-speak) 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 guy) 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 !!!

Eventuallee I prise myself away and board the 737 that iss 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 except red earth 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. And it really is. 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 maintenance 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. It was very much HER turf. 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 tone 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. Madame produced a ring of keys worthy of a Victorian jailor 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 intimidated by our hostess to make a move and be branded as a lush, so it remained unsullied. And then I left anyway.

Captain Speaking welcomed us back with many cheery greetings and then kept on thanking us for our patience until they were 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, 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 at length about the world in general on a variety of subjects, including aviation, 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 Ansett Rubber Chicken and now they are going CHINESE. Oh joy unconfined – come back RC, all is forgiven. We were given “Peking-in Duck “ … that’s what the little menu said. Well, from a caterer in Alice Springs, this may be the dizzy heights of inflite cuisine, but idda setled for a nice kangaroo sarnie 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 (Thomas) 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?’ All Australian crews are exceedingly relaxed, shall we say.

So we land in Darwin – a nice and steamy 31C, so I shed me pully before getting out. Chubby girl called Christine waiting for me at the end of the jetway (obvious doubts that I will need help in finding me bag). It had been her birthday last time I was here and I had a mini box of chox in my backpack from the Regent in Sinney (from my pillow turndown service last night), so I gave them to her and she was much overcome. We get 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

I 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. The good folks who live in Darwin consider it the center of the known world, but I have always thought it close enough to be really considered as genuinely nowhere. Many cheapo travel operators advertising all sorts of trips in 4 wheel drive vehicles into the back of beyond and thus the corresponding numbers of young, gap-year persons who take these expeditions. And each office seemed to have an internet cafe attached and is 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. Sadly, also a lot of Aboriginals lying flat out drunk in the park.

And tonight, I am off to Irian Jaya (Vera, find Papua New Guinea and it’s the west end of the same island – I know you can find it dear, just LOOK will you?) I’ve never, ever, met anyone who has heard of that, let alone can put it on the map. PE and CS, you are not allowed to answer. And if I survive that, there will be a further episode to follow. And if someone eats me, then I hope I tasted good.

A dinner at The Victoria Falls Hotel, Zimbabwe, that I shall never forget.

How would you have coped with this?

I am in the Victoria Falls Hotel, a grande dame of the Southern Africa hotel business. I have been there several times and have come to make sure our group, arriving the next day, will have a seamless visit.

The hotel has two restaurants, so I elect to have dinner in Jungle Junction, which is the more informal of the two, set in the gardens, with the sound of the Falls reverberating 24 hours a day.

I am greeted by the maître d’, who recognizes me and is happy to see another group return. “Just you?”, he asks, as I had not realized a woman was standing behind me. At which point, she speaks up. “If you are having dinner on my own, as am I, could we share a table?” I looked at her. Pleasant, 50’s, British woman, smiling, so why not?

We were seated together and I thought as I was more on home turf, I introduced myself and gave a her a very short precis as to why I was here. She was most interested, as she knew nothing about this style of luxury travel. She told me she was accompanying her husband to a conference in Johannesburg and this was as close as she would ever be to the Falls, which were something she had yearned to see since childhood. She had just flown in and would return tomorrow afternoon. Then, out of the blue, came the clincher.

“You see, it has to be now or never, as I have been diagnosed with lung cancer and have only six months to live”.

That’s a great conversation stopper for sure. I had absolutely no idea what to say, but your brain does have to work fast, under any circumstances. Of course, I mumbled some kind of inane reply, but realized that she was there to enjoy the moment and not to be morbid. So, I suggested we splurge on a really good South African wine, which she said would be perfect and we drank the whole thing, plus an extra half bottle, had a great meal and some cognac to finish. Of course, when she produced a pack of cigarettes, my eyes must have done a swivel, but she told me “It won’t make any difference now.”

We walked back up to the main building. There was a big moon overhead and just the amazing sound of what the locals call “The Smoke that Thunders”. We came to the parting of the ways, as she was in this wing and I in that. She thanked me profusely for my company and said everything had been perfect. I wished her good luck. It seemed so trite, but what was there to say? I wondered if I would see her next day, but I did not.

Let me know …. What would you have said? I am curious to see how others would have coped with that line.

Trip Around the World 2003. Part 14. I escape the clutches of Mother Russia and come home.

Vladivostok is the terminus of the celebrated Trans Siberian Railway and I was keen to go to the station and meet a train and see just what the pax looked like after 8 days and nights on a Russian train. Are they met with ambulances and nurses and tea and bikkies, just like soldiers returning soldiers in WW1? But it was the wrong day and I shall never know. The station was impressive looking outside but incredibly small inside. I did go look, as there was a restaurant inside I wanted to see, as apparently it’s on a par with the Le Train Bleu in Paris, but it was closed and you could not see through the doors. Anna had never heard of it. I was tempted to look through the keyhole, but there were several old crones hanging around watching me and if this wasn’t evidence of spying, then you can call me Lenin.

We go to see the Botanical Gardens. My gang likes things like this and I have hopes of some nicely labeled local plants and trees, which will lead nicely into lectures on the taiga and tundra and all that. We do a long uphill walk through the trees, which meet a long way overhead and thus the ground is sparsely covered due to lack of light and I wonder just where we are going to end up. I ask Anna if we are there yet and she says we are, so I turns around and we leave and I write that one off. I did feed quite a few mosquitoes en route. We also stop at a great bleak looking building (they call it The White House) which is where President Ford met with Brezhnev, in 1974 and you are allowed to stare at the big tables and chairs and check the place out for dust and it is a real 100% non starter from a touristic point of view. It did have a nice clean toilet.

Toilets are probably what I inspect most. I am the world’s self appointed expert on these necessities, as when you take a gang somewhere, then they all have to ‘go’. Just multiply your family outings a few dozen times and throw in incontinence as well …. so I wanna see what you have, or in most 3rd world places, more precisely, what you don’t. It’s quite a revelation sometimes I can tell you. I shall never forget a small but posh museum in Sicily, where there were no seats in the ladies’ rooms stalls… why not? The reply was priceless: “They get stolen”. I could write the book.

That night I eat in the glory of the restaurant in the hotel and it is not wonderful. The menu is long and most of it looks impossible, but I order a couple of dishes and sit back. The waitress gossips on the phone. Some of the other hotel staff come in and get served HUGE amounts of food instantly. I felt like moving over and joining them as theirs looked good. So I sit and sit and in the end make international ” I shall die from lack of food soon..” signs and the waitress manages to convey to me that basically I have screwed the system. If I was a proper diner, then I would have had all those cold cuts and cheese and then some soup and THEN what I had ordered. I’ve jumped in with two hot dishes and therefore I am guilty of this crime. I shall have to wait. So I do. I order some vodka (I’m still mentally in last night) and this comes pronto, so feel better about things. Then the first dish comes … a so-called Halibut Souffle (I like to give the chef a workout). This is strong on halibut but short on souffle and needs some salt and the salt cellar on the table is empty and I do my “why are you standing around there doing nothing when you could be gainfully employed filling the salts…” act. Oy oy I’m tired after 38 days on the road and it’s time to get back.

So I have the morning to wander around and check the museum, which is not wonderful and then Sasha turned up and off we went. To get out of Russia you have to do a full immigration and customs check. The customs man stared at my form, which was the second copy from my arrival in Domodedovo (had to get that one in again somehow), which I knew should have been stamped but at 4am in DME they had not been interested and I could see a problem looming but he waived me through. The immigration woman stared very hard at my passport and the inbound immigration form inside, as it had had to be stamped off by every hotel I had stayed in. I had spent so long and in many different abodes too, that I was on my third Post It extension, so I am sure she was checking that there was no night not accounted for. Even if you come to Russia and stayed with friends or relations, you would still have to be registered with the police everywhere.

Upstairs my fellow Korean Air pax are sitting. Quite a few Amurricans, as this is just about the only way in and out around here. Two nice Mormon boys in their white shirts and plain ties are looking neatly scrubbed and pressed and I should think will be very happy to be back in Utah soon… must be uphill for them around here, though I heard that the locals are always impressed with their language skills. There was a group of Korean student types, all armed to the teeth with the latest in cell phones and looked like they were talking to, sending text message and photos all at the same time. I felt exceedingly low tech and wished I had thought to bring a nice Victorian traveler’s collapsible writing desk, which I could have set up in one corner. Although our smart looking 737 was sitting just about outside, we had one last thrilling bus ride, which of course took longer to put us on and take us off than had we just walked. Ah me….

On board, so clean, so all smiles and bows and no less than 7, yes 7 flight attendants which was severely overkill, especially for about 50 pax. I just sat and stared and half pinched myself.. it was like coming from Noah’s Ark and Dalavia Far East Airlines was fast becoming like a bad dream. Once we were airborne, the Chief Purser guy came around, all smiles again and I said “I used to do your job” so he says what do you want to drink and brings me a nice g and t and a large glass of red wine from up front and I am sitting there in a daze.

Two hours later we land in Seoul, where it was pouring and the cloud base was about 50 feet above the runway and we came in with much water rushing is all directions when he put on the reverse thrust. It looked like we had gone down a chute at a water park. I go to the hotel desk and a bright young thing offers me a brand new place 5 mins from the airport and the middle aged van driver who came to pick me up, immediately says how great he thinks my white hair looks, which I haven’t heard in a while (well the lady in the red dress may have said it ….) and I am installed in this small but clean establishment. When you enter your room, there is a pair of slippers already facing away from you so you can slip off your outside shoes and not sully their polished floor and then in the bathroom, there is yet another pair ready for you to use. I shall be dizzy just changing shoes.

Later I go upstairs and find the restau. I’m the only person there and the man dances all attendance upon me. I thought I would like to sample a Korean beer and he brings and I taste and it is just about the weakest beer l’ve ever tried. I said I wanted to try some Korean food and he suggested oxtails, which I love very much and had heard somewhere down the line that they do too. They come and it is a big bowl of oxtails in a rather watery sauce, but surrounded by about 10 more little bowls all containing things that looked like they had died unnatural deaths. Could not identify most of them, except kim chi, which is fermented Korean cabbage and which I like.. it is hot and garlicky. (NO Vera, do NOT ask them to get you some of this.. your inside would never recover). I had my meal and I must say that I would not have gone back again for it.

Next day is the long grind home, with crossing the date line so you get the same day twice .. the eternal Wednesday. Took the big United from Seoul to Tokyo – strident Amurrican tones of Madam Purser made sure you knew who was in charge. There I changed to Delta. This meant going to the other terminal and I managed to find my way to the gate where the transfer bus goes from and meet up with the guy who had been sitting opposite me on the UA plane. He is a global warrior and we could both write the airports book. A transfer bus turns up and we go out to get on and suddenly an officious looking Japanese woman stops us and says NO, we have arrived on UA and they are part of Star Alliance and they have their own bus. We say we are more than happy to travel on this completely empty bus, but it is not allowed. Gimme a break we both cry, but she will not be moved. 10 mins later a Star Alliance bus turns up, which is also empty and we are allowed our 5 minute ride across the tarmac.

I am now going to NY via Atlanta. As we say around here, Go Figure, but it was all a mileage ticket and beggars can’t be choosers, so I was going down south first, so after a 12 hours flight I could sit there and wait for two hours and then fly two hours back up north again.

The DL crew was good … of course the warriors and if you added up how long they had all been flying, then it would have gone into several hundred years. But they were cheerful and the woman who looked the worst preserved, facial tick and all, turned out to be the nicest. Kinda the Orient meets Senior Georgia. In ATL, the bags took for ages and the heat inside was just about on a par with outside and one woman keeled over in a faint. I had plenty of time to read the multi language signs about what you could not bring in and in my general state of exhaustion, took a moment to work out that in French ‘ualise’ should really have been ‘valise’ .. that should be sorted out.

I walked miles to find my gate for La Guardia and the flight which had been on time when I started the great trek, was now one hour late due to the weather and I had visions of expiring in a corner of ATL, as was struck down with terminal exhaustion all of a sudden, but in the end we made it and I was HOME.

So there. That’s the end of the story. Hope you enjoyed it. Feed back is always welcome.

Tim

Trip Around the World 2003. Part 13. Anna has an English lesson and I work out that the life of a submariner is not for me.

Fortunately Vladivostok sounds like Vladivostok in Russian and eventually we are out of the door and shock/horror, we are WALKING to the plane. What a break through… of course there are huge and sometimes deep puddles on the tarmac, which the locals wade through and I walk around and the incredibly old truck taking the bags out rumbles past and I am happy to see my bag perched on the top. It is just about the only one not heavily plastificated.

Vladivostok Air has rolled out another of those crummy TU-154’s and I find that their Business class is just the regular old three seaters at the front but they only use the window and aisle seat, just like those European carriers have been doing for years and making mucho money from it too. We do get a curtain to avoid the envious eyes of the masses. Our flight attendant, Valentina, is tall and in her bright blue uniform with a brilliant red scarf looks good, though she could do with some help from a dermatologist, but she speaks a little English and main thing is she is NICE; that is all that is needed. And she makes sure our seatbelts are on and even sits down and straps herself in … if I hadn’t been sitting down already, Idda fallen down from shock.

Once we have taken the whole runway to get into flight for the 2 hours south, she gives us huge trays full of food .. no nice Beluga caviar and supplies of hot blinis, but the standard cold cuts and red caviar and black bread. My seatmate eats it all out of sequence, muddling sweet and sour with no apparent discomfort. I turn down the proffered beer but he has one and offers to pay, so think that poss he is an upgrade. When he realizes that they are FREE, he has two more – he’s catching on fast.

And so we land in Vladivostok, in the rain and it’s back to the how many can we get into a bus in the rain (which is much more fun as those outside are being drenched and therefore pushing…). I am met by a nice tall young lady with an umbrella and she drives at high speed into VVO (as IATA calls it) and I feign sleep as I’d rather she keep her eyes on the roads, which look like skating rinks. It’s a long way into VVO. When there, I am deposited at the venerable looking Versailles Hotel, with fancy lighting and some awful artwork on the walls, all of which is for sale. The receptionist manages to give me the form to fill in, scans it and a computer screen and give me the key all without stopping talking to her mate on the phone. She is, I think, a Sybil Fawlty in training.

By recent standards, I have a musty big room with a bed and running water and a large Japanese machine for boiling water and possibly I can cook rice in it. It is huge and a view out of the window of a dog having a pee and it is all wonderful. I feel more like taking to my bed, but no such chance as someone is coming at 2pm to take me out and show me the town.

In the lobby, the statuesque Anna is waiting. She is taller than me and absolutely ravishing and speaks totally fluent English. Turns out she is a last year student at the University studying English and Spanish and had just come from an exam in English Grammar. I asked what that was and I wish I had written down the reply, as it didn’t mean a THING to me … all about using reflexive gerunds or something like that. I could not have written one word. She is accompanied by our driver Alexander and I ask if he is known as Sasha (as every Russian Alexander is) and they are amazed that I know such a thing .. well, she has her knowledge of gerunds and I know about Alexander aka Sasha! She is very happy to hear my British accent, as I realize that all the guides in Russia do speak British English, rather than American. The gang I know in St Petersburg are amazingly posh sounding; it always amuses me. As we progressed around, I did manage to add a few words to her vocabulary, like Trophy Wife, Toy Boy, Mutton-dressed-up-as-lamb, Queer as a Clockwork Orange and Bimbo, all with exact definitions and we got on very cheerfully. She was going to try out her new words on her professor and I’m sure she will be in trouble for hanging around with the wrong sort of native speaker – I did warn her but she could not wait!

It has stopped raining and we go see the sights. It’s a BIG place this. All around the harbor and of course is still the biggest Russian naval port of the east and until a few years ago was totally banned to foreigners, as those camera toting tourists would obviously all be spies and NOT Harry and Marlene from Kansas City on their Globus Gateway tour of Highlights of Russia in 17 days, meal plan optional. Now, we are admitted, but I was careful not to look at any submarines, just in case. I DID however then come face to face with one right out of the water and it could be visited. The front end had been cleaned out and made into a museum of subs and the rear part has been left as was, so you have to climb between the bulkheads, which could be difficult for some of our punters and it also gives you the chance to bang your head on various dials and bits of tubing. It came complete with hammocks slung over the torpedoes. I had to leave very fast as it was really getting to me. Wild horses and any amount of vodka would NEVER get me underwater in one of these.

We drive up to the viewpoint and can see how it has all spread out and how pretty it must have been etc etc and Anna does not approve of all the high-rise building that is going on and who can afford it and I ask well who CAN and she says that only Russian New Money (which basically means their homegrown mafia and Mr Bigs). The apartments are bought as fast as they are built. She lives with her parents and brother in 3 rooms. Her father is an engineer … almost everyone you meet in Russia is either married to one, if they are old enough or is the offspring of, if they are younger.

We walk the streets, some of which have been made into pedestrian-only malls, so quite a breakthrough for around here and I ask about the music I can hear. (Have to confess I thought at first it was the boyz with their boomboxes – you can take this boy out of Brooklyn, but you can’t take Brooklyn out of this boy), but it turned out it is all piped in overhead and Anna thought it luvly ….hmmm … I shall now always associate Madonna not crying for Argentina with Vladivostok, which make odd bedmates for sure!

OK a break. Just one last episode and you will have been Around the World in 40 days.

My first ‘job’. Eight years old and the Monday to Friday toil had already started.

My first job was at the age of eight. It was more of a responsibility than a job, as I was not paid, but I was not a volunteer either. The requirement was to fill the little ceramic inkwells that were inserted in to the top right hand corner of the wooden desks we sat in at The Kings School, Gloucester. We used steel nibbed, dip pens. I was very proud of my job and did it with the utmost earnestness and devotion.

I had a long-necked oil can type of thing. Years later, when I saw movies about American railroads and there would always be a man with an identical container oiling something and carrying a rag and I would say to myself “That’s my ink can and rag”. I cannot remember where the bulk ink was in the schoolroom. I just know that the can was full and I went up and down the lines of desks, filling the inkwells to the brim and mopping up any spills. Some boys had ‘proper’ ink pens, but the majority of us still dipped. Ballpoints were just in their infancy then, but regarded as the end to legible script, so were not encouraged.

Years later, I discovered how wonderfully Dickensian it all was and Dickens himself had been in the ink production business as a child. We were bonded.

Trip Around the World 2003. Pt 12. Change of plan. Off to Vladivostok. On Vladivostok Air too.

I’m now going to Vladivostok. This had not been on the original plan, but I had had such cold feet about PK, that I thought as it is only two hours away and I have never heard of anyone going there, then perhaps we should. I suggested this to the office in Seattle and they said yes, so I said I will organize a flight and you find a hotel and someone to show me the sights. This meant a visit to the travel agency in the hotel (most Russian hotels seem to have a sort of travel bureau) and the lady there spoke quite good English and she pounded away on her keyboard and I looked at her screen and she was surprised that I could read and understand it (but it was all in English, so I was probably faster than she was). I could see that tomorrow there were no seats in Y but C was available and that was all of $50 more so I said, take it and she did and a ticket whizzed out and I was done. What could Business Class on Vladivostok Air be like ???? Watch this space….

Meanwhile in the hotel, I had to move rooms, as was now staying another night and moved up in floor to be downgraded in class. The single bedded room (and the bed was about the right size for a not too picky 12 yr old) was tiny. Still no water, so my bucket was provided. The one and only light was two neon tubes right over the window (and one of the tubes was in flicker mode) and the one switch was half way up a wall and not reachable from the bed … oy oy oy Why do they put things together like this ??? It takes genius to make a room so horrible. Outside it was raining again, which made a dreary town, 100% worse, so some useful time writing up all my notes from the previous days. In the dining room, at night, I am the only client. I miss the lady in the red dress very much.

I rise early and a taxi is summoned and we zoot off to the airport. Down all sorts of backroads too, through the birch trees all shining from some rain and I begin to wonder just where the hell we are going as I KNOW the way to the airport and this is all new. But somehow we get there and I am too early (for Registration, as you well know) and sit on a nice hard seat and watch the gang arriving. It’s awfully busy for first thing on a Sunday morning and there seem to be flights going all over Russia and they all want to leave within the same hour. There’s a nice big IL-62 sitting outside, from the splendidly named Kras Air, from Krasnoyask, which is a major city in Siberia and I remember taking this aircraft there a few years back and am glad that it is not taking me now, as it’s somewhere I hope never to see again.

Anyway, the man wrapping bags in plastic hardly takes a breath and the rather battered looking, exceedingly red-haired woman on the info desk, who also is in charge of the public address system, is spouting forth and addressing us like some political rally. She looks like she has been there for ever and is definitely a mine of information and with her flyaway glasses could be a distant cousin of Dame Edna Everage, though Dame Edna would never admit it. She pops out from behind her desk at one point and I get the chance to admire the fuzzy bright yellow mules she is wearing .. looks like she forgot to put her shoes on before she left home this morning, but then I remembered that in Uzbekistan a couple of years ago, the woman doing the same job in Bukhara was similarly shod. Must be a union thing.

Eventually the Registration is open and we all file through the one and only door, trying to keep our bags and children and tickets and dogs and coming undone plastic bags and geriatric grandmas ALL TOGETHER and then to the check in desk and I get my boarding card and it’s pink and I have a seat number 1A no less. So we takes our seats for the next wait. A young Korean man is in a panic of being left behind and bounces off the severely faced Ludmilla who checks all boarding cards as pax board buses and at one stage he comes and sits next to me, so I make sure he sees my boarding card and he looks at me and says “Vladivostok?” and I say Yes/Da and have no clue what a simple word like that is in Korean, but anyway he sits down a lot more calmly and I just hope I don’t screw up and manages to get us BOTH left behind.

Next time, meet the beautiful Anna, graduating in English from university. I expand her vocabulary with the useful words nobody ever teaches you ….

Trip Around the World 2003. Pt 11. Dedicated to The Lady in the Red Dress.

Well you are on the last lap, and so am I.

Petropavlovsk had one more thrill for me. I go for dinner in the dungeon restaurant of the hotel and spot immediately that the place is ready for a party of some kind, as there is a long table, set for 12, already groaning (and for once that is the right word) with food of all kinds. All those standard Russian starters which would always just make a full meal, plus many many bottles (just your average Russian night out with vodka, cognac, beer, champanski (usually terribly sweet and best avoided or used to launch ships) and the tops are already off the bottles, so it must be all about the happen. The waitress takes my order and I sit and look and then realize that if this should be a celebratory event of some kind, then I am right in line to be the recipient of some international and probably, alcoholic bonhomie. The restaurant is too small to hide in and there are no nice potted palms or the like to take cover behind. So I awaits my fate and it turns up quite soon.

A VERY cheerful gang arrives, nearly all middle-aged couples and dressed up and already in a good mood. They take their pews and I soon spot the Birthday Boy, Vassily, 55 (cos I saw the extraordinarily glittery and garish card that was presented, along with the several bunches of flowers – it was a bit like the Olympics, without medals and national anthems). Vassily looked a prosperous and happy chap. They all start to have the usual eye to eye toasts and the vodka bottles are evaporating before my eyes.

Then the band turned up. I had enough entertainment to watch as it was and here is a quartet, which launched fast into their repertoire and bingo, just about all the eaters are up and dancing. Vassily dances with a woman in a red dress and they dance the way that couples who have been dancing together for 20 years dance, no surprise moves and very Fred and Ginger they are too. Between dances they renew their attacks on the food and drink (mostly the latter) and it’s a very convivial time that is being had. I felt quite like an intruder.

But then what I had dreaded would happen did. The woman in the red dress, who was very much the mover and shaker behind the whole thing, caught my eye and raised her vodka glass, so of course being a politely brought up lad, I raised mine. She grinned an exceedingly metallic smile (I’m getting used to these by now, but did have a momentary wonder if Russian toothpaste contains an added metal polish ingredient?). Anyway, she waves to me from really only a few feet away and gets up and makes obvious “Want to dance?” signs. She could be adding “You gorgeous hunk” or “You old fart”. I shall never know. I play hard to get, but this is clearly a woman who is used to getting her own way, so I takes a belt of my vodka and we take to the floor and generally behave like souls possessed. Fortunately, everyone else was too, so I was not doing a solo, as my John Travolta dancing days came and went in about one day, many years ago. Everyone is bopping away and the music is great and between dances we repair back to tables, eat a bit, drink a bit and back we go.

I’m finally exhausted and sit some out and she comes over and we have a total cross-purpose conversation as her English is about as good as my Russian. We establish that she is the mother of three (and I claim the same number of offspring, HONESTLY, it’s so much easier) and she is much amused that I think Vassily is papa .. no, her hubby is the man sitting opposite her, who is well preserved with a rather splendidly curled mustache and he gives me a big metallic grin and I wonder about them ever having a good snog, as it would be metal/metal And HE is called Vassily also, so I call him Vassily Tva (which is Russian for 2) and she thinks this is a riot and tells him and he falls off his chair and then she and Vassily One suddenly dance in a very romantic way and I just put it all down to Happy Families. The empty vodka bottles are replaced with new ones and they are getting set for being totally legless … well I would be.

Then it is time to make short speeches to honor Mr Vassily. I’ve come to the conclusion that he is something Big at the Works. Perhaps he is retiring/moving? and these are the underlings, so therefore there is quite a lot of sucking up going on. He sits back and looks suitably impressed and I decide to do my own simultaneous translation as to what they are saying. Have discovered, Mr Otto, that it’s a piece of cake, this routine, especially if a) you don’t speak the language and b) have drunk enough vodka. Anyone can do it. I could tell exactly what they were saying … I just shall say I fleshed it out a bit and leave it at that.

I’ve eaten my food and danced and now know that I must escape, as I have a date with a plane in the early morning, so I seize the moment when they are all busy and flee. I shall never know her name and just hope she wakes up in the right bed in the morning and not too hungover. She will always remain The Lady in the Red Dress.

A visit to Santa Claus, at the North Pole. It’s in Finland, just to confuse you and BIG business.

There had been an idea, many years ago, that we could include a quick stop at the Santa Claus headquarters of the world, which is in Finland. So I was dispatched to check it out.

Flying up from Helsinki on the very efficient Finnair, to the city of Rovaniemi, I had an aerial tour of about a million pine trees. If you like pine trees, Finland is the place for you. I am met and installed in a very efficient if somewhat spartan. Finnish hotel and told that the reindeer on the menu for dinner is REALLY good. I am kind of thinking, I did not come here to eat them.

Next day, the very cheerful Inge is waiting for me and off we go to visit Santa. Kind of odd, in blinding and actually quite warm daylight. I see lots of reindeer standing around. And then I discovered the Santa industry is something that provides this place with a great income. Their peak season runs for a whole month … Nov 25 to Dec 25 and then it is almost over. But in that month, the place is on overdrive. The airport is swamped with charter flights from all over Europe. At weekends, just thousands of visitors pour in. The Brits lead the pack by a long way, but the Germans and French and Spanish are not far behind. It is the long day out from hell, as no one stays the night, but flies from home in the early morning darkness, which can mean a 3 – 5 hours flight just to get there. They run around for a few hours doing the Santa thing and then fly back the same evening. Some very quiet and tired passengers on the return trip for sure.

The Finns have it all totally under control. Don’t forget, in the middle of December, it is dark all day up here. The visitors leave home in the dark, it is dark when they arrive and it is still dark when they get home. Regarded as totally safe, the immigration check is minimal so as not to slow things down. Once off the aircraft, they are put in to polar expedition suits and jump on to sledges, pulled by reindeer. Lit with blazing torches, they take a dramatic ride thought the … yes … you guessed… fir trees. They are all illuminated, heavy with snow and I saw the pix and very dramatic it looked. Lots of Christmas cards come to life.

Then they end up at a Santa’s workshop. As it is all dark and very carefully plotted, they cannot see there are quite a lot of Santa’s workshops. They are huge. You jump off your sled, cheeks flushed and then enter a Disney-like world to make you feel you have arrived right at the North Pole. I had to admit, in my best grumpy old man frame of mind, that they do it extremely well. Of course, the whole things ends with a visit to Santa himself and I saw where it all happens. Being June, there was only one Santa on duty and he was elsewhere, but I could see how it worked. It is of course a HUGE retail opportunity. Even in June, Santa’s helpers were there, all in full winter rig, the scent of pines being wafted in and many international Christmas carols being played. It was beyond surreal.

I talked to some of the women (it appeared to be totally female run) and asked them if they didn’t ever get a bit Christmassed-out? I might as well have said I don’t believe in Santa Claus, as they were all total fans of Santa and this is a dream happiness job. High on ho-ho-ho.

I discovered, thanks to the agreement of the international postal union, letters dropped in mail boxes anywhere in the world, addressed to Santa, North Pole do get delivered. It is territorial, so Finland receives most of those from Europe. This means hundreds of thousands of letters, starting in October. They are all opened and read, which is a huge undertaking, as of course not many are written in Finnish and come in many languages. I asked if there was a country that sends most and of course they had all the stats. Top three for writing to Santa are the UK, Poland and Japan … how about that! Letters are checked for signs of distress from the child. If the writer expresses severe problems, then the letters are returned to the child care agencies in the countries concerned. It also means they have a stack of international stamps and you can buy large envelopes of them for small amounts and the money goes to UNICEF.

About 40 years before this expedition. I was a Santa Claus in a department store in the UK. That is another story. But it was great to come to the WHQ of the business. I had come home.

Trip Around the World 2003. Part 10. PK and an ancient helicopter where the windows open and a plumbing disaster.

PK, as they thankfully refer to it, turns out NOT to be a wonder and by the time I’ve run around our projected program, I’m getting cold feet about the whole thing. It really is the end of the world, just a mess, certainly. No There, there, on a massive scale of zero. And it has weather. It has lots of cloudy and damp weather. It rains a lot during the summer and then when winter arrives, the whole place is a deep freeze. You really do wonder why anyone wants to live anywhere so desolate. It’s a nine hour flight from here to Moscow, to give you some idea of the distance.

I am met by the next agent down the line and she is an American! Wonder of wonders. Married to a Russian, she has lived there for 10 years, (Marrying a Russian may be one thing, but living around here is just too much), so we start talking hard and long about what we intend to do. This is going to be the first stop on this new trip and it’s kind of VERY important that we get off to a good start. Well I’m not so sure here that we can do it and the longer I stay, the worse it gets. It rapidly becomes a no-go situation and will therefore be a major problem to replace. Tough eco-tourists come here to go hiking and nature watching in the raw and that is fine for them of course. But we are softies. We shall be coming to visit what is known as the Valley of the Geysirs, which is a 75 mins helicopter ride in a massive old large and noisy helicopter. You are totally at the mercy of the weather, both at origin and destination and getting the two to line up may take more than we humans can fix. I was delayed a day doing it and it did not operate the other two days I was there, which does not bode well. The helicopters are real relics. They are huge and can seat 24, but are so noisy that we are all issued with ear mufflers. At one stage, there was suddenly an enormous draft and the woman’s hair in front of me took off (which upset her enormously), but what had happened? Had we sprung a leak? Then discovered you could open three of the large circular windows in flight, which was a first, so a keen photographer type was half hanging out of the machine, happily snapping away.

The scenery at the other end is certainly spectacular, with a mini Old Faithful, as in Yellowstone and many steaming fissures and boiling mud and all that kind of thing. You land on a nice arrangement of what look like old sand tracks from the Sahara and set off on a great trek down and along the valley. They give you food, which under the circumstances was good – hot baked salmon (salmon is to Kamchatka what chicken is to the west) and of course all those cold cuts and cheese and red caviar. The totally non-uniformed 3 man crew tucked in too and was glad to see they had a beer to keep up their energy levels. On the way back, they spotted a large brown bear so we did a figure of eight around it so we all got a view – it did look ENORMOUS. Make mental note not to go walking about outside the city.

And the hotels here are just grim. Basic is not getting anywhere near. They are just plain awful and I’m desperately trying to come up with some solution that does not involve blowing them up, with some of their staff and starting again. And then a terrible thing happened. As if it couldn’t get worse, right out of the blue, with 10 mins notice, all the water in town was cut off and would stay off for 2 DAYS. We were all provided with a plastic bucket full in the squalid little bathrooms and left to our own devices. Just try to image how my babies would react to that? And I moved hotel again into the one that would have to do if we do indeed come and I had a room the size of a large postage stamp, with a single bed that would do fine for a 10yr old perhaps (and not a very picky one at that) and there is ONE light for the whole room. These are two neon tubes right over the window, one of which is in flicker mode just to make things even worse and the one and only switch is not reachable from the bed… oy oy oy. Only consolation was that I was there in high light summer and not the depths of dark winter, which I should think would make suicide a pretty good option. Doan u folks complain when something small happens at home now, as this place is seriously bad (and they think it is all fine, which makes things even worse).

I discover that the one-woman reception staff works a 24 hours shift – yes 0900-0900…. then 3 days off! And that includes the dour bottle blonde and seen better days woman who runs what for want of a better word would be the ‘shop’ in the lobby, which is in reality a chiller and a large locked glass case which contains everything we may need … from beer and water (and the beer is cheaper!) to tampons and toothpaste, but also includes such things as 10 different types of vodka (some starting at USD9 a bottle, which will surely light you up (if the holes in yr stomach don’t kick in first). She can also provide videos, matrushkas (the Russian stacking dolls), fig jam (yes Liz D. you will surely want to come now), instant coffee, tacky souvenirs, soft porn newspapers and even plastic bags of sugar lumps at 25c for about 15. Meanwhile in the room, the telephone instructions were translated by someone who possibly just used a dictionary and did not really speak English. Best info (I think) for someone trying to call you is “For access to your room your opponent should call for the hotel operator”.

Next morning, at breakfast, as I am receiving my regular caviar and ‘omlte’ which is more like scrambled eggs with bits of fatty bacon cut up into it and yummy steamed white bread, I notice a local who is managing to eat red caviar and a chocolate covered yoghourt bar AT THE SAME TIME. Feel vaguely queasy all day just thinking about it …hope you do too! But the in-room information on the restaurant contains such gems as “All dishes, with love, will be cooked by experienced staff (high education) cooks of 4th and 5th categories. You will be attend, cordial and benevolent, by training staff ….” who could need more? The waitress does smile at least so I got the cordial bit.

And then choosing from the ‘Firm Courses’, you can plump for ‘Burning Mussels with Rife’ and also ‘Potatoes fried from boiled with vegetables’, which I bravely order so that you will know just what such culinary marvels are. They turn out to be French Fries and not bad at that ….just where the veggies came in is hard to tell.

Russian hotel menus can also be very exact at telling you not only what you hope you are ordering, but also just how much of what you will receive – thus if such a thing as a tuna salad sandwich with lettuce was offered, (fat chance in most places outside 5 star) there will be a column on the menu, before the price, which will have 2/200/10 or the like. I was totally mystified by all these … beef stroganoff with potatoes would be 300/200 …veal fricassee with mushroom and spiced potato 385/175/200 … all beyond me until the penny (or rather gram) dropped. It tells you that you in either grams or pieces just how much you will receive… viz the sandwich is 2 pieces of bread, 200 grams of tuna and 10 grams of lettuce. I don’t know if culinary inspectors whip out mini pocket scales and check, but kinda doubt if such beings exist. What a job opportunity … a Russian cheap hotel and restaurant inspector .. after all, Gogol concocted The Government Inspector, who put everyone into a panic, so it is time for Zagat to hit Mother Russia .. just bring Pepto Bismol, a book to read between courses and a strong streak of machoism !

And I found Ravioli listed under Japanese Dining. And salt and pepper containers are reversed in Russia – salt out of three holes and pepper out of one… bet no guide books tell you that … I should be charging for all this info.

And there is still more to come ….

Trip Around the World 2003 Part 9. Petropavlovsk. Try saying that after a few beers …..

So anyway, when you leave Khabarovsk on a regular old domestic flight, then of course you expect to go to the domestic terminal and be abused along with everyone else. Well, in Kh. this does not happen. They like to make things more involved here – goodness knows why, as I never saw this kind of set up anywhere else.

There are three terminals side by side – international at one end, domestic at the other and in the middle, the glory of the “International Domestic Terminal,” which is where non Russians go to check in for domestic flights. Advantage of course is that you think you are going to be very swiftly organised, but like everything else around here, they made it exceedingly involved. You escape the usual Registration first scan of passports and ticket and can go straight to the ‘check in’ counter, which is not much more than a table with a scale. There they pull your coupon and give you a boarding card and of course you expect them to take your bag. Wrong. You have to keep your tagged bag with you and lug it with you to the grand sized waiting room, on the far distant side. This has a lofty ceiling and a smiling (shock horror) receptionist and a bar where you can buy all the usual refreshments plus some suspicious looking open-faced cheese sandwiches. It all rather looks like posh British Rail circa 1950 and you sit in big armchairs (in China they would have anti-macassars for sure) and the place shrieked out for a potted plant or two and some spittoons would not have been out of order. The ceiling to floor windows are very swathed in peach colored material, so some designer type had been through here at some stage of the game. The time for the plane to go has come and gone and you are still there and you get the feeling that perhaps you have just been forgotten, but the girl indicates that it will be late, so you sit and look out of the window at the lines of old planes. Four other passengers, who are Russians, rather overdressed and one wearing real winkle-picker shoes, are sitting there, drinking neat bourbon …they must have qualified as being Mr Bigs, as they are obviously known. I look at them and they look at me… they get bored first.

Russian airports are full of old planes, all in various old color schemes and general coming apart at the seams stuff. An airline may say it has a fleet of 20 planes, but I’ve worked out that probably only 5 are actually operational and the rest have flown their last. But they keep them sitting out there as of course it looks a lot better. So you sit and have another cup of coffee or a Corona beer, which amazingly enough is available everywhere here and all bottled in Mexico and then suddenly you are urgently summoned to take yourself and your bag, back across the lobby, past the check in, to the other side of the building and put it through the x-ray, which is of course at mid thigh level, so you practically put your back out lifting the bag up and in. Having accomplished that, you drag it to the doorway on to the ramp (by which time you feel you are working in the bag room for free and wonder if you will be expected to fly the plane as well) and there is a whole big bus waiting just for you. (At least I didn’t have to carry to out to the aircraft myself, which happened in Mongolia a few years back.) Your moment of glory has arrived. I’m more worried that they will forget my bag rather than me, but they indicate that we shall be reunited down the line and off we go to the plane.

Another TU154, all the other pax are just about already boarded, though one man is having a bit of a problem, as somehow he has managed to arrive at the foot of the aircraft steps carrying a full size set of car front fenders, long wrap around things and taller than he is and does not seem to agree that this is not acceptable cabin baggage. For one frightening moment, I thought they were going to give in, as of course with these nice long open hat racks, it would have fitted nicely over a selection of seats … oy oy oy. So I have arrived on my big empty bus and almost feel guilty, as they were definitely all crammed on to it before. But this is customer service Russian style, so it is not long before we are accounted for and the flight engineer comes down and closes the pax door. He always does this, rather than the cabin crew and I always wonder if the girls can actually open it if they had to.

Although it is lunch time, no food is offered but they do drag a huge cart of items for sale down the cabin. It has enough candy to stock a good sized store and half bottles of Scotch and vodka. I wonder what is in the drawers and ask if there is a beer and a Corona, is produced and it is free. But I could buy peanuts if I wished … I know, go figure

Had been hoping to see the celebrated volcanoes from the air, as we are right in the heart of live and smoking volcano land, but the clouds prevent that. I’ve seen pictures of them, all in a line and v close to the town, but these must have been taken The Day the Sun Came Out, as it is cloudy almost the entire time and I get only a quick glimpse one evening and v dramatic they are too. Snow capped jagged versions of Mt Rainier in Seattle.

A little break here. Find out if Petropavlovsk is worth the time and effort put in to getting there. And a plumbing crisis is about to happen. But I do meet the lady in the red dress and we have a dance.