September 25, 1998 1:00PM New York
Terminal 4E, Gate 11, Northwest Airlines JFK Airport waiting for flight 17 to Narita

Luggage checked through to Kathmandu. Imagine! The path is JFK - NRT - BKK - KTM and I actually trusted that it would arrive with me at the far end. I have a very touching faith in modern technology and its human managers; I guess I trust the technology more than the people but off went my belongings into the ether or the abyss.

First stop is Narita, Japan an hour outside Tokyo, a place my family and I know (or knew) well having lived in Tokyo for five years. The next stop is Bangkok, Thailand. I've been only once, with my family on vacation; this time it's a ten-hour layover in the Amari airport hotel. Then via Thai Air to Kathmandu, Nepal which is only the periphery of the back of beyond, however; they have a new airport (I'm told) which serves as a regional hub to places really far distant.

Never been to Kathmandu. Wanted to all my life and now I'm actually doing it. Not only that, but I sat with my wife at the JFK Ramada just now eating breakfast and we talked about the three of us (including young George) coming back together on The Cook's Tour. Pretty swell.

I'm to sit in seat 43-D. I've made the flight to Narita many, many times but usually in Business Class and quite often in First. This time I booked months in advance and went cheap so that I would not be harshly criticized (by whom?) for more extravagance and self-indulgence than necessary. But now that I'm just a few hours away from actually sitting in the seat, I'm starting to feel like a condemned man facing his execution. Breakfast is behind me and I expect to hear the preacher-man softly knocking at any moment. What a baby.

14 hours to Narita, switch and 7 hours to Bangkok. Then layover 10 hours and 4 hours to Kathmandu. At that point I'm not certain of the schedule but I think I lay over once more and hop onto China Southwest Airlines (the kanji is China WestSouth Airlines) and fly to Lhasa, Tibet. Of the pieces I'm sure of, I'm looking at 25 hours in the air and 40 hours in total from right now to touch down in Kathmandu.

Compared to the desperate difficulties described by Heinrich Harrer in Seven Years in Tibet this is a luxury jaunt. So who am I impressing with all my belly-aching about Economy Class? It's not like nobody's ever done it, just not lard-assed executives. Well, 40 elapsed hours -- 1 2/3 days -- in a cramped little seat inside an over-grown tube from a roll of Bounty is a long trip no matter how hard the Pilgrims had it. So leave me alone: it's my party and I'll cry if I want to.

I got up this morning and Peggy drove young George to Lawrenceville (he was going over his Trigonometry notes for an 8:00 AM test ... I am very proud of him) and continued on with me to JFK. We had breakfast at the Ramada Airport Motel: buffet of scrambled eggs, OJ and coffee; probably the best food I'll have for the better part of a month if my experiences in other parts of China are any guide.

My impression of JFK never changes: the road through Brooklyn is a prefect prelude ... deteriorating highway inside a deteriorating chain-link fence running along side an endless procession of deteriorating row houses. Flatbush Avenue! Does anything say "crummy lower middle class New York" to you better than "Flatbush Avenue"? Lords, indeed. The airport itself is no better. Desultory construction everywhere; a forest of direction signs in many colors, and Terminals 4 E & W, apparently devoted to international flights, have the faint stink of being relegated to foreigners and those who would associate with them. Every national flag you can't recognize is on display; "Ghana Airlines, this way"; and the din of workmen's hammers almost drowning out the gibberish of foreign tongues. It happens that since I am on a flight to Japan, the predominant foreign tongue is one I am quite familiar with, remember fondly and used to speak with some fluency but in this context it makes me feel as uncomfortable as Cantonese or Tagalog in any other context.

I'm not in such a great mood. I guess I'll read The Economist advocating President Clinton's resignation; are we turning into Italy?

September 26, 1998 5:30 PM Tokyo
North Terminal 1, Gate 41
New Tokyo International Airport at Narita

The New Tokyo International Airport was new for the 1964 Olympics. Throughout the whole time we were here there was a constant flurry of activity as they built the Narita Express train to Tokyo Station and beyond, fought the local rice farmers for the ability to add a second (#2!) runway and built a beautiful new terminal for JAL and ANA. The gaijin carriers, however, are still relegated to the old, round, black terminals. Gates 40 - 49 are old friends of ours and I am waiting to leave from the dreaded Gate 41 ... the bus gate! And in the rain.

As I stepped onto the airplane at JFK all my negative feelings were washed away. The plane was everything you would expect of a proper Boeing 747-400: brightly lit with a smell of fresh refurbishment, seats a lovely blue and the bulkheads standard-issue but immaculate beige. There were three columns of seats down the length of the plane, two sets of 3 by the windows plus four down the middle. Seat 43-D was an aisle seat on the port side of the middle column. Not as roomy as Business Class or First but adequate. Furthermore, the other three seats in the row beside me were empty so I put up the arm rests and stretched out in more luxury than if I had paid thousands more.

But what really did it was the beautiful, demure Japanese woman who met me at the door with a smile, a bow and "Irasshaimase!" My spirits were immediately lifted and I listened eagerly to the Japanese language announcements over the PA system, piecing bits of the grammatical structure together and remembering the occasional word, mostly remembering the word but not the meaning but having lots of fun anyway.

As my 1:55 PM flight reached cruising altitude at 2:45 PM we were told that in Tokyo the time was 3:45 AM tomorrow ... 13 hours ahead. The flight as uneventful until the last hour as we descended through a storm and the stewardesses stumbled and were finally ordered to their seats. There was a bright flash of light inside the cabin and my mind turned to thoughts of Nova Scotia until I saw a second flash: a passenger's disposable camera-cum-flash out the window. Not much hope of a Pulitzer prize for those shots, I'm don't think.

Once in the airport I was greeted by the sight of the ground crew in sporty jump suits and hard hats running and gesticulating; thin, uniformed policemen standing at attention, bowing and indicating the way to go with white gloved hands. Japanese women passengers perfectly coifed and dressed and female desk attendants, fluent in English and probably other languages as well. Nowhere even a hint of the obesity that plagues America. There is a beauty, a charm, a strong attraction of this culture that is unlike any other I have seen. Balinese are beautiful but they live in mud. Cantonese are rich (until recently, anyway), unbeautiful and live in an urban squalor of their own intentional making. Et cetera. The Japanese are different from all the rest of the world.

An yet, somewhere inside the heart of these people is the corruption that has driven Yamaichi into bankruptcy and created a bank problem that seems to dwarf the national wealth of the second-largest economy of the world. These people have the highest savings rate in the world, consistent with the things I love about them. They have suffered a large negative return on that investment and watched as the LDP has raided the Nempuku's coffers of their retirement to bail out their cronies through stock market manipulation.

I cannot reconcile what I know about these people. Cognitive dissonance, I think it is. The trivial answer of a Westerner is to remark about Japanese school children being driven to memorize multiplication tables at an early age which is alleged to stifle their creativity. But I suffer from the difficulty of actually having known a lot of Japanese people quite well and I don't believe this story.  Am I to believe that the generic Rocky Balboa, who barely knows the concept of math to say nothing of its implementation, is somehow superior to these people?

In Indonesia people are rioting. Literally. And lynching ethnic Chinese in their rage. The Japanese have a culture and an economic base of a considerably higher order than the Indonesians but they have suffered mightily and for much longer. And continue to return the LDP to office while Suharto is driven into a disgraced (if silk-lined) exile.

Chotto, chotto. I'm off to Bangkok.

September 26, 1998 11:50 PM Bangkok
Room 4211 Amari Airport Hotel

Thailand is hot. It's supposed to be hot and I dressed in anticipation of its being hot, but coming from distinctly autumnal weather in New York and Tokyo it was a shock to walk down the gangway to the bus in 85 degrees and 85% humidity. Bangkok International Airport looks quite new and nice. Tile floors, high ceilings and wood & metal wall hangings. 1998 - 1999 seems to be the year of amazing THAILAND and the pillars are festooned with banners declaring this.

Very nice. From within the airport you would never know that it was Thailand that recently set off the economic collapse of Asia and the destruction of fifteen years' wealth creation. Crushed dreams, crushed portfolios, and not a few crushed lives. But who would ever know? The place is beautiful and bustling.

The Amari Airport Hotel could not be more convenient. It is a very nice place and busy even at midnight: every restaurant open and with customers and the line to check in was quite long (they haven't learned about queuing theory but I got lucky and picked a good line). Somehow Mountain Travel hadn't made a reservation for me on the return trip when we will transit Bangkok once again (I listened to my voice mail in Narita only to hear this piece of news; a bit late, I thought). I didn't know my schedule, the itinerary having mysteriously been "reversed", but I booked a single night for October 11 since my independent calculations show I'll be here then. We'll see (a) if it works and (b) if October 11 is the right day. Oh, well. If this is the worst fubar I face this trip, it'll be a miracle.

Here are the time zones so far:

Time for a much needed shower (keeping my lips tightly shut) and an attempt at sleeping. Time also to start abstaining from all tap water, ice, all dairy products, salads, unpeeled fruit, etc., etc. ... sigh.

PS It's not your ordinary hotel mini bar that features malarial mosquito repellant.

September 27, 1998 8:20 AM Bangkok
Royal Thai Business Class Lounge waiting for TG319 to Kathmandu

Found a copy of yesterday's Japan Times and discovered that a Basho is underway. I really do have to renew my subscription to Sumo World. The news from the Kokugikan in Tokyo's Ryogoku district is that Taka and Waka are tied at 11-1 and headed to a sibling push-off. Akebono (9-3) beat Musashimaru (8-4) yesterday and holds second place but a distant one I would guess because with three more days left he probably has not met either of the Hanada brothers. What a sport! What a country!

The Arrivals area of the Bangkok airport is clean and new but unexceptional. The Departures area, beyond the passport control (500 baht airport tax, please) is another story entirely. The airport seems to consist of two rectangular terminals immediately adjacent to each other stretching from end to end the better part of half a mile. And as you step through the gate after getting your passport stamped you are greeted by an astonishing sight of double-decker duty-free shops brightly lit and glittering the entire length of the airport. (Just exactly which duty is it that these places are free of?) There are many well-stocked and beautiful stores specializing in Thai goods: silk, clothing (sort of loose but substantial sari-like affairs), jewelry in gigantic heaps and all description of artwork. Then there's Harrod's and Cartier and Gucci and God-knows what-all else. A staggering sight. I want to compare it to Stanley Market, but Stanley is slightly squalid and outdoors; a bit more reality permeates the place. This cornucopia of conspicuous enticement to consume is straight out of a Disney studio. I've been through this airport before and somehow managed to miss this spectacle; maybe it's new since 1993?

The Bangkok Amari Airport Hotel is bustling a midnight and bustling at 6:45 AM. Mostly white faces. I stood in front of an enraged German who was towering over a little Thai concierge bellowing an accented complaint about the length of the checkout line. I met a man on the elevator who told me that he comes here often on his way from Taipei to Jakarta. I neglected to ask him why an obviously well-to-do ethnic Chinese man was going to Indonesia, these days; wish I had; damn.

Mostly everybody in the hotel lobby looked like me: slightly grubby casual attire but obviously middle-aged affluent Westerners. The obligatory compliment of latter-day hippie wannabes but well-behaved with their pathetic beards, sandals and ear rings; looked a little sheepish, I thought. The hotel staff spoke passable English although "FISHER" had to be written out before it could be located in the computer. In all respects a well-above-average airport hotel. On the whole, I'd much rather stay here than at the JFK Ramada.

The same bustle was to be found at the Departures section of the airport. I learned my lesson last night about standing in line: you get dumped at one end of a hallway and the line curls and winds forever. But if you politely squeeze through to the far end of the hallway, you're the third or fourth person in line.

I'm not sure how I weaseled my way into the Royal Thai Airways lounge. You can be sure I did everything in my power to pay rock-bottom prices for my tickets but, anyway, here I sit in rattan comfort looking down my nose at all the other stiffs sitting in the metal-and-plastic chairs in front of the gates. Odor everywhere of whatever it is that Thai restaurants smell of. One worry, though. I took a swig of what I thought was squeezed orange juice only to find it was clearly water plus concentrate. I'm starting to feel a warm sensation all over my body and a tingling in my feet. If anyone is going through my luggage after my demise please be sure to donate my organs if anyone will have them after what I've just done. The Japanese businessmen in blue sport coats sitting next to me are drinking it, and with ice no less! Are these things specially concocted to affect only non-Orientals? Muhathir Muhammad undoubtedly has something to do with this and he probably put Anwar Ibrahim in jail to keep him from revealing this to his western friends. Oh, where is the Imperial Army when you need it? I'd like to thrash these people for what they've done to me.

Both Thailand and Nepal are kingdoms; and Bhutan, too. What a quaint concept. Cambodia is also I guess (or has Hun Sen done away with it?) Anyway, it'll be interesting to see what influence the royal family has on Nepal, my next stop. Kathmandu! Home to the mentor of Dr. Steven Strange. I'll look for the all-seeing eye of Agamoto down every alleyway. Too early in the season to meet Everest expeditions, I suppose; I think that happens in May. Monsoons from June to September keep most people away from south-central Asia in the summertime. But now it's getting nice, supposedly.

September 27, 1998 11:00 AM Bangkok time
Aboard TG319, seat 14-B

An A300 looks to be the size of a 757. Twin engines but large and the front of the plane has six-seat rows; and everyone is filled. The departure area was crammed with people. I would never have guessed that so many people would be on their way to Kathmandu. Sort of disappointed, actually; I wanted the place for myself. A lot of white faces but I'm seated next to a Japanese on my left and what look like sherpas (strong, swarthy) on my right.

As I stood in line for the carry-on baggage x-ray machine, I found myself behind a man with a Mountain Travel baggage tag on his backpack and a patch advertising the fact that he had trekked to the Everest base camp. He turned out to be Gary Blinn, there with his wife Diane on their way to join my group. Gary was the credit officer in Hong Kong for First Chicago in the early '80s. Their son has just graduated from college and is working for Sandy Weill in Structured Finance (or something similar; cool job). Gary's father retired from the family beer-distributorship and so Gary quit First Chicago and they returned to Nebraska where they live a life that reminds me of Joyce and Bob Stahl's.

Gary told me of his base-camp trek: said he was a little ragged at the end. Lost 25 pounds. Gary stands maybe 5' 10" and 140 pounds and with nowhere to lose 25 pounds. His "ragged" must be any other man's "near-death experience" but his eyes sparkled as he told of taking side trips to climb the "minor" peaks along the way. And I am more determined than ever to make this trek myself.

He and Diane said that "Kat" was a fun little town, and if our orientation meeting was later in the evening they were going to wander off and try to find a cremation ceremony to watch as soon as we got in. Would I like to join them? Of course, I had had my heart set on staying in my room and watching I Love Lucy dubbed into Nepali but I have reluctantly agreed. Starting out well, I think.

The damn steward has tried to poison me again with his wicked iced orange drink and cleverly gave me salted roasted broad beans first. I am surrounded by enemies but to keep his cover he has agreed to bring me hot tea instead; would I like some milk?