06:15 Earth Local

Tranzip Notes

2010-03-22T20:59:00.000-07:00

The No-Shopping Tour

2008-09-16T11:53:00.000-07:00

16-09-2008 : 2354 hrs.

The Internet Cafe @ Beijing City Central Hostel

Among the Great Wall tours on offer at

The cellphone as a means of communication

2008-09-16T11:05:00.000-07:00

16-09-2008 : 2205 hrs.
The Internet Cafe @ the China Central Youth Hostel, Beijing

My first thought after aerobridging into Beijing T3 was at 7:10 AM yesterday was, "Wow, this is spectacular!" Beijing T3 is big and shiny and simply ... intimidating. The first thing I noticed was the super-polished floor; the second thing was the high ceiling; the third thing were the expressionless security personnel standing guard.

The flight had taken five-and-half hours, and - unlike the flight to Singapore - was packed. Food - breakfast - consisted of scrambled-eggs, sausage, peas and fresh-fruit salad, and was a big improvement over what I had on the Kolkata-Singapore flight.

Immigration procedures were quick and efficient; took the SkyTrain to the baggage-claim area (that's how big the airport is!); had a bit of difficulty locating and buying tickets for the shuttle-bus, and was off to the city - which was as big and shiny as the airport itself.

The bus dropped me off at some distance away from the railway station. A green-and-yellow taxi stops at the curbside; the smartly-uniformed cabbie gets out; I show him the Monkeyshrine voucher detailing the directions to the railway station. The cabbie points out to the horizon, then changes his mind, takes out his wallet, and shows me two 10-Yuan notes. I say okay. The cabbie can't believe he is lucky enough to come across such an idiot who is only two willing to be so royally ripped off; to confirm, he takes out his cellphone, keys in "20" on the screen, and shows it to me. I say, "Thankyou". Yeah, thankyou for ripping me off; take all my money, but take me to my hotel. I am shit-scared of taxi-drivers even in my hometown, and this was Beijing.

Check-in at the China City Central Hostel - bang opposite the railway station - took a while, but the room - up on the 6th floor - was clean and well-appointed, with a large bed and a glass-fronted washroom.

The Hostel takes its campaign against AIDS seriously - there's a plastic container full of condoms near the lift on every floor. "Free Access", the signage says.

A shower and a sleep later, went for a walk down the street. Broad sidewalks, shiny buildings, shiny cars, lovers sitting around, a slightly wintery nip in the air - looked good, felt great. couldn't believe I was actually in Beijing.

Bought some cookies and a carton of apple juice at the "supermarket" on the ground floor - and it did actually have those cheap Chinese stuff - lighters, flashlights etc. - we get to see in flea markets in Kolkata and Siliguri. Went hunting for food at the restaurant next door - called "California Beef Noodle King" I ask the girl at the counter what's available. She points at a picture on the wall, I say okay, she keys in "15" on the calculator, I say okay, she points to a row of beverages - water, cola, beer - at another counter, I say no, and she gestures me to sit at a table. Hey, I am getting the hang of this.

Turns out what I had ordered is a bowl of boiled noodles with chunks of beef, in a broth of soya sauce. The beef was okay; the noodles, pretty insipid.

Went to the internet cafe next to the bar on the 2nd floor of the hotel. Okay, so I have been here before - a dimly-lit bar, funky posters, an international crowd, foreigners ... only this time, I am the foreigner.

Around Bugis

2008-09-16T10:28:00.000-07:00

14-09-2008 : 1955 hrs.
Changi T2 Ambassador Transit Hotel

The biggest disappointment of the tour so far is that I couldn't do the DHL Balloon; it didn't fly because of unfavourable weather conditions.

Took the 16:00 shuttle - free again - to Bugis. There were five or six people on the bus, herded by a burly Chinese who seemed to have had a bad day.

Walked around the narrow streets, navigating through the crowded street bazaar, went looking for cigarettes at a shop which stank of dried fish, sat around at the DHL launch site, and finally, resigned, got back to the pick-up point for the shuttle. In the meantime, I did manage to buy a pack of cigarettes; it was obscenely expensive, and it had a graphic picture of what might happen if one doesn't quit smoking.

Smoking in Singapore is not just expensive, but difficult. It's like smoking in TK's presence. (TK is the head honcho in my office, and where I come from, smoking in the head honcho's - or even middling honcho's - presence is as much of a taboo as ... smoking in Singapore!) One has to smoke in an open place, at a good distance away from where the smoke is likely to affect other people. At Changi, there are designated smoking areas - one of the better ones, as I was to discover later, at the open Sunflower Garden looking out over the tarmac.

There were only two other peaople - a young Australian couple - on the shuttle back to the airport, and we were chaperoned by a pleasant Singaporean lady who gave us a more realistic picture of Singapore. "It is a very expensive city," she said, "It's very difficult to afford houses and cars, and it is especially difficult for expatriate workers who mostly come from Malayasia" She said that sometimes she was worried about the effect that immigrants were having on her country : "We have always been taught to speak softly on the phone; but some othe outsiders speak very loudly, and although native Singaporeans don't like it, they keep quiet, because that is how they have been brought up to behave." Yeah, man, civil; Singapore is my kind of a place.

Checked into the transit hotel more than half-an-hour after the scheduled time; had a nice, long, warm shower in one of the common washrooms - after nearly 24 hours on the move, it felt great - had a smoke at the sunflower garden (the planes and vehicles on the tarmac looked kind of ethereal at night) and ... aaah, a flat bed to lie on. Gotta get my three hours of sleep.

The looksy-looksy tour

2008-09-16T10:03:00.000-07:00

14-09-2008 : 1510 hrs.

Changi T2 Arrival Lounge

The free Singapore transit tour, departing at one o'clock, involved clearing immigration. No problem there, if you have a U.S. or Canadian or Schengen visa - and I had all three. The air-conditioned bus - a necessity, because it was pretty hot and humid outside - was packed mostly with Indians - including Haw-haw-haw and Chewing-Tobacco. It was a Sit-in-Coach tour - or, as Selma, our guide, told us in Singlish, a "looksy-looksy" tour.

Singapore - or, at least, the part of Singapore we saw - is one block of concrete-and-glass after another, with neat streets and, predictably, lots of shopping areas. Selma - a sophisticated, middle-aged woman with short hair - took her job with the Singapore Tourism Authority pretty seriously, and plugged Singapore to the hilt: it's a city which offers much more than shopping; it's a multi-cultural city of 4.6 m with 77% Chinese, 14% Malays, 7% Indians, all living in perfect harmony and respecting each-others' cultures; the government provides subsidised housing to all Singapore citizens, so Singapore doesn't have any homeless, and so on and so forth. Near about the end of the tour, she invited questions; the only questions she got were, "What are the property prices in Singapore?" and "What's the exchange rate for the Singapore Dollar?" Arseholes.

The Changi Post

2008-09-16T09:08:00.000-07:00

14-09-2008 : 1215 hrs.
Changi T2 Transit Mall

After NSB International, Changi is like OMG. Don't get me wrong; I liked NSB. It's a nice little airport, small and compact, and because there are not too many international flights operating out of it, they have managed to keep it efficient and clean (Never mind the stinky loo - how much time does one spend in airport loos, anyway?) In any case, Changi has consistently been voted to be among the best airports in the world, so it would be OMG after just about any airport in the world.

Changi is all that it is made out to be in travel brochures and internet sites. Large concourses, rest areas, indoor gardens, shops, cafes, restaurants, transit hotels, free internet (with 15 minute limits per session) ... the works! And it's all topped up with a delightfully friendly staff.

The girl at the currency exchange counter was fast or what? She took all of like twenty seconds to take my dollars, count them, key into her computer, and hand me the SGDs and the receipt - with time to spare for a smile and a thankyou - without coming across as either harried or hurried.

The first thing I did with my SGDs was to buy a bar of bitter chocolate. Chocolate seems to be graded in Singapore the way liquor is graded back home in India. I told the girl at the candy store - she looked hardly older than 16, but I'm sure, she must have been older - that I was looking for bitter chocolate, and she said, "What percent?" She saw my puzzled expression, and rushed off to bring me a bar, "This is 86 percent." Sure enough, the wrapper said it had 86% cocoa. then she brought another: "53 percent"; and then another: "Ummm ... 37 percent." The middle path - 53 % was good enough for me. And it turned out that it was on a buy-one-get-one-free offer.

I noticed that there were quite a few girls with headscarves at the shop counters - quite a contrast to the black stockings and short skirts all around. Must be expats, or local Malays.

There were quite a few Indians too. There was this gentleman from Ahmedabad - on his way to meet his son in Australia - with stinky breath, trying to get too familiar, "You are married? ... No? ... In a few years' time, you'll have a wife ... Haw, haw, haw!" I din't get the joke. There was this another fellow who mistook the candy-induced lumps on my cheek to be chewing-tobacco, and rubbed a thumb against his palms to indicate whether I could spare some for him. Someone should have reminded him that this was Singapore; in the Customs Information brochure, chewing-tobacco was second on the list of items that are prohibited to be brought into Singapore, the first being chewing-gum. Narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances rank a lowly third - although, elsewhere, the brochure warns of death penalty for drug dealers.

When does the sun rise these days?

2008-09-15T07:14:00.000-07:00

14-09-2008 : 06:15 hrs.
Changi T2, Singapore

The flight to Singapore took three-and-a-half hours.
Switched to Singapore time. First, set my wristwatch; then, changed the time settings on my mobile phone; and finally, changed the time in my camera. This is a ritual I'll have to follow quite a few times over the next month-and-a-half. Thankfully, Singapore, Beijing and Ulan Bator share the same time-zone, so I am saved the trouble over the next five days.
It's 06:20, and it's still dark outside. When does the sun rise these days?

It's been a long time since I last saw a sunrise. That's likely to change over the next few days. That must. Otherwise, I am screwed.

Tandoori chicken that wasn't

2008-09-15T06:50:00.000-07:00

14-09-2008 : 0254 hrs.
Singapore Airlines Flight # SQ 517

Singapore Airlines lived up to it's reputation. The staff was efficient and friendly. The aircraft - a B 777-200 - was clean and well-appointed. The stewardesses looked just like they do in the ads - pretty in the sleek, slinky SIA livery. Thanks to seatguru.com, I had chosen what is possibly the best 777 economy -class seat for myself - the 'K' seat in the second-last row : two-abreast (unlike three in the other economy rows) and easy access to the loo. Thankfully, the seat next to me was unoccupied.
Food, though, was just about okayish - or, maybe, I was just not hungry. A spiky-haired steward asked me what I would like to have for supper, the choices being the international selection with lamb, Indian tandoori-chicken and Indian vegetarian. Inspite of my decision to stay off Indian food as far as possible during the trip, I decided to go for tandoori chicken - mainly because the international selection came with tuna-fish salad.
Only that, the "tandoori chicken" turned out to be chicken-curry. Served with rice, paneer, a horrible, unidentifiable dessert, and yoghurt. I suppose, for Spiky Hair, all Indian chicken dishes are Tandoori Chicken.
Fiddled with the inflight entertainment remote, got bored of the movie and audio options within minutes, switched to the flight-path map. and stuck it for the rest of the flight.

Terrorist with a butter-knife

2008-09-15T06:06:00.000-07:00

13-09-2008 : 2200 hrs.
NSB International Airport Security Area, Kolkata, India

The guy who stood immediately ahead of me in the secuirity-check queue - a sixty-ish U.S.-born Australian citizen in shorts and a grey pirate-beard - is pissed about a whole lot of things. He is pissed about the notice that says that one is not allowed to carry pickles and spices in the cabin-baggage ("Someone might throw chilli powder in the pilot's eyes, or what?") ; he is pissed about being asked to unpack his checked baggage because the x-ray machine detected that his old battery-operated clock still had the battery in it ("These days no one uses battery-operated clocks to blow up planes," he reasoned, "It's all digital and mobile phones." "We know that," the security-personnel told him, "but somebody might get scared about the ticking of the clock."); he is pissed about 'George Bushit' ("... an alcoholic puppet ... who pushed the country to the far-right") and he thinks that 9/11 was a U.S. Government insider job ("... to create an incident with plausable deniability in order to supress citizens' rights and democracy ... and, of course there was Haliburton ..."); and he is pissed about Darjeeling ("The main religion there is not Buddhism but money ... Can you believe it? When the Gorkhaland agitators talked to Sonia Gandhi, there second demand was, 'We want more parking lots!'")

Poor guy. He was asked to unpack again during security check, because the x-ray machine had detected a butter-knife in his hand-baggage. "A butter-knife is a security threat?" he asked incredulously, and the security officer - a woman with a stoic scowl - nodded. He turned to me, "Be careful! I have a butter-knife!"

"At least these people are better than the security personnel in the U.S.," he later told me, "Security for domestic flights is handled by private agencies - those rent-a-cops are paid below minimum wages and are a bunch of racists ..."

One angry old man - though he claimed to be only "acting to be angry" ("After seven years with Sai Baba, I don't get angry anymore ...") Chester was his name, and had an unpronounciable surname. I hurried scribbled his email address when he got up to board the plane - but now I can't read what I had scribbled.

I, though, had no reason to be angry with the procedures at NSB. Check-in was smooth; inspite of my fears, my backpack weighed less than nine kilos; had a bit of a difficulty explaining my "final destination" (Singapore? Beijing? the U.S.? Death?) to the immigration official, but the guy was friendly and we had a little chat. All in all, everything at the airport was fast, friendly and efficient,

One man with a bunch of visas

2008-09-15T05:32:00.000-07:00

13-10-2008 : 1010 hrs.
Salt Lake, Kolkata, India

I have read about college-kids traveling the world during their gap-years, and I have come across blogs posted by people who have taken a year or more off their jobs to do the seven continents in one go, so what I - at a ripe and rheumatic thirty-nine - am planning to do over the next month-and-a-half is no big deal, really. But then again, at least, this isn't one of those wimpy Cocks & Queens "Splemdors of Europe" packaged tours with Indian dinners. This is pure D.I.Y. almost in it's entirety, this is gritty, and this is big. If everything goes according to plan over the next 46 days, I will be traveling through ten countries across four continents; I will be logging something like 62,000 Kms., more than a quarter of which will be on railroad; and for nearly half the time, I will be on my own : one man with a bunch of visas etching his lonely trail across the globe.

Strangely, I woke up this morning wihout the feeling of excitement and anticipation that should be normal on a day one is leaving for a trip around the world. My first thoughts were, " I just want to be here, at home ... for the rest of my life!" Was I scared? Yes. It's one thing to google the transzip and book hotels and tickets across the world online; it's quite another to actually go of a trip of this scale. And then there are the concerns about my rheumatism, and that I hardly have any travel experience worth emailing home about - and it all adds up to be a pretty scary scenario. I hope I make it and live to tell the tale on the other side. Wish me luck.

It took me more than eight years to plan this trip; the bureaucracy that went into arraning the visas and permits and stuff was insane; and I have wiped out a substantial part of my savings on this. Now is the moment of reckoning.