As I got ready to leave I felt like my veins were coursing with battery acid and my nerves plugged into a 220-volt outlet as synapses fired and missed:
Send 94th birthday card to Mamma Ginna. Vote. Water plants. No, get dressed, then water plants. Where’s the card? Answer e-mail. Can’t find address. There. Okay: stamped. Wait — 42 cents? Check USPS. Need melatonin? Call Mom. No, finish audio module functinality specs. And invoices. Need coffee. Lost the address. No milk. Vote. What’s Prop 9? Call Larrygensky. That helped. Mail ballot. Q-tips. How can I— ? Batteries charging. Where’s Eleni? Close suitcase. Can’t. Oh, bank. Why am I… Shaking. Food. What is the… Gotta go. Where … I forget.
Thanks to Dagny and good traffic, I got to the airport way early, and entertained myself till the flight left for Hong Kong at 1:30 a.m. Next to me was a brilliant young man — Ph.D. in math from Stanford and another degree from Princeton — who was heading home with, unfortunately for both of us, a bad cold. He told me that Hong Kong is 15 hours ahead of San Francisco time, so I starting rolling my watch forward hour after hour until he stopped me: “Uh, you only have to move it ahead three hours.” This is why he has a Ph.D. in math and I don’t.
Shortly thereafter I popped one of my Ambien, and by the time my penne pasta with red pepper sauce arrived I was pretty zonked. My eyes wouldn’t open so I blindly lifted the fork to my mouth, more often than not with no food on it. At one point I had a frightening image of a field of crimson racing toward me, and realized I was going face-down into my plate. Gave up and went to sleep.
Dosed on and off and checked my watch between, seeing it go from 4:30 to another 4:30. Fourteen hours later we landed in Hong Kong. Man, what a confusing airport. It took me an hour-and-a-half to find my way outside, and I wasn’t even picking up my baggage or anything. I can’t believe how brave I was, leaving the security of the airport.
I’d been dreading this part of the trip: a twelve-hour layover in a city I never cared to visit. Late last night I posted a status message on Facebook: “Ginna is wondering what to do with 12 hours in Hong Kong.” Minutes later there came a detailed reply from my high school buddy Jeannette, and from those choices I picked as my destination the aerial tramway up to a Buddhist monastery on the same island (Lantau) as the airport.
I discovered that I needed the S1 city bus, and eventually managed to find one, figure out how to pay with my newly acquired Hong Kong dollars, and even to get off at the right place. Though it wasn’t even 9 a.m. yet, it was stinking hot.
I could see the tram station and I could see the trams whizzing overhead, but every possible route there dead-ended. After a while I stumbled into an equally confused German man. We were the only visible humans around, but finally a guy appeared who spoke a wee bit of English, and he told us the tram wouldn’t open for another two hours. He suggested we should catch a bus up to the shrine. Together we managed to find said bus, and 45 minutes later we were plunked upon the mountaintop.
I expected Hendrick and I would part ways, but our interests turned out to be identical so we stuck together, hiking past the third-biggest Buddha in the world, up the “Wisdom Path” and continuing beyond, unwisely ignoring a sign warning of the danger of dengue fever in favor of seeing what was around the next bend in the trail up the mountain, and the bend after that.
[P.S. Find the Walking Stick in that last photo.]
We turned back in search of the “first ever multimedia teahouse” but all we found were some scruffy-looking tea bushes and an equally scruffy café selling a type of water called “Sweat” and a carefully lettered sign asking restaurant guests please not to spit.
I’d packed a brand new journal which I carefully lettered with “Nepal” at the top and “2008” at the bottom. Last night on the plane I wrote a few pages, tucked it into the seat pocket beneath my calves, and didn’t remember it until 24 hours later when it was either in the Hong Kong trash or winging its way to some other foreign land. Not an auspicious beginning. I’m going to follow my mother’s advice and move very slowly and thoughtfully from now on. Instead of “I am putting my wallet in my pocket,” it’s “I. Am. Putting. My. Wallet. In. My. Pocket.” It helps.
Many hours later we found our way back to the airport, finally getting to ride the tram on the way down. It was very cool.
I bid adieu to my new friend as he headed toward Ho Chi Minh City and I toward Kathmandu, a five-hour flight.
This time my seatmate was a nice Nepali guy who gave me some good advice.
Getting off the plane I walked while reading Cheryl’s detailed instructions, which were hugely helpful. I paid $100 for a 90-day multiple-entry visa, passed through the various checkpoints and x-ray machines, and charged out into the mass of people hawking rides. There was Thakur with my name on a sign. I raced toward him with relief and joy. As he began to lift his hands for a namaste greeting, I accidentally threw my arms around him. Poor man. I surprised myself as much as I did him.
By the time he got me to the Tibet Guest House it was around 10 p.m. and I’d been more or less awake for over fifty hours and traveling for 34. Once again I followed Cheryl’s advice and ordered a pot of Nepali milk tea, which I became immediately addicted to. In my stupor I filled out the application form to the Chinese government for a visa to Tibet. There’s a chance we’ll be granted it, but it’s dicey these days from Nepal.
Who would have thought that someone could write so voluminously about a plane trip?