Through the revolving door of the hotel’s front entrance, I could see the footmen were in their winter livery. Their words escaped their mouths as vaporous clouds as they opened car doors and greeted arriving guests. It was still cold outside this morning; cold enough that I wrapped my woolen scarf around my neck and tucked it into the collar of my heavy overcoat before venturing out of the hotel.
I declined the doorman’s offer of a cab and instead made my way to Hua Shan Road, then turned toward the golden rooftops of the Jing An Temple complex. After sitting in taxis, stuck in the gridlock of traffic for hours yesterday, I realized I could get to my appointments much faster if I walked. As long as I kept a good pace, I would be able to stave off the cold.
By the day’s end, I had walked about eight kilometers. Back in my hotel room as I was massaging my feet, the thought occurred to me that I had covered quite a vertical distance as well. I had six appointments during the day in six different high rise buildings. Shanghai is a forest of impossibly high skyscrapers containing fast, ear-popping elevators. I looked at the addresses of the offices I had visited, and noted the floor on which each one was located. I had navigated 315 floors. I had to complete the thought and the math just out of curiosity.
315 floors, times 2 (whatever goes up, must come down), equal 630 floors. Multiplying this by the average height between each floor, 18 feet, equals 11,340 vertical feet, or 2.15 miles! This was in just one day! I’ll be in China for a month.
I’m wondering if there is some sort of frequent flyer program for elevator travel.
I last saw my bags 3 days ago in Columbo, Sri Lanka. I last saw my home (and my wife) 26 days ago. I am home without my bags. That's just fine; I'm very happy.
It took 33 hours for me to get back home; I'm exhausted, ill (from God knows only what), but very happy to be laying my head down upon my own bed. Dorothy was right, once again.
These past few weeks have been a travel experience that will stay with me for a long time. You cannot see India without being changed.
Thanks for your virtual company along the way. It meant a lot to me to know you were there.
This trip has required that I sit in various modes of ground transportation for many hours each day. We are bounced and jolted through cities choked with traffic, and villages chock-a-block with carts and cattle. The road surfaces vary from poorly maintained highways to one-lane, flooded tracks whose length sometimes seems endless.
I spend most of this travel time with my nose pressed to the window taking in sights that are often difficult to understand as “reality”. India has been like a cosmic can opener that has taken off the top of my head and rearranged my perspectives on life.
One of the more mundane yet fascinating things that I’ve noticed is the swarms of dragonflies in the countryside. Often, as the bus slows to a crawl to navigate a water-filled pot-hole of indeterminate depth, I can clearly see these delicate, gossamer insects with their flashing metallic-tinted wings, gliding over and hovering above the flowering vegetation that line the road. Their wings vibrate with colors as they imperceptibly touch down on a flower for only an instant, as if it was too hot to light upon. Hover, touch down, move on; this sequence is repeated a million times by the innumerable swarms. Such a rhythm gives an appearance that they have no real interest or bond with the ground they fly over.
At some point during my observation of this phenomenon, it suddenly struck me that I was very much like these insects.
For the past few weeks I’ve been hovering and flashing over India in sanitized, air-conditioned (though often rickety) coaches and vans by day, and at night, looked down upon the sprawling chaos from my windows safely ensconced in the rarefied air of five-star hotels. I’ve flown in pressurized comfort at icy altitudes over measureless kilometers of the steaming slums of the great cities of India in mere minutes. I too have only imperceptibly touched down; but I have made contact.
It only required one step out from my glass bubble of privilege and into the street. It only took a moment; the length of time needed for my senses to process the onslaught of the paucity, the unfamiliar, the “unsavory”, and for my eyes to dare to meet those of the unfortunate.
Hover, touch down, move on. My travels continue, but each moment of contact is a gift of the knowledge of God’s grace to me. I understand and am so grateful for how much of heaven I’m already living in.
The heavy thunderstorms that pounded through the night had dissipated this morning, so after an early breakfast, I ventured out into the neighborhood around my hotel. At 7:00 am it was already (or still) 90 degrees and the humidity nearly equaled it in percentage. I soon found that the area is not “downtown” Chennai. I’m not sure how to classify it since I don’t have much of a perspective of Indian neighborhoods yet. I do know that it is not Kansas.
In the few short blocks that I walked through, trying my best to remember my way back to the hotel, my every sense was challenged and surprised. “What is this like?” I would ask myself. “What is that smell?” “What is that sound?” Every question begged for an answer, so I just stopped wondering, and instead, tried to take it all in.
Chennai, which was formerly known as Madras, is the fifth most populous city in India with an estimated population of 6.5 million. I think I ran into about 10% of them before I walked two blocks.
I did my best not be conspicuous with my camera, but every time I stopped to take a photo, someone was always flashing a smile. Rather than try to describe anything further, I’ll end with these few shots.
An Auto Rickshaw
I'll leave you with this last one. I kept seeing walls with painted slogans on them, so I asked the hotel concierge about them when I returned. I was told that one of Chennai's lovely quirks of public space is these series of "inspirational and motivational" wall slogans that are found all over the city. I'm not sure why this particular one found its way to a wall in India. Nonetheless, words of wisdom?
Looking at the date from the previous post you'd think that I'd been letting the dust of time settle upon me back in my office in California; not the case. My blog provider, Mr. Google, had some issues with the PRC, so I wasn't able to bring you along in my virtual valise during my last two foreign forays. But here I am, and here you are; back on the road together for another "adventure".
A day and a half of air travel and airports finally got me to India. There wasn't much left of me when I arrived in Chennai. In fact, I almost left the airport without picking up my luggage. I was made aware of this when I got to the customs officer at the exit who asked me if my carry-on was the only baggage I had. A good five seconds past as I presented a befuddled look at him.
"No, I have a checked bag as well" I finally croaked (too many hours of pressurized oxygen) .
"Den you vill need due gollect id, sir!" he politely but sternly informed me.
I found my bag, went back through customs, and moved toward the exit.
Upon reaching the exit doors which automatically slid opened, two things struck me; a rush of hot, humid air, and a crush of human bodies waving hands and signs. Several thousand people awaiting arriving passengers had formed a gauntlet behind barricades shouting and crying, trying to get travelers' attention. It was overpowering for me in my state of exhaustion. I willed myself to remember my arrival instructions; ... Look for the Linden Tour sign that will have your name on it ... ... Given the scene, it was like trying to make sense of Where's Waldo? while on heavy medications.
I stumbled on, half seeing, mouth dumbly agape, down through this corridor of chaos. I began to think that I was lost, or had forgotten the instructions, when a hand suddenly began to pull on one of my sleeves. A young man, holding a sign as big as the side of a small truck with my name emblazoned upon it asked; "Dr. Jeffrey? Is id you, sir? You valked ride by me and my golleague!"
"Sorry ... thank-you ... yes; I'm Dr. Jeffrey ..." (Saved from a fate that I was sure would have been greater then death ... ) "How did you know it was me?" I astonishingly quarried.
"You ver de only vide person goming oud from de derminal, sirl!"
A half hour's bumpy ride through the darkened streets of Chennai (of which I have no real recollection) brought me to the Taj Coromandel Hotel, at last.
It's a fine hotel. The service is impeccable, and the staff is doing it's finest to help me rest and make the transition to this place and space that is, (I am finding), uniquely India.
It's 04:30 Sai Gon time and I'm sitting in the departure lounge at the airport awaiting my flight to Hong Kong. It's also "Reunification Day" here in Vietnam. Next to Tet, this is the biggest holiday of the year.
Reunification Day marks the fall of the South Vietnamese government and the defeat of the USA in 1975; it's sort of like our Independence Day. On the way to the airport a few minutes ago, there were already fireworks going off in the early dawn, and revelers on the streets.
It's my reunification day with my country, home, and family. It's a celebration for me as well.
Thanks for traveling along with me once again. Hope to see you soon!
I can tell that it must be nearing the end of this particular trip because the wrinkles in my suits are taking longer and longer to hang out when I get to a new city and hotel.I also find I’m beginning to think about creative ways in which to wear a dress shirt again and avoid having to send it to the laundry and paying $15.00 a shot.(After all, I can have a new shirt made for $20.00.)Most telling of all, I’m losing my grip on reality.
This fact came to mind last night after I returned to my room from a ride on the back of a motor bike through the streets of Sai Gon.I was tired and dizzy from full day of travel from China to Vietnam.A spectacular thunderstorm had delayed our arrival at Sai Gon’s airport, and therefore put us smack in the middle of the city’s rush hour as we made our way to our hotel in the center of the city.The “ … conveniently located New World Hotel, just 20 minutes from the airport …” was a two hour crawl instead.
Several weeks before, I had made arrangements to meet my Vietnamese translator (Thi) for dinner the night of my arrival.Now that I was over two hours late, I was anxious and disappointed about missing that appointment, and knew that I had inconvenienced him.However, when we arrived at the hotel, there he was waiting by the entrance, looking perplexed but cheerful.
“Dr. Jeffrey!Welcome to my city!”
I greeted him with my apologies, and explained the circumstances of my delay.“You shouldn’t have waited for me, Thi.You should have just left a message for me with the Concierge.”(I was so tired and fed up with travel that all I wanted to focus on was checking in and going to bed.)“Perhaps we can meet for coffee tomorrow” I offered lamely.
“But Dr. Jeffrey; I have my motorbike, and we are to have dinner together, don’t you remember?”The expression on his face was one of utter disbelief that I was actually considering not honoring the commitment I had made to him.That was point at which I now know that fatigue kicked in fully and overtook my sense of reality.He looked at me plaintively as he held out a less than substantial helmet obviously meant for my use.
“OK” I said with a lopsided smile, wondering who the heck had uttered this decisive and fateful word.I asked the front desk to send my bags to my room, rolled up my sleeves, put on the helmet, and climbed onto the back of his motorbike.
There are 3 million motorbikes in Saigon.They are all driven by people who have no regard for their lives.We were suddenly surrounded by every one of them.
To observe the flow, listen to the din, and take in the acrid smell of this mechanical river from the sidewalk is a stunning thing.To be in the clutch of its current is awesome.The dense, hot night; monsoon wet, made our forward progress seem heroic.Speech was impossible, so my mind focused on the neon blur developing around us like a time exposure.This distraction kept my thoughts away from myriad options of probable, instant death.I was both into, and out of the experience.
I have no idea of how long we rode.We stopped and had dinner somewhere, but what we ate escapes me.
This was all last night.The fact that I’m writing about it tonight is a very good sign.
Sitting here now, I can hear the muffled honking of horns and the roar of the river 20 floors below.The idea that I jumped in and swam is curious to me.But then; so is life.
