OCT-B-13

BEGINNING THE LONG TRIP FROM EAST TO WEST,

LEAVING DARJEELING FOR BAGDOGRA BY ROAD,

THEN THE FIRST FLIGHT TO DELHI,

AND LAUNCH THE GLOBE-GIRDLING TWIN HOP

FROM DELHI TO PARIS TO DULLES TO

RETURN TO A TRANSFORMED DERWOOD

October 17—18, 2003

DEPARTURE FROM DARJEELING

I have left my “destination travel” at Darjeeling (abbreviated charmingly on some taxis as “Darling.” As if to flaunt itself, the massive mountain that had been shrouded every day until yesterday now is out bright and clear as if it hardly deserves a glance. We had breakfast with Hem and got three taxis to go to Bagdogra—the military air field which begrudgingly also services commercial flight traffic at Siliguri. We had loaded up with our baggage on the roofs of the jeeps and took off up the steep mountain roads with a few backward glances at the long white Massif of Kanchenchunga. We passed numerous waterfalls before climbing higher still, along the narrow crest road of the high mountain tea plantations, each colonial plantations with “the Castleton House” or the “Manger’s Bungalow,” and hectares of steep slopes with manicured bushes adjacent to the “Tea Factory” where one day is all that is needed to turn small green leaves into the tea that you drink.. Some of the establishments bragged about “organic teas: “do yourself a flavor, and drink organic tea.” Just how much more organic one tea is than another is hard to tell, but hey have tasting tours like Napa Valley winery tours here. We crossed the narrow divide of the mountains and could see off the unstable eroded roadway the broad sweep where the Teesta River joins the broad Gangetic Plain—my first view of the sacred river Ganges in the distance. We then did a whole series of switchbacks to lose altitude along the southern side of the scarp to drop down in the Bengali Gangetic Plain and head through flat level tea plantations that stretched for kilometers. AS heavily studied and practiced for years, “all the tea in India” is still a cottage industry that is labor-intensive, employing whole armies of well covered women who would otherwise fry in the sun, for busy agile hand work—snipping by hand the tiny tea leaves at the crown of the bush—the conus or the flower and all the other terms I have had to learn recently.

At about ten thirty AM the work of these women was largely done or else they would be baking under the very hot sun, and they were coming in after their very long day, having started already around dawn. They were carrying their baskets and getting them weighed in—a colorful social coffee klatch based on tea. They were standing in thick groups about five kilometers apart where the road could access them. I saw one site which would have made a stunning picture if only we had gone off road in pursuit of it. At one of the weighing houses in the field, there were a series of men who would hoist the collected tea baskets worth of tea leaves into large cloth bags and sling them over their backs and heads on tump lines and march between rows of teas bushes, meeting other s doing the same until the whole army ants column converged at a dirt track where—as far as could be seen, bobbing tea sacks were on the move to the rail head. This whole area is based in tea and its processing, of course, from the name Darjeeling—which gives it a special cache. We converged along little shops lining the road until we crossed the braided gravel bars of the Ganges River and into the area of the Bagdogra Airport—which we did not have to guess, since the scream of MiG fighters overhead in practice drills told us we were closed. This is the signal to put cameras away lest they be snatched by the army that patrols this air base.

The aircraft were highly photogenic, however, since the MIGS land with a drogue chute that pulls out a second chute to act as brake. Then with an incredible noise, and Ilyooshin Air Transport marked Indian Army came in in its battle ship grey colors and screamed to a halt. The Russians had made a major deal when they designed and sold this batch of aircraft to the Indians, but noise abatement and fuel efficiency were not part of the design plan. As big and lumbering as the double decker Ilyooshin liner is, I could be convinced by anyone arguing the case, that, like the bumble bee, it can never get off the ground. But, it disproved this hypothesis by screaming again and leaving—more maneuvers to impress the cross-border neighbors of the high tech sophistication of the Indian Army and its defenses. I was soon to learn just how defense-intensive this army can be.

SUFFERING FROM A SURFEIT OF SECURITY:

ELECTIRC POWER, ALWAYS AT A PREMIUNM SWCARCITY IN THE THIRD WORLD, IS STRIPED FROM ALL MY CARRYONS

I tried to get the group to check in together as was pre-planned, since we have to get not only our own baggage, but five medical MAP boxes back to Delhi with us to have the medicines ready for the next startup of the series that begins with Dharamsala in the spring. Linda, the first year pediatric resident at Kaiser Permanente in San Francisco who had made it known that she was so tired of school that she did not want to participate in any academic exercise and did not want to be graded on her performance-something she said was a thing of her past—hurried in to check in alone, so she would not be part of the group. I then got nine of us checked in with 12 personal bags and five MAP boxes, to be picked up by taxis at Delhi and carried to the Ajanta Hotel where we would only have time for a quick shower, a snack and maybe an internet attempt before scurrying back to Indira Gandhi International for the first flight out for us—the Air France flight around midnight.

We then carried our carryon bags forward to security, having been warned to take out most of the batteries and any other objects that would arouse their suspicion. I had three cameras only one working now, and had [put them ALL in the checked bag along with both my tape recorder and the audiobook tapes player, and took out the pack of extra batteries and put them all in the checked bag.

I went through security where a friendly security search fellow noted the label on my bag and note pad, and asked if I were a medical doctor and a volunteer here to do medical missions. We exchanged pleasantries and I went forward to the X-Ray machine marked “Film Safe.” My bags were first X-Rayed—with all my film stock in them, and then a very officious series of guards opened the bags and asked what everything was and why it was there. They started in with a heavy-handed vengeance on the film stock—all carefully labeled and already in the film mailers I had organized. They then got to the rolls of film in the original packages, untouched, and sealed that were unexposed. He then spotted my not-yet used disposable camera in its box and foil package. “Open it.” He was convinced that if it is a camera, it must have a battery, and he wanted to bust me for something. So he opened the packages of each of the unexposed films and a few of those that were exposed, and opened the disposable camera. There did not seem to be any yield from these intrusive maneuvers so he moved on to the laptop computer.

Now a line was accumulating behind me including one very officious Indian business man. As the guard pulled out my lap top he ordered “Open it.” I did, but he wanted to see the components, and pulled off the battery on the bottom. “What is this?” It is part of the computer.

“Oh, no,” said the uninvolved Indian business man behind me, trying to do his patriotic best—“It is a battery, and that is forbidden!?

Thanks to the good offices of the Indian in explaining to the guard that this was a kind of battery ( with a US price of over $250) and he even added—“See, just like mine!” and pointed to his battery bay in his laptop which he was permitted to carry on through. “We must confiscate and destroy it” No, I don’t think so.

He then opened the lead lined film bag and discovered two lithium batteries that I had been at such pains to make sure I had as backup, each costing about $25 US. Ah Hah! So, he let the man behind me through, carrying two cameras and a laptop, and for me—with no cameras, I had to strip all batteries, including those inside the machine. He had a pile of items behind him on a table belonging to the group of French tourists boarding—including a long scissors and a spare Sony video camera battery, and had logged them with their name tag saying they could pick them up on arrival in Kolkata. But, for me, “No, we must destroy these.” I suspect that, like the guard at Charles De Gaulle, who had simply wanted my fancy new carabineer, he could simply declare it forbidden, and he then owned a new item he found attractive.

Like National Security as an excuse for chicanery, the hypertrophied “Security” apparatus in all airports, redundant in every way—I was body searched four time sin this terminal after I had passed any pint where I could pick up contraband not already seized by earlier layers of the security eagles and beagles—they can plunder what they would li8ke from the tribe of well-heeled tourists parading their expendable power sources in front of them.

So, the guard called his superior over to show what a good job he had done in stripping this international scofflaw of his power toys, and then the chief pulled off every baggage identification tag off my carryon luggage—including those from Lufthansa, and Alaska Air, among other recent travels, and rubber stamped “Cancelled” across my boarding pass. I took my canceled ticket and the Ziploc of the forbidden batteries and went back to the Jet Air check-in desk where I had just checked in the whole group and they had to take the packet through X-Ray again then put it in a small envelope and tagged it with my name—only because we had established an earlier rapport, and I had to be issued a new ticket, with about twenty minutes to spare before boarding. I then realized the queue behind security looked like it was a bout forty five minutes deep, and went back to the same search guard who had asked me about the medical missions. He waved me through, and I walked right by the officious guards, having had the foresight to get the good guy to stamp a pair of new carryon bag tags, and put them on the already too-thoroughly searched bags I had left with the team who were already standing in the jet way ready to board.

Security! The incompetence of the people doing the job causes more insecurity that it helps, and may simply discourage anyone serious about helping from any air travel. I do not fit most profiles, and if I were going to carry in some forbidden items, I would do it by the car load in the cross boarder road traffic here—and I was not even crossing any borders on this domestic flight! These are the same folk who have impounded my bag and two boxes of medicine in Kolkata, in order to extract a fine of 25,000 Rupees for holding it up! By the time that Hem can negotiate with these officials (which he said is an area that is a communist state in a democratic India and all the business we have is local, so they ignore the imprimatur of the Health Minister already faxed to them twice—but they are increasing the hassle factor in order to profit from it—and 25,000 R’s is over $500—for my bag left in India with the sleeping bag, rain suit, sweaters, a brick of film hat they have now X-Rayed, audiotapes, photojournalist vest, hiking boots and all the stuff I need her for the treks, which I do not want to schlep back and forth across the globe each time I lead trips to India –now averaging three to four times per year!

DELHI, AND THE AJANTA HOTEL,

JUST LONG ENOUGH FOR A SHOWER TO RINSE OFF THE HOT, HUMID,

AND DENSE POPULATION RUB OFF OF THE URBAN INNER CITY,

AND A QUICK TRY AT EMAILING

I got to the Ajanta and accomplished what I had set out to do, this time including re-packing. I had been already packed as I left Darjeeling this morning, but now I had to re-pack and salvage what I could after my run-in with the security gendarmerie. It is now time to take Air France around the world, so I will see if I can use the night of flying from Delhi to sleep a little, and the daytime flight to IAD to work a little-if I can get the evanescent electricity back into the laptop which has caused me such a juice junkie withdrawal and “run ins with the law,” and I will get back to you from aloft.

AIR FRANCE A-340 TO PARIS,

AND 747 TO WASHINGTON

The seat consoles of the A-340 allowed me to see the gratuitous violence of the silly hyper drama of Terminator III and the Honorable Governor of the Great (and populous) state of California. That news even reached India in record time. I had once said the people of California would be too smart to elect a grade B movie actor their leader. But, I no longer say that. Now I only wish they could show the judgment and good sense of the people of the state of Minnesota in how carefully they choose their governors! [Once again, repeat after me a phrase once prominently repeated by a prior Governor of California an ex-Jesuit jet-setter with Linda Rondstat named Jerry Brown—“There is no such thing as bad publicity.”]

I have tried to snooze a bit on this first flight, which will leave me with a bit of caffeinated time to work on past due efforts, such as the books I had carried for the course work I have yet to do in the ELDP, which has its next meeting and due date for the several papers just after the SECOND marathon of my next two weeks. So, I will start reading and comparing notes in the trans-Atlantic flight—using some of the 11 ½ hours I add to my watch from the starting point—you can explain to me later what constitutes a half hour time zone.

In the Ajanta Hotel, I at least got a chance to send emails, again without the ability to send “attachments” without the whole system locking out with “this page cannot be found” but at least I was able to “copy and paste” with a word processor, so at least one important message was sent out that I had been holing and hoping to send but had been previously blocked in the careful thoughtful text I had put on a disc. We will see if the messages were not only sent, but received.

Now, it is EAST MEETS WEST as I sail back into whatever has been happening at home or near it. This may mark the end of my foreign travels for the year 2003, with a series of domestic runs coming up –some of which actually do involve running—something I feel acutely deprived of just now. But, I may be over-supplied with that opportunity very shortly!

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