The Journey Home

The road to Bhutan, the diminutive Buddhist country in the eastern Himalayas is a long one.  For us, it was flights from Tampa to Houston to Narita-Tokyo and one to Bangkok.  From Bangkok we flew to Bagdogra, India and then to Paro.  We stayed in Bhutan for 18 days.  We saw birds, animals, and say Buddhism in its most living form in my humble opinion.  The trip home was even more brutal.  We left our hotel in Paro at 4AM after a night of obligate cultural immersion at a private home. 

This was a birding trip

We flew to Kalikat (Calcutta), that incredibly smog infested city in India.  We did not deplane, but I did take a picture of an interesting slogan on another plane.  

Which is more interesting, the note on the stairs, "Lets get high together" or the name of the airline, "Ease my Trip"?

Our Bhutan Air Airbus flew on to Bangkok.  We landed at noon and we spent much time in immigration and then found our hotel room at the airport.  Silja and I spent a spa day there, ironing out nearly worthless muscles from our 1600 foot ascent to the Tiger’s Nest, witch was actually a 2000 foot ascent and then a 750 step decent, and 210 step ascent to this important religious and cultural landmark in Bhutan.

We wasted our Thai baht on food and drink, massages, and only spent time with one other member of our tour.  We slept in soft beds.  The Thai Buddhists unlike the Bhutan Buddhists believe that a rock does not make a good pillow nor a board a good bed.  Our flight to Narita Tokyo left at 7 and took five hours.  We flew over the hills of Vietnam, where to many Americans died for nothing 50 years ago.  We flew over Taiwan, and then Okinawa, places possibly of wars future and of wars past.  It was hard to picture Okinawa as almost totally a city save for a mountain and a military base. 

I saw Yonaguchi by air, the mysterious island with so much underwater archeology no one wants to think about it is almost scary to me and educational malpractice.  In another life I would be there as a young man, finding answers to question no one wants to ask.  In two days I had seen Mt Everest and Fugi.

We arrived happily at Narita full of hope….not of life but of Udon Soup.  But things then would take a little diversion.  We did get the soup and it was superb but we were the first to come to our gate and we sat next to an abandoned backpack.  Similar abandoned backpacks in the Tokyo underground subway have killed many people.  To say that this was a suspicious backpack is an understatement. 

I whispered to Silja.  “That could be a bomb. Let’s move.”  Did I warn anyone?  No.  We just moved and actually went to eat our soup.   

By the time we were boarding, we were in a huge line to board fully 60% of the flight was zone 1, we were zone 2 and the plane was late for reasons unclear.  We found ourselves standing next to the cursed backpack, first with one security guard, then a second, pretty soon they were testing it for explosive residue.  It reminded me of Keystone Cops in action.  I was pretty sure that eventually either 1) it would blow or 2) they would evacuate the terminal.  They did 3) board the flight slowly, while security guard number 1 looked in fear. 

The 12 hour flight to Newark was quiet at least.  Our meals were served hurriedly, and we only had one beverage cart due to warnings of turbulence which did not seem that severe. We were forced to fly lower and faster to make up time which I was thinking would burn up fuel.  The range on a 777 is massive, somewhere near 8000 miles if I remember correctly.  One of the reasons the Malaysian plane disappeared was that it can fly forever.  Our flight was at somewhere in the mid 6500 mile range, and at times our ground speed was pushing 700 mph with the tailwind, but still…..As it looked like we had made up the hour delay we started something odd, we began to circle Albany NY, once twice, thrice and then we darted dead south, then west a little.  You may not know geography but, Newark is NOT that direction.  “Well, we are down to our fuel reserves and due to traffic at Newark we are being diverted to…Philadelphia.”  The pilot said.  It was also weird that we never heard the same pilot.  There was also a rumor this was a training flight for new pilots.  Over Trenton, I told my wife….

“We are going to Philly.”  She gave me the look like I was insane.  I was not.

I watched the descent thinking we were coming in a little hot, but I am just the passenger in 22B, but one with a million odd miles.  I have done Philly before, swing around Camden, go over the river and land.  I generally hate Philly airport, but tonight I would possibly hate it more since it was NOT a United hub and stranded in Philly?  OMG!

The wheels hit like a car hits a big and deep pot hole, jarring and with a bounce, our wing tipped quite a bit down, we bounced harder a second time and then, I felt the pilot floor it.  “Shit!” I muttered.  I had been on a previous aborted landing. From my too many flights here I knew we were at about 50-60% of the runway length by now and Philly has a long runway.  My stomach would soon be in my throat as I pondered if we had enough space.  I saw the end lights about thirty feet below us as the huge plane struggled to gain altitude.  I sighed relief, but there were things going on.  

We began the circle of shame.  The circle of shame we did at Midway once when a plane decided to sneak across the runway while my plane was landing was fast and tight, almost something from a stunt show.  It was nuts.  This one was leisurely, and around the entire city, like we were sight seeing.  The voice from the cockpit was mumbled and vague, what had happened?  “We did not like our approach” was the only thing said.  Did we have enough gas for another 40 mile joyride? What if we failed that?  What was really wrong?

So, we came in for it again.  At 3000 feet when I knew we were going committed, I said "I love you" to Silja and told her "it had been a fun ride."  I did not want to die on a United plane, but it seemed a possibility.  At the office I had written “When in doubt do NOT fly United” as a rule.  I had ignored the rule here.  Was this bad Karma?  We held hands, I tucked my head into hers and waited.  Covered my face with my pillow and prayed.  Would it be a crash or life?

Going to Bhutan was somewhat of a spiritual journey, but my spirit was not ready for a journey.  Well, the plane landed quite calmly, actually.  No one clapped.  In Midway, everyone clapped and those of us who stayed were given free drinks.  Here, we got some chips (I think) with writing in Japanese.  We went to the end of the runway and the plane sat for 2 hours.  They fueled her and waited, we would be leaving in ten minutes for 10 times.  I was happy to be on the ground, though, anywhere even in Philly.  I meant we had not died

We eventually flew off to Newark.  Our connection was long gone due to us being 4 hours late, when we arrived.  The plane somehow thought we were Flight 1 from Frankfurt on that leg, we were not on the luggage board,  and we meandered our way to a hotel and crashed, to sleep not the bus.  Our son in Germany woke us from a text to check if we were still alive at 2am which was 9 his time.  4AM today brought us up, back to the airport and on a flight to Tampa.  This flight seemed mundane, well until we landed and the plane braked hard like none of us needed to know what had laid ahead of us.  As we taxied to the runway, shaking a little Silja got a text that one or more of her luggage was enroute on a different plane.  Despite this, all three pieces came off the carousel.  Our friend Ric picked us up and got us to the RV, and the RV never felt so good.

Somewhere along the way we saw and ad about travel.  “Travel….because you don’t have to.”  I found that a funny slogan and now it almost seems to be a proverb, maybe we have traveled too much, at least we are alive.

The trip was 23000 air miles at 8 different airports.  As I said, we should have gone east instead of west but well, it was an epic journey few get to do, and maybe, just maybe few should do.  

I will post an extensive trip summary tomorrow as I have thousands of pictures to process, and some to hopefully find.

Yes, WE ARE ALIVE!

Olaf