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Passage Through FearA Journey Through India & NepalCopyright 1992-1993 by Richard Bollar -- All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form, by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except brief extracts for the purpose of review, without the written permission of the publisher and copyright owner.
Getting There There is a place that I've waited for years to visit, but always blew off for one reason or another (too damned expensive to get there - too damned dangerous once you do). I offered to take a girlfriend; she declined, I think. I actually bought a ticket to go there in 1989, but canceled when I thought it might be a little too dangerous, choosing to trade in the ticket on a down payment for a convertible and a week watching the leaves turn on the Blue Ridge Parkway instead. <Yawn> This place is India. Violence in Punjab and Kashmir notwithstanding, I dreamt of traveling there. I had bought all of the books and maps on the area, and I would stay up late, planning the trip. In my imaginary trip, I would start in Delhi and head north into the Vale of Kashmir. I'd find a houseboat on Lake Dal in Srinagar and I'd sit on the deck with my tea and have the vendors come by in their shikaras and try to sell Kashmiri shawls, suits, carvings and hashish to me. Figuring that India is something to be eased into, I'd stay there for a few days, before heading back south. I'd travel only by land, of course, enjoying life on the Indian railroad. The railroad, in itself, would have been reason enough for me to go. Seeing the life in the stations, enjoying watching the countryside pass by, and just working out the logistics of travel on the spur-of- the-moment had to wind up being great fun. At nights, I'd stay at the railway retiring rooms, which would be available to me because of the rail pass I would be using. Next on my trip, I'd go to Agra and get seeing the Taj Mahal out of the way. I'm sure that it's beautiful, but really going there doesn't interest me all that much. I just couldn't imagine the grief I would get if I went there without seeing the thing. It's obviously my concession to the 'been there; done that' school of thought. Having gotten that little piece of tourism out of the way, I'd head for Nepal, taking the train to Raxaul Bazaar and then a bus to Kathmandu. It would take days, I gathered from reading the Lonely Planet guides to the region. It would be a miserable trip, but terribly romantic once I got a chance to recount the journey well into the Himalayas. I never had any idea what I would do once I made it to Kathmandu, but I figured that it would be worth a couple of days before I left to return to India. Darjeeling would be next, but yet another hellacious bus journey (twenty hours !). There I would have tea and enjoy staying in faded Victorian glory for a day or so. Finally, I'd take the toy train out of the Himalayas, and head for Varanasi. Seeing the pilgrims bathe in the Ganges was likely to be a moving experience. As the weeks drew to a close, I would return to New Delhi and whisk myself back to the West, likely a changed person for my trip. I must tell you now, that the trip I'm about to describe is not the one of my dreams. An excellent trip, but definitely not this one... Really, I had meant for 1992 to be a light-travel year. My house purchase last year along with fairly expensive trips to Hong Kong and Australia had pretty much left me tapped. I needed to save a few bucks for a rainy day, but my Dad intervened. He had just taken early retirement from Du Pont, his employer for thirty-years, and was planning on setting up some kind of consulting practice when the company called on him to do 'one last project.' He was to do a feasibility study on a joint venture in India, making photographic films and related polymers. Even in retirement, he was a company guy, and accepted the project. The culmination of the project was a trip to meet the joint venture partners in Bombay. Dad asked me to go along, and how could I refuse? I just had to figure out a way to afford it. A quick search through American Airlines Sabre system showed the cheapest fare at $2,200, and that was way out of my range. Besides, he reminded me that he planned to travel First Class. First Class! I had never flown front cabin on an international flight before. That ticket would cost me just under eight thousand dollars! I was then obvious to me that I would have to figure out something with frequent flyer miles. I pulled out my frequent flyer statements to see what I could work out. Delta was the only American airline that flew to India, having acquired Pan Am's routes only a few months earlier, so I started with them. The award cost one hundred and ten thousand miles, way more than the fifty thousand I had in the bank. What other alternatives were there? British Airways? Nope, the don't have an India award. Lufthansa? No, not a partner with any of 'my' airlines. I was ready to give in and tell Dad that it wouldn't work, when I saw the letters 'CX' at the bottom of the screen. Cathay Pacific! They fly to Bombay, and American Airlines has them as a companion airline. Now, how many miles? One hundred and twenty-five thousand miles; just under my account balance. Now, I knew that I would be able to go, but what was the routing? Another call to Sabre, and I had the answer... From Atlanta, I would go to Chicago, then to Los Angeles on American, board Cathay Pacific at LAX and take the same Non-Stop that Chris Watt and I had taken the year before to Hong Kong. I'd have to spend two days in Hong Kong waiting for Cathay's next flight to Bombay, and even then, I'd have to fly via Bangkok. It meant being in the air for thirty-one hours, and taking three days. How could Dad go for that? I realized that I could make the trip palatable for him by saving him money. Taking the benchmark cost of eight thousand dollars, I called American's Round-The-World desk and made an inquiry about the cost of having him fly out with me, and then return to the States by continuing to head West. I figured that the savings would be about a thousand dollars, but I was wrong. The First Class RTW ticket was under fifty-five hundred bucks! There was no way that he wouldn't jump at that! Besides, we'd get to hang out in Hong Kong and maybe Bangkok, too. We hadn't been in Bangkok together since 1989.... Dad thought it was a cool idea, and I started to make the plans. His were pretty easy, aside from the fact that he had to fly on Gulf Air from Bombay to Bahrain and then on Cathay Pacific from Bahrain to London to complete the journey. Mine were somewhat more difficult, requiring me to meet travel restrictions forbidding travel on Fridays and Saturdays and Cathay's infrequent schedule between Bombay and Hong Kong. My return would require me to spend another three days in Hong Kong, as well as a day in Los Angeles, making it just about as bad as the trip out. On the bright side, I'd get to stay at the Marriott in Hong Kong, which is just about my favorite of our hotels. It was obviously going to be great fun! But I had so much to do! First, I needed an itinerary. Dad's business plans meant flying into Bombay, so it was apparent that my fantasy trip wouldn't work this time. I bought new guides and maps and started to see what I could work out in under two weeks there. I also got our State Department's advisory on India:
Now that's reassuring.... Well, if our government can be trusted, my Kashmir trip would have to wait, as would another attempt at a photo safari. Trying to salvage something from the fantasy trip, I figured that we could cram in Bombay and Delhi in the week that Dad would have before he'd be back to work. After that, I'd put him on a plane back to Bombay, and I'd spend the next week going to Varanasi, and then Shimla in the foothills of the Himalaya. I felt good having penciled out a schedule, but I wondered about Nepal. It seemed a shame to go so far without making it to Kathmandu. What would Bob Segar say? Well, it wouldn't matter; I certainly could wait to firm my schedule until after I got there. Whatever I wound up doing, I'd need to have my visas lined up, and I spent the next few weeks taking care of that. I found the Indians particularly unhelpful; their forms didn't even have the right prices on them. The Nepalese on the other hand had a simple fee schedule - twenty dollars a visit. The day before our departure, Dad flew down to Atlanta to hang out with Richard Cree and me. Could be great fun. While he was in flight, though, his secretary, Kris Zimmerman gave me a frantic call. Something had happened in India, and he needed to call his ex-boss, the product line Vice President in Wilmington, Delaware as soon as he arrived. Richard had volunteered to get Dad at the airport, so it was a few hours before Dad was able to call in. But when he did, we got quite a piece of news! Terrorists had attacked one of Du Pont's factories in Punjab, and had killed some of the company's employees. As a result, the meetings in India were canceled and Du Pont forbade their employees from traveling there. It was amazing to see how fast the trip could deteriorate. Hoping to do a little damage control, I suggested that we go to the office and see if there were any news stories on CompuServe. There was only one piece on the wire:
But if you think this is ominous, we had yet to talk to Mom.... Mom was not amused and Dad spoke to her at length. In the meantime, Richard and I were sucking down a beer in my living room. He kept asking me, "So, are you going or not?" "Well, I'm going anyway." "Oh." A few minutes would pass, and we'd still hear Dad on the phone and Richard would ask again, "So, are you going or not?" Finally, he was off the phone. The upshot of his conversations was that he would have to wait until 5:30 in the morning before he would know if he could go. That's a little tight, given that our flight to Chicago was to leave at 7:19. It was already past midnight, so we sent Richard on his way, promising to call him if we were able to go and went to sleep. Four hours later, at 4:30 on Thursday, Mar 12 I got up and started to get ready to go. Starting off a trip like this without much sleep is never a good idea, and I felt exhausted as I wandered around the house in a daze, trying to remember how to make a pot of coffee. I heard Dad showering, and I started to wake up when I smelled the coffee brewing. With a cup of Foglifter in my hand, I was ready to start packing. From all of the traveling I do for work and for fun, it doesn't take me long to do the job so I had my soft frame backpack filled in ten minutes. It seemed awfully light so I checked it again. It had everything in it, and there was still room left to get things along the way. Great! Dad was out of the shower by then, so I hopped in for a long one. It would be my last for a couple of days. Getting out of the shower, I heard Dad on the phone. He was talking to India. Minutes later, he was off and shouted, "We're on our way!" Yes! I called Richard and asked him if he could give us a ride to the airport. Of course he could, and he was at my place twenty minutes later and we hopped into his car, saying "ciao" to the cats. The sun was rising as we reached Atlanta Hartsfield International Airport, and Richard dropped us off right in front of the American Airlines check-in counter. Of course there was a line. To meet with security regulations, most airlines want international passengers to check-in more than an hour before departure. Our flight was to leave in fifty minutes, so it was less than wanted, but still not close, unless this line took too long. It didn't. We got our boarding passes, invitations to visit the Admiral's Club and we were at the gate with twenty minutes to spare. Good timing! Our flight, AA 1003, a Boeing 727 left on time, and we had a bloody mary and a fruit salad on the two hour flight to Chicago. We used the remainder of the timing using the Airfone to call Mom to let her know that we were on our way. I also tried to see if Chris Watt, the guy who went to Hong Kong with me last year, wanted to meet us for a cup of coffee at O'Hare. Chris didn't think he could make it, so we just resolved to get some work done at the Admiral's Club. Our flight landed early so we had just over an hour before our connection to Los Angeles. We used the time making copies of our passports and traveler's checks. Dad also called Kris at work to let her know that we were on our way. Amazingly, all of this took an hour and it was time to catch the next flight.... Though the flight on our first leg had an eighty percent on-time rating, this flight to Los Angeles held only a forty. We had two hours on the ground in LAX, so it shouldn't be a problem. We boarded AA 181, a McDonnell-Douglas DC 10 ten minutes before scheduled departure and gratefully accepted glasses of champagne as we settled into seats 4 A & B. We had no sooner than stowed our gear before the jet pushed back from the gate. An on-time departure! There was more room on this plane to spread out, so I pulled out my guide books, and he got his travel brochures and maps. We made a bit of an effort to learn about India, but were soon interrupted by brunch. The choices were a fruit salad, cheese & egg omelet or strawberry pancakes. I took the eggs; Dad the fruit salad. The guy across from us made a scene because his choice wasn't available. I heard him ask, "So, are these other people paying for their tickets?" as he pointed at us. What a dick! The flight attendant was able to come up with his choice, so he became happy. I think I would have rather seen him suffer. No matter, I decided to go to sleep, foregoing watching Addams Family. I woke just before our early arrival in Los Angeles at eleven AM Pacific time. There were only a couple of things that we need to take care of in Los Angeles. First was the check-in for the Cathay Pacific flight, CX 881. It is operated in conjunction with American Airlines, so there is a check-in counter in the American terminal. I handed the agent our tickets and watched her print boarding cards and validate drink cards for us to use in the Admiral's Club. Walking away from the counter, I noticed that we had seats 2 C and 5 K, not the seats that our confirmation showed. How could this be? Returning to the agent, she was able to get us seated together in 6 E & G - middle set of seats, one row before the smoking section. Kind of ominous, but at least we were sitting together. Next, I needed money. Remembering the problems I had had in Hong Kong last year, I got a three hundred dollar cash advance on my credit card at the ATM. Now, flush with cash, we went to get our free drink in the Admiral's Club, making a couple of last calls before boarding time. The shuttle to the plane boarded at 12:15, and we got to stand on a stuffy bus for fifteen minutes while we worked on getting to the International Terminal. Interestingly, it seemed that most of the passengers from the Chicago flight were also going on to Hong Kong, including the prick, and a woman who was in a definite travel mode, down to the Birkenstocks and the sweat pants. Also with us seemed to be about a bezillion Chinese. We got to the International Terminal about twenty minutes later and debated changing money with the woman from Chicago. The money changer was quite the sales person, reminding us that we would arrive after the banks closed for the weekend in Hong Kong. We should change all of our money now, she said. The woman bought five hundred US dollars worth of HK dollars and Dad bought a hundred. If only the commission weren't so steep. I decided to wait and change my money with the changer at the other end. Cash purchased, we walked to the gate, passing Thai, Singapore & Korean Airlines aircraft before finally arriving at the end of the pier. If I thought I was with a bezillion Chinese before, I was with at least ten times that many now. They were swarming the gate, with huge shopping bags filling their arms. I dreaded the thought of possibly having to sit in Coach with that many people. Through the window, I could see, VR-HOO, a Boeing 747 model 400, painted in the green, white & red livery distinctive to Cathay Pacific. We sat in the lounge for a bit and waited for things to clear at least somewhat before attempting to board.... We had hardly taken a seat when we were noticed by one of the agents; our Burgundy and Gold boarding passes identifying us as First Class passengers. This man invited us to come with him and took us to the front of the line, where we were allowed to cut in front of at least two hundred people. I guess you should get something for paying the big bucks. Crossing the threshold of the aircraft, we were met by the female chief purser, who took my father's pass and let him to his seat. The senior purser led me to my seat and stowed my knapsack into an overhead bin that was exclusively for my use. Before I even had a chance to pull off my sweater, I was asked if I would like some champagne with raspberry kir liqueur. But of course! I sat in my seat and took in the cabin. First Class was in the nose of this aircraft, and there were six rows of seats; the first three being two pairs of two, and the last three were three pairs of two seats. We were sitting in row four, not six as I had thought that I had seen on the boarding pass. We were the first row of middle seats. Directly in front of us was a table with a beautiful flower arrangement and current-day newspapers in English and Chinese. The seats were green leather, with electronic controls for seat recline and the foot rest. I could not reach the seats off to my left, nor could I bend forward far enough to touch the table ahead. We had lots of room. My champagne cordial arrived, and I noted 'Krug Grande Cuvee Champagne' on the bottle's label. Also, between us were two bowls of mixed nuts. I sipped the champagne, watching bubbles collect and rise away from a single raspberry nestled in the bottom of the flute. The flight attendant offered me a newspaper, and I selected an International Herald Tribune, dated today. Looking for some news from India, I noted that most of the passengers were familiar, traveling with us from Chicago. Still with us were the prick and the woman in Birkenstocks, though they were sitting away from each other. A flight attendant returned to replenish my drink, and another offered me a set of Sennheiser headphones for the audio program, an envelope containing Discovery, the Cathay Pacific in-flight magazine with program guide supplement along with a green leather toiletries kit. The kit looked much better than the ones I got last time I flew on this airline, and sorting through the contents took the remainder of our time on the ground. The kit was much better than I remembered from Marco Polo Business Class. It contained an eye shade & socks, foam ear plugs, breath spray, Hermés cologne and a bizarre toothbrush / razor combination. I hadn't even noticed that we were away from the gate when I heard the spooling of the Rolls Royce engines. I couldn't see well out of the windows as they were so far away, but it was obvious when we reached the end of the runway. Right on time, it seemed, so we would be arriving in Hong Kong fifteen hours and twenty-five minutes later. The engines started their grumble and we started our roll down the runway. I could see only glimpses of buildings outside as we sped past, but felt like everything stopped to let me get a clear look at the tall, blue sign, 'Pan Am Clipper Cargo'. I felt a huge pang of sadness as I imagined Pan Am's Martin M-130 Flying Boat China Clipper pioneer the San Francisco - Honolulu - Midway Island - Wake Island - Guam -Manila variation of this route commencing November 1935. That trip would take eight days, and would cost $799 for a one-way ticket (about $10,000 in current dollars). I have no doubt that this current trip would be impossible had it not been for Pan Am's aggressive and innovative use of aircraft technology to fly routes thought impossible.... While Pan Am's China Clipper would travel the 8,210 over eight days, the flight time would be only sixty hours. Powered by four Pratt & Whitney Twin Wasp engines producing 830 hp, the plane could reach 130 miles per hour, while carrying eight passengers in total. In contrast, only fifty-seven years later, we would travel 7,227 miles with an elapsed time of fifteen hours. Our Boeing 747-400 is powered by four Rolls Royce RB211-524H engines generating maximum thrust of 60,600 pounds and carrying over three hundred passengers (including the thirty of us in First Class) at an airspeed up to 600 miles per hour. My nostalgic trip through aviation history had obviously lasted for several minutes. The flight attendants were unbuckled, and had switched on the Airshow, a video display showing the location of the aircraft superimposed on various maps. It's fun to watch the flight's progress on the screen, and I watched the close up of the Los Angeles area fade into one of the California coastline as we approached our initial cruising altitude of thirty-one thousand feet. I noticed the chief purser handing out menus to the guests, but I took a moment to check out the audio programming. Last time, they had a Kate Bush channel, and while I didn't expect to have such good fortune this time, I was sure that it would be quite good. There was a good choice, with two classical, one Japanese, one Chinese, a New Age, a Rock, an Oldies and a Talk channel, as well as the BBC World Service (which was being received live from a short-wave antenna located on the aircraft). Programs were two hours each, and added to the eight hours of video programming, it seemed unlikely that I'd have a chance to get bored. "Mr. Bollar?" I heard someone properly pronounce my name. Turning toward the voice, I saw that it was the chief purser. The flag on her name tag indicated she was from Singapore. "Here is the menu for our flight. If you don't want to eat now, we have a special meal which you may eat at the time of your choosing. May I get you something to drink?" I thanked her and ordered a Campari and Soda, turning my attention to the rather large menu. There were to be two meal services, one eight courses and the other three plus snacks available at any time. Oh my! Our drinks arrived along with some more nuts, and we settled in to enjoy the flight, reading from our guide books. After we received our second drink, the meal service began. First off were some savories, basically some cold canapés to go with our second drink. There were four types, and we had a couple of each. The smoked ham and mango ones were my favorite. After scarfing those down, I was getting kind of hungry, so was excited to see the place setting laid out in front of me with real crystal, heavy silver and starched white linens. The appetizers were next, and that's when I learned that there are no choices to be made in First Class. If you would like all of the offerings, you may have them. So, we had royal oscietre caviar with fresh sour cream and blinis as well as a filet of balik salmon with potato cakes. I probably wouldn't know good caviar if I saw it, but this definitely wasn't bad. The salmon, however, was spectacular! Forget anything I've ever written about salmon before, because this one totally eclipses the best that I had had before. The flight attendant noticed that I enjoyed it because she kept coming back with more of them. Mmmm, I could have stopped there.... I did not have to stop there. Next was a fresh mushroom and oyster soup garnished with shiitake mushrooms, chives and cheese straws. I temporarily forgot about my allergies to shellfish and ate all of it, enjoying every drop. It was slightly spicy, but very heavy. I got a kick of watching it ladled out of the silver tureen on the cart. To clear the palate before the main course, was a seasonal mixed salad, served with a light shallot and vinegar dressing. It was here that I switched to wine. There were six choices, ranging from a 1981 Robert Mondavi Cabernet Sauvignon to a 1990 Bridgewater Mill Sauvignon Blanc. I had each of the wines at some point during the trip and enjoyed each of them, but the 1989 Balthasas Rees Johannisberger Erntebringer Riesling Spatlese was my favorite, though it wasn't very dry, which tends to be my preference. There were three offerings for the main course, a trimmed center cut fillet of beef topped with a mixture of sun-dried tomato, olive and herb paste served with Madeira sauce, fresh bay scallops sautéed in butter, garnished with black beans and tomato concasse, and chicken breast poached in which wine, presented on grapefruit/butter sauce. I took the beef, and had some great vegetables along with, including a potato strudel, rice with herb and ginger, baby vegetables and broiled eggplant on Chinese sauce. The beef was a little over-cooked, but was otherwise fine. We allowed the main to settle for a bit before taking of the cheese board. I had each of the four choices, cambozola blue, St. Nectaire, Wisconsin cheddar and brie along with a banana and soda crackers. The Riesling mentioned above was particularly memorable with the cheeses. Then, it was time for the desserts. I had the hot apple strudel in filo pastry with vanilla ice cream and berries followed by a very light gateau. Both were surprisingly good. From a technical aspect, I was very surprised to see how well the filo held up on the strudel. We wound up the meal with coffee, fruit tarts, and a couple of rounds of Hennessy XO cognac. I was starting to feel a little bloated, so I allowed the seat to recline all the way and relaxed as the meal was cleaned up and the videos started. Even though I knew that the seats reclined a lot, I was still surprised to see how close I was to horizontal. It would be easy to sleep in this seat! If only I were tired. Well, with twelve hours left, I'd have plenty of time to sack out at some point. The cabin got dark as the video program started, and I was reminded how much I enjoy the jazzy Cathay Pacific theme music. First was the World News Digest with Sports Report hosted by Edward Bean and Lorraine Hahn. He's a western looking man, but she's decidedly of Chinese extraction. Both speak English like they're English. After a short break was the first of three movies, Addams Family. I had a beer at the beginning of the movie and proceeded to fall asleep somewhere in the middle of it.... I rested easily, waking several hours later in the middle of the second movie, Man in the Moon. It looked pretty sappy, so I went back to sleep after noticing that one of the passengers was having a snack, probably a noodle soup with shrimp and barbecued roast beef. I was still kind of full, and looking at the man eat made my stomach turn a bit. Travel Tip: If you are sitting on a leather seat, you're likely to get uncomfortably damp during the flight. A wool blanket underneath you does a good job in eliminating this problem. Why airlines insist on using leather instead of sheep skin will always elude me. Applause to American Airlines for using sheep skin in their international business and first class seats. Four hours of sleep was enough for me, and I woke to see Dead Again, which was a nice film, though a bit innocuous. After that was over, we got the Airshow again and found that we were over Japan; still over three hours away from Hong Kong. Plenty of time for another meal, and more videos. It had been several hours since I had had a drink, and a beer sounded good to me. They served up a Heineken, which I enjoyed with the first course, a cold plate of baby lobster langoustine flavored with sesame and a mille feuille of goose liver. Then, I guess to ease us into Asia, we were offered the main courses of pork loin stir-fried with chopped garlic and assorted pickles and fried crab cakes served with tomato and port wine sauce. Neither sounded really good, but I took the pork with some Singapore style fried noodles, passing on the bok choi. It tasted much better than I thought it would. We finished off the meal with coffee and pralines, and the final videos, Discover Hong Kong followed by Blackadder the Third started shortly thereafter, ending with only an hour left until landing. Only a few minutes before landing, we received the last fourth and last set of hot towels, and I know that I was starting to need them. I just placed the burning hot cloth on my eyes, soothing them from the hours of flight.
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