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EUROPE, RUSSIA, AND CHINA 5 of 5

SATURDAY, AUGUST 22. Wake at 5:30, unpack, get 6AM call AFTER breakfast comes at 5:55. Beef tapa is like satay and tasty, fried eggs good, rolls, and good hot chocolate. Downstairs after shower, but no one's around at 7:15. Tell desk woman I'll be back for Pagsanjam tour (she MANAGED to find a brochure after searching a long time) at 9, when she says it leaves. Call cab and get to Makati and ROWS of bank and apartment and hotel buildings all very new and stone-like and monolithic. Alaya Boulevard named after family who own all the land. Ask for San Adres Church but it gets lost in shuffle of asking for Chinese Cemetery. Pass concrete San Tomas University, slums, nice areas, nice bodies, jeepneys, kids hawking papers and candy and gum car-to-car and a combination of modern and old that's not BAD but not great, either. Lots of traffic for early Saturday morning. Gates of cemetery are open and Werner was right, you COULD live in some of these 2 and 3-story chateaux of wrought iron and chandeliers and LIT votive lamps and altars and tombs and lounges and rotundas and arches. ALSO pass "hole in the wall" area of Italian-type offerings and photos and an area of fence-surrounded stone-surmounted EARTH burials. All types. Down to guarded gates of Malacanang Palace, seeing nothing, then to spacious used Rizal Park and monument and fountains and stadium and plazas and stairways and flower plantings. Then along filled harbor, hotel row, restaurant row, nightclub row, all rather tacky, and along rotting avenues to hotel by 8:50. In to tour desk to find pickup for tour was at 8:30! I holler, she phones Century Park Sheraton to hold tour for me and she has no change, so I pay 225 or 235P. Grab cab for 16P to waiting area and THEY pay for it and I can only pay 10P and owe the GUY 6P. Sit behind blond blue-eyed New South Wales David and wife Kerry, pretty too. Ride on only 50Km freeway, getting told about duck-embryo aphrodisiac; didn't get the NAME of it. BUKO PIE treat: coconut, custard, honey, and dough, good and unsweet. "Come": Matthew 11:28. HA! But it's only the first work of the "Come to me, ye who are burdened and heavy-laden." Then to Colomba, then to Pagsanjan, stopping for buko pie. Park and change clothes at 11 and get into last boat with the two. LOVELY chasm, can't believe rower is 55, worked 30 years, maybe 45 with wrinkled face and taut body. Great trees, said to be setting for "Apocalypse Now" 1972-1974. Take lots of pictures, knowing I can't capture steep cliffs, the colors of shiny green, the calls of birds, the energies of the porters carrying the ships and passengers up the bamboo ladders in the shallowest waters. Pass elated Italians, dour Japanese, unsmiling Americans, unidentifiables. Rapids countdown goes to zero and we're around final rocks for lower falls, upper only shown by wind-blown mist from upper reaches, LEFT joint of pulley-Y not used so that we can SEE. 4P for boat, two bright wet kids pulling on rope to dunk 5-6 of us under side spray. Wet! Back, they swim. I dry off, back into boat for faster trip back, toward last lap. In at 1:30, couple tipping them 10 extra, 1P for pillow, and to chicken and fish DELICIOUS lunch, with 20P extra for orange drink and "local coconut wine," smooth and unaffecting. Out about 2:15, ride back to commercial shop in great heat, and back to Holiday Inn with the couple, aiming at Village across from them. Ask in hotel and the village IS Nayang Pilipino and it IS across from Philippine Village Hotel! They're tired, cab to Nayang, in at 4 and told it closes at 7. Take Jeepney around past Mayon volcano and get off at Moslem temple. Daton's house is dark put there's a throne and brasses and wicker objects, then to PANAMIN museum, lovely and air-cooled, buying booklet and map for ludicrous 30P, and look at great exhibits, finding that the interest in the Philippines would be OUTSIDE Manila, which is essentially an American-pushy city. Philippinos can be dew-eyed lovely and innocent or ferret-faced and canny and suspicious-looking. Wander sales areas and great lit aquarium and LOTS of shells, taking photos till 6:30PM, VERY impressed with the Nayang Pilipino AND by the fact that my hotel IS right there IN FACT! Getting rather saturated. Back to the hotel at 7 to look for the bar, thinking of a quick cruise, but it has an electronic organist and later a female singer. Awful fat southern American loudmouth moves from bar to a table behind me. I order a beer and drink it fast and order a second one. When the singer is overly intimate and the guy overly loud, I can only think of leaving, thirst slaked. Azotea is closed. They just had a fire in the Dim Sum Palace. I go to room, closed drapes (sunset wasn't so great, lots of pearly clouds), turned on TV which WORKED and found a featherweight boxing match with a sexy Sammy Sanchez battling a real loser. Put mirror below TV and get worked up a bit, then start using rubber bands and Harvey Cream Sherry with the glass of ice cubes I brought up from the bar when paying my 10P beer bill (not bad for two beers in a hotel bar). Get nicely drunk but NOT hot --- coming yesterday took the edge off. Watch them fight through the knockout by Sanchez in the 8th round, around 8PM, and crawl into bed to finish jerking off by lying down. As near as I can figure it, I fall asleep IMMEDIATELY after I come, because I wake about 11PM with dried come on my pubis and a cool feeling on my naked body. Shut lights off and fall into sack.

SUNDAY, AUGUST 23. Wake at 5:30, feeling like I SHOULD be hung over but not because of the sherry quality. Jerk off again in front of the mirror, just to "clean the tubes" and have a shower and get the Sunday papers and look through it and work the easy puzzle. Only one more Sunday away from the NY Times. Dress for "room check" at 8AM and go downstairs thinking to eat in the Nayang restaurant. Find it's closed for renovation. Around to entrance (whistled over by guard, good thing I didn't cross hedge to Mayon volcano!) at 8:30 and get told it opens at 9. Back to hotel and ask for breakfast (avoiding transit desk that I still owe 10P) and get directed to Sagaradilla or Kite Room. Good cheese omelet and GREAT mango cubed from INSIDE and turned inside out around seed in middle. Lovely taste, perfect ripeness, like the luscious papaya quarter yesterday. Out at 9 and get told I should be hour and a half early for 11:40 flight: 10:10! Debate returning to room but decide to return to Nayang. Still locked at 9:05 but get in at 9:10. Good morning shots of "volcano" and buildings and flowers and layout, but the thrill is sort of gone. Past shell shops and buy Mom a Buddha "from Hong Kong" charm for 5P and look at teenage guys holding hands. Wander back around to Mosque, seeing most of it --- Doll Museum closed, Butterfly Collection not labeled. Wander till tired and hot and back to hotel and pack and luggage down at 10:20, checking out, having to be called BACK to cashier for 5OP key deposit return. Wait for jitney, giving guy who insists on lugging my bag out my last 1.5P change, and get to airport for short line but a LOUSY girl who says there are NO window seats, AND no seats NEXT to window. "This is nice, on the aisle." 21D. "I don't WANT the aisle. I WANT a window or NEXT to the window!' She makes a face and almost laughs at me. I turn away and go quickly through immigration and passport control, bank closed Sunday, getting told my 150P is OK, but if I have over 500P I would have to SPEND IT! How lousy! Onto bus, moral lifted by tall short-haired blue-T-shirted large armed BEAUTIFUL-faced American with lovely cheekbones and chinline. Dream that HE'S a guest of Bill Voightlander's! Stare and stare at him, oblivious to heat or depression. NICE! He moves to parts unknown, we get to 747 (my room at Philippine Village Hotel!) and I get to my aisle seat. Look at "B" seat behind that wife from "C" stretches across. Ask purser for window seat, he says I can look after doors close. "Captain" someone gets on with a suit bag and muscle-building arms and back. NICE to LOOK at! Last bus arrives at 11:40 and I wander back to find last quarter of entire plane EMPTY! Smoking, to be sure, so that's why (I guess?) she said no windows, but there's not even AC on. Sit in relief and as we start at 11:45 the AC comes on and it's a made flight. Announced for 3:07 flying time, 2 hours ahead, now 1:46. OK. So I got up at 7:30, not 5:30, and bed at 10, not 8. Better. Off SLOWLY and again avoid city, getting into clouds for some islands and rivers and coasts but no good pictures. Into clouds and I start harmonizing with Captain and crew and putting out sigils all around, calling on storm deva and cloud devas to clear way for me. Clouds open and close. Muscle-builder sits across way in back and reads and eats and sleeps, still nice to look at and fantasize about. Meal of beef in sauce and tiny baked potatoes and carrot flowerets and green beans and fruit salad and roll and coffee, lots since it seems I JUST ate. Rev up a lot in an out of clouds, some great vistas of gray clouds, lots of flying in whiteness. Start harmonizing with Bill: let him BE there and ACCEPT me. Over south end of Guam at 4:50 and GUAN-NAME-hill and land at 5PM, great relief that there's no storm. Out in crowd to tiny airport, luggage fast, open and shut case, and to telephones. Find book, TWO Voightlanders, first one is MACHINE and I mention Marty Sokol and he picks up phone, saying it's lucky I wasn't here LAST week because HE was in NYC, and he'll pick me up in ten minutes! I find four quarters for $1 and give a quarter back to the gal who GAVE me one for call. Wait in steamy off-on rain for a tan and brown car and he comes in twenty minutes and I load my bags in and he drives to his place, telling me to leave stuff in car. Into apartment and do "charm dance" at 6:30 and out to his backyard beach for cap shells and coral and picnic at Alupong towers land and talk to Pete about Japanese dumping radioactive wastes 300 miles north of his island of Saipan, in the Marianas Trench, hoping the depth will VANISH, not prolong, the contamination --- Pete and Bill seem to know EVERYONE they mention to each other and I look longingly at shirtless muscular kids from "Titi" (Trust Territory). Have a beer from Pete, chat till dark, then back home. He's hungry so we're out to Japanese Bakura Noodle restaurant for noodles for his guava-upset stomach that had him in BED when I called this PM and very good yakitori chicken and shrimps. I paying for all for $10, he not even THANKING but leaving tip. Back to his place and I ask, uh, where I'm staying. He goes into upset stomach and full adjoining duplex and waking at night. I go into earplugs and early rising and comfortable sofa. "OK, bring your stuff in," he says. I wash and plop into bed after watching part of "Cinderella" from Royal Ballet on ARTS, Alpha Repertory Television Series, Ashton interviewed by George Kennedy, of all people. Bed about 9, he warning me he'll be up at all hours.

MONDAY, AUGUST 24. Wake at 5:30 and he's up, and at 6 he's put on kitchen light so I go shower, coming out to find he's made bacon and pancakes. Eat at 7 and Caroline comes in from apartments, finishes up some of my four pancakes and syrup and butter, and we chat about getting me out on a tour, since he has business he has attend to. He phones Pacific Adventures and finally gets address and finds they have room for one more. He drives me out to Tumon Beach and I pay $40 for tour and get introduced to Joquin, or Quin (Keen), who says he'll reserve me the padded death seat. Bill drives me to a southern gun-emplacement beach, I take photo, he talks of random vandalism on island, and takes me to Guam Hyatt to look at plush lobby and pools and Japanese clientele. Quin arrives at 9:05, Bill leaves after finding singles are $56, 63, or 75 WITHOUT 10% tax and tip, and bubbly Japanese woman and solemn thin older 6-year husband get in back and I'm in front and we're off past town cruiser, whom I stop to shoot, and up to Yana and down to Ylig Bay, where fisherman watch from road for mackerel, past tank in someone's yard with a NEAT hairy shorted body with a VERY white-toothed smile to the driver from the porch. Stop for sodas and off road past golf course for a dirt road leading to a locked gate: Mr. Robert owns all this, an old man. The road IS the trip: ruts, test hills, grassy adventures, short turns, almost tip-overs, red-water filled bottom gullies, wheel-spinning trials at hills, overhanging breadfruit and pandanus and papaya and mango and DELICIOUS star apples, three perfect ones for guests are soft and tasty and sweet and moist. Around and around for views of Keno lakes, down for dive bomber of rustless aluminum, tacky baton holding faded Japanese Rising Sun, rusting machine gun, "pilot's body here, navigator's body never found." Woods, butterflies, wild pigs and chickens, wild cows at a distance, close single carabou or water buffalo, and SOME inner farms and tractors and bulldozers and shrimp farms. More gates, lunch on grate: broiled hot dogs on sticks and cold orange drinks and that's ALL. Japanese eat two so I have three. Chop us lots of pandanus fruit for a tiny taste of white coconut-like meat. They talk of breadfruit broiled with lots of butter. Very quick cheapie lunch. Back in for more bumps, more lush vistas, more chocolate hills, interesting erosion patterns, and gathering rain clouds. Finally to crest of AWFUL hill he was told NOT to go down, but he goes down steep rocky rutted road. "Rains ruin road," he excuses, but it's really the road that ruins the drainage pattern and MAKES the channel for the ruts to form in. Walk a few paces down to falls and take shots of wide flowing expanse. Clamber across bamboo sidings to path to next level, stepping in muddy water that smells of buffalo shit. Get to top of smaller falls and then rapids and trails stops, and I don't feel like swimming, despite Bill's loan of a tiny tennis towel. Look around and take pictures and exit to demands of Quin. Giant bamboo stands on way back, girl willing poser. Back into jeep and follow other for awhile, their alternations almost choreographed. Stop for a foot-long iguana, but it flees as I approach for a good shot. Wend way back to paved road and stop in a store where he "has to make a call." Drink soda and try urging him to stop at the museum for me. (Oh, also Yoki's hole, eroded by now and GUY goes down to say it's too small --- THEY mention his flower-leaf suit in the "library or museum.") He goes through Agana by BACK road and leaves them off at their hotel (to $5 tip) and says museum is too far. I shrug, grab a cab, and pay $4.50 at museum JUST beyond main square. Neat cool exhibits, "Travaux d'Agriculture" translated as "agricultural travel." Pay $ 5.50 for Local Guam post letters, good brochures, Yokoi had LOTS of stuff from his ten companions, down to only one for only EIGHT years. Outside to models in damp Chamorro kitchen, to walk on platform and fountains of old Almacen, arches and kiosk and Azotea of destroyed Guamanian palace. In to ask for Latte Stones and get shown, also caves for "? Civil Defense Shelter," and climb GUAM hill to find neat house is Government House! Walk up to Fort San Agedo and look down over to nice panorama, but I'm hot and tired. Look for phone and find one in cool Adventist grocery, making call to Bill's machine at 4:30 and to taxi that takes me through a now-familiar town to Alupong AREA and get out for $4.45 and WALK to Bill's place for VERY welcome SHOWER. He enters at 5, I plump for sunset; Caroline invites us to dinner, and he says 7 and we leave at 6 to Two Lovers Point, almost empty save for a small girl twining herself around her tanned shirtless lover, mussing his cool black hair and holding his lovely head. We can hardly not look. Jolt when a 3 inch praying mantis touches my arm on the rail. SPECTACULAR cliff but B-minus sunset with peach and hot-rose below. Wait till 6:50, then drive through old teacher's housing area, now TOTALLY decayed and VERY picturesque. Down at 7 in dark to Caroline's for wine, broccoli in sauce, baked potatoes and butter, Polish sausage and homemade banana bread with fresh seedless grapes. Feel great and leave at 9, her returning my bag somewhat later as we watch Plisetskaya and Bogatyrev in "Swan Lake" with Yefimov as high-leaping Rothbart always shown in shadows. LOTS of applause. Great ARTS Week and clear tube. Wash and clean teeth and bed at 9:30, he deciding to go to Saipan WITH me!

TUESDAY, AUGUST 25: Wake at 5 and he flicks light on an off at 5:15 to wake me. Dress and repack and shower and he's made avocado omelet, a FIRST! Good with toast and coffee and we leave for airport at 6:15, after checking his storage van in parking lot. Line at counter. Longer wait at Island Air for Saipan than for any other flight. So much going on the last few days there's no time to keep everything recorded. Get seat 1C for 7AM flight 500. At 6:55 Bill get 1B next to me. I write some, then get on hot plane at 7:10 and take off low and slow, banking over Bill's house, and he jokes he can see Caroline getting into her car. Low clouds, but I look ahead and can see an island. Rota is covered with clouds except for some roads and shores. Then an expanse of water, and Tinian appears to the left, flat and rather uninteresting-looking. Land at 7:50 with the main Saipan hill in clouds. Out to fill out an immigration form and Bill rents a car for $25, no mileage, but has to pay for gas. I give $5. He drives to Joe Ten's shopping center by 8:30, and I check that the bank doesn't open till 10. Get lots of events recorded and go back at 10:05 to cash a $100 Traveler's Check but they won't take my 155 Philippine pesos. Back up and he says at 10:40 that I should return to Home Center by 11:45-12. I go south to stroll along a beach: fragments of shells, coral, rocks, seaweed, metal, gun parts, bureaus, bottles and glass pieces, plastics, fabrics, EVERYTHING. Get a FEEL for the place under lowering clouds. Around airfield road and try a few roads before finding Ladder Beach, small and reachable only by stairs from top of cliff. Try to find Olyob beach but road is too long and it's 11:55. Back in a dash to pick up Bill at 12:05; he says he just got there. To lunch at the revolving restaurant and I observe that this is what I thought Guam WOULD be like: lush green, NOT built up, lots of flaming flame trees, paved roads giving way to stone lane arched over by greenery, and easy air to breathe. Guam is too DEVELOPED (and tacky in places --- like areas of massage parlors on Main Street) and CIVILIZED (making Yokoi even more astounding --- imagine being lost for 26 years on land OWNED by a man who rides over its ROADS). Saipan is low-profile, few-hotelled, broad-beached. I collect a few nice shells in only a few minutes. I order chicken and cashew nuts, Bill sweet and sour pork and noodles. I have a Chichi (coconut syrup, milk, vodka and ice beat and frothed, good-tasting but not very alcoholic) and a beer and the meal comes to $18.75, which I pay. The restaurant takes an hour to revolve, giving good views of everything. Out at 1:15 and he agrees to climbing Mount Tapachou! He drives, we turn up wrong road to a quarry, but I ask a worker who says it's BACK and to the left. FIND it and roar to the top in two miles and 15 minutes by 2:15 and give him partial intro on peak. Three crosses on three peaks, and good shots down as dark clouds begin to cap the peak and it starts raining. Down to his 2:30 appointment at 3, and I wait till 3:25 for him, thinking he'll FINISH, and then he thinks of something ELSE and phones for his confirmation and final check-in time is 4:35. He smiles and says I have and hour. I feel pissed: if HE hadn't been along I'd have had the time to see EVERYTHING! Tear off in POURING rain, not able to move above 15 mph, taking wrong turn back up to Congress Hill, and FINALLY get to north of island at 3:55. Turn left to Banzai Cliff, two stark mother-child figures and lots of Japanese "tombstones." Dash down in rain-lull to fabulous cliff top, take pictures, and back in car to drive around to east, hoping to make a CIRCLE tour, since the road seems to be good on the map. AGAIN it starts to pour and I take a picture of Suicide Cliff from the CAR! It's 4:05 and I'm pissed enough to follow signs around to Bird Island --- impressive, but what do you do but LOOK at it? Take two shots, just to be sure, AGAIN in a lull in the rain, and find the car FULL of flies! Open doors and shoo them out, then find only a TINY trail back. Roar around in reverse, going faster now that I KNOW route, getting on to 4:20, and stumble on the road that has the Japanese Peace Memorial below FABULOUS cliffs and the last Japanese Command Post, which HAPPENED to be just BEYOND the turn-left to Banzai Cliff. Roar back and AGAIN it's raining and get caught in traffic --- can't see out the rear window at ALL --- and decide to pass up "Amelia Earhart's jail" as a tourist ploy. Follow line of cars at the speed limit and get a roar from Bill as I pass him on ROAD at 4:50. He got three ride-offers from women! Still can't tell if he's repressed-gay or not. Continue to airport, taking a wrong turn, and I dash up to departure gate to be returned to ticketing. Get seat 4A and Bill finally comes from car rental, having paid gas. Still raining but the Island Air plane come IN from Guam and prepares to go OUT. I'd been STUNNED by a glimpse of a blond American body-builder type slouched seductively on a balcony at the airport in landing. I rapidly fantasized a perfect person I'd never see again, seeing him as one of three wind-surfers, probably the one with the orange-halo suit to frame his perfect body, seeing him again as the water polo team captain on the rainy beach. BUT I find he's going to Tokyo on the JAL flight that boards at 5, and he's NOT that great of face or leg and NOT that tanned and NOT that blond. What a relief! Almost same crew back: me and Bill and his new business-friend across in 1A on both flights and VERY tall broad-shouldered fellow who seemed to need only SIZE to turn me on; along with NO great fat and a fairly NICE pair of hands wearing a wedding ring. The rest were Japanese except for an island mother and squally kid. Board about 5:20 and we actually taxi out and take off at 5:37! Easy ascent through actual RAIN, but as we level off we get into clouds and there are a few VERY bumpy moments. Then we hit SOME clear and see the clouds over Tinian and lots of water and the airfield of Rota. I harmonize and lightwork and after FIERCE bumps we come out of most clouds and see a lovely salmon-pink sunset on right and Guam on left, strange patterns on north airfield looking like missile silos and obvious ammunition storage areas nearby. Lower over middle of island and land at 6:17. Quick out through customs in front of everyone with no luggage and into car quickly by 6:25. Bill's thrilled because of his having his hearing which he thinks is scheduled for 6:30 this evening! He drives quickly to his place to listen to five messages (he said he didn't get any POSITIVE promises from HIS time on Saipan today) --- I learned that Saipan businesswomen LIKE to have appointments made with them, that they insist on playing by THEIR rules, though they are ALL very casual with orders and receipts and payments and letters. Some experiences. I get hospitals in Nanking and business and a hearing in Saipan and Guam! He gets a message "Where are you?" and he says he has to leave, may be back as late as 9. Then he sort of strongly suggests I come along, laughing at my stamina for my 7:30 flight to Koror tomorrow AM. I say I wanted to read, so gather magazines and leave with him at 6:40. Along shore for a flaming beautiful SUNSET in peach and puce and mauve and pink and red, and into Gallery at 6:45 to have Bill introduced as the leader of the first HEARING. He chairs hearing from 6:45-8:20 on the Guam Youth Band, and I keep staring at muscle-chested GREAT-legged Steve who plays for the band and likes it. YUM! He leaves and I go back to finishing reading a Newsweek I took from the pocket of the plane for the IBM Personal Computers article, a GLIMPSES OF GUAM lent me by Caroline to read, a SATURDAY REVIEW for articles on Sills and how Ken Russell chased Paddy Chayevsky off the set of "Altered States," and an OPERA NEWS borrowed from Bill's subscription. Second hearing on some sort of funding for Guamanian arts and crafts starts at once and drones on past 9PM as I get hungry and tired and caught up to date as of NOW. Then they have a NEW set of grants for a PUPPETEER and for marketing student ART. I check writing: August 16-25 on pages 259-312, 53 pages for 9 days, 6 pages per day. So August 25-Sept. 3, 10 days, 60 more pages, to 373, so this book WILL be enough. Note from Opera News on "good mid-price styli:" "Shure's M-97HE at $112, Audio Technica's AT-120E at $90, ADC's model XLM-111 at $110, Empire's 5001D at $125, and Stanton's 681EEE at $116." We leave at 10:15! And I've read EVERYTHING. Pissed! Try a few closed restaurants and end up with beef soup for me and shrimp soup for him and fried lampi (egg roll) for us. Full quickly with beer and have to wash and plop into bed at 11:30, deciding to take EVERYTHING, rather than mailing or leaving something.

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 26. Wake early with things (lizards?) (Bill?) in kitchen, then up at 5:55 to shower and take Bill's tea and coffee cake and leave at 6:35 with an address in Honolulu. Check in to window seat next to an Okinawan and Japanese, HOT, with crying baby, and THEN get an announcement of a continental breakfast. Told of 1:50 flight to Koror, leave at 7:45. Lots of talk and lots of clouds till 8:30, rolls and juice and coffee passed out individually. Simple. Pass Yap on OTHER side at 8:45. Sunlight and form-filling at 9. LONG low flight over INCREDIBLY beautiful islands and reefs (at this point FORGET Guam and Rota and Tinian and Saipan), but the LANDING at 9:30 is HARD and SHORT. Wait for immigration and inspection till 10, and plane to take off before getting to bus at 10:15. Japanese invites me along with Okinawan, but tour-guide Richard says it'd be in the back of a pickup truck. HE drives me in HIS truck to Continental and we agree it's best I stay at Barsakesau Hotel in TOWN for $25 versus $50 here. LOVELY! I wander hill, get invited to lunch with Japanese, Richard says he can pilot me back and forth! At 11 I change watch back to 10, PERFECT time for extra hour, and he directs me to wander for half an hour. Down trail past LUSH vinery and to small dock, the WORST place in islands, and there are fish: dark-blue, striped three inchers, BRIGHT blue one-incher, two-inch needle-noses, and a few nondescripts. This at WORST place! ELATED with LUCK of smoking-section window leading to Okinawan (which Richard is, too) and Japanese and Richard and LUNCH. Feel FABULOUS as I write this on a COMFORTABLY hot pier! School of three-inch needle-noses like floating willow leaves. Richard says film cheaper in town. Richard says it's good I decided to stay in town. Truck comes down to look for last boat and offers me a ride back up at 10:30. Great! Sexy lounger lounges about in shorts and thongs and gets slightly sprayed by my ice-cold water-fountain drink (which gives me more cough!) Could THIS island be paradise? Lounge in lounge waiting for Richard to drive me to town. Feel great --- imagine this morning and last night I was debating canceling Koror and Yap! Downhill from there. The next morning I tentatively figure that I look with reluctance toward the day because I fear being DISAPPOINTED again: IN the right place, WILLING to spend the money, MAKING the effort, and relatively little COMES of it. Can't blame the NATIVES, who are THEY to anticipate my needs for an afternoon-only tour. They seem easy-going and relatively bewildered by my haste. Why hurry? Wait for tomorrow! During breakfast the THOUGHT and WORDS of that was clear: "The best bet is tomorrow" someone actually said about clearing up some freight deal. Already eliminating today since it's 8:15AM. Woman asks waitress where someone is, upstairs? No. Out back? NO. When returning? Don't know. What would he think? Don't know. Could you ask him when he gets back and let me know? Yes. At LAST! IF she DOES do it and he DOES come back and she DOES tell her. How tempting to just let it the hell go. He takes me to town about 11, saying he's phoned hotel. Hotel guy says he hadn't phoned but there IS a room. American guy wanders past, not to be seen again. Room #4 HAS a barely working air conditioner above door, lowering from 90Ε to maybe 80Ε and 100% humidity to 70% humidity. On entering it SMELLS but feels good. On staying it feels hot. Clothes into cracked closet, suitcase on single bed. Water only 5-8AM. Pail in shower. I put Harvey's there to keep cooler. Decide to walk town. Hot and empty and dusty. Museum sign. Up and double back on stony road in HOT sun. Museum hours Monday thru Friday 8-11, 1-4, $1 admission. I look at LOVELY flowers and burnt-out Bai. Richard drives up, takes me to Ecology office and I pick up map of town. "Been to museum?" asks woman. "No, it's closed." "Oh, that's right." Richard drives me back way to hotel at 12:15, he having lunch upstairs with his wife. Shit. I go out to DiAngel restaurant I'd seen earlier and have baconburger and small salad and beer. Good. Talked to Richard and Roseannadana Gula and Johnny. They want to STRETCH, me to COMPRESS activities in time. No $160/hour plane charter; THEY don't want $100/afternoon BOAT trip. Richard suggests flying to Belilau and Anguan and right back for $35. Well, OK. Phone and they don't fly Wednesdays, but they Dock M for special boat. Try, long walk, water low. No boats, and Francis not in for tomorrow's reservation. I sit and watch seven types of fish and crabs RIGHT BELOW seawall. Incredible riches here to GET TO! Sit and mope and feel sorry for myself. Back to hotel for a beer and lie down for a bit. 2PM back to museum, good look at Fletcher's two books, old people of islands, other exhibits. Go to leave at 3:30 and it's pouring rain. Sit and read "Shipwrecked naked on Belew" and girl starts talking about travel and Belew and everything. Leave at 4 in shower, Air Mike office closed. Buy expensive film --- is Richard putting me on? Debate moving to Continental. Phone for tour and guy picks me up and takes me to Francis. I get left off on corner and grab cab to Makalal Lookout. Tennessean woman tells me it's "The Icebox." Now I know what the sign on the map meant. Road to TOP is bad to impossible. Back to hotel and cab charges $5! Buy beer and go to my roof (highest in town) and watch lovely sunset 5:45-6:45. Richard comes out shirtless and beautiful with an adorable fuzzy mud-spotted-white puppy. They leave. To DiAngel for good fried chicken dinner and another beer. Local hangout. To room at 8 to jerk off with mirror to 8:30 and bed at 9.

THURSDAY, AUGUST 27. Wake at 5:30, then 6, then 6:45. Water comes on at 5:45 to fill toilet tank and I shower in HOT water. Out at 7 to ham and cheese omelet at DiAngel with coffee for $3 from 8-815. Buy three tiny ripe bananas and two beers, take T-shirt and plastic bag for wet clothes, and assume bus from Continental "around 8:45" would be late and go to porch to write at 8:35. Sexy son(?) of owner looks longly (forgot last night's CRUISING in lot between here and DiAngel --- "Hello", he said, shirt open. I'm tempted but who KNOWS how "clean" in a dozen ways he might NOT be.) at me and drops work and sits in chair parallel to mine at rail as I write. At 9 I debate phoning Continental, or Belta tours, or --- Francis has no phone --- taking taxi to M dock. It's cloudy and relatively cool but I sweat like mad from backs of hands. Have to try Koror Transportation System busses. So MANY guys are pot-bellied and SWAYBACKED, sashaying asses back and forth as they walk. Wonder what Italians are doing. A Vespa moves by noisily. AC and all electricity goes off at 8AM. Natives hardly sweat --- no work or better water balance? Now 9:05 and I am worried. Richard translates "Barsekesau" as "what men and women do." I'm staying in the Fucking Hotel? Odd that scars like the son has heal PINK on the chocolate skin? All skin "originally" pink" All NEW skin pink? How long before a black fetus gets BLACK? Owner gets busy at 9:15 as I REALLY worry. Phone Continental and it's busy. Owner: "Why didn't you ask me to drive you to Francis's?" "Can you drive me now?" "I don't have my car now, you know." "No," bitingly, "I DON'T know." "Maybe you should take cab to Francis's." Speechless I go across the street at 9:25. No cabs. Getting REALLY irked. Still no cabs. 9:27 truck FULL of people drives up, "Hello, Bob, we're a bit late, sorry to keep you waiting. The people at 8:30 weren't ready." I crawl behind driver and fume with relief. Down to boat with Japan-US couple and woman who just came from Ladakh. Waiting for truck to return for guy left off at market and for Italian couple. Richard pulls into M dock on small boat with Japanese at 9:40. Ladakh lady says it rained here ALL the time five weeks ago and Japanese said he heard it rained here all LAST week. Leave about 10, travel for an hour to a too-rough sea at "Turtle Cove" and go across neck to Ngilmil Dropoff, lovely. Find at lunch that we were almost to Pelileu, which the guide said had ONLY the war remains going for it and THEY were mostly "Carried away." "If you want to see abandoned roads and airfields, then go see, but that's all that's there." Also, the islands got LESS "Flower-potty" as we went south, fatter and with sandy beaches rather than the inward-eroded narrow pedestals. (Forgot to mention the strike signs: "Hotel scabs are traitors," "Three years strike/ People vs. Continental Hotel." Ask the driver from Koror about it and he says, "They're silly." Lots of information.) But the snorkeling was a dream. Unnumbered types of fish browsing about the corals: flocks of luminous blue; almost glowing green-yellow, blue-headed green fish; classical angel fish chasing in pairs; yellow bodies with white and black curves ascending and descending from round bodies; schools of two-inch fish that glint as they maneuver under the sun (I thought with the clouds that I didn't need my shirt, but though my back wasn't VERY burned, the backs of my legs (which I'd never THOUGHT to cover) hurt the most that night and morning.); a pod of 18-inch hammerhead groupers strafing excrement as they sailed away from me; lots of needle-nosed fish with fins so far back they looked like they were swimming backward; green fish with fins that hinged from the BOTTOM that made them look upside DOWN. Dart-like luminous blue-white striped fish seemed to irritate bigger ones, who would tolerate their peskiness for awhile and then LUNGE at them. Then the scuba-divers blew bubbles up at me and I could see my splayed figure reflected in the rising gassy-looking 6-inch spheres that would shatter if I cupped my hands over them. Dropoff was incredibly deep and impressive, but it seemed drab down there: all the COLORS were on top, and even Ladakh admitted that the reds "paled" as you went down. At the SECOND place the divers even ADMITTED that the top was the best, but it seemed the bigger fish went farther down. "See anything dangerous?" called the Welsh wife of the Japanese-looking humpy Malay from Penang. "I wouldn't know if I saw one," I said, thinking I'd KNOW anything over five feet might bite, but who knew what CORALS might sting if touched? I saw the divers pulling themselves along hand over hand, touching and feeling (with gloves on?) so I started on gritty-slimy coral heads, plastic-slimy soft-coral tips, slight pricks of star-ended corals that would withdraw into its sheath if touched, slippery rubber fingers of fans, hard surfaces eroded that other fingers has passed and pressed. Marvelous color and shapes: huge flat fans like fountain basins layered from small to large, fans, brains, melanges of shapes with fish intermingled. The sun would come and go and the depths brightened and darkened. A kick was a black white-rimmed nudibrach doing its "Spanish dancer" number in mid-sea, marvelous in 3-D flexibility. It seems he DID pick out a good part, it seemed to dwindle far to the left and far to the right. Maybe divers chased up from the depths: schools would appear below me when bubbles raised their screens. Then snorkelers came out, I could HEAR their breathing and kicking. Mr. Ladakh moved past with arms folded behind back, as if advocating a "don't touch" attitude. In about 11:30 and out about 1, EXHAUSTED, having to be helped into boat. Through "German passage" to LIVED-on island (eight families on other side, kids pole canoe past) and guide says it's no good snorkeling RIGHT off Babeldoab since none of the villages have sanitation and dump stuff right into ocean. Have to get away out to barrier reef. NO mosquitoes on islands, but BEST time is November-June when wind is from the OTHER direction and allows diving at the BEST places. Have to come for at LEAST a week and stay at the Continental, NO doubt. Town was SO dull it wasn't even worth taking ANY pictures. Penang-Welsh couple bring cold cuts and LOTS of rolls, so I eat my fill until 2, looking at pimply blond-bleached Chris, no neat body, just a tan and blond fuzz and obvious strength. From Southern California, mother a diving teacher; he's been doing it since 7. Back on boat to lose pole and up anchor and travel in darking skies to "lesser slope." In but feel weak and full, so when surf raises and boat rocks and clouds form I climb aboard after about half an hour, exhausted, not as good as first place, all admit, stuff lower down and not as much sun and rougher surf tosses FISH back and forth rhythmically, more so snorkelers. Out about 8 and back about 3:30, in about 4:30, and pay ONLY when guide says "Not coming BACK? Then I'll guess I'll take $25." Truck back to hotel and basin-soap salts off. Debate what to do about dinner and taxi to Continental at 7:15 for $ 3 over WEIRD road. I don't feel like writing. HARD day, taxi to Continental for Yamaguchi and HE was supposed to get in touch with ME, says Richard. By 8PM, NOTHING! Wait and go to steps at 8:20 JUST as Yamaguchi passes, Okinawan produces recognition and Yamaguchi tells him to drive me back to hotel! So much for dinner! He takes me back, drops me off in gentle rain, and I go to DiAngel for chicken again 8:45-9:15, two beers, bed VERY tired at 9:50, having found an impossible-to-see (?)!

FRIDAY, AUGUST 28. Wake at 5:30 and up at 7:30 for breakfast of cheese omelet and check out as described before. Long wait at airport while I record more thoughts. The crowd at the airport is NOT to be believed: woman goes from loudly cracking bubble-gum to smokily inhaling on a quick-burning cigarette. Many men with wrecked mouths and teeth, wound-read, spoilt from betel, three or four eroded teeth left here and there, discolored and stumpy. Almost ALL the men seem to smoke, sitting next to me and of course blowing by wind toward me. Red-eyed man jabbers excitedly to anyone who'll listen and as I glance up from writing, he's looking at me, then quickly away. Pimpled kids with Prince Valiant haircuts and dirty clothes (my shirts were none too clean this morning, but then he didn't charge me for them) chew gum between open lips. People move busily back and forth, talking, and many are waving wads of money with a $100 bill on the outside. People look at me quizzically when I shoot them a dirty look when their smoke comes my way. Palau airport the worst (Saipan surely the most beautiful with peaked thatched roofs) so far: wood benches open-sided to the admitted breeze, but everything is unpaved and would raise more dust if it hadn't rained last night. Greasy-faced men stand in shade in SUITS (no ties, sport shirts) and smoke rises from butts not put out. Only a few arrive in the Hotel Continental bus, and seating is OPEN --- if all these people ARE smokers the non-smoking section should be EMPTY. I fantasized getting there early and taking the Aero Palau flight to the islands 8:15 to 9:25, but somehow though I wake at 5:30 and lounged for a bit, I was only up at 7:30 and to breakfast by 7:50, quizzed by "official" who sad "Leave more time for us," and to pick out shirts off chair and pack in VERY poor way just to get OUT. Pay $50 traveler's check at 8:15, and he suggest $3 cab to Continental and $3.50 bus to airport, since cabs "charge $10 to $15." I say I have to get there early, rehearsing my "non-confirmed speech:" "I phoned and they were always busy, or closed, or phone didn't work. Went to office but it was closed. Told hotel guy to do it but he didn't (or he DID and didn't you get the call?), tried at Continental but I wasn't one of the guests." BUT there was no need, they simply took my ticket! So much for THAT. Sat in restaurant last night thinking I was seeing "the life": girls sitting around table in back talking and drinking, "important" men up front being served beers and mixed drinks (see Richard talking to Yamaguchi and wait till he's alone and thank him with $10. He says no, that's fine, but I say "Buy your wife something" and he folds it into his packet of material. Who KNOWS, but I GUESS he was genuinely trying to help, not Barsakesau me.) --- talk, talk, talk while women cook and tend bar and watch kids (except for hotelman who seemed ALWAYS to have his naked son on his arm) and keep things as clean as may be. My wait for Yamaguchi at Hotel was even worse: international tourists eating New York steak and filet mignon (though my entire menu last night was "Chop Steak $7.50; Hamburg Steak $6.50; Minute Steak $5.50; and Fried Chicken $6.50." I take chicken again and it was four pieces this time), others sitting over beer in the cocktail lounge watching snowy black and white US TV movies, and SAME guy lazing in lobby talking to girl behind desk who says "I thought you were leaving YESTERDAY," does he SLEEP there after the lobby's closed at 10PM? SOME humpy young international tourists, but I've become so soured and eager for home I'm really looking with an unprejudiced eye. Got here at 8:40 for quick check-in and start writing at 8:50, knowing plane won't even ARRIVE for an hour. I put bag down to save sat while paying Richard and return to find someone SITTING there. I squeeze in and guy next lights up cigarette. I leaned forward to assist smoke bypassing me and feel someone else's bag pushed up against my butt. I rear back and just PUSH; they leave and my handbag tumbles off in the dust. As I write the guy on my left leaves and I again have the corner. Continental jet buzzes over at 9:50, like yesterday. Do they case the field before landing? HUMP with Tarawa T-shirt slopes by, erect posture, good arms and high chest. Luggage totters out to bake in sun. Passengers jockeying for position, me at post. Road roped off; more people standing outside, who come back to shade fanning themselves. Japanese mostly in creams and whites, looking very country club. Plane buzzes at 9:55. It seems to land better. SIDE opens and the whole front one-third is CARGO. Board at 10:10 and grab seat in front of wing, ready for good pictures! Six left on reel, I hope enough. Leaving announcements at 10:20-10:25 in English and Palau and Japanese, but side is still open and there are two pallets loaded with stuff on the runway. Japanese kid at window in FRONT hollers and waves to parents BEHIND me. Flowery American couple sits next and I chatter along in writing. Looks like a full plane. Tractor sweeps past with one pallet and three parcels fall off another. Put a sigil around my suitcase. Will have SO MUCH to catch up with: mail, unpacking, sunburn, exercise, and LIGHTWORK. Only use it on trip when frantic about flying (and "seeing" that 404 was Yamaguchi's room after helpful girl searched ledger and remembered he HAD been here before and was with shorter man). See them again at airport, but they sit in smoking rear. Safety talk at 10:30. Leave 10:35, 45 minutes to flight. Take QUICK shots 30 to 38, really stretching for last lovely tip of Badeldaub, and change for slightly dimmer 20-shot films for first time. Couple of real BUMPS through clouds! Then smooth flight, talking with Mormons who were put in ESA hotel (11 rooms), $1 more expensive than in-town Rai-View hotel (10 rooms). I pick ESA, wanting all the luxury I can buy. Plane lands at 12:20 (time ahead one hour) after flying OVER to test WINDS. Into bus after getting luggage, off at 12:35. To hotel for $18 single and fellow in front of me signs a car rental form, so I ask for a car and he says "Have lunch and I'll get you one, $22/day." Order Ramen with egg, lots of noodles and broth, and Pineapple Crush for $3. Cute Italian at next table who turns out to be Marcello nods and smiles. Out about 1:40 with about 2070 on Datsun odometer. Take off north and note men's house for photographing later and THINK I take road to Fanif. It goes and goes through lovely forest with LOTS of AWFUL potholes. LORAN station in distance and I pick left road at pipeline T-junction. Wonder why none of this is on the map and why it goes so FAR. Get to school deep in woods and marvel at height and guy-wires for station, waving at Coast Guardsmen. Get to end of road at 2:30 and 2083 on odometer and take a walk overland till trail peters out at 2:45. Take pictures of money and lovely kids who pose for me with younger kid. Lovely FEEL to the place --- I might want to come BACK. Drive long way back at 3:10 and ask at "turnoff" to find I WAS at Gagil, RETURN on same road, seeing a place I'd MISSED with lots of roadside money. Get to pipeline T and go to RIGHT (I'd turned down there on RETURN and decided nothing new was there) to photo kids on car, see school, small men's house, and get to spit for NO view across to Colonia at 4:30, but lots of cute kids. Back to "sacred place" at 4:45 and admire "feel" and the colors and the tiny frogs that hop out of my way. Find road to Map and REALLY fall in love. Decide Koror was frustration of DEPENDENCE and this, Yap, the joy of INDEPENDENCE: car, map, me my OWN boss. LOVELY countryside and pass some HUMPY guys and unknowingly cross a BRIDGE to Map. Started at 4:50 at 2105 and stop at footbridge at 5:10 at 2111. Walk through village and nod at topless grandmas and guy comes out and offers to be my guide! He says this village is Torew and we'll walk to hill that divides Vechiyo from it. Again, it's the FEEL of peace and plenty and ease and ecological balance. He says his uncle is chief of the next village; we talk, he offers me betel-nut half when he's joined by a "friend" who's altogether too pretty with up-curved eyelashes, dark eyebrows, large bedroom eyes, and a neatly trimmed beard, and LOVELY muscles. I GOT to take a picture and HOPE it comes out! (Almost the ONLY picture I say this for does NOT come out, except for a blurry half-shot of the host and NOTHING of the muscular friend). I chew and get a buzz like from bidis, but alcohol is sure a lot easier than chomping down on the leaf and lime and nut that wears their teeth to sore-looking red nubbins, when some of them aren't missing, and then the spitting of the red juice that spatters the paths. He introduces me to a group and then a boy to show me the "kino" and to my surprise we end up at a CANOE started last July and TIED together on one side and made by 4-5 old men. I chat, photo, kid's gone, and this "tourist village" (from cruise ships, he says) boasts an IMMACULATE bai with nets and lobster-traps stashed in the rafters that have never seen water (YOU know what I mean to say!). Light meter seems to conk out --- battery gone? --- and I go by GUESS. Say I MUST get back by 6, saying no to his offer of coconut drink with his wife, hearing of the two Americans that lived with him for a year and a half and became pseudo-Yapese and want to return for FIVE years sometime. Delightful talking --- SOME little thought of sex enters my mind when he shows me the inside of the NEW meeting hall and explains the back-rests on the platforms BESIDE the dance floor down the center. Lovely scene, beautiful pubescent girl lounges in an off-the-shoulder green dress and there's a LOVELY feeling there. Race to car at 6:15 and drive back thinking it'd be FUN to be a Rallye racer; going as fast as I can, pitting the best use of the car and the best use of the road ALONG with snatches of the view. Birds fly along my bow-stream, they MUST be playing. Out thinking of my franticness in Saipan --- except I've FINISHED with Saipan and NOT through with YAP. Lovely sunset ride back, missing turnoff for Banyan tree, and decide it's light enough to try Museum, closed, and turn up past church to make for the lighthouse. Up the road and start SLIDING on the stones. Back up twice and get farther each time, but END at a possible turnaround point and walk ahead a bit and decide it's getting dark and the road's WORSE, not better, so I BETTER get back! Turn slowly and laboriously, careful of car in growing dark, getting out of car at each extreme to make sure I don't run off road or ram something up the exhaust-pipe, and FINALLY get around and use LIGHTS to return to hotel at 7:30, passing HUMPY shirtless workers, and get told I'd better EAT since restaurant closes at 8! In to "Dynasty" and Italian group and chicken and too much rice and nice cake for dessert and ice-water glass for $6.60. Up to room to iced PITCHER, so I shower and shave and clean teeth and read "Micronesia" booklet and get to bed at 9:50, VERY comfortable in bed with air conditioner turned low.

SATURDAY, AUGUST 29. Wake at 6 and get up at 6:40 to dress and get out to road to "Outer-island community" (sign on store using word Beleu) and stone money BANK lovely and to end of road to stone-paved trails that I could follow forever. Nice people, lovely laughing kids, GREAT feel even with snake and pigs and chickens and humidity. Wander various paths till they become more PRIVATE than PUBLIC. Return and make circle around to road to airport, not seeing war remains, and take turnoff at church and see LOTS of stone ruins and many nice people, but it's 8:30 and I must be back at 9:30. Around beaches, up seeing COTTAGES on terraced platforms, and back to hotel at 9:10. No time for breakfast; Italians want to leave by 9:30. I pack, he fills tank and charges $53 for "day," I order ham and cheese sandwich for "breakfast" and out to bus on time at 9:30. Talk to great people and begin a day of flying. Italians want to leave at 9:30, so we do. To airport at 9:45 and I get CATALOG of names and addresses from Rome, Naples, and Hong Kong. Lovely way to wait. Onto plane (arrives early at 10:20) at 10:40, full from Guam, but find left window seat ANYWAY. Must be free seating through the day! Sky blue with rolling low clouds and scattered high clouds. With three stops, I hope it's a clear day. NON-cargo plane. I'm only (first) one listed for Ponape. Move at 10:55, 45 minutes to Koror. Land at 11:45. Quite clearer at start and easy ascent between scattered clouds. Clear look at a large atoll on left (Ngulu) and then above darker clouds and we begin to descend at 11:20 into clouds. I harmonize like mad and it's foggy for most of the way down, actually raining over the Rock Islands. Take a few pictures and we're back down. Marcello joins me to chat during the stop in Koror and the time passes quickly: he recommends the OUTER islands on a 15-day shop from Yap or Truk, or from Ponape. His friend did it two years ago and wants to do it AGAIN. Have to plan lots of extra days for changes of ships' plans but it sounds like a REAL adventure cruise. Departure announcement at 12:10. Guam 1:50 away, sandwich service. Leave 12:15. All the atolls are on the right this time and after my second sandwich, after looking down on clear water (so still flying DOWN that I could begin to see THE REFLECTIONS of the clouds in the still blue surface water), it clouds up pretty completely (so much for "It was beautiful when we left Guam this morning", from the Captain), and I read the magazines, extract Triathlon photo and start catching up on the day by filling in photo log, seeing that I took 35 slides in Yap in less than 24 hours. Wow! Noted at top of page from passengers: NGEMILIS is the name of the Koror dropoff; Shinkolo-maru is great in Truk Harbor, and the Sankesan-Maru mast in Truk for the best snorkeling. Clouds part about 1:30 and we gently bump along in some air layer. Clear for lovely landing at 2:05. One HOUR in Guam! Look for Bill, ask for message, phone Bill, page Bill, all to no avail. So much for Avi in Honolulu. Make a customs official VERY irate ("You're very RUDE!") by eating the banana he said he had to confiscate from Koror. I say I meant no offense and he wishes me a good day. Hair-trigger! On at 2:55 and off at 3:15. Truk in 1:20. Clearest skies yet! Then UNDER a DARK cloud and around to GREAT full multi-leveled clouds I try to photograph! Great clouds all the way, ending in the TINIEST training grounds for Deva-ettes. Over HUGE Truk Lagoon, large islands IN the atoll unique in world. Great circle around islands but NO view into water for ships. Land 4:40, probably 5:40 local time. Sun right out window. Said to be 20 minutes on ground. Almost EVERYONE on Truk gets on with flower wreaths or crowns! I take a MUCH-needed piss and wash my face and continue to catch up writing about Yap. Off at 5:15, one hour to Ponape. Talking to people in front (he lived year in Palau, she two years in Switzerland skiing and Italy touring and one year sailing from Singapore to the Philippines, six months in Bali, to Palau) makes time pass fast. INCREDIBLE sunset and clouds and atoll, then pitch darkness before landing at 6:15. I fret at first night flying since NYC-London MONTHS ago. Everyone agrees Village Hotel is best, Nan Madol and waterfall is number 1, and Kapingamerangi Village #2 to see. Can't see a THING below at "Fasten seat belts" at 6:16. It RAINS a bit, panicking me because I think it's the OCEAN. FEW small off-shore lights and then only the RUNWAY at 6:20. VERY SCARY. Now 7:20, I guess. Off to colorful mass of souvenirs for sale and people in colorful shirts and shifts. Natives go past easy, but they check my bag, don't bother with my suitcase, and I look around in rain for any sign of The Village. Finally ask an old man, who thinks they've gone, then I meet their young (est and oldest) daughter who takes me to the truck. Few other people and a baldie and we're off about 7:58. Dark and adventuresome down shadowy road lit only by headlights. Hulks of boats, a floodlight at a bridge construction, leaves pale underneath looking like constant flowers, and lots of lights in house, including a "fountain room" that I'm later told houses a memorial to a dead chief, complete with plastic flowers, photos, and FOOD at every meal --- the body is buried beneath --- if they have no memorial they just dig up the floorboards of their home and pour in the body and live on it. Then a family group, but clothed, not like the group shower Roger said he saw naked in Kapingamarangi one time. It showers and I lock my luggage and she closes the front flap, which emphasizes the smell of Ray May's cigar. Ride and ride, flap open again, to the sweet smell of plumeria, flashes of varicolored hibiscus, and slick wet green leaves. Finally turn in at sign, along an even worse road and under a bridge and around a turn to a high-ceilinged framed main dining room, put in room 17 for $45 because it was VERY quiet, as opposed to $40 for "quiet" and $35 "near the generator." Pay $1 for long trip down to plain room with naked bulbs in wooden boxes, all plumbing modern and working, limbs for towel pegs, concrete stall floor but soaked wood otherwise, and a HUGE fanned room with screen windows, two queen waterbeds, a table, and two wicker chairs and a sofa. Bag on one bed and up to dinner at 9, sitting with Ray, who schedules diving tomorrow with Bob Arthur, whom I ask about the "live mangrove crabs" and he says "They're just the best seafood in the world." Into kitchen to pick out medium-sized one, $4/lb, and we get 2 1/2 lbs, and I see Grand Marnier Soufflé for dessert on BOARD and Bananas Foster and Hot Fudge Sundae on MENU. Lavish, middle-priced menu and great service. Unpleasant nice-bodied Spanish men playing Scrabble on deluxe board. I sort of wanted to JOIN someone but waiter pointed to empty table. Good "bleu cheese plus" salad dressing, hot rolls and butter. Wente Bros Chablis for $8, and red-shelled crab comes out claws separate and body CLEANED to turret-top inside outer shell. Lovely tender sweet lobster-fish like meat, lovely in hot melted butter, and the black pepper for flavor on cottage fries and frozen peas. Clear out the claws, talking and talking, and he breaks open the inner turret for me and there are LOTS more gobbets of sweet meat! Wine gives nice buzz to talk, too, and it's 11 by the time I ask Bob Arthur what I'll do tomorrow. "No tours to Nan Madol, go to church and hope to be invited to the village." OK. Back and wash teeth and crawl into bed at 11:20, listening to raindrops from recent showers, leaves falling with heavy plops, and geckos calling. And mosquitoes buzzing! Light the coil, sitting right in smoke, rocking on water bed.

SUNDAY, AUGUST 30. Wake at 1 and 3 and 5 to LOUD sounds outside, creepy silhouettes and doze back off nursing sunburn aches. Wake for good at 7:10 and shower nice and shave and put on white shirt for Mass and get to breakfast at 8:10, Portuguese sausage not so great, but good eggs and toast and pineapple juice. Ask girls, who Bob Arthur did NOT tell, and lounge around till Betricka leaves at 9:40, giving short answers to couple who live in town and come to breakfast here with 2-month-old Nathan and talk about the upcoming marathon on Thursday. I walk in HEAT to village and VERY colorfully dressed women: long lime-green gowns with touches of white, ultramarine with pink and orange flowers, bright reds and red-oranges and yellows, brilliant green and blue shirts. LOVE to take a photo but feel it's wrong. To new open concrete-block church JUST as bell rings at 10, and the SINGING is marvelous: basses to my right JUST balancing the volume of sopranos from the women on the left (except for a few wives on the right) and men on the right (except for a few kids with their mas). Long 10-minute sermon, vestments only a white gown with a strip of green for priest and yellow for acolyte. Out at 11:45 after LOVELY song and Bertrika seems to linger, so I stride back to hotel and she follows --- father dead, third of 12 children living at home below. JUST to bridge and a couple is getting into their car. Roger and Mary Jane, two avid administrators, going back to Mud Flats, and they offer me the $3 tour: to the hulks in the bay, three main theaters, "Capital Hill." The German bell tower, the old church, the Kapingamarangi Village where kids do NOT smile in return, and to the South Park Hotel terrace at 12:10 for orange and vodkas for $4.50 and across to Cliff Rainbow for a cheeseburger for $2, potato salad $1.50, my grape and cream soda $2, his chips $1, their rum and coke $2, all for $10.50. Around to only Senator-built paved-road to Nan Madol Hotel, to dump, to stories of three-day water shortage, toe-picking President, and Pope's first miracle: making the blind man lame. Laugh and talk and get to airport for arrival of NEXT plane at 2:26, and Arthur there, I chat with Nancy's folks from Guam, ride back with younger son, and have two Foster's Lagers to slake thirst. Down to water's edge to look at high tide and LIFE represented by shells, wood, and rocks, and back up to change to shorts and write in dining room when couple from PLANE enter. Lots of talk until it RAINS, then I point out the rainbow, we take photos, talk, drink white wine, and I finish to date on vacant patio in dark and rain at 6:50PM. No sunset TONIGHT! Order a 3 1/2 pound Mangrove Crab and it's REAL overkill --- I take three potato slices and NO peas after salad and soup. Very good, the Eriksons insist I sit with them and Ray, and Erik prattles some. Two beers help fill me up and I get to bed at 9:30, annoyed that I can hear woman in cabin ABOVE on slope clicking around on her heels AND their living-room light shines right on my BED, so if they look down they could SEE me. Debate jerking off but don't feel like it. Smoke coil goes right on and I go right to sleep.

MONDAY, AUGUST 31. Wake at 5:30, doze till 7:10, decide NOT to shower to keep body "oily" for tour today. To breakfast at 7:50 with Ray, having Malasadas (which I FORGOT to order for plane as suggested!) and Cheerios (for the first time in 20 years?) and bananas and coffee and order lunch and two beers (Foster Lagers, big things here). Take photos of The Village Hotel. He says be SURE to cover up so I'm back down for SMALL towel for head and LARGE towel for drying and ARMS, and suntan lotion. Down to boat at 9:30 and leave about 9:35 with the three Eriksons and Ray and Karen and me and Alter. Roar straight out, make turn, head for a wrecked ship, and we anchor right off reef there about 10:15. I go backward off boat and skin knuckles very lightly on coral heads. Suck on them a lot during day to prevent infection, which they say is easy to get. In to dropoff and the coral is NOT that great; Karen agrees by saying, "Well, at least the water's nice." The fish are good, though: angels and parrots and schools of tiny ones and LOVELY blue or green ones forming flower-like PETALS in groupings on coral, dispersing when I get too close. Bottom looks about thirty feet down and dreary, so I go past sheer heads that rise to within inches of low-tide water, though SOME spaces of about a FOOT just TEEM with fish RIGHT BETWEEN (I guess they're safe from ANYTHING big right there --- except birds, of which there don't seem to be many). Some narrow passages I negotiate gingerly, once or twice touching coral with my flippers. Schools of lovely yellow fish, one "food" fish plain, about a foot long, and I sort of look for sharks, since Ray and the Argentinians saw two yesterday. Murky depths could hold anything, but I rarely look. Top of mask sort of hurts, but fit is MUCH better around upper lip so I only have to "drain" twice, little leakage, much comfort. Go way south, then back to full boat to be told they're resting. Go south, getting tired, go back, and as I crawl into boat they call Erik and we take off for the waterfall. Pass one narrow one and around land and walk about five minutes to a nice rocky falls. Cold on first entry, but nice to get salt off. Karen sits on falls a LONG time and Alter climbs up higher and takes off shirt to reveal NICE torso. Fish and rice for lunch, beers, and wait around till 2 for tide to raise. Then back in HEAT and over narrow "path" though sea grass BACKWARD at low speed so he can see. "Sign in" for Nan Madol and around corner to LARGE basalt "lincoln logs" with SMALL rocks between in distinctive "long-short-long-short" alternation. Stop at stairs, OUTER wall tallest and broken in places, then INNER wall with a path around that they say JAPANESE built, then INNER small structure with "logs" across top, where, they say, they would hide the King in case of invasion. Around and upon and through and to the sides for other views, taking over 40 shots today! He says we can go to others, so I drag Karen back and we're through shallow canals he says AREN'T lined at bottom with stones, and around corner to a mangrove swamp to a tumble-down wall and it's "under construction": coral and basalt (from Sokeh's Point) fragments tumbled about as BASE for, he says, coconut storage and oil pressing. Again to side for walls and back to boat for THIRD, where I corner a University of Oregon graduate doing research with Federal funds and a grant, putting BLUE flags for human artifacts like a shell adze, and RED flags for pottery (from CLAY) fragments. Alter doesn't know if there's a river near here OR fresh-water source. UO guy says area is almost a kilometer long, more than 100 islands, and NOT being restored because mangrove is VERY hard to cut down, they're working HERE because it's relatively clear (inland). Take pictures of people, flags, geckos, walls, and more flags. To boat for quick trip back toward LOWERING cloud, but it doesn't rain HERE (but in TOWN it did). Return rented snorkel stuff at 4:45, told we leave at 6:15. Down for a GRAND shower and dry clothes somewhat and change jeans and pack and get ready for flight and get up to office at 6PM for $183 bill. Cash $200 and take last views and photo from terrace, Ray talking with Eriksons. At 6:15 Bob calls us to truck, takes us to town by 6:55. Karen Leep --- is THREE years out! Six months in Bali, a year in Palau, sailing from Singapore through Philippines and other islands, a year skiing. I hear her name three times and finally had to WRITE it. From Redding California, father must be RICH. It's 7:20 on 8/31 part I --- part II is tomorrow, so I've been thinking of today as SUNDAY --- and I'm waiting for the plane to land from Truk at 7:26. Already dark, as it was when I arrived. Told we'll get dinner as soon as it takes off. Bob drove Ray and me in by truck and wants a surveillance item to stop a theft by a thief that's gotten out of jail and wants money for Micronesia day on 9/12. Guy and Sue arrive, I guess Karen IS staying longer. I don't feel like writing and HOPE I can sleep SOME on three hops. Plane lands ON DOT of 7:26! Board at 7:40 and look out window to see two bright STARS! Well THAT would be nice to watch! It's a "cargo-in-front" plane and RIGHT seats are taken, so my quandary is solved: RIGHT would see SUNRISE but LEFT would see the other Hawaiian Islands. I THOUGHT to take right but there WERE none. Take a left with a window square on the seat. Off at 8, cabin lights off! Few lights below, then NOTHING. Stars, bumps and a few turns and REALLY feel FEAR. Fear of pain, dying, the unknown. Process, process. Steward and stewardess go about their business, saying "In case of turbulence, be sure to hold your drink above your neighbor's lap" and "If you smoke in the john you lose your potty privileges for the rest of the flight." But he DIDn't say how long the FLIGHT was! 8:10 announcement says Kwajelien (460mph) (25 mph headwind) at local time 10:28. ONE and a half-hour flight! 19,000 feet going to 33,000. See only stars. Chicken and rice and mixed vegetables for dinner and salad and chocolate pudding. One beer. That takes till 9, change watch to 10, stare out at one light outside for 15 minutes, then bright horizon lights and lights below as we land at BIG field at 10:30, told we're on ground twenty minutes, can't get off because "at night there's no security." I feel like celebrating every moment of CALM air, but hope to just get the LAST night landing in Majuro over SAFELY and fly into DAYLIGHT. Plump Island woman sits next to me, so no lying DOWN to sleep. Plane 2/3 full. Bright lights on at Kwajelein airport obscure view, except there was a hanger with three VERY James Bond-y helicopters gleaming under the BRIGHT yellow lights, like in a jewelry box, and a new jet is nosed into ANOTHER yellow-lit hanger. Lots of buildings and administration offices and old propeller 2 and 4-engine bombers standing on the runways. He said john would be "closed for --- uh --- cleaning and we'll --- uh --- let you know when they're open." At 11:50 the place is VERY warm, but the cargo door is open both at the side and to the passenger area so we're essentially sitting outside. Windows closed up. Lots of people bustling around. Same steward and stewardess, same pilots, it seemed, making coffee. Spiel at 10:55. I'm TIRED! One hour to Majuro! So MOST of the time is in the LAST hop! Off at 11:05, 35 minutes for 20-minute stop! Zodiacal light seems greater, and I can see lots of stars, a fuzzy horizon, and even clouds passing below. I guess we fly quickly since we start DOWN at 11:35 and LAND at 11:50, saying we can "stretch our legs" for the 20-minute stop. I go into station and look at shell and rattan souvenirs, say goodbye to lawyer Allan and Sue and Karen, gape at some LOVELY legs seeing someone off, and lots of Germans sit behind me. Seem to be same pilots --- sure hope they STARTED at Ponape! Same crew too. Seats next to me remain empty at 12:15. 52 of 80 seats filled and I get three? Majuro was ALL ROAD --- long narrow strips passed by my window with houses at nodules and HEADLIGHTS moving along what looked like wide CAUSEWAYS. Comfortable outside, but more humid than in plane. Amazing that the four-flight day and TWO flights of the three-flight day are now over. And now it's REALLY Monday! Kwaj and Maj go in for blue field lights --- though it seems to me that the OTHERS could too but I didn't see them at NIGHT. Said to be FINAL LEG. Spiel at 12:20AM.

MONDAY, AUGUST 31 (Part 2). Four and half hours to Honolulu, and one hour out we get coffee and juice and rolls! Off at 12:30, in at 7AM? Off across more lights in a small area and then into pitch blackness. Guy sits next to me so I can't spread out. Germans jabber behind me, but one on the aisle has shorts and LOVELY legs. I put in earplugs and actually doze for an hour or so, but wake and watch stars turn and clouds move below in dim blackness, then gradually it begins to get light about 5:30. Watch false dawn and the sun, that I thought would rise on the right, seems to be coming up more to the LEFT of center than right, but out of view from my window. Really a clear sky above, though we bump every so often. At 6 they announce they're serving breakfast rolls, and by this time the sky is quite bright. Earplugs out and have one roll before I notice the stewardess really looks SICK and greasy-faced and COUGHS. I decline a second roll she offers. Niihau appears below, quite flat, and then Kauai, too dim to be clear except for what looks like fog above Waimea Canyon and a cane brush-fire near the coast in the south. Clouds over peaks. Then Oahu looking very green toward 7, take photos, peaks covered with clouds that were later explained as omnipresent because of the southerly moisture-laden winds being forced up by the hills into rain-bearing clouds by Hawaii. Land past Air Force jets and off at 7:10 and collect luggage and get through customs and Avis wants $36 for car so I look at their map until a Budget girl has a car for $24 and gives BOOKLET of FREE things. How GREAT! I get directions to 2517 Ala Wai and leave luggage and walk to rental place and pick up car. Drive to Airport Departures, wrong because second level, then to Car Rentals and end up at the same place, then to terminal and get lost on highway and have to return. FINALLY pick up luggage (car signed out at 7:55AM WITH 365 on the odometer) and take off through confusing know-it-all traffic to many one-way streets and "turn from correct lane" confusions and few "may I change lanes here?" swerves. Find the address, guy in car says "park in back," guy from house says "park in here," and I knock on apartment M. No answer. Ask people but none know Tom. Knock on Manager's door (someone's washing inside), no answer, even when I call. Knock on NEXT door and get "Don't know no one." Leave a note and marvel that I'd noticed the YMCA on the map BEFORE, so I drive there, again confused by one-way streets, but IT serves me well: has a loading area in which I park, a cheerful lady who charges $11 for a room and $5 key deposit, and I get bags into 427 and off-load stuff and get out at ??? for Paradise Park from ??? to ??? . GREAT place (see map for notes) and continue to Moana Falls from ??? to ???, VERY muddy and slippery, but a LOVELY jungle trail. Check for lunch and go to Zippy's for $1.05 for chili for 60 cents and large root beer price, then phone Adventure V at 1:20 and get told they leave at 1:00. I say I'll be there, but there are lights and waits and lines and exits and confusing turns onto Fisherman's Wharf, so when I park at 1:40 and see the ship sailing out I know I've missed it. Walk hot dock looking for alternatives and get a $26 dinner and disco on the Aikane III (a DUMP) and get told "we'll pick you up at the Ala Moana at 7:55 and the rest of the evening is on us." Then to Ani-Ani glass-bottom boat for Waikiki tour for $5 at 2:30, a 7-Up at the refreshment booth trying not to stare at Animal's crazy eyes, pretty tanned stomach, and black hairy legs. On line trying not to stare at the AFI-shirted chest when shirt comes off. On with awful crowd at 2:35, having put two more quarters for 75 minutes in RIGHT car meter, and downstairs for windows. See nothing of shoreline going out, but I'm cool downstairs, and the sail over the reef has SOME fish but the "coral" is a disaster area of gray dirt and broken formations. Colors VERY weak through glass. What a LOSS compared to SNORKELING! Good views of shore on way back, off at 3:20 and drive School Avenue (after finding that Prospect did NOT overlook the Punchbowl) in LOTS of traffic to make wrong turn into playground, and WAY around MANY streets to Bishop Museum at 4, GREAT balconied hall with LOTS of nice exhibits well displayed, and rush through rest and buy a book for $2.50 and out at 4:50 to find that Wilson Tunnel approach is closed to all but local traffic (whatever THAT was) between 5:30 and 8:30. Not wanting to RISK anything I go way around AGAIN (driving is HARD in Honolulu) and get to the Pali Highway, now clogged with rush-hour traffic which actually SUITS some: slow and time to look at LOVELY cliffs. Up Pali Lookout and photo valley in light rain, then back into car to continue down, almost missing a few turns and LIKING the look of the island (and of the MANY MANY bathing-suited/shirtless blonded beauties in dark tans and lovely bodies that ABOUNDED in Hawaii, EVEN in the Y!) and deciding I COULD come back HERE, too. Around to Halona blowhole and get rhythm but not quite photo of spray and WATER from hole and not-quite-right tide-level. Getting darker, around southern tip at 6:30 in lovely sunset, long drive into town, look 5-6 streets for parking and FIND a place at 7:15. Up to wash hands and face and change clothes, across at 7:45. Wait and wait, no OTHERS seems to be waiting, and by 8:20 I'm convinced Alida has stood up her "freebie." Hire a Cadillac Hula Cab and argue for few minutes before I remember "Fisherman's Wharf" rather than Aikane. I settled back in awful indignation. There are 8:23, told woman I waited till 8:25, which doesn't stand when she checks her watch, then say, "Well, I may have jumped the gun, if so I'm sorry, but please pay the taxi." She moves out in that direction and I get on board to find no one interesting and full front tables, and one couple at one back table from Westminster, Colorado: newlyweds. Mai-Tais are orange and sweet and have no alcohol or taste, and combo starts singing, making EVERYONE sing, clapping, blaming a poor time on the participants, saying this is going to be "a party," and sings "God Bless America" for the American Legionnaires. I sit apart, have awful meal of chicken thigh and bone, ham slice underdone, decent pineapple, almost unfrozen mixed vegetables and hard cold rice. Dancing, clapping, dirty jokes "what state are you from," "Let's see the newlyweds", sex jokes, and about 9:30 (after rocking a LOT in the supposedly stable catamaran) (the NEW one, too, the Aikane VI, NOT the awful one threatened on me today) go upstairs to nice BREEZE (no smoke and people-stink) and spotlights on peppermint-stripe sails and sights along shore. Sit and observe, spill a drink, be glad when it's over. Onto bus 20 at 10:30 and get off at YMCA as people suggest I stay there, and back to room to undress and fall into bed at 10:50.

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 1. Wake at 5:30 and up at 6 to wash and pack and check out and leave suitcase and get car at 6:45, getting VERY lost under Ala Moana shopping center and going over MANY streets uselessly and FINALLY get to Y parking lot at 7, load suitcases, and follow traffic to airport, putting bags near inspection point at 7:30, driving car VERY carefully around to leave-off point, pay $39 and some, back to elevator to 2 and back to 1 because there's no CROSSOVER on 2. Across and through inspection, glad they don't find my shells, feeling annoyed, check in at 8:02 and get right window seat and not able to watch "The Changeling." No place to eat, to john to shit, long walk to gate, but glad I check luggage THROUGH to San Diego. Nice of United to transfer it to Western (HA! I write AFTER luggage is later LOST on that transfer.) Board at 8:45, wait at 9 while Army guy with just beautiful arms and chest hunts for place for wife and two-year-old son and month-old baby in arms. Son is NASTY to mother: demanding, demanding, demanding, and I stick head to window and stare out. We take off at 9:22, VERY slowly, to pull across Molokai, Lanai across way, Hawaii in back, which stays in view for half an hour, giving me something to watch. Then water, water, water, and clouds, thankfully almost bumpless flight. Brunch of omelet, nicely filling, about 11 (or 2PM California time, thanks for THREE hour time difference and only 4:50 flight!). Hawaii car had 395 mileage at 8AM. Navigator game: left 12:22 Pacific Daylight time on a 4:50 flight, 2325 miles, 490 miles per hour true air speed, tail wind of 15 miles per hour for the first half and 20 mph for the second half. Why not 2:47? Halfway at 2:54. Land at 5:24 after GREAT rocks to left and right. How CAN I gain confidence in flying? Less than 50 minutes to Western departure at 6:15. Stop taxiing at 5:34! Plane takes off at 6:30! The kid finally falls asleep, they can't find room for me in film space, I wonder if I'm impatient and tense partly because I RESENT wife AND KIDS THAT TAKE that beautiful chest and arms and guy away from the gay world and me! Finally over Islands off LA after an AGE and some nodding, listening to classical music, comedy, "modern contemporary" music, and "story of Superman." TERRIBLE wobble on landing, and we're LATE. I walk two LONG terminal-length underground hallways to Western, VERY angry when I stop outside security and find terminal is BEHIND security desk and I have to have bags checked again, and PROCESS madly while strolling through halls, trying to feel good: it's about OVER and it's mostly WORKED. To Western and continue to be irked: lines, last window is over wing, they don't mark "men" as "forward on wall" as women, so I move back and forth to piss, but finally plane lands LATE but flight time is down to 23 minutes and we're off at 6:30. VERY hazy over coast, and we fly SO far out over ocean it makes hardly any difference that WING is in the way. Smog as bad, or worse, than over Mexico and I wonder about "goodness" of whole coast sinking into the sea! Terrible depressed thoughts! Level flight, soda, pictures, landing at 6:52 VERY close to San Diego buildings, and out to see a figure in white leap out of waiting crowd as I debate if I'll recognize Mr. and Mrs. Southers if they're there: it's DENNIS! Too startling even to be SHOCKED, I probably act stiff and unloverly enough (and here my notes END until Thursday on the flight!) so his parents (and Dennis himself) would never suspect we feel close to each other. They explain that Penny has MOVED to El Cajon from La Jolla, and has moved the appointment from tonight to 9AM tomorrow. GREAT! Wait for luggage until 7, when I put in a claim, and then we drive to San Diego Old Town to wander lovely streets and eat at Paco's (or someone's) Hacienda, a great outdoor patio with the realest artificial fireplace I've ever seen warming my back in the chilly air. Great drinks and food, and Dennis's parents are as lovely as he said they are, though his Uncle George is a bit of a pain. Back to their place about 11 and look at all their antiques and his carpentry-work and out to the LOVELY back apartment where we neck and shower and jerk off quite quickly, he falling asleep in the living room because the two beds must be used, me in the bedroom.

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 2. Wake very early, Dennis groggy before coffee, and Mrs. Southers has a fabulous breakfast of Eggs Benedict and juice and muffins and coffee and rolls, and then we all drive out to El Cajon to get me to Penny's fluffy new house at 9AM, saying they should return at 11. She and I chat about the trip, about Crystal, and about the work for a bit, and then she leads me through a good session. I don't have to give much of a report since she does most of the talking, and we're finished at 11, the secretary cashing a traveler's check for me. Out to the car; they'd been to the Botanical Gardens to their pleasure, and we drive into town to eat at "The Taming of the Stew," where the food is good and the waitress is a sensation, making out with all the men, to their delight. Walk up to the library for an exhibit of fore-edge painting that Dennis had freaked over, and then to the car for the long drive to the San Diego Wildlife Farm, way out toward Escondido, through desert-like scenery, jabbering about this and that the whole way. Get to the 4PM tramway-monorail around the preserve, there for 15 years ALREADY before opening about 5 years ago, but most of the animals are too far away, and the photographic safaris have been scheduled three days PRIOR to the trip. Out and wander a bit before deciding to have dinner, I paying for the whole thing (Mr. Southers paid for last night, Mrs. Southers did breakfast, George did lunch, so I demanded to have this dinner, for only about $40), tasty and fun with monkeys nearby and huge pigeons wandering free. I want to walk on the jungle trail, seeing some of the tigers poking out and hearing the roar of the lions and taking some pictures, and get lost on the way back to the bird show, missing the parakeet singing "I Left My Heart in San Francisco" and seeing the last vulture-swoop fail because the cage wouldn't open. By then it was getting dark and cold and Mr. Southers was getting tired, so we got back to the car while I AGAIN tried calling the airlines for my baggage, and we got back about 10PM to a call from Barbara Lea answering a question of Dennis's and telling ME that Aunt Helen had called her and said that my mother was dying! I restrained myself from calling Mom OR Rita, since I was going to be going back to NYC tomorrow ANYWAY, and I couldn't believe it would be a serious as Helen made it out to be. The airline people said they'd tried to deliver the bag during the day, when I said we wouldn't be home, so they said they'd try to deliver it again this evening, starting at 11. His folks went to bed and we sat in the back for awhile while he showed me his childhood toys, and then we went to the front where I wrote for a bit and he poured me some wine, and though he kept suggesting I just go to bed, I kept wanting to wait, not wanting to disturb his folks, with the result that we sat around and talked a lot --- some of his upcoming cataract operation, with the doctor who's nationally famous who happened to do the same aspiration operation with his uncle --- and waited until 1AM, as I kept entreating the delivery truck to come, but it never did. To bed at 1:30, depressed.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 3. Wake at the alarm about 5:30, and Dennis REFUSES to be ready by 6, so we leave about 6:10 and get to the airport about 6:35 and I look in through the plate-glass window and THERE is my luggage! Get into it for my TICKET (which I hadn't told them I didn't have with me) and my house keys, and then close it up and check in downstairs and commit the luggage to the baggage-handler AGAIN. Bid a fond farewell to them (Dennis is taking ANOTHER plane back to NYC today) and go upstairs for the flight. (Rest taken in notes on that day:) Western 7AM flight BOARDS at 6:50, but 7AM departure is delayed to 7:10, to 7:20, to 7:30, and to 7:38. I write, stewardess says I'll be there in PLENTY of time for 8:45 Capital flight, and we finally leave at 7:35. I feel TAUT. It's the LAST day, 8 hours to go, and it's BAD. Flight is LEVEL, some view through solid overcast, but I'm tense throughout. Can't shake it. Land at 8:02 and told of delay in taxiing to place. I stare out window and harmonize and unify. Off plane at 8:07, dash to baggage claim, find I have to take a mini-bus to parking lot A for building 2, which is Pan Am, which Capital USES. Good! Baggage still not started at 8:17 and I FRET. It comes down THIRD around 8:20, so I dash for first cab, which as I get in quotes me $5! I say "No way"! and try to get out of cab. He tries to shut door on me. "Sit down," he says. "Fuck you!" I shout and PUSH door open and jerk luggage out of back seat and someone asks what's wrong and I shout at random "I'm not payin' no $5 for two blocks!" and begin to stalk off. Behind me I hear "He charged you $5?" in a kindly voice. I hardly look around and shout "Yes!" Another step and I hear, "Let me see your identification," and I feel GOOD that the overcharging bastard got CAUGHT with very little effort on my part. I lug stuff to orange sign. Three busses stop there, so of course VSP and Parking Lot C busses pull up at 8:25 and 8:27. At 8:32 a Parking Lot B bus shows up, but at NEXT stop about thirty people slowly get on for Braniff! We stop at (Western's in Building 5) Building 6 and Building 7 and then make a big loop out of and a big loop back into airport. Drive and drive and drive ONTO field and stop at Parking LOT A, where no one gets on or off. Long pause. Woman next keeps asking about Aeromexico and finally asks when my plane leaves at 8:39. "8:45," I say and a woman in aisle pipes up, "Maybe it'll be cancelled. It took me 11 hours to make a 2 1/2 hour flight." I clench my teeth. Down from A and there at building 1-A is a Capitol entrance. I push way to driver, "If I was told Capitol is in building 2 with Pan Am and I see Capitol in Building 1-A, where do I get off?" He barely looks over shoulder and snaps "Building 2." He announces building 2 and I push three coat-bags off my luggage and wrestle stuff off jammed bus and lunge into Building 2. No Capitol sign. I dash to Pan-Am label with Avianca underneath and ask "Where's Capitol?" "Next building." "What?" hardly believing. "Next building!" I grab stuff and lurch out at about 8:42. Rush and pant and knees buckle to the air-inflatable where I'd SEEN the sign. Rush in, like at Laker, rush over to Capitol, seeing "Closed" below each awning. "Flight 210?' she asks sweetly, "Yes," I gasp. "It's gone." "Gone"" "Left gate ten minutes ago and will take off in two minutes." "Take off?" I utter agape. "Yes, you can try for our afternoon flight or go by another airlines if you pay the extra fare." "Oh, Western Airlines WOULD BE LATE!" "You had a Western Airlines flight that was late?" "Yes, it was to leave San Diego at 7AM and it left about 7:35." "Do you have your ticket?" "Yes. " She looks, writes "emergency --- AA" and says "American goes to New York I think at 9:22, and (I think she says) Capitol will pick up the difference, so if they have a question, ask them to call Jeanette at 641-5690." I thank her; where's American? "Building 4, right next to Western Airlines." "Oh, NO!" Tell her of cab for $5. "That's not right." "I know!" "Just walk across the parking lot, it's that way," she points. I groan, pick up bags, and begin long hard trek for American: to exit, to safety zone, across two streets avoiding cars, along lot, through first lot, zigzag to exit, across street, along building, through exit, to crosswalk to Western, resting and switching arms every fifty steps, panting and sweating. Thank God it's supposed to be 66Ε! At LIMIT of endurance I pass American baggage claim, American Arrivals, and get to American Departures. Stagger through door and to Information. "Have to go to ticketing." "Ticketing?" "Ticketing." To next line, bags down at last, and pant and pant and catch breath at 9AM, EXHAUSTED and SPENT. Recover for agent, who says I have to pay extra. I ask him to phone Jeanette please. He dawdles, leaves, comes back saying OK! I ask for flight information and he notes flight 40, gate 48, and checks bag through! Up to gate at 9:15, write this, wondering WHO the Immortals wanted me to meet going through all THIS! Name called at 9:50 from the waiting list, about 6th of about 15 called. Seat 41B in the last zone of the plane. At least NEXT to window seat! On at 10 and down aisle and window seat REMAINS EMPTY! I move into it. There's a movie. What movie? "Arthur", the movie Dennis recommended VERY highly to me yesterday! Could THAT be what all the hassle was about? Sit next to a German who has 1940 Berlin scholastic friends in Brooklyn (7th Avenue West) and lives in South Australia. He wants to sleep, not near window. Announce a 25-minute delay. Is it GOOD OR NOT that Capital was NOT delayed? Flying time of 4:45, due in at NYC time 6:10, I change watch from 10:28 to 1:28PM. Southern route across US: LA and SPRAWL, then greenery, mountain, desert, Colorado River, Canyonlands under scattered fluffy clouds, (comfortable headset for PERFECT Prokofiev Symphony #1 for takeoff, Mozart's Jupiter for Canyonlands, mesaland, more desert, more canyonlands, then, sadly, it's high clouds at 3 that puts on seat-belt sign and bounces us around and obscures view! Clears for Rio Grande at Albuquerque at 3:01. "Arthur" starts WITH lunch --- GOOD beef --- at 3:05, sort of silly, and I have to put down the shade and STILL divide my attention. It's not bad, but screens periodically going dark don't make the viewing any easier. Then about 4 we start bumping in solid clouds and I panic again, gripping armrest, breathing labored. But time passes, movie ends with Arthur getting Liza AND the money, at 5:40. Some pieces of ground through breaks and start down at 6, RATHER smooth unidirectional descent to land at 6:30, to luggage claim by 6:45. Almost too jittery to be RELIEVED. My luggage comes out towards end, but happy to see it anyway, and get to taxi about 7:05, a black woman who wants to take me up Metropolitan Avenue, which sort of works and takes me into a neighborhood that I've never seen before, so I'm still on tour! Home about 8 for about $21 carfare, up to the apartment to find piles of mail and black hair dye in the bathtub, so I phone Dennis, who got back just at 8PM, and he comes up after a bit to tell me the story of Bunny Greco and her needles and her dispossession after 15 days. Put a few things away and go out to eat and am GLAD TO BE BACK. Dennis and I have good sex that night, too, and some nights after, so it looks like the relationship might have revived, but through the month and a half between then and now it's gone from bad to worse, and this is finally one of the LAST things to catch up from the trip, aside from sorting out the slides and SHOWING them to fifty people that I've promised Bruce Lieber that I'd be showing them to.

CHINA - FAREWELL POEM Delivered 8/20/81

FAREWELL POEM

Was going to start: Trains, trains ----
What pains!
But decided not to leave you off so easily. Ahem!

"Twas the night before train-time; all through the Victoria,
The passengers gathered in a state of Uproaria.
One Christopher Knolles introduced himself Chief of us,
And said "YOU ALL CHOSE THIS TRIP," to show his belief in us.

Our CHAMPAGNE debut was a farce with much WINE lacking ---
Already some people had started their illness by HACKING.
I whispered morosely to my roommate George Parras,
(I assure you my words weren't meant to embarrass):
"It cannot be said that this group is real groovy.
We're trapped with a cast from a bad Mel Brooks movie."

Then off to bed to get some sleep, storing up rest ADELANTE --- (BEFORE)
The next morning our champagne meal was only Asti Spumante.
Was this a trend, from start to end, so painful to gain admittance?
We spent for a luxury but --- were only give a pittance?

Whatever the case --- eleven ill-assorted pairs, plus Olga ---
We started off with hearts in our throats by train toward the Volga.

The dining table rang and shook with anecdotes tutorial.
And some of us were heard to speak with voices professorial.

Whenever Cliff or Paddy spoke, it WAS in tones quite teacherly.
While Clarence Miller held the floor with intonation preacherly.

In fact Naomi, quietly, wishing he'd tell his joke quicker,
Said, "Please do finish it this MONTH," not wanting to seem to bicker.

Then one fine night the Bobbsey twins --- better known as Midge and Polly ---
Described the Russian Amazon who moved their fridge, by golly!

"Hello Mudda, Hello Fadda, here we are at, Camp Renata:"
Midge has been at, her Scotch bottle; so she touts her, Alma Mater.

Polly manages very well, her Hepburn-voice is so commanding.
She can get anyone to order ice without even demanding.

(Local color)
We thought of a tundra, and icy-cold nights,
And maybe a touch of those Northern Lights.
But what an amazement, and what a surprise ---
To be greeted at 3 with a hot-pink sunrise!
Such flowers and sunshine, oh WHAT could be CHEEiah,
Than spending a summer in Southern Siberia?

(Back to people)
Let no one omit the newly-wed tipplers, the Carpenters.
Bernice's bent straw, Ben explained with a laugh, "The BAR bent HERS."
Ben insists he's damn well proud to be 82 and gratified;
If I could do as well as he, I'm sure that I'd be satisfied!

The Litvais: Pauli, the good Doctor; Toni, never the vulgarian;
Looked down on English and always spoke with her husband in Hungarian.
The acupuncturist might cure himself of some addictions:
Cigars, his wife, his pipe, his film: not ALL of them afflictions.
These are not all MY thoughts alone, but rather a consensus;
These jokes are made in sport, I hope, and offer no offensus.

(Change of meter)
We raced day and night o'er the great Russian steppe
With Lizzi and Nini and cucumbers for PEP.
Tugriks and mongos and kumuss and yurt ---
We toured in Mongolia days that it HURT.
ONE Bob went to movies, saw a couple of hits.
ANOTHER Bob danced 'twixt a couple of (TITS) --- enlarged mammary glands!

What can be said of our good friend the Blums?
How many silences broken in rooms?
Complaints freely offered; oh boy, oh boy!
"My God, OY, JO-OE --- what is in HERE?"
Here comes OUR Annie, disperser of CHEER.

Then there are Heenan and Reese; his names are different from her names
They argue so much, they can't even agree on their SURNAMES.
The Captain orders all about in accents military,
While Edith speaks each word so crisp its like she's eating cel'ry.

Done with the couples, now it's the turn of the singles:
The disco crowd, the bar-stool crowd, the crowd that mingles.

The man with the moustache and baritone: Beeton;
His comedy flair was Colonna, not Keaton.
But his temperature soared to hundred and two ---
That's more than he wanted, so to L.A. he flew.

"OY, would you look at that thin derriere??!"
That's Ann on who? Rene Mendez-LaPierre!!
With his Spanish smile, and his French savoir-faire
He's sure to have more than ONE daughter, somewhere.

As a roommate George Parras is neat as a pin,
And so quiet I don't even know when he's in.
But out with "the boys," at a disco or three,
I bet he is ready for --- yep --- QUITE a spree!

(Meter change again!)
Pat Anger's one who's longest kept his Mao-cap on his head.
He knows he needs the help to keep his pate from getting RED.
His English skill assists our guides in PERfecting their diction,
Thus easing race-relations with a minimum of friction.

More often than not a single, more often than not in suites:
This gal has a way with the key-men, that nothing ever beats.
Our only French, our sole Canadian, one who'll never tire ---
I'm sure you all will know by NOW, THIS verse was on Olga LeMeier.

Werner Heikel, ein Berliner, joined us late in Germany.
Sold his rubles at a bargain, added Russian currency.
Talking English, talking German, laughing with us, 'neath his lorgnette,
Had his fill of blasted tourists, so WE feel a touch of scorn yet.

No time wasted, no food wasted, no experience untasted;
No words softened, no help offered, any luxury lambasted;
Werner Hoerning? Former German, new Australian, could it be he?
Merely shining bright example of German practicality!

Warmth and cheer and humor bubbling, politics was not taboo.
Nadya dear, our favorite Russian, would that you guide China too!
(Different guide)
Fledgling tour guide, Judge's daughter, Tien Hue is her Chinese name.
But we tourists say "Miss China," and our meaning's all the same.

(Department of anticlimax)
Paragon of patience, arm of iron, voice of gold, will of steel:
Christopher, Chris, our leader, guide, how can we say what we feel?
We love you? Drop dead? Change your job? Change your tune? What can we say?
As a matter of fact, without you, Chris, we wouldn't BE here today!

Through American and Africa he traveled for a year ---
Paul's encountered natives, lions, berbers, mau-maus, girls, and deer.
He's learned patience, wit, endurance, and a tolerance of glooms;
Why he's even one of few of us who tolerate the (Blums) --- weather!

Learned, quick, and bright Cliff Simm is British as English toffee,
But please don't talk to him before he's had his morning coffee.
When faced with shops he is inclined to be a bit unruly,
Though not as bad, I must admit, as Zolnerzak, yours truly.

If forced into an encore, I can offer just one more rhyme.
Myself, I'd do much better at life, if I only had more TIME.

DID NOT READ:
I was heard to exclaim, as I rode out of sight,
"Happy Hong Kong to all, and to all THEIR DELIGHT."