IBM Round The World
IBMRTW: May 16 - June 14, 1964 (30 days) (1964 IBM Round-the World Vacation)
[Typed 10/11/11: This is one of my earliest big trips---the only bigger trip was the USA-By-Bus trip: 99 days in 1963, written up in even messier form than this!---and I took TERRIBLE notes. But I want this in ZolnerZone in SOME form, and I'm editing to a slight degree to make it understandable. But it's not been proofread, and maybe never will be; it might not be worth it. So: READER BEWARE! Also note that INSERT occurs 21 times in place of drawings that I made to capture particular forms. Eventually, I hope to scan these and insert them for your reading pleasure.]
SATURDAY, 5/16/64: [Datebook entry: Leave for Tokyo: Chicago, Seattle] Up at 7AM, after terrible time getting to sleep. Hectic morning and I plead with Bill to come over and wash dishes while I pack. Eat and take laundry out and pack and out of apartment at 1PM, grab a cab to Kennedy Airport and get into NWA at 1:35 and fellow comes up and says I'm the last one in. I gasp in amazement and rush through checking in, almost forgetting my baggage check, and he directs us to VIP lounge, up steps. Get $150,000 travel insurance for $5 for Mom, and up to crowded lounge. Eat Macadamia nuts (common currency on NWA) and drink champagne. Bill looks in amazement at empty glass and says, "That went fast, but I was thirsty." They all talk and Pouteau rushes frantically Frenchly around. Bill and I leave and walk around promenade; typical of future: group will sit and I'll go rushing off somewhere. Around to front to find everyone filing out. Join the group and go out to plane to have dozens of photos taken on waiting ramp and up into crowded tourist area. I'm assigned an aisle seat and Pouteau a window seat. That can't stay. Mozelle's brother appears on the plane at the last moment, bearing a flower for her. How he managed to get on the plane I'll never know. Bridge woman shrieks and for much of the trip to Chicago they "Spade and Club" each other back and forth (V. Stepp), and Pouteau sings, "Come to me my melancholy baby." Into the air at 2:45 on a 320B, the newest Boeing fan jet. I move into aisle seat and Ed starts to amaze by talking, and talking extremely well. The trip to Chicago is clouded, and a few lakes stand out---we go over part of Canada. Circle around and Ed points out all the golf courses and we land. I rush off plane to send cards to Yaciuk and get two cards of Chicago's Marina Towers. Onto plane, still in aisle seat, and Ed points out Grand Rapids, that the lakes in Wisconsin are mainly in the north, that the plane probably has a compressor to generate oxygen if accident, and that the fins of the wings help the air flow. Amazing. At some point in the flight, I remember a quotation from myself, somewhere: "I am tired of old stars as gods. Their sharp fires, cold with time, are past. I need youth, warm with flesh, in now." Pouteau leaps about like the travel agent he is, and Rosalie sits next to me and deplores the "long-toothed" and the "party-poopers" and advocates "letting your hair down" and being a part of a "swinging group." I make polite nonsense, then out to remind Mozelle that the last time she passed this way [from the Seattle World's Fair] she was thoroughly sick. She crows in conquest. Clouds still cover much of the ground, except for glimpses of poor farm and eroded lands and muddy streams of South Dakota. How sad some of the farms in South Dakota look from the air: dry stream beds dammed and dry, or containing a pond of muddy water. Houses that blend with the gravy-colored earth and fields that look unworked for the past five years. Frozen boiling farina stretched below the plane---cloud mountains cast shadows on cloud plains, giving the impression that the land below, cloudly shadowed, would be doubly dark indeed. The cotton-tufted consistency, in high relief under the sun we were chasing, seemed to perfectly embody the word "flocculent." Montana is socked in fog. We had seen the Missouri, and some snowcapped Rockies, probably Tetons, slipped past to the south. A few snowed spurs showed on our side, but the plane began to move through levels of cloud, jet-stream-straggled cirrus floated past us at 39,000 feet, and billowy cumulus occasionally left holes through which the earth could be seen. Long gone were the Iowan parti-colored checkerboards, which Ed counted as six diagonal squares per minute, which, assuming a ground speed of 500 mph, came out as one-mile squares. Coming back from Mozelle, Pouteau caught me and introduced me to a dozen "northerners" from Endicott and Poughkeepsie; I felt Southernly shy and cursed him for being so childishly gregarious. The schedule was meticulously followed, and we landed in SeaTac precisely on time, after glimpsing the Space Needle and being treated to one magnificent sequence of vistas of the snow-covered Washington Mountains. The plane flew lower and lower to avoid the buffeting clouds, and suddenly they fell back above us and left us possibly 25,000 feet above the ground, half that above the tumbled rock ledges and snowy ridges and curved black valleys beneath us. At one point a marvelous side-light struck white ranks of mountains, a study in black and white and gray, and they march off into the distance, coldly distinct under their chill covering of clouds. Skiing was remarked on, and even limping Peg said she was ready to go. I jokingly announce that we're going into the Space Needle for dinner. "We have enough time to make it back." Mozelle breaks up. Ed says he hasn't heard the details, so Mozelle tells the story with Pouteau an amazed listener. Mozelle recovers from a queasy stomach on the bumpy descent, takes some Dramamine and a Wash and Dry, and we walk off the food. I get the impression that the Seattle-Tokyo leg is foodless. We send a card that I address to Herman, and in high spirits go upstairs to a restaurant. A coifed blond fellow brings memories of my past, and my jokes about my French dip liven the crew, and time runs quickly by. Finally they LEAVE me with the check, I with only $3 in singles as cash. They walk off as I gulp down the rest of the beef and the salad, grab change, and race down the hallway to try to beat them to the plane. I do, and they said they were "waiting for me" when I got back to plane five minutes BEFORE they did. I take a window seat and we're off on time, the plane again absolutely jammed as it had been between Chicago and Seattle. Dinner and breakfast is announced and I groan about my fifth meal of the day: breakfast at home, snack NY-Chicago, dinner Chicago-Seattle, dinner in Seattle, and now dinner Seattle-Tokyo. "Would you like to purchase a highball or cocktail?" is the watchword for the evening, and the cabin again gets lousy as the fellow in front of me focuses with his camera and his watch saying 11:30 NY time, the sun bright on the plane wing.
SUNDAY, 5/17/64: [Datebook entry: Japan-Tokyo, to Imperial Hotel] The snack was two quarter-sandwiches, banana, and shrimp which I gave to Ed. Their THIRD dinner was steak which was inferior to the Chicken Kiev which was deliciously the highlight of the FIRST flight dinner. But my stuffed stomach made room for more as I tasted the whipped-cheese cupcake for dessert. A masterpiece. We look out the window for signs of Canada, but see none, the clouds coming and going, and sometimes the calm ocean itself can be seen. Ed remarks about the sun being on the RIGHT of the plane as we fly northwest, and of course the sun is "setting" over the North Pole. We are sharing in Hong Kong's noonday light, though we're a hemisphere away, and suddenly the earth contracts to the size of an orange in my vision. I see my first true midnight sun as it sinks lower but rises again as we go north and the distance between time zones, closer to the pole, becomes less than 500 miles even on the diagonal path we're flying. We left Seattle at 11PM New York time, and by 1 or 2AM comes the shades are lowered and the lights go out, and the silly star disks are turned on overhead. The plane zipped into sleep except for Ed and me stepping over a sleeping Pouteau to get to the john. I'm ready to turn in when there's an island below! Very low, and, as seen through the sun-bright mist, it's hard to say whether it's very low land with many lakes, a sheen of half-melting ice, or what. As again I prepare to turn away there are more sights, and in one a small snowcapped peak rears up. I look for signs of life, but no boats or lights or signs of man appear on these remote stones flung southward from the tip of Alaska. At least I've SEEN part of my 49th state from the AIR. The plane dozes on, and soon Ed and I are tumbling over each other to see the fantastic Aleutians slip by beneath. The islands get bigger, and perfect cones of volcanoes are white frappes in a black background of non-snowy slopes. Maybe the low-islands were ice melting around smaller islands. Clouds come in again, so low and level and packed that they look like skied snowfields from a height of thirty feet. Ski trails and footprints and runs and tracks and hound-and-hare circles and even snowball holes cover the fanciful snow-fields of the cloud cover. Mountains from still more islands break through the clouds, and now at the top of one magnificently perfect cone is a wisp of darker cloud that I insist is the smoke or steam of a live volcano. Later, other anomalous clouds appear at peaks, high above the general cloud layer, and convince me of internal fires. Finally a huge island passes, with many peaks, one with snow melted off in parts (lava?). And steam, I swear, escaping from crevasses. I figure the show is over and tell Ed to poke me if there's more. I hardly shut my eyes when, sliding beneath the plane, is a huge island maybe 100 miles across, with many huge peaks, [INSERTK] snow-covered and sliced with black. A foreshortened cross with auxiliary black lanes is certainly an airfield, and we figure we've seen Attu. The clouds sweep in to the slopes and make it hard to see how big the island is. A strange crater is arresting, precisely as if a steel ball were thrown at 45 degrees into a plate of mush, the round shape of impact very clear, the direction and angle obvious. Like you stuck your [INSERTL] finger in and pulled back gently the island's crust. Now it's 5 or 6AM, my eyes are weary with watching, and finally I disturb Pouteau and tilt my chair back, though he used its erect back as a pillow support. Blinds come down and I snooze, trying to rest my head on the tray or the pillow, but I long for a FLAT surface. Time passes, my watch stops, stewardesses bring milk, the sun sets, darkness comes on. Breakfast is served and a bit of buffeting starts; but slowly, one by one, lights appear below, and soon Japan is declared in a marvelous simplicity, one star out the window and the moon reflecting on a wing. The lights begin to group, become clustered about harbors. Finally we descend, and a white glow over the wing proclaims Tokyo. I first think the city isn't Tokyo because it seems to be in the center of the island, but soon a gap in the light appears in the middle and the former shapeless blob extends arms out around Tokyo Bay and becomes a huge cabochon with Yokohama as the dimmer jewel in the brilliant setting and ring of Tokyo. To my fancy even the LIGHTS of the city appear Japanese. They lack the rectangular pattern, broken by curved arterial expressways, that characterize US cities by night. The terrain seems round, and vaguely green lights, probably due to the polaroid that causes the rainbow-hued beetles to crawl in parking lots, dot it at random. They have a Japanese calm and ease about them, and I can visualize the purely paper and candlelit woodily-fragile building below, in bonseki-like settings, with bonsai trees grown giant again looming dimly through the sliding panels. Awfully rich in imagination. We fly over the city and over the bay, dotted with lights, and begin to descend. Circle around and look out windows to see diffuse individual lights coming up. There are a few bright lights (and few fires on hills, too), but no bright central SECTION to sight on and say, "I hope the hotel is there." And then too I'm finally back in the middle seat and can't see as well as before. We get all sorts of announcements about what we do in the airport, and another slip to fill out, making about FOUR to that point, one for leaving the US, one for reentering the US, one for ARRIVING in Japan and one for DEPARTING Japan. Pouteau also gave us a copy of our visa form that he said we must turn in. I stuck it in my pocket and forgot it until much later. I ALSO forgot on the plane a clever kit given for long trips: mouthwash, toothpaste, a sewing kit, a Wash and Dry, and a toothbrush with built-in paste. I wanted to try it, but left it on the seat. Land and see clearly a sign for "Tokyo International Airport" but on one roofed approach hall I see two red characters, flashing on and off, of seemingly great importance. I haven't the vaguest idea what they say. Begin to feel lost, and reiterate ad nauseam the phrase "I'm sure glad I'm with a tour." Sit and wait until the news comes that we've cleared quarantine (have NO idea what that means) and are told we can leave the plane. Out the back door and down a ramp to a smell of not so much iodine as bromine. Is it the quarantine spray (they SPRAY the passengers, Pouteau points out, who come to Fiji from Tahiti) or the Pacific air? Follow the person in front of me, but SHE doesn't seem to know where she's going either. Around to front of plane and see arrows pointing in. Head into a hallway and up a ramp and walk across, and then down stairs and through a long hallway, and women are panting lugging their hand luggage. I have only my passport and baggage slip. Finally into a little room and two short men each at two tiny movable desks begin to move through the crowd (rather than the crowd through them). Then they look at the vaccination forms. It turns out Saigon has the plague, everywhere in India has cholera, and typhoid is somewhere, too. Very quick check and suddenly they're gone. Mozelle and Peg come in late and don't even SHOW theirs. Announcement comes over PA to check luggage first, alternately in English and Japanese. Stop at desk and check name off a list, then through for luggage and get sign-languaged to a cubicle that checks my passport. They stamp me admitted. No one to this point knows MUCH English, and it'll remain true. Luggage onto table and we've been warned about the "oral exam" so we all say, "I've just got clothes and nothing else." Get yellow chalk on bag (and on suit) and certificate of freedom from tax and get $10 in yen. Kozi makes a hit with group, as he's just returned from US and KNOWS some people on the tour. We get shuttled out to a bus and introduced to Miriam. As people file on, I'm more convinced than ever that it's an odd, vaguely distasteful, group. Have to be briefer: the bus wound round an advertising loop, then soared up on one of the first superhighways in town. The view below was one of complete foreignness and of complete variety. Every type of building material was used: brick, stick, stone, tin, cardboard, paper, cement, cement block, plywood, mud. The signs were everywhere and all illegible. Many motor scooters were obvious and there were few cars on the superhighway. Workers living in dormitory-like buildings added to the "Japanese crowded" atmosphere. Ride for a long while to the hotel, and pass IBM and then learn that the Imperial Hotel is WRIGHT's Imperial Hotel. Get to new wing and check in, but all previous thoughts of seeing the Ginza leave, and we unpack and I shower and throw first set of underwear away and get to bed.
MONDAY, 5/18/64: [Datebook entry: Japan-Tokyo: Chinzanso Restaurant, Meiji Art Gallery, Happoen Garden, Tokyo Tower; however, this is wrong: we took an excursion to Nikko for the Festival today] Wake on Monday morning at some unknown, dark time; wake with vague arousing thoughts and fear the bell so early, but time passes and the quiet of thought overcomes the pulse of flesh and I lay thinking of the wonder of the city. There is a vague fear for all the foreign tomorrows, a sick fantasy of awkward quiet passion in our shared room. I listen to breathing and eventually Ed, too, is awake. The metallic fumble for a timepiece on the tables, vague rhythmic rustles of bedclothes as my tale-telling ears sift the silence for scraps of specifics. Then again the regularity of breath proclaims his sleep. Hear the waters of the coolers, the hotel's circulation system, rushing through its metal conduits. The room is pure black and soundless, the womb of Morning Japan. I lay thinking of the wonder of the city. How many more times of waking in a strange room, in a strange city, on a strange continent, surrounded by people of colors and tongues and cultures and thoughts and actions different from mine and those I have ever met. There is no familiarity as in Italy: the Renaissance is accepted in America. There is no Spanish similarity in talk; there is Easterness, mysterious, unexplored, non-me. How will the first man landing on a foreign planet feel? I lay lazy as the sky lightens the room through the parted shades. Finally I'm up and begin to write this as the city comes to sound-life. The repeated double drumbeats, like a hollow metal heart, tell that the nearby subway, an elevated, has come to morning life after the dark night-death. Motor bikes, one of the symbols of Tokyo's differentness on last night's drive from the airport, buzz outside as my stomach, tuned to another clock, wonderingly gurgles at the darkness. Yesterday at this time it was light, and food was being assimilated. My sleep cells also proclaim the oddness of the hour. My silver watch hands, luminous with reflected light, tell 4:30AM---absurd. I've been up for maybe an hour, and when the lights went off at midnight last night I tossed and listened and thought until at least 1AM, and was up again at 3:30AM, thus 2-1/2 hours (probably) sleep will count for nothing as this day at the Toshugu Shrine wears on. Yet there is no sign of sleep left to be squeezed from the night, so I think to put the time to use, and begin to write in a streak of foreign light, a white Japanese blanket wrapped around my nude body for warmth, a lacquered ledge for a table, and my suitcase as an elbow rest. With my constant eye for a camera, I can picture my self-drama on the inner lens of an outer observer, bent writing, blanket slipping off one shoulder, the soft morning light slashing down the center of me, making the necessary glasses look undoubtedly stupid, but the dimness softening my face and body into a Japanese imitation, sitting in the naturalness, and seizing the impulse of the minute to focus on the strange strong transient emotions to which my mind, marvelously flexible yet somehow miraculously fixed, pinned the alien thoughts to paper as they pass, holding up nature to nature and watching the rainbow flash from the intersection of the historical western and two-hours-merely Eastern present. After this I will write about the flight, but premonitions of a terrible fatigue at the end of today leads me to suspect I will soon, perforce, become accustomed to the time change, and my urges to fly into words will come at a more normal time, and with a more normal content, too. I get really tired of writing, and cold from sitting up. Decide to go back to bed for the half-hour before the phone rings at 6:15AM. Leave hotel at 7:30AM for Nikko by Tobu Electric Train from Asakusa (90 miles). Sign in Asakusa: "Notice/ Please watch your step/ There is a crevice between car and platform near here." Remark that could only be made to Dick Hsieh: Girl comes out of train john, says: "Hope you have good hips." She doesn't know that I sat down too. "Who says they don't use human manure. What was that smiling woman with a whiskbroom doing in the john?" As I came back, Mozelle said," Sounds like a good idea." I said, "You mean you HEARD?" [INSERTM] See 1,000 people festival. 1,200 people in it. 30 curves to Lake Chuzenji. Lunch at Lakeside Hotel. Kegon Waterfall; one hour with students. Nikko again for Toshogu Shrine: Senin-gyoretsu (1,000 person procession) dressed in costume of samurai, priests, etc. of the Tokugawa era. In the morning the spirits of Yeyasu, Hidetada and Iyemitsu are transferred to their mikoshi (portable shrines) and later to Otabisho (Sigoiur Hall). Monks play sacred music, make offerings, perform sacred dances. Orchestra is composed of kamabue (flute) and hichiriki (flageolet). Climb hill to Nikko Shrine. Stop off on side for a crude dam, and off shingles for a garden with massed stone devotary, and below, on a flowered slope, a house is hidden in the trees. Mozelle comes in to snap a shot and a woman, nude from the waist up, strolled out to remove a kimono from a line, shook it out a few times, wrapped it around her and strolled back in. Mozelle almost dropped her light meter. Stopped at Nikko Kanaya Hotel for rest stop (sumo on TV). Train back to Asakusa. Interesting arrangement of people in Impho dining room: men seated at "next to center" tables, ALL facing directly toward center. Sole girl is facing center, but whether deliberately or voluntarily, she's seated at the extreme edge of the room. Back from the horrific tempura experience at 10:30, and fuss about until 11:30. Finally got some decent sleep Monday night.
TUESDAY, 5/19/64: [Datebook entry: Japan-Tokyo: Korakura Garden, Ueno Park, Asakusa, Mikado Restaurant] Fall asleep almost at once, and wake twice during night but fall asleep again. Wake with Ed shaving at 8:30. He leaves for breakfast, but I come, and get out at 9:15. Still feel puffy-eyed, but it's warm and my day-old shirt is very wrinkled and clammy damp. Down to breakfast alone and plan to buy a robe and some slides and maybe "My Fair Lady" for Marty. Must be back at 1:30 for tour, and I won't be through here until somewhere around 10. Ed and Louella are sitting with two older fellows in high school uniforms, and smiles flash all about. Many of the fellows were nice, their glances of curiosity at me as a foreigner easily mistaken for interest. They hardly wear jockey shorts, for all have a very pleasantly long and bulky lump down the left leg, emphasized by the tightness from the knee to the waist and the bell bottom to the trousers. Most complexions are pure as old papyrus, and the eyes are bright and black. The hair is usually groomed and the overall impression is quite good, gentle, and affectionate. The dining room, except for the waiters, is definitely Intercontinental Bastard. Smaller details are Japanese, however, and the new wing is the only non-masterful part of the Imperial Palace Hotel. The old part has innumerable beauties, starting with a hallway across the driveway from new to old: at the end is a mirror, or should be, because the hall beyond looks PRECISELY like the hall one walks through, but there is no ME in that hall, most strange; doubtful that a camera could catch the oddity, one must BE there. Pleasant gardens, very lovely lobby. Walking in Tokyo singularly unenlightening--the two maps I have are contradictory, and it turns out the main street I'd been using WAS the Ginza, but it hardly seems the center of the world. Wander around eight-by-eight-block square and see nothing much of anything except immense construction work, streets torn up and boarded over. Tour: city is 800 square miles, center city is 250 square miles. 11:30AM bus to Dingiska barbecue at Chinzanso--called a Mongolian barbecue---very delicious food cooked on outdoor grill by individual waitresses. Good with beer and a cool breeze to blow away the smoke. In Chinzanso gardens: "Here was a monumental pine tree planted with personal hands of Emperor Taisho (the father of the present Emperor Hirohito) in his Crown Prince days. However, it was destroyed by fire during World War II." Beauty of gardens marred by film company blocking the paths and a cameraman throwing rocks at the giant carp in the pool, and sounds of the nearby construction echoes into shadowed glens, forcefully showing the invasion of the old and beautiful by the new and profane. Weeping cherry trees. Original bronze statue of Jabberwocky in temple of Higashi Honganji---a shrine of MAGNIFICENT proportions and scale, though marred by pigeons, with a white fire hose looped over wood railings. A BEAUTIFUL temple. Moss gardens and expansive properties and expensive price tags at Tatsumara Silk Mansion. Apprentice geisha is MIKO girl, dancing girl. Not fully trained. GION geisha girls the BEST. From Tatsumura:
BEAUTY ^
FINE ARTS |
INDUSTRIAL ARTS QUALITY
NECESSITY---- THINGS FOR PRACTICAL USE |
<--------QUANTITY----------> v
1. Fine art must be a piece of work in which the human heart and soul and sincerity are fully expressed and it is appreciated in any country and through ages. Therefore it is immortal.
2. Industrial arts are the works of taste that appeal to human heart as well as are useful for human life, AND they are half aesthetic and half economical. They have fashion.
3. Things for Practical Use are produced to fulfill the necessities of daily life, therefore their consumption is taken for granted. Through Ueno Park and to Asakusa, walked through Nakamise shopping street, then dropped off at Takashimaya. Signs of possible trouble setting in: a two-set of tours in Tokyo seemed to be reversed on the first day, also discarding two items. And then the next day it's rumored that the Tokyo Tower will be SEEN, but not scaled, and this makes no one happy. The 6PM to Kokusai was a save, since at 6:15 the bus had not arrived and we found a guide that said the show was at 6. But she said it was at 6:40 (it was at 6:50) and the bus had DEPARTED the depot when she called; it took twenty minutes to get there AND if the bus wasn't there quickly we'd take cabs. We took cabs, our driver getting off third but getting in first. Quickly got into the huge echoing theater, filled with kids in black school uniforms, and soon the curtains rise on a fabulously detailed and lit setting of a gated pagoded countryside, with 300 geishas dancing in front of it. Suchiro Restaurant for Shabu-Shabu, back to hotel at 11. Bed at 12:30AM.
WEDNESDAY, 5/20/64: [Datebook entry: Japan-Nikko: Toshogu Shrine, Lake Chuzenji, Kegon Waterfalls; but this was Monday!] Wake to lie in darkness listening to noises outside. Turn light on finally, and it's 9AM! At Tokyo National Museum: pottery and bowls from 7000BC; HUGE brass spearheads, very beautiful robes, especially the female roles for Noh plays. Cute pudgy dolls; beautiful categories for objects: "National Treasures" for temples and "Registered Important Cultural Property" for a Kanja Bon (pendant ornament used by Buddhists of 552AD (bronze). Combination of Bosch and Disney in "Animals in Frolic," 794AD scroll; screens and scrolls and wall paintings; host box, lacquered wood, registered important art object, 1568-1614AD, with IHS on top. Saddles, lacquered. Then to Gallery of Contemporary Art and Josaku Maeda is amazing with Dali-Miro colors and forms, and expanses of white canvas setting off bright pastels. Time is fleeting faster and faster into the past and still it turns out I haven't written much. Diet Building and American Embassy at 2:30, Mrs. Yoshikawa's home for Bonsai (miniature trees) and Bonkei (colored sand). Olympic Center (Meiji Outer Shrine) (pass IBM building). 7:30 to Mikado Theater Restaurant for dinner and show. Back after 11.
THURSDAY, 5/21/64: [Datebook entry: Japan-Hakone: Yokohama, Kamakura Daibutsu, Fuji-Hakone National Park] Last day in Tokyo I can't sleep, despite fact of bed at 1, so up at 7:30 and shave and dress in dark and out to breakfast at 8:10. 9:45AM notes: last Tokyo morning: Hibiya Park is tranquil even under the attack of hundreds of laborers pruning and cleaning and giving the morning toilet to the huge green-breasted female, lying beside her more immense male partner, the Imperial Palace Gardens. Wagner's rose plot dedication in 1963 is the only English readily available, and a sole man without an epicanthic fold walked past to remind me, sans mirror, that there was another race than Japanese (and also except for the brown and black on white Welsh terrier that hopped past in a wire-legged way). The first sign of work were two tiny old ladies, dressed in dust, who pulled white daisies out of a two-wheeled cart. They were reinforced by a truckload of violet snapdragons, and later in my perambulations I saw a nearly finished plot complete with blue bachelor's buttons, tiny white snow puffs, and what I seem to recall is red cyclamen, like I weeded in Esther William's garden in Salinas during my high school sabbatical in California. A lime spreader (sapiens) marked out the petaled circle, and the daisies, surrounding the iris plants, went so far and no further. All roses were bloomed and overbloomed, those at their life-end unfolding into immense balls of limp color, as if they shouted for attention during life, and, receiving none, unfolded their innermost soul to the world in their twilight this morning. The all-present students walked and stared and monopolized whole benches as they sat. The sun was hazy-bright behind clouds (some students carried umbrellas, others hoped) and I forwent sunglasses because I looked enough like a tourist with my pinko-gray, as opposed to yellow-gray, skin. Without sunglasses I squinted, and more than one passerby, I hope, saw at least one oriental grandparent in my shadow. All paths to the central gardens were bicycle-barred in various shapes [INSERTN]. Hoses watered the flowers like rain, gently, and the fellow at my left, young and potential, sat and sang and looked at the neatly packaged asses swinging past---a marvelous differentiation between male and female, as the male shows all he has and the ideal female has none, or overshadows it with a fluffy backrest. Down at the GRAY pool side (Japanese water is seldom gray---the waters are brown and mud hung as in the Kanto, dyed intensely blue at Kegon below the falls, or leaf-reflected green in the pool where small fry wrinkled the water at the shallow edge and foot-long carp exposed an inch of top fin as they billowed mud trying to get onto shore at the Tatsumura Silk Mansion. Rocks made perfect seats, and so well were the bronze turtles made on the central island that I noticed they were there only on walking away. The sycamore under which I sat glowed emerald green velvet as the sun hit leaf tops and emitted green light from leaf bottoms. The bang of pile drivers and chainlike rattle of trolleys insure me I'm in the city center, and someone insists on banging a metal flagpole. Colored awnings show the flower architects where the plants go, and the old women, marvels of flexibility, stand on slopes and bend with straight knees to pick up plants lower than their feet, then rise with plants and lay them down and walk exaggeratedly slope-backed, hands wide and behind, like skaters about to fall on their fannies. Most passersby are business suited, even the loafers are generally suited, but some are on holiday and stroll or sit and watch or read. The rubbish collectors come with wicker dustpans and rake the refuse and empty the trash cans and raise their brown dust, ever present, to clean the park, leaving huge comb-marks in the dust below the flatly cobbled field on which I rest my feet. All trees are planted by Japanese, and I lend them a beauty they may not have, but which they were put to give and I more than willing to receive in double. Many watched the flower-workers, but I declined to watch them---I'd appear too much of a lacklabor. But I went back to the pool side and wrote facing the more remote path, and few passed and none seemed offended or even overly curious about a New Yorker enjoying one of the more pleasant Tokyo spots. A suited fellow, face beaming, walked past in a choreographed bounce, singing with joy. The signs were nice: in Japanese they lent character without revealing their undoubted negativity. To Hakone via Yokohama New Grand Hotel, lunch there, and to Kamakura Daibutsu (Big Buddha). Drove along Pacific to Odarawa and through Hakone to Miyanoshita.
FRIDAY, 5/22/64: [Datebook entry: Japan-Hakone: Owakadoni, Atami, Kyoto] In magnificent Miyanoshita's greenhouse: good bamboo carving for flower pot. [INSERTO] Butterfly with as immense a swallowtail as I'd seen. [INSERTP] Spent from 6:15AM to 7:30 watching fish, looking at spiders catching gnats, smelling a greenhouse. All doors seemed open, and trays of bonsai could have hidden armies of Lilliput children in their miniature huge gnarled boughs. Pitcher plants have climax tenseness as a representation of phallus and scrotum, drawn smooth against the shaft. Plants I love to squeeze. And the phallus plants DO fit the hand nicely. The aura of leisured wealth hung like brocade over the tailored lawns and paths. Physical clouds hung over the surrounding hills, hinting that we'd never get to see Mt. Fuji. Back into greenhouse and a moist invisible hand pushed humid humus into my nostrils. Relearned (an always task) flower names. These: [INSERTA] are Anthurium. The birdhouse was a gabble. A rooster crew on a rock, and two benighted grouse thought they too, heralded the dawn and stretched their necks and raised their heads and gave out a warble of precisely the same cadence, but NOT a crow. Both perched cross-footed on a smaller rock and only when a golden pheasant, head feathers slicked back like a matinee idol of the 20s, pushed one off, did it stop. 20 km to Gobra, 90 km to Sounzon; 260 km to Owakadani. Graffiti at Sounzon, "I went to holy your hand." Careen down the mountain, skidding, pebbles flying, and Miriam says, "Atami is built on a mountain side." Bento is box lunch; benjo is toilet. Gobra and ropeway to Owakadani "Great Hell" and Mount Fuji. Box lunch at 1:30 for Atami and over Ten-Province Pass. Kodamo #2 train (1-minute stop) for long ride through Nagoya and Kyoto at 8:30PM.
SATURDAY, 5/23/64: [Datebook entry: Japan-Kyoto: Sanjusangedo Temple, Heian Shrine, Imperial Palace, Nijo Castle, Gold Pavilion, Sukiyaki] 9AM: Heian Shrine and Gardens (photo) to Golden Pavilion to Nijo Castle (only outside, not in) to Honganji for 1,000 Buddha temple, to Ryozen Kannon (War Dead Memorial), to hotel for lunch and 1:30 to Nijo Castle (Russians in), to Damascene place and wood-block place, then to Nijo Castle, to grounds only. Katsumura silk and cloisonné and with Pouteau to Rock Garden. At 6:45 to Hamamura for sukiyaki and sake and beer and geisha girls and dance "Miner's dance, Baseball game" and photo, and to Pachinko and Hinadori. (Suit for $50 is $35; suit for $64 is $43.)
SUNDAY, 5/24/64: [Datebook entry: Japan-Hong Kong] Schedule: Nijo Castle and Kyoto National Museum and at 12:30 to Mei Sin Highway to Osaka Airport. (Wait for Cathay Pacific: miss the Nara bus at 8:28, and cab to Hotel Kyoto doesn't help and cab to Kyoto Station reveals that we'd get 9:15 train and into Nara at 9:50, but must take 10:51 train back, because 11:50 train gets in at 12:35. So for one hour in Nara we cab to Nijo Castle and creep past all students and get slippers for Mozelle and bare socks for me and we glide through the dim halls to look into the still dimmer rooms at the dimmest screen paintings from the 1500s. The nightingale floors squeak pleasantly as the kids tramp over the floors. Later Mozelle steps on creaky spot and we remark about the hoarse nightingale. Double-domed roofs [INSERTB] are pleasant, but some of the ceilings are bare).
MONDAY, 5/25/64: [Datebook entry: Hong Kong, Kowloon, and New Territories, Tai Po; I have no idea why there is no data for this day.]
TUESDAY, 5/26/64: [Datebook entry: Hong Kong Islands, Pier, Tiger Balm, Repulse Bay, Aberdeen] Rush, rush. 26th; but for my date on my Omega chronometer I wouldn't have any concept of what day it was. Typhoon due into Hong Kong this evening and we're due OUT of Hong Kong this evening. Hope we make it. I get back to Ace Tailor for a second fitting and the coat sticks out too far in back. I feel like a stupe in holey socks and underwear and a shirt frayed at neck and collar and trousers too large, unpressed, and smelling strongly from deodorant to cover up the day-old underwear smell, and here I stand criticizing the suit because it's a bit too baggy in the back of the jacket. But at 10:45 I tell them I'll be back for a second fitting to make sure they didn't take too much out of the sides of the jacket; I say I'll be back at 2PM. Everything seems last minute: Maria Lee's parents coming in from Hong Kong to have tea with us at the Golden Crown, and Mozelle and Peg and Ed eat to fullness and I get in only for last samples. Mozelle has to pick up a clearance certificate for her ivory statue, and I have a last fitting at 2; Peg has to go to Hong Kong to try to get Waterford at Lane Crawford, but they don't have any or would have to order it, and many decide they really wanted to have their picture taken in a rickshaw, and the fuss with the bill: they don't pay over $5.50, and the most common breakfast costs $6.80. Seems so impressive to use those high figures, but at $5.70 HK = $1 US, the spending is interesting. NOW I can say I bought a watch for $585 (HK). Discover my lock broken on my suitcase: someone tried to pry it open, but got the wrong direction---Pouteau looks and says I should write a statement and the insurance will pay for it without question. He tries to push it back and it breaks off. I didn't NOTICE it when opening my bag, which IMPLIES it was in the hotel---though that's strange because I never LOCKED it in the room. The Traveler lock is really a pity---they get ONE key and unlock ALL bags. After lunch at Aberdeen we drive back to vehicular ferry and have windy ride across to Kowloon. Off and up to Ace for our first fitting, and the stitched coats have no collars and if something doesn't fit, they tear it apart, and pin it back right. The cute Joseph Wong gently pins my fly when it appears I'm concerned about the small gap in front. After the fitting Mozelle and Ed and I walk down to the passenger ferry in time to miss one and catch the next, this one filled with sunny English high and grade school students, the girls in blue and white checked jumpers, the boys in white shirts and white short shorts, some showing lovely legs indeed---curly-haired limbs coming from full crotches under baby faces under knowing eyes under tousled blond hair is indeed hard to take. Mozelle has mentioned that "she knows what's wrong with me" as indeed she might. Good she didn't watch my eyes getting on and off the ferry or she would have KNOWN. Interesting how the general focus of interest changed from Japan to Hong Kong. In Japan the bell-bottom trousers with the extra tightness between knee and waist certainly drew attention to the crotch. That special area was accentuated even beneath the short suit jackets beneath which non-jockey supported cocks could be seen dangling in a pleasant wiener shape. The jacket or the ever-present shirt destroyed any interest in the upper body. However, in Hong Kong the interest moved up: many short sleeved shirts, many undershirts, and many many bare backs showing small but extremely strong and tight muscles underneath drew my eyes strongly toward the shoulders. Couple a tanned bare chest with incredibly defined midsection with a bell-bottom trouser and you couldn't pry my eyes away. Every Chinese works hard, and they have not an extra pound of flesh on them, and since they don't particularly seem to be undernourished, the muscles are pleasant though every body is slim. However, the few English on tour in general look bigger and more appealing, and the even fewer Americans seem to be sailors or ex-marines, all butch and appealing and willing at once. The two English faces at Kung Brothers while the poor fellow filed down three bands for my watch were quite remarkable for the purity of their complexions and the repose of their faces and the brightness of their eyes. After a steady diet of Chinese brown eyes, a clear blue eye seems attractive indeed. New York may have Manhattan, and San Francisco the bay and Chicago the lake, but there is no city like Kowloon, Hong Kong. The view from Victoria Peak is as difficult to comprehend as any well-publicized vista: you've seen pictures EXACTLY like that before, so it's difficult to realize you're THERE. Only the wind, blowing at eye-stinging rate from the north, brought reality. Toward the other side, the moving shadows of clouds helped also. Anyway, the ferry left us off and I wanted to walk but we grabbed a cab to the American Consulate General, only two blocks away in the Hong Kong Hilton. We waited a bit, then a large Negro walked up to Mozelle and said "You must be a Duckett." The lights were off in the room "on account of my eyes" but the bright window outlined him and reflected whitely into his eyes until he looked like a huge unfathomable black Buddha sitting impassably in the dark upper reaches of a smoky temple. My walk in the rain (typhoon) in Hong Kong may well be my last stupid act. Plane doesn't take off from Taipei, which we were to catch to go off to Bangkok, and the plane which LEFT Bangkok for Hong Kong we didn't hear the last of. Simon, our Chinese guide from New Orient Express Tours, said that we wouldn't leave the hotel until we heard some definite news of our departure. As the room boy said: "Hurricane #7, plane no take off." And a little later, the boards began to be banged into place on the front windows. Mozelle and Ed and I began to play Hearts as Peg kibitzed, but finally the announcement came that we WERE staying and had the same rooms, and that dinner was on the house. We sat around a bit as the lobby dimmed, pedestrians were swept past on the streets, and the lights were put on in the lobby. We decided to go up to 809 to continue the play, and a little later the room boy came past to put water in and looked confused at the girls' presence. We played Hearts a bit, Peg and Mozelle and I playing Memory (picking up pairs from a down-turned deck), Tong (or Tonk, as Mozelle said, plucking and spreading cards), Fan Tan, and finally Ed joined us. At 6 Louella called and suggested a movie. "Samurai in the Land of Witchery" was in Hong Kong, but no good ones were in Kowloon, and I said "I won't go, here's Ed," I handed the phone to him and he sat smiling, declining the phone, and discussed the possibilities. Finally Peg said in despair, "Don't let her HANG there, say SOMETHING to her." He finally asked her up for cards, but we continued playing as she read the paper. Since Mozelle and Peg and I had eaten at 3, we weren't hungry, but Ed and Louella were, so they decided to eat and catch us at "Samurai in the Land of Witchery" after the 7:30 show started. I said to meet Mozelle and Peg downstairs, but twenty minutes later their line was busy and they'd talked to the Washingtons, who said they positively shouldn't come over. Mozelle said she COULDN'T go, since she'd planned to stay at the Washingtons if the ferries closed down. She said she wouldn't have the nerve to go there then. They tell Louella and Ed, and again all gather in 809. Ed and Louella finally decide to go to a movie in Kowloon, and sometime before they leave, with Ed in the bathroom, the room boy comes, looks like he knows he's interrupting, and asks if we want the beds made. I and three girls say no. Later Louella and Ed come back to say that the movie was sold out, and when Louella leaves, again the fellow comes back to make beds and two guys and two girls say no. Finally at 9:30, Mozelle and Peg and I go up to the Colonnade for dinner, lasting until 11. We talked lamely, seriously, and tiredly about why we came on this trip. Back to room to find Ed ready for bed and get to bed about 11:45.
WEDNESDAY, 5/27/64: [Datebook entry: Hong Kong-Typhoon] Wake at 2AM and stare out windows and look at telephone pole lights flicking on and off as they sway in the breeze. Part of the scaffolding (none of the superstructure of the lashed bamboo poles, however) lies fallen into the street, and then tin rustles and rumbles in the wind. A few people scud past, and the sound of hammering is heard around the small corner shop in the Peninsula Hotel. The saucer top of the traffic stand in the intersection of Nathan and Peninsula has been removed. It appears that a part of scaffolding may have fallen on a row of cars, but a morning look shows that's not so. No lights wave on the water, the light arrows are steady and emotionless, and only the crackle of rain on the window and the strong blow of gusts touch our room. Bed again and up at 7AM, then asleep and up at 9:45AM. Breakfast ends at 10:30AM, so I rush into bathroom to shower and Ed creeps along and we get up at 10:15AM. Service is lousy, slow and curt, and they have to be reminded about my cornflakes. Phone Mozelle and Peg and they've just gotten up at 11AM, so I dress in old underwear and shorts and shirt and raincoat and shower clogs and take off into the rain at 11:15AM. Walk up Nathan to the street leading to the Vehicular Ferry. Nathan itself is wet and filled with leaves. A huge branch lays under a tree in front of the Presidential Hotel. Most of the shops outside of arcades are closed, but a few have people looking out between metal protecting doors over "closed" signs. More than a few people in the streets, and they look at me with amusement. Signs are down all along the way, and cardboard movie signs are completely town apart and scattered along the street. A few stanchions are overturned and litter baskets lie on their sides. Many green leaves lie in heaps around sewer openings, and many are blocked as waters run deep in streets. Things are messier looking down the narrow side streets, with overturned bicycles and muddy litter all over. Many metal strips hang down and I can't decide if they're broken or have been there before. At one point a construction site looks like a swimming pool, and the temporary walkway lies in splinters in one section. The streets are quiet except for the noise of water and wind. Turn down the street to the ferry and many shops here are open and people are trying to lead a normal life. Theater marquees are crowded with people waiting to get in. Some kids are playing in the water, but mostly people huddle in raincoats or crouch under umbrellas. Into section of open markets and the owners sit miserable within range of the rain in soaked clothing and wring clothes out and try to keep the moisture level down. People usually look and laugh as I pass by in plastic accordion rain hat, but they know I'm keeping as dry as I can. Busses run in and out of the ferry parking area, but no ferries are running. I walk out toward the sea and one of my toe thongs pulls through the sole. I push it back and walk out on jetty to watch muddy water surging up and down two or three feet without really breaking. Beyond the muddy part, about fifty yards, the water turns into a light green, whitened by the rain. Far out in the green pastel, boats rock, half-hidden by filmy curtains of rain. Very strong gusts of wind whip up my coat, tearing at the rain hat that stays put. The toe thong pulls out again and I have trouble balancing on one foot with the wind pushing me toward the water. I visualize the waves tearing the foundation of the jetty out and the whole thing collapsing into the water. Swimming in the pea soup is probably more difficult than it would look, and I'd have to get out of the raincoat fast. Thong pulls out again and I find a piece of rope that I wrap around the thong after pushing it through the enlarged hole. That works fine until five minutes later the OTHER toe thong pulls out. Moving away from the pier now and pass people sleeping in cars and trucks, waiting for the ferry to Central District or Wanshai to begin running. Little old men stand huddled on the corner under large umbrellas. People pass with half-down umbrellas to protect them from sudden gusts of wind. Pass sections of wall from which posters have been ripped by the riveting rain. Blast and blast, gust and gust, and each time I bend to fix a toe thong, my coat unsnaps at the bottom and the front of my shorts are wet. Two empty cabs pass, and only then do I think of taking a cab back. Have $5 US in my pocket. From that time on, of course, no cabs pass. Find another length of heavy string and tear it in two, wrap one around the other thong, and the FIRST one pulls out. Wrap other piece around THAT. Getting disgusted. The tenements on the sides of the streets give out sounds of children screaming and playing, maybe the storm is easing up and kids can enjoy the rain. Get into the commercial section of Canton Road and kids play in bare feet, and their legs are speckled with mud. People laugh as I pass, but I smile back. Of COURSE, I'm a nut. About this time one toe thong breaks through to the front of the sandal. Look around desperately for a cab. I'm getting wet, the possibility of a chill is there, and the thought of walking barefoot on the cruddy sidewalks is appalling. Only the very young kids, and not ALL of them, are barefoot. Pass groups of young blades, and the single smiling American word "wonderful" floats out. I'm now at Nathan, having walked along the southern border of the British Army reservation, from which water pours in cataracts. Jam the toe thong farther and farther into the sole of my shoe. My feet are hurting where the thong cuts across, and my toes are sore from jamming them into the straps. My sole and heel ache from the odd pressure of the thong in back, and from tiny stones that eat into the bottom of my foot. Finally a chunk comes off the sandal and I take it off in disgust. Two steps later the other breaks and I take both off and grimly come to Nathan. About to hail a cab but find I'm at Kung Brothers, hardly worth it. Cross street to almost catcalls and at one storefront the corner of my eyes catches a mocking Chinese snapping to attention. If they've never done anything as silly, they've missed something. Sidewalks are slimy and I picture myself stepping on broken glass and dying of tetanus. Finally, disgusted with the last half of the walk, everyone in the world pointing and laughing, I reach the awning outside the Ambassador. The plastic rain hat won't untie and I take it off still knotted. Crumple it, my glasses cruddy from continual wiping to rub off excess moisture, my hands gritty from the ropes and the sandals, completely wet, even the front quarter of my hair, I stride barefoot into the Arcade and almost slip and fall on the smooth stone floor. Pass the door and double back, skip into the elevator lobby, and duck into an open car. Elevator boy smiles and an Englishman, dripping sarcasm, asks, "Wet outside?" I smile and refrain from shaking myself like a wet terrier. Up to 8 and into room. Clothes off and wash feet in cold water with soap in tub. Rub them with alcohol and then, after five minutes, feel a pain in my left sole. Look and find I'd stepped on something and it's bleeding slightly (in room? on filthy street?). Pour on peroxide and hope my inoculations work. Wet stuff off and I begin to write this. Ed goes out for haircut and Peg and I have lunch, which is filling since we've done nothing. Afterward I get down to a luxury haircut and shampoo for $7 HK. She really dug in with her fingernails and he really dried it completely and neatly. Give $2 US and get back $3.20 HK, of which I tip them $1.20 HK, leaving me $2HK or 354. A haircut and shampoo for $1.65 PLUS tip is great. Back up to room for cards at 4, but Mozelle and Peg not in room, so write this until 5. Now I'll write cards. Wrote four or five and read a few short stories, and Mozelle and Peg are STILL not there. At 7:30PM call and arrange for dinner, which we eat and finish and to Mozelle's room (510) for cards. Get a note to put luggage out at 12, and this starts a heated phone conversation between Ed and René at 12:15AM.
THURSDAY, 5/28/64: [Datebook entry: Bangkok-Royal Palace, Emerald Buddha, Thai Dancing] Pack and bed at 1. Sleep very well, but up at 6:40AM and phone rings at 6:45. New York Fair Pavilion is a replica of the Phra Buddha Badh Shrine at Saraburi Province. In at 1PM and onto bus IMMEDIATELY for tours. Combination of ant, spider and fly in MARBLE temple. Heads of snake Naga (symbol of protection) at top, and finial is tail of snake.
[INSERTC] Indian stupa Thai stupa Cambodian stupa
First immediate impression of Thailand is extremely good. Fields are green and water-filled and temples are absolutely beautiful. The sackbut-like horn of Thailand sounds WONDERFULLY like Japanese violins of Bugaku. (The "inside out" striving of Thailand is odd, the accentuated backwardness of the hands and false fingernails in their classical dance, and the not unbeautiful inward bend of the elephant carver's arms (in teak), large biceps depending from broad coffee shoulders, but small forearms, almost touching in front of his body as he leaned on them. To the lower torso of the Japanese, to which has been added the upper torso of the Chinese, you may now add the smiling, bronzed, evenly toothed face of the Thai. Unusually clear-skinned, relatively hairless looking, and cheerful and kindly, then add the eyes of only a very few Indians, when the kohl-coloring around the lashes look not so much like Italianate makeup as a heavy in a gangster movie, but seduction eyeliner for a progressively male-oriented audience. The eyes look monstrously large, and the black depths contain white sparks of contrasting fire. But only a very few Indians have the right darkness to be called attractive---probably a higher percentage of Americans have the desired degree of exoticness. Bugs in great evidence: flying ant-spiders at marble temples, trail of red ants up walls at the Golden Buddha, huge cockroach in Rama Hotel front entrance, two newts on Erewan wall and one next to 7th floor elevator in hall. Where and what next?
FRIDAY, 5/29/64: [Datebook entry: Bangkok: Klong tour, Temple of Dawn, Dinner at Erawan]
SATURDAY, 5/30/64: [Datebook entry: Bangkok-Calcutta] Ring at 6AM after bed at 11:30PM and up a bit woozy myself (woke dimly at 5:30AM and went back to sleep), call Mozelle and she had fallen asleep. Breakfast with fishy ham at coffee shop counter. Last sign before leaving Thailand: Rose for sale; Skin and Breasts renovated. India's entry procedures almost as absurd as US's. Finish filling out the disembarkation (or is it embarkation?) form for Thailand when we get an embarkation (or is it disembarkation?) form for India. This one asks for visa number and date, necessitating my getting up into my coat on the rack to pull out the passport and search for the page with the India visa. The stamp is so dim I can barely make out the number. This is the amount of ordinary fuss (and of course I write down Calcutta when I should have written down Bangkok) for other countries, and HERE there is another sheet for HEALTH purposes (this to the unhealthiest country in the world) which requires, among other things, your whereabouts for the past nine nights (I KNEW Bangkok, guessed about Hong Kong, and put "Japan" for the rest) and number of days in the country (I put down four, one in Calcutta, one in Agra, two in Delhi, and Pouteau announces we should put down five---I leave it four). This goes with the entry form and the short form into the visa page of the passport next to the plane ticket. On landing, and stepping over the puddles in the entry gate, we get to the gems of the Indian entry system. Sit down while an undeniably furtive Indian shakes Pouteau's hand nervously and urges everyone to sit down (before the procedure KNOCKS them down). And all this is after they fumigate the plane---one man walking through (greasy and sweaty and probably lousy) spraying India Air-Wick up and back. They pass out a currency form asking for "Name of Currency and Amount" (in figures and in words) for (a) currency, and (b) Travelers Checks. I have twenty singles and twelve $10 travelers checks, but neglect the souvenirs. After the "Stamp and Signature of Customs Officer" has been affixed (without date), I add in "Currency" field "Assorted pretty paper and coins as souvenirs from Japan, Hong Kong, Thailand. 527-1/2 pieces." AND I'll insist it was THERE when the "Custom's Officer" signed AND will duplicate that phrase on the "Currency and Travelers Cheques taken out on departure from India" page. AND when I have NO troubles "Cheques cashed in India," with "Date, amount cashed (Please state currency), and Stamp and Signature of bank/money changer." I intend to write ---"didn't and WON'T cash any as long as I must submit to such childish accounting schemes." THEN Pouteau announces "You also have to report any cameras you have over one, any movie cameras, tape recorders (I wouldn't have listed my binoculars had he ASKED for them, and wished I had my tape recorder, so I could say I didn't know make, model, speed, weight, country of origin, date of purchase, cost, or ANYTHING about it and had it locked in my suitcase.) When Pouteau asked if I had a camera I said NO as snappishly as I could. Then all the forms were filled out and all the form takers were pacified and had left, and the people with two cameras had signed something, still we waited in the hot waiting room, four ceiling fans spinning, and many of the souvenir fans from the plane being used briskly, undoubtedly generating more heat than they dissipated), and every so often the immense vacuum cleaner express train sound of jets sucked past outside and landed other poor saps in this land of junk, or lifted befuddled passengers off. Then Pouteau came in (triumphantly, of course, how else) announcing, "Passports" and passed them out by calling out the names and walking them to their owners. The sole bulb hung unlit in the center (when was it the SOLE means of light?) while four fluorescent fixtures "bathed" the waiters. India characterized by an off-burnt smell, like a campfire extinguished by a shower. Long white flowers arranged pussy-willow-like on a stalk smell very sweet. Sign demanding: Stick no bills. Traffic cops with built-in sun umbrellas.
SUNDAY, 5/31/64: [Datebook entry: Calcutta, Banares, Agra, Agra Fort, Taj] The morning tour (9 to 11AM) around Calcutta is very good. The only long stop is at the Jain Temple---mossy decorative statues and glass mosaics and soapy images with diamonds in their foreheads in the enclosure to NO god. See a little girl, back to road, depositing butter-yellow stools into the gutter. Learn that India to the Indians is "Bharat," that the "caste" marks on the forehead are for decoration; that the mark in the part of the hair of women indicate they are married, while the women in white are widows. All houses are occupied by one family, married couples moving into the son's house; that the firm CASTE of untouchable is gone, but "if a person sits down next to you smeared with nightsoil, you'll move;" that India will build roads around any temples, refusing to tear them down, so traffic careens around impromptu traffic islands; that cows aren't sacred, but are only respected because they give milk and more cows; and so stories of their goodness grew up to protect them from slaughter. Mohammadans are mostly vegetarians. The largest Cantilever Bridge is built across the Hoogley (Ganges) and the port is the biggest in India, with MANY ships lined up along the narrow canals---you wonder how they get in and out. Moslem women roam the street in strict purdah, and many young men are seen arm in arm, hand in hand, or arm around shoulders---looks nice. You wonder how much the sweating guide says is true, and how much is "For Tourist Ears Only." Room boys are "Room Bearers" and handle the water containers (containing water of lousy taste, containing many salts, among them magnesium), with great disdain for cleanliness. Little things mean so much, like the outside switch for the light in the bathroom, but the inside switch for the fan. The bedroom is weird, divided by an awninged bamboo screen into a sitting section and a bed section, with independent light switches in each and a fluorescent fixture under the awning. Turning the cold water faucet in the sink three revolutions causes a small trickle, and a moment later you hear the gurgle as it leaves the open pipe end from the sink into the open drain---the same drain that empties the shower and bath water. The light switches are more direct than the odd room in Rama Hotel in Bangkok: the hall light turned on by pressing the top of a 2" x 4" plate set into the wall; it was also controlled---it would shut it OFF, but not turn it ON if the other was OFF---by another switch inside the room, four feet away. The standing lamp was controlled by a step-on switch on the floor, but an identical pushdown switch on the telephone table between the beds only rang the room boy. I ran to the door to shut off the light by the switch there. The bathroom light was controlled by another plate, and the toilet was flushed by pushing back on the seat cover. However the spring arrangement was so weak that you had to pull it back or else it would flush itself to death. Here also was the first place that had only 220 volts. In the morning everyone compared the sizes of the bugs they'd seen during the night. The only one we saw was in the morning, packing, when Ed said, "Look at that!" and an inch and a half of roach scuttled under the clothes cabinet. I was glad we were leaving. Breakfast was good, an omelet of fine herbs being quite good, but the lunch was entirely questionable, from the one rupee swig of lukewarm pineapple juice, deliciously delicately flavored, with an icecube, to the one rupee for iced tea, thirst quenching, to macaroni and cream sauce, good, to cold cabbage, interesting, to mangled cream corn, gray yellow, fantastically husky and poor. We were ignored by the dessert carrier. Breakfast was distinguished by orange juice decidedly canned, corn flakes spooned into the bowl from a silver tureen with a silver spoon, to sugar crystals in a bowl with a spoon the size of rock salt crystals (the sugar crystals, not the spoon), to a vegetable patty that was tasty, to hot tea that everyone said was lousy, but that I didn't mind. Later there was a snack on the plane that Mozelle didn't eat much of---cold dry roast chicken piece, moldy French fries, cooked cold salad, all tossed into cellophane bags without silverware, but with salt (with pepper mixed in) in a wax paper envelope. I drank the orange juice Mozelle refused when I didn't get mine, and it tasted like watery Kool Aid, and she marveled that I gulped it down. The plane landed at Benares, after following the Ganges as it twisted through the subcontinent from Calcutta. Farmland only greeted the rapidly descending plane, and we figured to quickly take off again. However the stewardess (Calcutta-Benares: 1:45-3:25) came through and recommended we get out. We said nothing, and the stewardess insisted that they would be a while cleaning out the front section, and that the smell might be pretty bad. Twenty or thirty minutes, she said. So we got up and walked toward the exit as Anna Marsh said, "Oh, I'll stay in the plane" as she reentered the door from the landing ramp. Mozelle and I walked out and were greeted by an absolute oven-blast of extremely hot wind. We walked down the step and heat reflected off the plane, from the wings, from the steps, from the ground, from the air, from the sky. Though shadows were seven or eight feet long, the heat absolutely burned every bit of skin it touched. Into the building, and I wondered about the straw mats spread along the facade and guarding the door. Into the small room and two Indians tried to steer me into the bar for a drink or beer, but I sightsaw and walked onto the verandah. A cool breeze, interspersed with furnace blasts, filtered along the corridor and the poor workmen outside continually wet ALL the screening with a hose, and the phenomenal evaporation lowered the temperature 30E. Wrote this and got back up to go outside. Benares to Lucknow from 3:47 to 4:37, and again out to the airport---these cities seem far from their airports, or else blend into the general pattern of tree, land, farmland, and river. Onto plane at 5:10 and take off for Agra, finally. Taj Mahal on right from plane Lucknow-Agra. Calvin Martin, in Sociology, University of California. Written at 8:10, the first, waiting for private cars to replace busses on the morning tour to the Taj. Supper last night was trying. The curried mutton was good, not too strong, and the chutney was excellently tasty, but Kerala, an okra-like vegetable, was monstrously sour. Khas marked the PRIVATE palace, had carpets on marble walks, hangings and awnings of silver and gold thread, and Shis Mahal, hall of mirrors, camphor candles behind waterfall over marble to sunken bath---marble floor hollow to circulate cold water for air conditioning. All convex mirrors for many images. Pool, with 32 fountains filled with rose water, later added five jets in center, only Mumtaz Mahal would use as bath. Jasmine tower, marble flowers, Shah Jahan "interred" not to mix with people---view of Taj Mahal. Grapes and choice meats---he had the Epicurean philosophy---eat, drink and be merry---as Omar's "jug of wine, loaf of bread, and thou beside me." Into inner court and straw on floor and birds fly past in the dusty gloom, and the rooms move onward and inward through doors low and halls narrow, into dusty dead-ends and out again, through labyrinths of Moorish plaster. Long narrow bricks on high walls passing from gate to inner court remind much of Frank Lloyd Wright. Layers of plaster rock chipped away, and marble flowers are dug out of their sockets. Indian-British half-caste in restaurant was a real beauty---English features with an Indian fawn-look to his eyes. Brown American duck hair over the Indian fawning politeness. How beautiful some combinations are---Chinese Hawaiian girls with exotic looks, Negro-white mixtures with chocolate or mocha skins. What romance! The Thai-Italian-looking combination that stared at me at the airport, and the Indian-something combination who questioned my looking into the cafeteria in Lucknow. For lunch, "lady fingers" taste like waxy or gummy okras, but the fresh fruit for dessert, namely mango---a green fruit with an orange inside which is fibrous when the skin is pulled away but when pressed it compacts and almost deliquesces to an orange nectar---the taste is very sweet and luxurious, a cross between the texture of an avocado and a peach. And lytchee nuts, NOT dried---tasting only slightly sweet, but very liquid: removing the strawberry-like dry outer husk reveals the mucous-looking pearly white meat. Picking this away from the hard brown central nut (inedible) leaves a slightly harder membrane which covered the nut, but the whole melts into a voluptuous dew in the mouth. The iced tea is delicious and easy to sweeten with a silver pitcher of sugar syrup to pour into it, and lime wedges, beautifully cut [INSERTD], too sour to taste.
MONDAY, 6/1/64: [Datebook entry: Agra-New Delhi] The interior of India from Agra to Fathepur Sikri is straight out of Egypt---the few camels are impression-strengthening. Dung heaps of patted, molded patties. One got quickly used to the sight of people defecating in the street, urinating against a wall, and once I saw a thin woman leaning in a doorway with a thin dribble of spit coming from her mouth, either an aftermath or a foretaste---I didn't look at the ground to see which.
TUESDAY, 6/2/64: [Datebook entry: New Delhi: Jantar Mantar, Humayun's Tomb, Kutah Minar, Red Ford, Jama Mashid, Raj Ghat, Chandi Chank] The cattle lay around the ground, and we toured the Birla Temple (new Hindu one); Rajghat---Gandhi's grave---place where he was cremated; Shantighat---Nehru's place (Peace). Entry to Peacock Throne Room: "If Paradise be on the face of the earth/ it is this, it is this, it is this." Jama Masjid Mosque---King Shah Jahan---I had to put robe on. To giant icon, looking through two cokes, and Taj rug. Nehru's place, women weeping, guide's voice choked, gardener giving one red rose every morning, took one to ghat and cried: "Panditji, here is your rose." PM---Qutub Minar---and 400 AD iron pillar. Ashoka Petla and Ferozshah Kotla. Humayum's Tomb and Safdayung's Tomb.
Jantar Mantar and American Embassy.
"Watches, Fountain Pens, and Goggles"
"Prithir Raj and Co: Financers, Bankers, Booksellers and Cigarette Dealers."
For the first time I heard what must have been bats. It was 12:10AM on 3rd, and I had just gotten off a cab from Toby Wagle's, and was quite heady from Indian gin and lime. Sat to read---and wait for Ed before collapsing into bed. "Welcome to India" by Chester Bowles, printed by the Embassy of the USA in Delhi, and with a prophetic prefatory quote by Nehru: "I was again on a great voyage of discovery and the land of India and the people of India spread out before me." And he is certainly NOW, dead a week, on another great voyage into the last discoveries. Outside the window came the distant sound of steel measuring tape, extended too far, twanging back and forth from too high. The sound had precisely that springy echoing quality. Went to the window to see, only very dimly, the dark batshapes darting to and fro. Bats. The party had been pleasant and precisely New York. Popcorn and peanuts made to nibble on, Chinese food (in New Delhi!) and brandy at the end---which I begged off by showing my newly iced gin. People included Gupta, the gas station owner from across the street, very dark, knowing little English, but very intent; the Baigs, Indu sitting cute and saried in her chair talking of the goodness of India, her husband finishing a hair-raising tale of two British Vampires exploding in air and banking into hangers filled with people---parachute came down lifeless and "We thought he was still alive and packed him off in an ambulance but he was dead;" Mannee Mann, obviously single feminist type, saying yes it was a SHOCK that Nehru died, but the BETTER people DISLIKED him for the first three years, and only the peasants cried. She worked a little textile shop and wrote profiles for "Femina" on the side. The little glassed quiet girl (never heard her speak) was referred to as "the Child" by Mannee, and she looked 15; Jack Crawford's wife was in Karachi with Gupta's, but he talked on about his job at the Library of Congress. Cathy was definitely an American: she was too loud and every other phrase was either, "Oh God," or "I'm talking more INDIAN than you." HER husband raved on about the beauties of the Katmandu Valley in Nepal. Philippine emissary talked quietly about his two years here while Mrs. Concepcion sat quietly in black. Paul was a tall well-built Indian, and I could hardly take my eyes off him. A few single girls, Americans, added to the polite conversation, but not much. Vasant rushed around making sure drinks were filled and Toby sat around in a white blouse and long skirt while two servants did the dirty work.
WEDNESDAY, 6/3/64: [Datebook entry: New Delhi-Karachi, Karachi-Cairo, turn back for new flight] The morning of the third is very leisurely. Wake at 7:30 and doze and get up at 10 and out at 10:15 for breakfast. Pouteau joins me and finally Mozelle and Toby. Up at 11:00 to pack and write postcards and again get awfully irked at having to go through immense paperwork to cash $1 for 4.65 rupees. I was fearful through all flights on India Airlines---an airlines without competition may be worse from the maintenance or pilot's qualifications aspect than an international line. Also the Indian's innate inferiority complex led me to believe that the pilots might be incompetent or that the needed repairs to the plane might not be made. However, in all fairness, the final landing in Karachi was flawless, and probably the flight out on Lufthansa will (and here I leave it blank---mine prophetic soul!) Yakeni Soup, Chicken Tikka, yogurt with Cardamum, Chicken Biriani (rice), Shish Kebab (Roast Lamb) and Firni (rice and milk, and silver on top). Dinner in Karachi. Karachi tour---figures flying: director of tour wants $16 per head. Pouteau "agrees" and gets them down to $10, which he wants to collect. Our tour guide mumbles something about an International Agreement for $10 for a tour, but later he says the tour should cost $8. THEN he says if we'd HIRED a cab and done what we did, the meter would be 60 rupees (when we got to the Mausoleum for the "George Washington of Pakistan." The meter read 32 rupees, far beyond the halfway mark in the trip) or $16 again, $8 apiece for TWO in a cab, let alone 3. Off at 11 on a two hour fifteen minute flight to Dharan in Saudi Arabia.
THURSDAY, 6/4/64: [Datebook entry: Cairo, sick] About 45 minutes out, the plane sinks and makes turns to the left without compensating turns to the right. Mozelle and I look at each other and say "What is that pilot doing with the plane?" Snack is served and plane continues to bank and turn, always to the left, and finally the announcement, in German, comes over the loudspeaker. Ray Beer senses the announcement and asks what it is. I wish I knew. After seeming ages the English announcement: "We have lost one engine and are returning to Karachi. We will land in 20 minutes." Mozelle and I lay back in our seats and wait, and Ray chatters on about the turning and keeps asking questions to which no one knows the answers. Bobbing and weaving, and after 10 minutes there's a tearing sound along the bottom and a shuddering vibration. We look at each other and hope harder. Anna Marsh prattles on about "losing one engine is bad, how many do we have? What happens if two engines on one side go? We can't fly then, can we?" Lights appear below and plane still wobbles, vibrating from side to side. Nothing to do but lean back and wait. No Smoking sign comes on. Lights come up and Anna says "We're gonna hit the runway now." Smooth landing. Mozelle and I look at each other and smile broadly. What a relief. Now 12:20AM. Off the Lufthansa flight and back to the waiting room. At 1AM a KLM flight is announced and at 1:45AM we take off again. I can't sleep and develop a crying need for Paregoric. At 4:30AM Cairo time (2 hours past Karachi), the plane stops rolling at the airport. (Next page: verbatim)
SYMPTOMS: hot, dry skin; diarrhea; nausea, lack of sleep; went at 12, 4, 6:30, 7, 11.
1. Should I FORCE myself to eat? No
2. Air conditioning too high or low? OK
3. Anything for sleep? OK (didn't get anything)
4. Taking Paregoric, start taking others? (NO Paregoric, two others given)
5. Water nauseates, drink lots? Yes
6. Separate Ed and I? No
7. How long will it last? One day (amazement on my part---but it was TRUE)
8. When can I go on next tour? Tomorrow (I did)
9. Dress differently? No (I was nekkid)
10. Can I take aspirin for headache? Yes