Monday, May 20: Homeward Bound

Sunday night's adventure at the Chinese restaurant, The Mainland China, was not without its moments. We were ordering appetizers and I asked for fried wontons. One of the Tennessee Eight asked what a wonton was.

"Think of a little leather pouch with a draw string in which you stash your dope," I said. "It's just like that except it is made of dough, it doesn't have a draw string and, in this case, it is filled with minced chicken instead of marijuana."

This was as accurate - and as unhelpful - a description as I could think of.

Another wanted sweet and sour chicken which was not on the menu. He asked the waiter if it could be prepared for him anyway and was assured it could.

We ordered a variety of dishes which were served in the traditional manner, the waiters giving a bit to each person. One the Eight started to object, but realized there was going to be more than enough food for all so he stopped in mid-phoneme.

When the guy who had ordered the sweet and sour chicken bit into his he leaned over to me and said that at the Chinese restaurant at home they make it with breaded chicken, but they didn't make it that way here.

I said that using Chicken Rondolets was the way the probably do it in China, too, but these guys, obviously, were using some local recipe.

No one ordered the prawngs so we didn't have to go through that again.

Dinner over, one of Dr. Paul's guys picked us up at the appointed time and place and we retreated to the hotel for our last night in Hyderabad.

At 5:30 am …

DANGER WILL ROBINSON!     DANGER WILL ROBINSON!

There is no gentle way to describe this, but I got up to use the bathroom and all was not well. All was not well, a lot.

Dammit. Dammit. Dammit. Dammit. Dammit. Dammit. Dammit. Dammit. Dammit.

After everything I had done. After all the precautions I had taken. After watching the Tennessee Eight eat pieces of mango at Charity Village with hands which had been touching everything for the previous 60 kilometers. After keeping my mouth closed in the shower lest a single drop of water, laden with microscopic Mark Spitzs, work its way through my defenses. After using bottled water to rinse my toothbrush and shaving with cold bottled water lest a single drop of water, laden with microscopic Johnny Weissmullers, work its way into a nick. After using an entire box of antiseptic individually wrapped (for professional use only - not for retail sale) hand wipes which I had stolen fair and square from the bathroom of the clinic following the last of the $350 worth of shots.

This.

Mahatma's Revenge.

Mommmmmeeeeeeeee!

All right. I'm like an astronaut. I've trained for this. I've prepared for this.

I start humming the theme from Indian Jones.

First thing, I dig out the Cipro. Ciprofloxacin HCL. What's HCL. Hydrochloric l-acid? 500 milligrams. These are white, oblong pills, the approximate size of a pillow. You take one of these every twelve hours.

The Saturday doctor (the one we liked) told me to start taking them at the first sign of trouble.

I feel like the Tennessee Eight: I have seen the sign.

I take little baby steps to my suitcase which doubles as my medicine cabinet. In addition to the regular stay-alive-after-bypass-surgery things I take, I have the anti-malaria medicine, some extra vitamins to boost the immune system (All natural! All safe!), Tylenol (in case of aches and pains), the Off! (100% DEETS), and the soon-to-be-exhausted supply of antiseptic individually wrapped hand wipes (from you-know where).

I get the bottle of Cipro pills, tip-tip-tip over to the mini bar to grab an unopened bottle of mineral water, and make my way back to the bathroom.

I lean on the sink, with shaking hands, open the baby proof top of the bottle of Cipro pills. I remember that I need to antisept my hands and baby-step my way over to the suitcase, grab an individually wrapped hand wipe and wonder why I have my underwear around my ankles. This is not helpful.

I pull everything into its normal, non-emergency position and do the hand wipe routine, take a Cipro, slug it down with mineral water (I wonder if they fill these things in the basement of the hotel?) and go back to my suitcase and get out the one, the only … Imodium AD (large, jumbo, extra-strength, valu-pak size). "Take two tablets after first signs of distress. One tablet if symptoms persist. Do not take more than four tables in any 24 hour period.)

If symptoms persist? What persist? I have taken the Strategic Air Command of medications for these symptoms.

I crawl back into bed, drain about half the bottle of mineral water to avoid dehydration, and turn on the television. There is a program about insects in the Amazon jungle on the National Geographic Channel.

Just what I needed.

I fall back asleep until about nine.

At 9:00:13 I race back to the bathroom, but it is a false alarm.

I look at the schedule, we are leaving at 4:45 this afternoon. I resolve I will not die of hunger if I don't eat anything more from Hyderabad and get up to send Mullings.

If it is nine in the morning in India, it is 11:30 the night before on the East coast of the U.S. of A. There is no emergency in getting the column fed, but as long as I'm up and as long as I am not going to eat and I am not going shopping there to expose myself to (a) more dangerous microbes, and (b) the horror of being more than seven feet from a bathroom) I decide to finish up and send the column.

I have described the difficulties involved in using the business center's computer to connect to the internet. The first time I tried to send the column it took about four hours. I have refined the technique and have written everything on my laptop, formatted the e-mail version, the web page version, the shortened Secret Decoder Ring page, and the Currying Favor chapter due that day.

I decide to unplug the fax machine in my room and use that line to dial back to the US and get this done.

There is a very neat service called "GoToMyPC.com" which allows you, for a fee, to dial into the internet from anywhere and take control of the computer in your office or, as in my case, at Mullings Central.

It is slow, but it would take many hours (days, probably from India) to send the 21,000 e-mails from a slow dial-up connection in India, but using GoToMyPC I can download the file to my home computer tell it to send the e-mails from there, and hang up the phone.

This all worked perfectly except, as you know, I forgot to tell the software to change the file it sent from:

Mullings_05-18.txt

To

Mullings_05-21.txt

Hence 21,000 people got Friday's column on Monday.

Happily, I didn't know this until Tuesday evening.

By the time I finished all this it was about 10:30 am and the Tennessee Eight was leaving for a shopping trip to purchase souvenirs. I wish I were not dying of a dread disease because I would have been able to get a good 2,000 words out of this trip, but I go down to the lobby to wave goodbye.

Two others are suffering discomfort (am I being good about this, or what?) The Mullings Director of Standards & Practices gave specific orders that a certain word - which we used to say was "air raid" spelled backwards but is really "aehr raid" spelled backwards - was not to be used) and I tell them that I didn't want to make them more nervous than they already were, but almost no American comes back from a trip to India without having caught SOMEthing.

They leave and I decide to go back to my room and see what other uplifting programs are being offered on the National Geographic Channel.

At about 2:00 I start to pack. I am a good packer. I use the never-go-back rule. Once I have gotten everything out of one part of the room, the closet or the bathroom, I never go back there. I call it "clearing" that section.

I am very military about it.

I clear the bathroom (although I officially give myself permission to return to the bathroom for one reason and one reason only -- "One ping, and one ping only, Vasily". I say this aloud. I am Captain Ramius in "The Hunt for Red October."

I clear the closets.

I clear the desk with the fax machine on it.

I clear the drawers under the TV.

I clear, finally, the table with all my electronic gizmology and re-pack it in my brief case.

It is now 2:45 and we are schedule to leave from the lobby at three.

I am ready. I am clear.

Wait! I AM clear. I have not had a persistence of symptoms!

I am so happy I begin dancing around the room:

Yut'da yut'da yut'da; Da-yut'da yut'da yut. Hey!

Yut'da yut'da yut'da; Da-yut'da yut'da yut. Hey!

I have BECOME Captain Ramius!

I take one last look around the room and head downstairs to await the Tennessee Eight's return.

Sure enough, when it's time to leave Dr. Paul announces he wants everyone to go to his offices in Hyderabad for a prayer meeting.

I go to the front door and pray for a taxi to the airport.

"We will stay only two minutes," one of Dr. Paul's people says to me.

"Fine. Don't rush on my account. I'll be at the airport."

I am leave the way I came. Arguing to be permitted to get in a cab.

= = =

All flights from the Middle East and the Indian Subcontinent heading for Europe leave between 11:30 pm and 2:00 am. This is so they can get to Europe by between seven and nine in the morning and connect with flights to the US which will leave between nine and noon so THEY will arrive in the US at major hubs by mid to late afternoon so people can then get to their final destinations that night.

Am I going too fast for you?

Hotels in the major outbound cities have long-since adjusted to situations like ours: Flights from the outland get in at six in the evening and passengers have no place to go for maybe six hours. So you can often rent a room for four hours to nap, shower, shave or, as in my case, do my regular Monday phone interview with the guys at KSFO in San Francisco.

Another issue in making calls from around the world, is this: There is a delay between the time you say something and the time the other person answers. It has to do with bouncing signals off satellites, across ground stations, around corners, down alleys (I just had a panic attack. I didn't know how to spell the plural of alley without it coming out allies, but I'm all right now.) and into your phone.

In normal conversation this is irritating. It makes for dreadful radio. Either each side is talking over the other, or there are long, long silences while each waits for the other to say something.

At any rate the folks in San Francisco - Lee Rodgers, Melanie Morgan and Officer Vic (whom I started the program by saying needed to come to Bombay to teach the locals how to do traffic reports but he would last about two seconds before he ran out screaming something about being glad he had saved all his Nehru jackets - this is why I'm a hit in 'Frisco) - are good sports and we get through about 20 minutes of the half hour before Lee finally says that we'll talk in a couple of weeks.

I get to the airport and am the first one in the Business Elite line for check in. A cute young couple - obviously Americans - pull up next to me in the coach class line. Americans. Please. PLEASE don't be missionaries.

They have two baggage carts loaded about five feet high each with duffle bags.

"How long have you been here?" I ask them.

They have been in India for four months. He is an anthropologist doing research into asthma (?) and she is a journalist. They are engaged. A fact which they had to hide from the nuns at the research station where they were living.

"How long have YOU been here, Lolly, the young woman asks."

"Four months, too. I got here last Thusday."

The Tennessee Eight are on a KLM/Northwest flight to Amsterdam. Dr. Paul and I are on a Delta flight to Frankfurt.

I make one last pass to the Tennessee Eight. Apologize to the four or six of them I have yelled at for trying to convert me. Wish them "good yuntif" and leave for the business class lounge as I am flying in Business Elite.

The reality is: These are good men, doing God's work in the way they have been called to do it. I was glad to have been able to spend some time with them.

Dr. Paul, as we now know, believes getting on an airplane any more than 30 seconds before they close the cabin door is an affront.

I like to get on the plane the second they start boarding so I can get settled. Unpack my personal headphones. Get the book out that I am reading (Warlock by Wilbur Smith). Make sure I have the correct CD loaded in the drive of my PC so I don't have to go rooting around during the flight. All the things that the captain of a Russian nuclear submarine would do.

I am humming the theme song from "The High and the Mighty."

The flight from Mumbai (not Mombai as I have been typing for the last two weeks) to Franfurt is uneventful. If you don't count the fact that I can't find the tip of the power adapter which allows you to plug in your laptop to the outlet in the seat which I bought at CompUSA for $120 for exactly this purpose and is now useless.

I empty my briefcase, but it is not there. I cannot watch any of the DVD movies I bought because the compute will only run a movie on battery power for about 40 minutes.

I decide the tip must have fallen off while the adapter was on the table in my room and, when packing everything up, I didn't check each piece of equipment to make certain I had all its parts.

"You fool. You've just killed US!" Also from "The Hunt for Red October."

I read, sleep, decline the evening meal (I am still fasting to let the drugs to their thing) but I DO take another dose of Cipro (and vow to do that every day for the rest of my life) with a glass of red wine.

One of the things about the red wine available at the hotel was this. First, it irritated the Tennessee Eight. I didn't want to get into a theological discussion at any level so I didn't enquire as to their resistance to alcohol. Second, it had the color of Marichino cherry juice.

When I ordered red wine at The Mainland China I thought it might be the more usual color, but it was the same bright red.

Now that I think of it. I don't think I EVER had Mahatma's revenge. I think it was probably the sweet and sour chicken from The Mainland China. I KNEW they should have used Chicken Rondolets.

This red wine was a familiar color and a much more familiar taste. I downed the Cipro, opened my book, and spent the next seven hours in a blissful fog.

Two hours before touchdown in Frankfurt the cabin lights are ablaze and a flight attendant is shaking me to see if I want breakfast. I haven't eaten since the fried wontons, so I order the cold cereal. No need to start up on a high fat diet (which was a crepe made with egg, I was told. I wanted to know about the other kind of crepe, but they were busy and I was still foggy from sleep so I let it go.)

The cold cereal is Kellogg's Corn Flakes. On the box it says "The Original." On the front.

On the side it says, "Made by Kellogg (Deutschland) GMBH. Bremen, Germany. 30 g."

I happen to know that the original name of Kellogg Cereal Company was the Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flake Company. Battle Creek, Michigan was not another name for Bremen, Germany. I decide no one on the entire MD-11 airplane will find this information useful so I (wisely, I think) keep it to myself.

Frankfurt. A four hour layover during which I could not get my computer to connect with the Earthlink number listed for that part of Germany. I was going to download what I knew was going to be a slew of e-mails and deal with them on the nine hour flight to Atlanta.

As (a) I couldn't download the e-mails because I couldn't connect and (b) I didn't have the tip of the adapter anyway, I took a shower, changed and made a big deal about throwing the last two antiseptic hand wipes into the garbage can.

The flight from Frankfurt to Atlanta WAS uneventful. We arrived at about three in the afternoon, after the pilot instructed the flight attendants to stow all their equipment, cancel the snack service, and stay in their seats for that final portion of the flight from Philadelphia to Atlanta because of thunder storms.

It was not as bumpy as I feared. I get motion sick. I did not want to get motion sick. I thought maybe they would put down at Dulles airport and wait it out. I could quietly take my rolling bag, and my briefcase with me into the terminal, walk through immigration and take a cab home.

We flew on to Atlanta.

My flight from Atlanta to Washington Reagan was scheduled to leave at 5:00 pm. By the time I got through immigration and customs it was nearly four, so I said goodbye to Dr. Paul, gave him about forty dollars worth of rupees I had forgotten to change back, and asked him to buy a meal for the children.

I went to the Crown Room in Concourse A and found that my flight was delayed until six.

I plugged in my computer. Loaded up Outlook Express. And stared in horror as it told me I had over 2,300 e-mails waiting.

I was told my five o'clock flight rescheduled to six was now cancelled. I could go standby on the 8:30 flight but I knew EVERYONE on the five o'clock flight wanted to stand by for the 8:30 and I didn't have the energy to stand in a line only to trudge back to the exact spot I now sat.

I went to the customer service desk only to see that the line for people in a similar position stretched the complete length of the lobby, up the stairs and disappeared into the second level.

I called the Delta number reserved for Gold Medallion members. This is, obviously, not as good as the number I would have available if I were a Platinum Medallion member, but you are what you are.

I am booked on the 9:00 flight which is delayed until eleven pm.

I wrote Mullings, discovered that I had not sent the correct edition on Monday, realized what had happened, and formatted everything ready to go when I got home.

The short answer is: We ended up leaving at 10:10. Delta was excellent and put me at the top of the wait list for first class and I flew next to a guy working on long-term contract with the Coast Guard. He was going to Washington for a big meeting with the brass.

The contract is supposed to provide services for 40 years.

"How do you know what the mission of the Coast Guard will be in forty years?" I asked him.

"Well, the equipment might change, but search and rescue; and interdiction will probably be the mainstays."

"What if part of the mission is to do search and rescue on the moon?" I asked.

He turned to look at me. His mouth opened. Then closed. He pulled out his briefcase and started writing.

I used the time to write the "Currying Favor" chapter just before this one and finished it just as the captain signaled five bells that we were on final approach.

We touched down at 11:32 pm Eastern Daylight Time Tuesday. I had started the trip at 3:00 pm Indian time Monday or 5:30 AM Monday morning in Washington DC.

I was too tired to do the arithmetic.

I got in a cab and got home at about midnight.

I sent both Monday's column and Wednesday's column, put the column, the Secret Decoder Ring and the chapter of "Currying Favor" on the web site and, at about four in the morning, trundled up to go to sleep.

The trip to India.

Was over.