Here's another handy tip for travelers: If an airline loses your luggage (1) Don't become loud and abusive and (2) Don't expect sympathy from your colleagues.

When we arrived in Kuwait, our group was escorted to a VIP area. Based upon the size of this area - in Kuwait everyone is either a VIP or an immigrant worker. The sign didn't say, "Kuwaitis only," but it might as well have.

We were taken to a large room inside the VIP complex where our passports and luggage tags were collected.

I never saw my luggage tag again.

After about 40 minutes, someone came in and asked one of our group, Ken, if he would come to "Identify your luggage."

Much hilarity ensued about never seeing Ken again.

When he came back he was enraged because his luggage hadn't made the flight. Rule One had been violated.

I thought to myself, "Hmmm. Too bad," and turned back to the conversation I was having, thereby demonstrating Rule Two.

This VIP treatment probably extended our stay in the airport by a factor of two - maybe even three - given my experience traveling to this region. Systems like immigration and customs are developed to handle large numbers of people moving through them in bursts.

When you try to get bureaucrats to vary from the way they are used to doing things, it is never faster. This experience proved the point.

We were taken out to a group of cars the Kuwaiti government was making available to us and everyone was asked to make sure their luggage was on the cart before it was loaded into the trunks for transfer to the hotel.

Mine wasn't.

"What does it look like," asked a panicked guide.

I pointed to a roll aboard on the luggage cart and said, "It looks like that only smaller."

"Is it that one?"

"No. It looks like that, but if that had been mine I wouldn't have said my bag was missing."

My guide took me back into the terminal to file a lost luggage claim and on the way he said, "Please don't get upset, sir."

I said - and I meant this: "Look, two things can happen. Either my bag will be in the terminal, in which case everything is all right, or it won't be there.

"If it's not there then two more things will happen. Either it will come tomorrow, or it won't. If it shows up tomorrow, then everything is all right. If it doesn't, I'll buy some more things. That's the worst that can happen."

The worst happened. As of this writing, my bag remains lost.

It might have been lost by Kuwait Airlines. But I prefer to blame the French.

I had about 800 more words about how my luggage got lost, but in remembering Rule Two: You Don't Care - I erased them all.

One thing, though. I'm trying out a new bag to replace my very-manly-not-a-European-holdall. It's more of a map case deal. Let me know what you think of it:

Back to Kuwait.

I won't give you the entire history of Kuwait. Suffice it to say it is yet another country in the Middle East which was controlled by Greeks, Turks, Saudis and Brits at one time or another. It became independent from Britain in 1961.

The royal family - the Al-Sabah family - has been in control of the country since the early 1700's when the major merchant families picked them to rule.

Kuwait has been a major trading center and is sitting on a sea of oil the first of which did not export until after World War II.

Kuwaiti men wear the traditional robes and head covering seen throughout the region. Although women can't vote, they can - and do - work, drive, and function in public like men do. Most women wear at least a head covering, but many wear western dress, and some wear the full veiled outfit.

Every American knows you are not supposed to eat with your left hand or show the soles of your shoes.

I am left-handed; I have been in this region dozens of times; I have never been flogged for eating with my left hand. Nor, has anyone ever run screaming from the room when I have crossed my legs.

These are Arabs, but they have TVs and cars and - thank God - air conditioning and they have been in close contact with Westerners for some time now.

I was not the first American any of them had met.

There ARE some conventions which are observed, typically in the social formalities.

The first time I ever went to Bahrain, back in the early 90's, I was treated to a more-or-less formal luncheon by the head of the central bank on a Wednesday afternoon.

After the lunch had concluded I was standing around, desperately trying to demonstrate that I was not like all those other Americans I had read about, chatting amiably with anyone who wanted to engage.

After about twenty minutes of this I noticed that nearly everyone in the room was watching me out of the corner of his (or her) eye.

I thought, perhaps, they were checking to see if I was going to talk to everyone.

I was right. They were. But not because they were watching to see if someone would be snubbed.

Wednesday, in the Middle East, is like Friday in the US. The weekend is Thursday and Friday -with Friday being the Sabbath. So this was, for them, Friday afternoon and they were done for the week.

But, they couldn't leave the luncheon until I, as senior guest, left.

I don't know how I figured this out, but I began edging for the front door and as soon as I crossed the threshold it was like an action movie where someone shoots a bullet into the side of an aquarium and all the water comes gushing out.

The attendees gushed out of the banquet hall, into the parking lot, and took off for their weekend.

But there are certain formalities. It is rare to be invited to someone's home and, if such an invitation is proffered, it is bad form to refuse.

Another thing about the Gulf States -

Say, there, Mr. Mullings. Just what are the Gulf States?

Ah. I should have started with this. The Gulf States are:

Bahrain
Kuwait
Oman
Qatar
Saudi Arabia
United Arab Emirates

All six of which are joined in an economic union known as the Gulf Cooperation Council. Of those, Bahrain and Qatar have no oil reserves. Qatar, however, is sitting on enough natural gas to heat the planet for about a thousand years.

Bahrain is the banking center for the region, refines a huge amount of Saudi oil, has a large aluminum manufacturing activity, and is the tourist center for the GCC - largely because Bahrain is an island which is connected to the Saudi mainland via a causeway.

At any rate I was taken to the Marriott Hotel in Kuwait City which, until about six weeks ago was the Meridien Hotel. So, if you're planning a trip to Kuwait and someone told you to stay at the Meridien don't yell at your travel department. It isn't there any more.

The Marriott was very nice. And the service was wonderful.

Losing your luggage isn't the big deal.

Mr. Mullings, I thought --

I know. This is a good line, though. The big deal about losing your luggage is that you don't have whatever was in it.

Not worth it.

Ah, you're just striking a pose.

Strike this.

I got into the hotel at about 10 pm Kuwait time which is about 2 pm Eastern. Kuwait SHOULD be Eastern plus nine hours because it got light at a little after four am and got dark at about seven. Maybe it should be even 10 hours west.

But Saudi Arabia is the he-bull in the region and it is on Eastern European time - Hungary and them - so Kuwait is, too.

Back to the service. I explained to the guy at the front desk about my luggage (he made all the appropriate noises and facial gestures) and said that I had a couple of hours of work to do (getting Friday's Mullings out) but would need my drawers and socks cleaned and my shirt laundered and ironed by 8:00 am when we were due to visit with the US Ambassador.

He assured me this would be no problem.

At about 2:00 am, I called the front desk, someone came to pick up my laundry, and it was back by 7:00 in the morning.

Unfortunately, I overslept so I didn't actually take it from in front of my door until 8:00 am, but that gives you an idea of the kind of service which was available.

The Ambassador

The US Ambassador to Kuwait is Robert Jones. Jones is a career diplomat. I mean, if you had raised a couple of hundred thousand for Clinton or Bush and wanted an Ambassadorship and they offered you Kuwait, you'd switch sides.

Jones is a very well qualified guy: He has previously been Ambassador to Kazakhstan, and to Lebanon; and he served two stints at the US Embassy in Riyadh.

The tour group leader had phoned my room at 8:00 when we were supposed to meet in the lobby. As I was sound asleep, I told him to go ahead without me and I'd take a taxi.

He said we needed to go as a group or I wouldn't be allowed in.

I said to go on ahead, and it would be fine.

I took the time to take this photo from my hotel window. It gives you some idea of the lush Kuwaiti landscape:

In the end, the hotel had their car and driver take me to the Embassy and the net result of my tardiness was I only had to wait in the early morning sun for about five minutes instead of the 20 minutes my colleagues - who had been on time - had to wait.

Getting into any US Embassy is a big deal now. Not only do you have to tell them in advance you're coming (which is good manners if nothing else) but you can't go in with a cell phone, a pager, or a camera - not to mention they take your passport.

Taking photos of any security installation is a bad idea - illegal in most places, like US airports - so I don't have a photo of the barriers, wires, zig-zag course that a car would have to get through to get close enough to the building to do any damage to it, but it was a lot of concrete.

This was Thursday morning, July 3. As I have mentioned Thursday and Friday are the weekend days in the Arab countries (Israel's weekend is, of course, Friday and Saturday). Despite that the staff and the Ambassador were in good humor, spent the appropriate amount of time briefing us and, indeed, told us something I hadn't known.

The Kuwaitis provided all the fuel for coalition vehicles during Iraqi Freedom - at no charge to the coalition. I just checked my notes to make sure I got that right.

I did. In all, the Kuwaiti contribution in fuel, protective and other services was on the order of $1.6 Billion. In addition they "shut down about half their country - made it off limits to Kuwaitis - to give US troops freedom of movement.

Kuwait spends about a quarter of a billion a year on assistance to US forces generally.

These are good allies.

Ambassador Jones said that the Saudis had done everything we had asked of them, too, but "the requests were carefully calibrated" to make certain we wouldn't be turned down.

As an example

Here's something I noticed as I scanned the conference room at the Embassy. There were photos of Bush 41, Clinton, Powell, Albright and Schwartzkopf.

There were no photos of President George W. Bush.

On the way out, I checked to see if there was a Bush photo in the lobby (which I wouldn't necessarily have noticed on the way in). There wasn't.

Don't you think that's strange?

I do.

NEXT: We meet with actual Kuwaiti people.

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