Samy and Tyana
An airplane is an island in the sky. It can be a stressful place, or a boring one. Seasoned travelers are used to its engine hum and recycled airflow and quietly adjust their seats, their activities, and their moods to the journey above the clouds. Occasional flyers linger in grieving farewell to the events left behind or eagerly prepare for things to come. Surrounded by laptops, MP3 players, coloring books and baby pacifiers I store my airplane travel necessities in front of me in the pouch. Book, crossword puzzle, journal, chocolate bar and water bottle. Though boredom has never been a problem for me, I wish my mind would let me nap every now and then to shorten the leap from here to there.
It is one in the afternoon; I am flying from San Francisco to London and turn off the past as soon as I wind my watch eight hours forward. At midnight London time I enjoy a dinner of beef, potatoes, carrots, salad, and spice cake. At 2:30am I muse about the backpack content of the twelve year old across the aisle. A mix of little girl and woman. A pink lip balm ball, stickers and sticker book, fingernail file. Candy and toothbrush. 2:35am. Groundspeed 575 mph, outside temperature minus 49 degrees Farenheit, altitude 3,500 feet, time to destination 4 ½ hours.
We are over Iquafut near Kuwguag. So the monitor tells me.
Shortly before the end of the flight – eight hours and thirty minutes – I finish my book, eat a ham and egg croissant and drink orange juice and two cups of coffee. After deplaning, crawling through passport control and customs I am eager to immerse myself into the alien space that confronts me at the exit sign.
Touchdown in England is only mildly shocking. Same language, comparable culture, temperate climate, though I decide that 12 degrees centigrade is a bit chilly. In Morocco the difference in dress first caught my attention. In Egypt it was the police presence. In China the absence of blond hair. In Britain – oh no – they drive on the wrong side of the street. This is the first revelation when I emerge from the long tunnel leading to the bus station. I later change the words to ‘the other side of the street’ but my reflexes never quite cope with the reality. I am always half a thought behind.
When I show my National Express ticket to one of the drivers – I printed it at home on my computer - he points to the far end of the transit area. My reservation is for June 3, 2004 at fifteen hundred hours. What I had thought of as ample fidgeting time when I made the schedule, now turns out to be a seven-hour wait. I had miscalculated. Nobody fidgets for seven hours. Too much time allotted for mechanical difficulties and other delays. There is absolutely nothing to do at the bus terminal except to eat, read, and study the monetary system.
As I walk toward the only eatery, the first of the ‘I should haves’ pokes at me. I should have reserved a seat on an earlier bus. I should have stayed inside the terminal for a few hours. I should have saved my chocolate bar for this part of the journey.
The moment I slide my backpack off I remember the duo attached to it. Samy the frog in the net side pocket along with my water bottle. Tyana the bear, held to the back by crisscrossing cord and a shoelace tied around her neck. I smile. People must think I am weird. My enthusiasm comes right back. I buy a bottle of orange juice and a Danish for 2.24. My first purchase with British pounds. Earlier, while still in the terminal area, I had bought 141 pound sterling for 280 dollars so now I remember to double the cost of my snack to gain a sense of its ‘real value.’
All my travel starts out with comparisons. How much would this cost at home? Does it taste like the juice I am used to? Nice counter person. She looks at me when she gives me change. People don’t look at each other in California. Too busy. Frumpy dress. We are much more stylish. I look at the people who wipe the table next to me, clean the bathroom, take out the trash. I think of the stooped Mexican field workers who pick strawberries in the Salinas valley. Turkish women who scrub floors in Germany. Moroccans picking olives in the South of France. I give the woman who hands me the paper towel more than she had expected. New money – it doesn’t mean much to me yet. She nods a silent thank you. Without smiling.
After a good half hour of philosophical thought dangling between past experiences and newly acquired knowledge I begin to sort out the immediate future. I negotiate a seat on an earlier bus to Victoria Coach Station. Thinking that there might be more activity at another site guides me to the next level. I perform the baggage check. I call it my four-point reality check. First I glance at the suitcase – all the comforts of home on wheels – if I lost it I would continue to function but I would miss the daily change of clothes, the extras, luxury. Then I touch the bottom of my backpack – the serious ingredients of my walking persona – without compass and whistle, without maps and guidebook, without water and medical kit, without fine woolen socks and perfect liners, without Tyana and Samy, who would I be? The third point brings together my hands over the camera that hangs from a strap around my neck. Seriously, if the camera were gone, I would miss out on a major part of my experience. The afterlife of a trip is very important to me. The long hours of printing out proof of having been there. The gathering of images of walking, climbing, struggling, and enjoying the journey. Finally, in the fourth reality check, I cup the fanny pack. My tightly cinched black box of ultimate necessity. Identification, money, connections, ticket home. Life would turn difficult if I lost the fanny pack. For the whole trip I repeat this baggage check several times a day, always aware of the consequences of loss.
As I plop down in the coach opposite an old woman who is huddled in the corner of a front row seat I read the sign posted next to me, “You may be requested to vacate these seats if they are needed by a less able person.” I dwell briefly on this statement but dismiss its relevancy. Plenty of room for many more passengers. Besides, I am 65; this fact alone entitles me to consider myself as ‘less able.’ Less able than who? Not exactly the image I had in mind for my 84 mile walk across England, but for the time being as good an excuse as any to be close to an exit. Isn’t the human mind a wonderful instrument? Manipulative, accommodating, definitely user-friendly.
Victoria Coach Station in greater downtown London looks as ugly as my hometown Greyhound Station, just bigger and more crowded. But we aren’t all just poor devils on the way to grandma’s house; there is an international component to this accumulation of humanity. A sense of migration. Some people have traveled far to reach this walled-in melting pot. Some are overloaded with taped and strung together parcels that defy the word luggage. Some sag with weariness and perspiring anxiety. The odors of garlic chicken and fried fish compete for dominance. At regular intervals a young man comes around asking a question in a dialect I can’t understand. He reaches into the trashcan next to my seat. I assume he is looking for a transfer ticket just like the homeless in my town who take a bus uptown during the day and return downtown in the evening.
The British make a distinction between coach and bus. Buses are for short rides, coaches for long ones. Victoria is a central coach station and I guess that long rides mean long waits. After five hours we are informed that the coach has encountered heavy traffic and will be an hour late. When it finally arrives at 5:30pm I climb in and make myself comfortable in a double seat in the second row. On the right hand side of the bus. This is my preferred side at home in the US since it gives me access to a view of the scenery rather than the close encounters of traffic. But of course I have not taken into consideration the patterns of English traffic. I am reminded of my mistake constantly during the next seven hours as we make our way under an overcast sky into a rainy Thursday late afternoon along the east coast toward Newcastle.
Beautiful yellow fields of rapeseed along the motorway catch my attention. Then a long white board propped up in the middle of nowhere. It says: ‘Inaction is weapon of mass destruction.’ The driver announces that he won’t vote for Tony Blair again. I don’t understand him well enough to follow his conversation with the co-driver in the front row but I hear his loud ‘shit’ when he almost hits something. Hits what? I must have dozed off.
I spend 4.19 that is 8 dollars and 38 cents in real money, on a McChicken Sandwich with chips and vanilla shake at our first rest stop. After tossing the awful sandwich and gulping down the milkshake I take a picture of a Harry Potter movie sign. Back on the bus, finishing my fries, I count 38 passengers. The old lady across the aisle is talking loudly into her tiny cell phone. By the time we stop in Feetham to let her off, she must have received at least ten calls. Mobiles, it seems to me, are even more prominent in England than in the US. As we leave Feetham, a wonderful town with long rows of stone houses and an old town center, I close my eyes. It is dark outside. An hour and a half to Newcastle where the walk begins.
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