MELBOURNE, 1st September.

I started this memoir as a thread on Fodor's Travel Talk and a couple of days ago decided I'd cross-post it here, maybe adding some frequent flyer lingo and flight details as the occasion warrants. Note however I'm not especially given to posting menus or citing block times or pushback delays in excruciating detail.

My aim is to write some observations, not tell a beginning-to-end story. "Notes from the planet" I called it. Pretty pompous sounding. Maybe I should call it "Notes from some places," but geez, that sounds pretty forgettable. Anyway, the intent is to tell mini-stories or just paint some pictures with words (or even with pictures) for what it may be worth.

As these notes were was begun three weeks ago, it may seem a bit disjointed time-wise, but like any diary it has a certain stream-of-consciousness quality to it anyway, so forgive the use of present tense when past tense would do. I my make liberal use of FT's editing function to correct things or reinterpret history as needed.

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10 August 2007

A week ago we left home in Seattle for another round-the-world trip that will last around 5 weeks.

Some basics if anybody's interested.

Our "RTW" route started in Seattle and progressed to New York, where my wife had a couple of business meetings. After that (escaped before the big storm) I flew from La Guardia to Miami, then to Madrid, then to Stockholm. I took this roundabout route because we're limited to the Oneworld airline alliance's carriers (American, British, Iberia, Qantas, Cathay Pacific, others) and the only other available route to Stockholm that would generate sufficient miles (a key consideration) would have necessitated a stop at Heathrow to change planes and airlines, from American to British Airways. Inasmuch as we value having clothing and personal effects for a five-continent, five-week trip, the statistically significant chance that our bags would not make it through Heathrow; would never ever catch up to us downstream; and would probably be sold for a tidy profit at BA's lost baggage consignment house, I chose the Iberia option instead, hence numerous passes through the enormous but efficient Barajas airport outside Madrid. So far so good.

My RTW actually began in March in Tokyo. Unlike most other airline tickets, round-the-world tickets carry different price tags depending on where in the world you buy them and start/finish the loop. In March for business-class tickets, Japan was much cheaper than other places - cheaper enough that even adding the price of the ticket to Japan needed in order to buy the RTW ticket still made the total less than it would have been to buy it at the Seattle airport - by a lot. So leaving NYC for Madrid/Stockholm I was already partway through my RTW, having already been to Japan, then across the Pacific, and around the US for a bit (up to Alaska, over to NYC etc.)

My wife's RTW, however, actually began in Sweden, where for her itinerary it's a reasonably cheap place to start compared to the US or Japan or some other country. Weird but that's how it works. Consequently she didn't have to fly to Sweden using a Oneworld airline, so she took Malaysian Airlines straight from Newark to Stockholm, sadly traveling in coach (which she described in highly unflattering terms.) Having arrived the day before, I met her at Arlanda Airport last weekend, and the game was on.

After Sweden we flew back to Madrid, spent the night at a hotel near the airport, and then flew to Tel Aviv the day before yesterday. We're in Israel briefly to visit some family, some of whom are in poor health. I'm writing this from the very lovely Scots Hotel (run by the Church of Scotland) in Tiberias. Out my window is a dark Lake Kinneret, aka the Sea of Galilee. In the Ceilidh Bar downstairs one can have a decent malt whisky or a glass of Belhaven Heavy, price astronomical, proving the Kirk knows what it's doing when it's 90 degrees outside.

We'll leave Israel tomorrow night and go back to Madrid to change planes; by Sunday morning we'll be in Johannesburg. We'll travel around South Africa for a couple of weeks, then cross the Indian Ocean to Sydney for a few days, then to Auckland for four or five more. We'll separate there, she returning to California and home (halfway done with her RTW) while I'll go from Auckland to Hong Kong and Singapore, then to Tokyo where I'll finish mine. She will have renewed her Platinum status with AA in the process; I will have re-attained Executive Platinum status somewhere over the Tasman.

So that's the outline, and I'll now throttle back the keyboard and post some notes from the planet as we progress. I'm working on a couple of tidbits now and will post them to this thread when they're ready.

I'll also link to some photos on my website as we go along. Here they are.

Comments and questions are welcome, but no promises as to speed of response - internet connectivity is limited in many of our destinations.

I'm fully confident, however, that by the time we get back (shortly after Labor Day) the Mariners will be in first place and pennant fever will be in the air. Smell the anticipation.

Neither of us has been to Sweden before, and as this visit will be 72 hours for me and 48 for her, I can't really say we've been yet. However, it's enough time for some quick observations.

What's with all the %#@ smoking? Isn't this SWEDEN for Pete's sake? Aren't they all supposed to be healthier than thou, blonde, multilingual and overtaxed? And I mean, they are (at least the blonde and multilingual parts.) But yikes, so many people, young, old, and otherwise normal looking (for Sweden, which needs qualifying) with papirosas dangling from their gobs� The sidewalk cafes are basically clouds of tobacco fog, the nonsmokers effectively banished to the interiors of restaurants (no-smoking areas by law.) I have to imagine that a packet of fags in Sweden costs a bunch, but evidently it hasn�t yet hit its elasticity point. Who woulda thunk?

Likewise the cars on the streets of the Old Town and adjacent parts of (mainly 19th Century) inner Stockholm.

Teenagers driving cars seems to be an almost unique North American phenomenon, at least in my experience. Not so in Stockholm. On several occasions we have to jump back out of the road as a green light is accompanied by screeching tires as a Volvo T5 or some such, piloted by a young man wearing silver shades, accompanied by blonde persons of mixed gender, blasts through the intersection like there's a Mig on his butt. Fading sounds of whatever "wheee" is in Swedish accompany the diminishing speck into the urban distance. Probably on their way to the bar so they can sit outside and smoke.

It's when this occurs involving a Hummer in the Old Town (Gamla Stan) that I really take note. Teenagers driving Hummers in Stockholm. Well, doesn't that just take the herring? Who do they think they are, Californians? (No, she says, just Swedish meatballs.) Ha ha.

Israel packs a wallop. Not speaking militarily here, but a sensory wallop.

The scene: We arrive at the new Terminal 3 at Ben Gurion Airport, which is sleek and very big. Israeli immigration and passport control, once a fairly grueling version of "20 Questions" ("Who are you visiting? What's your relationship to them?") is now skipped in favor of what I assume is the mother of all computer data bases, so the whole process is very brief and bloodless. One presumes it is less brief and bloodless for a select few.

Out of the terminal through a covered passageway into the rental car garage, and minutes later in a somewhat over-used Subaru we're getting on Highway 1, a six lane freeway heading to Jerusalem. The road signs are in three languages - English, Hebrew and Arabic, but aside from that difference you could just as easily be getting on I-5 somewhere in the California central valley, from the looks of the landscape. Other drivers pilot their cars in the manner of other Mediterranean folk - i.e. a combination of machismo and� more machismo I guess. But I digress.

After passing Latrun, a fort contested bitterly during the Israeli War of Independence, the road climbs into the hills, passing preserved hulks of armored cars and other vehicles wrecked in said war, as a reminder of where you are. The road narrows and climbs through a canyon; traffic thickens as you twist your way up to the crest of the hills, whereupon the divided road ends and you're in big-city traffic, creeping toward Golgotha. Like the canyon walls next to the hilly freeway, all is golden - the buttery sandstone of the buildings, the early evening sun throwing long shadows everywhere� Jerusalem of Gold.

We're in Jerusalem instead of Tel Aviv because during the summer the seafront hotels in TA only accept bookings for several days minimum, and since we're heading to the Galilee the next day we can't find a decent place except in Jerusalem. Our hotel is okay, no more, but it's only for one night. By the time we get settled in and make some phone calls it's close to closing time at the hotel caf�, so we have a light supper and crash.

Next morning we enjoy a better-than-average hotel breakfast (hotel breakfasts in Israel are among the best anywhere, so "better-than-average" is saying a lot.) Then we are to meet with one of my wife's several cousins who live in Israel, and have a non-lunch (too close to breakfast) with him and his mother, who's visiting from rainy Yorkshire. This side of the family has been enduring some hard times - car accidents injuring the cousin's pregnant daughter (all okay) and the recent death of his dad, hence his mum's visit. Still, it's great to see them and catch up, then it's time for us to head north to see the other set of cousins (different side of the family) - this being the central purpose of our visit. They too have had some serious health crises, and we're there partly to offer whatever support we can, consistent without being under foot.

They live on the first kibbutz, founded almost 100 years ago. It sits at the point where the Jordan River exits the Sea of Galilee to begin its brief journey to the Dead Sea, and one of the business lines operated by the kibbutz is a baptismal site with a near-permanent collection of tour buses bringing Christians to be immersed in the river. Bananas, Baptisms and machine tool-making - a thoroughly 21st Century kibbutz.

But I digress again.

The wallop I mentioned is mostly due to the small size and historic density of Israel. It is the land of the bible, and a land of aggressive drivers, and a place where McDonalds signs hover on the hilltops above the minarets of an Arab village.

The fast road to the Galilee (Highway 6, not the road up the Jordan Valley - which I was going to use but as usual got turned around by one-way streets and poor signage in Jerusalem) runs through the central part of the country. About 40 miles before Tiberias, the toll freeway ends and continues as a very busy 4-lane highway into the hills, past several Arab villages noteworthy for orange houses, numerous minarets, and lots of car repair shops with signs in Hebrew and Arabic advertising (I presume) cheap oil changes and fender repair for testosterone-afflicted drivers.

Over the crest of the hills and down into a broad valley. Traffic thickens.

The traffic starts congealing as it moves toward a left-turn lane at a traffic light at the bottom of the hill. The left turn lane is for Megiddo.

The old name for the valley, you see, is the Plain of Armageddon.

Turn right instead at the light and you're heading to Jenin, a particularly unfriendly Palestinian Authority stronghold.

The left turn lane also gets you to Nazareth, an Arab town famous for its carpenters.

Go straight across the Plain (aka the Valley of Jezreel) and you presently arrive at Mount Tabor, a bit later the Sea of Galilee, then the Mount of Beatitudes, and eventually, Lebanon. It's like Sunday school on speed.

At our hotel in Tiberias that evening, we look out over the water of the lake to the Golan Heights beyond. (I believe we're closer to Damascus than we are to Jerusalem, and we're only two hours from the Old City.) Dinner is on the lakefront at a falafel stand, in the presence of a number of Christian pilgrims but mainly the many thousands of resident Orthodox Jews, men dressed in black and the women all pushing prams, taking in the soft (still quite warm but not stifling) evening air - eating ice creams or shopping for schlock in the impromptu street market. Various waterfront cafes offer "St Peter's Fish" suppers - a local species which proves that bones can swim. Whatever rocket damage that was sustained by Tiberias during last year's war seems to have repaired.

I don't know of any place where the human story is more vivid. Pious pilgrims and black-hatted men eating Gelato. Roman ruins next to mosques next to Mickey D's. Teenage soldiers on weekend leave toting their weapons to the espresso stands. Freeways to Armageddon, roadside relics of wars (and scant peace; ) and organic date "honey" that would make any Whole Foods manager weep with envy, pink-domed Greek Orthodox churches surrounded by banana trees. The sounds of Hebrew, Russian, English, Arabic, some sort of (I think) Ethiopian Aramaic, French, Spanish, Italian� Hezbollah over the hills and Jenin down the road, past the Bougainvillea flowers, the banana plantations and the water park. Wallop.

I couldn't find a filling station to replace the fuel in my rental car close to Ben Gurion as we prepared to leave Israel, so I pulled up to the car return station and the guy looked at the gas gauge and said something like "oh goody" or its Hebrew equivalent. Turns out the BP station is just before the car return exit, so instead of paying double for them to replace the gas I quickly went outside the airport, filled the car, and returned to the obvious disappointment of the Budget Rent a Car franchise holder in Israel.

All of which led to us being a bit later than we wanted to check in for our flights from Tel Aviv to Madrid to Johannesburg.

Iberia, with just one flight a day to TA, doesn't have its own staff at the airport. Instead, they obviously contract with some other airline, most likely El Al, for ground station management and ops. Which puts a distinctly Israeli flavor (i.e., anal) into the picture, as opposed to the slightly looser approach of other Iberia stations.

So my round-the-world ticket, having originated in Japan and ending there, does not show me returning to the US. This causes the "Iberia" rep behind the counter to become perplexed.

"Where is your ticket back to America?"

"It's an award ticket, on a separate itinerary from this one."

"But where is it?"

"It's an e-ticket, here's the PNR (the itinerary code.)"

"I don't want the code, I want to see the ticket."

"I don't have it, it's an e-ticket."

"What is the ticket number?"

"I don't know, it's in the email from the airline confirming the award. But it's ticketed."

"If you can't give me the ticket number I can't let you leave Israel."

"Okay, can you let me use a computer here so I can pull it up?"

"No."

"Can I phone American Airlines so they can give you the ticket number."

"No. It is not possible."

"Why can't I leave Israel and solve this problem in a further destination?"

"You can't leave Israel unless you can prove you're returning to the USA."

Sensing we are now on the Tautology Express, I ask for a supervisor, and eventually one comes over and confirms the agent's read. However then he sees that we're connecting through Madrid to Johannesburg and that we're flying business class, and that my wife's ticket shows her returning to the States, so he uses his executive might by tagging both suitcases through to Joburg, and putting the bag tags on her ticket, so at least our bags are now going to Africa, even if I'm Charlie on the MTA in Israel.

I then ask him, "Look, maybe a supervisor in Madrid could sort this out when we get there. Could you just give me a boarding pass to Madrid and we can resolve the e-ticket business there when we get to Barajas?"

Moment of truth. Rapid exchange of Hebrew, shrugs, raised eyebrows. Okay.

I am free to leave.

At Madrid five hours later the customer service person at the Iberia kiosk takes all of twenty seconds to mutter something akin to "Oy" and issue me a boarding pass with no further questions.

This time it's her turn. We arrive at JNB and present ourselves for stamping. My passport is stamped and the sticker installed. Hers is not.

"You don't have room for our visa. You can't enter South Africa."

Turns out my wife's passport has several visa pages where lazy stampers in other countries had their stamps overlap the boundaries of the little visa boxes. Thus she doesn't have the full half-plus page for the SA sticky and stamps.

"What can we do?"

"You can't enter South Africa."

(Silently) "Do you have a sister in Tel Aviv?"

It's a silent standoff for several minutes. She expects us, I guess, to turn around and slink back to - where? - Madrid? Fat chance of that happening.

Eventually she emits a loud sigh and escorts us through access-coded doors and up flights of stairs to the airport branch of the Department of Serious Stuff, where our passports are handed to various uniform-wearing people accompanied by lengthy verbal exchanges in Afrikaans and (I think) Xhosa. We are instructed to wait in the hall.

There are already numerous people, some looking annoyed, some worried, some crying, in said hall. There appears to be a large group of Chinese people en route to Swaziland who have encountered difficulties in their ticketing and visa plans, courtesy of something called the "Sino Swazi Travel Authority" (now there's a niche market for you.) And us.

The official in charge (we think) is Will Smith's lost twin. When he finally gets around to us (after almost an hour) he says it's not the South Africans who are so strict about not stamping the "amendments and modifications" pages that follow the visa pages, but the Americans. Don't know about that - these guys seem to be pretty bureaucratic without any help from Washington - but regardless it looks for quite a while like we are at an impasse. It's Sunday, so no way to contact the US consulate in Joburg or the embassy in Pretoria to arrange for extra pages (which the official says the US won't do anyway in cases like this) so once more we're faced with the Tom Hanks vision - my wife wandering around Joburg airport for weeks while I plead her case to whoever.

Finally, though, Will looks at us carefully, probably to detect if we're shills for the State Department or something, says words to the effect of "This could get me in a lot of trouble," which makes me think he's asking for a little "incentive" (which we're not going to pay for fear that it would backfire big time) and sticks the sticky on one of the forbidden pages in my wife's passport, and sends us back through the coded doors and down the stairs to the customs hall, where - amazingly given it's Joburg airport - our bags are sitting on the floor by themselves, unmolested, two hours after we landed. Hoo boy.

Three hours later we've negotiated rental car pickup, navigated through suburban Joburg freeways, and we're out in the Highveld under African skies. Jet-lagged and jangled, tired of bureaucrats, we crash at our bed-and-breakfast lodgings on a farm near Ermelo, where the owners' Corgis roll over on their backs, exposing their bellies for welcoming rubs. Nice to see you too.

It's not polite to speak ill of one's fellow travelers, so impoliteness follows.

The first of our three game lodge destinations in South Africa is a very high-end one. We wouldn't ordinarily be able to afford this particular property, but the managers graciously quoted me the travel industry rate (as I am a travel consultant and agent) so we were able to hob with the nobs for three nights.

Although they can vary greatly in amenities (and vary greatly in the range and numbers of animals one might see on safari) the private game lodges in SA are a rather formulaic lot. Check in is around 1 or 2, followed by a light lunch or afternoon tea at 2 - 3, then an evening game drive from 3:30 or 4 until 7:30 or 8, then the evening meal, served often as not (weather willing) in a "boma," an open dining area with tables surrounding an open fire. Morning wakeup is at 6, coffee at 6:30, then the morning game drive from 7-ish until 9:30 or 10, then a big breakfast, then return to your lodgings for cleanup and relaxation (or packing and check-out) until the cycle repeats in the early afternoon.

The game drives are conducted in open Land Rovers or Toyota Land Cruisers (or something akin) fitted with three viewing benches behind and above the driver/ranger. Thus up to 10 people can travel on one vehicle, three per row and one person riding shotgun. On the front of the truck, sitting diagonally from the driver in a chair that sits over one of the headlights, is (usually) a tracker, most often a person from one of the local communities. The driver/ranger can be a local or not; there's a real mixture of races represented among rangers; the trackers however are almost exclusively local and black. The tracker is responsible for spotting and interpreting game tracks, and spotting off-road game (the ranger is supposed to do these things too, of course, but he/she also has to keep eyes on the road and maintain the descriptive dialogue to the guests.) After dark, the tracker is also responsible for manning the spotlight, used to sweep back and forth looking for eye-glint or other giveaways of beasties in the bush.

But I digress again.

When you visit a lodge, you are assigned to a vehicle team - ranger and tracker, and other guests are assigned to the same vehicle. Unless you are with a big group that can share a truck, it's pot luck who you share with. 99% of the time it's fine, and indeed you can form short-term friendships quite easily. In the case of the 1%, well, it can be otherwise.

Well, to cut to the chase, Mommas Don't Bring Your Chav Daughters on Safari.

Party of Brits with 17 year old scrunchy-bearing, bikini-wearing, blonde daughter who between flirting spells with the ranger natters more or less constantly, with occasional comments including,

(On learning that lions will try to kill young cats of different species,) "Why couldn't the lion and the cheetah just cuddle?"

(On seeing a tree whose seed pod resembles a sausage, hence Sausage Tree,) "I didn't think meat grows on trees."

All animals (the few species she recognizes) are called by their Lion King given names.

When animals turn away from the truck, she immediately and repeatedly starts singing "I like big butts�" according to the dictates of some rappers' masterwork.

"Do the Impala eat each other?"

Three days we get this, twice a day, three hours at a time. Why don't you go pet the nice rhino, sweetie?

Our second lodge is in the Sabi Sands reserve, abutting Kruger National Park in the northwest of SA. The lodge and our rooms face a large reservoir with numerous resident beasts, including 3 crocodiles, a very cool Monitor lizard, and a substantial number of hippos. Other animals come to call, often in sizeable numbers, so it's quite rewarding just to sit on the porch or in the bar watching the elephant families, troops of baboons, various antelope of differing sizes and persuasions, and occasional predators, availing themselves of the water and/or the customers.

This is the dry season, and apparently the foraging in the lake for the hippos is inadequate for their considerable needs. Thus they occasionally leave the water and forage ashore, either just at the water's edge, or at night in the grass in the veld around the reservoir and lodge. (Hippos are responsible for more human deaths than any other breed in Africa, which is one of the reasons any after-dark commuting between room and lodge - bar, boma, etc. is done only with an escort.)

Anyway, the diet of dry grass and lots of water apparently doesn't sit all that well with the animals, so along with their occasional dominance calls, they also bellow their hippo complaints about flatulence and general gastric discomfort. All night. Especially just before dawn.

So the general night noises of the bush (baboons barking, night birds, the occasional distant elephant or big cat woofs) are drowned out by complaining hippos, only feet from our rooms. It can make falling asleep actually rather difficult, a bit like when a neighbor's dog barks without any apparent rhythm.

Waking up to their crowing is no problem whatsoever. None.

The last portion of our stay in South Africa was in the Western Cape. On the advice of SA friends we traveled from Cape Town north, up the Atlantic coast a couple hundred kilometers to a series of bays and headlands - St Helena Bay, Paternoster and vicinity - a part of the country we'd not visited previously and one that appears to be off the map for the most part, as far as foreign visitors are concerned. I normally don't gush over places, but gushing happens. What a beautiful place.

Imagine the California coast around Carmel minus the people. Then imagine fields of wildflowers that go on and on. Then imagine whales breeching in the blue water just on the other side of the white sand beaches (except for the mountains of mussel shells - each shell around 4 inches and two across) and porpoises frolicking amongst the whales. Then imagine flamingoes standing in the tide flats, overseen by wildebeest and various other antelope sitting or standing in the fields of wildflowers overlooking the whale-infested waters. Imagine absolutely incandescent sunsets over the flamingoes' heads.

Now imagine whitewashed, thatched-roof villages with brightly painted fishing boats pulled up on the white sand beaches (the ones next to the whale-filled waters) where restaurant people buy fish straight from the fishers, including monster crayfish (aka lobsters) when in season, to serve at silly low prices to the happy eaters. Are you still with me?

Now imagine vineyards in the valleys just over the flower-covered hills, producing wines that are silly good. Now imagine all this around an hour and a half from one of the most beautiful cities in the world. Got it?

No, you can't get it until you see it. Best kept secrets and all that.

Notes from the Paarl Mall, a town in the wine district a little east of Cape Town�

The colors of the land, the colors of the people�

They stroll through the mall like people anywhere - shopping for shoes or CDs or just shopping. Stop for a coffee or a filled pancake (this is Cape Dutch country after all, even if the Afrikaans is being spoken by as many black people as white.)

The colors of the clothing are varied, running from bland to vivid. Lots of denim, of course, but also lots of "traditionally built" (not my term) women wearing vivid garb, with bright headscarves and babies carried papoose-style. Other babies and toddlers are pushed along in the shopping carts, doing baby and toddler things, but mainly smiling and enjoying the scene just like us.

One sees more Asian folk in this part of the country compared to other parts - in addition to Indian populations there's a significant presence of Malay folk hereabouts.

There are still more white people than persons of color, as we would say at home, but it's far from monochrome in the mall. Oh, very far.

Of course one cannot visit South Africa without the legacy of Apartheid and the gulf between white and black, have and have-not, being in your face. You pull into a gas station and three guys race forward to pump gas, wash the windows, check your oil� all black of course and all doing this for tips - their livelihood. Outside of every town of any size there's an "informal" settlement - a shanty town - that's usually bigger than the main town, and poorly signposted.

To a first-time visitor (and some second- and third-timers too) the gap can be uncomfortable, as it ought to be. Such poverty amidst such beauty, and such wealth, is an affront to anybody but the hardest-hearted.

You tell yourself that things are getting better, and the evidence from the mall is that yes, they are. The talk shows on the radio are not about festering rebellion or deepening poverty, but the opposite - people working hard to improve things, the movement of black people into positions of leadership in the economy and not just the government. Even in the remote villages one sees thousands of kids walking in clean uniforms to and from school. Zulu thatched rondavels with satellite dishes. Not universal, far from. But enough visual evidence that things are moving up, not down.

The skin tones in the mall are not quite a rainbow in this "rainbow nation" (Nelson Mandela's term which for obvious reasons isn't repeated much in the west.) But they're pretty diverse - black to brown to white, with all variations and shades. One notices distinctive ethnic coloring variations between different parts of the country - a paler skin tone among the San and other western/southern folk than you see farther north or east; freckles more or less prominent� and of course the mixtures, noted more on this trip than on previous ones.

Outside the mall, the country is moving briskly into spring. Fields of lambs, some flowering fruit trees, oranges and lemons on the ground under trees laden with their kin. Green pastures and grey mountains hovering over the vineyards. Bright yellow fields of canola flowers. White lilies next to fields of cows. Black and white crows doing crow things, herons and storks and little crimson birds.

People in bright clothes going about their business. On Sundays some are in bright blue uniform-style dresses, apparently indicative of some church group.

Our hotel that night in Franschhoek is mustard-colored, with spring flowers in abundance in the common rooms and on the grounds. The local wines are ruby, pink, and golden. The sunset is deep red, as is the following sunrise. The road into Cape Town passes strawberry stands.

We delay our departure from Cape Town to the morning before our Sydney flight from Joburg, so that we can spend a last afternoon in the Cape, which we do observing more black and white residents. Penguins this time. We encounter a famous Fodors correspondent at Boulders Beach. He uses a rainbow as his web tagline, "proud to be South African." As well he should.

Thanks ... excellent report.

A great read! This is my favorite line:

Sitting in the Pier at HKG at the moment waiting for the last flight of my RTW, CX to NRT. Disappointed that Expert Flyer's promise of a new-J 744 on this flight turned out to be bogus, but it is what it is. Later today on an award JL flight to YVR then the ignominy of Horizon's puddle jumper back to SEA, where wife, dog and letters of interest from extenders of credit await.

I have more thoughts and ruminations in draft, composed in Oz and NZ over the past few days. I'll post them when they're laundered.

Great trip and nice report Gardyloo ^^^

You were fortunate not to have been placed in the horrible cells that SA Immigration use to detain their undesirables, although to be honest I've never known of a white person to be held there. I've seen some miserable detention areas in my time, but these were truly far far worse than anywhere else. There is a room about 30 square meters large with about 5 sets of quad-level bunks and a single open latrine in the corner. A single grill around 2ft by 3ft around 8ft off the ground is the only source of sunshine. This room is used to house around 40 men, many for 2-3 days at a time. Grown men were in tears, banging on the bars and begging to be let out for fresh air or sunlight. A similar situation evidently exists for the women, but I did not get to visit that area. In many cases, the only "crime" these people had committed was having "insufficient funds" for their stay in South Africa. I've even seen passengers who MISCONNECTED due to no fault of their own be thrown into these cells as they did not have sufficient cash to overnight in the transit hotel and SA Immigration will not let airlines sponsor transit visas in these cases.

I also remember one memorable morning last December when an entire airline crew was detained for 30 minutes because they didn't have "return tickets". Never mind that they had just flown the darn plane in and were flying the next plane out and did so every few days... The law says that all foreigners must have a return ticket and it doesn't seem to have an exemption for operational airline crew. It took having to escalate the matter to the senior manager before they were willing to let the crew go to their layover hotel.

SA Immigration is a complete joke and the way they treat passengers is completely reprehensible. They make the US CBP look quite humane in comparison, and coming from me that is stinging criticism indeed.