ON THE ROAD TO INDIA 1987

The stewards were serving dinner again.  Seem kind of strange to have two dinners in a row.  This time I had to eat shrimp, bread, coffee, and a real sweet dessert.  I didn't want to eat but according to my body, it was breakfast time. Outside of the plane, you could not see a thing. It was pitch black.  Here I was, somewhere lost in time.  Gee, things are so relative, this experience of changing frames of reference.

The light over my seat will not stay on. I have to keep pushing on it to write, sometimes having to hold it on.  This was an inconvenience. Just a few comments about the stewards. A male steward is in charge of the crew.  The Singapore women were tall.  All of them appeared to be married because they wore wedding bands. They looked very Chinese.  Their last names sounded Chinese, yet some of the first names were American. I believe some were from Hawaii.  They could be tall Japanese women.  The smiles were pleasing and their bodies were slim, very slim, like a matchstick.  They had bad little cruppers that sort of hopped up in the air when they walked.  There must be an interesting history behind this organized development and it was different.  They kept dashing in and out of the galley and each time they would pull the curtain shut.  This went on all the time; it was like going on and off stage.  They seemed to work well. as a team.  I did not see a cross word between them at any time.

I just looked out the window, it is still dark and my watch reads it is ten minutes to six a.m. We are to arrive in Taipei at 1:50 a.m. on Wednesday.  I can't figure it out yet, that is, how did I lose Tuesday.  We landed in Taipei at 1:00 in the morning after a ten hour and forty minute flight from Honolulu.  The airport was a modern, very high ceiling, looked like they were filled with asbestos and it was full of Taiwanese (read Chinese).  The environment was very sterile.  There was museum exhibit oil Chinese calligraphy, but all the other concessions were closed.

We boarded the plane again around 2:15 a.m. and headed for Singapore.  We changed crews again but the flavor of the personnel was the same.  What time is it in the U.S. right now?  Well, it goes this way; it's now 2:45 a.m. Wednesday morning the 30 of December 1987.  I left Los Angeles 16 hours late due to delay.  I left Los Angeles at 3:00 p.m. Monday evening, December 28th, 1987.  We arrived in Honolulu five hours and forty minutes later but it was 6:40 p.m. (Now here's the trip on the body consciousness; the body said it was 8:40 p.m. We left Honolulu at 8:40 p.m. Honolulu time, 10:15 p.m. body time.)

Now, we arrived in Taipei on Wednesday morning December 30, which means we lost Tuesday somewhere between Honolulu and Taipei. (Goodbye Tuesday); however, body time says it's 10 hours and 40 minutes later than the true time we left Honolulu which is now 8:15 a.m. Tuesday morning, but Tuesday is lost at sea. So what happened to the body when mind time changes?  We will soon find out.  We have been flying in the dark since just before arriving in Honolulu.  Tuesday is lost in the darkness by international agreement, but nobody told the body.

So when we arrived in Singapore at 6:40 a.m. after a 4 hour and 30 minute flight, the body will be saying, "it's Tuesday 12:40 p.m. while the mind is saying it's Wednesday 6:40 a.m. in the morning, a big 18 hour discrepancy.  We spend a total of about 15 hours in darkness, with 2 one-hour layovers, 17 hours of darkness all together.  That's where we lost Tuesday, in the dark. Eureka!!!!

When will I get I get Delhi?  Don't know yet, but the body will be somewhere on California time and day.  A normal darkness hour in California is about 12 hours - 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. So the extra 4 and one half hours of darkness are attributed to another day by agreement between countries.

I'm having a glass of wine at 3:15 a.m. Wednesday, which is really 10:15 a.m. Tuesday in San Francisco, so when I arrive in Singapore at 6:40 a.m. it will be 12:40 p.m. in San Francisco, Tuesday.  Well, it all sounds right.