Dallas - LAX - Hong Kong

  Los Angeles, California, United States
Monday, May 14, 2007

Please, no news from the home front. Our goal is lost in Asia.

When I post this it will be just a few hours until we're at the airport. And once we pass through security, WE ARE GONE. The last time we were past airport security and waiting to take off for Asia, I could feel waves of energy surging through my body/my mind ...

Flying out of DFW 5/15 at 8:30pm to LAX. Depart LAX 11:50pm. Arrive HK 5/17 at 5:25am (I think it's about a 14 hour flight). Bus to Mong Kok, drop bags & packs at the Dragon Hostel, race to the Star Ferry and across the harbor to Burmese Embassy to transact some urgent business and then ... and then what? Dim sum? Peak? Lamma?

4/16: I guess this next will be the first entry in my 2007 travelogue. Sheesh, what a day. My story ... a month ago I realized I was running out of passport pages. So after we got our Burma visas last week I was trying to figure out how to send it to the State Department for added pages and it was looking like a passport service on the internet. Then, when we took Maryam to the dentist I saw a passport agency was in the same building as the dentist. I talked to the (Eritrean) man at the agency, arranged to get new pages through him, and gave him my passport. He called today to say that the State Department had confiscated my passport because it had been damaged (when I washed it. Dooh!) and I would have to apply for a new one. We have 4 weeks until we leave and it takes several months to get a new passport. BUT, there is a way to get a new one expedited via the passport agency, so, following the Eritrean man's directions to Leslie (who happened to be at the dentist a few doors from the passport man), I filled out the application for a new passport on-line, printed it, took it to the Government services office, (where I lost my billfold - and a woman said, "You dropped your billfold" - thank you!), was told by the clerk that my photos were the wrong size - she let me stew for a minute or so and then said she could take the right size photos (Oh, she was a piece of work, alright) and I finally walked out with what I needed and went back to the passport man and gave it all to him. The trip has begun. He says, "Don't worry." hahahaha

4 Front porch

4/22: "Don't worry." That's what the passport man said last Tuesday when I left my birth certificate, etc. papers with him to get a new (expedited) passport. He called Friday to say that my passport was ready to pick up at his office! When I got there I also had papers for the Burmese visa (to replace the one in my old passport). What!? The State Department sent back my old passport stamped CANCELLED, so I have my new passport and the old one with the visa intact (unlikely that Burmese - or Myanmar, as they like to be called - immigration will snap to the cancelled part). The passport man said don't worry about that either. We'll see, but for now at least, we are set. Oh, and the Mother Land Inn in Rangoon wrote to say that our reservations are confirmed. Their website says they have electricity 24 hours/day - Nothing but the very best for us!

We have a place to stay in Phnom Penh! The family, headed by Mr. Samnang, that has so graciously taken David into their lives is giving us a bedroom (with private bathroom) in their house. This is great news. We'll be in a real neighborhood vs. the sterile high-walled expat area. The Tsar Toul Tom Pong or "Russian Market" is a block away, internet cafés 1.5 blocks, and a big wat about three blocks further. The family has a cool little café downstairs - it's a very little café, with one or two tables - rice & pork for breakfast every day. I'm seeing myself hanging out down there, writing, reading, listening. Oh man. We just have to remember to not walk up the street where the meat market is after about 10am - offal in the sun.

Nooobodeee knows the troubles I've seeeennn ... A month and a half ago I started carrying a pack with rocks in it - as I have before - to get up to speed for backpacking in Asia. A few weeks ago my left shoulder started hurting. After a few days I connected the two dots and quit carrying the pack. At about the same time my thumb, 1st, and 2nd fingers of my left hand started tingling - a lot. Clearly it was a nerve issue - median or medial, I'm not sure now. I loaded up on ibuprofen to decrease the inflammation and it's gotten some better over the last two weeks. Last Sunday I tried carrying my big pack (all packed up for the trip) and my fingers just buzzed. So, too bad, I laid my pack aside and got a rolling suitcase. Anyway, being a backpacker is more a state of mind than where you carry your stuff.

6 Hong Kong Airport

And so, we are off, into the mystery ....