In an earlier episode of this great World Wide Travel Report, it was reliably reported that Cal Tuggle, Howard Pappert and I were headed for the mystic delights of Bahrain. Such as they are. And then on to India, Nepal, Bangkok and Kuwait, such as they are.
You may recall the Blah, Blah Blah incident at Heathrow during an overnight layover. Well, that was only the beginning to a trip that included my being ripped off by Custom Agents in Nepal (they are there to protect you) and ending in a beheading in Kuwait. We’ll get to all that but first a welcome from Manama, the International Airport of Bahrain.
Gulf Airways did fairly well on the London to Bahrain leg of the trip. On international flights, such as this one, Gulf simply ignored the Islamic ban on alcohol. Some people without movies or reading material always drink too much. And some drink out of loneliness, I suppose. To go back to their postings in an Arab country may be a reason to over imbibe. As a group, the Arabs drank a robust amount of alcohol on nearly every occasion on most flights. For the three Americans, it made no difference because we were trying to deal with breakfast or brunch. We didn’t need wine to handle that.
Somewhere about dusk, we were all herded into a room at the Manama International Arrivals and Immigration Service bureau. We weren’t feeling all that great after a long ride from London, but then came the word that it would cost us around $20 to enter the Kingdom of Bahrain. And so we paid. Consider the alternative.
But in exchange, we received the most astonishing passport stamp in all of the civilized world. It has a picture of the King with his mustache and beard and his headdress. But then there is the “BLEEDING HEART” that is surrounded by serpents or dragons. This is worth the price of admission. And so with the artwork in hand we depart for Manama to watch the Arabs cavort, which they do. There is not much else to report from Bahrain. I’m sorry about that.
And so it is on to Kuwait. Remember, that in the eighties Kuwait was afraid of Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran, with good reason. They were distant with visitors from the United States. And the worst of the rules against women found their way into the Kuwaiti fabric of society. We’ll talk a bit more about women later. It took a war against Iraq to help straighten things out, but the presence of Saudi Arabia still lingers over Kuwait, particularly in religious matters.
We were to meet Frank Mullin and Pat Downey in Kuwait City. Frank and Pat had had the miserable experience of trying to kill a weekend, Thursday and Friday, in town. There were no bars; no movies; no dancing and very few restaurants were open on Friday, the Sabbath. Later, that evening Pat had listed all the shortcomings of Kuwait followed by the thought that, “Is there anything we can do here?” Frank turned to Pat and said, “What is there to do in Kuwait City? Man, you’re doing it.” And so they headed for bed at around 9 PM.
It took quite a while to drive from the airport to the hotel. It seemed that we drove around the Hilton International on at least three different side streets. We could see the hotel signs but we kept being turned away by police. Finally, a policeman explained that there was to be a beheading at about that hour. This was no big deal because the Kuwaiti authorities regularly chopped off arms and now and then, a decapitation. Cal Tuggle explained that the people of Kuwait had to pass the time on their Sabbath and that this was as good as any other.
After we reached the hotel, we found an account of the beheading in the next edition of the Kuwait City Times. As he approached the executioner, the accused asked for a reading from the Koran. That was seen as a sign of remorse. He then asked for a more lengthy reading from the Koran. More remorse. But then the newspaper said he asked for at least one chapter to be read to him. At that, the authorities said he was stalling and so it was all over for him.
The Kuwait City Times only prints a four page edition; however on this occasion, they extended it into a six page issue for the execution. Cal Tuggle found that the extension of the story from the two front page columns caused it to end up on the rear of the paper – by the sports pages. Tuggle has always dined out on the beheading of this poor fellow as being reported by the sports staff.
Now for a gem of a man, Mr. Al-Awadi. He spoke American English without a trace of an accent. His three fine sons, from about 12 years to 17 years, joined us for dinner. Dinner at Mr. Al-Awadi’s house is a great joy except for one thing. The preparer of the meal, Mrs. Al-Awadi, never shows her face. Or anything else. As we had cocktails in the living room, our view of the dining room was screened from view. When everything had been prepared and brought to the dining room, a screen was pulled over the kitchen door so that no one could see Mrs. Al-Awadi. That was the signal for the boys to open the screens between the living room and the dining area. After dinner, we had retired to the living room. The screens were then put back in place between the living and dining area and Mrs. Al-Awadi emerged from the kitchen to clean up the dirty dishes. If she had a helper, I’m at a loss to say but it was a first class meal. And there was no running back to the kitchen; it was all laid out on the side tables.
When we finished I looked for someone to thank – as did we all. Arab protocol is to thank the host, who presumably will thank Mrs. Al-Awadi. There simply was no way to thank our host’s wife for all the work she had done. And so, on the next trip by our people, I sent a pewter American Bald Eagle to grace the Al-Awadi living room. Frank Mullin who delivered the eagle tried to make it clear that it was for both of the Al-Awadi’s. I hope he got that point across.
There is a sobering thought here. During the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, Mr. Al-Awadi disappeared. I sincerely hope that he survived. He was a first class gentleman who meant much to Mrs. Al-Awadi and their three sons – and to all of us.
A final thought about Arab business men in Kuwait and other cities. It doesn’t matter how deep in conversation their boss might be. When an Arab clerk enters the room, he does so without knocking. He then goes over to his boss and engages him in conversation and even in disputes. On more than one occasion I have sat there and listened to all this. At the conclusion, there is an attempt to pick up the conversation with the foreign visitor – until the next clerk comes into the room without benefit of knocking. As a general rule, allow two hours for a one hour meeting.
And so it is back to Kuwait International Airport for a trip to Bombay. The pushing and shoving at the airport leaves me breathless – until I start shoving right back. Apparently there is no sanction on rude behavior in Kuwait, so we were in a sort of free style exhibition.
In Bombay we had dinner with Mr. V. Ramaswami at a place that suited me because they had a large selection of vegetarian dishes. Mrs. Ramaswami, who was a delight to all of us, sort of led the way for Hindu women to dine out with foreign guests. They had not done that before. Hurrah for her.
Now there was one distraction about Mrs. Ramaswani. I sat along side of her and noticed that her nose was pierced to accommodate a fairly large gem. It wasn’t whether it was a diamond or not; it was how that thing keeps staying on the side of her nose. And she had another one on the other side. Are they anchored inside? Do they use some sort of stick’em on the gems to bond them in place? I’m not even in favor of piercing ears for earrings so this bothered me. And so I went back to my vegetable dinner while those thoughts about making the gems stay on were on my mind.
In another piece I intend to touch on the Malthusian theory about the overpopulation of India. It will wait till then while I give some more thoughts to Mrs. Ramaswani and her clip on nose rings.
And so we were off to New Delhi where we picked up an Air Nepal flight. They only had two planes. One flew back and forth to New Delhi and the other to Bangkok. As we entered the airplane, my baggage was inspected. In it was found a small table knife which I had used in Europe to remove the core of apples. I don’t care much for coffee in the mornings and large breakfasts in hotel rooms don’t really do much for me. So it is mostly an apple a day at breakfast.
The knife had seen its best days and looked pretty shopworn. None the less, the Nepalese insisted on removing it to a safe place. As I watched, the air crew tied to it a sign reading “Kathmandu” and laid it on the Engineer’s table. As the flight door was never closed and as the Engineer had other things to do, I could have grabbed my little knife on several occasions. When we arrived in Kathmandu, the Engineer returned it to me and so there was no hijacking on that flight with that knife.
Kathmandu is like a sort of outpost. It seems like the last stop in civilization. Crews come here to get ready to assault Mount Everest. Tenzing Norgay, a Sherpa guide, is a big name here as he led the initial climb on Mt. Everest. Sir Edmund Hillary of New Zealand joined Tensing Norgay in that climb.
It is a dusty place. The people seem to be operating as they have for centuries. Ox carts are found more often than automobiles. Among the attractions are some shrines to long forgotten heroes. And a famous one at Pathan, the Kama or Kama Sutra, which is dedicated to lustful desires, both real and imagined ones. Jimmy Carter should have seen that one. In other words, Kathmandu tends to convey to other travelers that we’ve seen it all. It is the end of the line.
To accommodate the tourists who come to Kathmandu with hard currency to spend, there are two large hotels. The grander of the two is the Kathmandu Oberi. It probably has 250 rooms. The hotel employs a large number of workers who seem glad to have their jobs. And the Kathmandu Oberi is the reason I spent a few days at the Great Nepal Robbery.
The International Hotel Association, based in Paris, embraces a group of perhaps 5000 hotels catering to the international trade. The leading hotels in every major city belong to the IHA. Because travelers from the United States made and received almost all their calls from their hotel rooms, it made sense for AT&T to join the IHA. And we participated fully in the semi-annual meetings of the International Hotel Association.
The semi-annual meetings were held in member locations in all parts of several continents. There were meetings in Barcelona, on Rhodes, in Munich, in Bangkok and in several other places throughout the world. And now comes the Oberi in Kathmandu saying that it is time to come to Nepal. And so we went.
One of the reasons that we were interested in the work of the International Hotel Association was the practice of hotels adding surcharges to the cost of international calls. In many cases, surcharges came to as much as 300%. From Germany, for example, a call from Bonn to Detroit that should have cost $30, would register as much as $100. And so we were looking for the hotels to give the guests a break and stop making this a large profit center. The idea was called “Teleplan.”
Each year, we would fashion a new complimentary handout to the delegates from the IHA. They were the owners and managers; the ones who could make Teleplan work. In the case of Nepal, we carefully counted the number of women and male delegates so that the cost could be contained. We intended to hand out scarves to the women and neckties to the men. They were not inexpensive. On the contrary, the cost for about 350 sets of the scarves and neckties came to around $3500. Added to that was the cost of shipping from New York to Kathmandu. And we were assured that there would be no problem in transit and none at customs in Nepal.
Soon after we arrived in Kathmandu, I went to the customs office which I found locked. Trying again, I found the customs office open, but no one really knew anything about packages from New York. On my last try, I asked for the boss who showed me two large packages, from my shipper, which were empty. In fact, the scarves and neckties had vanished. At that point, the big boss presented me with a bill for $920 in customs charges. I told him what he could do with his bill which I believe was understood in English as well as in Nepali.
As I left the office, I recalled that it was not a good rule to get into a fight with a foreign policeman or a tax man. I ignored my own advice.
When I returned to the hotel, old Cal Tuggle who had just come back from an afternoon in downtown Kathmandu reported that my efforts to spread the word about Teleplan were enjoying great success. It seemed that half the cops were wearing Teleplan ties and scarves. Cal said they lent just the right amount of color to their drab uniforms. The only enjoyment was that I never paid the $920. If I had paid that much money, I’m fairly certain that the cops in Kathmandu would have bought at least three bars.
When we were leaving the Kathmandu International Airport, my luggage was searched and turned up an electric razor. To a fellow with one foot in the 17th century, the razor was a complete surprise. Cal Tuggle held the razor up to his face and made a buzzing sound. Of course, there was no electricity, so the razor had to accommodate itself to Cal’s buzzing sound. After a time, he finally got through to the Nepali customs clerk that it was a razor. Unfortunately, the clerk had no beard to speak of. On the other hand, he assured all of us in his best Nepali, that if he did grow a beard he would be certain to trim it with that device that made the loud buzzing sound.
I think I’d better end now because my depression, which has lasted since 1981, has overcome me again. To think that those Nepali robbers could outsmart a New York shipper who guaranteed that every tie and scarf would arrive in pristine condition. I can’t believe it. But the last laugh is on them. I still have my $920 in my pocket.
E. E. Carr
December 28, 1997
Essay #5 (Old Format)
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I’ll admit, I’m hoping the internet will eventually come through for me on this one. It’s a long shot, but if these things were well-made then I’m sure there are a handful still floating around Nepal in the backs of closets or attics. I hope that one of those original police officers handed down one of these Teleplan items to his child (who is probably an adult by now); I want that kid to find an old Teleplan scarf or Teleplan tie, and then I want that him — hopefully he or she speaks English — to use the magic of Google to find this essay and solve one of life’s little mysteries. It’s incredibly unlikely but I have a long time to wait, and as of 2/18/16 Google informs me that the phrase “Teleplan scarf” doesn’t appear anywhere else online. Hell, I’ll even write Teleplan रूमाल here for good measure, to cover searches in Nepali.
Also, reading about pre-9/11 airport security is funny to me. I’m honestly a little surprised that they even took the knife away in the first place.