Holiday

I’m back in Kabul physically, but that’s the only way. My mind and heart are still a couple of thousand miles away, in Amazing Thailand (that’s their ad slogan -- Malaysia was first, with “Malaysia, Truly Asia.” Then came “Amazing Thailand.” Now there is “Incredible India” and even “Uniquely Singapore.” I am waiting for “Charming Cambodia” or “Bucolic Burma,” but we may not see those for a while.) I left on May 25 (almost did not make it -- my connecting flight on our local charter service told me they could not pick me up because it was too cloudy -- they told me this while I could see their plane from the runway, but that’s par for the course with Insh'allah Air, i.e. God Willing Air), flying Air India to New Delhi for the quick stopover before flying on to Bangkok.

Delhi Airport reminded me very much of my first taste of Beijing (a Beijing which has changed remarkably since that time I would add) -- tons of people scrabbling over one another trying to grab whatever small advantage they could find, and foreigners constitute one of those advantages, since we all obviously have money, right, right? My cab driver tried to convince me to allow another passenger to ride with me, never mind that I had used the airport’s booking service specifically to avoid subsequent haggling. I then had to wait a good half hour in the sweltering heat (and Delhi is HOT -- try 109-115, and humid) while he helped the drivers in front get their cabs out of the way (they tried to lash a broken trunk shut, never mind that a vehicle that size should not be carrying 250 lbs (no exaggeration) of luggage and a family of 7. By the time I got to my hotel, a good one, (not on my tab) the Taj, I was drenched in sweat, clothes all sticking to me, just nasty -- Louisiana in the summer after the rain, but about 30 degrees hotter. Unfortunately, I was only at that wonderful hotel for a few hours, and then straight back to the airport. Ordinarily, for six hours, I would just ride it out at the airport in the transit lounge, have a meal, buy unnecessary things in duty free, maybe get a shower at the day rooms. The Delhi airport does not have these options. The Delhi airport does not have power, consistently, so other amenities will drop way down the priorities list. Given the choice, I would brave the no A/C 90 minute cab ride (roundtrip) again, no question, to minimize my exposure to that airport. They say India is an emerging giant. I believe it, but wow, I hope they emerge some more and build a new airport at some stage.

The flight was a classic redeye -- depart at 1:30 am for Bangkok. As luck would have it, I get surrounded by teenage, or pre-teenage boys who don’t know the drill on redeye flights. For the ENTIRE flight, all I hear is the lilting voice in front of me, head bobbing incessantly, “Mother where is my Gameboy, mother I need my Gameboy, mother, where is the Gameboy.” OMG. After my flight to Shanghai on Emirates, I thought that Arab travelers had surpassed Indians as the most demanding/high maintenance travelers, but the Indians have taken the pole back, and with a flourish. On the flight back two days ago, somebody rang the bell for the attendants’ assistance every 60-90 seconds for the ENTIRE flight. As bad as my hearing is, you would think that this sort of thing would not bother me, but ugh, I’ve got a low tolerance myself for this stuff. I think I need to invest in some good quality noise-canceling headphones, for everyone’s sake, not least my own.

Anyway, Bangkok! 5 days of traffic jams (I skipped that, to a large extent, relying on the elevated train -- nice, easy, cheap), spicy food, spa treatment (ok, massages -- spa treatments are more expensive, and I already know a place where a 2 hour Thai massage is $12, and they don’t do “extra.”), shopping, movies (X-Men 3 was decent, the Da Vinci Code was dreck -- Tom Hanks should be mildly embarrassed. You have to stand up for an opening sequence honoring the king at movie theatres in Thailand -- Thais seem to take this very seriously) and relaxation. No jumping at the slightest noise, no body armor, no rioting over cartoons or traffic accidents. It was great.

I went to Chattachuk (no idea how to spell, Thai spellings are perhaps the most bizarre of any translated into our alphabet) Market, the Weekend Market. It is THE superbowl of fleamarkets, with everything from antiques to fake brand clothes to plants, pets, toys, real estate, cars, knives, swords, all kinds of stuff. Last time I was there in 2004 I stocked up on everyone’s Christmas present for that year, but not this time around (so don’t get your hopes up for cool stuff this year -- it’s mail order and the internet, just like everybody else). I just bought some jeans and a couple of shirts, and a Buddha statue, 19th Century Mandalay. Completely random, but a wonderful place to shop until you drop.

Five days of big city decompression go by, and it is time to meet the wife and travel on to Phuket. She’s the big, hi-powered executive, so she was coming direct from meetings in Paris. I get to the airport and waited an hour and a half for her to come out of the airport, only to realize that I was at the wrong terminal. **sigh** So I find her at the other terminal, and we are off to the beach!

Phuket has really bounced back. MaLan and I visited there in April 2005, a few months after the tsunami, and reconstruction was the order of the day. Now? The only way you know something happened is that all the buildings, hotels, shops along the beach are new -- everything. Tourists are back, from the young couples, to the Euro backpackers, to the older German men with their long haired rent-a-friends in low-rise jeans and shorts ("Hi my name Lon -- you like me?" is something guys can count on hearing). We did our stroll of the Patong beach strip, and had ourselves a seafood feast. Lobster, grilled jumbo prawns, squid, the works. The seafood is cheap (relatively) and excellent. I eat well in Bamyan, the Kiwis do a great feed, but it was not like this (not to mention I could have alcohol at dinner -- you miss that after a while).

Great meal, nice night at the Holiday Inn (it’s not like Holiday Inns I’ve stayed at in the States -- very upmarket), and then we are off to Koh Phi Phi, an island a good 2 hour ferry ride from Phuket. A couple of years ago we found a wonderful resort, beautiful white sandy beaches, nice big pool with a poolside bar, and did our first dive there. I was hooked, and have wanted to go back ever since. This time, it was open water dive certification time! Took a lot of work, actually. MaLan and I had to read the PADI dive manual, a good 300 page textbook, doing homework, even taking tests (they weren't that hard, so long as you actually read the book)! I get the impression after that most folks just watch the video and skip the bookwork, but I’ve been a nerd too long to walk away from those habits now.

At any rate, we got to do some spectacular dives. Our instructor worked in Egypt on the Red Sea, and at KowTow (spelling, again I don’t know) in Thailand, and said the best stuff she had seen in 3 years of diving was in and around Phi Phi Island. One of the reefs was a vertical cliff going straight down some 25m into the water. I was doing great, and wanted to go straight to the bottom, but my instructor held me up. Open water certification is good to get you to 18m, no further. I’ll have to get more certification for that. The coral and sea life were astounding. Tons of jack fish, clams, clown fish, anemone, all over the place, in clear blue water. We managed to see a trumpet fish, a moray eel, a leopard shark, a sea turtle, a cuttlefish, all kinds of stuff. It felt like we were living an old Jacques Cousteau video. I guess that’s why I did not mind us having a French woman as our instructor (Delilah) -- the French pretty much invented recreational diving, so give them their props, they know scuba.

Like I said I was hooked before, and now I’m really a fan. Scuba and exercise are now both mild addictions. Problem is I have no idea when will be the next chance to do any diving, more’s the pity. Kitting up is not going to be cheap -- first the prescription mask, good fins and a snorkel, a wet suit (even in the tropics, it starts getting chilly at 10m or below), and we will need to rent tanks, perhaps the regulator and the BCD (an inflatable life vest/buoyance device), and then you have to get out to the dive sites. Not a cheap hobby, but certainly a rewarding one. Swimming scuba is easier than swimming on the surface, once you get used to the apparatus. I recommend it for just about anybody.

MaLan had a harder time of it, at least at first. For one, she was pretty nervous, mostly because equalizing was a real challenge for her. By our fourth dive, though, she seemed to relax and really enjoy what was going on around us. She managed to take some pictures with one of those waterproof disposable cameras -- I hope they came out ok, we’ll see. She was a real sport, trying the diving out, at least initially, because she knew how much I wanted to dive. I think she’s as hooked as I am, now, although she’ll still have more of a challenge getting her ears equalized.

With a week, we managed to get certified and still take it slow and easy at the same time. There was plenty of beach time involved, lots of drinks in big coconuts with fruit involved, a glorious sunset at a viewing point in one of the resorts’ restaurants, lots more seafood (hey, Afghanistan is landlocked, gimme a break), chilis, fresh mango, papaya, dragonfruit, dragoneye (“lung an”), jackfruit, pineapple, and lime, lime, lime. Can you tell I missed tropical fruit? ;)

Not as much sitting and reading by the pool or on the sand, since I lost my glasses. Yeah, moron me completely forgot I had my glasses in my pocket when we went out kayaking/snorkeling in the reef. At some point I dove into the water, and completely forgot about the glasses, only remembering after we got back to the beach, a couple of clicks away. They were still in their case, so I bet they floated, but I just did not have the heart to go look for them, so I figured I could survive with prescription sunglasses for a week. It worked out ok, but I did feel pretty stupid having dinner in the evenings wearing sunglasses the whole time, humming that ancient Corey Hart tune from the 80s. Seems each trip we take, I manage to do something for MaLan’s amusement. This time, I because Sunglasses Man. I’ll have to think up some better theme music for that.

It was a really wonderful week. Nice to be reacquainted with a life where people are nice, friendly, not always trying out some angle in every conversation with you. I truly think the Thai people are the friendliest people, as a nation, I have ever met. They were in an even better mood than usual, celebrating the Diamond Anniversary of the Thai King Bumibol’s accession to the throne. I don’t know much about him, although I seem to remember some controversy when the Jodie Foster/Chow Yun Fat movie came out 5 or six years ago, that they would not show the movie in Thailand because the King was named second. I would do a tour in Thailand in a heartbeat, but it may be a while before I get that chance.

Nicer was the chance to get reacquainted with my wife. We both seem to do better together than apart, but we’re still careerists, so it will be a while yet before we are together permanently. By this time next year, for certain, but exactly when, that’s up to MaLan. I’ll be honest -- I did not really want to come back -- but with only another six weeks to go, I can make it through anything, I think. In the meantime, once I get back into this last grind, this last push, I will remember my time in the Land of a Thousand Smiles as an inspiration for whenever the going gets tough again.

Belated Bon Voyage

As you could tell with my last entry, I was a bit preoccupied at the end of April. Life was more about getting from one, er, moment (ok, movement) to the next than anything related to life Up the Hill. (That is the Kiwi’s own shorthand for Bamyan, especially when in Bagram meeting/speaking/cajoling other Coalition Forces). With my own preoccupation, I did not have a chance to give my homage to the outgoing Kiwis from Crib 7. It is wayyyy overdue, but here is that. It’s also longer than my similar tribute to Crib 6, not because I liked them any less, but because the bulk of my Afghanistan time was with this hoary bunch.

Where to begin? At the top, I guess (in the Disney “Alice and Wonderland,” and possible in the book as well, but I can’t quote it, the Mad Hatter tells Alice to “start at the beginning, and when you get to the end . . . stop.” The head honcho, Group Captain Steve Moore is, in many respects, the type of leader I would hope to be. Laid back, easygoing, always ready with a joke or smile, but fully cognizant of the swirl of issues, complications, dilemmas, frustrations, challenges, and pitfalls which command in a post-combat environment present. (Bamyan is Post-combat in my view, unlike provinces in the south and east, which are still stand-up fights, save that the bad guys don’t stand up.) We were eye to eye on Bamyan’s big picture (not to say that either of us had a monopoly on the correct prescription for Bamyan’s many ills) so we did not have to spend our time and energy on internal wrangling. His only vice? (at least that he could indulge on a military base, where alcohol is verboten) Rugby (as if you have to ask at this point). The Super 12 (Super 14 now) League, with teams from NZ, Australia and South Africa, took over Fridays and Saturdays for three months. There was even a betting pool (tipping, they call it, organized by the Camp Chaplain) for Super 12. Not sure whether Steve was in on the pool, but he certainly took the lead on everything else related to Super 12. We made a point to schedule around matches, so that the Commander was back on Planet Bamyan when it came time to meet with locals.

The rest of the Command staff certainly had its idiosyncratic elements -- Morgan Procter, the Second in Command, whipcord thin (cigarettes), a farmer, an army man, dedicated to “keeping his Air Force boss in line” (managed to keep us all hopping in the process). Brad, the operations cmdr., from whom every third sentence was “and we’ll crack on.” Good man for his position, not flustered, but his coffee cup was definitely a security blanket. Brad spent two days searching for that mug, two long days for the rest of us. I’m glad he lashed the cup to his belt after! Paula, the logistics cmdr., an elfin lieutenant (pronounced LEV-tin-unt) from the Navy, who managed to get me to summit PT Hill in boxers (you’ll have to get that story in person, I’m not commiting that to the internet, thanks much), and as wonderful a person as I’ve met anywhere. Don’t bug her about the pink toilet paper though -- ouch. (The previous logistics officer left a gap in TP purchasing, forcing Paula to go local for our supply. Let me tell you, rolled plywood, no matter its pretty pink color, does not a pleasant experience make. Never saw so many men walk like crabs in my life.)

Even though this Crib was smaller than Crib 6, it seemed to hold its own in the characters department. Ross, the chaplain, who organized the camp’s betting, poker nights, horse racing, and Julie, the fiery Medical Officer who whipped all of us (Kiwi Shir included) into shape. TK, the Command Sergeant Major, who will always be my pal for jumping in and helping me wash all the dishes one Friday (Friday night is the Development Group’s night, and there was nobody around but me). Abe, the unofficial head of the Command Post, whose sonorous voice was quick to find the humor we all needed to survive the winter. Obs (short for O’Brien), whose fascination/obsession with the Hoff (that’s Hasselhoff to the rest of us) bordered on clinical. The workshop boys, Bonzi and company, the only guys I have ever met who ape a very female trait and troop off to the bathroom as a pack. Bulldog, supply sergeant, Pete, the head mechanic, Mish, our communications officer, the Sparkies (that’s electricians), Lance and the cooks, who were the real reason I have to work out 2 hours a day just to stay where I am, Tinsley, who wanted more than anything to take all his cool toys and hang with the US forces along the border and go kill bad guys, Tee Tai (whose blood ran red bull and sugar -- never seen a man with so much energy in my life) and the whole QRF gang, Heath and Sean, our resident bodybuilders (lots of muscle power in this Crib -- turned me into something of a gym rat), Kiwi base was full of interesting folk. I have to make sure not to neglect the patrols, Aaron (we got along great, surprise, surprise, and I was most impressed when I watched him chug an entire bottle of pancake syrup), Mel, Jason Healee, in charge out in the field, and even SarMajor Brill from the support element operations in Bagram. All in all, a great team.

Last, but certainly not least, I need to reserve a little space for our engineering officer, Capt. Neville Mosley. Nev made himself right at home before the rest of Crib 7 even arrived, with a wonderfully scathing wit to boot. As the point man for NZ AID operations, and with me backing up USAID, I probably worked closer with Nev than anybody else on the camp. His nuanced understanding of how development operates is spot on (vast oversimplification -- if you give a man a fish, he has a meal, if you teach a man to fish, he can feed himself), hardly a typical military mindset. I will keep up with more than a few of my Crib 7 mates, but Nev most of all, I think.

Now I have to walk the line between being sincere and maudlin -- how to tell this gang what I think of them? Sure, a smartass or a linguistics guru would say I’ve already done that, but what can I say about all of them? Bottom line, we soldiered on, in a pretty tough environment (certainly one of the toughest I’ve ever been in), and managed not to be at each other’s throats. Crib 7 left Kiwi Base, and, more importantly, Bamyan, a better place than they found it, and they deserve their props for that. I want to thank them all for their support and friendship. Kia ora, Crib 7. Peace out.

Developing Country Diet Plan

Hello there fair readers! I’m back. Been out of commission for quite a while, which is why I have yet to give my homage to the Winter Kiwis, who departed April 29. You know you always remember your first, so Crib 6, my first group, remains my favorites, but Crib 7 definitely had its characters. More on that anon.

Yes, I have been out of commission. The day of the RIP/TOA (very intimidating acronym -- stands for Relief in Place/Transfer of Authority) between the Winter Kiwis and this latest group (that’s right, I’m now breaking in my THIRD group), April 29, was an interesting day for me. The transfer ceremony itself, with all due pomp and circumstance, was quite poignant, save for the glaring snafu when the new flag representing the new contingent, when it hit the apex of the flagpole, popped off its string and fell back down to the ground. Everybody’s jaws were clenched rock solid, so you did not see anyone react, but EVERYBODY reacted. Hopefully it is not an ill omen, but so far, well, it’s early still.

Part of my thing on departures has been to take Kiwi Shir down to the C-130 and see everybody off. No chance of that this time. The new Brigade Commander (the Kiwis’ boss in the Coalition) was on hand for the ceremony, and needed to be minded. The new Kiwis were too busy to make time to meet their new Commander (another ill omen), so they foisted the Colonel off on me and the Civil Affairs officer here, a great guy who ran his own PRT in Khost before arriving here. Needless to say I was miffed. I wanted to say goodbye properly, but that option was taken away.

Ok, this is a military operation (mostly), suck it up, salute and move on. We gave the Brigade Commander (actually a nice guy, in the real world he’s Dean of Academic Affairs at Purdue) the nickel tour of the area, the Buddha niches, Red City (still my favorite), and took him out to a returnee (that’s the word we now use for refugees who have been back in country for a while) village. That ate up an entire afternoon.

The weather had been less than forgiving. Fierce winds beat down on us, so much so that the armored Landcruisers we rode in were getting pushed all around the road. A real challenge for driving (fortunately I was just a passenger this time around). When we would stop at a given site, it was hard to stand in one place, as the wind pushed us all over. Gusts were definitely hurricane force (probably not Katrina or Rita force, but hurricane nonetheless).

So, after an afternoon of that, I’m beat. We get back, I manage to slurp down some dinner (have I mentioned how much food I eat here? There’s a reason I’m exercising 2 hours a day and not losing any weight) and then head to the office.

That’s when it hit. Urgh. You know the drill. Trying to act normal, but running for the WC/head/salle de bain/toilet/john every 5 to 10 minutes, hoping like hell this is the last one, knowing it isn’t. If only that were the worst of it. Later that night the vomiting started (and the other stuff had not finished either). I scared some of the Kiwis who were unfortunate enough to be in the ablutions when I was making sounds like California was falling off the San Andreas Fault. I won’t say much more about the many incidents that night. I could probably get plenty of eye-popping descriptions of the entire sordid affair, but do you really want to read about that? Frankly, I don’t even want to write about it -- makes me a little green just thinking about the entire day. I will simply note that after the events of that long, long night, I now cut my food into smaller pieces. Ewww.

After that, it seemed to be merely a battle with dehydration. That first Gatorade (or in this case, the Kiwis had something called “Squinchers,” a mix-it-yourself Gatorade-esque drink), is amazing. If you have not had anything in over a couple of days, the first re-introduction of any flavor to your system is always powerful. I could not believe how wonderfully sweet and yet tangy lime green isotonic liquid could be. Alas, that sensation did not last long. After 3 days of non-stop Squinchers, your brain begins to fantasize about other tastes. Eventually, the cravings began, cravings for something, anything other than lime green isotonic drink, can’t we find anything other than . . . oh, great, another lime green isotonic drink, it sure would be wonderful to have something different, . . . right you are, another lime green isotonic drink, dear god, please no, not another lime green isotonic drink, make it stop, make it stop, PLEASE, oh ok, another lime green isotonic drink, and it just goes on.

Timing was definitely my enemy. Every time I thought I had turned the corner, I would put a toe back into the waters, testing real food again (nothing fancy -- bread, crackers, rice), but the results were, er, discouraging, so it would be back to the self-imposed exile, halfway house of lime green Squinchers again.

I left for Kabul on Thursday, with a 30 minute flight in PRT Air (or, as we call it, “in shallah” air, “in shallah” means “God willing.”0, a plane about the size your 11 year old nephew might hang from the ceiling with all his other models of Mustangs from WWII, Hornets from the current fighting fleet, etc. The plane is SMALL. A line Bob Hope once used sticks in my head: “we had to go outside to change our minds.” So THIS is the plane which will tackle the fierce winds (the winds have not let up, btw) which signify the change in seasons from Spring (we had a good 4 or 5 days of spring, after the winter, which I have already complained about) to Summer. Buffeted, I think that is the right word. I managed to keep everything in place on the flight, notwithstanding us rising and falling 1000 feet at a pop (it is a real disadvantage when you can see into the pilot’s “cockpit” and can read the altimeter), zigging when zagging was called for, etc. In short, NOT a fun 30 minutes.

We arrived at the Embassy, I dropped my bags (what a relief -- a hooch, with an attached bathroom, ALL TO MYSELF! This is real luxury), and what little of my system had recharged decided it was time to CTRL-ALT-DEL and start the process over again. It was not as bad this time around as the first lovely experience, but I was still holed up in my little trailer of misery for the better part of a week, and unlike back at the Base, I had to pay for my own Gatorade (the real thing this time) myself. $3 a bottle!!! I understand what Americans feel when they fill up at the pump. When you need something, you are going to pay whatever it costs, but you don’t have to like it. I certainly did not.

In the end, 2 weeks after the whole ordeal started, I got back to something approaching normal, 4 kg lighter, and no wiser for the experience. Bottom line, I hope when I get to Seoul in a year and a half that the developing country diet plan is not part of my itinerary.