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The Vacation Spectator
The Jet Lag Journal
Postcards from a family holiday get-away to half-way around the world.
How does one write something, much less a note about something mostly unserious, after last week’s devastating news? Trite maxims such as “if you don’t go on with your life, the bad guy wins” don’t come close to sufficiency. Yet as I sit outside my hotel room listening to the 36th hour of near-monsoon rains since my family has arrived on the other side of the planet from home, I am reminded that life does have methods of washing away at least the superficial signs of even the most horrific events, often leaving more permanent but less plentiful reminders which we all must come to terms with, as some combination of lesson and warning, in our own ways. I suppose, like many things on this earth, if it were any other way, life would be less worth living.
————
On the spectrum of ailments, jet leg earns somewhat more sympathy than excessive ear wax and somewhat less than a bad case of toe fungus. But even though I have traveled a lot — now having visited about 60 countries and six continents — I have never had jet lag like this.
A week into our “trip of a lifetime” family vacation — a welcome break from the early winter snows of the Colorado mountains we call home — I am yet to sleep for more than three hours at a stretch. Nearly halfway around the planet from the Rocky Mountains, our bodies and minds can’t seem to grasp that bed time is not two hours before lunch. If you often feel like having a 3 PM catnap, try it when 3 PM is 1 AM at your house. Then when you do take that nap, you will sleep for several blissful hours, only to realize that you have made it that much harder to adjust to the time zone because when you try to sleep that night, your body will think that is time for a short nap. And thus I type these words in a pitch black night-morning, listening to falling rain and waves breaking on the shores of Sri Lanka, feeling a strange combination of awake and disoriented by the unsteadiness of persistent sleep deprivation.
Sleep issues were not particularly helped by arriving at the first hotel of our journey, the Sheraton Abu Dhabi (that city being the capital of the United Arab Emirates), at 3:30 AM after 35 hours of travel and being told that no room would be available for us until 8 AM. Apparently, every room in the hotel was booked except for the unaffordable presidential suite, listed at $600 per night more than the total of the two regular rooms we had already booked. (It was shockingly difficult to find a hotel that would allow two adults and two kids in one room.)
After about two hours of waiting restlessly, watching TV and playing Bananagrams in a typically hyper-airconditioned UAE building, the front desk guy, taking something like pity on us as well as maybe having been happy to hear me say nice things about his home town of Mumbai, came up to offer us the presidential suite for only $180 per night more than I had already spent. Out of desperation to have something, anything, done — more to pacify my understandably anxious-to-hit-a-bed wife than out of my own impatience, which was tempered by my distaste at spending an extra $700 — we accepted and thus had several nights in what seemed more like a large two-bedroom apartment than a hotel room, complete with giant living room with sofa, chairs, tables, and a big flat panel TV on the wall.
The room overkill turned out to be a godsend, if a pricey one, because our mass jet lag had different people awake at different times, and yours truly awake most of the time throughout the night, entertaining the wide-awake kids, so my wife could at least attempt to sleep. So when one kid dozed off, I could put her (usually my daughter, as my son was more like a pinball bouncing around the place) in her own bedroom, king-size bed and all, where she had neatly arranged her art supplies and two small stuffed animals on the desk. She looks like me, but takes very much after my well-organized artist wife.
Driving into Abu Dhabi from the airport, even — or maybe especially — in the near solitude of 3 AM, one can’t help but think that this was an urban planner’s dream: a nearly blank canvas and a nearly unlimited budget, allowing beautiful wide roads with landscaping nicer than most homes have, pristine buildings housing government ministries and private offices and luxurious hotels, and miles of beautiful park, called the Corniche, along the ocean front. I am told that Dubai makes Abu Dhabi look small and cheap. Is it not amazing what barrels of liquified 300-million year old plants can be transformed into?
The other thing one notices as a tourist in Abu Dhabi, where you’re mostly seeing those who work in service industries like hotels, taxis, and restaurants, is how many people who live and work there are not from there.
I did not meet, as far as I know, a single Arab working in any of those places. Instead, we met dozens of people — mostly men — from India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Pakistan, with the women, especially hostesses in the hotel restaurant, being mostly young Filipino women. (The omelette bar at the buffet breakfast included lobster as an omelette ingredient option, after which retiring to the presidential suite seemed oh so appropriate.)
It seems that locals are either too rich — either through birth or through pacifying subsidy — or “above” taking such jobs and I imagine, though without any basis in knowledge, that that’s just how they feel.
Another observation: Everyone we met was remarkably friendly to our kids, as if patting a kid on the head brings good luck like rubbing Buddha’s belly is thought to in other cultures. But on the street, locals (as identified by their traditional Arab garb) would rarely look my wife or me in the eye, and even more rarely smile.
Our experience was different in Istanbul, Turkey, where we spent several hours during a 9-hour layover between flights. There, although one might be reasonably tempted to ascribe it to trying to sell us things, people were effusively friendly to all of us — though again especially to the children. We wandered the spice market and bought something similar to the Egyptian spice mix dukkah, which my wife is very fond of. We were warned away from the Grand Bazaar as overly touristy, though I was still tempted as it was the place where I first practiced intensive negotiation when I was there in the early 1970s at the ripe old age of eight. It must have rubbed off on me permanently, because I negotiate the way others golf: for the fun of it, and with great satisfaction at feeling as if I’ve won — or at least not lost.
We also visited Hagia (pronounced roughly as eye’-uh) Sophia, which was a major church from the 4th century to the 15th century, then a mosque until it became a museum in 1935. It is a remarkable place, and it is good to see its long Christian tradition not ignored in the Muslim country’s presentation of Ayasophia’s (the Turkish spelling) fascinating history.
Istanbul is an incredible city that deserves weeks, not hours, and we hope to return there one day, not least because its Business Class airport lounge is a place I could gladly stay for several days as it is full of good food, good drink, and interesting conversation such as the one we had with a man who works for the Austrian embassy in commerce and trade development and was recently transferred out of his posting in Damascus, Syria.
About the Author
Ross Kaminsky is a self-employed trader and investor and is a senior fellow of the Heartland Institute. He is the host of The Ross Kaminsky Show on Denver’s NewsRadio 850 KOA at 11 AM on most Sundays. You can reach Ross by e-mail at rossputin(at)rossputin(dot)com.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (20) | Leave a comment
More Articles by Ross Kaminsky
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Appleby| 12.21.12 @ 7:24AM
I visited Istanbul in 1969 on my way around the world, and that was the first time I realized that it was possible to be bilingual and not speak English. (I was 21 and it was the 1960s when Americans did not travel at all.) We were fortunate indeed as word had reached the forward Air Force base that a shipload of American college girls was docking in Stambol and a large number of American Guys hitchhiked 100 miles to take us out and show us a good time. My roommate and I went about with three guys who showed us the town and we ended up at the Hilton for dinner. One advantage of ship travel is no jet lag; however, I suffered plenty of same when travelling between Australia and the USA. Sounds like you had a wonderful time.
Cobalt| 12.21.12 @ 8:21AM
Exactly. No need for other innocent children to ever hear the words "Newtown, Connecticut."
Unfortunately, many children will not be spared a first hand knowledge of evil or mental illnes.
For travelers: http://www.theforceguard.com
Hardcard| 12.21.12 @ 8:50AM
Apparently someone has been excommunicated on doomsday (friday) by TAS.
Quartermaster| 12.21.12 @ 8:58AM
Larry Pratt was not reprehensibly insensitive, he was exactly correct. You may wish that things were different, but you must always be on the offensive against teh left. They must be attacked relentlessly and give no rest, no room to breathe.
Sensitivity is why we have reached the sorry pass we are at. We either man up and fight, or we take your path and lose, and we would deserve to lose.
loulou| 12.21.12 @ 10:17AM
Agree. Larry Pratt was magnificent. I wish our RINO congressmen had his cojones.
This was the first time I had heard that awful Piers Morgan and there's something about the timbre of his voice that makes me want to throw up. Add to that his gibberish and one has to wonder why he has a TV show in the first place. Made a fool of himself.
Simon Templar| 12.21.12 @ 11:49AM
"Sensitivity is why we have reached the sorry pass we are at."
That is a brilliant observation and it gives me some hope, please keep pointing it out.
Occam's Tool| 12.21.12 @ 12:53PM
QM: I don't agree with you all that often, but when you are right, you're right---screw being sensitive.
The way to reduce the violence is to put violent psychotics on antipsychotics whether or not they want to be on them. Check out Fuller Torrey on this. I see this every day---how the legal system fails the mentally ill. Incidentally, YES WE DO HAVE THE MANPOWER TO TREAT THESE PEOPLE IF WE WERE ALLOWED TO DO SO. We waste hours in court and enormous numbers of hospital days fighting for the right to treat people who desperately need it.
Ross: dehydration is a nasty side effect of jet travel. Drink your gatorade.
Islamists don't tend to work much. That's what they have Kaffirs for.
PCC| 12.21.12 @ 9:47AM
If it took you 35 hours to get to Abu Dhabi from Colorado, when most people could get there in half the time (or less) on commercial airlines, then you got what you deserved!
Drunken Sailor| 12.21.12 @ 10:15AM
Careful, Keep writing articles like this and you may get Ben Stein's job here.
Not sure why you were surprised about Abu Dhabi's population not enganged in service jobs. They have a class society and leave the menial task to the commoners (read foreigners).
And yes, Dubai is nicer and more westernized.
Denver Todd| 12.21.12 @ 10:22AM
You have to work really hard to fly from Denver to Abu Dhabi in 35 hours. According to kayak, the minimum is 17.5 and the average is around 24 hours.I suspect that Ross used frequent flyer miles that limited his selection.
Albert Constantine Jr.| 12.21.12 @ 10:44AM
I traveled with my wife and my first two children halfway round the world more than a dozen years ago. My daughter, then the younger of two, turned 3 in Thailand, and my eldest son was granted leave from kindergarten on the promise of giving a presentation to the class upon his return (he did, and got great laughs from the adults present on the virtues of eating at KFC restaurants overseas). While the travel was a great experience for them, I can state without fear of meaningful contradiction that having traveled overseas many times solo, and with children, that solo is much easier, and much better.
Today, with the costs of their college and private school tuitions, along with the diminished opportunity of the Obama economy, I can no longer afford to do this, though now that both have driver's licenses, laptops, smart phones, etc. to occupy their time, I imagine (even with the addition) it would be much easier.
Occam's Tool| 12.21.12 @ 12:55PM
Yes. I moved to New Zealand under Bush, Jr. It would be much harder to travel now overseas, as Obama has made it more dangerous and more expensive.
But I still plan to get down to Guatemala again and go to Israel.
Simon Templar| 12.21.12 @ 11:39AM
"His underlying point may have a grain, or many grains, of truth, but I found his comments, or more precisely how soon they followed the massacre of children, to be reprehensibly insensitive."
Well, hmmm, maybe now that your rested from your vacation you could write just a little about the manipulation, deception, lying, political exploitation, name calling, slander, accusations, and tirade that the Left and the media has dumped on conservatives and libertarians like yourself for that matter this past week while you were gone playing in the sand. Perhaps you could point out this insensitivity and stop, just for a moment, pulling the slivers out of conservatives eyes and ignoring the logs in liberal's.
Here is a little something you can chew on,
Congressman Jim Himes (D-Conn.) said Governor Rick Perry “had blood on his hands” for supporting the Second Amendment of the US Constitution.
rossputin? That says more about you than you will ever know or admit, a good descriptor.
Simon Templar| 12.21.12 @ 11:46AM
rossputin.....
Here is a little something you can have fun with like your contest you have with TLP.
Can anyone correctly guess what irony is hidden here and just how the use of this name and obvious reference fits him so well?
Put your thinking caps on....
RCV| 12.21.12 @ 12:14PM
Ross - Your column reminded me of a wonderful vacation in Istanbul I took a few years ago. The Turkish people were not only remarkably friendly to all, including the numerous Israeli tourists we met, but admirably tolerant toward one another. It was not unusual to see groups of people, some in chadors, others in tank tops, walking together and chatting amiably.
It is hard to overestimate the remarkable accomplishments of Attaturk in forging the modern Turkish state and its culture out of the ossified Ottoman caliphate. Let's hope the Turks have the mettle to preserve that legacy.
Occam's Tool| 12.21.12 @ 12:56PM
I don't know, RCV. Besides, the older I get, the more tired I get. I'm into cocooning.
Jack London| 12.21.12 @ 1:56PM
What a shame, RCV, for the modern Turkish state that it has an appalling recent human rights record, thousands of political prisoners on hunger strike and ongoing state censorship, not to mention the cover up of the Armenian genocide from Ataturk onwards. But glad you had a good time.
Tafuna| 12.21.12 @ 3:45PM
My own trip 40 years ago to Abu Dhabi, Dubai, and a couple months later, Columbo in Sri Lanka, was by ship thanks to the US Navy, and thus no jet lag problems. What a tremendous change there as been in the United Arab Emirates since back then. The UAE was a dusty backwater in those days, and about the only thing to do there was shop for gold smuggled in from India and made into beautiful 22k pieces of jewelry. There were few foreigners there, and the locals were working the jobs apparently now done by people from other lands.