miscellaneous rambling

Several years ago I went to Tibet. It was one of the best trips ever. In the Eastern part, there is a beautiful valley that they nickname "Shangri-La".
The name Shangri-La, is one that is occasionally heard of. It gives images of a heaven on earth. A place of peace. I thought it perhaps a Tibetan version of paradise.

Last year, I stayed at the hotel Shangri-La in Bangkok, Thailand. It was a fabulous hotel. Gorgeous. ( and the buffet was delicious..)
In my room, the hotel staff would place a card, that I used as a bookmark. Printed on this card was a quote from Lost Horizon, by James Hilton.

After a bit of research, I found that the name Shangri-La was coined by James Hilton in his book from 1933. I hunted for the book, and found a second hand copy online, my edition is from 1964. It's musty, falling apart, and yellowed. The cover price is only $0.35! I actually had to pay about $4 for it including shipping. It is a small book, an easy read, and very dated, and very British. But I loved it. The description of the mythical Shangri-La was inspiring. Perhaps there exists such a place in Tibet. Not in the Eastern lower valleys, but in the high peaks, within the Kunlun mountains ( I was there too, but didn't see anything but snow and ice ) as the book says.

I hope one day to be back in Tibet. There is more territory there I want to cover. I wish to circumnavigate Mt. Kailash one day, as well as see the Potala Palace again in Lhasa. And if there is a Shangri-La, then maybe I'll end up there.

If you can find an old copy of this book, buy it. Maybe a digital format exists too. Imagine a place, where time almost stands still.

My flight left Monday, August 15th, 2011 from Edmonton to Vancouver. The flight was at 9:30 am, and so I had to leave the house about 6am to get to the airport and check in. First thing that happened was my luggage was 15lbs. overwieght. This is the first time it's ever happened to me, as I'm usually very careful about this sort of thing. However, I guess I didn't take the care that I usually did, and I even weighed my suitcase before hand.
So I had to reshuffle things, and then leave things behind for my mom to take home. The good thing is that I had my wine, comics, and a few things for Dallas that I picked up.
The flight was of course, delayed. They not only began boarding at the time of take off, but there was a group of parapalegics in wheelchairs that had to board first, which took about 15 minutes on their own. Waiting for them, was not a problem, if only the plane had began to board on time...
After I got to Vancouver, I found out that my flight to Hong Kong was delayed about 4 hours. This meant that I would be missing my connecting flight into Taipei, Taiwan. I wandered around for awhile. I spent 40 minutes in line at the Air Canada service desk only to find out that I'm just one of a long line of disgruntled passengers. I can't believe that our countries only major international carrier is so second rate. At least I got a $10 lunch voucher for my delay. That was only enough to cover a pint of beer ( Granville island pale ale ) including tax and tip at the bar though.
The only interesting thing that happened was I met a Ukranian guy at the liquor shop. He is an immigrant worker who is very knowledgable about wine and spirits, and he discussed his different views about various wines etc. He showed me $3000 bottle of whiskeys and complained about the price of wine in Canada, and complained how crazy it was because in Europe he could get a decent bottle for only about 8 euros. He went on to tell me about his experience as a wine maker, and how although he liked his job alot, he was looking forward to getting his citizenship and then having more options for finding work.
Finally, we board for Hong Kong. The flight again, has a delayed boarding time. Not only this, but for some reason, 6 security guards came in and began randomly checking passports as we boarded. This was after the usual final check at the gate. They were standing at the passageway between the gate and the plane. Wierd. After we sat in, it seems that the in flight entertainment system on the plane is on the fritz and that they will have to reboot the system. This takes 30 minutes, and it seems to work for everyone except about 5 rows on the plane. Which includes my seat. Not only that, the reading lights didn't work as well as the call button for the flight attendants. Well, being composed of mainly Asians that don't speak English, it seemed that no one was complain. So of course, I started. After talking to 3 different flight attendants, which of course I had to flag down, because the button wasn't working, things started to happen. A few started to support my cause. At this point, they head flight attendent came to say that they couldn't do anything and that we had a choice of compensation ( which was unclear what that would be ) or we could move, but there were only about 4 empty seats on the plane and they were middle seats. I got first dibs on a seat.
At first she told me to grab my things and go about 10 rows back. I saw an empty seat between two lovely ladies, and I thought to myself that things were starting to look great for the remainder of the flight. However, they told me that someone was sitting there, and that he'd just let for the bathroom.. so close, yet so far...
So then I walked back to the flight attendant who was now feilding complains by my fellow passengers. She got me into another seat. This row was occupied by a couple who were clearly unimpressed as they had claimed their extra seat as storage space. There were clothes, coffee, books, a laptop and an ipod strewn everywhere. They then had to clean it all up, and the wife moved next to her husband, which meant at the very least, that I would be sitting by the window instead of in the middle.
My last comment on this flight was that the food was bad. Oh, so bad..
Upon arriving in Hong Kong, there were half a dozen Air Canada employees ready to tell all the various people that, yes, they screwed us, and this is now where we had to go. Travelling alone, I am always able to move faster, and so I made it to the service counter first before the others which meant I got my new boarding card and was able to at least wander a bit before I caught my final flight. It seems they got me on the red eye into Taipei midnight. Which meant basically two things:
1. Air Canada wouldn't have to pay for my hotel in Hong Kong
2. I would be stuck on a slow 5 hour bus home from Taipei because there would be no more trains at that time of night.
After I got in, I found out that I had to take a bus to Taichung ( 1.5 hours ) and then buy another ticket down to Kaohsiung. Bear in mind, after that I'd still have to take a 30 minute cab home from there. So, I took the bus only to get in at 3am and find out that there are NO buses going any further South until the morning.
I had to walk with my luggage to two hotels nearby ( first one was full ). I got the last room at the second one. I managed to even plead for a discount which I got. ( gotta love Taiwan for that ) and I finally showered and crashed.
After a 6 hour sleep I got up, and took a cab to the bullet train, which got me south in 40 minutes. Dallas picked me up, and after 46 hours, I was back. Technically, I wasn't home yet, we still had a 40 minute drive home, but close enough.
We stopped for lunch at a Japanese restaurant first. I got a pork cutlet over rice with a miso sauce. lunch included soup and a drink. It cost me less than my beer in Vancouver.