Have been feeling a bit ambivalent about blogging the past couple of days but I suspect that’s just a combination of malaise and jetlag. Have not offloaded the Mumbai pics from the camera yet; haven’t done much of anything.

My flight out of Mumbai was scheduled for 5:20 AM Sunday morning. This means staying up all night, leaving the hotel at 3 AM, and then almost literally fighting one’s way through the airport.

Even at 3 AM, there are hordes of people outside the airport trying to help you with your luggage – not to rip you off (well, probably some) but for tips. This is their “job.” Some even have phony ID tags around their necks to make them look official.

The worst part was the security check right before the gate. There were two lines for three gates and at 4:30 AM both lines stretched all the way back through the terminal. As our flight time was approaching, a CX representative came and gathered all of the people for the flight still online and brought us to the head of the line. Once there, an armed soldier refused to let us jump the line. He started yelling at the CX guy. I figured this was happening because this is the only time in his life that the guy gets to show some semblance of authority and he was gonna use it! What is both sad and amusing is that I suspect this is a nightly occurrence. And sure enough, eventually someone else came and talked to that soldier and we were allowed to pass.

Since it was a short haul flight (4 hours to Bangkok), the plane was not equipped with the kind of business class seats that go relatively flat. With all the hubbub around the meal service, I was finally able to grab two hours of sleep before being woken for the Bangkok landing.

An hour and a half on the ground – and we’re not allowed to leave the plane. Two and a half hours to HK, couldn’t sleep at all.

So on Saturday night, such as it was, a total of two hours sleep. Sunday, I was asleep by 7 PM and up at 2 AM. Monday I was asleep by 6 PM and awake by 1 AM. This is not a good thing. At this rate it will take me a week to get back in the time zone, even though the last time zone I visited was just 2-1/2 hours off.

I contemplated going out to the bars. As a matter of fact, it’s 3:15 AM now and I’m thinking about hitting a bar. Not so much for female companionship as for a few drinks to knock me out and let me have a few unconscious hours while it’s still dark out. And a massage wouldn’t hurt (especially because right now my back does hurt).

Yeah, I know. Bitch bitch bitch. Moan moan moan. Whine whine whine.

Incidentally, my mother has never gone to Paris because she doesn’t like the way the French treat Israel. I have never gone to Israel because I don’t like the way the Jews treat Palestinians. But I’ve gone to China – I suppose the difference is that in China they treat everyone bad regardless of race or creed?

This is a brilliant article by Bill Buford about Gordon Ramsay. He coaxes a fairly shocking revelation out of Ramsay. Does one really need to be that evil to attain success?

Here is a piece by Frank Bruni explaining why you shouldn’t eat out on Mondays. It’s similar to something Bourdain wrote, though Bruni seems okay with dining out on Friday and Saturday nights. I’ve often wondered how true this is in Asia … at least for the so-called fine dining establishments. God knows I’d never go to a sushi place on a Sunday but is a Saturday okay?

Here’s an article in Travel+Leisure on their selection of the best new restaurants of 2007. It includes two in HK: Pierre at the Mandarin Oriental (dinner for 2 US$260) and Lung King Heen at the Four Seasons (lunch for 2 US$100). Interesting how even an article like this manages to be political:

Still, not even the astounding desserts (try the “passion du citron,” composed of multicolored lemon Jell-O sticks, meringue, and limoncello) can diminish the heartbreak of peering out at the harbor and seeing the ghost of the old Star Ferry terminal, a beloved city landmark now shut down (and relocated) by the callous city authorities. So much for progress.

Yes, I’m thinking about food because I haven’t eaten anything since lunch.

And, yes, the recent “election” has been much on my mind. I always tell myself that it doesn’t matter to =me= because even if this was a democracy, I wouldn’t be able to vote (though I would in theory have that, if it’s available, in another 17 months or so). I’ve said it before – the incompetencies and lunacies of the HK government, so inept that it seems almost a basic requirement for service, pale next to the utter disgust I feel for those people currently in charge of the US and As. In a low IQ contest, it’s not clear if Bush or Tsang would win. Watching Tsang on TV, dripping in sweat, pretending that he won something other than a boot-licking contest, I am filled with revulsion. But here in HK, they demolish a ferry terminal; they destroy cultural icons; our lives are debased but at least they go on. They lie but they don’t torture or kill.

Today is one of those days when, during my conscious moments, I’ve had this internal debate on why I remain in HK, why I don’t go somewhere else. And the answer is, for all my issues with HK, I still can’t think of any place else I’d rather be.

But then again, there’s a whole lotta places I ain’t been to yet.

create your own visited countries map

4:15 AM now. Should I get to the Bridge bar early or should I watch the last episode of Rome?