20 years ago today – Day 348

Friday, February 14th – Mumbai, Hong Kong, Taipei ….Vancouver

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I can't really sleep in a moving vehicle, be it a train, a car or a plane. The Swiss Air flight only goes as far as Hong Kong. The staff are nice and efficient. They serve us breakfast in flight and a light lunch before we land in Hong Kong. I have to change flights here to Canadian Pacific Airlines and that flight doesn't leave for 12 hours. I collect my luggage and go to the waiting lounge to kill time until my flight.

Through the floor to ceiling windows, Hong Kong glistens in silver across the water to the airport, its massive bank towers set against the backdrop of its green mountains. I have never been here before, and I can see clearly why Vancouver is often referred to as Hongcouver. They look quite similar. It is maybe 20 kilometres away, far enough that I cannot see any of the images I have gleaned from television over the years: the crowded streets in the shadows of the state of the art bank towers, the pushy shoppers, the glittering signs, the corruption and faux democracy, the long escalators that carry servants up and down the hills to and from their shopping and the homes of the rich on top of the hills.

It is a grey day but it isn't raining. I have enough time to leave the airport, spend several hours in the city and return to the airport in time for my CP Air flight, but I have no money for shopping. I don't even have enough money to pay the airport entrance fee on return. I will be able to take an extract on my Visa card once I am in Vancouver, but until them I have ten dollars to my name. So I sit in the lounge and observe the city and the boats in the harbour from afar. There are no single travelers to talk to, no one who looks like they want to talk. I decide not to waste any money on another airport paperback novel, which are either formula spy or romance stories, most of which are quite tedious. So I sit here and wait as the hours pass.

We leave late in the evening for Taiwan. Three hours later, we are sitting on the tarmac in Taipei. This time we are not allowed to disembark, though the plane sits here for more than two hours. More passengers board and the plane is refueled for crossing the Pacific. There is enough commotion to prevent me from sleeping.

This is the longest continuous time I have spent in the air on a flight in my life. Eventually I manage to drift off but sleeping on a seat is difficult and I wake up with a kink in my neck. I am seated by the window, having booked so far in advance, but the chill from the window and the vibration from the jet makes leaning against the outer wall a bad choice if I want to sleep. Darkness is replaced by daylight soon enough, but there is nothing to see but water. We cross the International Date Line and February 15 becomes February 14 again. The TV monitor shows our position over the Pacific, but without any land references it never seems to change. In my tired stupor, it all feels surreal.

We arrive at Vancouver International Airport in the evening of February 14. All in all, by the time I collect my luggage and bike and leave the terminal, I have spend 42 consecutive hours in airports and on planes. I started and ended on February 14.

My sister Linda and my best friend in Vancouver, Bill, are waiting for me when I arrive. They don't know each other but somehow they ended up standing beside each other while waiting, and they got to talking and realized they were both waiting for me. I had written to both of them, telling them about my emaciated condition and my strange hair colour. They react as though there is nothing unusual when they see me, but weeks later I learn that they suppressed their shock. They help carry my bags back to Linda's car. Bill is hosting me so I stay with her to guide her back to his house in Kerrisdale. Then the three of us go out for dinner with Bill's boyfriend Lee so they can grill me about my trip. Should be more tired than I am but the excitement of being back in Canada, in my former home, and seeing Linda, Bill and Lee has me running on adrenalin.

After dinner, when I have returned to Bill and Lee's, I start to fade. Linda says goodbye and returns to her home in Surrey to relieve her babysitter - she has a 2 year old son I have never seen. She will meet me again in a couple days. I stay up with Bill and Lee and talk for another couple hours, playing with Bill's dog Mila (named after PM Brian Mulroney's wife). Their guest bed is so welcome when I get to it, but I find it hard to get to sleep. Everything has been changing so fast and for so long. I am happy that I will be here for two weeks before returning to my home in Toronto.