Traveling Light (#packing #possessions #anxiety)

By Lisabet Sarai

One of my life goals is to succeed in packing two week’s worth of stuff in a carry-on bag.

Don’t laugh. I’ve done a lot of traveling, visiting every continent except Australia. On almost every trip, I’ve been weighed down by excess luggage. I recall my first journey to Bali, in the mid-1980s. I’d bought a new soft-sided bag, what seemed like a clever innovation with four small wheels on the bottom and zippers that allowed you to add capacity, in several stages. I wasn’t able to find a picture even on the Internet—that’s how long ago it was!—but imagine something like a vertically expandable rolling backpack. Plenty of space, I figured, plus with the wheels I wouldn’t have to carry it. I stuffed it to the gills. Then I spent hot, miserable hours dragging it behind me along the dirt roads in Legian, looking for a guest house.

In 2000, my husband and I took a dream vacation to Provence. Ten days. Four suitcases, two large and two small. We’d booked an intimate, atmospheric hotel on the harbor in Marseille, quintessentially French. I adored the place—except for the fact that it had no elevator, just lovely spiral staircases. Our room on the fourth floor had a wonderful view. What I recall most vividly, though, is wrestling those heavy bags up to the room, then down again. We had to do that twice each way, since we both arrived and departed from Marseille and stayed in the same hotel both times.

Never again, I swore. I’m going to be really careful on my next trip, taking nothing but the absolute essentials. Just one suitcase for the two of us. It would have to be bigger of course, and would be somewhat heavier, but surely a single bag would be easier to handle than two... That’s a fine theory, I discovered, as long as you’re not traveling by train in France, where many of the smaller stations have no lifts and no elevators. (I was a bit shocked at the lack of concern for handicapped passengers, to be honest.)

Why do I always end up packing so much? There are a number of reasons. For one thing, my travels often combine business and leisure. That means I need both formal and casual clothing, and the shoes to go with them.

Yes, shoes are a major problem. Another one of my life goals is to find a single pair of shoes comfortable and sturdy enough for walking miles, while still fancy enough to go with a suit or a dress. In fact, I can’t walk in any pair of shoes for more than a day. With my seriously pronated arches, I get blisters from any shoes if I wear them consistently. Thus, even for a few days away, I need several changes of footwear.

Another issue is weather. I live in a tropical climate. If I’m on my way to some place more temperate, I have to pack warmer clothing, including bulky outerwear, plus lighter items to wear on the way home.

Excuses, excuses!

Yes, I admit I usually pack more items than I need. I don’t want to have to figure out a week’s wardrobe ahead of time. I like to have a bit of choice about what to wear. Is that a sin?

If it is, it’s one I pay for in backaches and exhaustion.

We had a friend visit, back when I lived in the US, a woman from Scotland who was former stewardess. She’d come for a two week vacation, all the way from the UK, and was traveling across America. All she had in the way of luggage was a rolling suitcase that would easily fit in the bin above an airline seat. Yet she managed to look fabulous during her entire three day stay with us.

I realized after looking at what she carried that one key to traveling light is having the right clothes. You need stuff that is compressible and that won’t wrinkle. Everything needs to follow the same color scheme, so you can mix and match. Plus you need lightweight fabrics that you can wash, preferably by hand. If your destination is chilly, plan to wear layers rather than bringing individual warm but space consuming pieces.

I’m proud to report that I am getting better, though I haven’t yet truly met my goal. Lately my DH and I have been managing with a single medium-sized bag for all our clothing and toiletries, plus two carry ons. Those hold our laptops, tablets, cables, charges and other essentials of the twenty-first century. That’s something I didn’t need to worry about when I went to Bali.

At the end of September I’m off to Europe on business. It will be a relatively short trip, but I’m already stressed about packing. I’m especially concerned because I will likely still need crutches due to my broken leg. Clearly I can’t pull a suitcase behind me.

Some people have nightmares about monsters or murderers. As for me, I have a recurring anxiety dream about packing. The details vary, but it’s always a situation where I have only ten minutes before I leave on a trip. I have to select what to take, often no more than what will fit in a backpack. I race around, frantic, trying to make decisions about what’s essential.

I guess that’s the critical point: deciding what’s essential. For the upcoming trip, I’ve decided that it doesn’t matter what I look like. The main point is surviving the twelve hours in the plane, not freezing to death, and managing to get around while I’m there.

I wonder if I can do that with just a carry-on?

Skirting the Precipice of Death

By Lisabet Sarai

Our topic for the coming fortnight is "Near Death Experiences". I hate to recycle posts, but this one is so appropriate, I couldn't resist. Besides almost all the members of the Grip have changed since April 2012 when this post appeared!

We went to Peru because, that winter, there was no snow in Austria. That fact scuttled our original vacation plans for a ski holiday. Hustling to find an alternative (I'd already secured time off from my job), we found a relatively cheap package tour to Lima. We'd had positive experiences traveling with this tour company to Jamaica. They provided airfare and lodging at a ridiculously low cost, then made their money on extras. In Jamaica it had been easy to use the hotel as a base for exploring on our own. We found out a bit late that Peru was a different sort of place altogether.

It was the early eighties, and quite frankly, the country was a mess. Vicious bands of Shining Path guerillas made overland transit perilous. Strikes and civil unrest occurred on an almost daily basis. At Lima Airport, we waited three hours for our luggage because the baggage handlers had stopped work. Rolling electricity outages afflicted the city of Lima, many regions of which we were advised to avoid due to the danger of being mugged or worse. Aside from the amazing gold museum, there wasn't much to see in Peruvian capital. In any case, we had loftier goals: Cusco and Machu Picchu.

The only practical way to Cusco was by air, and that turned out to be almost as expensive as our flight from the U.S. Nevertheless, we decided to bite the bullet and bought non-refundable round trip tickets to the old Incan capital nestled in the Andes.

Arriving in Cusco, we were informed that the narrow gauge railroad to Machu Picchu had been out of service for three weeks, due to a combination of rainy season mudslides and another strike. Apparently the strike had been settled, but it still wasn't clear whether the trains were running. We were devastated. Cusco was an astonishing place in its own right, but to come all that way and not get to see the fabled Incan terraces and the Temple of the Sun...!

Two days before we were scheduled to return to Lima, our guide told us we could catch the Machu Picchu train the following morning. We were up at six AM (a real sacrifice for my husband!) and on the train by seven. By ten AM we still hadn't left; there were new landslides blocking the tracks, we learned, that had to be cleared. When the train finally crawled out of the station, we cheered – but prematurely, as we were halted by a slide after an hour. Bulldozers were mustered, mud was cleared, the train proceeded for an hour or two, before our way was blocked once again.

Normally the trip from Cusco to the base of Huayna Picchu (only fifty miles!) takes about four hours. In our case, we didn't arrive until after four in the afternoon. The heart-stopping bus ride up the steep mountain flank, along the Hiram Bingham Highway, required another half hour. And the ruins closed at five thirty.

So we had less than an hour to explore one of the great wonders of the world. It was worth the journey, but way too short. Some members of the tour planned to stay over at the mountain-peak guest house, but our plane back to Lima left the next morning and we were worried about losing our money. In addition, my husband was showing signs of the flu. We climbed back into the bus, trundled down the side of the cliff and onto the train, and – waited.

The locomotive finally inched forward, into the inky darkness. We hadn't eaten. My husband's forehead felt hot enough to fry an egg. Although we were both exhausted, the hard wooden benches on the train were not really conducive to sleeping. I remember that trip as a kind of endless hell – creeping along the tracks that clung to the mountain side, the rain-swelled Urabamba River audible even though it was seventy feet below us. We'd stop for obstacles, wait, move, stop... My husband was hallucinating. I could have believed it was all a dream myself if I hadn't been so physically uncomfortable.

I finally must have drifted off into some kind of slumber, when an awful roar yanked me awake. The train lurched to a stop, throwing us to the sticky floor. It sounded as a building was collapsing around us.

The terrible racket finally stopped. Echoes of the tumult died away. Along with some of the other passengers, I stepped off the train to check out the situation.

A massive wall of steaming mud blocked the tracks, less than ten feet in front of the locomotive. Trees poked out of the muck at weird angles. Boulders twice as large as the stones of the Incan temples lay scattered on the narrow shelf the builders of the railroad had cut into the mountain side. As I stared in disbelief at the debris, a few more clods and pebbles clattered down from the heights on the right. Far below us, at the bottom of the cliff on the left, the rapids of the Urabamba seethed and boiled.

The railroad crew hurried us back into the train. I was in shock. If the slope had given way thirty seconds later, the train would have been buried. We might well have been swept off the track into the river coiling below.

My husband had fallen into an uneasy sleep, moaning and tossing on the unforgiving seats. As for me, I didn't close my eyes. I heard the grunt of the earth moving equipment they somehow managed to convey from further up the route, the shouts of the workmen, the background mutter of the swollen river. I was awake when the train nudged forward, rocking on its earth-dented tracks. I kept watch on my beloved, giving him water, praying his fever would break. I stared out the open window into the black night, not quite sure we'd really survived.

I watched dawn turn the terra-cotta roofs of Cusco from gray to red as we crawled down, back into the valley. We could have died. With a smidge less luck, we might have been lost in the Urabamba.

As the sun rose over the ancient city of the Incas, I found it hard to believe. I still do. Maybe the old gods were protecting us. Or maybe, that time at least, we were just lucky. 

Pesarla!

In some of my nightmares, I suddenly find myself in a strange country where I don't know the language or the customs very well, if at all. When I wake up, I remember that this could actually happen.

I am posting this from Santiago, Chile, while some man on the TV sings a commercial, "En Verano" (In the Summer) to the tune of the Village People's old hit, "In the Navy." My Chilean-born spouse and I are in a comfortable apartment (marketed to tourists through the internet) for ten days so that we could attend the Sixth World Summit on the Arts and Culture, which ended yesterday. (You don't want to see the full description in Spanish.) Spouse and I are on the 13th floor, which gives us a breathtaking view of mountains, earthquake-proof skyscrapers (so I've been told), and colonial Spanish architecture, baked in the sun of the Southern Hemisphere.

I can feel the envy from here. What does this post have to do with worry? What do I have to worry about?

Misunderstandings and embarrassment. Two days ago, Spouse sprained her ankle while climbing steep steps, so I had to go alone to the farmacia (pharmacy), then to the nearby mercado (supermarket) for breakfast groceries. I put some fruit in plastic bags and carried them to the checkout, where I was asked (I think) how much they weighed.

"No se" (I don't know), I mumbled.

The checkout girl had obviously had a sweaty, stressful day dealing with hordes of customers, no doubt including many ignorant foreigners staying in the apartments. "Pesarla!" (Weigh it!) she told me.

I sheepishly went back to the produce section, where I noticed a young man weighing bags of fruit and vegetables and putting stickers on them. I stood in line, got my stickers, returned to the checkout, then found the right amount of currency (a ten-thousand peso note), received my change, and brought my groceries back to my temporary home. I felt relieved and accomplished.

I bring a Spanish-English dictionary with me wherever I go, but it doesn't help much in the moment. Dictionary definitions don't explain real-life contexts. Being in a foreign country is like returning to childhood.

Despite all the attractions of this place, I look forward to going home to my familiar life in snowy Canada.

It's a loooooooong story

Giselle Renarde

That's what I told Aisling Weaver when she asked why my girlfriend and I haven't spoken in two weeks.

It's a long story I've spent the past two weeks trying not to tell anybody.  Not even my mom.  But, what the hell?  I'm an overshare-er, especially when it comes to relationship drama.  So here we go.

I'm not a traveller.  At all.  There's only one vacation I've ever wanted to take: a train trip across Canada.  That's it.  No tropical getaways or European holidays.  A train ride across the country.

Three weeks ago, Sweet told me she was going on a trip...

"That's nice, honey.  You've been working so hard lately.  You deserve a vacation."

A trip across Canada...

"Oh."

...by train.

A trip across Canada by train.  Without me.  She's taking my dream vacation without me.

I don't think I've ever been so... jealous?

But, see, ever since I started reading Tristan Taormino's book "Opening Up: A Guide to Creating and Sustaining Open Relationships" (which I told you about a few weeks ago), I've had trouble identifying any of my emotions as jealousy.  That's because:

Jealousy is really an umbrella term for a constellation of feelings including envy, competitiveness, insecurity, inadequacy, possessiveness, fear of abandonment, feeling unloved, and feeling left out. (Opening Up, pg 156)

I'm really angry about this situation.  I'm hurt.  A year ago, I would probably tell you I'm jealous, but I don't think I know what jealousy is anymore.  Part of that is because I'm more compassionate than I have been at any point in my life, and I constantly seem to be evaluating other people's predicaments.

But I also see the pieces of jealousy more clearly.  I feel envious--I've wanted to take that trip for as long as I can remember.  I feel insecure--why are you going with someone else?  I feel possessive--you should be taking that trip with me.  I fear abandonment--I don't even know where you are right now.  I feel unloved and left out most especially--why not me?

Maybe breaking jealousy into components just gives me more to cry about.  But maybe it allows me to better articulate the pain I'm feeling.

Sweet didn't bother making excuses.  I told her I felt like she was taking something of mine and giving it to someone else.  She understood.  But I didn't want to yell.  I didn't want to act like the "vengeful harridan" an ex once accused me of being.  The problem is... if you're angry but you don't want to yell, what's left?

Silence.

It's not like she's having the time of her life.  She isn't out to the person with whom she took this trip.  My girlfriend is trans, but she's still in the closet with a lot of her family members and friends.  So, I don't know exactly how long it takes to get from one end of this country to the other by train, but my girlfriend's spending that time dressed in the boy clothes she despises, and being acknowledged as a man, which she hates even more.

If I were truly "jealous" (whatever that means), I would probably be bathing in schadenfreude, knowing that she's as miserable as I am.  Unfortunately, I love her too much to think that way.  I want her to be happy, even when I'm not.

Before she left, she said, "To take this trip, I have to leave ME behind.  I have to pretend I'm something I'm not.  You're my anchor.  YOU are the one who as always accepted me, no matter what I look like. You've helped me grow as ME, and I need you now more than ever."

She wanted my blessing and my support.  She wanted to stay in touch while she was away.

I couldn't do it.

Maybe I'm not as compassionate as I'd like to be.  A more compassionate girlfriend would say, "I'm hurting like hell right now, but I can put my feelings aside for your sake."

I couldn't do it.


 

Lost in the Urabamba

By Lisabet Sarai

We went to Peru because, that winter, there was no snow in Austria. That fact scuttled our original vacation plans for a ski holiday. Hustling to find an alternative (I'd already secured time off from my job), we found a relatively cheap package tour to Lima. We'd had positive experiences traveling with this tour company to Jamaica. They provided airfare and lodging at a ridiculously low cost, then made their money on extras. In Jamaica it had been easy to use the hotel as a base for exploring on our own. We found out a bit late that Peru was a different sort of place altogether.

It was the early eighties, and quite frankly, the country was a mess. Vicious bands of Shining Path guerrillas made overland transit perilous. Strikes and civil unrest occurred on an almost daily basis. At Lima Airport, we waited three hours for our luggage because the baggage handlers had stopped work. Rolling electricity outages afflicted the city of Lima, many regions of which we were advised to avoid due to the danger of being mugged or worse. Aside from the amazing gold museum, there wasn't much to see in Peruvian capital. In any case, we had loftier goals: Cusco and Machu Picchu.

The only practical way to Cusco was by air, and that turned out to be almost as expensive as our flight from the U.S. Nevertheless, we decided to bite the bullet and bought non-refundable round trip tickets to the old Incan capital nestled in the Andes.

Arriving in Cusco, we were informed that the narrow gauge railroad to Machu Picchu had been out of service for three weeks, due to a combination of rainy season mudslides and another strike. Apparently the strike had been settled, but it still wasn't clear whether the trains were running. We were devastated. Cusco was an astonishing place in its own right, but to come all that way and not get to see the fabled Incan terraces and the Temple of the Sun...!

Two days before we were scheduled to return to Lima, our guide told us we could catch the Machu Picchu train the following morning. We were up at six AM (a real sacrifice for my husband!) and on the train by seven. By ten AM we still hadn't left; there were new landslides blocking the tracks, we learned, that had to be cleared. When the train finally crawled out of the station, we cheered – but prematurely, as we were halted by a slide after an hour. Bulldozers were mustered, mud was cleared, the train proceeded for an hour or two, before our way was blocked once again.

Normally the trip from Cusco to the base of Huayna Picchu (only fifty miles!) takes about four hours. In our case, we didn't arrive until after four in the afternoon. The heart-stopping bus ride up the steep mountain flank, along the Hiram Bingham Highway, required another half hour. And the ruins closed at five thirty.

So we had less than an hour to explore one of the great wonders of the world. It was worth the journey, but way too short. Some members of the tour planned to stay over at the mountain-peak guest house, but our plane back to Lima left the next morning and we were worried about losing our money. In addition, my husband was showing signs of the flu. We climbed back into the bus, trundled down the side of the cliff and onto the train, and – waited.

The locomotive finally inched forward, into the inky darkness. We hadn't eaten. My husband's forehead felt hot enough to fry an egg. Although we were both exhausted, the hard wooden benches on the train were not really conducive to sleeping. I remember that trip as a kind of endless hell – creeping along the tracks that clung to the mountain side, the rain-swelled Urabamba River audible even though it was seventy feet below us. We'd stop for obstacles, wait, move, stop... My husband was hallucinating. I could have believed it was all a dream myself if I hadn't been so physically uncomfortable.

I finally must have drifted off into some kind of slumber, when an awful roar yanked me awake. The train lurched to a stop, throwing us to the sticky floor. It sounded as a building was collapsing around us.

The terrible racket finally stopped. Echoes of the tumult died away. Along with some of the other passengers, I stepped off the train to check out the situation.

A massive wall of steaming mud blocked the tracks, less than ten feet in front of the locomotive. Trees poked out of the muck at weird angles. Boulders twice as large as the stones of the Incan temples lay scattered on the narrow shelf the builders of the railroad had cut into the mountain side. As I stared in disbelief at the debris, a few more clods and pebbles clattered down from the heights on the right. Far below us, at the bottom of the cliff on the left, the rapids of the Urabamba seethed and boiled.

The railroad crew hurried us back into the train. I was in shock. If the slope had given way thirty seconds later, the train would have been buried. We might well have been swept off the track into the river coiling below.

My husband had fallen into an uneasy sleep, moaning and tossing on the unforgiving seats. As for me, I didn't close my eyes. I heard the grunt of the earth moving equipment they somehow managed to convey from further up the route, the shouts of the workmen, the background mutter of the swollen river. I was awake when the train nudged forward, rocking on its earth-dented tracks. I kept watch on my beloved, giving him water, praying his fever would break. I stared out the open window into the black night, not quite sure we'd really survived.

I watched dawn turn the terra-cotta roofs of Cusco from gray to red as we crawled down, back into the valley. We could have died. With a smidge less luck, we might have been lost in the Urabamba.

As the sun rose over the ancient city of the Incas, I found it hard to believe. I still do. Maybe the old gods were protecting us. Or maybe, that time at least, we were just lucky.

My Favorite Kind of Research

By Lisabet Sarai

When it comes to research, I'm a bit lazy. Occasionally I'll get bitten by the research bug and spend a bunch of money on books – I dropped nearly a hundred bucks on material about Mayan mythology and culture when I was working on Serpent's Kiss – but usually I'm content with relatively superficial visits to Google or Wikipedia to answer my factual questions. It helps that I don't tend to write much historical fiction. My few attempts in that genre have confirmed my expectations that it's a huge amount of work! No, I have to admit, I'll coast if I can, trusting my imagination and my intuitions when a more scrupulous author would be hitting the reference department.

There's one area, though, where I'm willing to do almost unlimited explorations in the interest of verisimilitude – preferably going to the original source – and that's my settings.

Anyone who's read much of my fiction (all three of you!) knows I often set my stories in foreign destinations. That's merely a symptom of the fact that travel is quite my literally passion. I've probably already shared the story of how my husband seduced me with tales of his adventures in Paris, Instanbul and Bali. Sex, love and travel totally intermix in my mind and my memories. So perhaps it's not surprising that I get story ideas when I'm on one of our international jaunts.

My very first published short story, “Glass House”, draws heavily on my experiences in Prague a few years before I wrote it. Even now, a decade later, rereading it brings back the weird, almost absurd beauty of that venerable city, the edgy, offbeat magic that infects its cobblestone streets and stone bridges, soaring cathedrals and basement pubs.

******

“Let us walk down to the river,” he says, bringing me back to the present. “It is nearly sunset. And there is something that I would like to show you.”

We make our way westward toward the Vltava, in companionable silence. I am struck by the fact that, after all, I do trust Lukaš. For all his swaggering and sexual innuendo, he has treated me with respect. I know how easily he could have taken advantage of me; he probably knows it, too. Somehow, though I have told him nothing, he also senses my conflicts. He knows without being told that I am not free.

Clouds stained by the sunset heap high over the water, which flows gray and smooth like molten lead. Vermilion, ocher, coral, azure: ordinary color names do not apply to these flowing, burning shapes.

Against this multicolored background the spires and towers of Prague Castle on its crag across the river are fairytale silhouettes. For a long time, I simply stare, as the forms merge and change in the dying light. When I finally remember Lukaš, I see he is grinning again, as if he could take credit for this spectacular display.

“Is this what you wanted to show me? It is wonderful!”

“Not exactly. Look across the street.”

The first thing I see is a massive rococo building of yellow stucco, dripping with ornamentation and topped by an onion dome. Then I see the building beside it, and stop short.

It is totally fantastic, whimsical, and bizarre. It began as an ordinary, modern office building, with square windows and a flat roof, facing the river across Smetanova Street. But grafted onto this edifice is a second building, all of glass, shaped like an asymmetric egg timer and leaning at a crazy angle against the staid office block. The sunset colors reflect in its multifaceted façade, so that the building seems to shift and move.

*****

Then there's Amsterdam. I've been there several times, but six or seven years ago we spent an entire week in a tiny guesthouse just around the corner from the train station. Something kept drawing me back to the red light district – maybe the fact my previous visits were prior to my rebirth as an erotica author. I found myself fascinated by the women in the narrow, rose-lit windows, wondering what their lives might be like. The experience ultimately produced my BDSM tale “Shades of Red”.

*****

I've been obsessed ever since last night, when Jane and I wandered through the red light district, staring at the women who waited behind the glass in their rose-tinted rooms. We wove our way through clumps of nervous, intoxicated men who were all staring, too. I could smell their sweat, underneath the beer and the pot smoke. I could feel their lust. It infected me.

They barely noticed us, two teenagers in jeans, although the tight denim in my crotch was so wet, I half-expected they'd catch my scent and turn to me. They had eyes only for the bodies displayed in the rows of windows lining the canals.

Some of the women were ripe, blond, Slavic-looking, their breasts exploding out of their lace brassieres. Others were slight, deliberately child-like in Gidget-inspired bikinis or brief plaid kilts. There was a Brazilian beauty with golden skin and coffee-colored eyes; a voluptuous African princess with strings of ruby-hued beads dangling in her ebony cleavage; a serious-looking brunette wearing dark-framed glasses who sat, shapely legs crossed, like a secretary waiting to take dictation.

Some of the women posed. Others danced suggestively, or made lewd gestures at their prospective customers. There were masked women in leather, snapping riding crops against their boots. There were women whose pierced nipples and labia showed clearly through their translucent garments.

Men clustered around the dimly-lit windows like moths hovering by a candle. Mostly they'd just look, inflamed by the mere thought of all this available flesh. Sometimes I'd see a hushed conversation through a half open glass door. Such conversations might end with the man turning away, disappointed, rejected, or perhaps simply unwilling to pay the asking price. Other times the door would open wider, just enough to admit the supplicant. Then it would close and the red velvet curtains would be drawn, hiding the rest of the dance.

Those curtained windows drew me. I couldn't stop imagining what might be going on behind them. I knew it was a straight commercial transaction in most cases, a workman-like blowjob, or a quick, bored fuck. Still, I imagined occasional revelations, epiphanies, ecstasies -- meetings of strangers pre-destined to be lovers, brief but unbearably intense conflagrations of lust, lewd and mystical connections that would live in his memory, or hers, long after the curtains were flung open again.

I'm nineteen. I've had enjoyable but ultimately frustrating sex with two boys my age. I know that, practical as I am, I'm a bit of a romantic. Otherwise, I would not have continued to roam the red-lit alleys long after Jane gave up and went back to the hotel in disgust. As the Oude Kerk chimed two AM, I wandered up Molensteeg and down Monnikenstraat like some horny ghost. The crowds had thinned. The curtains were mostly drawn. Some of open windows were empty. Next to them were the signs: KAMERS TE HUUR. Windows for rent.

*****

I remember those church bells, ringing through the damp, mostly deserted Amsterdam streets. I just had to capture them in a story.

Then of course there's Bangkok, familiar and yet ever strange after two years of living there and many visits since. I was there not long ago. The city's changing – there are more skyscrapers now, and everyone including the beggars has a cell phone – but the description I wrote nearly a decade ago, in “Butterfly” is still pretty accurate. Except for their piercings and tattoos, the bar girls haven't changed much...

*****

One of my mates, Charlie, knew the city well. He checked us into a comfortable, ridiculously cheap hotel in the middle of the tourist district. Bewildered and dazzled, I followed him along sidewalks crammed with vendors hawking watches, tee shirts and toys, trying to avoid tripping on the broken pavement.

Beggars with shriveled limbs extended their bowls in silent entreaty. Blond, ragged-haired tourists in shorts and sandals, slender Thai women in tight jeans and silk blouses, monks draped in saffron, policemen standing stiffly at corners, their revolvers prominently displayed: it seemed that the whole of the Bangkok was here on this one street. Meanwhile, an endless line of vehicles crawled by us: tint-windowed Mercedes, sooty trucks, and rickety buses with people hanging out the doors. The air was heavy with diesel fumes, frying garlic, and jasmine. We dined at a quiet restaurant on a side lane, where the young waitress giggled every time we spoke to her. Then Charlie took me off to see what he called "the real Bangkok" - the go-go bars and sex clubs.

We sauntered into the "entertainment plaza". Three stories of indoor bars and clubs surrounded a central court, which was crowded with open-air bars and stalls selling skewers of grilled chicken, fresh fruit, and fried locusts. As we walked along the second-level balcony, bikini-clad girls tried to lure us inside their establishments.

<"Come inside," they crooned. "One beer fifty baht. No cover charge." Briefly, the woman would hold back the dark cloth draping the door, offering a tantalizing glimpse of flickering lights and bare flesh. "Take a look, no charge, come inside."

The more energetic of these young marketeers would grab us by the hand, and laughing the whole while, try to pull us in. It was all good-natured, though. We'd extricate ourselves from her strong fingers and thank her. "Not now," we'd say. "Maybe later."

"Why not now?" she'd say, stamping her foot in mock anger. "Don't you like me?"

*****

I've been lots of places I haven't written yet. There are stories inside me set in Instanbul, in Tokyo, in Lisbon. I'm sure they'll find their way out eventually. Of course, sometimes I'll want to set one of my tales somewhere I haven't traveled (at least not yet). Then I do have to do some research – but it's a pleasure.

A few months ago I wrote a short story that takes place in Varanasi (Benares), India. My one trip to India didn't take me anywhere near that ancient, sacred center. I spent delightful hours pouring over websites, gazing at maps, trying to grasp a sense of the place. I don't know if I succeeded (I haven't heard yet whether the tale has been accepted), but I'll tell you one thing: I've added the place to my (all too long) travel wish list!