Mambo de la luna: Day 1+, the longest day

I’m a little bit north of the Aleutian Islands, a little south of the Bering Strait, the International Date Line is possibly somewhere below me, and am just over halfway through the longest flight of my life. And not just my life, many lives, as I’m on what is currently the longest non-stop commercial flight in the world, heading from Singapore to Newark, approximately 16,700 km.

It’s been a while between trips, and without going into it, between KL and now I have just been working far too hard. This is just to put things in perspective: I’m way out of practice at putting my thoughts into words, so apologies if this blog isn’t up to it’s usual whatever; and I’m also really looking forward to relaxing, trying new things, and generally decompressing on this trip.

And what a trip it is: a full lap of the planet, full of countries that might be, once were, or could well be oppressive, which is probably a theme that will reoccur, but I’m not to get hung up on that right now. I’m calling this trip Mambo de la Luna, from the first song of the late, great Kirsty MacColl’s last album, Tropical Brainstorm. That album, like this trip, featured Cuba, a place that I believe she loved. And this trip also takes place over the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11, when people first kicked up dust on that big satellite of cheese in the sky.

So here’s the plan: I spend 4 months learning a bit of Spanish (un poco espanol, thanks to duolingo) and a bare hint of German (just so I can say cheese in 5 languages now). Then it’s grab el passaporte, grab a 24 hour stopover in SIngapore (15 with L), take the “ultra long haul” to Joisey, do the customs dance, demonstrating with only the slightest irony that I am capable of providing moral supprt to the oppressed people of Cuba, have some glorious days and perfume nights from Havana to Santiago de Cuba and back with L, and travel bud KDS, have Bastille Day in NYC by myself (no French Kissing in the USA for me), then it’s Frankfurt bouncing to Krakow (maybe a day trip to Cologne (yeah, I know Koln, but wanted to tie in with the perfume reference earlier) where I meet up with L again, back to Frankfurt, and then home via Singapore.

What the above rambling sentence paragraph should tell you is that there’s going to be song lyrics aplenty, and a bunch of cool places visited. And that I probably could use an editor, one who wouldn’t let me get away with starting a sentence with “and”. There will be many cool things to see, including a $100,000AUD bottle of whisky, Che’s tomb, Kim Gordon’s bass, salt mines, a Russian space shuttle, Concordes (both the UK/French one and the Russian one), and, most importantly, both L and I haveing a good, relaxing time.

(You’ll also see lots of asides in brackets, commas when I’m writing without editing and just trying to get the words out, typos, food descriptions, well intentioned yet probably poorly phrased and clumsy judgements of cultures I know little about, sometimes harsh judgements of cultures I know too much about, general judgemental stuff, a scattering of profanity, booze references, more song lyrics and references, lame attempts at humour, and whatever otherstuff makes it out of my brain through my 4 or 5 typing fingers.)

What you hopefully won’t see is me trying not to be understanding of others, and, more importantly, me making an absolute arse of myself attempting to learn to salsa (and I’m not talking about the finely chopped herbs and tomato variety). Whether or not I’m a lover aside, I sure ain’t no dancer. I may have four limbs, a torso, and a well-intentioned heart, but I have all the rhythm of a white guy from the suburbs of Perth who hasn’t had a dance lesson since he went to high school in the 1980s. So to spare insult to anyone who has rhythm, I’ll spare you, dear readers, photographic evidence of this pending travesty (though undoubtedly L will probably put pics up on her blog).

Blah blah, enough preamble, let’s get to the part where I actually put my sorry ass on a plane and get out of dodge. Okay, here goes. After running around to get all the last minute things done, dealing with guilt from the animals, I made it to the airport in plenty of time to see the queue to check in. It’s been a while since I’ve travelled on anything larger than a 737, so the realisation of the sheer number of bodies that a budget airline can fit into a 787 was a little startling. Over 300, and it was a pretty full flight. so much queueing was done. Immigration is now quite streamlined, no cards to fill out, just scan the passport, get the facial scan (or mind read, or brain wash, whatever the thing does when you stare into it) and away we go.

Got through with enough time to grab some squid rings and a beer and do the other essential: tell my banks that I’m leaving the country. Then it was boarding, a slight delay for something or other to do with seating (sometimes I wonder if they just have a list to work through, so even if they are bolting the engine back on they’ll say the excuse dejour).

Through some incredible surprising forward planning, I’d already booked a meal, so I didn’t need the squids.

A quick interruption for an update: I’m currently flying over the largest state in the union, above so not anchored down in Anchorage. FWIW, Alaska is a bunch smaller than my home state, Western Australia I think.

So the budget airline was okay, nothing too traumatic, standard A to B flight and I even dozed a little. Sometimes landing in Changi seems the taxiing to find a parking space takes for ever, but this was fairly quick. One of the challenges in booking this trip was getting the flights to connect, which is why I had 24 hours in Singapore, and will later get a day in New York, and 12 hours in Frankfurt.

Singapore in 24 hours: while I’ve probably spent 24 hours in transit at Changi over the years, I’ve never set foot in the actual city, so this trip gave me the opportunity to do just that. I knew there was no point trying to get any sort of real feel for the place in such a timeframe, so kept it small with simple goals: have chicken rice; go one of the best whisky bars on the planet The Auld Alliance; eat different things; and sweat as little as possible. With a couple of minor hurdles, I managed 3 out of 4.

Got a taxi to the hotel (due to flights etc L wasn’t arriving for another 6-7 hours), thinking I’d make it to the Auld Alliance (right around the corner) before it closed at 2am. And I did, only to find the 2am is the weekend close, so my just after 1am on a Thursday morning/Wednesday night wasn’t going to make it happen. Instead I did my usual wander around the block to get familiar with the area, and to stretch myself out after the flight. A bit further down the read was some weird shopping mall by day-turned karaoke heaven by night called Parklane. Walking past, I was immediately drawn in by the big box in the foyer, proclaiming itself to be the world’s first vending machine for frozen Norwegian salmon. Who could walk past such a claim to fame — I didn’t buy any salmon, but did go inside. Next to the salmon vending machine was one of those use the claw machines, but the contents were frozen icecream in cones (I didn’t take much notice at first, being in awe of the world’s first Norwegian salmon vending machine, but L was quite intrigued when I showed her after she arrived).

Seeing people beyond the WFNSVM I thought I’d check the building out. Each floor had what I guess was a karaoke place or two, and a lot of close shops. The shops were interesting at least from the outside, little indie music places, a bookshop of two, sewing shops, all looking like small businesses. As for karaoke, I can only hope that you see me salsa dance before you hear me karaoke, and I steered well clear.

Around the corner was a food hall still open at 1.30am but wait, mmmmm, that magical scent of durian. Regular readers will be aware that I’m the sort who loves durian, so it was great to get that familiar aroma. The king of fruits does sometimes repeat on me, though, so with a belly already processing fried squid, beer, and airline food I felt it best not to partake. A few steps on, I could see couples out having hotpot, so for all that William Gibson might be right in calling Singapore “Disneyland with the death penalty”, any city where a couple can get a hot pot at any hour gets a tick of approval from me. I meandered a little further, seeing some cute painted older buildings, late night bars, a shop selling cheese tea, whatever that is and if I wasn’t having durian I sure as shit wasn’t touching cheese tea. Then it was back to the hotel via a stop for essentials — water, Reeses cups for L, and random tempura seaweed crab meat crispy snacks because they just sounded crazy.

I tried to wash off the sweat with a shower before hitting one of the hardest mattresses I’ve encountered since Morocco. I slept a little better than I did on the plane, but only a little.

With the awesome L now in town we headed out for another wander, to a food hall L had previously visited and described as looking like a carpark. It certainly had that feel of a multi-storey, with weird levels, stairs and ramps, but with better food. I found a chicken rice hawker with a decent queue, so I joined the line, where for less that $5SNG I was in possession of a tray of chicken, rice, soup, and a little pot of chili sauce. And it was pretty good, though I’m no judge, I’m guessing there are some subtleties to the chicken that I’m not appreciative of,as it wasn’t the most flavourful I’ve had, but there were some good tastes and textures. Maybe next time I’ll take several days and eat all the chicken rice I can.

Goal acheived, it was time to wander around some shopping malls to appreciate the aircon, see what else was around, and fine more food. This involved a gelateria with a pretty awesome black sesame gelato, before some dumplings at one of those Tim dumpling houses that are everywhere these days. Had the pork and prawn ones, they had an excellent creamy texture, though not sure about the squidgy berry on top.

We headed back to the hotel, collected our bags, and headed back to The Auld Alliance, as I’d again thought it opened at 4pm. Instead it’s 5pm, so we killed 30 minutes with some grass jelly milk tea before trying again. Third time’s a charm. We got there right on 5pm.

We were greeted warmly, the first and for a while only customers, and grabbed a couple of comfy leather seats, were shown menus. Menu? More like a book of dreams. Probably close to 100 pages of whisky and other spirits, organised in different ways so it was possible to search by region, distillery or year of distillation. First dram was the bar manager’s suggestion: I asked for a smooth dram to get my palate started, and the result was a sumptuous 20+ year old Highland Park botted exclusively for The Auld Alliance. It was all I wanted and more, full of lingering wonderful flavours. I followed this with a 40 year old Bunnahabhain, distilled in the year I was born (coincidentally, the bottle was a birthday bottling, so the lable said). This had spent time in a sherry cask, with gorgeous dried fruit aromas, and warm and dry on the finish. For my third and final I chose a 34 year old Caol Ila, also bottled for The Auld Alliance by Cadenheads, a bourbon barrel, and full of peat and smoke in spite of the years. Three wonderful drams (and by the half dram, I could enjoy the selection without too much damage to wallet or head). I think I might have to go back there.

Then we hopped the MRT to the airport, where after picking up my main bag, the nice SIA desk officer moved me to an aisle seat with a spare seat beside me, whch is where I am writing this. It was obviously a day for nice SIA people, as when L went to let me into the basic Krisflyer lounge as her guest (her next leg is business class, so she valiantly offered to slum it for me) the desk clerk decided he could get us both into the business class lounge. I think it’s because I was with L, who is awesome and makes magic. Time in the lounge was spent eating, having my traditional tomato juice, and getting in a few more minutes of spanish lessons.

Then onto the Ultra Long Haul flight. The world’s longest etc. It’s good, I’ve been here in premium economy for about 14 hours, with another 3 to go, and have gone up the east coast of Asia, past Japan and Russia, and am now somewhere north of Calgary. I’ve eated some okay food, slept a little, watched the Spanish movie Everybody Knows, and written far too many words. Next stop is New Jersey, Newark, where I’ll do the customs immigration dance again and then be Havana bound.

Speaking of customs immigration, had the interesting experience of being in the queue to get out into Singapore at midnight. Our queue stopped, while the officer went through all of his stamps, individually changing the dates, before giving each one a few test stamps before he was satisfied that they were all good for the new day. Seems like an obvious thing really, but first time I’ve encountered this.

Anyway, enough from me, see you either in Newark wifi or Havana.