![\"Mac\"](\"https:\/\/globetrotters.co.uk\/newsletter\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2010\/12\/mac-small.jpg\")
\n We are sorry to say that Mac is not very well, but he is
\n still e-mailing strong and recently sent the Beetle a
\n collection of Mac reminiscences including those about a
\n hotel room with a vibrating bed and an Indian astrologer.\n <\/p>\n
\n We are sorry to say that Mac is not very well, but he is
\n still e-mailing strong and recently sent the Beetle a
\n collection of Mac reminiscences including those about a
\n hotel room with a vibrating bed and an Indian astrologer.\n <\/p>\n
\n I am reminded in my correspondence about travel of a
\n vibrating bed I found one time on checking into a budget
\n hotel in Hong Kong. I discovered after I had checked
\n in that it was a rendezvous hotel for Chinese older
\n citizens. No young people checked in but older
\n Chinese that wanted a romantic interlude. I was slow
\n to catch on. There were mirrors on the ceiling and
\n on the wall and I thought gee this is unusual for a budget
\n hotel. I laid down and thought I was switching off
\n the light switch and I switched on the switch that started
\n the bed to rumbling. I at first thought it was an
\n earthquake. I am always slow to catch on.\n <\/p>\n
\n I one time was on a bus in Mexico City when there was an
\n earthquake and I thought it was just a rough road and bus
\n with bad springs. When I got to my destination
\n everyone was out on the street from that budget
\n hotel. I knew a lady there that had been in same
\n hotel in San Miguel De Allende. The hotel in Mexico
\n City was run by a religious order something like the
\n Quakers. She volunteered there and laughed when I
\n asked her why everyone was out in the street to greet me!
\n Incidentally the hotel in Hong Kong was called The
\n Hilton. They swiped the name from the more expensive
\n Hilton Hotel. It is like calling a hotel The Ritz
\n when it is anything but the Ritz. I really liked
\n that hotel though. It had windows you could open and
\n look out on very busy street. I had been on a
\n package tour where the four or five star deluxe hotel in
\n Hong Kong that was included had been so cold and I could
\n never get the air conditioning off. My cheap hotel
\n had overhead fan which I liked better. The deluxe hotel
\n had a mat in elevator that gave you the day of the week
\n each day woven into the mat. They had a grand piano
\n on a float in pond but for some reason I was never
\n comfortable there so at the end of the tour I moved into
\n the unusual budget hotel and was happy there. It was
\n in a less touristy part of Nathan Road at maybe in the
\n direction of Nathan Road. Just ask for the other Hilton.\n <\/p>\n
\n I just read that a writer wrote that Charles De Gaulle
\n Airport in Paris is a “Third World Airport” It
\n brought out some travel memories. After getting
\n radiation for prostrate cancer I started travelling before
\n I was completely well. At a stop on a tour bus in southern
\n India I started to get up from my seat when I realized I
\n had bled from my rear end onto the seat. I didn’t
\n want to panic the Indian tourists so decided I would sit
\n in my seat until they were all off and then run like
\n hell. All were off but one Indian gentleman who
\n stopped by my seat on way out and asked if I was alright.
\n For some strange reason I blurted out my problem. It
\n turned out he was an Indian doctor who was a cancer
\n specialist at Sloane Kettering Cancer Hospital in
\n New York City and just on vacation in India. He gave me
\n some medicine to stop the bleeding and gave me address of
\n where he was staying in New Delhi if I needed more help.\n <\/p>\n
\n I continued on to Paris and at Charles De Gaulle airport I
\n started bleeding again. Although I had a ticket on
\n Air France for security reasons they would not let me use
\n their toilet. I went down the street to a police station
\n and by hand motions (not an easy thing to do) asked if
\n could use their toilet. They did not arrest me for
\n obscenity but directed me to their toilet that they
\n evidently had criminals use. It had no door so they
\n at desk could watch the prisoners when in toilet I guess.\n <\/p>\n
\n I did not want them to know I was bleeding so had to wipe
\n myself as far as possible out of their sight. I then
\n went to a Protestant church (closer than Catholic) and by
\n chance there was an American Protestant minister there and
\n I asked him if there was a military hospital or American
\n hospital. He tried to get thorough to American Embassy but
\n couldn’t to ask them. By this time I had stopped
\n bleeding and went back to airport and still made flight
\n out. On that experience I too call Charles De Gaulle
\n airport a turd world airport.\n <\/p>\n
\n In New Delhi at the YWCA (they took men as well as women)
\n I had to share my room with another Indian doctor. This
\n time a dentist. He said he could tell my fortune but had
\n to wait until the sun came up in the morning. He
\n told me I had cancer and that I had been in the military
\n and some other things that I had not told him (unless I
\n talked in my sleep) That too was a little strange.\n <\/p>\n
\n Another experience I had with Air France was that in South
\n America they have a cheap flight from French Guinea to
\n France. People from all over South American go to French
\n Guinea to catch this flight. The flight started in Peru I
\n believe but I picked it up in Northern Brazil (the town on
\n the Amazon I cant think of its name) There was only three
\n of us passengers on this huge 747 and all they gave us was
\n a stale roll. When I asked if I could have a second one I
\n was told they did not have enough. So much for French
\n cuisine. Maybe they picked up their food in French Guinea
\n along with most of the passengers.\n <\/p>\n
\n I was only going as far at French Guinea. They had French
\n Foreign Legion at their airport as guards. They wanted
\n each of us three to go in separate taxis into town. I
\n showed them my retired military ID and they let us all go
\n then in same taxi. Maybe they thought I was an official.
\n The hotels were full so we had to stay in a French whore
\n house. People from British guinea would come over to use
\n it. It was a hotel but the girls were upstairs. We could
\n not get a room until three AM when night’s
\n activities were over. I got to my room and I got a phone
\n call and I was told I had to go to a doctor. I was told
\n that the girl from that room was sick. I said there has
\n been no girl in this room. They apologized. I went
\n down stairs as it was now about six Am and there was the
\n other two from airplane and we decided to walk into town
\n to see if we could find open cafe. The other passengers
\n were a European that ran a taxi in New York City. He would
\n work long enough until he had enough money to travel
\n and then he and his wife would travel. The other passenger
\n was a European writer for Mad Magazine. He was
\n delighted with our unusual hotel and said: “this is
\n just like in the movies!” Travel can be fun, well,
\n at least interesting!\n <\/p>\n