June 16-20, 2013: Calcutta to Bangkok to Saipan

The morning of the 16th was sunny and hot in Calcutta.  As usual the little alley in front of my hotel was full of people, including a couple of guys soaping themselves up with water from a tap, others getting curbside haircuts, and occasionally someone urinating into a crevice into which I have not dared to look.  There are little shops along the alley, and on the road at the end of the alley wait yellow Ambassador taxis and human pulled rickshaws, with the rickshaw pullers in dhotis.  I took a taxi around 10 to the airport through relatively uncrowded streets on that Sunday morning.  I always enjoy seeing Calcutta's streets and streets of colonial era buildings, as decayed as they are.  We sped down Lenin Sarani (renamed during West Bengal's communist governments from 1977 to 2011) and then to Convent Street, passing through the former Wellington Circle, which they also must have renamed, though I saw no new name.  We passed by what must have been glorious palaces during the colonial era, at least one now converted to a school, but others looking derelict.

It took about 45 minutes to reach the airport.  It was hot when we were stopped at traffic lights.  The brand new airport, on the other hand, was wonderfully cool.  My Air Asia flight to Bangkok, which cost me only about $115, left shortly before 1 pm and was full of Indians.  I think there were two other westerners on board.  The views were excellent, though the blue sky was dotted with clouds.  We passed over Calcutta's drab buildings, which never seem to get painted, the green countryside beyond, and the the myriad waterways of the Ganges Delta before heading out over the Bay of Bengal.  Brown water from the Ganges made quite a smear far out into the bay.  Later we passed over Burma's Irrawaddy Delta, with the brown river water again visible far out into the sea.  Eventually we reached the mainland again and Thailand, passing over the beaches and the forested mountains before flying over the fertile valley of the Chao Phraya River in central Thailand.  The newly planted rice paddies were very green.  Nearing Bangkok we passed over houses with red roofs and looking orderly, painted, and clean in comparison to those of Calcutta.

We landed shortly before 5 after a two hour, 15 minute flight.  I waited for a bus, gave up, and then took a taxi to the hotel where I usually stay in Bangkok.  It felt quite warm in Bangkok.  There were lots of western tourists around, though considerably fewer than in the high season.

I had scheduled a series of medical examinations for the next day and so spent the day at Bumrungrad Hospital (where I had a cataract operation in 2010), getting a physical in the morning and having my eyes, skin and teeth checked in separate appointments during the afternoon.  To get there, I took Bangkok's Chao Phraya river express down the wide, interesting river to a stop near a metro station, and then took a crowded, but air conditioned, above ground metro train to near the hospital, the whole trip taking about an hour and a half and avoiding Bangkok's traffic.  I came back the same way in the late afternoon.  The river was filled with floating green clumps of vegetation in the morning, but by late afternoon only a few remained, stuck to the shoreline in places.

The next morning was again hot, sunny, and humid.  After breakfast I spent a couple of hours in an internet cafe and then about 1 pm, under now cloudy skies, took the Chao Phraya Express and then the metro back to Bumrungrad.  I had a periodontist appointment at 5:30 and spent the intervening time in the hospital's very comfortable waiting rooms, more like those of a fancy hotel than a hospital.  After my appointment I walked north a few blocks and boarded a klong (canal) express boat which sped down the narrow canal to its western terminus, about a ten minute walk from Khao San Road, jammed, as always, with tourists.  Walking down the wide avenue, with six lanes of traffic each way, to Khao San Road, I noticed no one in the hundreds of cars was honking his horn, unthinkable in India.  Also, there was almost no litter on the wide sidewalks.  In India, of course, there is always litter, plenty of it, and often it is very difficult to walk on the sidewalks crowded with stalls, vendors and much else.  On a hot and humid evening I walked through Khao San Road and watched all the activity on my way back to my hotel and dinner.

The next morning was cloudy and hot.  I made my way to the airport via taxi and metro in the morning and left on a flight to Hong Kong about 4, arriving just at dark, 7:30 local time.  My connecting flight to Guam left  soon after 11 that night.  I slept maybe a couple of hours on the flight and we arrived in Guam about 5:30 in the morning, local time.  My final flight to Saipan left about two hours later on a sunny morning, with cottony white clouds scattered above the ocean and the intervening islands, Rota and Tinian, which we flew over.  The sea below was glassy and reflected the morning sun's glare to the east.  Arrival in Saipan was at about 8.  Flames trees were in bloom all over the island.