CHAPTER 26
The United States of America
"Before you leave for the U.S.A.," said a friend, "insure against sickness. Medical treatment there, costs the earth." He knew someone, perfectly fit normally, but overtired, who passed out in a New York hotel and owed two hundred dollars by the time he was on his feet again, ten minutes later.
At Sydney Airport I was too busy to buy insurance, because I wanted to take some duty-free liquor to the U.S.A.
"What do Americans drink, usually?" I asked the man behind the counter.
"Anything that's put in front of them, mostly," he answered, and having enjoyed his little jest, he became helpful and sold me five bottles of assorted whiskies and gin. Before I got rid of these, I called at Honolulu, Los Angeles, Memphis and New York, and soon felt like Sinbad with the Old Man of the Sea on his back, because I had to manhandle the bag of bottles in addition to my own hand-baggage. No-one, unless equipped with more than the usual complement of arms should attempt to travel with over two pieces of luggage.
Until the main suitcase is reclaimed from Baggage-Collection, one hand is free for proffering passport, disembarkation-card, health-documents, Customs-declaration, currency-forms and other papers. The passenger who ignores this natural limitation may be seen carrying his passport between bared teeth, like a dog delivering newspapers.
Apart from this nuisance and the considerable weight of five bottles of spirits, there was the risk of smashing them.
The transition from the pressurised jet-plane to the different, temperature of the airports, causes condensation on the surface of bottles which then rot the paper carrier-bag and crash to the ground. At one Airport we had all waded through a pool of whisky in (not inappropriately) - the Health Department, resulting from a tragic accident of this sort, to two bottles of Scotch.
In the 16th Century, Howell wrote of those who "travel much but see little, like Jonah in the whale's belly." By the time I reached Los Angeles on Monday morning, after crossing the Pacific Ocean at an altitude of 30,000 ft. in a Boeing's belly, I knew what Howell meant. I had had a weekend consisting of two Saturdays and a Sunday, had spent two nights out of the three, in 'planes and had advanced my watch several times, by amounts of two or three hours, so that my only link with Sydney time was the state of my stubble.
Sandwiched between my night-flight from Sydney and my night-flight to Los Angeles, was a forty-hour stop-over in Honolulu, which I spent mainly swimming, or sleeping on the beach near my Waikiki hotel. Within its grounds is a huge banyan tree, beneath whose shade Robert Louis Stevenson wrote.
Although Hawaii is one of the States of the U.S.A., and though its inhabitants speak not of "going to the U.S.A." but of "going to the mainland," this is a kindly gesture which need deceive no-one. The U.S.A. is still more than two thousand miles away.