Ms. Luk to the baggage claim area please
I think I’m starting to feel the effects of prolonged travel. Stuck in this weird, endless cycle of sleeping and eating, sleeping and eating, I awake just moments before each food cart passes down our section of the long violet and red colored isles of our Virgin Atlantic Boeing 787. I can’t quite remember how many meals we’ve actually had: a couple breakfasts and a couple dinners it seems, all in the span on something like twenty hours is my best guess. Airlines, the smart ones at least, keep your belly filled and your eyelids drooping, a plane full of food coma patients, docile and uncomplaining
The sun sets and we go for a drive to see Lucknow and the unpopular statues and eco-park that Chief Minister Mayawati of Uttar Pradesh is blowing the state budget on. The giant pillars, domed ceilings, and half completed structures surrounded by loose stone and dust speak to the Roman Forum. A modern-day reincarnation of the ancient, alive during the day with the same droves of poor workers, shirts wrapped around their heads to block the sweat from their eyes, toiling away with pick-axes and shovels in the hot and humid sun.
We drive through the insane streets filled with cars and motorcycles that come at us from every direction. Jiji points out the sites along the road and my eyes start to become heavy. In all this honking and madness, I fall asleep, sitting in the front seat with my window rolled down, waking only occasionally to see near misses with motorcycles and auto-rickshaws and the far-too-close bumper stickers of the trucks in front of us.
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