Curmudgeon in Seat 13E

From Mark's Curmudgeon Corner

I itch to reduce your pitch!

You've just settled in to your seat for a 3-hour flight, placed your phone and Kindle and maybe your water bottle into the seat pocket in front of you, and suddenly WHAM! The person in front of you cranks back their seat with no warning or even a preliminary glance. If you are lucky, only your psyche is bruised as you ponder 3 hours of having your personal space compressed even more by the evolving airline economics over the past few decades. With less luck, you get a bump on your head, or maybe your laptop screen nearly wrenched from the keyboard. And in any case you more or less say goodbye to getting anything out of your underseat bag until the plane lands. And possibly to using your laptop at all without rotating it 90 degrees so the screen is on the tray table and the keyboard on your chest, like Gary Wright playing Dream Weaver.

Fly me high through the starry skies, maybe to an astral plane - or business class would do.

Unless you are fortunate enough to travel in business or first class, this Battle of the Recline is one of the most unpleasant, and in my opinion, unnecessary, ignominies heaped on the head of the airline traveler. Over the past 40 years, I have answered many airline surveys on 'the flight experience" (yes, I was a young curmudgeon once!) From back in the days when these came in the mail (with Business Reply Mail envelope included!) to today where they show up on you mobile phone even as the plane lands. Each and every time where there was a comment section, I have asked if they had done any studies on the cost benefit of reclining seats - cost to the person reclined into, versus benefit to the recliner. This is to me a no-brainer. I have said multiple times in a given survey "eliminate reclining seats!"

Dude, you spilled my mai tai!

Many other travelers are of a similar opinion, yet the industry has not really addressed this fundamental issue. A recent Washington Post article called reclining seats the "touchiest subject in all airline travel." A quick Google search turned up numerous incidents of planes being rerouted due to passenger "altercations" involving the reclining seat. Best headline I found, "Woman Chokes Man for Reclining Seat." Note that I do not advocate such violence!



My favorite story comes from 2014 when a passenger used a commercially available product, called the Knee Defender, which impeded the passenger in front of him from cranking his seat back. Ha! Airlines responded by banning the device. To recall Ross Perot -- "you're not listenin'!" And I would add "so why are you even asking?"

Seat blockers are better for your health than beta blockers!

The basic metrics of your airline seat are the width; the "pitch," which is the distance between the back of the seat in front of you to the back of your seat before it is reclined; and the "recline," which is how much reclining the seat adds to your pitch, and taketh away from the person behind you. Over the past 20 or so years, the average seat width has decreased from a little over 18" to 17", while I am sure the average beam of American passengers has steadily increased. The pitch has decreased from 35" to about 30". The average recline has not changed much, at about 5-6". All in the effort to add revenue by adding seats. These losses are significant in this game of inches. Think of adding 5 inches of free space in front of your face...or about losing it. If you don't recline your seat in response to the person in front of you, you lose 20% of an already very small amount of space.

For reference, the 30-ish inch pitch in your economy seat compares to about 60" in business class, and 80" in first class.

So ask yourself this question, when you recline your seat does it really make your air travel experience much better, in your 17" seat? How many "utils" would you give it (in economics-speak)? And the corresponding question, how many negative utils would you give having a seat reclined into you? To me, almost all other annoyances pale in comparison. The guy that puts his cowboy hat in the overhead bin on a full flight? There's actually a chance the flight attendants will step in. The person who decides it's a good idea to bring tuna salad in a Tupperware for an in-flight snack? Crank up the overhead air vent. The people playing videos on their phone without a headphone...well, that is pretty bad, too, so it ranks pretty high on the annoyance scale. The person in front of you who needs to stretch so puts their hands over the back of their seat and nearly hits you? Personally, I slap any hands that come over the top. The person who insists on bringing their small dog or worse, cat onto the plane, and then expects you to think it is adorable? I would be ok putting the pet in its carrier in the seat and putting that person in the hold with the luggage.

A malevolent dust bunny

I am not a tall person, so I can't imagine being 6' 4" and having to deal with this (...and also having to always see the top of the refrigerator, with all the accumulated dust, etc. which would trigger my OCD to start looking for the Windex and a paper towel.) Being un-tall has its benefits. But I digress.

Could this become a plank in the platform of a political party? Bernie pointing with his right hand and saying "Decline the recline!" It would get my attention. Maybe I will write to Boeing suggesting that they could possibly recover from the current bad press by finally addressing this injustice...?

2020 January

A Tale of (at least) two Cambodias

SE Asia, Cambodia

Phnom Penh

After exploring the length of Vietnam, our next country was Cambodia. The name itself is inextricably tied up with news reports from 1970 of an illegal bombing campaign by the US, with the express goal of shutting down NVA supply lines, and later that same decade, the killing fields of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. So with a little trepidation we boarded a bus for a 10-hour trip from Saigon to Phnom Penh, the capital. The border crossing was uneventful, punctuated by watching Cambodians precariously stack cases of beer from the duty free shop onto their motorcycles, and observing the huge casinos built for visiting Chinese.

Over the course of 8 days we built a gradual understanding of two Cambodias - one a country with an amazing past, exemplified by the massive temple at Angkor Wat, and another just now struggling back from war, both external and civil, almost as if coming out of the Stone Age. We could see the distinct change when we crossed the border - much less developed infrastructure, more rudimentary agriculture, lots of garbage. 

If only that were the case!

The next day we went to Choeung Ek, a Buddhist stupa monument to the victims of genocide, built on the site of one of Pol Pot's killing fields. The building contains over 5,000 human skulls and many other bones, exhumed from the mass graves surrounding the area. We heard many different numbers about how many people died in the 4 years of the Khmer Rouge reign of terror, from 1 million to about 2+ million - roughly 20-30% of Cambodia's entire population at the time. The impact was even greater on Cambodian men than women, and today only about 5% of the population is over age 65, compared to 16% or so in the US and Europe.

We then went to the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, a school-turned-prison inside Phnom Penh. When the KR started their rule, they basically evacuated the capital city and drove everyone out into the countryside. Everyone. Because people who lived in cities were decadent and needed to be reformed by working in the fields. Many were killed for reasons as simple as wearing glasses, which indicated they must be educated and thus an intellectual and thus an enemy of the people. The cells are still there that held thousands to be interrogated on their way to the fields, as are old metal bed frames where prisoners were tortured. Amazingly, there were 2 men onsite who survived the prison, one due to his ability to paint portraits (flattering to Pol Pot,) and the other spared due to his ability to fix typewriters.

To say that this day was sobering...is putting it very mildly.


The next day was spent in Battambang, a nice town on the way to Siem Riep and Angkor Wat. Our lodging was in the Classy Hotel - and it was indeed the best hotel we stayed in on the tour, though sadly, for only one night. Amazing wood paneling everywhere, a rooftop bar with a great view, but alas lousy cocktails. Mark’s martini was sweet from Sprite or something, and had a maraschino cherry! Yikes! 

Moving day!

On the way to Battambang, we stopped at a floating village, Kompong Luong, north of Krakor on the southwest side of Tonle Sap Lake, the largest lake in Cambodia. This village moves to follow the lake as water levels rise and fall, deriving their living from the fish in the lake. They were moving some of the floating houses (and they are not tiny!) while we visited. The water was very dirty, and there is basically no trash collection or sanitation, so you can imagine what it was like, or ...maybe not.

Home delivery

Garbage, garbage everywhere...

Making rice paper

Next day we spent the morning on a bicycle tour, visiting cottage industries where people dried bananas, made rice paper for eating, cooked sticky rice in bamboo over a charcoal fire, and made rice whiskey. Yes, one of the bottles of whiskey had a dead cobra in it. AND we were quickly reminded why we don't ride bikes! We then bussed to Siem Reap.

Rice whiskey with snake infusion

Rice and a tapioca plant

Quick sidebar - rice is a big deal in Cambodia, employing about 3 million people, producing 10 million tonnes annually and contributing about 25% of GDP. Interestingly, productivity (kg/hectare) has nearly tripled since the dark days before 1992. About 75% of cultivated land in the country is planted in rice. Most of the rice grown there is jasmine rice.

Angkor

Angkor Wat is a UNESCO World Heritage site, and on just about every destination bucket list out there. This of course sets very high expectations, and unfortunately means it is now overrun with people disgorged from tour buses. 

Tug of war bridge...demon or deva?

Built in the 12th century by a Khmer king, it took 20,000 people per day for 40 years to build. 5 million tonnes of sandstone was brought from 7 different quarries nearby and it is larger than the Great Pyramid of Giza, and 100 feet taller than the Taj Mahal. At its peak, 1 million people lived in the city surrounding it, at a time when there were 100,000 people in Paris. There is an excellent Smithsonian program about it which explains more than you want to read here, in a visual way that really makes it obvious just how fantastic the place and the accomplishment of building it was.

Beautiful Wat Banteay Srie

The carvings are stunning and in amazing condition in many places despite being made of relatively soft sandstone and being nearly a millennium old. We went to Wat Banteay Srie, which was our favorite for the carvings -- not as vast by a long shot but really lovely.

Next morning we went back to Ankgor Wat at 5:15, in the morning, to watch the sunrise. So did about 2000 other people. In 2 words, it sucked. The place would certainly be magical if it were just you and a few others, but this was ridiculous. After the sunrise, we walked around the BACK of the main Angkor Wat building which was actually more interesting! And quiet!

Just to show we didn't get up at 4 a.m. for nothing

The quiet side of Ankgor Wat

We then went to Wat Ta Prohm, an awesome place encrusted by huge trees - and popularly known as the Tomb Raider Temple. Sigh. The trees are impressive, though.








 We also went to the "Cambodian Circus" -- tumbling, comedy, music,art, dancing. The theme was "White Gold" -- aka rice -- Fun!

"do not pass or play Go"

A quick buzz through an amazing country, then the border crossing into Thailand. While this ended up being uneventful, our Cambodian guide was very nervous about being seen as our guide, since Thai immigration could refuse him entry and basically end his tour guide work to Thailand. We disembarked from the bus while still in Cambodia, walked our passports through Cambodia border control, walked a bit, used the restroom, walked to Thailand border control, with strict instructions not to talk to our guide. Mark was designated The Fearless Leader, and we all went through immigration with no issues, aside from waiting for Mr. Joe, the Thai guide connection on the other side for about 20 or so minutes, while smelling fish being carted across the border. Phew! We had some Tiger Balm in our bag and rubbed it under our noses to mitigate the smell.

It was somewhat surprising that many of our tour compatriots were not aware of the Cambodian Genocide, which after all only ended in 1979, and was the topic of the award-winning film, “The Killing Fields.” But perhaps not, as it was more part of the USA’s “Secret War” history. It is somewhat shocking to realize that the Khmer Rouge was still an influence until 1997, and that their leaders were only convicted of genocide in 2018. That a country could kill 25-30% of their own people, wiping out all the “educated” and their entire families to prevent revenge attacks...is yet another example of man’s inhumanity to man, and a caution to us even today.

Next... Thailand!

2019 December

Vietnam

Vietnam, SE Asia

Months ago, we booked a flight from San Francisco to Hanoi, and it felt really weird. The Hanoi part. Linda's brother served in Vietnam in 1970, and barely returned to tell the tale. Mark watched the Vietnam War on TV and wondered whether this was "his generation's war." Fortunately, they ended the draft in 1973, a couple of years before he might have ended up with a draft number. It is a country with a lot of relatively recent history, and most of it unpleasant and frightening.

Visas alone were quite challenging, as our itinerary was to include at least 5 countries over 5 months. Linda thought her head was going to explode with all the options / limitations, etc. There might be a separate blog post on the comparison of all the countries' approaches to allowing Americans to visit.

Wanting to see SE Asia, but finding it more challenging due to all the various spoken and written languages, we decided to join a tour group for the first 2 countries, for 2+ weeks, giving us a few less variables to think about for a little while at least, but offset by a forced group experience -- which we historically don't do well with (See Michoacan post). We went with Intrepid Travel, known for tours that are a bit closer to the ground (meaning less insulated) than many.

Mark relieved to leave the mausoleum

The tour started from Hanoi, and we arrived a few days early to explore and to acclimatize a bit. We signed up for a highlights tour with a local guide, and visited a couple of major temples, the ethnic museum, a lacquerware factory, Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum, and the prison -- aka the Hanoi Hilton. The mausoleum was quite weird, as they usually are, and there were long lines and lots of people. Ho Chi Minh's body had arrived back home after its annual month-long refurbishing in Russia. We filed past the body, laughing (inwardly) at the young guards flirting with the school girls and also pushing Mark a couple of times for no apparent reason (as in "keep moving"). Maybe they could read his mind. No stopping. No talking. No pictures allowed. (sorry!)

Security measures at the Hilton -- glass, barbed wire. Kind of like Mexico!

It was an equally odd experience at the Hanoi Hilton (Hoa Lo Prison), where John McCain was one of the many Americans kept (and tortured) for over 6 years. When our young guide asked "do you know why it was called the Hanoi Hilton?" (We both internally said "irony?") She told us the literal party line that it was because the prisoners were treated so well (they played badminton! which you could say is tortuous...) that it was like being at a resort. Huh. Mark is notoriously bad at not showing his thoughts on his face. But we were not upbraided nor arrested. Whew. 

This is not the guide's fault, she is monitored and required to say these things. Yes, communism is not about freedom, but control. That said the prison was previously used to torture Vietnamese dissidents by the French. The guillotine was used there as well. Up until 1954!

 

On a much happier note, we went that afternoon to see a water puppet show. It was delightful, a musical performance with stories from Vietnam's folkloric past about dragons, turtles, fish, cats, and phoenixes, [Trivia break! A large group is called an odyssey; a small group is a venture!] as well as farmers, royalty, and planting rice. (Obviously not by the royalty.) An hour of smiles for us.

We met up with the 14-person tour group after a couple of days, and we were the only Americans, which was nice. (Aussies, Brits, Belgian, Irish, Germans, Sri Lankan.) We set out the first morning for Halong Bay, a magical collection of karst islands off the northeast coast of Vietnam. 

The islands look like something from a Bond movie, and they almost were when The Man with the Golden Gun was filmed. (Vietnam backed out of allowing filming, so it was filmed in Thailand instead.)

it was actually chilly...!

We spent a day and night on a relatively small cruise boat, complete with teak cabins, and great food. The chef had great knife skills -- the "net" is made from a single carrot! And enveloped a fish for dinner.

The chef made amazing garnishes! 

After the island excursion, we boarded a 10-hour night train from Hanoi to Hue. It was an interesting experience. There was a guy with a cart selling beers for $1 each, so we bought a few to enjoy as sleeping aids.

We had a fun day of touring Hue by motorcycle, as passengers. Hue was an early capital city of Vietnam, and has a Citadel, built about 1789. Our local guide was not good, completely focused on the number of wives, concubines and children, without any story to tie it all together. Hue was attacked during the 1968 Tet Offensive, and initially US troops had orders to leave the old structure intact (~120 buildings) as historically significant. That changed with the NVA realized this and occupied the Citadel. Many buildings were subsequently destroyed.

incensed!

We had lunch at a nunnery, (none were seen,) toured an incense shop, the tomb of an emperor, another temple, and had a dragon boat ride. (How do the motorcycles keep popping up all over?)

That night we had a dinner at a family's home; she was a very good cook. It was, however, a little disconcerting to see a helmet and canteen on the wall that seemed to be from war days. 

We left Hue the next day on a bus, winding precariously through the mountains down into Da Nang and into Hoi An, a quaint and lovely old town on the coast of the Eastern Sea (aka South China Sea to most). The mountain trip was the first time we saw a Vietnamese landscape that was what we expected from watching TV in the 1970's, green and crenelated hills flanked with wispy clouds.

Lovely Hoi An

Our great guide, Jolie, showing the Japanese bridge(s)

Hoi An was generally spared from the impact of war and has several very old buildings. The town is known for custom clothing and shoes. Mark got a custom shirt, and a pair of water buffalo sandals. (Cue Bob Marley... "Buffalo Sandals...")

Mark getting measured

And we took a cooking class, Mark with Lara

We then flew on to Ho Chi Minh City, which the locals still call Saigon. The War Remnants Museum was quite sobering. It had an exhibit on how the world (and many Americans,) protested the "American War." Sigh. There was an excellent display of photojournalist work, a memorial to the many who were killed during the war.  

Not mentioned earlier was that in Hanoi, there are 9 million people, and 6 million motor scooters. That are all driven by crazy people. Saigon is even worse. While we have reasonable spidey sense about all the directions one can get whacked crossing a street in Mexico, this is a whole different league, due to sheer numbers and speed of vehicles.

We went the next morning to the Mekong Delta, on a boat trip (large and small). 

The highlight was the lunch of a fried whole elephant ear fish (!). We showed people how to dig out the fish cheek, they were impressed. Or slightly skeptical. Not sure which.

After 9 days in Vietnam, the next stop was Cambodia. To be covered in another post!

2019 November - December