Dateline: Tokyo. The flight here was uneventful, save for the fact that the plane took off at 6:40 a.m. To catch an international flight leaving that early, even staying at an airport hotel as we were, you arise at 3 a.m. Then if you are a little excited to be heading home after a month+ on the briny, it isn't easy to get to sleep the night before. So...grogginess is to be expected.
Thailand has been a center for sex tourism ever since the Vietnam war when GIs would come here for R&R, perhaps even before. I have read of charter jets full of Japanese men flying here for an orgy of commercial sex. I found a really interesting thing in our definitely upscale hotel room at Bangkok's airport: a brochure describing how child sex tourism is illegal in Thailand. It is pretty awful that they feel this brochure is necessary. Apparently Thailand is now a destination for pedophiles, mostly men I expect, who sexually abuse children. Gross.
Jet travel creates a real awareness of the climatic differences at various distances from the equator. We left Bangkok this morning at 4 a.m. in short sleeves experiencing warm, humid weather. Several hours later we landed in Tokyo and spotted snow on the ground in shady, northern exposures and the ramp workers are wearing parkas and gloves. That is a dramatic difference. Later today San Francisco will be chilly, it normally is cold pretty much year 'round except in the early autumn.
