I spent this languid, hot, July 4 weekend, reading Paul Theroux’s “Great Railway Bazaar”. More than 30 years old, its slow pace matched my reduced speed: like Freud’s directive to say whatever comes to mind, as if looking out of the train window at the passing countryside. So a few thoughts:

1) Globalization. Theroux’s post-Vietnam account describes a history left far behind: it occurs before the Iranian Revolution, before the Russian invasion of Afghanistan, before, before, before………. I think about where we are now, how globalization has transformed the world: all business, all the time

2) I think of the Singapore Airlines office on Orchard Road: of the hours spent there, with the throngs of others this April, waylaid in the East by a volcano in the West, waiting patiently for our numbers to appear on the digital screen– heralding appointments with the smiling functionaries who would see to the possibility of new itineraries.

3) Odd to consider: a similar dynamic to Theroux’s: the crowd, the uncertainties, but delightfully air conditioned and modernized: the sanitized foreign, with cappuccino and iced latte available outside the offices, in the luxury mall.

4) My trip? Recently completed, it took months to conclude. It began with a routing from Changi Airport to San Francisco (later changed, at the last minute, when the skies over Europe cleared….); but required that I purchase a new ticket from San Francisco, home, on the internet because my original round-trip fare had been revised to a 3/4 trip!!! I had traveled from New York to Singapore and was now, to be dropped off in California!

A few days later, the situation changed again, and my New York trip was renewed.

But: now my carrier refused to credit the canceled ticket: well, not exactly. They were willing to take a 30% deduction from it, in application to another ticket: and their customer service department could not comprehend that I’d bought the thing only because my original round trip ticket had been canceled.

Unlike Theroux’s experiences, one-to-one with the people he’d encountered, mine were by e-mails (affirmed by responsive “tracking numbers” assigned to me by the airline). There were never people to speak to: only dead-end websites to consult, e-mails to send.

The final arbiter was my credit card company: I refused to pay for the unnecessary purchase while my airline insisted that internet-purchases were non-refundable. A friend suggested that I write to the CEO of the carrier. I did– but only received response when I filed a small-claims action: a representative from the airlines traveled 2000 miles to oppose my action in New York City Small Claims Court.

After a two-minute talk, the thing was settled: I won, and received both my refund and damages; but had to agree that the airline was blameless.

Unlike Theroux, the joys of travel were not immediate: globalization followed me to internet purchases in Singapore, only resolved on Center Street in Manhattan: all air conditioned, digitized, and corporate. What feels oddly disjointed in comparison to Theroux’s 1975 trip is that a certain comfort level of corporate modernity lies over today’s business-travel; the irritations remain- such as my ticketing problem— but are resolvable anywhere and over a time-line of customer service grievance, through internet access and local legal procedures: the unique vexations of international travel, past, become just another personal transaction with a nameless, faceless, corporation.

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