It's All About The Mystery

The population of Cupertino, California reminds me of a five-star hotel in Bangalore. There are a few Asians. There are heaps of Indian software engineers. And there are a small number of caucasian Americans who look like they don't really belong here.

On weekends these Indians take turns bringing their families (or, in the case of my hosts, their college buddies) to The Mystery Spot. The primary attraction of this place is that they have a canteen (isn't the word "canteen" redolent with the smell of the British Raj?) which sells hot Indian food. For $1 you can pop a plate of dal-rice or a besan laddoo. A close second to the canteen in its power to draw in the Indian crowds is the Mystery Spot itself.

This is a tourist attraction crafted with delightful cleverness. The claim is that in this place space is warped and gravity works erratically. Strange forces push at you. Small round objects roll up a slope. Tall people shrink. And there is not a sngle mirror or smoke machine in sight. The enthusiastic tour guides demonstrate these unique phenomena and spin theories of carbon dioxide vents and magnetic field anomalies. The Indian software engineers take it all in silently with keen eyes and furrowed brows. If you strain very hard you can hear their brains humming gently as they try to work out the real secret that makes the magic trick work.

The Mystery Spot is a shining example of the American talent for infusing drama and fun into anything. Domestic air travel is a contrary instance of them sucking all the excitement out of an experience that used to be all about pleasure and adventure. I have remarked before about the bigness of the USA. The distance from Boston to San Francisco is about the same as that from Boston to London, and so the flight takes about the same amount of time. The resemblance ends there.

I don't like being asked to pay for every single bag I want to check in, regardless of weight. I hate undressing for the security checks. The whole ritual of removing my jacket, belt and shoes and then putting them back on is inconvenient and undignified. I'm thinking of buying a velcro traveling suit that I can unfasten with a single sweeping gesture, like one of the male dancers in The Full Monty.

I do like to get my meal served on a tray with each individual item of food clevely pacakaged in its own little receptacle; but on my US Airways flight I had to make do with a "buy your food on board" service. When in mid-flight a shaggy-haired and overweight guy in an indeterminate steel-grey uniform tapped me on the shoulder I was first startled and then baffled. I tried to work out whether he was a steward or a pilot while he made small talk about the t-shirt I was wearing. In my mind I was wondering whether we would not all be better off if he would just go back to flying a plane or selling pretzels to passengers.

I am convinced that the best way to travel in this country is by road. That way you can skid along a coastal highway and stop occasionally to look out over the Pacific. And you can bend down to gape at the seaweed washed up on a rocky beach. Giant, 15-foot stalks of seaweed as thick as a man's arm.

That's the thing that redeems this country for the traveler: they screw up their airlines like noone else but then they make up for it by nonchalantly tossing unique oddities at you when you least expect them. There's always the chance of something new just around the next bend in the road. Now if I could only find the store where they sell those velcro suits...