Hemispheres

Shortly after departure from Singapore Changi, the 747-400 took me across the equator. It made me think of school days back in the mid-eighties, how that light blue line on the map used to trigger my imagination on a boring day in the class room: what would it feel like to actually cross it?

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Instead of a direct connecting flight to Australia as my original itinerary suggested, I decided to take a DBC-voucher and stay over day in Singapore. Thus, for the second night in a row I find myself aboard a red-eye flight which, if the magic screen is correct in its calculations, has about three hours to go until touchdown at Melbourne Tullamarine Airport.

Singapore was a lot greener than I had expected, a massive assemblage of merchant ships from all over the world filling its waters, a land of tall black skyscrapers and Starbucks. Last night the luminous cities of India had filled me with fear and renewed determination - let us just hope that those “advanced technological paths to sustainability” which I so often talk about do indeed exist, otherwise I have a creeping feeling that our civilization is, simply put, doomed.

Sorry for being so outspoken. In a short while we will fly in above the red deserts of Australia. This is the grand escapade and it would set the wrong tone to start in such a gloomy mood. Next time I post here, there will be a picture of the sea.