The Time Traveler's Wife

Rice and more rice: A remembrance

Last week, I bounced from London (book research) to a little town near Marseilles, where a group of friends from a journalism fellowship I did in 2003 rented a house together for a few days. We had a blast, even though it was at least 100 degrees every day, with blistering sun; the air felt like a panini press. As a redhead, I am sun-averse, and do everything in my power to fend it off. One day we went kayaking on a beautiful river and I came back beet-red, even though I’d layered on so much sunscreen that it was gross. I took a picture of my most scalded body part (knee, upper thigh) but I think I won’t show you: It’s nasty.

The day of our departure—a route that went Marseilles-London-Los Angeles, with a change of planes in London—French air traffic controllers went on strike, so we got to London late and missed our connection. British Air slapped some vouchers on us and sent us scurrying to a Holiday Inn for the night. The dinner voucher turned out to cover a stranded-traveler buffet. The food was better than it looked, so I’m not going to whine about it (it looked terrible).

Being at a stranded-traveler buffet reminded me of my most extreme stranded-traveler experience, worth sharing, methinks. This took place in 1999 or so. At the time, I was separated from my first husband and quite devastated. Right after we got separated I went to Bhutan for a story. I’m not proud of how clichéd this sounds, but I ended up having a fling with my tour guide, a really lovely young Bhutanese guy who made me chuckle and didn’t mind the multi-decade age difference between us.