First Impressions

I am in Asia and I have seen the desert for the first time in my life. The Gobi. I could only snatch glimpses out of the cabin door window. Most people seemed to be sleeping throughout, but some of us gathered in the back of the plane. You could tell which passengers did the long hauls regularly. The chit-chatters didn’t take turns at the windows. They formed a small party replete with wine and Bloody Mary’s and traded stories of places I didn’t know yet, but in the coming months I will. Some of us were more enthusiastic about the scenery. We politely elbowed each other away from the cabin doors, eager to see what had changed in the last two minutes. Below us was a fusillade of colour I did not expect. Yellow, purple and red. Bright sunshine and snow and sand. Long straight roads to somewhere.

Any further east and I would be returning home. My flight has ended and there are three time zones in my head: Hong Kong, where I am now; London, where I lived and Bermuda, where I am from. An hour ago we came in low for a landing and I remembered old photographs of planes flying level with cramped, and claustrophobic buildings but the old Kai Tak airport is long gone. Instead of skyscrapers, hills broke through the mist- the smog, I will learn to say. Black hills and yellow smog, an effect of pollution and sunset but still arresting and unreal. A painting hanging from the plane wings.

At the airport, I sit at a smoothie bar and listen to the Arabic pop beat playing on the soundsystem. I wondered about my expectations of this place I’d never been but already had memories of. My head is still over the Gobi and outside the hills of Lantau are blindingly green.