"There is a quality of dream, ideally, to arrivals after long
journeys, and with all that has been lost as carriages and ocean liners
and long-distance trains have given way to supersonic planes, something
has been gained, in the simple jolt of flying from New York, say, to
Bangkok, in a few hours, and changing seasons and centuries in a moment.
We lose a part of our rational faculties, the wide-awakeness that is
our usual guiding light; but something else in us, closer to the dark,
comes awake. Bleary, confused and not sure if we are here or there, we
walk without defenses through a province of the imagination. Part of us
is in mid-air, and the rest is not quite sure what to make of the
whispers from across the street, the generous smiles, the coins that
could be pounds or could be pennies.
Later we will return, and photograph for the neighbors the Taj Mahal
by moonlight; first, though, and unforgettably, we will encounter the
bodies along the road, the campfires in the unlit night, the urchins
grabbing at one’s sleeve outside the Taj Mahal Hotel."
