Taking full advantage of Sharmila being in India and the long weekend, I am venturing out to check out another small country. Guyana.

Why Guyana, you ask? I don’t know. Two years back when I flew to India to surprise Sharmila, my cover for that travel was a trumped up story that I was visiting Suriname. I loved the name of their capital – sounds like a Bengali word – Paramaribo.

Guyana is an even smaller country right next to it. Got fairly good tickets. (In Bengali, দামটাও দেখে নিলাম “গায়ে না” লাগে !). So, here I am.

Found out that 40% of Guyanese are of Indian origin (like Fiji) and one in three are Hindus. Apparently it is sparsely populated (only more than 4 other countries are more sparse) but GDP per capita is pretty high. In the Americas, only USA, Canada and the Bahamas beat it. However, there is tremendous inequality of income. Nearly half the people are below the poverty line.

Time to explore now!!

Almost looks like a Boeing 747 went thru an Airbus Beluga. You can see the windows in the front and then above it the cockpit. So, has to be at least three stories high and consequently, a humongous cargo plane.

One of the best play on words – and ad placement – I have ever seen was in JFK airport many years back while going thru customs and immigration. As you come out after wrapping up your formalities and start walking down the long corridor to exit – there was an Amex ad that said “If you had a green card, you would not need a visa!!” To get this, you have to remember that in the old days, Amex cards used to have an iconic green color.

Coming out of the flight from Atlanta today, as I started walking down the corridors of Miami airport, I looked up a saw the Amex Centurion lounge. And right there was this lovely play on words for folks who are tired of their delayed flights…

Amex: You are a Member when you seize the delay !

You see that wheelchair meant to transport people with ambulatory difficulties sitting in the middle of the corridor? Actually it is not sitting there. It is moving. You can see one more behind it – following it.

It is an autonomous, robotic wheelchair! It was amazing to watch it negotiate the traffic. I guess, after autonomous vacuum cleaner, cars, food delivery carts, I should have guessed this was coming!

This is in Miami International airport.