Saturday Briefing

By Dr. Richard Kelley

Once again the world is watching, appalled, as terror, riots, and violence disrupt Travel & Tourism around the world. There were the bloody attacks late last month on hotels and a train station in Mumbai (formerly Bombay) and the closure by rioters of two airports in Thailand. Currently, Greece is enduring riots that have brought that country to a standstill.
It is one thing to read about events in faraway countries in a newspaper or watch them on TV, but everything takes on a whole new meaning when friends and loved ones are directly involved and, often, endangered.

Raymond Bickson and Dr. Richard Kelley

Raymond Bickson, Managing Director and CEO of Indian Hotels, owner of the venerable Taj Mahal Palace & Tower in Mumbai, is a personal friend whom I have known since his youth in Hawaii. (He’s a 1973 graduate of Saint Louis School.) He and his wife were dining there, when terrorists attacked the hotel on November 26, murdering dozens of guests and 12 staff members (in addition, seven others were injured). I can only imagine the fear he and his colleagues endured during those hours. I hope to hear the details from him in the near future.

Closer to home, my sister, Jean Rolles, was caught in the middle of the riots and closure of Suvarnabhumi International Airport in Bangkok, Thailand. The saga of what she experienced in Bangkok and over the next several days, as she journeyed 700 miles overland, is terrifying and fascinating.”Her story, titled My Wild Bangkok Adventure, is found in this issue of Saturday Briefing.  Thank you, Jean, for sharing this epic tale with our ‘ohana and readers of Saturday Briefing.