RANSVESTIA

wrong turns himself and the meter went over the amount he had said. But he was nice and he said in broken English that it was o.k. it would still be "X" yen, the amount he had quoted.

Next day was my turn to catch the bus for the airport and I flew to Guam where I stayed just one night at the Guam Hilton. Took a swim in the bay and had some trouble getting away from a romantically in- clined and partly alcoholic civil servant who was all for making out with a "lovely??" visitor. But I went in swimming and when I returned he had sought greener pastures. Next day at the gate of the airport I got into a conversation with a man and his wife and was telling them about my experiences in Russia. I sat just one seat ahead of them on the plane and talked some more until departure time. We flew to the island of Truk where I was to stay a couple of days and the plane was on the ground for about a half hour so they got off too. As we were about to part they asked me if I would like to stay with them in their home on the island of Ponape where I was to go next. This was a great surprise and as it would save hotel fare I readily agreed. We parted and I went to the hotel on Truk for a couple of days. We took both a boat trip around the lagoon and an auto trip around the main island. On both we saw a lot of remains of the Japanese occupation of the island during the war. You may remember that Truk was one of the big battles because it was one of the principle Japanese bases. The lagoon is about 50 miles across so it was an enormous quiet an- chorage. They had naval and air bases there but Admiral Nimitz air and sea power wiped them out. From the boat you glide slowly over the rusting hulks of various kinds of ships on the bottom of the bay and here and there a sunken airplane.

After a couple days on Truk it was back to the airport to catch the plane for Ponape. Flights are run by Air Micronesia, a subsidiary of Continental Airlines and they go in each direction every other day so you have to stay a couple of days everywhere you go.

My new friends met me at the Ponape airport and took me to their nice apartment and we had a very interesting couple of days together learning all about the administration of the Trust Territories and the problems this brings to people. It was very fortuitous for me that they invited me to stay because it rained almost all the time I was on the island. Howard drove me around some of the island in his jeep and I saw where I would have had to stay if I had had to go to the hotel. It would have been pretty miserable as the hotel was not only primitive

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