Missing a flight, waiting in an airport, listening to garbled announcements - who doesn't hate that misery?

But Sita Dulip from Cincinnati finds a method of bypassing the crowds at the desks, the long lines at the toilets, the nasty lunch, the whimpering children and punitive parents, the bookless bookstores, and the blue plastic chairs bolted to the floor.

A mere kind of twist and a slipping bend, easier to do than to describe, takes her not to Denver but to Strupsirts, a picturesque region of waterspouts and volcanoes, or to Djeyo where she can stay for two nights in a small hotel with a balcony overlooking the amber Sea of Somue. This new discovery - changing planes - enables Sita to visit bizarre societies and cultures that sometimes mirror our own and sometimes open doors into the alien.

Contents:

• Sita Dulip's Method
• Porridge on Islac
• The Silence of the Asonu
• Feeling at Home with the Hennebet
• The Ire of the Veksi
• Seasons of the Ansarac
• Social Dreaming of the Frin
• The Royals of Hegn
• Woeful Tales from Mahigul
• Great Joy
• Wake Island
• The Nna Mmoy Language
• The Building
• The Fliers of Gy
• The Island of the Immortals
• Confusion on Uñi