World's Largest Seated Buddha, In the Mist

Hong Kong at Night

Wow, My Room at the YMCA Looks Just Like My Room on the Ship!

It really does.   No ocean view, instead a great view of Victoria Harbour and the Skyscrapers of Hong Kong Island.    The Salisbury YMCA is no ordinary Y, and Hong Kong is no ordinary city!   By the way, Gung Hai Fat Choi!   Happy New Year--it's the Year of the Tiger, and the celebration lasts three days.  Tonight the big parade makes it's way around the tip of Kowloon, where we're staying.  Tomorrow night fireworks.   I say we because my friend Arturo from Denver is here, and a fun couple from the ship.  They are also at the Y, and oddly , in the room next door.   I'm calling it the Queen Mary wing.    It's cool and foggy here this a.m.,    The tropics are in the past now.   In the hotel there is a lovely buffet restaurant (dinner last night), and this morning a swim in their olympic sized pool.    Who needs the QM2!    Hong Kong is a fantastic city,  I'll do another report with photos.   Will be here till Weds. 22:45., then on to SFO,   arrive there 18:55 same day.   Make up for all those 23 hour days!   I'm back in the land of free internet (Harbour City Mall, parked in front of KFC)  so I suppose I need to look at emails.   I just haven't wanted to.   I think that I really do function better in the floating world of travel!      More later...

Good Morning Viet Nam!

Actually, that was yesterday.  Today we are at sea,  the South China Sea to be exact.   This is my last day on the water, for tomorrow we sail into the port, Hong Kong, that I won't sail out of.   I got that line from my friend Ron, the French Canadian from table number one.  It was inevitable that I would use the good morning Viet Nam line.    I can't believe how the time has flown by,  I'm really having a hard time thinking that the Mary will leave Hong Kong without me.  Downright upset!    But there's still time left to enjoy on board.   Tonight, I'm invited to a cocktail party given by the Senior Officers--the result of switching to one of their tables, then a formal dinner, and the Oriental Ball, in the Queens Room.   Eleven hundred people are getting off in Hong Kong, no doubt there will be lots photos and email exchanges, and yes, tearful goodbyes.   Bonds really do form.   We dock at noon tomorrow and the ship makes a rare overnight stay, so I get one final night onboard.  Glad for that!   I'm going back to the first table for dinner, to say farewells to everyone.   I've met up with the couple from Liverpool, and told them I'd had a chance to join an officer's table, and who wouldn't jump at that!   Went over well, thank goodness.    We'll have a fun dinner Friday night.    I miss the waiters, and everyone else.   All too soon I'll be missing!      Back to Viet Nam,   I LOVED Saigon.   What a great day we had!   I would return there in a heart beat.    At dawn yesterday we entered the Mekong Delta and proceeded slowly up the winding river itself.   It was quite a sight.  We docked at yet another container port (definite drawback of this ship--her size dictates that), and then a two hour ride midst thousands of scooters into Saigon.    Straight to the Rex  Hotel for lunch.   The Rex is a beautiful old hotel from the French colonial era.   Lunch was fantastic, all in courses, lovely presentation.  All smiles, people were very friendly, wanted to shake hands, talk--not just at the hotel but everywhere we went.   Certainly old animosities seem left behind.   Central Saigon was laid out by the French, there are wide boulevards and tree lined streets, plazas and a giant roundabout that my cousin Michele called the traffic gorilla.  My uncle was stationed there with Esso in the late 50's and early 60's, he and my aunt and my cousins lived  at 218b rue Pasteur. After lunch I hopped a taxi while the others shopped and went to see their old house.  It was great fun, found it no problem--Pasteur is one of the few streets to retain it's French name.   Took some photos and thought of the life that they lived here back then, hustled back to rejoin the group.   We stopped at the Post Office, which is a beautiful colonial building next to the red brick cathedral.  There are flower gardens all over the place, the city was extravagantly decorated for the upcoming New Year, which the Vietnamese call Tet--does that ring a bell?    The Tet Offensive was the defining moment of America's involvement in the Viet Nam war--ask Google.    I really loved the feel of Saigon, missing all the sort of glitzed-up malls, super highways, chain stores etc. that are all over the rest of Asia, yet having up and coming, well maintained, clean, vibrant look to it.  It's also not expensive.   Enjoy the photos!

In Front of the Rex Hotel

Lunch at the Rex, Note the Bird of Paradise Napkin Fold

The Traffic Gorilla, Saigon

See, I Found It!

Entry Courtyard, 218b Rue Pasteur

Last Evening , A Rather Dramatic Departure!

The all aboard yesterday (at Laem Chabang-- the port for Bangkok) was 6:30.  As has occurred quite a few times this trip , an announcement came from the purser, Mr. and Mrs. so and so, etc. (there were several yesterday) are requested to call the purser's office, urgently.   Well, this means they are not onboard, or possibly, the computer somehow didn't log them in on entry--not likely.   Well by the third announcement the list was down to two.   David somebody and (I include the the name here because it's so good) Mr. Francois Presley.  The funny thing was the purser kept pronouncing the final s, thus Francoise--feminine version.   Mr. Francoise Presley.  Well, by this time quite a crowd had gathered on the starboard deck,  looking down at the quite lonely dock.  One gangplank was still in place, tended by a small knot of men.  Another announcement,   then the Commodore's, signaling departure.   Yet another from the purser, this time with a sort of quiet, almost plaintive note to it.   Everyone at the railing knew this was it.  We had waited by now for a full hour and a half-- eight p.m.    I was standing with the couple from New York via North Carolina who I had become friends with,  right above the gangplank.   The chief purser emerged, walked down,  handed two passports to the ship's shore agent, and then back up the plank.  The crowd watched all this is near silence.  All kinds of thought roaming through your head--you can imagine.    They pulled the plank, let go the lines,  the ship eased back from the pier-- but wait!   We heard someone on the pier call out "they're here, they're here".  Talk about in the nick of time!   Next thing these two bozos are running across the concrete expanse, up to the dock edge, now with a good  eight foot gap.   You can only imagine their state of mind!   A minute watching them looking helplessly up at the ship, now easing back to the pier. The gangplank emerged, the agent gave them their passport,  the assembled crowd erupted in cheers and jeers and cat calls of all sort.  They managed to plonk the plank on the dock.  An officer greeted them with life jackets, put them on them, and escorted them aboard.   I'll bet they recieved a good lecture!   Do you suppose they keep a low profile?    Another something I'll remember, for sure!   The ship's whistle gave three extra long, mighty blasts,  to more applause and cheers,  and we were off into the night! 

Mon Dieu, Four Ports, Four Days--That's a Lot!

Phuket, Thailand.  Georgetown, Malaysia.  Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.  Singapore, yesterday.    All in steamy equatorial heat--Singapore is one degree north and is the furthest south I'll go.   Today, back at sea, heading north to Bangkok, tomorrow.  I'm sitting out on deck in one of those great teak deck chairs, a beautiful coolish breeze blowing, typing like a mad man!    I'm so far behind, I'll still be catching up when I get to San Francisco on the !7th.  But that's fine!    Just had three cups of coffee and a big plate of fresh fruit, so I'm good to go.   Three nights ago at dinner the gentleman (using the term loosely) from Liverpool made one remark too many.  Rather than lunge at him across the table to wring his neck, I calmly and very quietly finished the meal (what self control, Paul--some of you may know how I can get), and went the next day to the maitre d' and requested a new table.   I felt really bad doing that as I've become  close to the others at the table,  but this guy was really starting to color my experience, so to speak.   The maitre d' put me at a great table- two away from the Commodore's on the main level. It's also a table of eight, and it's a hosted table--meaning that on formal nights a ship's officer join us, in this case the Chief Engineer.  Besides the honor of his company, he buys the wine!   I've been there two nights now and everyone has been warm, welcoming, non controversial, even a bit bland.  Just what the doctor ordered!   The Britannia Dining Room seats over a thousand people, and is without a doubt one of the grandest rooms ever built in a passenger liner.  In the photo you can see the Commodore's table dead center under the Gobelin tapestry, depicting the Mary departing New York, with abstracted streamers and the Brooklyn Bridge.   The height of the room must be 40 feet.   The new table is on the left, partially obscured by the first pillar.  The view from it at night is spectacular.  Happy to be there.   I can hear everyone giving a sigh of relief for me!    By the way, I've been wanting to thank everyone who's reading the blog-- glad you're enjoying it.    I've certainly had fun writing it!   A week is left now til Hong Kong, I'll make the best of it!

Land Ahoy Matey, Phuket, Thailand Dead Ahead!

We'll be at anchor today in Patong Bay.   It's our first and only port where we'll tender ashore.  There's a beach lining the bay and a small town with, I'm sure, shopping opportunities.  I'm told there's also an "entertainment" street.   Hmmm.   Well I've finally finished reporting on Egypt,   There's Muscat, Dubai and now Cochin, India to tell about-- that should come faster, since there's fewer historical detains that I'll have to make up!    Since Dubai we've sailed the Persian Gulf, through the Strait of Hormuz, into the Gulf of Oman.  Then spent three days across the Arabian Sea, into the Indian Ocean, a very nice day at Cochin, then two days on the Bay of Bengal.   Last night we transited the Sombrero (!) Channel and into the Andaman Sea.   We are now at anchor--I went up on the forward deck and heard it drop.  there are two, each weigh 24 tonnes, but they only dropped the port one.  The tenders have been lowered--six of them, they're part of the lifeboat "fleet", of which there are 22, plus the inflatables  (which the crew would use).   By the way, there's al lady onboard who was on that ship (the Explorer) that sank in the Antarctic two years ago-- she spent 14 hours in an open lifeboat.   I loved talking to her about it.     Going ashore now, we'll see what Phuket has to offer!

The Temple of Karnak Does Not Disappoint!

Forget what I wrote about not wanting to spend much time in Egypt, just looking through the photos of the great temple temple complex called Karnak in Luxor (800 miles upriver from Cairo) makes me want to return.  The place is astonishing.  The center of pharaonic life for 1,400 years (from 1900 B.C), it's the largest such complex in the world. The Great Hypostyle Hall forms the spectacular center  It's hard to convey the scale in a photo, but it takes six adults to stretch their arms around each column's girth, of which there are 134, each either 50 or 69 feet tall.   A major wow!   Put Karnak on your list, maybe right at the top.  And go this time of year,  it would be no fun at 105 degrees, at 80 it's sublime.   I think probably the best way to do it would be on one of those weeklong Nile River cruises, as everything you want to see in Egypt is strung along the river.   It took us 3 hours to cross the mountainous desert (more checkpoints and AK47s) to get there.  You should have heard the moaning on the ship the next day--the utter exhaustion, the danger, have you recovered?,  blah, blah, blah.  I digress.    After a nice buffet lunch at a hotel on the east bank of the Nile we were treated to a sail across the river on a felucca, to the west bank and on to the Valley of the Kings.  Here's where the pharaohs from Egypt's most glorious period, the New KIngdom (1550  B.C. to 1069 B.C.), are buried.  The valley is rugged, arid, narrow, and rises up from the fertile, green flood plain of the Nile just across from Karnak.  The land of the living on one bank, the land of the dead on the other. The entry to each tomb descends into the underworld via a shaft of varying steepness.  I had no idea what to expect, in fact I guess I expected, well, caves.   Wrong!  Each one is different, all a series of rooms and corridors and niches and side rooms-- beautifully plastered and decorated with painting so fresh and colorful you can't believe it's all over 3,000 years old.   The mind bogles at the riches each must have contained, given the trove found at the relatively unimportant Pharaoh Tutankhamun.  By the way, Indiana Jones did not, as is commonly believed, discover  his tomb.   Rather, it was Howard Carter.   Entry into the valley gets you into three tombs (no photograph allowed),  I went down into that of Ramses VI, Ramses IX, and I forget the third.  Each was erie and wonderful. Coming back out into that rugged landscape was an odd feeling.  Loved every minute of it.

The Tallest Obelisk in Egypt

Erected by Queen Hatshepsut  (say hot cheap suit) in 1474 B.C., 100 feet tall, 323 tonnes,  it was carved from one block of the finest Aswan pink granite.  Still standing after all these years!

Yours Truly at the Base of the Obelisk