Journeys....

Da Nang and Hanoi

anijensen — Wed, 4 Feb 2015 18:52:00 GMT

To Americans, Da Nang is most famous as the original landing place of the US Marines in 1965. After that, China Beach became a massive US supply depot and R&R location.

We docked in a nearby port city, then took a bus through a tunnel, through the city of Da Nang (third largest in Vietnam after Saigon and Hanoi), and up into a tiny lush green valley to visit ruins left by the Cham Empire, dating from the 4th to the 13th centuries. Much like Angkor Wat in Cambodia though on a much smaller scale, these were a series of temples and compounds reserved for the use of the upper class and priests. The preservation level was pretty good, considering that they were older than Angkor Wat. The Cham were expert builders with brick, and although they didn’t have mortar, they used tree sap to glue the bricks together—a technique which clearly lasted for a very long time.

We stopped at a factory that produced marble carvings of all sizes, shapes, and themes, got some shopping done, then back to the ship for departure to Hanoi. As we had been warned, a strong cross wind started bouncing us around pretty badly as soon as we pulled out of the harbor. After we were underway for about an hour and a half, the PA system came on with “Code Mike, Code Mike, Code Mike. Voyager lounge, deck 5.” That’s a medical emergency call, and we’re not real sure what happened yet. Anyway, about an hour later, the PA came alive again, telling us that we had no choice but to turn around and head back to Da Nang to get the stricken passenger the help he needed. That delayed our arrival in Hanoi by about five hours, but we didn’t have anything really exciting planned until the evening.

We parked in Ha Long Bay. Hanoi was about four hours away by bus, and although some passengers took the option, we decided to check out the area near the ship. The first striking feature was the 9-year old suspension bridge crossing Ha Long Bay. When the sun went down, the lights came on, and the entire bridge was lit in green lights…..which changed to pink, then blue, and on and on. At one point, the entire bridge was lit up like a rainbow, and the light show went on all night.

The first night we went to a nice hotel in town and saw a production of a traditional water puppet show. There was a live band and singers, providing the audio for the show—think muppets standing on a stage of water, operated by rigid wire from behind screens, with the wires hidden underwater. Characters included farmers and fishermen and their wives, fish, ducks, dragons, and water buffalo. It was a pretty fun event.

The next day we took a small boat on a tour of Ha Long Bay, and their world famous monoliths—sandstone karst rocks, some small, some quite large, sticking up out of the bay. There was a lot of fog on the bay, and the looming monoliths, fading in and out of the mist was simultaneously eerie and beautiful.

We are nearing the end of this phase of the cruise. Phase 1 was Cape Town to Singapore, when about 80% of the passengers debarked and were replaced by new. Phase 2 is Singapore to Hong Kong, where many will debark, but about 100 of the originals from Cape Town will stay on board for the last leg to Beijing. Rumor has it that the ship will have lots of empty cabins on the Hong Kong to Beijing leg.

By the way, we will now be headed further north each day. Yesterday it was 25ºF in Kobe, Japan, and in Beijing. Bye-bye tropics.

Saigon

anijensen — Sat, 31 Jan 2015 19:21:00 GMT

What a bustling city! Packed with people, vehicles, and new construction everywhere, this is certainly an indicator of Vietnam’s ongoing economic surge in an otherwise blighted world economy.

We were docked in Saigon for two days. (The official name is Ho Chi Minh City, but everyone here still calls it Saigon.) After a small communications glitch, we met up with our private guide on the first morning, then drove about 1.5 hours south down into the Me Kong river delta. It’s a patchwork of islands, waterways and villages, and some incredible bustling activity along the river day and night. We got out of the car and boarded a water taxi that we had all to ourselves, and wandered around a bit looking at houses, fish farms, and all the commercial traffic, big barges down to tiny fishing boats. We stopped at a fruit vendor’s boat parked out in the middle of the river, and bought a few things we’ve never had before. Some good, some horrible.

Then we got out of the boat and started walking some small footpaths on a couple of islands. We watched some ladies making rice paper for spring rolls, and passed lots of rice paper laid out to dry in the sun on bamboo racks. We went into a house where a family operation was making *delicious* coconut candies, and another house where the family was popping rice exactly like our puffed rice breakfast cereal. After puffing the rice, they would mix it with various flavoring ingredients and form it into cakes for sale. Some cakes were sweet, but the best tasting was a savory flavor similar to chicken broth, onions, and a few other subtle spices.

Everywhere we walked on these islands, we were surrounded by lush greenery. Grasses and bamboo everywhere, but also plenty of cultivated fruit, nut, and vegetable plantings. We jumped from our water taxi onto a small gondola-like boat rowed by a single woman, and rode up a very narrow canal to our lunch destination. It was at a family’s home, and they served us several fun things, starting with some home brew made from their own nut trees. We had some delicious noodle soup to start, then they brought us a whole deep-fried elephant fish. They showed us how to dip dried rice paper into water to rehydrate it, pull some of the fish apart and lay it on the rice paper, add an assortment of fresh veggies, top it with one or more sauces, then roll and eat. Locally grown tapioca and fruit finished off the meal.

As we drove back to the ship for the night, we saw more river life, and rice paddies everywhere. Our guide told us they eat rice three times a day, and in the south part of Vietnam, they are able to get three rice harvests per year.

The next day, we got an earlier start and headed right into the heart of Saigon. With a population of 10 million, Saigon is the country’s largest city and was the former capital, remained the capital of South Vietnam during the civil war, then Hanoi became Vietnam’s capital in 1975. This is the first city on this trip (although not the last, I’m sure) where we really got a feeling of a massive crush of people. It’s difficult to describe the number of motorbikes moving in an unstopping flow along every street and road. We included some photos, but seeing and hearing is the best way to really appreciate what’s happening. The government has instituted a two-child policy, but it’s not too strictly adhered to. The only sanctions are loss of government health and education subsidies for the “extra” kids, although members of the Communist party with more than two kids can kiss their hopes for advancement goodbye.

Our guide had the car drop us off on a busy street—actually, they’re all busy streets—so we could go far a stroll through the “alleys”. (We were in a new Toyota SUV, about halfway between a Rav-4 and a Highlander, driver and guide in front, us in the back. I was on the driver’s side, and the first time I tried to open my door, I discovered that the child lock was on. The driver got out and opened the door for me, I went to turn the child lock off, and he gestured no-no to me. I thought about it and decided that past tourists had probably opened the door into charging motorbikes or vehicles…) Anyway, the “alleys” in Saigon are streets that are lined with residential high rises, and shops and stalls have spilled so far out into the street from both sides that the streets have become alleys, passable only by pedestrians, mostly turned sideways. We saw meats, fruits, veggies, and lots of fish for sale. Clothes, jewelry, handbags. Frogs, both butchered and alive, the latter face to face in pairs with a big rubber band around both to keep them from hopping away. Spice stores, and chilies, lemongrass, and limes available everywhere. We saw a gorgeous area dedicated to flowers, all ramping up for the upcoming new year’s celebration in mid-February.

We walked a few more blocks to the historic city center, full of new shiny high rises, more under construction, and several French colonial buildings. We walked through the Victorian-style post office, still in use today by the Vietnamese post, and through the Notre Dame cathedral, a modest replica of the cathedral in Paris.

Then in a hush-hush operation, our guide ushered us into a very modest office building, spoke briefly with the security guard in the foyer, and ushered us onto an ancient Otis elevator. Up five floors, then a set of stairs onto the roof, and we were standing on top of the former CIA headquarters in Vietnam. This is where a reporter snapped the iconic photo of the US helicopter landing atop this building—the last helicopter to leave Saigon during the chaotic evacuation of the city on 1975. Our guide told us that no other tourists go us there, but he “made arrangements” to bring very small groups up there once in a while.

Next was lunch at one of the street vendors that everyone warns us away from. But we had no problems, and it was delicious. Our guide took us to a rather large indoor food stand, which started as one woman selling off the back of her motor bike 17 years ago. Now she owns the ground floor of a downtown building, with seating for 150+, customers and staff bustling everywhere. The French left a wonderful legacy of bread in this country, so the guide and I each had a baguette with sliced pork and veg, Anita had a bowl of noodle soup with fresh veg. Most amazing of all—the entire lunch for all three cost about $3.50.

We finished the day shopping in downtown Saigon, and picked up several fun things to bring home. Then back to the ship and north to Da Nang.

Borneo: Brunei and Kota Kinabalu

anijensen — Wed, 28 Jan 2015 19:15:00 GMT

The island of Borneo now mostly belongs to Malaysia, with the exception of the tiny country of Brunei Darussalam. Brunei is quite oil-rich, I think we’ve been hearing “as rich as the Sultan of Brunei” since we were small kids. The sultan is indeed reputed to be one of the two or three richest people in the world, but he has been pretty generous to the people of Brunei with the oil revenues, more so than most of the other oil-rich nations that we’ve seen. In Brunei, citizens pay no income tax, and the state provides education through the university level, healthcare, and subsidized housing. There are only 400,000 citizens, but since they enjoy a fairly high standard of living, there are many Indonesians imported for labor and household staffing.

Houses were fairly nice (some were *really* nice), but there was a dicey water village area that was a bit seedy. It seems that in the past, Malaysians liked to build their houses on stilts over the water, because the Borneo headhunters didn’t like to go out onto the water. (May not be true, but it makes a good story.) Anyway, the water village in Brunei is as the end of a deep, narrow estuary. The water was very cloudy and we soon discovered why—all the sewage waste from the water village houses dropped right down into the water beneath. Kind of surprising, given the relatively advanced infrastructure in the rest of Brunei.

We also took a boat up the river a bit, looked at some mangrove swamps, saw several crocodiles sunning themselves on the banks, and tried, mostly unsuccessfully, to spot the elusive proboscis monkeys.

After leaving Brunei, we moved up the coast a bit for our last visit to a Malaysian port at Kota Kinabalu. There wasn’t much going on there, nothing of real historic significance. We took the shuttle bus into town (these are usually free buses sponsored by the local chamber of commerce, or in this case, by one particular shopping mall). We walked around the city for a couple of hours, through another fun market, got a battery for my watch, and headed back to the ship.

Angkor Wat, Cambodia

anijensen — Fri, 23 Jan 2015 17:19:00 GMT

We left the ship as soon as we docked in Bangkok (note to selves: visit Bangkok on a future visit, because we missed it entirely on this trip), and got on a plane to Siem Riep, Cambodia. We were met as we got off the plane, and our guide whisked us through customs and on to the Meridien Angkor Hotel.

Only eleven people from the cruise ship went on this excursion, which had us spending two nights away from the ship. The group was nice and small and easily manageable, and there was only one really objectionable woman in the bunch.

We met again at 7:30 that first evening to go have dinner in a small theater, where we saw classic Cambodian apsara dancers performing. Very graceful, and very athletic. Dinner was fairly bland, unfortunately, as I’m sure they needed to cater to the lowest common denominator—elderly, white, picky tourists.

Next day we saw four temples. The first thing we learned is that Angkor Wat is only one of over 1000 temples and palaces spread throughout Siem Riep province in northern Cambodia, where the leadership of the Khmer Empire lived and built during their 9th to 15th Century heyday. These structures are spread out over a vast area, and are in all kinds of states of repair. Many are undergoing restoration, and all are pretty busy with lots of tourists from all around the world.

The first temple we went to was Ta Prohm, famous for the big trees growing in and on the temple ruins, and famous as the film location for the “Tomb Raider” movie. Next, we visited The Bayon, a Buddhist temple with over two hundred massive Buddha faces carved into the many towers decorating the interior of the grounds.

Next was lunch in a very nice restaurant, with a buffet offering that just didn’t seem to end. After that, we visited a third temple, Banteay Srei. For this one, the Khmer used pink limestone, and the carvings and reliefs here were more spectacular than anything we had seen yet.

Finally, we went to the big one, Angkor Wat itself. It wasn’t pink, didn’t have intricate carvings, and didn’t have hundreds of giant Buddha faces, but it was big and very well preserved. Walls around the entire complex, a moat that looked more like a lake, then a long walk along a stone causeway to get to the temple itself accentuated the grandeur of the main building itself. There are five central stone towers, three of which are intact, courtyards, interior walls, rooms, shrines, and hallways. Finally, we climbed a very steep staircase to the upper level, giving us a bird’s-eye view of the entire complex. This is rumored to be the largest religious site in the world, and I am inclined to believe it.

(Cambodia is having problems with the crush of tourists that visit the Angkor area and Siem Riep province each year. Each new hotel or resort that goes up drills wells to supply themselves with water, and because the high tourist season coincides with the Cambodian dry season, there are major concerns about damage to the water table, and cracking or sinking foundations under the monuments. There are so many tourists that damage to the sandstone ruins caused by foot traffic alone is another major concern. Managing the flow (and feeding and housing) of tourists is already straining resources, but since tourism is a major GDP contributor in this poor country, any talk of limiting tourist flow or closing some attractions to enhance conservation meets with clamorous resistance.)

We did dinner on our own that night, so we got together with another couple that we’ve been hanging out with since Cape Town, rented a tuk-tuk, and got a ride to a nice local restaurant. It was touristy, of course, but better than the lunch we had.

Next morning it was off to the airport for a turbo-prop flight to Cambodia’s capital, Phnom Penh. There we were met by another guide who escorted us to the king’s palace complex. We saw some very Siamese-looking buildings and royal mausoleums on the grounds, and an amazingly opulent Buddhist shrine, with a solid gold Buddha statue sporting 23-carat diamond eyes, and an emerald Buddha 23 inches tall, carved from a single stone. (A fellow traveler told me this was nothing compared to the Forbidden City in Beijing, but he wouldn’t elaborate. We’ll see.)

After that, we settled in for a four-hour bus ride to the port city of Sihanoukville, where our cruise ship was waiting. En route, our guide told us about his personal experiences with the Khmer Rouge. When the latter came to power in 1975, backed by the Chinese government, they began a systematic extermination of anyone with education, or anyone critical of the government. Even though the Vietnamese army helped overthrow the Khmer Rouge in 1979, they still managed to kill over two million of their fellow Cambodians in only four years.

Our guide was seven years old in 1975. His father was killed, and he himself was separated from his mother and younger brother, and sent to a labor camp where he lived and worked for three years. He was finally reunited with his mother, who had given him up for dead long before. His father’s previous good friend is the deputy prime minister today.

Singapore

anijensen — Mon, 19 Jan 2015 19:44:00 GMT

What an amazing city. It sparkles with high-rises, each more spectacular than the last. There’s lots of glass, steel, and stone, but they’ve also managed to maintain a lot green in town. Trees and vine covered terraces are part of every building’s features.

The streets are immaculate, the people are polite, and the atmosphere in town is all about money-making bustle.

We started by taking the subway into the center of town from the cruise terminal, then jumped on the Hop-on Hop-off open top bus for about three hours. We spent a lot of our time on the bus gazing upward, I’m pretty sure we had our mouths hanging open much of the time. These are not just rectangular high rises, with the occasional tower thrown in. There are lots of curves, bridges between buildings, and amazing gardens at all levels everywhere. There is one “resort” near the cruise ship harbor that’s made up of three separate residential towers, all three capped at the top with an enormous flat oval of gardens, forests, playgrounds, swimming pools, bars, and restaurants. We were told that it was just completed this past year, and cost $5.4 billion to build.

Living in Singapore is not cheap, and the government has come up with several ways to reduce traffic congestion, which seem to have worked very well: (1) to be able to register a car, you must buy into a lottery, which costs $60-75,000, then (2) when you buy a car, you have to pay an additional 100% VAT, and finally, (3) there are electronic counters all throughout the city checking how many miles you drive your car, and you get charged road use fees accordingly. The average is $450-500 per month. Surprisingly, these measures haven’t deterred lots of Ferrari, Lamborghini, and Rolls Royce owners, and Lexus and BMWs are at the low end of the vehicle spectrum.

The city has a reputation for sparkling cleanliness, and it’s well-deserved. The subway is the cleanest we’ve ever seen (and it’s really simple to use), and the streets are immaculate.

After the Hop-on Hop-off bus, we had a great lunch of pork+veg dumplings, spicy noodles, lemongrass tea, and Tiger beer. (Not a fork or spoon on the table! Practicing for rural China, you know.)

Then we walked around for a couple of hours, working our way back to the ship. It seemed like every high-rise had a shopping mall on the first few floors, so we easily found all the things we’ve been needing.

Singapore is definitely on our list of cities to revisit when we come back for a lengthier exploration of this part of the world.

Next day was spent at sea headed north on the east side of the Malay Peninsula, and the following day we spent at a very mediocre and rather crowded beach at Ko Samui, Thailand.

Langkawi and Penang, Malaysia

anijensen — Fri, 16 Jan 2015 18:59:00 GMT

Langkawi is a cluster of islands belonging to Malaysia, off the northwest coast near the Thai border.

Instead of doing the standard bus tour, we did something with a little more outdoor flavor. We got on a small motor boat (only 6 pax) and cruised down a river past lots of mangroves. The dense mangroves were instrumental in saving Langkawi from much of the tsunami devastation in recent years past. Then our boat driver threw bits of chicken out onto the water, and we watched two species of eagles dive for them and carry them off.

Next stop was debarkation to walk through some bat caves, not as big as what we’ve got in the western hemisphere, but quite nice anyway. Then on to a floating fish farm in brackish water on the river, where we saw horseshoe crabs, moray eels, grouper, and a host of other fish. After that, back to the ship for dinner and Anita’s favorite—an evening show featuring a man and his banjo!

Next day in Penang, we got our own guide to take us around and show us the city. (We’ve had a bellyful of the ship’s buses, and our annoying fellow passengers. Anita actually had to tell a man on the bus the other day “Let’s use our manners today, shall we?” But that’s another story.) Our guide took us up onto a hill outside the city for yet another Buddhist temple, but we were very pleasantly surprised—this was the most beautiful and pristine temple we have seen so far on this trip. We are still in the land of the skinny Buddha with headdress, in the Thai style: the fat Buddha is more the Chinese style, and I’m sure we’ll be seeing plenty of him later on. For 123 years, this temple has been growing up the mountainside, with lots of stairs between buildings, shrines, grottos, and gardens—it covers lots of area, encompasses lots of rooftops, and probably contains several thousand Buddha images. Stone carvings in and around the buildings and shrines are exquisite, with dragons, fish, monks, Buddha, monkeys, lotus flowers, and all sorts of images everywhere you look.

Our guide then took us deep into the city for Chinese paper lanterns and joss sticks (special shopping request). We now own eight beachball-sized lanterns, which, even collapsed, will be a challenge to get packed. Then he pulled over to the side of a busy street and told us to go buy a bowl of chendul—he pointed out that the particular roadside stand that he wanted us to go to was “famous”, that is, was used by lots of people so it much be good. The young man in the cart took about 15 seconds to fill each plastic bowl with sweet beans, green gelatin noodles like soft gummi bears, sweet rice pudding, coconut milk, and chocolate sauce. It wasn’t a great dessert, sort of bland, but I could see how it could grow on you.

Next he drove around the city a bit—we saw Little India, and Chinatown. There’s a large ethnic Chinese population in Penang, and its reflected in the appearance of many citizens, Chinese writing on lots of store signs, and several long historical jetties, which were originally Chinese laborer homes and fishing launch points. Over time, these have become rather fixed structures, completely built over, water is only visible if you peer intently down through the planks. There are now stores, restaurants, the occasional Buddhist shrine, and plenty of residences jammed onto these jetties. We walked the length of the most famous, Chow Jetty.

Next day the ship docked at Port Klang, the harbor city for the capital Kuala Lumpur. We opted not to take the one-hour bus ride into the city for a tour. Instead, we caught up on laundry and relaxation, since we basically had the ship to ourselves.

Quiz 9

anijensen — Thu, 15 Jan 2015 14:24:00 GMT

What's going on here?

The Indian Ocean: Seychelles, Maldives, Sri Lanka, and Phuket

anijensen — Wed, 14 Jan 2015 18:55:00 GMT

The Seychelles and the Maldives are two sets of islands in the western Indian Ocean, now dependent almost exclusively on tourism for income.

We got to The Seychelles first as we left mainland Africa. It’s a small cluster of volcanic mountaintops sticking out of the ocean, very green and lush, and home to several resorts and luxury homes. From the cruise ship, we got onto a big catamaran, then cruised around while our guide pointed out three islands that make up the national park, and told us a few things about the resorts and residents. The water was beautifully clear, with lots of tropical fish and coral formations visible directly under the cat. We then transferred to a glass-bottom boat in the middle of the bay, and we all piled down into the hold, where the sides of the hull were plexiglas panels. We had excellent views directly out onto the coral reef, and saw lots of big and small tropical fish, almost face to face. Finally, our excursion ended with about 45 minutes of snorkeling off the catamaran, in the bay near the reef. Plenty of fish, but the coral itself was only so-so.

After another two days of sailing, we arrived on Malé, the main island in The Maldives. This is a string of 1200+ islands running north to south, west of the southern tip of India. Our ship docked at the main island of Malé—small island, densely populated, Muslim mosques everywhere. We went on a walking tour that was mildly interesting, we probably liked the fishing fleet and the fish market the best. The ship stayed overnight, so the next morning we got into a water taxi and headed for another island to spend the day at a resort on their beach. Even though the nation is Muslim, and neither alcohol nor pork products are permitted on the main island of Malé, apparently anything goes on the outlying islands. 220 of the islands have some sort of development on them, including a whopping 4400 hotels and resorts. Tourism is the main source of income for the Maldives, so cutting out alcohol would probably kill the industry. Their other concern is the rumors of rising sea levels due to global warming. If that happens, they are in trouble, since the highest peak in the whole country is only seven feet above sea level.

Sri Lanka was an entirely different story. Formerly known as Ceylon, and hanging like a “teardrop off the face of India”, Sri Lanka also received independence from the British crown in the early 70s, then underwent years of internal strife which ended only in 2009. Buddhism is the thing in Sri Lanka—70% of the population is Buddhist, then in descending order Hindus, Christians. and Muslims. Buddhist temples and shrines were *everywhere*. We lost count of the roadside shrines, roofed but with open sides, containing painted statues of Buddha 15-20 feet tall. We went through a large Buddhist temple, and the only thing they required was that we remove our shoes, no bare knees and no bare shoulders. They had no problems with photography (unlike the Muslim mosques), and no problem with our guide talking quite loudly to our group.

Since the internal problems dies down in 2009, Sri Lanka has really turned its efforts to development and capitalism. Tourism, especially, has taken off, and tea exports remain very strong GDP producers. There are lots of signs of building and prosperity throughout the city of Columbo.

Our neighbors on the cruise ship are a couple from Singapore—he is an Australian, she is half Malaysian and half British, and they’ve told us some very interesting things along the way. Among other things, they told us that the Andaman Straits (entered when we left Sri Lanka) was the world’s busiest piracy corridor. Fortunately, the pirates focus mostly on freighters and tankers, and pretty much leave the cruise ships alone.

Anyway, yesterday we visited Phuket (poo KET), Thailand, a thriving island building a pretty good reputation for leisure vacationing. On our bus tour, we saw rubber tree plantations (in decline because synthetic rubber is cheaper to manufacture), many resorts and hotels, and many, many tourist bars and restaurants. We saw lots of scooters on Sri Lanka, but Phuket leaves them way behind. They seemed to come in waves, down the roads—mopeds, scooters, and motorbikes of all sizes and shapes. It’s also not unusual to see a family of four or even five all piled onto one motorbike. Our guide told us that the legal age for driving a motorbike is 16, but sometimes parents will buy them for their 12 year-old-kids, just so the latter can get to and from school, allowing both parents to work. He also told us that most working class Thais don’t usually eat dinner at home, but instead get home from work, wash up, and head out for a meal of street food. This would almost always be a bed of rice with a topping of vegetables, fish, and some sort of sauce—and always very spicy, purchased from a guy with a cart on the side of the road, for about $1.50 per person. Sounds delicious, but rather risky.

Madagascar, Zanzibar, and Dar Es Salaam

anijensen — Mon, 5 Jan 2015 13:36:00 GMT

After Maputo, Mozambique, we steamed northeast for two days and landed at the extreme northern end of Madagascar, on the island of Nosy Be. They don’t have a dock that can support a cruise ship, so this was one of several ports where we used ship’s tenders to get ashore. (We actually launch the ship’s lifeboats as tenders, which is great practice for the crew, great opportunity to check out the equipment, and real confidence-booster for the guests on board.)

Madagascar’s infrastructure isn’t as devastated as Mozambique’s, but it’s still quite a bit behind the much more modern South Africa. The entire area is covered with a dense green growth of tropical trees, shrubs and grasses. Mango trees with hanging fruits are everywhere, as are banana plants. We toured a small botanical garden, saw lemurs, chameleons, giant tortoises, and cute six-day-old baby crocodiles. We toured a factory where flower petals are distilled to make perfume oils, were treated to some dancing and singing by the local ladies’ association, and had more opportunities to shop for souvenirs.

That evening, we headed back north toward the African mainland, and docked next morning on the island of Zanzibar. Zanzibar was originally a Portuguese colony, replaced by the Sultan of Oman in 1698. Zanzibar became a British protectorate in 1890, and in 1963 a bloody revolution resulted in Arabs fleeing to India en masse, and Zanzibar joined with mainland Tanganyika, to form Tanzania. (By the way, one of the emigrant Arabs changed his name to Freddy Mercury when he got to India with his family as an 18-year-old.) Anyway, Zanzibar was quite the slave-trading center in its heyday, first started by the Portuguese but greatly expanded by a succession of Omani sultans.

Zanzibar is better off than Madagascar or Mozambique, although its best days of European and Arabic colonialism are behind them. There are lots of people everywhere in Zanzibar, and we really enjoyed a walking tour of the town—sultan’s former palace, elbow-to-elbow marketplace, crowded streets, and a fish market with fresh swordfish and marlin.

After Zanzibar, we crossed back over to mainland Tanzania, to the bustling city of Dar Es Salaam, founded by the Sultan of Zanzibar in the 19th century, and the modern-day center of Tanzanian commerce. We decided to take it easy this day, so we took a small bus to a 5-star resort on the north shore, and spent the day on beach chairs, sipping drinks, and lolling in the warm waters of the Indian Ocean.

Today, we are headed due east across the Indian Ocean toward the Seychelles. We’ve got a brisk wind coming out of the northeast, so things are pretty bouncy on the ship. Interferes with my nap…

Cape Town to Mozambique

anijensen — Sun, 28 Dec 2014 18:23:00 GMT

We've been on board the Seven Seas Voyager, for a week now, and the activity has been pretty frantic. We've made landfall each day so far, and we've stayed pretty busy, both on and off the ship.

After leaving Cape Town on the evening of December 21, we headed east along the South African coast, stopped at Mossel Bay the next day around noon. Mossel Bay is actually close enough to Cape Town be considered a distant suburb. There are some pretty nice houses, and some decent shops and restaurants. We just got of the ship and went for a casual stroll into town. I bought some badly needed running shorts, looked unsuccessfully for a digital watch to use for exercising (my 5-year-old Casio decided to quit a few days ago), and we strolled back to the ship.

Next day the stop was in Port Elizabeth, a major large port and pretty big city. We were met by Allan, our private tour guide, and off we went in his little Toyota SUV. Our first stop was a canoe ride on the Sunday River--no crocodiles or hippos, guaranteed. We saw lots of birds and leaping fish, and actually got a good workout while paddling back to our put-in point against a current and a stiff breeze. Next stop was a very British country pub for lunch (cheeseburger and beer for me, fish and chips for Mom), then on to Addo Elephant Park. Despite its name, the park has lots of game in it, and we managed to check a few animals off our list that we hadn't seen yet in South Africa.

After motoring further along the coast line all night, Voyager put into East London on Christmas Eve. Here, we went on a tour of a pretty nice natural history museum, where they actually have two big claims to fame. The curator of the museum identified a living coelacanth (fish) brought up by local fishermen in 1938, thought to be long-extinct. The other East London archaeological find was a set of footprints made in the sand at the beach, cast into sandstone by mother nature, then rediscovered in the 20th century. They are claimed to be the oldest human footprints in the world, dating back 120,000 years. East London itself had been a major German farmer and British colonial settlement, but has dilapidated badly. Only 3% of the local population is white (as opposed to 12% nationwide in South Africa), and it shows in the appearance of the streets and buildings, and the local unemployment rate of 33%.

On Christmas Day, we docked in Durban, South Africa's biggest port and third largest city. We had been to Durban a couple of weeks earlier with Hayden, so we elected to just stay on the ship and laze around. We did laundry, and made sure that we got in our daily exercise routine. The latter is vitally important if we are going to continue to eat and drink all the great things available on board. In mid-afternoon, we called you guys and checked into Christmas morning activities at home. Mom had two spa appointments on Christmas, and we ate dinner at the steak restaurant on the ship. Unfortunately, it just wasn't as good as the barbecued steaks that we have at home.

Next day was a stop at Richards Bay. The main destinations for ship excursions were the St Lucia Estuary Game Reserve, and the Hluhluwe/Infolozi National Park. Again, we had already seen those with Hayden, so we opted to take the shuttle to a really large shopping mall. We just wandered around a bit, Mom found a few items of clothing, I finally found a black rubber Casio watch to wear while exercising, and we rejoined the ship. This was our last stop in South Africa. We had arrived on November 30, and that was one of the fastest months we've ever seen fly by.

Yesterday, December 27, the ship docked at Maputo, Mozambique. As soon as we started to pull up to the pier and the buildings in town became visible, we could tell that the story here was quite a bit different from South Africa. Mozambique had gone through a devastating civil war from 1963 until 1974, and it took a massive toll in lives and infrastructure destruction. Many taller buildings are disintegrating, lots of trash in the streets, many, many unemployed people wandering about. We went on a walking tour from the pier to the downtown area, led by a young Mozambiquan man. He did a pretty good job, but made constant references to "back in the day"--back to pre-1963 when Maputo was a thriving Portuguese port, with lots of European activity, money, and residents. On an encouraging note, we did see some nice homes and high-rise construction happening near the beach areas on the north side of the bay as we left last night. The downtown is in really bad shape, but maybe the revival will happen in the suburbs first, and move on from there.

Today and tomorrow, we are steaming north and east between Mozambique and Madagascar, made famous as a highly-coveted and easily-defended Risk possession. We'll be catching up on blogging, playing trivia and bingo, exercising, reading, and relaxing. Mom's getting a manicure right now, and I am headed up to the running track on deck 12 (seven laps equals one mile, counting laps is the hardest part).

Durban and Cape Town, South Africa

anijensen — Sat, 20 Dec 2014 22:56:00 GMT

Durban's a great city! We drove in from Swaziland in just about four hours. Nice scenery, lots of cows and goats in the road until we hit the N2 which speeded things up for us.

Durban is a very metropolitan city, spread over hillsides along the Indian Ocean. We stayed in the old part of town at Africa Regent Guesthouse. It was in a wonderful location, close to a quaint part of town where restaurants and a few shops are located. We took the small room right off of the breakfast room, room #2. The host and hostess were just lovely people. They do tons of traveling on their own and have some great stories to tell. They’ve decorated the home with African motif, very tastefully done with lots of interesting artifacts, real and fake (though you can’t really tell the latter).

We arrived early afternoon and not wanting to miss a meal headed right into town. We had salads and snacks at a little Portuguesa restaurant, delicious! We wandered around town just a bit then headed back to our room for a rest and to repack for the flight the next day. That evening we walked back into town (didn’t want to miss a meal) and most of us had Bunny Chow. It was delicious!! None of us were really hungry but that didn’t stop us from polishing it off.

Early night, prepped for our early morning flight to Durban. The airport was uneventful and so simple. Vinnie accidently kept his leatherman tool in his carry on and they were kind enough to let him go back to the counter and check it through.

We arrived in Cape Town after a two hour flight. What a beautiful city and the weather was perfect! We headed straight for Table Mountai,n where we parked and took the cable car up to the top (I elected to not go up the cable car). I understand the views were fantastic (I had great views too…)! We finished up there in record time and then headed to the Victoria and Albert waterfront where we had a nice dinner. We sat and watched the people, boats and other fascinating going ons. Everyone in the city seemed to be there Christmas shopping and just having a great time. That evening we staying at Mountain Manor, which is located somewhere in downtown Cape Town…sorry, the city is HUGE! It’s a lovely old home that has been turned into a guesthouse by the proprietor. She is a wonderful lady named Michelle, who raised her two daughters while running this establishment, very personable and filled with great information. Breakfast was yummy and the staff just excellent!!

The next day we drove to Cape of Good Hope, down the winding scenic road, stopping along the way at lovely view points to snap great pictures. We wandered out to the light house, climbed up to see the view, had lunch, and then drove to see the penguins. The penguins are beyond adorable! They have pink near each eye area giving them sweet faces. All in all it was a glorious last day spent with our guide Hayden. We do want to thank him again for everything. He was always willing to go the extra mile to make sure we saw the best of his country! If anyone is interested his company is called Outdoors Africa and can be found by googling that name or looking him up on TripAdvisor.

We said our goodbyes the next morning, sad to see everyone leave. Vinnie and I hung around the guest house until around 10 a.m., then took a taxi over to the Westin which is within walking distance to V&A waterfront and easy to get to the boat the next morning. We spent the day down at the wharf just exploring. It’s a huge place that has been redone and is fantastic to explore. We had planned on just relaxing today but it was so much fun walking and exploring that we got lost in it. Again, there were tons of people due to the holidays but I think it just made it more interesting! We spent the evening meeting up with a couple, Inge and Uwe, from California. They will be on the boat with us, very nice, very interesting and lots of fun. (Small world tidbit: I met them on a cruisers blog, they have a daughter living in Covington, GA, next to us in Madison. They live in Pismo Beach, but lived in Petaluma from 1958 to 1963. That tiny German restaurant on Kentucky Street was owned by Uwe's aunt!)

Milwane Wildlife Sanctuary, Swaziland; Hluhluwe/Infolozi Game Reserve

anijensen — Tue, 16 Dec 2014 22:48:00 GMT

On the morning of December 13, he drove south out of Kruger National Park, and left South Africa to cross the border into Swaziland. Swaziland is the last absolute monarchy in Africa. It was a British protectorate during the colonial period (the Swazis wanted protection from the Zulus to the south), and gained its independence in 1968. Swaziland is only 120 miles north to south, and 80 miles east to west; it’s bordered on three sides by South Africa, and by Mozambique to the east.

We spent the night at Milwane Wildlife refuge, in authentic beehive huts (the electricity and the adjoining bathrooms weren’t so authentic, but were really nice to have). We had good food, a Swazi war dance demonstration from some local villagers, and a great nature walk the following morning.

Then we continued on south to Hluhluwe/Infolozi Game Reserve back in South Africa. This area, near the southeast coast, is gorgeous rolling hills, quite green and lush, very different from what we had seen in the northern parks. We went on another early morning walk with a park ranger, who entertained us with lots of stories about altercations with animals while out walking with tourists. He said he even once hit a charging rhino with his walkie-talkie to avoid shooting him, and he has frantically climbed more thorny acacia trees than he can count. Another time, a roaring lion approached his group, then other lions (all roaring) started rising from the grass until he counted 17 total. He fired his rifle in the dirt toward the closest lion, then he and his people backed away slowly and lived to tell the tale.

We didn’t have anything quite that exciting happen to us, although he did spot a rhinoceros is the bushes at one point. Instead of telling us to quietly back away, we actually whispered to us to follow him closer! It turned out to be two young males, who decided to run off when they finally got wind of us, instead of charging and trampling us underfoot.

We were also treated to a ride on a flat-bottom boat in the St Lucia Wetlands Park, saw crocs, birds, and lots of hippos. Fact: hippos are responsible for three times the human deaths in Africa as all other animals combined.

At Hluhluwe/Infolozi, we stayed at Hilltop Camp Lodge, perched on top of one of the rolling hills in the park, with amazing vistas off in all directions. We could sip our drinks in the afternoon while watching elephants and buffalo on the hillsides below us.

That was the last of our game drives and big nature preserves, as we started to wind down our South Africa stay. Next—Durban and Cape Town.

Quiz 8

anijensen — Sat, 13 Dec 2014 06:14:00 GMT

Where did we see this sign?

Quiz 7

anijensen — Sat, 13 Dec 2014 06:13:00 GMT

Whose is this?

Quiz 6

anijensen — Sat, 13 Dec 2014 05:23:00 GMT

What's going on here?

Quiz 5

anijensen — Sat, 13 Dec 2014 05:14:00 GMT

Who is behind the glass and what are they doing?

Pretoriuskop Camp, Kruger National Park

anijensen — Fri, 12 Dec 2014 01:59:00 GMT

On the morning of our departure from Satara Camp, we went on a walk through the bush with two park rangers. We arose at 3:30, and met at 4:00 for a ride in an open safari vehicle to our start point.

Something we have learned on the game drives we’ve been on: you never know what’s right around the corner. You can drive for miles and not see anything but occasional birds, and other times the game is so dense it’s difficult to take it all in. One thing we can count on—the really exciting stuff is always very sudden and always unexpected, sort of like a treasure hunt. On the drive to our walk start point, we came around a bend to find three young male lions ambling down the road. They posed very nicely for us, mildly curious about the vehicle, but apparently more intent on finding a nice spot to take a nap. Pretty exciting, as this was our first close-up view of lions.

Our walk was about 2.5 miles through pretty open bush territory. Our two guides were armed with high-powered hunting rifles. They said that every now and then a guide had to shoot a charging lion or rhinoceros, but those occurrences were rare. Since 1926 when the park opened, no visitor to the park has been killed by an animal.

The walk gave us a completely different perspective of the countryside, letting us see things not possible from even a stationary open safari vehicle. We shooed the vultures off a recent impala kill and examined the remains, studied insects and spiders, and got several lessons about footprints and tracking.

After the walk, we met Hayden for breakfast, and he introduced us to Frank Watts—a good friend and business associate of Hayden’s who has worked and guided in Kruger National Park for more than 25 years. He knows all the staff and all the other guides, and certainly knows the geography of the park like the back of his hand. Together, he and Hayden made a great spotting and commentary team, as we spent the next two days riding around in Frank’s “safari Cadillac”. We are sure that we got to see things that many tourists don’t get to see, just because those two were so on the ball.

We saw:

- A leopard relaxing in a tree (completing our list of the Big Five*)

- A highly venomous male boomslang snake

- A couple of fantastic buffalo herds on the move

- More lions, including one catching his breath next to a buffalo calf he had just killed

- Sparring rhinoceros males

- Two cheetahs on the hunt across open bush

- Eagles, hawks, vultures, buzzards

- Herons, storks, geese, ducks, ibis

- Warthog, jackal, hyena, mongoose, giraffe

- Birds of every color and configuration imaginable

- Steenbok, water buck, impala by the hundreds, klipspringer, and kudu

-Elephants—single males, and family groups with all ages and sizes

And we were treated to a barbecue cookout by Hayden and Frank, including sausages, lamb chops, impala chops, tossed green salad, chicken kebabs, potatoes, and peri peri sauce. And beer.

In his years at Kruger, Frank has seen some amazing sights, and he is actually quite famous for being the guide for the “Battle at Kruger”, an amazing film at a water hole that you all need to check out on YouTube. The film has won world wide recognition, and is an extraordinary example of the dramas that happen in this countryside every day. The essentials of the film:

-Frank’s vehicle is parked near a water hole

-On the far bank, a herd of buffalo approaching from the left

-The buffalo don’t see the lions on the right

-The lions charge about the time the buffalo see them

-The lions grab a calf, and the cluster falls partially into the water

-A crocodile lunges from the water and grabs the calf

-A tug of war ensues, the lions finally win

-Meanwhile, the calf is yelling, the buffalo regroup and come after the lions

-Melee, including tossed lions

-Calf, amazingly escapes

Frank also recounted another story at the same water hole, which didn’t make it onto film. He saw a water buck near the edge of the water, and two approaching cheetahs. The water buck bolted, and fled the cheetahs, all three passing between the vehicle and the water. The cheetahs were gaining on the water buck, so the latter jumped into the water to escape. The crocodile at the other end of the lake was so excited by this opportunity that instead of gliding silently toward the water buck, it was flailing and splashing at a high rate of speed toward breakfast. The water buck saw him, got out of the water just in time, only to have the cheetahs take up the chase again. So back into the lake goes the water buck, this time planning to swim all the way across, here come the crocodile after him again…..and the croc swims full speed, apparently by accident, into a group of hippos. Frank said the flailing and splashing between the hippos and croc was quite a show—and the water buck escaped into the tree line.

*The “Big Five” term harks back to the first African big game hunters of the Victorian era, referring to the five most dangerous animals to hunt in Africa: lion, leopard, black rhinoceros, elephant, and cape buffalo.

Quiz 4

anijensen — Thu, 11 Dec 2014 00:35:00 GMT

What language is "wildebeest", and what is the literal translation? Bonus: What is the traditional joke among South Africans about the wildebeest's composite parts? Without looking it up, what body parts does the wildebeest seem to have inherited from other African animals? For example, it's got the brain of a guinea fowl!

Satara Camp, Kruger National Park

anijensen — Tue, 9 Dec 2014 01:49:00 GMT

This morning we headed out from Hazy View, Casa Do Sol, and winded our way backtracking quite a bit to try our hand at God’s Window one more time. It is viewing area where you can see the entire escarpment and surrounding valley and hills from. The drive was along the panoramic route. There were many places that we could have stopped, perhaps a revisit is needed. We did get a very good feel for the area having spent the last three days going through it. God’s view was open so we popped in, even though the cloud cover was covering it. We walked up into the rain forest, took photo’s and continued toward Kruger.

"The world-renowned Kruger National Park offers a wildlife experience that ranks with the best in Africa. Established in 1898 to protect the wildlife of the South African Lowveld, this national park of nearly 2 million hectares, SANParks - Kruger National Park is unrivalled in the diversity of its life forms and a world leader in advanced environmental management techniques and policies. Truly the flagship of the South African national parks, Kruger is home to an impressive number of species: 336 trees, 49 fish, 34 amphibians, 114 reptiles, 507 birds and 147 mammals."

The rest of the day we drove towards Satara Camp and watched the world go by via the windows of our car. We arrived at the camp at 6:30 pm, had dinner and hit the bed.

http://www.sanparks.co.za/parks/kruger/camps/satara/

Next day, we had an early morning game drive departing from Satara camp at 5 am. Lots of animals but still no large cats. After our drive we had breakfast/lunch and a rest before we are to depart on an afternoon game drive that will see us returning to camp early evening.

Casa do Sol, near Hazyview

anijensen — Sun, 7 Dec 2014 01:46:00 GMT

This morning, we left our luxurious accommodations at Casa do Sol for more touring of the Panorama Route and the Hazyview highlands area.

First stop was the historic gold mining town of Pilgrim’s Rest, a gold strike boom town starting in the 1870’s. The town has been converted into a tourist area, with many of it’s original tin-sided buildings still standing. And the atmosphere in the town is decidedly Victorian.

After more touring and trying to see through the mist through God’s Window down into Blyde River Canyon for the third unsuccessful day in a row, we had lunch and continued on to the Elephant Sanctuary.

This visit was a true delight. The Elephant Sanctuary currently has five elephants rescued from various problem situations around southern Africa. They have been trained to help with elephant awareness education, but are also free to roam a very large estate in an environment identical to their natural habitat.

We were told some fascinating facts about elephants, then one of the smaller males was laid on his side (eating snacks from a handler the entire time), while we tourists felt his tusks, ears, hide, and tail. Then they called in Tembo, about twice the size of the other four elephants. He is only 21 years old, but is already 11 feet at the shoulder, and weighs about six tons. They expect him to grow another two feet before reaching full height.

We all got to pose with Tembo, then we went for an elephant ride. Anita and I got to ride Tembo himself, as our elephant train walked for a loop for about 15 minutes. We brought up the rear on Tembo, so were able to see the third elephant decide she wanted a bite to eat, left the track and headed for the tall grass. All the others but Tembo decided to do the same, so for about three or four minutes there was total pachyderm mayhem with elephants scattering in several different directions through tall grasses and small trees, shoveling food into their mouths just as fast as they could while their brief freedom lasted. The handlers all soon had everyone under control and back in line, and the ride ended without incident.

The evening was topped very nicely with drinks and T-bone steaks (yes, beef!) back at Casa do Sol.