Penang, Langkawi, Malaysia

Monday, March 21, 2011 Penang

Penang is an island with the main city of Georgetown, but tired of tours we decide to do it on our own.  We take the shuttle to the shopping, wander the mall looking for an internet café and then wander outside.  After asking at a number of likely but unsuitable establishments, we are finally directed to a mall store with four computers in the back.  John and I do email to our hearts content and are charged about a dollar for the two of us.  I sort of want to tell the man to triple his prices.  As we leave,  another couple from the cruise come in.

We return to the mall and stop in Starbucks for lunch—iced tea and local pastries.  Mine is a firecracker sausage and John’s is a chicken tikka roll.  We are not in the Roslyn Starbucks anymore, and we leave happy.

All of the taxis have signs saying that they are metered and that haggling is forbidden.  Not a single driver will use the meter.  Nevertheless we agree on a price and take a taxi to Cheah Konsi, a clan temple and supposedly about four blocks from our next target.  We are in the hands of a bandit.   After a long drive we arrive at the Thai temple with the Burmese temple across the street.  We explain this is not where we wanted to be.  We had shown him the map and he had consulted with it and his fellow drivers.  He finally takes us on annother long drive to a building under construction and tells us this is temple we wanted to go, but it is nowhere near anything recognizable.  He finally agrees to take us a clan house and drops us off.  To his credit, he does not ask for extra money.  We walk around and indeed find the clan house but it is locked.  Now we must find our way to either the ship or the shuttle bus at the shopping mall.  We are not motivated to take a taxi.  We walk toward a street that seems busier, more major than the others and discover we are almost at the harbor.  An endless walk to the ship gets us back.

The thing is how much of this was banditry and how much was language and cultural confusion?  I suspect a good load of both.  He was dealing with a map in English—but he spoke English and this should have been familiar territory.  Some cultures never give anyone bad news, and the temples the taxi driver took us to were definitely brighter and more interesting than the places we wanted to go to.  The driver clearly wanted to be our tour guide for the afternoon, and if we had agreed, we would have had a much more pleasant day and no doubt spent more money that we wanted to but considerably less that the official tour which went to the first two temples he attempted to take us to.

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

A day spent on an island we had never heard of—nor had many others on the ship.

Langkawi is a beautiful island with not much in the way of economic resources except for tourism.  We are told that hippies came in the sixties and kept its name out of the tour guides as a secret place.  Hotels are mostly new, and it has become a duty free shopping mecca.  We take a trip with a photo stop at a marina then onto a cable car ride.  Unfortunately I have to make it pit stop, and it puts us at the end of a very long line.  It takes an hour to make it through the line at which point we no longer have enough time to get off the cable car and look around so all six of us in our car stay on which does not make people in the long line at the top very happy.  We are not disappointed by missing the views at the top since there really are none.  It is raining hard.  You may notice that it was raining in yesterday’s tale.  It has rained for at least part of the day for about five days.  We are in the tropics.

We visit a rice museum which apart from some lovely paddies with browsing water buffalo including an albino calf really is pretty basic.  It needs a benefactor because rice is certainly important in this part of the world.

We are dropped off at the underwater museum which is where the ship shuttle buses come and go for lunch at what looks like a Chinese restaurant—the name has Chinese characters under the Roman letters—but it seems we are in a Thai restaurant.  The crowd is about half locals and half tourists.  The food is delicious.  Then off to a massage and body scrub.  “Swedish massage,” say John.  “Malaysian massage,” is the reply.  We go for it.  Surprisingly the body scrub comes after the massage and feels like sand but is dried coconut.  It makes an incredble mess, but showered and dressed we feel smooth and soft and lovely except for my thoroughly oiled hair.

We go to the the Underwater Museum which also needs an infusion of money but has a lovely collection of fish loosely defined.  There are geckos, parrots and penguins which are underwater animals after all.  But there is also a splendid collection of fish, and, for some reason, all the signage is in English.  It is getting late, and we have Malaysian money to get rid of which we manage to do in the gift shop which has some nice semi-precious jewelry.

Back to the ship and two days at sea so there won’t be much of interest for a couple of days.

Singapore and Kuala Lampur, That Old Cape Magic

Saturday, March 19, 2011

Singapore

We are less than a hundred miles from the equator, and the weather is very warm with a strong shower in the afternoon.  A good excuse for splurging on lunch at Raffles Hotel.

I am impressed with Singapore despite the tee shirts announcing that Singapore is a fine city; that is, a city with very strict laws and high fines.  Our immigration cards announce boldly that the punishment for having illegal drugs is death.  We can’t say we weren’t warned, and I take two valium out of my purse even though they are duly prescribed, and I know this is not what they mean.  Better safe than sorry, I say.

The water is drinkable, the air breathable, everything is clean, the public transportation system is remarkable.   The government is not corrupt.   The buildings are spectacular.  There is easily enough to see for several days, but we have only one.

We take a highlights tour and are duly impressed by the orchard garden at the botanical garden, we drive by various shopping areas, stop in Chinatown to see, of all things, the oldest Hindu temple in the city.  We drive by the famous Raffles hotel, and I learn that Raffles was the man who grasped Singapore’s potential as a port—many things are named after him.  We return later for Singapore Slings and lunch.  It rains, and we return to the ship. 

It is now a quarter to ten, and we should have left the dock two hours ago.  We cannot leave until everyone has handed in their passport, and they have been making announcements to that effect.  For some reason, they cannot determine which passports are missing unless they spend four hours checking which will make us late on arrival tomorrow.  Someone probably kept their passport intending to return to town and didn’t return and now doesn’t realize they still have it.

Sunday, March  20, 2011, Kuala Lumpur

Another day, another town, another tour. 

Apparently some people did not return their passports until after dinner.  Due to people not returning their passports on time last night, we are to be two hours late arriving in Kuala Lampur.  The captain announces we may stay one hour later in  Port Kelang, but what this will do to the tours is a question.

Kuala Lampur with a population over a million is the capital of Malaysia, but our very large ship, as usual, is at the dock of Port Kelang, twenty-five miles away. Another bus trip to the good stuff, but it will be no worse than many airport drives to town.

 To be Malay we are told is to be Muslim.  Malaysia has nine sultans who elect one of their members king for a term of five years so the government is a constitutional monarchy.  We have also been told that the difference between Indonesia and Malaya is the nation they were colonies of.  Malaya was British, Indonesia was Dutch.

BOOK:  I have finally finished Richard Russo’s That Old Cape Magic.  He is a well-known writer and some of his books have been made into movies.  In this novel the protagonist is a screen-writer who becomes a college professor and whose marriage implodes as he carries his parents ashes in the trunk of his car unable to dispose of them.  It is framed between two weddings held on Cape Cod.  There is lots of material about families and heritages.  Russo can write good sentences and set up a good scene.  It is a worthwhile and enjoyable read, but I have my quibbles.  In particular the wife is never fully developed as a character.  We see everything through his eyes as it impacts on him, but a marriage is between two people.  Still, it is a good and discussable read.

We take the bus to KL as it is locally called.  We see many prosperous developments on the way with interesting and very livable houses.  We visit the National Museum which is devoted to history and culture (but not art) with excellant displays.  We spend about forty minutes there leaving by the exit with the restrooms and the snake.  The snake is enormous, and for a small fee, you can have your picture taken with him.  Then to lunch which is quite satisfactory and at the Federal Hotel, an early-built modern hotel where the parties celebrating the establishment of independence were held.  There are, of course, mementos, and it was historic for Malaysia.  After lunch it rains and we are taken to KL tower for a view of 360 degrees and photos of the other buildings.  I anticipate 360 degrees of blank gray, but there is enough visibility for decent views, and, as the guide pointed out, the only dry activity in a rainstorm.  After the tower, the rains stops.

We drive by and sometimes stop for a photo at various significant buildings, the formerly English only club across the street from the former English administrative offices, the Anglican church, the National Mosque, the old railway station built by the English in Indian Mughal style, and, of course, the Petronas Towers, the world’s tallest buildings until 2003.

We return after the offical start of dinner.  We are hot, tired and unmotivated and go to the ninth floor for supper.

We are not sorry for the trip we took and are glad to have seen KL.  However, there are other things to see such as a butterfly park, bird park and orchid garden.  If I came again, I would certainly want to see the Batu caves (three big caves with Hindu shrines) and maybe I-city, the “city” with LED displays.

St. Patrick's Day and Koh Samui

Thursday, March 17, 2011

My computer still believes it is the 16^th.  Maybe it is, somewhere, but here it is St. Patrick’s Day.  Green beer will be served upon request only (It seems the Irish don’t like it; although, they do like the NYC St. Patrick’s Day parade), and the Irish are gathering for a special dinner tonight.

Coffee cups honoring the marriage of Andrew and Kate have appeared in the gift shop. 

The terrible news from Japan continues, and while that is not my subject, it seems wrong not to note it.  It is devastation so complete as to be nearly incomprehensible.

We are on the island Koh Samui, basically a beach area, and John will go beaching.  Not my thing, and besides, I am debating staying on the ship and breathing the filtered air.  I was told at breakfast that this is not a polluted area—at least in the air.

However, at noon the island disappears, rain streaks the windows, the ship rocks a little, and the captain announces he will reposition the ship and meanwhile tender operations will be closed down temporarily.  I think of my husband and his soggy beach day, stuck there on the island.  Perhaps there is a good bar hide in.  Suitable entertainment on St. Patrick’s Day.

The ship is repositioned, and I see sunlight someplace.  If I go up and exercise, I can look for a rainbow.  That, alas, is as good as exercise gets.  But the rain returns; there is no rainbow, and no one will be allowed off the ship.  All the tenders will retrieve passengers as fast as possible.  I can imagine the lines.  Think fifteen hundred wet people ashore, hundreds of them in the lines.

I go to get a massage.  John returns reporting the waves were too high for swimming, but he sunned while he could, wandered the town and endured the lines for bus and tender.  There will no doubt be sunning and swimming tomorrow on the ship.  In this great big world, this is all very trivial, but that is the essence of a cruise.  Nothing but the trivial.

Laem Chabang, Thailand

Wednesday, March 16, 2011 Laem Chabang

This is as close as we will get to Bangkok, and many are taking the bus two-and-half hours each way to the city.  We pass having spent five days there a few years ago.  We take the local tour and see another temple, a cement carving yard where they make elephants and other things for garden displays.  They also have a few brightly painted giraffes and zebras and chickens.  I presume the chickens are local.  We see another general market and a fish market, miles of beach front and a shopping stop.  The bus lets us off at the shopping center and does not return.  Another bus is sent, but a half dozen people left things on the original bus.  After an hour minibuses are sent to take us to the original bus which had an accident. Things are retrieved, and we return to the ship a couple of hours late.

Laem Chabang is a town of about 60,000 and home to the twentieth busiest port in the world.  I see a half dozen container ships loading and unloading as we tie up at the dock.  Pattaya, the beach area, is also a traditional center of the sex trade although that is not mentioned by the ship’s program.  We see little sign of it and Thailand has been making attempts at its elimination.

On the ship in the late afternoon I see a program by the children of the Father Ray Foundation which maintains a Children’s Home, a Vocational School for People with Disabilities, a Children’s Village, and a School for the Blind.  One of their projects is to reach out to the young people who come to Laem Chabang and get sucked into dead ends and crime.  Five groups of students appear including a group of wheel chair dancers, and adorable troop of little children in the day care program and some young boys demonstrating Thai kick-boxing.

XX

Saigon, Viet Nam

Monday, March 14, 2011 Saigon

We have a long day trip.  Since our ship is so large, we are limited in how far up rivers we can go and must take tender rides or buses or both to get to the good parts.  We are docked two and a half hours by bus from Saigon, and the temperature will be in the middle nineties. The situation in Bangkok will be similar.  We are happy to have an air-conditioned bus and a guide who speaks clearly.  TRAVEL HINT: Check how many tenders you will have to take on any cruise. 

The bus ride to Saigon is two hours of small shops side by side.  We see numerous little rest stops which are quite literal.  They have hammocks in which you can lie for free and pay only for the food and drink you consume.  We see rice fields, a rubber plantation, egrets, water buffalo and cattle.  There are flocks of small motorbikes often with two or more people including babies and children on them.  Face masks, some quite substantial are everywhere.  I see one woman dressed in long pants and jacket, helmet and elegant high heels wrestling her parked bike into position.

Saigon has eight and half million people today, about forty percent Buddhist, many non-religious or of other religions.  There are about a million Chinese which merits a visit to the Thien Hau temple, a local Taoist temple.  There is picture showing how the Chinese came by boat and were saved from a horrible storm by the goddess of the sea. 

Originally this area was Hindu and we visit an old temple which is still in use and quite nice.  At the national history museum we see a water puppetry show which is well-done for tourists.  We have photo stops at the local Catholic Church and the former presidential palace and glide quickly by the old American embassy which is now rebuilt, a consulate and very hostile-looking as all such American buildings are these days.  You might prefer the term defensive which is understandable, but I always think, we should be aware of marketing and have some sort of travel/library/ shop which is friendly-looking.  Lunch is at the Majestic Hotel, a wonderful hotel but there are several hundred of us, and we are in a large fifth floor ballroom with a very decent buffet lunch.  Not a bad choice when there is much to do and miles to go.  The last stop of the day is the lacquer factory where we see the workers briefly and have time in the shop.  There is much that is traditional or sentimental in design, but it is of wonderful quality and with some quite splendid modern designs.

Vietnam is the world’s number two exporter of both coffee and rice and the number one exporter of cashews.

Most rural Vietnamese eat only two meals a day but apparently consume a lot of rice wine in the evening.  In this area they get two rice crops a year but further north three can be grown.  Three months for growing and one for resting the field.

Nha Tram, Viet Nam

Sunday, March 13, 2011 Nha Trang

It is exactly two months since we left home. 

Last night I was rather raspy and coughed.  The air pollution appeared to be getting to me.  This morning I looked out to see more haze.  Welcome to Nha Trang, our first stop in Vietnam. 

Nha Trang is a relatively small town with miles and miles of carefully landscaped beaches largely but not totally empty. During the Vietnam War it was popular with the soldiers and remains a local vacation area.

  We were told that the local people do most of their marketing and beaching very early in the morning.  Smart people.  It was hot, hazy and humid just like summer on Long Island, NY, but it’s only March. 

The sellers, however, were out in force.  "One dollar, one dollar,” was the cry as we were offered post cards, caps and eventually beer.  Good beer.

We took a tour of the area since it was new to us.  First stop was the Long Son Pagoda on the outskirts of the city.  Built in 1940, it is a traditional temple.  Above it is the enormous white Buddha built in 1963 to commemorate the sacrifice of the monks who sacrificed themselves to protest the corrupt rule of President Diem. 

This part of Vietnam was, for about 1200 years, a center of Hinduism and we visited the Po Nagar Cham Towers built between the eighth and twelfth centuries AD.  In the main chamber there is a statue of a black goddess with ten arms.  The towers are well worth a visit.

 

We visited the local market which is mostly indoors although our guide spoke of the Vietnamese way of doing everything outdoors.  It had many watches, lots of clothing and a good selection of cloth as well as pearls, food and practical things. 

Finally we stopped at the National Oceanographic Institute and Aquarium which had a lovely collection of fish in rather basic facilities.  A good place to drop a few million to refurbish it if you have them to spare.

One of the things I have wondered about was how people stuffed in tea with the three rather large daily meals.  Today the tours ran overtime, and it was three when we returned lunchless, hot and tired to the ship just in time to enjoy tea.  We were very happy to see it.

We are in the air-pollution zone.  People on the streets often wear face masks.  I awake at night coughing and have lesser bouts during the day.  I hear others doing the same and wonder about how many tours, how many hours off the ship I should do. 

Hong Kong

Friday and Saturday, March 11 and 12, 2011

Hong Kong was hazy all the time we were there. (You call it fog; I call it air pollution)  In addition to haze, the overwhelming impression is simply the size of the apartment ranks.  They go on and on and behind the ones you can see are others.  Much of Hong Kong is on landfill, and if you look behind the new apartments and other buildings, you can see older, shorter ones which are where the shore used to be.

  The first night we were docked and the second day we had a rather long tender ride.  Apparently it is a very busy port and we could only get the dock for one night. 

The first day we wandered the town for six hours and visited the history museum which had an excellent and well-mounted display of Hong Kong history with a special show about the 1911 Revolution which ended the monarchy and set up conditions for the eventual rise of Communism. 

The second day we took a tour to the island of Lantau to a fishing village and a monastary.   We traveled over new roads and three bridges including the longest and the second longest suspension bridges in the world carrying both road and rail traffic.  I presume that last descriptor is an important qualifier.  There may be a longer bridge somewhwere, but anyway you look at it, this is very impressive engineering. 

Lantau was originally a buffer zone, not to be fully developed, and you had to prove a hereditary right to live there.  Today the fishing has declined as waters are fished out, and many residences in the fishing village are either empty or used for vacations.  Many parts of the island are empty except for retaining walls and neat little paths with stone steps for maintenance.  There is a trail one can hike to the monastery if one is very ambitious.

The enormous bronze Buddha is just twenty years old and the monastary itself is from the twentieth century.  Nevertheless it is a working monastery with worshipers and monks.  We had a delicious vegetarian lunch with really fresh vegetables and noticed a sign by the picnic tables stating that only vegetarian food can be eaten there.

Today Lantau is the site of the new airport built on landfill, and of the Hong Kong Disneyland.  New apartments jut up.  The pressure to develop it will be strong especcially since, we were told, the primary source of money for the government is land sales.  It is, however, very mountainous.

 z

Kota Kinabalu, Borneo

Monday, March 07, 2011: Kota Kinabalu

Another marvelous island in the off the bow as we awoke. And this one we visit.  I had never heard of Kota Kinabalu or the state of Sabah until we came here; although I had heard of Borneo and Malaysia.  Borneo was a British territory until WW II when it underwent Japanese occupation.  In 1963 Malaysia was established included Singapore which decided to become independent. In ’67 Singapore withdrew.

Sabah has fifty recognized ethnic groups with fifty languages.  Originally English was to be the unifying language but that later was changed to Malaysian although English remains largely spoken and taught.  With children learning Malay and English, the local languages are rapidly disappearing.  Sabah is 60% Christian.

  We are in the tropics, and it is hot and steamy again.  Zero wind chill.  Rain is predicted for tonight, but the day has been mixed clouds and sun.  We took a trip to the zoo and saw many animals, mostly local: cloud leopard, proboscis monkey, honey bear, mouse deer, the small, local elephants, emu, barking deer, ring tailed lemur and parrots.

Later we went to the local museum and saw a display of various native dwellings and costumes.  Unfortunately both the zoo and the museum are undergoing renovation.

Back to the ship we headed straight to the bar for beer and fish and chips after which we deemed it too late to go into town.   

Two sea days until Hong Kong.

Tuesday, March 08, 2011

Today was the galley tour and the back stage tour both fascinating.  The stage area, we were assured, is better than that found in many land-based theaters and certainly has an amazing array of lights and speakers as well as fly space and an elevator.  Sets were built on metal frames which John noted would not burn.

The galley we saw was the largest and one of eight.  In two weeks the galleys prepare 90,000 meals.  Ten people order and handle stores.  The dishwasher does a load two minutes.  Items come out super hot and air dry which not only saves energy and labor but minimizes contamination.  The ship cannot carry all the potable water needed and processes about four and half tons of saltwater a day to make more.

Today was also the final concert of Robin Hill, a fine guitarist who will be missed.

Melbourne to Fremantle

February is almost gone.  Where did it go?

In Melbourne we spend the morning driving to the local mountains and taking a short ride on the Puffing Billy steam train.  This is a great opportunity for a photo with Flat Billy, our grandson’s geography assignment.  (Send Flat Billy with your relatives and get pictures—it is second grade geography.)  The best part of the trip is the stop at the parrot place—I don’t know what to call it.  There is a restaurant and free seed to feed the birds which are not caged so it’s not a zoo and doesn’t seem to be a sanctuary because it is very commercial.

After twisting our brains around that concept, we leave the bus in the center of town and visit the art museums which have nice collections, nicely mounted.  We probably should have spent the day here for we never get to the aboriginal art which was one of our targets, but we must catch the shuttle bus to the ship.  Huge line for the bus, but three buses quickly appear and hopefully more are coming for those left behind. 

Tonight there is a local photo project.  Children are taking pictures at the same time all over, and we are encouraged to join in.  The school children will all be taking flash pictures of us from the shore, and we are to take pictures of them at the same time.  The ship will sound its horn to signal the flash fest.  The results should be peculiar, but why not?

Friday, February 25, 2011

No good pictures of the great flash project of course.  Timing is everything and almost impossible to manage.  However, the shore looked as if it was full of fireflies, and that was pleasant. 

Today my cough is definitely better, but John is starting in.  And the cough barks around the ship from time to time

Today’s rumor is that the visits to Arab ports are being cancelled, and we are going around the Cape of Good Hope. 

Today’s rumor is canceled.  The concierge says there is no way Cunard will reschedule

Which gets me to the rest of the world which seems to have fallen apart since we went on vacation.  We are very, very insulated here with abbreviated “newspapers” giving brief glimpses of what is going on.  The spring (or fall depending on your viewpoint) floods in Australia are distant memories.  We just missed the earthquake in New Zealand.  The news of disruption in the Middle East comes in dribs and drabs.  We are not unsympathetic but obviously have nothing to add to the discussion beyond regret for human suffering wherever it is.  The mess in Wisconsin is depressing, but we can do nothing.  I fear for America but try not to think about it.

Monday, February 28, 2011 

This is the last of three quiet sea days.  Then Fremantle and Perth, then a long string of sea days until we arrive at  Borneo?

Tuesday, March 01, 2011

Fremantle is the port that serves Perth, the largest city in Western Australia, which claims to be the world’s most isolated city (some claim Honolulu but Honolulu is on an island, etc.)  Anyway it’s a long way to anyplace else you are likely to have heard of.  The state of Western Australia covers about a third of Australia.  WA, as it is locally known, has suffered from terrible drought in recent years and currently is suffering the longest series of days over 30 degrees Celsius (or maybe 86 Fahrenheit) in its history.  Today it seems to be about 100 by the Haney guessing system.  The day before we arrived there was a terrible storm which produced electrical outages, but we learned about that later.

In retrospect it was a mistake but we signed up for a tour—shouldn’t do that in English-speaking countries, at least not one that lasts the whole day.  You miss too much in town including the drug stores.  We took a bus tour to drive through Perth and to the War Memorial which gives a splendid view of Perth and had the best gift shop I have seen but we had no time to shop.  We then went for a wine-tasting but piled out of the bus to be told that there would be no tasting, and when someone said, “Then why are we here?” The response was, “I have no idea; I called the company two hours ago.”  Back to the buses.

It seems that the storm I mentioned blitzed their electricity and they did not want us around in the dark.   A few phone calls and we were at our lunch spot early, but they were ready for us with a substitute wine tasting a few miles away after the lunch.  Next a boat ride to town and a bus ride to the boat.  Given that it was well above ninety, it was a gentle and relatively peaceful day with a good guide and some interesting information.

On the way to the boat, we were given purple flags to wave at the sail away, reason unknown.  I was told last night it had something to do for charity, but there were not raising money that I could see.  Just before the gangplank was a pile of flags people had decided they did not want to wave, but many kept their flags.  The sail away coincided with our dinner hour so we were there (God forbid we should miss a meal).

  It seems that sheep shipped to the Middle East must be shipped alive so that butchering can be supervised there.  We were told that the crew was kept prisoner and had not been paid in a year and a half.  Apparently there were fliers in town, and it a local issue.  But John looked at it and only said, “How many sheep can a ship-shape sheep ship sheep if a ship shape sheep ship should ship sheep?”

At dinner we looked out the window to see hundreds and hundreds of people on both sides of the quay and the breakwater waving purple flags.  This morning I was told it was to raise awareness of children’s cancer, and that a ship of child cancer patients was in the harbor alongside us all.