Nov. 3 & 4: Viet Nam



Welcome Upon Arrival in Saigon



Our arrival in Viet Nam was preceded by a rocky and rolling night at sea.  We docked in Ho Chi Minh City after a two hour cruise up the Mikong River.  It was early morning and dark when we entered the river and we watched the fishing boats and the silhouettes of the trees on the forested banks as dawn broke over the country side.  We arrived in Ho Chi Minh City to sunshine and clear skies and a Welcome banner held by 5 Viet Nemeses ladies in full native dress.

Our first event at the port was to take a city orientation tour, and the first thing our tour guide asked everyone on the bus was “Where are you at.”  Most of the passengers said we were in Ho Chi Minh City and the guide told us we were in Saigon.  He was south Viet Nemeses and said that most of the people in the city did not like the name change from Saigon to Ho Chi Minh City and still referred to the city as Saigon.  The sites included on the orientation tour included China Town, the Reunification Building (formerly the Presidential Palace prior to the end of the war), the old Post Office that was built in the late 1800’s, a museum and a water puppet show that has been going on for about 1000 years.   Our guide also pointed out the Rex Hotel where the majority of the news reporters stayed and all the evening news about the Viet Nam war was broadcast.  The building where the U.S. helicopter pulled the last of the U.S. personnel out of Saigon on the last day of the war was also pointed out.  I always thought that last flight was picking up people from the Presidential Palace, but come to find out it was really the CIA building a block or so from the U.S. Embassy.



For dinner we went to the Mandarin restaurant.  It was one recommended by some of the U.S. Embassy folks that came on board to give us an update on traveling in Viet Nam.  The Mandarin provided a delicious meal and the presentation was pure art.  Each course came with a carving.  The first came with a pair of cranes carved from a white radish, the next came with a carrot carved as a parrot, the rice came in a pineapple that was make to look a pheasant.  It was great food and great company for the evening.

The next day we spent exploring Saigon.  Our first stop was at the huge Saigon markets.  Walking through the old market was an adventure with its tiny stalls, narrow passageways and vendors coming at you from all directions.  There were goods of every description plus butchers, vegetables stands and eating stalls.



Rex Hotel - Roof Top Bar on Left Corner



 It did not take long to get enough of the markets and we decided to go to the Roof Top Bar in the Rex Hotel for lunch.  We found a table and then noticed that there must have been a convention of photographers staying in the hotel.  Everyone in the bar was dressed in outfits that you see the best magazine and newspaper photographer’s ware.  It seems that everybody had at least one top end Nikon camera with multiple lenses.  The photography equipment carried by most of the individual were probably worth 10s of thousands of dollars and Julie with here $200 Sony want to get a picture of this professionals.  We laughed at the view of our amateur photographer with her mini Sony photographing the pros.

Our last stop for the day was at an upscale shopping mall that we happened on accidentally.  We saw this new set of buildings where the first floor looked like they have a few shops and I was looking for a short sleeve polo shirt.  We entered and discovered that not only was the first floor a mall, but the mall continued down 6 floors and up at least 2.  It seems that the shops in the highest floor were the very expensive ones and as you moved to the basement levels, the prices got more reasonable the further down you went.  Most of the brands names you can find in any of the major shopping center in the world could be found in this mall.  Not letting high prices deter us we headed for the food court to make sure that what they were serving warranted the prices being charged.  We stopped at Fanny’s Ice Cream, had a latte and went to the grocery store.   Prices were high as was the quality.  We headed back to the ship in time for dinner.

Radish Cranes with Crab Cakes

Pineapple Pheasant for Pineapple Rice Dish

Oct. 31: Singapore

Ships Waiting to Dock in Singapore


Up early today to watch the process of docking in Singapore with the pilot coming on board and the tugs meeting us to smoothly slide us into the bulk head. This is the busiest port so far and was like eye candy after the port in Chennai. Singapore looked freshly scrubbed, tropical, and thoroughly modern. Weather was warm and humid.



Orchid Gardens in Singapore

Our first trip in Singapore was a city orientation tour. First stop was the botanical gardens and a trip through the orchid gardens. It was jaw dropping beautiful. There were over 100 different species of orchids in the gardens some that even had a wonderful smell, some quire large and others that were very small and in all colors. Unfortunately on these city tours you only get a little time at each stop. Next stop was a whirlwind visit to the highest point in Singapore were the statue of the Merlion is located (A Merlion is half mermaid and half lion), and then on to the Indian and Christian sections of the city. Our trip guide pointed out a couple of the more famous hotels in the city – the Marine Bay Sands and Raffles. The Marine Bay Sands is newly opened and is reported to be the most costly hotel in the world to build. It consists of 3 towers linked together at the 57th floor by one structure that resembles a boat. This top section had a swimming pool that is set up so that there is no visible sides and looks as though you could swim off the edge of the building an onto the street some 600 feet below you.

Raffles Hotel - Singapore



Merlion in Singapore

Raffles is the most famous hotel in Singapore and is named after Sir Stamford Raffles, the founder of Singapore. It has been the place to stay in this part of the world for the rich and famous for over 100 years. It is also the where the Singapore Sling drink was invented.

Julie and Raffle's Doorman

This evening Julie and I took different paths. Julie went to the Singapore zoo for a night safari. It is Halloween tonight and the zoo has a special event to view the nocturnal animals and let the kids show off their costumes. Along with a fine dinner, Julie found a large, rectangular fish tank filled with hundreds of small fish. For $10 one could put their feet in the tank and let the fish go to work to exfoliating them. She could not resist and forked over the $10. The experience felt prickly similar to when your foot falls asleep and then begins to wake up. Her feet were covered with fish making them look like she had fish slippers. It was very invigorating.


I and 2 other Life Long Leaners went to dinner for a boy’s night out. This area is famous for its chili crab and the black pepper crab. We had dinner on the beach in the restaurant where the black pepper crab was created. We tried both the chili and the black pepper crabs washed down with a couple bottles of cold white wine. It was everything it was advertised to be.

Oct 25 – House boating

Today we left the Windermere Resort with Julie riding shotgun in the front for a fun filled 4+ hours back to Cochin. We were running a little behind schedule, so the ride was faster and the streets were more crowded then when we arrived. These conditions only magnified the “fun” Julie had in the front seat as we careened down the narrow, curvy mountain roads. Needless to say, she did not have a nap on the return to Cochin.

Ice Cream Store on Dike Between Lake and Rice Fields

Alleppey is about 50K south of Cochin and located on a very large lake that starts in Cochin and ends south of Alleppey. This lake has been divided into a number of large rice fields. I say fields because they are several magnitudes larger than any rice paddy that I have ever seen. The rice fields have been created by building dikes around each field and then uses a system of pumps that allows the fields to be flooded from the lake and 3 months later drained by pumping the water back into the lake and the rice is planted. The people in the area live on the top of the dike between the lake and the rice fields. That dike is about 25 feet wide and the locals have built houses, stores, foot paths and graze their livestock in the 25 feet living area that runs around each rice field.



House Boat at Alleppey

We boarded the house boat and set off for a 2+ hour cruse through the lake and canals. The boat was on the rustic side, but the crew was friendly and helpful. We stopped at a canal side fish market, and purchased giant prawns for our dinner. Four of these prawns weighted about a pound.

Prawns

At the end of a day, we tied up to a tree for the night. We had a couple of hours to kill before dinner and I inquired if there might any beer or wine available. Most of the people in this area are Hindu and don’t drink alcohol. The crew was willing to go buy beer or wine for us, but it would take a walk and a taxi to the store all of which sounded like more effort that it was worth, and we decided to go for a walk instead. A little while later one of the crew called Julie to watch as one of the locals climbed up a coconut tree to retrieve a pot from the top of the tree, and replaced it with another pot after shaving off then end of one of the branches. The pots are used to catch the coconut sap that drains from the shaved end of the branch. Shortly after Julie watched this changing of the pots and we had both returned to the boat, the captain walked up and handed me a glass of milky colored liquid and told me it was coconut beer. Come to find out the coconut sap that is going into the pots is fermented and used as coconut beer by the locals. The coconut beer I had was warm but OK. I think if one could chill it down to a good lager temperature it would make a pretty good substitute for a bud at least in this part of the world.

After the coconut beer we relaxed on the bow of the boat and watched as darkness set in across the lake. We were enjoying the serenity of the moment, when a bat flew through the boat. This bat was not content to just make a pass through the open parts of the boat, but decided to check out the hallway and all of the bedrooms. After making several passes into the boat, we put down the canvas curtains, had dinner and retired.

We had an early start in the morning with a light breakfast in order to return to the dock by 9:30 AM. The trip through the canals was interesting as we watched the area wake up and get the day started People bathing and washing clothes in the lake, men is clean white shirts with their laptops getting into their small boats to get to the mainland and to work, and children all boarding the “school boat” heading off to school. We arrived at the dock and headed for Cochin to catch our flight back to Chennai.

Oct. 23 -25, Tea Plantations and Houseboats

Windermere Lodge Gounds

Our 3 day adventure started off with Julie and I and one of the Life Long Learners from the ship.  We boarded a flight to Cochin and then took a car with a driver about 150K to the area around Munnar.  Munnar means 3 rivers in the Tamil language and is a small village about 4,000 feet above sea level.  We stayed about 5K from the village in a resort called Windermere at an elevation of about 5,000 ft.  The resort was beautiful as was the country side.  It rained most of the 4 hours it took us to drive from Cochin to Munnar and the mountains were shrouded with fog and the visibility was clouded by the heavy rain.  Toward the end of the day, we were finally able to see the mountains, and they were dazzling especially if one as never before seen a tea plantation.  The mountain sides are beautiful shades of green and  bushes are all manicured and separated by paths.  Shade trees are planted in organized rows to help the plants and the individual plantations seem to have separate mountain sides staked out.  We were only able to get a short glimpse of the beauty of the area, before we reached the resort. 

Windermere bungalow

Country around Munnar

Tea Fields in Munnar

After we check in, shown to our rooms, and freshened up we had a couple of hours of free time before dinner.   There was an outdoor tea shop on the grounds so we headed there for a late afternoon tea.  Plan tea was available but not recommended.  We had ginger tea and cardamom tea that was served with fresh picked bananas, dipped in batter and deep fried.  They were delicious and along with the tea were an excellent pick-me-up that took us to the dinner hour.  We went to dinner and it started with hot towels, chicken broth, vegetables and noodles.  The second course was sliced beets, potatoes in a curry sauce, seasoned chicken, lamb, peas and cashews in a light curry and basmati rice - all of it delicious.  This feast was then capped off with some of the best custard we have ever eaten.  We finished off the dinner with cups of tea and headed for our room for the night.

Harvesting Tea Leaves

The next day we had a full day of sightseeing on the schedule.  The weather cleared and the rain left the area sparkling clean and clear.  Our driver, Viney, was waiting to take us on our next adventure.  We headed for the Eravikulam National Park.  We took a shuttle bus to the road’s end and hiked up to the end of the trail.  I was a wonderful view of the whole area and the home of the Tahs (mountain goat).  After walking to the head of the trail we caught the shuttle bus back to our car.  The ride down the mountain was, according to Julie, like a high end, 15 minute carnival ride down the twisty, narrow road.  It was exhilarating.  After a great lunch at a restaurant setting on the side of a mountain with views up and down the valley, we went to a tea museum to lean what happens to the tea leaves once they are harvested from the bushes.  We learned a little about how the tea was sliced and diced, pulverized, dried, separated and finally packaged.  We also were shown where white team comes from and got a short film on the tea industry in the area.

Our last stop for the day included a drive through the village of Munnar  bustling with shoppers, cars, buses, cab-rickshaws, dogs and cows to an elephant park where all 3 of us took a 30 minute ride on July the elephant.  July is pronounced by the keeper as Julie.  There was instant bonding between Julie and July.  Our traveling partner Ann is about 20 years our senior so we put her on the front of the elephant and off we went through the woods with Ann hollering about why she had agreed to this ride.  We all had a good laugh and great fun and got to feed July pineapple at the end of the ride.

Riding July



July - Julie, Ann and Dave

Oct 22: Chennai, India

Welcome Band At Chennai Port



The day started with the usual routine of going out on deck to watch the arrival of the ship in Chennai, India. The Pilot boat and tugs started arriving at 7:00 AM and we docked at 8:00 AM on schedule. As the ship was tying up to the pier, a group of musicians assembled and played welcoming tunes for us.



We had an orientation of the city as the planned event for today and boarded the tour bus shortly after the ship was cleared by Custom officials. Chennai is a city of 7 million people most of who own a motor scooter or motorcycle and it seems that they all drive on the streets as the same time. There also appears to be little order to the traffic and the lines on the road are merely decorations. Traffic goes in all directions at the same time in what appears to be a well-choreographed dance. The appearance of the traffic to those of us uninitiated to the chaos seems to be just that – appearance. In reality everybody obeys some sort of traffic etiquette, traffic does move along and people actually get to where they are going with a lot of honking but little damage to themselves or their vehicle. The Orientation tour was interesting and gave us a look at many of the sites of the city.  





Port Entrance at Chennai, India



Oct 21: Sea Olympics



Sea Olympics - Sync Swimming
Theme:  Aged



Today is show time for the Sea Olympics.  This is a regular event on all cruses where teams of students are matched in such events as Ping-Pong, crab soccer, chopstick ice cube race, paper-scissors- rock, Jeopardy, sustainable art contest, tug-of-war and synchronized swimming.  Students are divided into groups with the name of a Sea such as Mediterranean Sea.  The faculty, staff and lifelong learners also make up one team called “No Mer” Sea as in “give them no mercy”.  Each team has a color, creates a banner for the opening parade and a team cheer. 

The events started with the Synchronized swimming and the “adults” from the No Mer Sea team were first to go.  The No Mer Sea team theme was old age, I think.  The picture below should tell the story better than I.



Sea Olympics - No Mer Sea
Sync Swimming



Julie was a member of the Sustainable Art contest team.  Each team was given empty pop cans, cereal boxes, toilet roles, straws, popcorn bags, plastic fork, tooth picks and paper clips and 30 minutes to create something that presented a concept that represented sustainable living.  The No Mer Sea team did not place in this competition.  Julie was also a member of the chop stick and ice cube race where the objective of the competition was to transfer ice cubes from one bucket to another using chop sticks.  Julie and her team mates won this competition.



 The last completion was the lip synch contents and all the teams from the different Seas competed and all were very good.  Overall the No Mer Sea team placed third in the overall standings.  It was a long day but a lot of fun.