Phuket Island, Thailand to Chennai (Madras), India

March 25 - Today I am in Phuket Island, Thailand. Diana is still on her overland tour so I’ll be traveling solo today. We are heading up to the north and across the Sarasin Bridge to the mainland in the south of the country proper. During the drive we passed through many small villages and miles of rubber trees.

Our first stop is at the Wat Tham Suwan Kuha Cave Temple. The temple is over 200 years old and contains many statues of the Buddha in various traditional poses. The largest is in the reclining pose where the Buddha attains Nirvana (dies for the last time). Buddhists believe in reincarnation and after 56 or so lives the originator of the religion was born for the last time and lived his last life. If you see a Buddha statue with one hand raised and one finger pointing up that is what the statue is telling you, it’s his last time around. Reclining Buddhas always symbolize his attainment of Nirvana at his final death. If the eyes are open it’s just prior to his death, if they eyes are closed it’s after. I always thought he was sleeping.

No representations of the real Buddha exist so all the statues are symbolic in nature. Most are not very anthropomorphic, that is not very human like. For example, if you look closely at the figures most of them have fingers that are much too long, too long a torso or toes that are all the same length. These are only examples the differences are many, just look at the ears on the reclining Buddha and the unnatural curvature of his arms. A lot of the figures appear to have caps on. Those are actually small flames coming out of the Buddha’s head.

The temple consists of two caves, or rather a cave with a large open roof room about 150 feet from the entrance. The entrance of the cave has been left in its natural shape and they built a freestanding arch with Buddha representations on it that does not completely fill the hole (above right). When we arrived there were 4 monkeys perched at various places on the arch.

The first room is fairly large and contains most of the statues including the largest one that is an open-eyed reclining Buddha (left). There’s another, smaller reclining Buddha, this one with the more common closed eyes, in a stone display box. There are a series of stairs on the right that lead up to two more Buddhas in separate wall niches, one covered in gold leaf, the other will many offerings of flowers.

At the back of the room there is a series of 3 flights of stairs leading up to an open room with a few more Buddha statues. On one wall there are a series of initials carved. A sign nearby explains that these carvings were made by various members of Thai royalty to commemorate their visit. One set of initials belongs to Rama V, our old friend Chulalongkorn, the eldest son of the king in ‘The King and I’.

If you turn right here you can descend about 40 stairs to the floor of a large closed room. The smell of the guano let you know right away that there are bats here. You could see them pretty easily but it was hard to photograph them. The flashes from our cameras sent several of them flying around the room. From this large room you could climb a path up the far wall to head deeper into the cave. I went up to the top of that grade and then back as far as the light would allow into the cave. On the floor of the bat room there was a large stalagmite with a monument on top. There were temple dogs outside the temple and in the first room but none ventured deeper into the cave than that.

Outside the cave were several vendors selling soda, water, snacks and fruit to feed for the monkeys, mostly small bananas. It was fun to watch the tourists feed the monkeys. I was trying to get a picture of a monkey taking a banana from someone but by the time the camera focused, the monkey had grabbed and run. So I’m left with the picture of a laughing tourist with no banana and no monkey.

After bidding a fond farewell to the temple and the monkeys we drove northeast across Thailand to the city of Phang Nga to the Phang Nga Bay Hotel. There we had a break for restrooms and then proceeded to the pier next door to board our boat. The boat was about 50 feet long and had a beam of about 12 feet. It was covered and powered by a single diesel engine. It had a deck at the back that was about 3 feet above the passenger deck and had a ladder leading to the roof that was about 4 feet above the stern deck. There were rows of benches on each side of an aisle that would hold two adults. The benches terminated about 10 feet before the stern. This open space had the motor cover in the middle leaving about a 2.5-foot space on each side. I was going to stand back there so I could walk from side to side for pictures. As we pulled away from the pier the deck hand at the back pointed up as if asking me if I wanted to ride on the roof. I nodded yes and headed up the two ladders that led to the roof. It was great!! There were no seats up there but I didn’t mind standing. Occasionally when we turned or hit the wake of another boat it was a little like surfing (above right). That was great too!

After a while I was joined on the roof by several other people, most of whom sat on the roof. Two other tai chi students and Robert (blue cap in the picture above), the instructor were up there and the three of us did the Lotus exercise while Robert taped us. That was a hoot for sure. How many white folks to you think they see riding around Phang Nga Bay in Thailand performing tai chi on the roof of a boat. In fact, we passed several other tour boats and never saw anyone else even riding on the roof.

The tour started out in a banyan forest cruising narrow waterways (left) heading for the bay proper. We passed several small fishing villages and fish farms before coming to an area with limestone monoliths and hills sticking up out of the water. Small islands dotted the landscape, most with sheer cliff perimeters. We sailed south to Khao Ping Gun (right) the island that was used as Scaramunda’s secret headquarters in the James Bond movie ‘The Man with the Golden Gun.’ It was eerie; the place hasn’t changed at all. I had a good recollection of it because the ship showed the move on the TV just two days before we got here.

After that we sailed to Koh Panyi Fishing Village (below left behind the longboat). The village is attached to an island but is mostly built on stilts and connected by wooden walkways. It looked to me like all the buildings were on stilts but I couldn’t be sure. There was a mosque so I’m assuming that the areas inhabitants are mostly Muslim. At one end of the village was a row of restaurants, each with its own pier. Apparently people come from all over the area by longboat or tour boat to eat here because the area taken up by the restaurants is almost as large as the rest of the village combined. We stopped for a look around and some shopping but we are having lunch back at the Phang Nga Bay Hotel.

We should have a short discussion on the subject of longboats (left and below right). Generally they are slim craft, maybe 6-7 feet on the beam. They are disproportionately long at about 45-50 feet (the yellow boat to the left). This is unusual, but nothing compared to the drive unit. At the stern of the boat, attached about 6 inches forward of the transom, is a swivel mounted on a short post. Attached to this swivel, just forward of the pivot point, is a full-sized 4, 6 or 8 cylinder automotive motor. A long handle extends forward of the motor about 5 feet. The pilot holds this handle and uses as a combination tiller and throttle. Extending straight aft of the motor is about 8 feet of drive shaft with the screw attached. Between the motor and the shaft is a small transmission that can shift into forward or reverse. The drive shaft, which runs inside a steel tube, is mostly unsupported between the transmission and the screw. This puts a tremendous load on the bearings of the transmission; they must be very well designed and constructed. It didn’t seem to matter what make or size of engine they had, the transmission looked exactly the same.

The pilot steers the ship my moving the tiller as you normally would, push it right and you go left and vice versa, but in this case he is not moving a rudder but the entire drive train that is balanced on the pivot, motor, transmission, driveshaft and screw as one piece. The engine runs at a constant rpm and the screw is moved up and down to control the forward motion of the ship. When they are going full out the screw is just below the surface of the water putting it in a very direct line to the forward motion and sending a tremendous amount of spray into the air in a huge rooster tail. Quite a sight!!

From Koh Panyi we went directly back to the hotel for lunch. The trip took about 45 minutes. Lunch was served on the bayside patio buffet style. The food (left) was mostly Chinese style, sweet & sour pork, cashew chicken, tempura shrimp (Japanese) and stir-fried vegetables. There was also a seafood soup but that appeared to be Thai. I think they did this so there wouldn’t be so many people whining about the ‘spicy food’. Apparently, to this crowd, anything spicier than roast beef and potatoes or seasoned with anything but salt and a little black pepper is ‘too spicy’. I’d really like to eat the local food on these tours but that will never happen. They did have several bowls of spices and spicy sauces at the end for those of us who wanted a more authentic Thai experience. The one sauce was sort of sesame oil with small slices of the very thin red and green peppers I saw the lady sorting in the Bangkok flower market. The lunch in Bangkok had the same sort of sauce and I knew it was very hot. It was great on the cashew chicken but I didn’t think it would go with sweet and sour or the vegetables. It was also great in the soup. “They had a Thai version of Plum sauce that was great on the shrimp.

After lunch we drove back to the ship and were greeted by a Thai dance group that was giving us a sail-away performance on the pier. We stood out on the deck and watched them as the lines were let go and the ship moved from the pier. It was a lot of fun.

Now we have two days at sea before we make our stop in India and Diana rejoins the ship.

March 26 – Our first day at sea was pretty restful until one of the front office girls came to get me while I was chatting in the Explorer’s Lounge. She said that the Customer Relations Manager needed to talk to me. It’s a bit like being called to the Principal’s Office in school. When I sat down in her office she told me that Diana had been hospitalized in India. To make a long story short, since you already know the end, she had exhaustion and dehydration and needed to be put on IVs and get rest. The only place to do that when you are traveling is in the hospital. Of course, I was worried at the time but as you know it all ended very well.

I got to talk to the tour manager in India while I was still in the office. I gave her Diana’s medical history and her medication list. Then I told her about the effect Diana’s extra asthma medications could have, inability to sleep resulting in exhaustion and then dehydration because she forgets to drink. She caught a cold just before leaving on the overland tour and was taking both of the extra medications, either one by itself can cause her problems sleeping. I found out later that they passed this info on to her doctor and he began treating her for that and she recovered quite quickly.

March 27 – I talked to the doctor at noon today and he thanked me for the information from yesterday. He said that he had given her many testes, EKG, CT scan, kidney function, etc, and found nothing wrong except her electrolytes were all messed up from the dehydration. He didn’t think she could rejoin the ship in Chennai but might have to wait to Colombo, Sri Lanka. I told him he might be surprised at how quickly she would bounce back. He said I should call him back at 5PM when he would be in her room.

We did call back and he told me that he thought she would be returning in Chennai on schedule and that he was very pleased with her recovery. I also got to talk to Diana. She sounded pretty well but still a little tired.

March 28 – Well here I am in Chennai, India; finally in the same country as Diana. The tour group is not returning from the overland trip until about 10PM so I’m going to go on my morning tour. I talked to the front office and they confirmed that they had received email from the tour that Diana was indeed going to be back with the tour this evening. Buoyed up by this good news I departed on the morning tour with a much better outlook.

We’re headed south to the city of Mamallapuram, the stone-carving capital of India and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The area has a famous Shore Temple, an exceptional collection of rock sculptures that reflect the creativity and glory of the Pallava emperors of the 7th and 8th centuries. There are four types of sculpture – open-air bas-reliefs, temples, man-made caves and monolithic Rathas (Chariots), which are actually shrines, carved in situ from single granite boulders.

We are traveling by bus, of course, so each stop requires us to get out of and into the bus. Normally this would not be an event of much notice however, traveling with a group this old makes every stop an adventure in limping, moaning, groaning and general grumbling. Mind you, about 5% of the group contributes 95% of the griping.

Traveler’s Note: There are several observations I could make about the people I’m traveling with. Most are warm, outgoing, very kind and personable human beings. The rest are a collection of various oddballs and malcontents. Here are a few examples.

The first 8 seats, two pairs of 2 on each side of the aisle, at the front of the bus are reserved for physically challenged people and that’s totally reasonable. Here’s where the odd balls come in. There are people I see on the ship all the time scooting around without any assistance. God help you if you get between them and the lunch buffet, they’ll stomp you to death. But when it comes to shore tours, there these people are, cane in hand, limping and breathing heavily as though they’re on their last legs, headed out to the bus to claim one of the front seats. During the trip if you observe them carefully when we’re on free time and they think no one is around, you’ll see them zipping over very uneven ground cane cradled in their arms to get to some merchant’s stall to shop. It’s really funny. I’m not sure whom they think they’re fooling. I prefer to sit in the middle of the bus toward the rear to keep away from these phonies for fear I’ll have to comment on their off again/on again infirmities.

Next group is what I call ‘disinterested travelers’. They ride the bus through some of the most beautiful scenery as a guide gives them all sorts of great information about the people and the area and there they sit with their head stuck in a newspaper or a paperback paying no attention to the sights or sounds. These same people usually also spend a lot of time complaining about the food, the local people and the accommodations of the area. I often wonder why they bother to travel at all.

There are lots of other oddities, these are just examples.

As we came down the gangway to head to the busses there was a group of Indian ladies dressed in traditional garb that were applying the ‘third eye’ to the forehead of each passenger. The dots were red and yellow. They also put a garland of very sweet smelling white flowers with one yellow mum at the front (above left). When we got on the bus the thing smelled pretty good but after a while it got to be too sweet for almost everyone.

Our destination today is the city of Mamallapuram. The rock carving tradition of the area is known all over the world and carving shops are everywhere (right). During the Pallava era some 1,400 years ago the tradition was developed and it has continued to this day.

Our first stop is at a bas-relief carved in the 7th century. It’s carved on the side of a granite rock about 80 feet long and 30 feet high. They said it is the largest single panel bas-relief in the world and I must admit it’s huge. It depicts Arjuna’s Penance, which involves him standing on one leg with his hands over his head for so long that the god Shiva takes pity on him and as a reward allows the Ganges river to flow across India to the sea. The depiction of the river divides the relief approximately in half and is shown with several cobra shaped gods in the middle helping it flow (left). Arjuna is depicted to the left of the river near the top with the much larger, four-armed Shiva standing next to him. It’s a very intricate carving with people, gods, animals (including two large elephants) and a temple. The rock protrudes from the ground pretty much in the middle of the city so we had to negotiate a fair traffic jam to get there and out again.

We walked next door to a cave temple. These are actually rocks that have been carved out to allow you to enter them for worship. The one we were in has a large relief carved on the back wall. The main subject was Vishnu holding up a huge rock as an umbrella to protect the people from a terrible rainstorm. There are scenes from daily life on the relief. A Brahma bull, a man milking a cow that is licking her calf, women carrying goods on their heads, men farming, lions and one picture of a sphinx that the guide says proves that the Indians had contact with the early Egyptians. Could be true, I’m afraid that I’ll have to do some research to see what evidence exists for that assertion.

Our next stop was at the Five Rathas (left). Ratha means chariot in Tamil, the language most prevalent in Southern India. Hindi is spoken in the north. This should no be confused with Hindu which is a religion. The similarity in the names is coincidental. The five shrines found here were meant to be models of the various types of Southern Indian temples. They are all carved out of one single boulder of granite. There are also statues of a Brahma bull, lion and an elephant among the shrines. They were carved in the early Pallava period, around 600AD.

From there we drove to the oceanfront to the Shore Temple (right). It is believed that these two temples are the only survivors of a series of seven temples that stood along the ocean. It is postulated that the sea claimed the other five since the early 700s when they were constructed. They were the culmination of the rock artistry that began with the earlier bas-reliefs and extended through the Rathas to these temples. In contrast to the earlier two types of carving, these temples are carved from rock moved here for that purpose, not carved in place like the earlier forms. They are functioning temples, not shrines like the Rathas. There’s a reclining Vishnu between the two temples that is carved out of the bedrock on which the temples were built.

Just up the beach from the temple site was a very strange procession. Young women carrying baskets of freshly mixed cement on their heads from a mixing site across a field (left). They carried them up a hill to a man who took the basket from them and poured it in a frame that appeared to be the base of a water tank. Further down the beach was a procession of women carrying sand from the beach to the mixing site. I didn’t have time to get close for pictures but I think I got something to work with in Photoshop.

On the drive down and back we passed large camps of housing for victims of the tsunami. Some were in thatched huts (below) and some in tents provided by aid agencies. Our guide told us that most of the people we were seeing here were fishermen whose houses had been destroyed by the wave. He did say that the thatched huts were exactly like the ones they usually lived in but they were much further from the sea than they usually built. He said that it had only been about 25 days since the first of the fishermen would venture out onto the ocean since December. In one place what had been a nice little bay was now mostly a sandbar due to the deposits from the tsunami.

We stopped at a Taj hotel for lunch. The Taj is a chain of very nice Indian hotels. This one was the Fisherman’s Cove Resort. They had some very nice beachfront cottages. They were round with one half of the building being a large living room with a central hall between two bedrooms that took of half of the remaining space. The front half of the building had large windows for the entire 180 degrees facing the ocean. Very nice.

The lunch was not what I expected. They had 7 meat dishes and 7 vegetarian dishes on the buffet and not a single one was a curry, masalas, vindalus and tandori but no curry. As a ringer they had Shrimp Newberg. My favorite was Meen Moilee (left). I’m not sure exactly what was in it, some green leafy vegetable and meat in a yellowish sauce. The hint that I would like it was two large, hot red peppers they had floated on top to warn everyone that it was hot.

After lunch we went to an outdoor folk village. It’s like Greenfield Village in Detroit next to the Ford Museum. They’ve collected buildings of significance from all over southern India and moved them to this sight for preservation. They had buildings representing various religious and ethnic styles of architecture. It was interesting.

After that it was back to the ship for dinner and to wait for Diana’s return from Delhi. She finally arrived with the rest of the tour group at 9PM and it was sure good to see her. She was pretty well recovered but was a little tired and her left hand was swollen because they had gotten an IV started improperly and no one had noticed for some time. That should subside in a day or two.

We went directly to the cabin and she went to bed and was asleep in no time. We’ve got a day as sea to rest up tomorrow.

March 29 – A much needed day at sea and Diana slept most of the day and all night. I’m glad that this day was available before our arrival in Sri Lanka.

To see the next page of pictures click this 'Older Posts' at the bottom right.

(c) Rod Longenberger 2005

Bangkok, Thailand to Singapore

March 20 – Today we are going into Bangkok. The bus trip to town took about an hour and a half. Our first stop was the Pak-Klong-Talad flower market. The flowers were beautiful. You could buy flowers in bulk by the kilo or in individual bunches. Most were being strung in garlands, necklaces and other shapes and sizes to use for offerings to the various gods in Hinduism (left). There was a booth selling lotus blooms that were not open and looked very plain. I couldn’t figure out what these would be used for until I saw a man folding the green outer sepals under to expose the inner white petals. Then he folded some of the white petals under as well forming a white blossom with a green fringe. These were fastened to a tall green woven dunce cap shaped cone above what appeared to be yellow chrysanthemum-type flowers (right). There are small shrines everywhere and there are always fruit, tea and flower offerings on them.

Among the flower stalls there were also fruit stands and a variety of Thai fast food booths. One was making soup to order. It had boiling broth in a large pot. The broth contains some basic ingredients and it would be scooped out into bowls and then various sauces and additional vegetables added to make the serving. It smelled good. Another booth was frying small bananas and one was grilling chicken (below right) and still another selling dried or fried fish (below right). People were stopping by to pick up flower offerings and then grabbing a bite to eat.

They have a unique form of public transportation here called a tuk-tuk (left behind chicken stand). It’s essentially an elongated, covered three-wheeled motorcycle with a two-person bench back seat in a small pickup truck like bed, driven by a Thai kamikaze pilot. They are named for the motor sounds they produce. It’s very distinctive and you know one is coming before you can see it. You can see several in the picture of the flower market chicken fast food seller. Technically they are taxis but it’s more like Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride at Disneyland. They provide a fast, efficient mode of transportation on Bangkok’s often-narrow congested streets.

Our next stop was the Royal Palace. It’s a compound style area with many buildings. The oldest buildings on the property are the Dusit Maha Prasat Hall (the picture below left, the building with the green roof) and the Amarindra Winitchai Hall. King Rama I, formerly Chao Phraya Chakri, built both. He was the Thai army commander that led the successful invasion of Laos to recover the Emerald Buddha in 1778. It was Rama I who moved the capital city to the opposite side of the river and founded Bangkok.

The Dusit Maha Prasat Hall was built by Rama I as a place for his remains to lie-in-state and that is how it is still used today. It is also used during the annual Coronation Day ceremony. The Amarindra Winitchai Hall, one of three buildings that make up the Phra Maha Monthian, was also built in 1785. It holds the throne and is used to celebrate the King’s birthday and anniversary as well as other state occasions. The other two buildings are the Paisal Taksin Hall, which contains the coronation chair and is used for that ceremony, and the Chakraphat Phiman, which was the residence of kings Rama I, II and III. An interesting custom has developed. Each king since then has spent at least one night there after his coronation to signify the taking up of official residence.

If you’ve seen the movie ‘The King and I’ you’ll remember the King’s eldest son Chulalongkorn. Well, he became King Rama V and built the Chakri Maha Prasat (the building on the left with the red roof in the picture above left) completed in 1882 the same year as the centenary celebration of Bangkok. The reception rooms are still used for high-level meetings and parties. Thai soldiers, dressed in white tunics and pith helmets with black trousers and shoes, guard the building. They stand guard exactly like the guards at Buckingham Palace. They don’t more or react no matter what silliness is going on around them. Pretty tough when faced with hoards of pleasure seeking tourists.

The holiest building in the compound, and for that matter Thailand, is the Temple of the Emerald Buddha. Inside the temple is the Emerald Buddha. It was discovered in 1434 in a stupa in Chiang Rai. At that time it was covered in plaster and thought to be an ordinary Buddha statue. Later the abbot that discovered the statue noticed that its nose was flaking and that there was green stone under it. He thought the stone was emerald and thus began the statue’s legend. It is actually carved out of a large block of green jade. The image (right) was taken to several cities in the area until King Chaichettha, who was the son of a Laotian King, was asked to act as King of Thailand because of a void in the royal succession. He agreed to do this but in 1552 he returned to Laos to ascend to the throne of his father. When he left he took the Buddha with him and it remained in Laos until rescued by the future King Rama I in 1778. It has been in Thailand ever since.

There are three interesting buildings on the Upper Terrace. The Phra Siratana Chedi (left), a reliquary shaped like a chedi, entirely covered in gold leaf. The Phra Mondop that contains the Buddhist sacred scriptures within a beautiful mother-of-pearl inlaid cabinet. And lastly, the Royal Pantheon, in which statues of past sovereigns in the Chakri dynasty are enshrined.

The king currently lives in a relatively modern mansion, the Borom Phiman. It was built in 1903 by King Rama V for his son the future King Rama VI. It is still used by the current king, Rama IX.

I’m sorry to go overboard with this, but I find the history of this area fascinating and the buildings are beautiful. My pictures don’t do justice to them.

Next stop was the Shangri La Hotel for lunch. The food was great!! It was served buffet style. They had a salad line, a hot food line, a desert line and (Yippeeeee!!) a sushi and sashimi line!

Well, I couldn’t wait to observe the usual lunch protocol and headed directly to the sushi bar (left). They had several kinds of nigiri type sushi; maguro (tuna), sea bass, tako (octopus), ika (squid) with smelt eggs on top and mackerel (saba). They also had several types of cut rolls, the usual dikon radish, cucumber inside rice and nori (seaweed paper). They had a sort of California Roll, crab and avocado wrapped in nori with the rice on the outside and smelt eggs around the rim. Those were great!! There were several other combo rolls that were ok too. I’m not sure exactly what was in them. If you asked the chef there he made you a little sashimi plate with a variety of fish. The wasabi was very hot, must have been fresh. They also had clams, oysters and mussels on the half shell and extremely large prawns cooked in their shells. They were all excellent.

The hot food line had various curries and other stew type dishes, several meats on the carving table, beef, pork and lamb, different types of vegetables. The curry was great. Some were sweet, others very hot, most were in between and they were all good. At times like this I take a small spoonful of everything I can’t identify because I want to taste it. The grouper curry was the best, lots of flavor and plenty of heat.

The desert table was a combination of fruit and sweets. No chocolate but I didn’t mind as they had lot of exotic stuff to try. We had dragon fruit, jack fruit, coconut tapioca in a half coconut shell and mango. Yikes I was stuffed!

I went out to the hotel pool area to look around. There were people out there eating lunch on their lounge chairs with a bed type tray in front of them. It was a tray with short card table type legs that folded down to let them sun and eat at the same time. I had never seen these before. Nice way to have lunch. There was a whole row of them but I wanted to sneak a picture so I only got the one on the end.

In the lobby of the hotel they had some statues of various Hindu gods with the flower constructions we had seen earlier at the flower market.

Then next stop was at a silk market. I bought a Thai silk tie, grey with very small elephants on it. Next stop a jewelry manufacturer. No buying here, I just took some pictures of the Hindu shrine in the entrance to the parking lot.

After that it was back to the ship. A long, hot, humid day in Thailand with lots of interesting things to see.

March 21 – A short day at sea to recover from two days in Thailand.

March 22 – Today we are docked in Tanjung Gelling, Malaysia. We’re on a short tour this am to soak up some of the local lifestyle. Our first stop is in the city of Gherating at the pandanus weaving center. Pandanus is woven strips of dried palm leaves. A lady there demonstrated the stripping of the leaves and scraping them down to allow them to cure. The strips are then dyed or left natural color and woven into all sorts of products, handbags, placemats, fans and hats for example. Diana bought a fan that was pointed like the spades in a deck of cards. The fan has a curve on the wide part of the shape nearest the handle. It is amazingly efficient at moving air with very little effort. It’s a deep turquoise, red, lavender and natural colored, very pretty.

Our next stop was at a nearby beach for a demonstration of Malaysian kite flying. There was an attractive little resort on the same beach. There must be good surf there as the small village has a surfboard rental office, a restaurant/bar and the resort and that was it. The Malay kite (above right) has a bow shaped structure attached to it that vibrates while the kite is flying and produces a buzzing sound. They’re about 4-5 feet long and have two flat surfaces, a large one shaped like the large Zulu shield near the center of gravity and a smaller crescent shaped one at the bottom. The kite maker flew the kite a little but there was not much of a breeze so it kept coming down. He let us pose for pictures with the kite.

Then it was on to a Malay home for a top spinning demonstration. The Malay top is a metal disk about 8 inches in diameter and about 1 inch thick. It has a small point in the center on the bottom and a 1-¼ inch across, 3/8 inch high grooved disk in the top center. A rope is tightly wound around this small top disk. To make sure the rope is tightly wound it is attached to a tree and the man pulled away from it using his legs and back as he wound the rope (left). When about 5 feet of rope was wound around, almost covering the top surface of the disk he walked over to within about 5 feet of a clay square a little over a foot square. He threw the disk like a Frisbee while holding the rope and it landed on the square spinning furiously. He then took a stick with a rimmed flat surface on it over to the clay square and scooped up the top on the end of the stick. He asked if anyone would like to hold the stick and I said I would. That top was heavy; I’d say at least 11 pounds. I was amazed that he could throw it so accurately. He was not a big man. In fact, I doubt he weighed 100 pounds.

He also had trained a small member of the ape family to climb palm trees and pick coconuts. He only picks the ripe ones and throws them down to the ground. When he has picked all the ripe ones he climbs down and is rewarded with one of the coconuts that has had a hole chopped into it and a straw. Apparently he loves coconut milk, the ape that is. The man then husked the rest of the coconuts and offered us the milk to drink and some of the coconut meat to eat. It was very good. The coconut was a little sweet straight from husk.

Our next stop was at a batik factory. We watched the workers apply the wax outlines to the cloth while others painted or dyed the cloth after the wax outline is applied. Then the cloth is boiled to remove the wax and set the dyes. Since no color will stick to the waxed portion that remains white. There are two methods to apply the wax outlines.

One method is like ink stamping. The man doing that dipped a stamp about a foot square in hot wax and then stamped it on the cloth. The put the stamps right next to one another and then rolled the cloth forward to continue. When he finished another man with a large paintbrush applied the die to the cloth after stretching it on a frame. After drying on the frame the boiling process is started.

The second method is to stretch the cloth on a wooden frame and apply the wax by hand using a pen like implement with a small watering can looking device on the end (left). The girl filled the end with hot wax and then drew the pattern on the cloth freehand. The one she was working on while we were there was a floral design. After the wax cooled another girl was painting in the flowers and leaves with dye (below right). Nearby a man was working on the coloring process of a totally different geometric design. When the dyes dry the boiling process is the same as for the first method.

The second process is much more labor intensive but because it is all hand done many colors can be used. The first method produces a one colored cloth with a white design. The second process produces a many-colored fabric with a white outline. This type cloth is much more expensive than the cloth produced in one color only. I bought 4 yards of a single color cloth in blue to get a shirt made when I get back to the US.

Next we stopped at Tanjung Api, a small fishing village. The boats were very colorful and most seemed to be about 26-36 feet in length. As it was pretty late in the morning the local fish market was just about wrapping up business. There were some fish still available. The have one that they have dubbed the Michael Jackson fish. It’s black on one side and white on the other. I’m not sure they could get away with that in the states. It’s a flat fish like a halibut or flounder and the same general shape.

The ship had packed us each a snack to carry on the bus but we eat so much on the ship that no one had eaten much out of them. They had an orange, apple, granola bar, two pieces of hard candy (Jolly Rancher), a small container of orange juice and a muffin. There were lots of children in the village that seemed quite curious about us but were very shy. Someone wondered aloud about giving the bags to the kids as none of us were going to eat them. The guide, a very nice, petite Muslim lady with excellent English skills, said that that would be nice as the kids have very little in the way of treats. So everyone on the bus piled off again to give their sack away. At first the kids didn’t know exactly what was going on. They accepted the bags shyly without looking into them. After we were mostly back on the bus they started to look inside and the fun began. They were grinning from ear to ear and waving at us vigorously. As the bus pulled out they all began to run toward the village to show their goodies. The guide told us that the local people have a very strong sense of community and that the contents of the bags would be shared among all the children very happily.

After that we visited a Hindu temple in Kuantan (left). It was very ornately decorated, as they all are. Colorful figures abound everywhere outside and inside. We had to take off our shoes to go inside, although ‘inside’ was really just under a roof supported by pillars.

On the way back to the ship we made a photo stop at the local Mosque. It was a large on mainly white accented in a very nice light blue. Then it was all on board to sail to Singapore where we arrive tomorrow.

March 23 – Today we are on the rather strict island of Singapore. To say that they take their laws seriously here is a gross understatement. A taxi driver told me that if you are caught driving illegally in a bus lane or stopping to pick up a passenger at an improper place you do not get a traffic ticket you go to jail for 3 months, six months for the second offence and so on. Double Yikes!! This is the country that was going to publicly cane that kid for writing graffiti on a car. Not that seems eminently logical to me, but jail for minor traffic violations, I’m going to have to think about that.

All that being said, the place is clean, efficient and the people are very friendly. Diana is leaving today for a 6-day overland trip to India to see, among other things, the Taj Mahal in Agra. I’m taking a tour in the morning but am scheduled to be back before she goes to the airport.

The tour started with a trip to Little India. In the Indian section you find a lot of Hindus and other Eastern sects. We went to the market where they sell produce, fruit and flowers (above right). Most of the flowers were for offering purposes just like Bangkok. There were spice shops with very exotic smells. I love Indian cooking and my mouth was watering all morning.

We left Little India and drove to the Chinese section to visit a teahouse, the Tea Chapter, to sample tea. Let me tell you these people take their tea very seriously and based on my experience they definitely know what they are doing. Queen Elizabeth II once visited here for a spot of tea while in Singapore.

First the process involves 3 pots for the table and two cups per person. The first is a regular sized teapot that holds the hot, but not boiling water. The second is a very small teapot into which the tealeaves are placed. The third is an open pot, almost gravy boat like in shape. The tea is poured into this pot after the brewing time to get the water off of the leaves and stop the diffusion process. First the brewed tea is poured into a very small, straight-sided cup for smelling. This is only done for the first pour. After the aroma is properly appreciated, tea is poured into a very small traditionally shaped Chinese teacup (no handle). Tea is then drunk in three sip sets. The cup is kept small so that the tea will always be warm. The aroma cup is not used again.

The amazing thing was the length of time the water was allowed to stay on the leaves. First a small amount of the hot water is poured in the small brewing pot to wash the leaves. This is swished around and then discarded. The brewing pot is then filled with water (above left) and allowed to steep for only 30 seconds before being poured into the serving pot. The leaves can be used for four additional pots full by adding 5 seconds to the brewing time each pot, 35 seconds for the 2nd, 40 for the 3rd, 45 for the 4th. Then those leaves are discarded and the process begins over with the leaf washing.

The tea we were drinking was light oolong. Other varieties of tea use different steeping times, mostly longer. The taste of the tea was amazing. I had to buy some. They believe that if the water is to hot you cook the leaves and ruin the taste. They think if you allow the hot water to be on the leaves too long the taste becomes muddy. Based on this experience, I think they’re right.

Our next stop was at the Sri Mariamman Hindu Temple. It’s the oldest Hindu national monument in Singapore. A wooden structure was built on this site in 1827 and the current structure was finished in 1862. As with all Hindu temples it’s very elaborate and colorful. They are painted every 5 years because the sun and wet weather here fade them rapidly. This one is due to be painted later this year so the colors are more pastel in nature than usual (left). There was a wedding there in the morning and the bride and groom were seated off to one side accepting the gifts and well wishes of their friends and relatives.

Sri Mariamman is a goddess can be traced to the Tamil people of South India where she is a local village deity. She is believed to be responsible for rain and protecting the crops during droughts. There are shrines to 11 additional gods in this temple. The Hindus have about 2,000 gods and the thought of keeping on the right side of that many deities boggles my mind. I have sufficient trouble pleasing just One. The art however is beautiful and very exotic.

Next stop was at the Raffles Hotel in downtown Singapore. It’s named for Sir Stamford Raffles the founder of Singapore. He founded the city and island as a British enclave in 1819 to establish control over the nearby Straits of Malacca a bottleneck in the shipping from Europe to the Spice Islands of the East. With control of this strait the British could extract duties on every shipment of spices to Europe regardless of which country owned the ship, a pretty good deal for the British and Sir Stamford. Singapore has transformed itself into the fourth largest financial center in the world. They have t-shirts here that read, ‘Singapore is a fine city!’ and then it lists all the things you can be fined for and the fine for each. Some of them are hilarious.

We’re having lunch in the Tiffin Room, which dates from the early colonial period. The food was Indian and Asian, curries and vindalus of various types as well as traditional vegetarian dishes (left). They have one that is spinach and home made cheese that I love. It’s very unusual for me to like a dish of this type with no meat. As you know I’m pretty much a carnivore.

After lunch it was back to the ship. Diana was preparing to leave for her overland trip. I helped her pack and went with her to the start of her tour. On her way off the ship Diana mentioned to me that she might not have taken her asthma medication with her. I ran back to the room to look for it and couldn’t find it anywhere so I assumed she had packed it and ran out to the pier to tell them that so they could leave for the airport.

After I returned to the room I was putting away some of my clothing and getting ready for the next day. When I pulled my shorts down from the shelf in the closed Diana’s asthma inhaler came down with them. I immediately went to the front desk to inquire about sending it overnight to her hotel in India. They said that I could probably catch up with her at the airport so I exchanged some US $ for some Singapore dollars and headed out to catch a cab. When I got to the cab stand the line for cabs was very long so I went up to the passenger drop point and asked the security there if I could catch a cab because I had to get some medication to the airport quickly. The lady took pity on me and let me board a cab that was dropping someone off.

I told the cab driver that I needed to get to the airport quickly and he obliged me with a very fast trip. I discovered the biggest bargain in Singapore in the process, a cab ride. The 30-minute cab ride to the airport was on $12.50 Singapore. That’s about $9 US a very good deal indeed. When I got to the airport the Singapore Air counter had a long line of people checking in so I went to the excess baggage payment window for Philippine Airlines. They contacted the manager for Singapore Air and he had Diana paged and I talked to her on the phone. They then had a girl from the airlines take the medication to Diana out at the gate. I was not allowed to go out there and she couldn’t return to the terminal as she had already passed through immigration.

By this time it was too late to return to the ship for dinner so I ate at a Burger King there at the airport. I’ve got to tell you that the Whopper there tasted like they did when I was working at May Company in 1969. I had quit eating them some time ago because they did not taste that good anymore. Here in Singapore they still make them like they did 35 years ago in the US. The cab ride back into town was interesting. I got a very chatty cab driver. He said next time I’m in Singapore I should eat Black Pepper Crab or Chili Crab. I asked where and he said it didn’t matter, anywhere that made it would be good. Now he tells me, the ship is sailing in 2 hours.

I got back to the ship in time to see the show and then back to the room to work on this journal and my pictures.

March 24 – A day at sea to catch up a little. Since Diana is on the overland trip I had dinner with my tablemates and then to the show.

To see the next page of pictures click this 'Older Posts' at the bottom right.


(c) Rod Longenberger - 2005

Hong Kong, China to Laem Chabang, Thailand

March 13 – Since Diana is in mainland China at the Li River, I’m on my own for the day. She’s not due back until 11PM today. My plan is to buy a pass on the MTR, HK’s subway, and go from place to place looking at whatever there is to see. I call it “gopher touring”, ride to a station, go up to the surface and look around a little. If I like what I see, I look more. If I don’t it’s back on the subway to the next likely looking stop. I’d like to get a few more prices on my new camera farther from the ship and the tourist zone. Seems like they should be lower. I like to go low key so I’ll only carry my malfunctioning digital camera. I can slip that in my pocket and not have any more of the badges of a tourist than necessary.

One of the features of HK that I love is the Star Ferry ( above left). James Bond rides on it in one of the earlier movies. It runs from Kowloon to HK every few minutes from the pier next to ours. Kowloon’s famous clock tower is right by the Star Ferry terminal. It creates a great picture.

The MTR has 6 connecting lines. The one that stops near the ship is the Red line. It runs under HK Harbor and takes you from Kowloon to Hong Kong Island and downtown HK. There you can change to the Blue line that runs along the northern coast of HK Island. I took the Blue line to Wan Chai because I heard that they was a huge shopping area there for technology items. The information proved to be correct. In fact, the subway exit came up right in the building. It was six floors of techno goodies; Computers, PDAs, cameras of all sorts, computer parts and software. I looked at several stores and the prices were not as good as the shop near the ship. So it was back down to the subway and on to the nest stop. I left the ship at about 10AM, as the shops do not open on Sunday until 11. I did not return to the ship until about 5PM. This is a very long shopping day for me. To be honest I was looking around for pictures as well. To prove it I’m including the picture of the fried fish cake (above right) at a restaurant that specialized in soups with fish cake and a shot of the street signs that are everywhere in HK

I left the subway on Nathan Street, the ‘yuppie’ shopping street in Kowloon. At the waterfront on Nathan Street is the Peninsula Hotel, a very old, well-established extremely high-end hotel with strong British roots. They serve a wonderful and very expensive tea in the afternoon. The area near the hotel has the reputation of being very expensive. Nathan Street is lined with Rodeo Drive like stores, Gucci, DK, Tiffany, etc. As I was walking down Nathan Road return to the harbor I passed a small camera store and decided to stop in to see how high the price would be. As Gomer Pyle would say, “Surprise, surprise, surprise!” It was the lowest price I found by about $40 US. I bought a Nikon 5400. It’s smaller than my current camera and totally pocketable. The bonus is that my current camera’s batteries and media will fit the new one as well.

After dinner the ship had arranged for a local show to perform in the Queens Lounge. It was a local martial arts group. They drummed, performed the Lion Dance and demonstrated several types of martial arts including Tai Chi. They had a boy about 7 years old that did a kung fu demonstration that was very good. An older lady and two other performers did Tai Chi. I recognized about 80% of the movements from the two sets of tai chi that we have been learning in the mornings on sea days. The performance was very good

Diana arrived to the ship from her Li River trip about 10PM. She had a great time and said the food had been great!

March 14 – Diana wants to do some shopping today so we will be heading our by subway again after our morning tour to the New Territories, ‘new’ in 1898 that is, but still new in the minds of the Chinese.

The drive up to the New Territories took about an hour. Our first stop was at the Tin Hau (Heaven Queen) temple (left) that has Lam Tsuen Wishing Tree. It’s a Taoist temple from the 6th century. Each visitor to the temple gets a group of papers (below right) tied to one end of a string with an orange at the other end. The paper on the top is mainly red with yellow and white and has symbols and writing that identify the bundle of papers and a drawing of three men. The paper on the bottom is yellow and has red writing that asks the gods to grant you a wish. The Chinese believe that the color yellow repels evil spirits. You write your wish on the yellow paper. The papers in between are red with gold writing and are smaller in size. They contain prayers and supplications that will ward off evil spirits and prevent them from reading your wish and interfering with it. You write your wish on the yellow paper and then use the string that connects the bundle of papers to the orange to fasten the bundle to the wishing tree just outside the temple. I know that participating in this ritual is a little silly but my wish was that the Chinese would come to know the true God. I’m not exactly sure that this local god will be interested in granting that wish. We’ll just have to wait and see.

Inside the temple there’s an altar in front of the center shrine. This center area is flanked on both sides by separate areas each containing its own shrine. On the altar there are offerings to the Queen of Heaven, apples, oranges, tea and other food items. Hanging from the ceiling of the temple in the entrance were large, beehive shaped incense coils (left). The largest coil is about 2 feet in diameter. The incense is about 3/8 of an inch in diameter. There were 8 of them at different stages of consumption and one that was unlit. The guide said that each one will burn for 7 days and they light a new on every morning at prayer time.

After hanging our wished in the Wishing Tree (below right) we drove to the walled city of Lo Wai. It’s the first walled city built by the Tang clan of the area in the 14th century. They built four more walled cities and 6 villages. It has a very narrow entrance to facilitate defense of the city. Originally this entrance was placed on the north wall but was later moved to the east wall to improve the city’s fung shui. The entrance in the wall (below left) leads directly to a small room with two doors at right angles to the wall door. Inside the room is a small red shrine with offerings and a little oven underneath. In 1997 the city was declared a national monument in 1997 for preservation purposes.

The city is small, only about 60 yards square. The houses are arranged in orderly rows inside the city. It has a well just inside the entrance that was the only source of water and small areas for gardens inside the walls. The majority of their agriculture was done in the land surrounding the city.

Our guide lives in the city and has received permission from the national authority to restore it to its original condition. He invited us in to look around and take pictures. On the ground floor it has a living room, a kitchen (below right) and a small room he uses for an office. In the small room there’s a square opening in the ceiling that has a ladder placed through it much like the Pueblo Indians of the Southwestern states use to get up into the pueblo’s higher floors or down into their kivas. This leads up to a second floor and his bedroom area. The kitchen has a brick fireplace/oven built in just off center. He has added some modern conveniences like a microwave and toaster oven.

The guide has two dogs that must have heard his voice when he was talking to us in the village entry room. They came charging in and were obviously very happy to see him. He told us that only 18 people currently live in the village and that, except for him they are all related to each other. He said that one of his dogs had puppies with the village’s main dog and therefore he was now related as well.

From his home we went out of the city wall to the area’s meeting hall. It’s mainly a walled open area with a large covered area on the wall opposite the entrance. Here we saw a Lion dance by a local troop. Accompanied by symbols and drums, the two-man lion danced around the open area and then proceeded to jump up a tiered set of paired circular pads to a height of about 7 feet (right). The pads were about 12 inches in diameter and both men inside the lion costume have to land on them as they jump up the tiers and the across to a set of 6 pads all at the 7-foot level. On these six pads the lion character performed a dance that had them changing ends and turning around. Much more difficult for the rear end of the lion as often he had to jump around the front man to get to his pads all the while turning 180 degrees. It was pretty spectacular. Diana posed with the group after the performance (below right).

After the show we returned to HK and went through the under harbor tunnel to get to Kowloon and the ship.

After dropping off our tourism equipment we headed for the subway to do some local sightseeing and shopping. We rode the subway back under the harbor to HK and walked around downtown. We visited HK Park. It’s very pretty and has fountains, a waterfall and a lake. There was a bride and groom there taking wedding pictures. One of the plazas we passed through had a large display of the plans for future development in HK and Kowloon. Pretty impressive. They plan to upgrade the pier facilities at which we’re docked. They could use some because right now you have to walk a long way through a shopping mall to get to the street to go anywhere. It’s fine for Diana and I but the older people, and about 95% of the people on the ship are 15 to 25 years older than us, it’s a problem.

I have to tell you that at the end of three days walking around this area my dogs are barking big time. I’m sure they will appreciate the next four days at sea heading for Thailand.

March 15, 16, 17 & 18 – We have four days at sea to prepare for two days in Thailand. Again it’s Tai Chi every morning, some lectures (if they look interesting), general gabbing with other cruisers, movies and shows in the evenings and of course eating.

A couple of unique things happened during this at sea period.

First, I was eating my lunch outdoors on the lido deck. I like this one table because it’s in the middle of the open area at one end of the pool. There’s a little overhang there that keeps the sun off my head but it’s still in the open so you get a breeze. As we head north it’s getting hot and humid again. I heard this squeaking noise coming from the pool and looked over to see the captain’s 6-½ year old daughter jumping around and making the squeaking noise. It dawned on me that she was imitating a dolphin so I squeaked back. This got her attention and we had a short conversation in dolphin. I don’t think I’ve mentioned that the captain’s wife and daughter joined us in Sydney and will be here until Singapore.

When she got out of the pool she wrapped herself in a towel and came over to my table and sat down. She asked me where I had learned to speak dolphin and I said I had picked it up hanging around Flipper in Florida. This got a laugh and we introduced ourselves. Her name in Isabelle and she speaks Danish, English and Dolphin. She took great pains to explain to me that dolphin like to eat small fish. Her father is Danish and her mother is Australian. This has produced the most charming accent in Isabelle. I asked her what her favorite food was and she said pasta. I asked her if she liked fish and she said, “No, only the dolphin likes fish!” That got us laughing.

Diana came up to eat and I introduced them very formally. Isabelle is a very mature little lady. She said she knew ‘Itsy bitsy spider’ so we sang that and then she informed me that in Danish the story like is about the spider and a hat. Apparently the rhyme scheme in Danish works better that way.

On the 17th we were invited to have dinner in the Captain’s quarters. The meal was very formal and there was a large staff to wait on us. The captain and his wife hosted us. I sat on the captain’s wife’s left and Diana sat on her right. She’s significantly younger than the captain. I’d say at least 15-20 years. The dinner was great!! Seven very unique courses served with a couple of different wines. We arrived in his quarters at 6:30pm and left around 10pm.

There’s a group of ladies on the ship that are knitting and crocheting blankets and children’s clothing that will be donated to an orphanage on one of our African stops. They had a show today displaying all the projects finished so far. They have 87 blankets, dozens of caps and sweaters. The work is quite impressive.

The evening’s performance was unique, two men playing one piano in comedy style. They played very well and their humor was very British. Really cracked me up!

Tomorrow Thailand.

March 19 – Our first day in Thailand. We are docked in Laem Chabang, the port closest to Bangkok. Any further north in the Gulf of Thailand and the water gets to shallow for larger ships. It’s about 65 kilometers to Bangkok from here.

We are on tour this afternoon so we decided to take the ships shuttle to the closest large city, Pattaya. It’s much bigger than I thought it would be. Lots of shops and services available. Traffic is heavy because there is a music festival in Pattaya this weekend. From the signs on the roads I was able to determine that there are three different venues playing a the same time with multiple groups scheduled for each venue from early morning to late at night on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The traffic in and near town is pretty bad. The shuttle trip that was only expected to be about 20-30 minutes each way took almost two hours.

After grabbing a quick lunch we joined our tour of the Thai countryside. Our first stop was at a mortar and pestle factory. Factory may be too grand a label for the place. It was a corrugated tin room supported by wooden poles under which a man with a hammer and chisel was chipping away at a chunk of marble working on making the mortar bowl. He sat on the floor holding the rounded bowl with his foot, the chisel in one hand and the hammer in the other. Pretty efficient actually.

While we were there a man came by with one of those poles that support a load on each end over his shoulder. On one end he had a supply of eggs, some sesame oil and another unidentifiable bottle of liquid. On the other end was a wok filled with hot coals and a grate over the top. On this grate he was roasting eggs to sell. It was also very efficient as the eggs were cooking while he was carrying them. No one had the nerve to eat one but it made a good picture (right).

On the way to our next stop we were passing some very elaborate structures on the hillsides along the road. Some were small and low to the ground; some were larger and spread over quite a bit of area (left). It turns out that these are graves of wealthy Chinese people from the area.

From there we went to a local fish market. This market was not as elaborate as the markets in Hong Kong and did not have nearly the variety of fish, crabs, lobsters, shrimp, prawns or shellfish (right), but then Ang Sila is only a small town. From there we went to the Bangpra Country Club for some refreshments. The country club was a very nice facility and the course looked to be in great shape. They have an 18-hole, 7,187 yard, par 72 course and another 18 under construction. They were having a tournament this weekend and most of the players seemed to be foreigners. The caddies were dressed in pink from the neck down, pants and a very long sleeved jacket. They wore large white hats with a huge brim and long curtains down the back and sides. Considering that it was 97 degrees and 90% humidity I’m surprised they weren’t dropping like flies on the course. Oh I forgot to say that they were all women and very pretty ones at that (left).

Our next stop was the Khao Khaio Open Zoo. It’s organized much like the National or San Diego Zoos. As much as possible the animals are kept in open areas surrounded by walls on at the back and sides. The area is flat but slopes downward toward the front ending in a mote and then a wall at front from the moat up. They can’t jump the front wall because to approach it they are running downhill and have to clear both the moat and the wall. They had black and white rhinos, hippos, various antelopes and deer, monkeys and birds. The hit of the day were the Bengal tigers. They were very active, moving up and down the slope and playing in the water of the moat. After that it was back to the ship.

To see the next page of pictures click this 'Older Posts' at the bottom right.

(c) Rod Longenberger - 2005