Buon Giorno, Sorrento

This is my last post because tomorrow we’ll be pulling into Civitavecchia (the harbor for Rome) at oh-dark-thirty and we’ll be shuffled off this ship as fast as the crew can haul our luggage ashore. I have no idea if I’ll have Internet access in Rome, or even the time to write if I do have access, so this is my swan song blog. That’s the bad news.
The good news is this last port is by far and away our favorite. Without a doubt, the word for Sorrento, and all of the Amalfi Coast is HEAVEN. I’ve decided to be really, really good for the rest of my days so I’ll be allowed to spend eternity here. Everything you’ve ever heard about this part of the world is true: the sky is bluer, the water is clearer, the architecture prettier, the food better. Italians may be goofy about their homeland, but doggone it, they certainly have a right to be.
Coming into port this morning was like drifting into a movie set for a film starring Sophia Loren and Ricardo Montalban (remember the guy who crooned about “rich, Corinthian leather” for Chrysler and later was the king of Fantasy Island?) Anyway, it was romance, romance, romance everywhere we looked. Gleaming white yachts in the harbor, steep granite cliffs topped by ochre-colored villas (actually hotels, but they look “villa-ish”), and lush landscape including palm trees (my favorite) and bougainvillea (Tom’s favorite). Coming ashore it just kept getting better: the steep winding roads were all cobblestone with a zillion scooters zipping up them like bees returning to the hive. We climbed on the bus to take us to the main town square (you can walk up a steep stone staircase, but I wanted to save our strength for the top) and they packed us in so tight a pickpocket could have stolen my bra and I’m sure I wouldn’t have noticed. The square was a bit crowded but who cares? It was gorgeous. Little shops and cafés ring the square and everybody’s smiling. You don’t get the same feeling here that we had in the Middle East where it’s sort of an “us” vs. “them” mentality—with the locals vying for our very last dime and us clutching our wallets like we were at an IRS audit. Nope. Here everyone seems to have reached an agreement: this is paradise and we’re all darn lucky to be here. Regardless of whether you’re a visitor or a local, this is a terrific day and we’re all just going to make the most of it.
We walked through the town and bought some crazy souvenirs and then sat in a café and had a cappuccino right outside a staggeringly beautiful church where a couple was getting married. They came out after the lengthy mass and proceeded to walk throughout town with photographers trailing behind, taking artsy photos of them in different venues: quaint shops, bakeries, dazzling harbor views, and so on. I couldn’t believe that the bride hoofed it along blocks and blocks of cobblestone streets (weaving in and out of hordes of tourists) in her obviously gazillion-euro beaded gown with ten-foot train. She played the good sport for the photographers who seemed bent on getting at least a hundred photos, smiling the whole time. When I commented to Tom that it was going to cost a small fortune to clean that white satin gown, he said, “like she’s ever going to wear it again?” He’s right. Everyone here is living in the moment, and seeming to enjoy every second.
In that vein, we joined in the fun by having a ridiculously high-priced lunch at a beautiful restaurant tucked away in the center of town. You had to go down a tiny alleyway entrance with golden walls and a low overhanging fabric ceiling to reach an oasis of calm. Once inside, the waiters did their best impression of Marcello Mastriani as they seated us and brought us a basket of the most chewy, tasty bread imaginable (4 euros—about $5 for the bread, so you can imagine the total bill!). Here’s a bit of good news: we were celebrating not only life, but a small financial windfall we never saw coming. Tom went to one bingo game on this entire leg of the cruise (30 days) and bought only one $10 ticket for one game (the BIG one). You guessed it, he won! The entire jackpot was $1,500 but he and another guy both had bingo at the same time so they split it, $750 each. So, we felt entitled to a little Italian joie de vive. We’re pretty sure the entire mother lode will be gone after three days in Rome (we’ve heard tales of $600 lunches!) but for now we feel flush.
Anyway, Sorrento was fabulous, as was this entire trip. I was a bit apprehensive at the beginning (remember me lamenting about packing for 75 days?) but I have no regrets whatsoever about doing this. It was wonderful to have seen glimpses of Australia, Micronesia, Japan, the Far East, India, the Middle East, Egypt, and now a bit of Europe. I don’t think we’ll be going back to the Far East or Middle East anytime soon, but a few weeks in the Mediterranean is definitely on our to-do list.
Thanks to all of you who’ve been loyal readers. Knowing I’d be reporting to you kept me awake during long bus tours (after all, I had to hear what the guide was saying so I’d have something to write), and kept me out of the casino (unlike Tom I rarely, if ever, win). The Internet service on this ship was weak (pathetic at times) but it was just enough to allow me to feel connected to you all.
Now it’s on to Rome and then on to home…See you soon!

Opa! A Day in Athens

Hello from Athens. I had to run some errands today and make an important phone call so I didn’t have time to “do” Athens. Tom has never been to Athens and I have, so I took care of errands and Tom took the grand tour of the city. So—Tom will be our “guest blogger” today.
Here goes:
JoAnn has asked me to write the information for Athens so this is a new voice on the blog. I will try to maintain the high blog standards previously established.
After the many-headed, fire-breathing Asian mythical gods and the strict and solemn religious ceremonies of the Islamic countries, Greece (Athens) was a breath of fresh air. Not only is it a Christian country (Greek Orthodox), it is the birth of democracy and the home of first real appreciation of the amazing and sensual human body. Well, maybe not this human body, but human bodies in general. Unlike many cultures that forbid or restrained any display of the human body, Greece embraced the human form in their art, culture and religion. Gods such as Athena, Zeus, Apollo and Poseidon are just a few of the obvious examples of their respect of the human body.
The word for Athens is DAZZLING. Not only is it a beautiful city, it is easy to traverse and the people are very accommodating. Around every corner are interesting shops, romantic restaurants and quaint coffee shops. Not to mention ancient ruins. It is hard to comprehend all that has occurred here over the millennia.
Yes, there have been some recent problems with riots and even killings here in Athens. The citizens are terribly outraged because it seems that the country’s leaders have spent all the money and the government is broke. Wow, look out California and Arizona. We didn’t realize that was riot material. The demonstrations have calmed down in the last few days so the captain decided it was safe to proceed into the port at Piraeus. He said to avoid public assembly areas such as Syntagma or Constitution Square so of course, that was the first stop on the “hop and ride” schedule. Several buildings sported fresh bullet holes and the growing pile of flowers and memorials at the murder site of the three demonstrators was very impressive.
With only hours to explore this major historical city, we discovered a “hop and ride” double-decker bus that visited all of the major historical sites. The first site on everyone’s list is the Parthenon and Acropolis. Built to honor Athena, the goddess of wisdom, it sits high above the city and it is as impressive as the brochure proclaims. Scaffolding covers much of the site and it appears the ongoing reconstruction will be complete in a few thousand years. The nearby temple of Zeus is also impressive. Every hill seems to boast some outrageous temple or monument and after a while it almost gets overwhelming. Impressive, but overwhelming. So let’s head for the Plaka, or shopping center for great Greek food and outstanding people-watching. The outdoor cafes are charming, serve great things like tzatziki and mousaka and usually end with a shot of ouzo, which pretty much puts the finishing touch on a pretty great experience.
More important than the monuments (and the Plaka) are the culturally significant events that have occurred here. Socrates walked these streets, mulling over the mysteries of the universe. Alexander the Great, Pericles, and the Apostle Paul all left their mark on the city. The first Olympic Games were held here in 776 BC. After defeating the Persians at Marathon in 490BC, Pheidippes ran the 26 miles to Athens to announce the victory. He died shortly after the run but hey, he too left his mark. About the same time, the first democratic reforms were instituted and Democracy was born. Science, philosophy, drama, architecture and the very foundations of Western Civilization were established in this amazing city.
One day is not enough to even begin to explore Athens, much less the country of Greece. It’s one of those places that will always remain on our “We’d go there again” list.

Suez, Egypt—Blowing through the Canal

Today we transited the Suez Canal. You don’t “go through” the canal, you “transit” it. So, here we are, meandering down the impossibly long canal (all in all about 140 miles) with mostly sand dunes on both sides. On one side is “African Egypt” and the other side is the Sinai Peninsula, or “Asian Egypt.” And everywhere you look there are guards and army outposts and pontoons for taking men and tanks to the other side, if necessary. The little guard shacks run the gamut from tiny one-man affairs that are simply a roof and three walls (sort of like a miniature bus stop) to large army barracks with all the facilities. Speaking of facilities: we sailed past one of the tiny outposts this morning and there was a lone fellow in an army uniform (big machine gun strapped across his shoulder) with his back to the ship. We thought that seemed odd, since many of the soldiers were waving and whistling at us as we sailed by—nearly all seemed pleased to see other humans, even if we were some 600 feet away. Anyway, here’s this guy with his back to us, and then we realized: he has no “facilities.” The desert (with no place to hide, not a scrap of bush or tree or even a rock) has to serve many functions for him. We thought it amusing that this fellow’s attempt to relieve himself has no doubt been immortalized by dozens of photo-snapping cruisers about the Pacific Princess. Ah, the Egyptians are big on immortality, but I don’t think this is what they had in mind.
We are steaming into a gale-force headwind, which is both good and bad news. The good news is that the ripping wind keeps down the number of flies—there are millions of them everywhere; the bad news is it’s impossible to stand out on the open decks (or even on our balcony) and watch the passing scenery, it’s just too darn windy.
I was expecting that later today we’d be going go through the locks in the canal. I’d seen the elaborate locks at the Panama Canal, and we had locks for boats to go through from Lake Washington to Puget Sound when I lived in Seattle, so I was excited to see what it would be like to go through the locks between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea in Suez. Wrong! There are no locks, because there is no change in elevation, and both the Red and the Med are salt water, so there’s no need for locks. So, there you have it. The Suez Canal is simply that—a canal. It has been the scene of many battles—between the Egyptians and the English, between the Egyptians and the Israelis (at least a couple of times), and between the Egyptians and the pretty much the rest of the world from time to time. After the Six Day War in 1967, when the Israelis took over the Sinai Peninsula (the east side of the canal) the Egyptians simply shut down the canal for eight years. Now, with Mideast oil being the lifeblood of this area, I don’t think the Egyptians could do that without incurring the wrath of their neighboring Arab countries.
We are still scheduled to go to Athens, Greece, for our next stop but most of us are wary. The situation there is calm for the moment but there’s talk of a big protest march scheduled for the day we arrive. We may have to stay aboard the ship in Pireaus, but there are certainly worse things than being detained in a place that has free food, a casino and a freshwater pool.
And yes, the packing has begun. We haven’t exactly messed with the U.S. trade balance in our souvenir purchasing, but we do have much more stuff than we started out with. The packing will entail a bunch of tough decisions—what goes in the trash; what goes in the “charity bin;” and what goes in the 50 pound suitcase. We’ve learned that American Airlines has become really cranky in enforcing their luggage policy and since nothing we’ve brought or bought is worthy of the hefty luggage fees, I figure the next couple of days will involve some difficult choices.

Petra, Jordan—Indiana Jones and a Few Other Movie Memories

Today we took another long journey—eleven hours—from the port of Aqaba (they don’t bother with the “u” after the “q” in this part of the world) to the lost city of Petra. You may remember Petra—it was featured in one of the Indiana Jones movies. He got there a lot more easily than we did, I’m sure! The bus ride is about two and a half hours each way, through some pretty desolate (and hot!) country. Mostly rocky desert (if you’ve ever driven through Yuma, AZ on route 8, you know what I mean) with villages perched precariously on the sides of the mountains. But Jordan has some stuff you won’t find on Interstate 8, like camels, Bedouins in their huge black tents, and mosques, lots and lots of little village mosques.
While on the bus our tour guide proceeded to give us his two-hour rendition of the Old Testament, from Adam and Eve, on to Moses and then through most of the major prophets. It was pretty interesting to hear the same Bible stories I’d heard in my childhood recounted through the eyes of an older Muslim man. Actually, it was even more interesting to note how little difference there is in the stories between the Christian version and the Islamic one. There’s a slight slant to the stories, though, because in his stories all roads lead to Mecca. And, of course Mohammed (peace be upon him) is always in the starring role. Speaking of that (the “peace be upon him” thing) our guide, Iue (pronounced, Eye-You) told us that in Islamic tradition you are supposed to say PBUH after speaking the name of any major prophet—Mohammed, Moses, Jesus (they don’t say “Christ” here), or Isaiah and so on. That’s the first time I’d heard that since I’ve heard the PBUH thing a bunch of times but only associated with Mohammed. Perhaps our guide was trying to be egalitarian with the tourists. There’s a lot of “misinformation” (it’s tacky to call it “propaganda”) on these tours. One gets the feeling that there’s a state-run “tourist bus guide school” in every country and they must pass a rigorous test to be allowed to collect tickets, hand out sani-wipes and point us to the restrooms. Seriously, these guides have a LOT of information in their heads (and they say it all in English, so that’s pretty amazing in itself) but I suspect some of it is rather slanted to promote the local regime.
The bus ride took us from sea level to about 4500 ft. in elevation. Then, it was up to us to hoof it back down into the deep canyon (they call it a “valley,” I call it a “canyon”) that holds the lost city of Petra.
The walk down was estimated to be a mile and a half into the “siq” (pronounced “seek”) that is the entrance to the long corridor of tall sandstone rocks that guard the city. Supposedly in ancient times the siq was only wide enough to allow a horse and rider to pass through. Later, it was widened (by the Romans they assume, when the Roman Emperor Trajan conquered Petra in the first century) to allow two chariots to pass side-by-side (all the better for chariot races, I presume). Anyway, we walked down, down, down a rocky path with occasional large cobblestones for a l-o-n-g mile and a half in the blazing sun (it was nearly noon) until we reached the opening to the siq. Once inside the siq, it was a bit cooler as the towering rock walls provide shade. The walk through the siq was another mile and a half and we were getting pretty worn out by the time we finally glimpsed the stunning façade of the Treasury—the most iconic symbol of Petra. This building is the one you see in the Indiana Jones movie. Although the Treasury was built as a mausoleum for a king of the Nabataeans (the people who originally carved Petra from the sandstone rocks) he was never buried there as he died in the Sinai and was laid to rest where he died (they bury people within 24 hours of death so there was no time to haul his remains back home). And, although it’s called the Treasury, it’s not a place where they made or held money. It was rumored that the Treasury held a fortune in gold hidden in the urn carved at the top of the building. Bad idea to get that story rolling. It seems for centuries people tried to get to the gold by any means possible—cracking the rock, shooting it, and so on. The urn is riddled with bullet holes, but so far the only gold that’s been found has come from box office receipts from the Harrison Ford movies.
Once inside the city, we saw camels (you could ride them but they seemed too ornery for my taste), vendors of various Petra-style souvenirs (the most popular was little glass vases filled with decorative Petra sand), and tourists. Lots and lots of tourists. It reminded me of that scene from “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” where, in the middle of nowhere, all these people suddenly descended on Devil’s Tower.
We walked around and took in the sights of the ancient city. There were tombs and cave homes and an amphitheater and so on, but by that time the sun and the long walk were starting to take a toll so we headed back before seeing everything. Actually, there was no way we would see everything. Petra is some 70 kilometers square (about 40 miles square) so even on a cool day one could only visit a small portion of it.
On the way back up the steep incline I started to fade at the exit from the siq. There were guys there (later we found out they were Bedouins) with horses and tiny one-horse carriages who would take you the mile and a half back to the top. Supposedly, the horses were paid for by our tour, but the carriage cost about $36 (which seemed to us like a ridiculous price for a short ride). We opted for the horses. The guy who led Tom’s horse (you ride the horse but the horse’s owner actually leads it so it doesn’t bolt and go flying over the rough terrain) told him he lived in a tent and had never gone to school as Bedouins don’t believe in public education. So it’s difficult for Bedouins to earn a living once they grow up. The Jordanian government gave him the horse to use (he’s not allowed to take it home, he keeps it in the state-sponsored stable at the visitor center) to earn a living. They hinted that tips were appreciated but not required.
Well, you can imagine how that turned out. Once at the top, when we gave them each five dollars (for a fifteen minute ride) they started flipping out as if we’d ripped them off. It was completely in keeping with the local custom of making every tourist feel as if whatever they offer is never enough. We smiled, thanked them for the ride, and went to the hotel for lunch. We still harbored Yankee-American guilt until we did the math and realized that these guys had a free horse which they walked up and down a path for 8-10 hours a day. At five bucks a pop they were making around $160-200 a day—which they take back to their tent every night. The Bedouins don’t own property so they have no taxes, no home upkeep, and they wear traditional Arab garb which goes for about $15-25 at the souk. Where do these dudes spend their money—on fancy vacations to Dubai? It’s a mystery.
We had a traditional Jordanian lunch of whole lamb and rice (I stuck to the rice, thank you) and then made our way back to the bus. We had a short stop at a “women’s store” sponsored by Queen Noor, the American-born queen who married King Hussein, the much-loved king who died of cancer in the ‘90’s. His son is now king (not Noor’s son but a son from one of Hussein’s other wives—he had four).
It was a long ride back, but thankfully our guide was silent for most of it. Petra was a long walk but as it’s one of National Geographic’s 40 Places You Must See, it was one of the highlights of our trip. But it’s nice to be back on board the ship and sitting down. To quote John Candy from “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” –“These dogs are barking!”

Sharm Al-Sheik—The Art of the Barter

It is not without irony that most of the Palestinian and Mideast peace talks have taken place here in Sharm Al-Sheik, Egypt. This is Barter Central. The home of the so-called give-and-take. Nothing is sold in Egypt without a spirited discussion involving a lot of fake indignation, eye-rolling and head shaking on the part of both sides. When we first went into the market (here it’s called a “souk”) we were overwhelmed by the pushy salespeople and their relentless pursuit of our trade. We couldn’t simply walk into a shop and look around. It wasn’t allowed. Five seconds of even passing glances at the goods warranted a rather aromatic fellow attaching himself to our side extolling the virtues of his wares as if they were fenced items he was desperate to be rid of before the cops show up. We’d ask a price and he’d say something absurd, usually in the range of $50-75 US dollars (for something worth no more than $10-20). Then we’d try to turn on our heel and leave the shop. “Not-so-fast, Sweetie,” he’d say in Arabic (or at least that’s what it sounded like to me.) He’d whip out a calculator (they always have these humongous size calculators, as if only semi-blind people shop there) and start punching numbers. It was like watching an IRS agent on crack. He’d thrust the calculator into my face and watch my expression go from placid to horror. Then, he’d snatch the calculator back, and smilingly (with tobacco-stained teeth) offer me a substantial “discount” because I was a pretty English? Australian? American? lady. At first, this whole dance of commerce flipped out both Tom and I to the point that we avoided going shopping at all. Then we figured it out. What we figured out was, to paraphrase Paul Harvey, “the rest of the story.” After the “big discount” it’s our turn to dance. We start by acting really perturbed that we’d wasted our time in his store. Obviously this merchant wasn’t serious about wanting our business. We sniff and put back on the shelf whatever “excellent” item he’s thrust into our hand (it’s usually already in a bag by now). At this point the salesman gets glowingly irate and demands to know what we are willing to pay. He also usually asks our name (all the better to beseech you with, my dear). We don’t give him our name, but we allow him to know we’re from Arizona, USA. Then we give him a silly price, like five American dollars. He gets flaming-mad and starts screeching about the value of the selected item—its many superb qualities, its fantastic gift potential, and so on. Then either Tom or I (we traded off since this is a tough role to play) starts heading for the door, acting as if owning the aforementioned item would be the death of him or her. We appear to be in disagreement—one trying desperately to obtain the item at a fair price, the other wanting absolutely nothing to do with the item, the salesman, the other spouse, this market, or all of Egypt itself. The “good cop” spouse smiles apologetically at the merchant and says he/she is sorry they can’t do business today. The “bad cop” spouse is standing at the door, glowering at “good cop” spouse. The merchant sees the whole transaction slipping away. He is NOT happy. He barks at “good cop” “How much can you spend?” Good cop gives him a fair number (not a ridiculous price but a fair one he/she is willing to spend). Merchant practically spits on the floor and thrusts the bag at good cop and says, “Okay” in a tone that you reserve for kids caught stealing candy but you’ll let off just this once. Good cop then wheedles the money out of bad cop (this is an interesting move, a rather advanced step in the process that we thought up all on our own) to show no hard feelings between good and bad cop. Then, with Mr. Storekeeper throwing us a really Oscar-winning “man who has been cheated but who wants to take the high road” glare we leave and go on to the next market stall. All in all, it's a truly edifying experience.

Egypt: Glory Days

It’s been nearly a week since I last posted an update. That’s because we were at sea for five days. We left Muskat, Oman on Friday night and arrived in Safaga, Egypt on Thursday the 6th. During the sea days, I don’t have much to tell you (except perhaps you’d be thrilled to learn I came in 3rd in the World Cruise Cribbage Tournament? No? Well, okay then.)
We were amazed by Egypt. We went on a twelve-hour tour from the cruise port in Safaga to Qena, then on to Luxor, then we crossed the Nile to the Valley of the Kings and took in a bunch of tombs (King Tut was buried there) then on to Queen Hatchepsut’s Temple. Actually, Queen H preferred to be called “King”— she even dressed in men’s clothing and wore a fake beard. I guess you could call her one of the original cross-dressers.
During the unbelievably long bus ride from Safaga to Qena and then on to Luxor, (there’s nothing in Qena to speak of, but it’s the place where Egypt stops being sandy desert and becomes green due to the Nile valley) our guide, a young Egyptologist, gave us hours and hours of information about the ancient Egyptians. Meanwhile, the bus driver was negotiating the dozens and dozens of armed “checkpoints” along the road. Every half mile or so there’d be a checkpoint, with soldiers carrying automatic rifles and a bunch of policemen armed to the teeth, as well. We had two armed guards on our bus, and I saw one guy’s gun poking out from under his suit coat. It was a huge black thing that looked like a sawed-off shotgun or a little Uzzi. We joked that in Egypt, “Security is Job One.” Nearly every other guy you see is in some kind of security job.
Anyway, the guide is droning on about Egyptian history, but we were prepared because we’d watched a bunch of Discovery Channel and History Channel programs on the ship. The ancient Egyptians were basically interested in only a few things: political power, land, water, and death. You can pretty much sum up everything they did by grouping it in to one of those four categories. The preoccupation with death was due to the fact that they believed that this life is only a short time which prepares you for eternity (sound familiar?). So, you better have your ducks in a row before you check out. For instance, as soon as a king or queen was crowned, they began work on their tomb in the Valley of the Kings. The VotK was created before the pyramids—these tombs were made some 3,000 BCE (BCE is the politically correct way to measure time. It used to be BC, for “before Christ”. Now, it’s BCE “before the current epoch.” Clever, huh?)
Luxor is a spectacular place of huge statues, columns and a temple that boggles the imagination. How did those ancient guys get those immense stones to the top of the columns? How did the intricately-carved hieroglyphics withstand 5,000 years and not get sandblasted off or wrecked by invading armies? Why on earth do they allow mere mortals like us to just amble through these priceless treasures touching everything and climbing on stuff to take a picture? Amazing.
Then we went to lunch at a fancy-schmancy hotel in Luxor that was right on the banks of the enormous Nile River. The Nile is huge—more like a lake in spots than a river. And it flows north—the only river that does this. The reason it flows north is that Egypt is kind of “backward.” When they say “Upper Egypt” they are talking about the south. When they say “Lower Egypt” they are referring to the northern part of the country. The reasoning behind this is that Upper Egypt is higher in elevation than Lower Egypt, thus the water flows from the higher point (in the south) to the lower point (in the north) and then into the Mediterranean Sea.
We then went to the Valley of the Kings. It was hot to the max. A real scorcher out there in this huge mountain of rock where the Egyptian Kings had their remains squirreled away with a few million dollars worth of gold, jewelry and knick-knacks to keep them company on their way to the afterlife. The whole afterlife story is depicted in the Egyptian Book of the Dead, and believe me, I know more about the Book of the Dead than I ever wanted to know, but briefly, the BotD is a scroll that is buried with people to help them get through the many hurdles that await them on the way to the “Place of Reeds” or Paradise. The BotD reminds one a little of the Hobbit books. There are all kinds of bad guys and challenges and disaster lurking at every turn. The BotD is sort of a “cheat sheet” for the dead guy to refer to whenever he runs into a problem.
The sad truth about most of these tombs is that there’s not much left of them. Robbers took most of the really good stuff soon after many of the kings were buried (again, we’re talking some 5,000 to 3,000 years ago). The kings even tried clever ways of foiling the robbers. One foil was to create shafts (like empty elevator shafts) between the different chambers of the tomb so that robbers would fall into the dark shaft and die trying to plunder the tomb. But the thieves figured that one out and continued to spirit away (bad pun, sorry) most of the goods. The current thinking is that most of the thieves were guys who had worked on building the tombs. They were blindfolded each day before being led to work (on foot) but don’t you think that after traveling the same route for six to ten years you’d have the muscle memory to go back there once the dude had died? Yep. Probably so.
We went past King Tut’s tomb opening (it was closed when we arrived, but it doesn’t have much left since all the goods are now in the Cairo Museum) and went on to King Ramses III’s tomb. It was really spectacular. I thought the tombs would just be bare walls with a few hieroglyphics of guys with falcon heads and some cats or something. Nope, the entire inside of the tomb is painted and it’s still as vibrant and colorful as it was 5,000 years ago. Amazing. They do not allow photography of any kind in the tombs (all the better to sell you postcards) but we understood because too many flashes would certainly fade those natural colors and because they are in the dark (with photo-sensitive lighting so you can see in there) they stay pristine.
Then we went on to Queen (or King, whatever) Hatchepsut’s temple on the other side of the mountain. That temple is known for two things: first, it is in the “modern style” which means it has columns and a roof and is three stories high, and second, it’s the place where some tourists were killed a few years ago. I can’t stress enough the amount of security that we observed on this trip. Guns everywhere. Cops everywhere. We had to travel in a long convoy of buses (twelve buses) and mini-vans with an armed police escort at the front. We went about a hundred miles an hour on the way back to the ship because, as our tram driver told me on the way down the mountain from Ramses’ tomb, “The bad guys come out at night.”
It was a long day, but an incredible experience. I would love to come back and go to Cairo and see the museum there. There’s so much to see, it boggles the mind. And, the TSA could take a few tips from these guys regarding security. Flashing a bunch of big guns around certainly got my attention. On second thought, forget that. As Tom pointed out, you really don’t want to give those TSA guys and gals anything approximating a gun…

Muskat Love

Today we went to Muskat, a major city in Oman. To say the least, we weren’t expecting much. I had visions of sloe-eyed camels lumbering across mountains of shifting sand and little tribes of black-robed Bedouins camped at the local oasis. And for centuries I probably was right, but ah, what a difference a bit of oil (and natural gas) makes. Oman is rapidly coming into its own, with gleaming low-rise resorts and blindingly white two-story houses (think Mykonos, Greece) popping up along a pristine shore of glittering blue water.
Oman is a sultanate (a popular form of government in these parts) with a much-loved sultan (although to tell the truth, ALL of the sultans in the countries we’ve visited would be classified as “much loved”. I think Saddam Hussein was termed “much loved” by the locals—it’s sort of a required appellation to anyone holding ultimate power). Anyway, in Oman, according to our taxi driver, everything is free: free schooling (even university in foreign countries if you qualify), free housing, free hospitals, free government (no taxes), and so on. Of course the sultan lives like, well, a SULTAN, with immense palaces here and there and a yacht the size of a destroyer, but hey! we get free hospitals!
We took a one-hour cab ride around the area which was just enough (it was 117 degrees outside so it limited our eagerness to linger) to see Muskat and the surrounding villages. In that hour, we took in the souk (market) where Tom was fitted for an abaya (the red-checkered headdress worn by men) and I bought a hotsy-totsy silver headdress favored by belly dancers. We have visions of our own Arabian Nights scenario with Tom playing the role of sultan and me playing Scheherazade. (Sorry, kids, I know this is TMI…but I couldn’t resist).
So, after the souk we went to see the sultan’s palace (both front and rear). I was amazed at how close we were able to get to the palace. There was only one shy guard at the gate (I say “shy” because he waved off our attempt to take his picture) and the gate was propped open. Then I saw the 50 caliber machine guns mounted at the gate and realized they don’t have to worry about tourists storming the palace. Glancing around, I noticed big mounted weapons everywhere. I was amused by a woman I met later in the Laundromat here on the ship who asked if I’d seen the “water cannons” at the palace. Lady, those weren’t water cannons. It reminded me of that scene in Crocodile Dundee “That’s not a knife, THIS is a knife.”
Perched above the new palace we saw the ancient old palace, which looked like a Moorish fort carved into the towering rock hills overlooking the harbor. We would have loved to have seen the inside—no doubt those three-foot thick walls of rock could talk!
We went past mosque after mosque but there was no going into mosques today as it’s Friday, their holy day and no infidels will be allowed to darken the door on Fridays. Fine with me. As you see in the photo above, black burquas were the order of the day for nearly every woman we saw. This is not cosmopolitan Dubai, with equal parts western dress or Arab dress. Here, all the men wear the long white dress and jaunty “pillbox hat” and all the women are shrouded from head to toe in billowing black. To say I felt “exposed” in my long khaki skirt and green (short-sleeved) tee-shirt would be an understatement. After all, they can see my hair! my chin! Heaven forbid, my forearms!
But everywhere we turned the streets were swept and the city seemed calm and welcoming. It was in sharp contrast to Dubai which seemed business-friendly—Oman seemed people friendly. We drove out to the old fort and then on to the village of Sidab, where little white houses huddle against the stark rocky hills overlooking the sea. Then we went further, out to Bustan, to the “palace.” We thought the driver was telling us that he was taking us to yet another of the sultan’s palaces, but once we arrived we realized we were mistaken. It was the Bustan Palace Hotel, a stunning 95-star (okay, maybe not 95, but some really big number) Intercontinental hotel perched above a pristine beach out in the hinterlands that would be my destination of choice if I were on the run from drug traffickers or the IRS. We popped inside and were dumb-struck by the lobby. Tom went to the front desk to ask for a rate card and was greeted by a smiling, yet unambiguous look that meant, “If you have to ask the price, you can’t afford to stay here.” The guy gave Tom a business card and suggested he look them up on the Internet. We slipped outside, only to find that our humble cab had been relegated to the far reaches of the parking lot. Only Bentleys and Rolls are allowed to dawdle at the front entrance.
We zoomed back to the cruise port, accompanied by the driver’s ongoing praise of the sultan. It seemed maybe the guy’s car was bugged or he was hoping we’d yell, “Praise Mohammed, peace be upon him, the Sultan’s The MAN!” as we exited the taxi and the driver would get a prize. Needless to say, we didn’t say anything but Marsalam (thank you) as we paid and made our way to the shaded area to wait for our shuttle back to the ship. The shaded area cut that 117 down to something reasonable—say, 110.
But as we say at home, it was a dry heat. And it was a short, but memorable romp in Oman. In other words, we liked it. And if the bank ever makes a mistake and inadvertently wires millions from some mobster into our account we know just the place to lay low for a while.

Dubai: Ahab the Arab Meets George Jetson

Both Tom and I were eager to see Dubai, the largest port in the United Arab Emirates. It’s got quite a reputation to uphold. It’s home (or at least second home) to a bunch of Hollywood types (in fact Michael Jackson lived here for years, sheltering his kids from the fallout from his “little boys” trial); and it’s notorious for crazy stuff like an indoor ski slope that rivals St. Moritz (in fact the slopes were modeled after St. Moritz). We didn’t know where to start when we landed here so we booked the “Big Bus Tour” of Dubai, a five-hour (yep, you read it right—FIVE hours) hop-on, hop off double decker bus tour complete with non-stop tourist recordings which you listen to on headphones they give you when you board the bus.
Remember how I mentioned in an earlier blog post that every city has a word? Well, the word for Dubai (the city and the emirates state have the same name) is ASTONISHING. It’s hard to begin to describe everything here. First of all, it’s a devoutly Islamic country, so all the crazy stuff that goes with that—the women in burquas, the guys with the abayas (those flowing headdresses that I associate with Yassar Arafat), and the long list of “forbidden” behaviors. One such behavior is any type of what high schoolers refer to as “PDA”—Public Displays of Affection. We were warned by our ship’s captain that a married couple was jailed for 28 days for inadvertently kissing each other goodbye at the airport. Now, that’s just nuts. Anyway, we were given a long list of stuff to avoid. Seems to me that one should pretty much adopt the demeanor we’ve all learned to take when going through security at the airport—no jokes, no shoes, no backtalk, and be ready to hand over everything when they ask to see it. They treat you as if they’re pretty sure you must be guilty of something, so act like a grateful wretch when they wave you on your way.
But once you get beyond all the Muslim no-nos the place becomes a wonderland of sorts. It’s literally a sand dune on a waterfront. Even coming from the Arizona desert, like we do, we were stunned at what they’ve done with sand, water, and money. Heavy on the money.
They have green parks, and golf courses, and spectacular architecture, and clean, wide streets for all the Bentleys and Lamborghinis. The amount of greenery in this dry, sandy soil is jaw-dropping until you learn that tiny Dubai, which is just one of seven “states” or emirates, of the UAE uses some 250 million (yes, you read that correctly—MILLION) gallons of fresh water a DAY. Where do they get all that water in the shifting sands of the desert? From desalinization plants. They literally make 90% of all the water they use from sea water. Expensive? You bet, but here money is no problem (until recently, of course).
The city is essentially broken into two distinct areas—the Bur Dubai, or new area, and the Deira, or old city. In our long, long bus ride (in all we were riding, hoofing, or sailing for all of nine hours) we saw it all. The new area is astounding with its man-made islands (some in the shape of a world, some in the shape of a giant palm tree) and its skyscrapers. We drove right up to the tallest building in the world (the one that got them in financial trouble lately because they couldn’t pay the loan). It looks like something out of an old Buck Rogers flick. It really looks fake it’s so tall, so blue, so startlingly modern. Some of the people on our ship went up to the 124th floor but it took hours to wait in line so we opted for a “worm’s eye view” of the place. Even from dirt level, it was astounding.
We also drove around the iconic Burj Al Arab Hotel, the one that looks like a sail boat. Supposedly Tiger Woods drove a golf ball off the helipad at the top. I wouldn’t doubt it. These guys are really hot on “really big.” I think this place is probably a publicist’s dream—everything is bigger, better, faster, richer. Making the news here requires deep pockets and lots of chutzpah.
We stopped at “the largest mall in the world” (here we go again with the “largest” theme). The Mall of the Emirates. It’s the one with indoor skiing. We went to the ski place and looked inside. It’s huge and it’s frozen. They keep the snow at 1 degree C. Their little slogan is, “It’s more fun at 1” meaning one degree. Pretty cute, huh? Anyway, it was beyond weird to see people in full snow garb, including goggles, ski pants, parkas and ski boots stomping around a “chalet” with a fire snapping in the stone fireplace (until we realized the “fire” was a video screen!). We ate lunch at the Emirates Mall and were surprised to see people in traditional Arabic dress (especially the women) chowing down on KFC, Papa John’s Pizza, and Teriyaki chicken. We were there when the “call to prayer” came over the loud speakers throughout the mall. Really LOUD warbling sing-song Arabic that we figured probably meant, “Get your asses into the prayer rooms before you get too corrupted by all the offerings of the Great Satan.” Speaking of that, American enterprise was well-represented by the stores in the mall. But we’re not talking just The Gap and Old Navy. No-sirree. We’re talking Tiffany’s, Victoria’s Secret (lingerie is big business here—makes you wonder what’s under those burquas), and Calvin Klein. There were also plenty of high-end European brands. The bus tour recording advised us that things were “affordable” because there are no taxes of any kind in Dubai—no sales tax, no income tax, no property tax—but trust me, taxes were not the issue. The stuff was all ridiculously expensive, and we saw plenty of black-robed women and guys in white dresses and abayas pushing shopping cars LOADED with goods. Did I mention how money is the life-blood of this place?
We wove in and out of traffic, switching from the top of the bus (windy and hot but with a better view) to the A/C of the bottom level. We drove by mosque after mosque (in tiny Dubai there are over 500 mosques; about one every three blocks) but we never went into one. The only one open to “infidels” (I swear they call us that—they make no bones about our place in the pecking order) was the Jumeirah Mosque, and even that one had only two hours a day (an hour in mid-morning and an hour in mid-afternoon when the temp hits over 100) when the “infi’s” could visit.
The old city and the new are separated by the Dubai Creek, which is a busy waterway that anyone from our side of the world would call a canal or a river. We went under the creek in a modern tunnel and came up the other side into a world right out of the Arabian Nights. It was a close, teeming place of stucco buildings that look like they were built to withstand the ages (and they have) and narrow, crooked streets that caused the poor bus driver to really earn his keep. We went in the Gold Souk (their name for the gold market) and were hustled by guys trying to sell us hapless tourists “copy watches, handbags” and in the windows of the tiny shops we saw the gaudiest gold jewelry you can imagine. The only thing that caught my eye was a bright green belly-dancer’s outfit with little fake gold coins all over the bodice (all the better to tinkle when you shake your “thang”) and puffy veiled pants that looked like something MC Hammer had to pawn to pay the rent. Tom was all for me giving the belly dancing thing a go, but the bus pulled up just in time.
We went on an hour-long dhow (boat) ride up the “creek.” The original dhows were largely used to haul spices, and even now we saw huge sacks of saffron, cinnamon, cardamom and so on being transported by the method they’ve used since the days of Marco Polo. We also saw the huge buildings for Rolex, American Express, the World Trade Center (which looks eerily like the ghost of those in NYC) and Citi Bank (in fact, all the major banks are here. It’s weird because Dubai practices “sharia law” with regard to banking which means they can’t charge interest on loans. I have no idea how that works, but knowing these guys they’ve probably found a way around it).
The odd thing about Dubai is that we spent over nine hours gawking and I was never bored. It’s a place where, if you have enough money, you could never be bored. You name it, it’s here. And, you can bet whatever it is, it’s the biggest.

If You Loved “Slumdog Millionaire,” You’ll Love Mumbai

Everyone tried to prepare us for Mumbai (Bombay). “It will change you.” “You’ll see stuff you’ll never forget.” “It’s beyond pity.” But, like childbirth, they swear it’s something you need to personally experience. Poverty in Mumbai is like the weather—it surrounds you, envelopes you. There’s no place to look that you don’t get a whiff of the wretchedness. And it’s not just a couple of beggar kids whose eyes have been gouged out by their pimp. Oh no. Here, poverty is big-time. The Super Bowl of poverty. It’s like the difference between a snowstorm and a blizzard; a stiff breeze and a hurricane. But, amazingly, the horror of the poverty is nearly completely offset by the friendliness and good cheer of the people. It was a lot like the Slumdog movie, where the guy had endured a totally miserable childhood, yet he kept his hope alive and in the end, he triumphed. Okay, I’ll forgo more “English major” description of the place and instead, I’ll tell you about our day in Mumbai.
We cruised into a crowded port (ships of all sizes everywhere) about 7am. The temperature was already hovering at 32 degrees C. (that’s around 90F.) And humid. Of course humid. Mumbai is gearing up for their monsoon, so the days drip by, threatening rain but the rain won’t come until mid-May. We had to go through immigration. A bunch of Indian guys in uniform came onto the ship and we trudged past them, passports in hand, so they could give us the stink eye and stamp our passports, and our visas and then our entry cards, and then give a good look at our passport copies, and on and on. These guys were ostensibly there because of the events of “26/11.” At first, I thought they’d gotten the date wrong: 26? Nope, it’s 9/11, isn’t it? But then I realized in India they are referring to their “day of terror” which happened on November 26 when the Taj Hotel and a bunch of other places were bombed by extremists who arrived by boat (not cruise ship, however). Anyway, we endured lots of what the Australian Sydney Herald (newspaper) referred to as “protracted security activity masquerading as effectiveness” before we could even get off our ship.
We went on the Princess-sponsored “Mumbai City Highlights” tour. We usually forego the ship’s excursions because it’s just as easy to snag a cab and go to all the places the bus goes for half the money. But as Mumbai novices we decided we needed the extra layer of support (kind of like wearing a Spanx instead of mere pantyhose) that the bus provides. The bus wound its way out of the port area, through stacks and stacks of ship containers and everywhere I saw groups of young men sleeping on the ground. Right on the ground, at 8:30 in the morning. They looked too healthy to be druggies, but there they were, fast asleep as the sun baked them like so many cookies on a sheet.
Once into the city proper I noticed all the old colonial buildings (the British built a ton of “London-style” buildings here—the train station, the library, the university, and so on) were in pretty sad shape. They are streaked and stained by hundreds of years of overuse, monsoon and pollution. There were people out and about, but not that many. The guide told us since it was Saturday (we’re still a day ahead of back home) most of the businesses are closed, thus fewer people in the central city. As the day wore on, many more people came out. What I did notice was that people on the street smiled and waved as our bus went by. They seemed genuinely pleased to see us.
First, we went to the “laundry.” This is an outdoor laundry where men (and only men) wash clothes for pennies an hour in vast tubs and then hang the clothes on lines to dry in the sun. It’s immense. It’s also in a poor area of town (not the slums, exactly, but sort of a semi-slum). Once we got off the bus to take a picture, the beggars pounced on us like flies on a carcass. There were three kinds of beggars at this stop: women in saris holding babies and toddlers (usually naked) who were outright begging or asking for money to take their photo; men selling stuff you didn’t want or need (roll-up maps of India or peacock feather fans); or little kids, a la Slumdog Millionaire, selling stuff you didn’t want or need (ratty-looking beaded bags, for instance). The guide told us if we wanted to buy anything to wait until we were near the bus door because the others would crowd around us making it impossible to move. (She was right).
Next, we went to Ghandi’s home in Bombay (the guide called it Bombay, so I’ll call it Bombay. It’s easier to say and I think it’s a more melodic word). We trudged up six flights of marble stairs in the heat (nothing, except the bus, has A/C in Bombay). At the top, there was a little museum showing the life and times of Mahatma Ghandi. He was an amazing man, and he was pretty much solely responsible for driving the British out of India. That’s probably why his face is on their money.
Then we went to a Jain Temple. Now, this is the India I was waiting for. The Jains are a religious sect who practices what the guide referred to as “extreme penance.” They are into long fasts, self-flagellation and denial, all kinds of self-deprivation while believing it is evil to kill or harm anything else (they don’t kill insects and they are strict vegans). The temple was one of those “overly adorned” places with every single inch of wall and ceiling brightly painted with people, elephants, tigers, and so on. Inside, it was prayer time so the Jains were there making offerings and doing their thing. We had to remove any leather (no belts, no purses) and take off our shoes before entering the temple. Ironically, the Jains are also the diamond brokers and gold and silver commodity brokers in India. They are the go-to guys for millions of dollars worth of stuff, yet they believe in a strictly ascetic way of life. I’m not sure how that all works out.
Next, we went to the Hanging Gardens. They aren’t hanging at all, simply a garden that was built on top of a huge water reservoir. (Oh, and in the interest of space and time, I’m not mentioning the beggars at every stop—but rest assured, they were front and center everywhere, even the temple.) The interesting thing about the gardens is that they were built as a buffer for the Place of Silence, the beyond-weird spot right next to the reservoir where the Farsis take their dead. Okay, here’s where it really gets strange: the Farsis don’t bury their dead; they don’t cremate them; and they don’t throw them in the sea. What they do is lay them out for the birds to eat. That’s right, folks, Grandma becomes bird food. So, since the Place of Silence was so near to the reservoir the Indian Government (or perhaps it was the British Colonial Government) came up with the good idea of planting a garden over the reservoir to keep any contamination out of the water supply. Well, turns out that was a great idea because the primary “body removal” bird was the vulture and there are no vultures anymore since an antibiotic or hormone or some such thing (I wasn’t completely sure what the guide said here) was introduced into the food supply and it killed all the vultures. It used to take 2 days for a body to be essentially “gone”. Now it takes 2 to 3 WEEKS—in really hot weather. I can only imagine…
On to the Prince of Wales Museum (actually, all these places have new, Indian names. But everyone still calls them by their “colonial” names). The museum was a beautiful, domed building (actually many buildings) and was about the best-preserved building we saw all day. We went inside for a while and looked at all kinds of Indian deities (they have statues and paintings and so on of their gods like the Louvre has statues and paintings of Mary and Jesus.) In other words, a LOT of them.
Then we finally made our way to the Gateway of India (a huge arch built to commemorate the visit of King George V of England in 1911) and the Taj Hotel. The old hotel is still closed from the terrorist attacks, but the new “tower” is open for business. The Gateway stands in a beautiful square near the harbor, but it’s “Beggar Central.” It’s hard to stick around long because of the constant harassment. Every time we’d try to snap a photo, some stick-skinny woman with an eerily quiet child in her arms would swoop into the shot and, with a big smile, ask for money to “take picture with the baby.”
There is a whole blog-post of stuff I could write about male/female relations in India. Maybe another time. Our guide was very forthcoming about her arranged marriage and about the changing landscape of women’s rights in India. But, as I said, I’ll spare you the details for now.
Bombay was everything we were expecting; yet nothing we expected. The pundits are right: you have to see it for yourself. But all in all, I thought it was fantastic.

Life On the Edge

Today we were in Male, the capital of the Republic of the Maldives. If you’re scratching your head over that one, rest assured I’d never heard of it either. It’s a long chain of tiny islands and atolls just to the south-southwest of India. There are many weird things about the Maldives, but the first weird thing you notice is that it is the flattest country on the planet. Each of the islands (and there are about 1,200 or so) are right at sea level. The topographical highpoint for the entire nation is only 2.3 meters (see, I’m getting with the program on the metrics thing) or 7 ft. 7 in. above sea level. So, when you look out on this string of tiny islands, it looks like the trees and beaches and so on are simply floating like cornflakes in a bowl. Way weird. To say that these folks have “issues” with global warming (even a 6 in. rise in the sea level here would wipe out many of the islands) would be an understatement.
The capital city, Male, which we docked near (the sea is so shallow here we had to tender in) is a compact town of twisty streets and mid-rise buildings. It’s nothing spectacular. It’s hot as hell. The streets are filled with motor bikes and guys hustling tourists to go into their souvenir shops. We went into a couple of them, but the prices are ridiculous. Everything must be brought in here (there are absolutely no resources except gorgeous beaches and world-class diving and fishing) so the little Maldive knick-knacks and tee-shirts are all made in India or China and then sold here for ten times the price. We bought a few postcards and Tom bought a shirt that will probably shrink up to my size the first time we wash it (ha! I never get anything new; I just wait for his stuff to shrink).
Another weird thing about The Republic of the Maldives is that it’s a strictly Islamic nation, so I got some disparaging looks in town even though I wore khaki shorts that came to my knees and a very modest top that had a high neckline but was sleeveless. To see these women scurrying down the streets wrapped from head to toe in this stifling heat (about 100 F.) is enough to make me offer up yet another prayer of gratitude for being born on my side of the world. There was a word of warning from the ship’s cruise director that two-piece swim suits are strictly forbidden in this tightly-controlled Muslim nation. In a previous cruise I guess some young women chose to test the “bikini law” and they ended up in jail! Sheesh. Get me outta here.
Tom is becoming less and less tolerant of the goofy Muslim do’s and don’ts. We’ve heard travel is supposed to open your mind, but after seeing and experiencing the many bizarre, and sometimes downright inhumane, restrictions placed on people (read that as “women”—as the men seem to have it pretty jake) in these strict Islamic countries, we’ve decided we’re less tolerant of the idiocy than we were before. We heard from other passengers that those holding Israeli passports were denied entry to Brunei (one of the previous Islamic countries we visited) and had to stay on the ship. And we’re not talking about cocky, muscled-up young bucks who may be Mossad or Jewish settler-types—we’re talking about kindly old ladies with walkers and a guy who’s got osteoporosis so bad he looks like a question mark.
I brought along all the “accoutrements” to allow a lowly woman like me to visit a mosque—the long skirt, the blouse with sleeves and high neckline, the headscarf, the shut mouth and downcast eyes—the whole bit. But the more I see of these places, the less I care to demean myself by going along with the program. I’ll snap a few pics of the outside but I’ll pass on gawking at the interior. I guess it’s just my nature to not give them the satisfaction of looking me up and down (that’s what they do) to see if I meet their approval. Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.

Fit to Be Thai'd

We just left Phuket (which is pronounced “Poo-ket”) Thailand and wow! did we ever have a good time there. It’s a small island off the southern coast of Thailand and it’s well-known for two things: great beaches and the horrible tsunami that came through here a few years ago. Everything’s been pretty much restored, and they don’t like to talk about it much since tourism (and rubber-tree plantations) are about the only source of revenue here.
As far as tourism goes, these guys have it covered. There are posh and not-so-posh resorts, animal “safaris” (their word for animal parks), all kinds of temples and shopping (especially what they refer to as “copy brands”—in other words, knock-offs) and so on.
We went to Island Safari, an animal park with all sorts of jungle animals. It was the proverbial “lions and tigers and bears, oh my!” But of course there were no lions, tigers or bears. Instead, they had elephants, monkeys, gibbons, water buffalo, and oxen. It was a nicely-run place with the animals doing a bit of work for a LOT of food. It’s one of those places where they manage to get the tourists (ourselves included) to buy the food so we can feed the animals (saves them a lot on food costs, and provides the tourists with many photo ops)—in other words, a win-win arrangement.
We started off with a bang—riding an elephant. I was glad we started with the “big guns” activity because as the day wore on, the temperature shot up to something like 97 degrees F. and about the same number for humidity. Unbelievable hot, especially in the jungle, and the animal “aroma” was pretty intense.
Next we went to a monkey show where the monkeys seemed to be willing to do whatever was asked of them (pose with the tourists, shoot a little basketball into a hoop, do the Thai greeting—palms pressed together in front of the face and then a little bow—ride a tricycle) whatever it took to get the food. The look on each of their faces was priceless—the equivalent of a bored teenager saying, “WHATEVER.”
Then we went to the “Baby Elephant Show.” The babies were between the ages of 4 and 10 years old. They weren’t as large as the elephants we rode, but pretty darn close. They did little tricks (stand on two legs, do a headstand, shoot a soccer ball into a goal, and so on) and then it was time for the “Elephant Massage.” We thought the trainers would come in and massage the elephants. Oh no. We got it wrong. The elephants were going to massage US. So, one by one we laid down on a little mat on the ground (in the dirt) while the elephant put its foot on our back and patted us. I can’t even imagine what might happen if one of these many thousands of pounds elephants decided they didn’t like you. “Squish” would be the operative word.
The funniest part of the elephant massage was that the elephant took the opportunity of having you in a totally vulnerable position to “lick” your face and neck with its trunk. Really gross. Those trunks are wet. You stand up afterward feeling like you’ve just had a“snot facial.” But, it was all in good fun.
We did some other stuff there—Thai cooking demo, ox cart ride, photo op atop a water buffalo, and seeing how they tap the rubber trees for latex. It was a full morning—especially in the insufferable heat.
Then it was back to the ship. But first—the ubiquitous shopping experience. No tour is complete without a stop at a local “souvenir shop” to unload you of some of those dollars burning a hole in your shorts. This one was mammoth. I’ve never seen such a huge souvenir store. Two floors of jewelry, house wares, purses, clothing, food, you name it. We bought some cool chopsticks and called it good.
We really enjoyed our short visit here. The people seemed truly nice and it’s a Buddhist country so everyone seems pretty calm and laid back. We agreed we’d definitely come back for a longer visit if the opportunity ever presents itself.

On The Road to Singapore

We arrived in beautiful Singapore expecting a tightly-controlled, pristine city that boggled the mind and we weren’t disappointed. The headline in the Singapore newspaper boasted that the city-state’s first quarter (not annual, but quarterly) financial growth was a staggering 13% this year. And looking around you can see why: everywhere you look you see high-quality construction projects nearly completed. The city is extremely crowded yet everything seems to work. It’s like Disneyland in the summertime: lots of people, but it’s so well-run that things move quickly and the place is clean and comfortable. We did some of the usual things—went to the renowned Raffles Hotel to see where the original Singapore Sling drink was invented (but at $25 US a pop, we decided we didn’t need a sickly sweet cocktail at 11am), then we wandered around and found the new casino hotel they’re building on the waterfront (a casino in straight-laced Singapore? Amazing, but money’s money and they are tired of tourists and convention-goers not coming to Singapore because there’s no gambling). We saw the war monument and the incredible opera house (which is dubbed “The Giant Durian” because of its shape. That’s a dig, because the durian is that powerfully stinky fruit that smells like a corpse rotting and is unlawful to carry on public transportation). Actually, there’s a ton of stuff that’s illegal here. You’ve probably heard it’s illegal to litter, chew gum or not flush the toilet. All true. In fact, I used a washroom in a local upscale mall which had self-flushing toilets, but still, when I came out of the stall (there were about 10 stalls) a washroom attendant rushed in to check and make sure everything was copasetic. I stood at the sink sweating bullets that maybe I’d be busted for a wayward slip of toilet paper or an inefficient flush. Luckily, I passed.
Anyway, we ate lunch at an unbelievably packed food court in one of the dozens of upscale malls (people here, as in all of Asia, are big on mall shopping). The people are so polite that they save their place for a table (while they go get their food) by placing tiny packets of Kleenex at the spot. The weird thing is no one disturbs the little tissue packets. Everyone plays along. I guess maybe that’s my word for Singapore is CONFORMITY.
This word was underscored by our afternoon adventure. We spent two hours on the metro (subway and rapid transit) going completely around the small island country. At the outer reaches of the journey we were the only Western faces in the crowd. We got some looks, especially when the PA system advised riders to report “Any suspicious-looking riders.” They even play a video showing a nefarious-looking guy leaving a backpack on the train and other passengers confronting him about it. I can’t even imagine what they’d do to a terrorist here since they’ll flog you 20 lashes for chewing gum or spitting.
The ride was amazing and gave us a quick glimpse into life in Singapore. For starters, we went over 40 miles and didn’t see even one single-family dwelling. Not one. There are literally thousands of high-rise apartment (condo) buildings, but not we didn’t lay eyes on even one house. I’m sure the President and some other high-ranking and wealthy people live in houses, but it’s certain that at least 90% of the population lives in some type of high rise. They are nice high-rises, though. Well maintained, with lots of windows and parking. As a contrast to this glut of high-rises is the amount of green space. Tons of it. Every high-rise compound (and the high-rises tend to be in groups of a dozen to 50 or more) is surrounded by acres and acres of trees, lawns, sports complexes and so on. The oddity is the conformity. Every stop along the train (and we went about 30 stops) looked pretty much the same: a bunch of residential high-rises, a few acres of trees, a sports complex and wide lawns. There are some three to four million people living on this tiny island in a kind of lock-step life of work hard, live in a high-rise, go to the park on your days off and don’t break the law. Works for them.
I must say one thing about all the no-no’s they have here: they make sense. You can’t cram this many people in a small area and expect it to work without some pretty stiff agreements. You want clean streets and subways? Make it illegal to litter or eat in public, and enforce it with a vengeance. You want 13% growth in a single quarter? Make it a cultural norm to work your ass off and invest in your country. You want a crime-free city? Inflict the death penalty on drug smugglers. You want to offer free medical care for your citizens? Make a healthy lifestyle the law. No smoking in public, and sports complexes are everywhere, along with green spaces and nearly free public transport (to keep the number of cars to a minimum and reduce pollution).
Yep, this isn’t paradise—it’s got way too many people. But it’s one way to deal with limited resources. And, from an outsider’s viewpoint, it seems to work.
Oh, and one more thing: On this tax day in America, it’s amusing to note the locals pay no taxes in Singapore. That’s one more good reason to just shut up and flush the toilet.

Yes, Virginia, There IS a Sultan of Brunei

Yesterday we were in Kuta Kumbala, (called “KK” by the locals) Malaysia on the island of Borneo and today we are in Brunei, the ridiculously rich country just to the south (still on Borneo). It’s all about the oil, Baby. The country of Brunei, which has been ruled by the same sultanate family since the 15th century, decided not to join the federated states of Malaysia but remain a separate country. I guess it was a good move, because soon after Malaysia was formed huge oil and gas deposits were found in Brunei and now the country boasts one of the highest per capita earnings in the world. It is a strictly Islamic country, and everything is written in the squiggly letters you see in the Middle East, but the official language is Malay (same as Malaysia) and the people all resemble their Malaysian and SE Asian neighbors. The sultan has complete power here—no mamby-pamby constitutional monarchy for Brunei—oh no. It’s from the sultan’s mouth to God’s ear. But since the sultan’s family has been in power for centuries and centuries there seems to be no major corruption or greed. I mean, if you’ve been raised in the largest palace in the world (true—largest residential palace for one of Earth’s smallest countries) and you’ve had everything at your beck and call for your entire life, why steal? You may become the proverbial “dirty old man” (and the sultan’s escapades with airline flight attendants, models and actresses are well-documented—no Tiger Woods blow-back for the sultan!) but you will probably be generous and considerate with your people. Why not? So, here in the sultanate of Brunei, you will see nice houses, nice cars, beautiful schools and hospitals, wonderful roads and well-manicured parks. And the mosques? Don’t even get me started about the mosques. The “Big Mosque” as they call it in Bandar City (the capital—which simply means “where the sultan lives”) is jaw dropping. The stained glass dome in the central prayer area (which is in the men’s mosque—the women’s mosque is a drab little affair by comparison) is staggeringly beautiful. It’s huge, covering nearly the entire roof area of the mosque and the prayer area can hold a thousand men so you get the picture. The exterior of the mosque is covered in gold—the real stuff. The grounds are immaculate (as are all the highway medians and parks) and everywhere you look there are people working on the gardens or cleaning something. They even have a “river cleaner” which is a large vacuum cleaner on a boat which cruises the “sultan’s river” picking up any stray debris.
We went to two museums, both devoted to the sultan and his life and times. One was the “Regalia Museum” which I’m sure had more gold than Fort Knox. It was almost laughable how much gold “paraphernalia” is necessary to crown a sultan. The second museum was mostly displays of the sultan’s Islamic art, and then a zillion priceless artifacts from ancient Islamic civilizations. It’s weird how Islamic practice, life and beliefs permeate every aspect of life here. The women do not wear the complete burqua outfit (the black tent with the eye slits) but they are completely covered from head to foot, with only their faces showing. When we went into the mosque, I was wearing a very dowdy beige skirt that extended a foot beyond my knees and I had a white shawl that covered me from neck to waist (no arms, shoulders or skin showing) but still that wasn’t enough for the brothers of Islam. Nope, I was handed a very heavy black gown that covered pretty much what was already covered (from neck to mid-calf) to put on. You have to take off your shoes and wash your arms (they want you to wash your feet too, but I said “enough is enough”) before entering. Meanwhile, Tom is wearing a polo shirt and khaki pants and that’s fine and dandy with the boys guarding the mosque. To say that Islam has “attitude” about women would be an understatement. Even tourist women are held to a stricter standard! Oh well.
As long as the oil holds out, I’m pretty sure this place will remain one of the most peaceful and comfortable countries in this neck of the world. Goes to show you that money may not be the root of all evil. It may be just what it takes to carve a paradise out of the jungles of Borneo.

Peace in Our Time

April 8
This was a poignant day for me. We sailed into Cai Lan, North Vietnam and I felt overcome with emotion. It’s only about a three hour drive to Hanoi, but a million miles away from the war I grew up with. There’s a tour to Hanoi to see Ho Chi Minh’s tomb and the infamous “Hanoi Hilton” where John McCain was imprisoned and tortured for years and years during the “American War” as they call it over here, but I’m not going on it. I’m already in a kind of stunned reverie as I look around and see this beautiful place and remember what happened here. What a waste. The Vietnamese people have moved on, and although the country isn’t prosperous or especially modern (although we’ve heard Ho Chi Minh City—formerly Saigon—is much more well-to-do than these northern provinces) everyone seems to be doing okay. There are “boat people” with rickety craft that came up to the ship with their kids in tow and seemed to be either curious or begging—we’re not sure—but the overall sense of this place is “we get by.”
We took a “junk boat” ride this morning which drifted through the gorgeous monolithic rocks of Hai Long Bay (Vinh Ha Long as they call it) for three hours. The area is a UNESCO World Heritage site for the miles and miles of tranquil bay punctuated by hundreds of sheer-sided rocks with jungle vegetation on the upper sides and the tops. Supposedly there were monkeys (monos or chacos, as we call them in Southern Arizona) but the jungle area was too far away to see much except the occasional large bird. The people here are fisherman, and from the looks of things they’ve been living on their boats, rarely coming to shore, for generations. I wondered out loud how the generations meet and marry and carry on family life under such seemingly isolated conditions.
Our three-hour float in the junk boat was surreal—a nearly silent engine, the flat bay water, and the towering rocks lulled us all into a kind of waking stupor so that by the time we got back to the dock I’m sure our collective blood pressure had dropped twenty points.
But leave it to the harbor vendors to jack that blood pressure back up. Within minutes we were swarmed by four-foot high ladies draped in yards and yards of freshwater pearls. There was no getting away from these wild-eyed capitalists. Their English was incomprehensible but their sales skills were impressive. We figured we should buy something (there seems to be an unspoken agreement that the least the Americans can do to make amends for Agent Orange is to BUY SOMETHING, damn it). So, we bought some dainty little necklaces. It was like blood in the water—a dozen ladies with identical wares swooped in. No amount of “No, thanks” or “See, I already bought some things” worked. They were relentless. I gripped my purse, put my head down and speed-walked back to the dock.
Yes, peace in our time. It’s wonderful to see. What’s sad is that there are over 58,000 Americans who came over here in the 1960’s and 70’s but will never be able to return to see how life goes on after the shooting stops.

Today We Visit King Kong’s Industrious Little Brother “Hong”

April 3
We have three sea days before Hong Kong. It’s over 1200 miles from Beijing to Hong Kong (a bit further than Seattle to Los Angeles) so it takes a while. And, we’re only traveling 20mph because the sea is very shallow here (only about 65 ft in some places) so it’s a bit dicey to get this big ship through the channel without running into something lurking below. The weather is warming up (we’re going pretty much straight south) which is a blessing since I’ve practically worn holes in my “cold clothes.”
Hong Kong was given back to the PRC (People’s Republic of China) in 1997 and it now functions as a SAR (Special Administrative Region) which essentially means it’s part of China but it’s not China. They have their own money (no pictures of Mao on this currency!) and they are just as capitalist as they ever were. Seems the only big change is they don’t bother singing “God Save the Queen” at sports events anymore. Really, I’m sure there have been huge—albeit unseen—changes here, but to the naked eye everything in HK goes along pretty much as it did under British rule.
We’re only in Hong Kong for a short day so our plan is to attempt to use public transportation and try to make it to at least one big market to scope out the goods. Rumor has it that with the steep decline in the American dollar, goods in HK aren’t the fantastic bargains they used to be. Oh well. I’m sure we’ll find something to weigh down our suitcases.

April 6
We pulled into Hong Kong Harbor this morning and excitedly slid the window curtains aside, and tah-dah…nothing. The city is shrouded in fog. And I mean FOG—like a Harry Potter movie set. Oh well, it’s a warm fog. We got ready to go, hoping that by mid-morning the fog will burn off and we’ll get to see the fantastic skyline of Hong Kong.
I’m re-reading the book, “Eat, Pray, Love” for the onboard book club and in the book Elizabeth Gilbert suggests that every major world city can be summed up in one word. Well, I recommend that Hong Kong’s word should be SERIOUS. It was a holiday today (a day for families to go to the cemetery and pay their respects) but it appeared that everyone had zoomed out to the cemetery, plopped down a fistful of flowers on grandma’s grave, mumbled a quick prayer and then hot-footed it out to go shopping. Everyone was shopping. Maybe they shop all the time, every day. I don’t know since we’re only in port for one day, but whew! these folks are some serious shoppers. And serious about everything else, too. We docked in Kowloon and took the Star Ferry (a no-nonsense from-here-to-there boat ride—no romantic gondola, that’s for sure) to Hong Kong. There we boarded a double-decker city bus in a terminal that was the very essence of subterranean bus barn. The bus driver must have been on some heavy meds because he lurched out of the station, tore along the rough roadway and sent passengers grabbing for handrails (even though we were sitting down!) as we galloped through town, screeching within inches of Masaratis and Lambriginis (forgive my spelling—I’m not an avid customer of these brands). Then we started up the tortuous hills above HK. Steep, steep, steep. I had no idea that HK was perched at the foot of a cliff, but it is. We careened up and around these incredibly narrow, twisty roads, hanging on for dear life as we headed south to Repulse Bay (a true misnomer—it’s not repulsive at all, but gob-smackingly beautiful) and on to Stanley, home of the popular Stanley market. Once in Stanley we were dropped right in the middle of the market—a noisy, elbow to elbow rabbit warren of little shops. It’s really amazing what you can buy there—souvenirs, clothing, toys, food, art, luggage, pretty much you-name-it. We bought some stuff, ever mindful that we can only bring 50 lbs. home in our suitcases. Then we caught the “express bus” back to the city. The express bus costs about ten cents more than the one dollar fare on the local bus, but it bypasses the dance-with-death over the mountain route and goes through a very long tunnel (the Aberdeen Tunnel). You get to the city about 15 minutes faster. Definitely worth the extra dime.
We went back across the Star Ferry to Kowloon, where our ship is docked. Nobody smiles on the ferry. Not the guys running it, and certainly not the people riding it. This is serious business, getting from one side of the harbor to the other.
We walked up Nathan Street, a busy shopping street on Kowloon and we were accosted by dozens of guys wanting to sell us “copy watches” (wow, you could save some big bucks on a Rolex here—they only want ten bucks or so) and tailors. Tom tried to reason with them, “No thanks, I’m retired” but they were relentless. I guess in a serious city like HK you still put on the suit and tie even if you have no place to go! We bought a newspaper (the South China Post, in English) because a) I haven’t read a newspaper in a month and I needed a fix, and b) the headline was that they had rescued 115 miners from a coal mine in China and I was pleased to read some good news. I really wanted to get as far as the bird market (I’d heard so much about it—the people here keeps song birds as pets, and they even take them for walks. The bird market has hundreds of songbirds for sale in tiny cages with lots of old men buying and selling birds.) Anyway, we didn’t have enough time to make it to the bird market and get back on the ship before the sailing time. Bummer.
Once we were back aboard, they had a big-deal sail away party with complimentary champagne (free booze is unheard of on this cruise) as we slipped out of the harbor. Unfortunately, it was a less-than-spectacular scene as we glided away. You see, the fog never lifted…

Toto, We're Not in Kansas Anymore

March 31
This won’t get posted for a few days because the People’s Republic of China (Mainland China) has seen fit to block our Internet access since our provider uses Google, and Google and the PRC are having “difficulties” regarding censorship issues. Oh well. We are in the Yellow Sea, in a thick fog with the ship bleating the fog horn every thirty seconds or so. It’s really cold out there and we didn’t bring cold weather clothes since most of this trip is within twenty degrees latitude north or south of the equator. In other words, we packed for hot, hot, hot.

After two and a half weeks at sea we’ve decided we like port days a lot more than sea days. Sea days have started to become a bit monotonous—a steady stream of meals punctuated by silly games (trivia, ping pong, and hitting a whiffle ball into a net and calling it “golf chipping”). On port days, everything happens. It’s as if we’re on “pause” for a day or two and then someone hits the “fast-forward” button. But we need the sea days to recover from the port days. If we went from port to port to port without a break we’d probably collapse.

Tomorrow we get off the ship for two days to go into Beijing. We’re looking forward to this exciting city, but we’ll probably all look like “bag ladies” (or in Tom’s case, a “bag gentleman”) since we’ll be wearing most all of our clothing piled one thing on top of another. The bone-chilling fog is scheduled to stick around, and we’ve been warned that it’s “significantly colder” at the Great Wall. We figure everyone on this ship is in the same boat (ha! A little cruise humor there…) and so they won’t be making any snide comments, and since we won’t be able to decipher what the Chinese locals are saying about our crazy get-ups, who cares? One friend advised us she will be wearing her pajama bottoms under her long pants since she has only a single pair of thin cotton pants and she’ll need the extra layer. Me? I’ve got a rather motley mix of black, navy, green and white that ought to set haute couture back on its haunches for a few months. (Although I’ve seen goofier stuff featured during “Fashion Week” in New York so maybe I’m just avant garde).

April 3
We’re back from the “Middle Kingdom.” Wow. In a word, China is astounding. An estimated 1.2 billion people live here. It’s impossible for me to explain everything we learned and saw, but I’ll do my best to hit some of the high points. First of all, China is in a time-warp. Everything is on fast-forward. All the people who’ve been here before (and even those who were here only five years ago) say China (and especially Beijing) is nothing like what they remember. The old city has been essentially torn down to make way for the new. Most of the quaint little hutong homes (the grey, one-level courtyard homes with tile roofs) have been bulldozed to build 30 and 40-story high apartment buildings. And there are always a half dozen or more of these behemoth high-rises on a very small plot of land. How anyone finds their way to their own apartment every night is a mystery to me—it’s a forest of high rises, and each “tree” in the forest is essentially the same size, color and shape.
We started our journey with a LONG drive from Tianjin (the city next to the port of Xingang where we docked) into Beijing. The new freeway (which is actually a toll-road) has cut the time needed for the trip from four hours to two and a half. But, if you really want to get to Beijing in a hurry, you take the brand-new high-speed train, which has cut the rail trip from two and a half hours to less than half an hour! It travels at speeds up to 395km/hour. In other words—that baby moves.
We had a “rest stop” on the way to Beijing and got a glimpse of the “old life.” That’s right, ladies, the famous “hole in the floor.” The smell was overwhelming. In a word, UGH.
On to the Great Wall. It was a bit of a let-down after all the hoopla about climbing the wall. It’s basically a long gray fortress that goes over mountains and into deep valleys and was, I’m sure, a bitch to build. It’s a slip-and-fall incident waiting to happen. We climbed the steep steps a short distance and then went and checked out the vendors. Not the highlight of our day, but definitely something you must see if you come to Beijing.
Next, we went on a driving tour of downtown Beijing which included going to the Olympic Village. Wow. Everything was much larger than I expected. The “Bird’s Nest” is huge, and the bubble-sided Swim Cube is right there too. They took out thousands of homes to build the site as the pedestrian mall goes for a mile or more.
The drive through the heart of Beijing’s financial and business district was an architecture student’s dream. Amazing new high-rise buildings (a zillion of them) with very unique and clever design elements. One building was sheathed in small black glass bricks, and the front side was pushed in as if a mammoth hand had left a handprint. Stunning.
We stayed at the Marriott Beijing City Wall, a gorgeous hotel, with rooms reminiscent of the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas. It was wonderful to have a huge bathtub at my disposal and I soaked for a good long time. The only downside was getting into a malfunctioning elevator on our way to check out. It was my worst nightmare—a broken elevator in a Chinese high rise. The elevator refused to open its doors when we got down to the lobby and instead shot up to the 21st floor. At the top floor it allowed the doors to open and we were able to switch to another one. As scared as I was, I wasn’t about to attempt 21 floors of stairs with a busload of people waiting.
On day two we went to Tiananmen Square. It was really cold, with a cutting wind shrieking across the open space of the plaza. We saw a line of people waiting to view Mao’s remains (it’s a mystery as to whether it’s really Mao or a wax likeness). The line snaked completely around the square for a mile or more. We saw no Westerners in line; only devout visitors from various parts of China. Then on to the Forbidden City.
The Forbidden City is mind-boggling, with 9,999 rooms all built within a span of 14 years during the Ming Dynasty (the building started in 1406; completed in 1420). Obviously, it was built completely by hand (no cranes or trucks around in the 15th century) and yet this intricate 720,000 square meters of government buildings, ornate gates, squares, temples and living areas—built in record time—remains solid. Only the emperor, his eunuchs (servants), concubines (some of whom became wives to give him sons) and trusted government scholars were allowed inside this massive area. The enormity of the Forbidden City is dazzling, and it’s good to see that Mao’s Cultural Revolution did, for the most part, spare this national treasure from demolition. Mao was pretty tough on national treasures. He took down the Beijing City Wall and he destroyed or sold a bunch of antiquities in the name of “purifying the country” from its wicked feudal past and to allow it to go forward into the future with a clean slate.
We stopped for lunch at a rather fancy restaurant that served us about 25 dishes—everything from fungus-like mushrooms to Peking Duck. It was beautifully served and interesting, but I don’t think anyone gained any weight from that lunch. It tasted way too alien for our Western palates. I asked for tea and then said, “no tea.” Instead, they served a lukewarm, milky substance that they called “rice water.” It tasted like used bath water smells. We didn’t get any rice, either. I guess our notion of Chinese food was too basic for these folks.
After lunch we hoofed it over to the Temple of Heaven. This is where the emperors worshipped four times a year to ask for a good harvest. The temple is another beautiful example of “what the emperor wants, the emperor gets.” It was also built at the same time (during the 14 years they were building the Forbidden City). The wind had really picked up at this point and we were all freezing. It felt good to get back on the bus.
China is impossible to describe—especially after only two days! But even after a short visit I can say that I feel I understand their world view a bit more than I did before coming here. The tour guide explained how saving face and avoiding humiliation are vital to the collective psyche of the Chinese people. He said his country had been invaded and disgraced by “peoples from tiny islands with no resources and only a small fraction of their population” (first England and then Japan). This humiliation paved the way for Mao and the Communist uprising to overthrow the centuries-old feudal system which had kept 99% of the population in abject poverty and prevented the country from moving forward. Although the average Chinese person today (especially the young people) will agree that Mao was not a great leader (it’s believed he was responsible for the deaths of an estimated 10 million Chinese people) he is still held in high regard as the person who brought them out of the dark ages and into modern times. For that, his many transgressions are forgiven as they bask in their newly acquired status as a world power.
As I said, it’s an astounding country with an amazing past and, from all I saw, a bright future. I more fully understand why the U.S. (and the rest of the world) doesn’t want to mess with them.
Now it’s on to Hong Kong…