Hello everybody.
Well, we've given you a week or so to thoroughly study our last missive, so it's time to bring you up to date, like it or not!!
First, about the bozos at homeland security which, unfortunately, the Coast Guard is now part of. I need to renew my Captain's license and emailed the CG to find out how, since it had already expired. They said no problem; just send in the paperwork, but, oh, by the way, you need to get a TWIC card. What is that, say I? That is the new requirement for all transportation workers of which you are one, say they. What do I need to do? Oh, just come into any CG office to be fingerprinted and photographed, then, after a two week vetting period, come in to pick it up in person. But I'm out of the country; couldn't I do this at an embassy like getting a new passport. Nope. There is not enough demand for us to set up that kind of thing offshore. But what about the thousands of merchant seaman plying their trade all over the world. Sorry, call your congressman if you don't like it. What assholes. So now I won't be licensed which isn't really necessary, but I think it helps on my insurance. Wrote the White House but haven't heard back.
Back to the fun stuff. After only 2 days back in Penang, we took off for Siem Reap in northern Cambodia, site of the Angkor Wat complex and embarkation point for our cruise down the Mekong. Cambodia was awesome. First, the US$ is the currency of choice, even in ATMs, which was nice after so long making mental calculations of what stuff cost. Second, we had a nice hotel, fairly centrally located--the place isn't very big--for $30/night. Top floor, big balcony, great cable!! In fact, everything there was dirt cheap. A massage was $4--our cheapest yet--$8 if you had two people work on you which I did by accident. BUT, it was great. You can get visas on arrival--$20 plus $2 for pics, but Rose had a problem since she had run out of passport pages. They charged her an extra $10 to cover over another page. The stupid UK doesn't allow extra pages (I'm on my second insertion) so she'll have to pony up about $50 for a new one when she's back in the UK. Other than that, clearance was a breeze. I don't think they even had a customs officer on duty!!!
After walking around that afternoon, getting the requisite massage and a very cheap liter of JD, we took a $2 tuk tuk (motorized rickshaw) ride down to the night market. It was really nice with some good food places and a nice bar with $2 mojitos. Silk shirts were $10 which I thought was a good deal until we hit the $5 ones in Saigon. We were a bit worn out and just headed back early, after a couple of the aforementioned cocktails, to the hotel for dinner. Cambodia is very poor, and we all remember the horror of the Khmer Rouge genocide, but, amazingly, the people are among the friendliest and, at least outwardly, happiest people we've encountered. So, this was the off season, and we arranged for our tuk tuk man to take us around again the following night and to take us to the Raffles Hotel gathering point for the cruise. We were his only fares those days!!! We had also arranged with our cab driver from the airport to pick us up the next day for a tour of Angkor Wat, only 10 minutes away. That was $25!! These guys might be inexpensive but they have the right idea--they're so cheerful and helpful, you just can't help giving them a good tip. The tuk tuk guy waited for us both nights for the return to the hotel--no charge!
The Angkor Wat complex is simply amazing. To think some of this stuff was built as much as 1,300 years ago is staggering. AW was completed around the fourteenth century and is a marvel. It was constructed at the peak of Khmer glory and was the capital when the "empire" encompassed much of Thailand, Laos, Malaysia and southern Vietnam. Things have gone downhill since then, but the monuments remain. Sadly, after the Khmer Rouge fiasco, the country and its economy fell into ruin and most of the statues are headless or faceless as the people figured out they could sell these relics. The temples are huge, though, as is the site, encompassing about 40 temples and other palaces in an area of hundreds of square kilometers. Once again, it was hot as blazes so we just did three of the main temples, including Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom and the Bayan temple. We also visited the elephant wall and leper terrace. You could easily spend a month exploring all the sites. We had a really good lunch at a local place outside one of the temples. We finished about 4 pm and stopped at another local market which wasn't too good, but we found a good Mexican place--go figure--and returned by tuk tuk for dinner after a nap and a much needed shower at the hotel. Dinner was surprisingly good with even better mojitos there. Our "driver" waited and we segued to the night market for shirts, genuine crocodile skin belts, and miscellaneous knick knacks and gifts.
Even though we each brought 2 suitcases and left room for purchases, we know we needed another. Next morning , it was off to another local market, just near the hotel, to find one. It's quite strange negotiating in US$s, but we got a fake Samsonite or something for about $20, and we definitely needed it by the time we left Vietnam. Our driver picked us up at 11 or so for the short trip to Raffles to meet up with the cruise people. Same hotel as the famous one as Singapore. Pretty funny with the 2 of us and 5 pieces of luggage plus backpack all crammed into a 2 person rickshaw. Fortunately the ride was short. We all met at the Elephant Bar at Raffles and there were about 18 of us, far short of a full ship's complement. More on that later. After a bit of a wait we all piled on a nice tour bus for the trip down to where the ship was. Because it is early in the season the water levels on the river and Lake Tonle, another major waterway, do not allow the ship to come to Siem Reap. The ride would have been about 4 hours, but we made several stops. One was an old bridge, one was just a rest stop with a shop and restaurant, but the middle one was the Spider Village. Obviously a popular tourist stop, because one is greeted at the bus with huge platters of fried tarantulas and pans of cooked grasshoppers. Many of the venders are playing with live ones while trying to get you to buy some. Crazy Rose ate a grasshopper and then tried a tarantula leg. Yes, I have pictures!!!
So we arrived at the ship at about 6 pm, and our cabin was just outstanding. Twin beds, but quite roomy with a regular sized bathroom. Nice little slippers to wear on board and a Pandaw Cruises robe. The ship was basically four decks and resembled a Mississippi paddle wheeler without the paddle wheels. Bottom deck was operations and some single cabins which weren't in use. Main deck was cabins, dining room, and bar. Second deck was cabins and spa. Upper deck was the sun deck and another bar with the helm and a small gift shop. All our meals were included as was beer and local spirits. Had to buy wine, though. After a briefing, we had dinner at about 7:30, still only about half full. HOWEVER, in the middle of dinner, in piles a dozen French travel agents being comped by the cruise line. As it turned out, these a-holes ruined the trip for everyone. Excursions were held up because they were always late, the ship gave them preferential treatment and many were typically rude frogs!!! On top of that, I had to pay an extra $300 because they put them in all the mid deck cabins and forced some of us upstairs to identical, but more expensive cabins. This wasn't the only problem as you will hear, but I definitely do not think this most expensive of our travels was a very good value for the money. When I complained to the cruise line afterwards, they blew me off with "So be it!" Piss on "em". In spite of the problems, we had a good time, but wouldn't recommend it to others. That being said, before all these problems arose, we were impressed. The dinner that night was excellent, and the paying passengers were quite nice. We sort of hung out with some Aussie couples who were interesting and entertaining, one of whom was even more upset than me. The ship sailed that night for Kampong Chnang and after breakfast the next day we hopped on local boats to check out the local culture with floating villages and markets. We had excellent English speaking guides the entire trip. The frogs had their own guides and separate transportation.
Back for lunch and down to another village famous for weaving. I didn't go, but Rose bought some stuff. So far all the meals had been really good, but it started to go downhill with the second dinner. While breakfasts and lunches were all really good, dinner, after the first night, was uninspired and, many times, served family style. They even snuck some durian, a really smelly local fruit into the dessert one night. Some nights there was a movie in the bar relating to local stuff, like the killing fields.
Without boring you with the details, there were generally two excursions a day, some of which were pretty good, like the King's Palace in Phnom Penh and ancient temples, but some, mainly in Cambodia, were thinly veiled attempts to get money to their favorite charities, exposing us to sub par goods at 5 times their price in a regular market. There wasn't a person aboard who didn't feel compassion for the troubles of the Cambodian people, but we would have rather made a donation than trek through the jungle in 100 degree heat only to see same old same old and be conned into buying overpriced stuff. I mean, really, there were free drinks to be had on board. Speaking of which, me and one of the Aussies gave Bloody Mary lessons to the bartender with outstanding results! Phnom Penh was a great stop with tours of the Palace arriving in convoy by rickshaw, and a visit to the Silver Pagoda which is floored with hundreds of kilograms of silver tiles. The captain got on Cambodian national TV. They were doing some kind of story about the rickshaw as a means of local travel and chose me for the interview. Got a good "blind" massage there too.
The next problem came at the Cambodia/Vietnam border. The cruise line had put the fear of God into us that we needed visas in advance. Failure to produce a visa would result in huge delays and probable fines, so everyone's paperwork WAS in order, except the ship's, that is. We were never told what they screwed up, but we were stuck at the border for a day and a half. They tried to gloss it over with some free wine and discounted massages, but we ended up missing an excursion or two and there never was an apology. They filled the time with woman stuff like cooking demos, napkin folding and sarong tying. Whoopee!!! Disembarkation was painless--the frogs got off first, of course, and we bussed it about 1 1/2 hours into Saigon. On the way, another American couple asked if we wanted to share the cost of hiring our Pandaw Vietnam guide for a tour of the Chu Chi tunnels and the city the next day, so we were pretty set. A short taxi ride from our drop-off point brought us to our Saigon Hotel.
Well, Saigon pretty much made up for the disappointment from the cruise. We had a great "boutique hotel" in the heart of the city, near a giant market. At night, the regular market closed and the 2 streets on either side were blocked off for a night market and "portable" restaurants which were excellent. I had a lot of fun with the local currency which is the Dong (yes, I was always whipping out my Dong, etc. Rose got sick of it, but I am easily amused), but the currency of preference was the US$. Seems to me we really won the war as there were all the fast food chains as well!!! So, after a market reconnoiter that night, we had a great breakfast (included) with good views at the top of the hotel, and took off on our tour. I was a bit concerned about being American, but everyone was really friendly and most of the locals still call it Saigon instead of Ho Chi Minh City.
The first stop on our tour was the tunnels, about 30 kilometers outside the city where tens of thousands of Viet Cong hid out during the war. The place is now a huge national park as there are 80 k of tunnels. you get to go through some of them and they've raised the ceiling on others so you don't have to bend over, but they were 3 or 4 levels deep and we didn't go too far down. Really unbelievable to think people lived down there, especially with 1,000 pound bomb craters all over the place. Gives new insight into the persistence of these people, who, by the way, call it the civil war. We headed back into town and visited the old presidential palace which is now called Reunification Hall. It's like a time warp into the '60's and is preserved as it was when the NVA tanks, which are there on the lawn, rolled through the front gates. We had a super lunch and in the afternoon did some touristy stuff, but also visited the Sea Goddess Pagoda, one of the oldest in SE Asia and which was really cool. That night we hit the market, bought more stuff and had a good local dinner.
Next day, Monday, I needed to see a dentist as a crown had come loose just before we left Penang. Rose went too for a cleaning. I was in the chair about 2 hours, and she cleaned my teeth as well as fixing the crown and grinding down another rough spot--$100. Unbelievable!!! It rained heavily that day, so after a massage, we napped and ate dinner in at the hotel. Pretty funny, really, as there was a crowd of about 30 barely teenagers and their chaperones who came in later for what must have been the finale dinner on a road trip. Got a bit noisy.
Tuesday, we hit the botanical gardens and Saigon zoo. The zoo was a surprise hit as it was feeding day for the pythons. Rose claimed to be grossed out but took a million pics. They just put a few rabbits in the cages with the snakes which are huge--about 20 feet long and a foot thick--and let nature take its course. There were quite a few snakes, and the rabbits were in varying stages of still hopping about to in the coils of the snakes to half way down their gullet. I don't think they could get away with this in the states. My ATM card crapped out so the afternoon was spent on the phone and napping. The time difference didn't help, but Morgan Stanley rose to the occasion immediately (well, next day) getting the card reinstated after it was cancelled. We shopped some more and ate local that night.
The morning saw us off to Hanoi. We had wanted to spend more time in Vietnam taking the train up and hitting Hue and a couple of other spots, but the travel people all said the trains aren't too good so we just flew direct to Hanoi. You'd never know we bombed the hell out of the place on the long ride into town, but we were unimpressed with Hanoi, itself. Language was a major problem and people were a bit standoffish to westerners. Our hotel, while not a disaster, was just short of one, and the place is very spread out. But, we only had 3 nights there and made the most of it. A highlight was Uncle Ho's mausoleum which in addition to the tomb, encompasses where he lived and a museum or two. Very interesting. There's also a lot of lakes there and we had some pleasant times just sitting in the cafe's waterside. Hanoi is also famous for their "water puppets" which was an ancient form of entertainment for the people living on the water. Basically, there are a bunch of puppeteers waste deep in water behind a screen operating puppets on sticks. Yeah, okay, you had to be there. There were markets to explore, but I don't think we bought a single thing there. Shopped out, I guess. BUT, I forgot to mention, I bought a bottle of snake wine in Saigon. Just for display for me, but the locals drink it. It's the local vodka in a cool bottle with a small cobra with a scorpion in its mouth preserved inside. Of all the places we've visited, Hanoi is one of the very few we have no interest in returning to.
We're now back in Penang and Joey back on board for a while while he works out where to get more captain's credentials and or a job. Our Freebird friends are also here and we celebrated Joey's 26th early at the fabulous E & O Hotel brunch. Rose has seen the doc who increased her medicine dosage, and we've generally been hanging about and working on the boat. The new autopilot control head came today so that is a future job and some major cleaning needs to be done. Rose leaves for the UK tonight at 10 for 5 weeks and Joey is departing for Singapore a week from today so I'm being abandoned for my own birthday on the 30th. Freebird is leaving on some land travel as well so it will be pretty boring around here for a while.
So, that the latest and greatest and we're completely up to date.
Cheers
Tim, Rose & Joe
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Thursday, July 2, 2009
China July 1 2009
Hello everyone.
We know we are way past due on more exciting installments of the happenings on Rendezvous Cay, but it has been an action packed month and a half. We left you in mid-May with a good report on Rose's situation and rebooking our trip to China. As for the Rose update, the new pills take about 3 months to take effect, and the doc is building up the dosage, At the same time she is tapering off the steroids, so there is a bit of a relapse as the reduction in steroids is outpacing the increased dosage of the other stuff. In any event she is deserting the boat for almost six weeks on July 8 (AND missing my birthday) to visit everyone back in the UK. Seeing her family always perks her up so we are hoping all will be well on her return.
So, we were able to rebook China and spent the interim week hanging around Penang, doing chores and generally chilling. We left at the crack of dawn on May 22. First stop Macao. We have to admit this part of the trip was a disappointment. The whole 4 days it pissed rain, and our hotel was really unsatisfactory. More on that later. We flew direct from Penang to Hong Kong. There was supposed to be some way to check our luggage through to the Macao ferry, but we never did figure it out, so we had to check into HK, then take a ferry to Kowloon where we got the Macao ferry. The good news is we did figure the deal out on our way to Beijing and were able to check everything through from Macao. So the hotel!!! Depending on what you read this was supposed to be either a 3 or 5 star casino hotel. Not. On arrival late in the day, I must admit we were fairly impressed with the room, but then we tried to get a "welcome to Macao" drink around 5 or 6. Nope. Only one bar in the place, but not really in the hotel and it wasn't opening 'til 7. Okay, we'll walk around and find another bar. Nope, nothing nearby; tried again at 7. Not open. In fact, in 4 days, we never found it open--in a casino hotel!!!!!!?????? Oh, and you can't drink the water out of the tap. In fairness, this is pretty much all over China, but they give you two mingy bottles and the charge about 5 times the cost in a 7 11 for more. Next morning we went to get a cup of coffee. Nope. Must buy the entire $15 breakfast buffet to get coffee. Oh, and the TV never worked right. The casino consisted of a million baccarat tables, about 1 blackjack table and no craps. We're getting seriously pissed off. On a more amusing note, we did find a reasonable restaurant in the casino, and, one night, I asked what the soup of the day was--pork, I was told--and ordered some. After a few spoonfuls, I dipped a little deeper to get some pork and came up with a chicken foot. Otherwise the food was pretty good and cheap. We passed on the double boiled pig lung soup, though.
Our first full day, we hired a driver, but, unfortunately, we had very heavy rain. We hit a temple or two, the old Portuguese quarter, etc. Not very interesting in the rain, but we did go the the big new Venetian Casino hotel, where the captain took them for a bit of money at craps. A return trip later was not as successful. Another day, we took the ferry over to Hong Kong and took a rather long ride down to a famous market. Some good deals, especially on silk shirts. I had wished I bought more until we hit even cheaper Saigon!! Another day there was supposed to be a "famous" market near the hotel. Nope, rained out, but we managed a really nice lunch at a Portuguese place. All in all, this was a bummer of a start to our trip, but we couldn't be in China and not check this part out.
Anyway, China proper made up for it all. Piece of cake, as I said, with baggage check through, and Beijing officialdom for getting into the country (they still treat Macao and HK differently) were the best we've encountered, especially eliminating the usual 2 miles walk to immigration. By the way, everywhere we flew, there were new forms to fill out about swine flu. Our Beijing hotel was a 5 star and really was. Bottled water was free, good lobby cafe and bar, and an all you could eat Japanese Teppanyaki (like Beni Hana) restaurant. From this point on in all our travels, breakfast was included, and they were the full deal, huge buffet, custom eggs service. Our room was large and really nice with a working TV. There was a big picture window into the bathroom from the sleeping area which we still can't figure out. Kinky Chinese, I guess. Rose closed the shade over my protestations!!! The only problem was the lack of English speaking staff. In all our travels, here and Hanoi were the only places where there were serious communication problems. One night, we decided to stay in and get room service after a long day of sightseeing. They had a small menu in the room, unfortunately without numbering the items. It took a couple of calls to room service and, finally, two calls to the front desk to get anyone who could understand club sandwich and cheeseburger!!!! Small price to pay for such a nice hotel, but we didn't get dinner 'til 9.
This was an organized tour with English guides, and they were just packed days starting at about 7:30 and ending sometimes as late as 7. We had for 5 to 11 people on the tours. As a small bummer, and we knew about it, every day you had to stop at some way over priced tourist shop--Jade, Silk, etc. Just a waste of time. However, about China, all we can say is WOW. The stuff you see in the movies and on TV just don't do justice to the monuments in China. The Forbidden City is acres and acres right in the center of the city, and, unbeknownst to us, adjacent to Tiananmen Square. We were there just before the anniversary so everything was quite open. Surprisingly, they still revere Mao, although I thought he had been discredited for the excesses of his last years. I really expected to see everyone in those Mao outfits and millions of bicycles, but that's a thing of the past. Traffic is awful and everyone is in western dress. The first day, we also visited the Temple of Heaven, a giant pagoda and the Summer Palace which is a huge park--among the many in Beijing--where people do Tai Chi and there are a bunch of sort of karaoke entertainers--hard to explain. This is mainly for the old folks to get together as their living quarters are so small. The city is just full of large parks and wide Parisian type boulevards. Really quite nice.
The next day we headed out of town to the Great Wall, the section you always see on TV. Totally awesome. First we hit the Ming Tombs, also very cool. So to get to the first guard tower on the wall, you have to climb 600 odd steps, some about a foot high and quite steep. We had our doubts, but were spurred on by the sight of a woman descending the stairs using crutches. We thought the 230 steps at Batu Caves here in Malaysia were tough, but try over 600!!! BUT, the old folks made it. You could actually go up another bunch to a couple of more towers, and a couple of young girls fresh from a trip in Tibet did do that. We stopped at the first, though, and just a little way on--a flat part and then down about 20 steps--was a souvenir shop, so I went off to get a couple of bottles of water. I have neglected to mention that on our entire travels through China and SE Asia, it has been blazing hot--high 90's with humidity to match so in spite of our eating ourselves silly, we both dropped a few pounds with all the sweaty exercise. Anyway, at the souvenir shop, for about $5, they had these cool brass plaques with some etching of the wall and "I have climbed the Great Wall", and then they etch in your name and the date. Got one for us both, but on our descent, we checked out the shops at the bottom and the bastards were selling the same thing so one doesn't really have to climb the wall to get a plaque. That's really cheating, but we're glad we did do it!!! After lunch we headed back to Beijing for a trip to the Olympic village where we got poor foot massages thinly disguising an attempt to sell us Chinese medicine!
We got back to the hotel late that day to wait for our lift to the train to Xian, site of the Terra Cotta warriors. The train left at about 9:30 PM and, fortunately, they had a MacDonald's in the station. We arranged the train on purpose to get an idea of the countryside and booked a "soft sleeper". This is a roomette with 4 berths so we had room mates. A Saudi guy and his Thai girlfriend. While they weren't too sociable, there was an American expat next door, and he clued us in on the way the train works, etc. The train was quite nice with good facilities and a dining car for morning coffee and a Chinese brekkie. We were a bit late arriving--about an hour--so our guide met us and suggested we swap days and do the warriors the next day and a city tour that day. Okay by us. The hotel--4 star this time--was pretty good and near the station. Xian is a city of about 2 million and was the first imperial capital of China, seat of Qin, first emperor who has the huge tomb with the warriors. The inner city in enclosed by a 14 kilometer 10 meter high by 5 meter thick wall which is still in good shape. We climbed up--again--walked around a bit, but the rickshaw drivers up there had touristitis--somewhat a problem all over China--so we decided not to ride all the way round. Hit the local museum which was fascinating in its portrayal of ancient China, and finished at an old famous mosque. To get to the mosque, you have to wend your way through a huge outdoor market where I added a fake Omega to my collection of replicas. We followed that up with a proper foot and body massage--dirt cheap, too. On the way back, I asked to stop at a western pharmacy as I thought I was developing a tooth infection. Cost me about $2.00 for two different prescriptions!!! $100 easy in the states. God, the older and poorer I get, the more liberal I become. My brother probably won't speak to me at all now!!! Whose says socialism is all bad?
The second day was one of the highlights of the trip. Our guide spoke fluent English, and we drove out to the site of the warriors. History has known about the emperor's tomb, but no one knew where it was. A farmer was digging a well in the 70's and dug up a terra cotta head, reported it to the authorities, and now the entire site of the tomb--55 square kilometers--is under investigation. The warriors are only a small part of this tomb which took 700,000 workers 39 years to construct. Fascinating and lots of photo ops. There's also a museum with history of the Qin dynasty. Followed that up with a trip to Wild Goose Pagoda, site of the original Buddhist guys in China, then back to the hotel to wait for the train back to Beijing. This time we had some crazy Romanians that had migrated to the states as roommates. They were more sociable and brought out cookies and a bottle of the local spirits reminiscent of slivovitz. Ouch.
We arrived early AM in Beijing with our driver meeting us at the train door. This was a free day for us, and we thought we'd do some "real", as opposed to tourist, shopping at the Silk Market, a huge multistory air-conditioned place. Added a few more watches and silk shirts, while Rose got some jeans and shoes. Doesn't pay to bargain too hard with those damn Chinese though. On our return, we discovered one of Rose's shoes was missing a decorative stud. Should have checked the one she didn't try on, but we think we can repair it. I love these places, however. They ask 100; you offer 10. Bargain, bargain, bargain, and you end up about 30. One shirt Rose bought started at 425 Yuan--about $60, and she got it for 50--about $7!!! Cool, but the best shopping was yet to come and with that I will leave you as the rest of the trip was too long to get in the letter. Next day we flew to HK, changed planes and flew directly back to Penang. On a side note, the old man can get social security this year and for some reason the website to enroll is inaccessible here in Malaysia. Kudos to the guys in manila we were directed to who promptly (same day!!!!) emailed me to set up a phone call on June 3rd, called me on time and did a 15 minute interview to set up my benefits. No pain, no strain unlike the Homeland (or should I say Nazi) Security problem I'm having with my Captain's license (more on that later). Two days there doing laundry and resting up, buying a netbook computer for wifi on the road, and we were off to Siem Reap, home of Angkor Wat. How's that for a cliffhanger.
Cheers
Tim & Rose
We know we are way past due on more exciting installments of the happenings on Rendezvous Cay, but it has been an action packed month and a half. We left you in mid-May with a good report on Rose's situation and rebooking our trip to China. As for the Rose update, the new pills take about 3 months to take effect, and the doc is building up the dosage, At the same time she is tapering off the steroids, so there is a bit of a relapse as the reduction in steroids is outpacing the increased dosage of the other stuff. In any event she is deserting the boat for almost six weeks on July 8 (AND missing my birthday) to visit everyone back in the UK. Seeing her family always perks her up so we are hoping all will be well on her return.
So, we were able to rebook China and spent the interim week hanging around Penang, doing chores and generally chilling. We left at the crack of dawn on May 22. First stop Macao. We have to admit this part of the trip was a disappointment. The whole 4 days it pissed rain, and our hotel was really unsatisfactory. More on that later. We flew direct from Penang to Hong Kong. There was supposed to be some way to check our luggage through to the Macao ferry, but we never did figure it out, so we had to check into HK, then take a ferry to Kowloon where we got the Macao ferry. The good news is we did figure the deal out on our way to Beijing and were able to check everything through from Macao. So the hotel!!! Depending on what you read this was supposed to be either a 3 or 5 star casino hotel. Not. On arrival late in the day, I must admit we were fairly impressed with the room, but then we tried to get a "welcome to Macao" drink around 5 or 6. Nope. Only one bar in the place, but not really in the hotel and it wasn't opening 'til 7. Okay, we'll walk around and find another bar. Nope, nothing nearby; tried again at 7. Not open. In fact, in 4 days, we never found it open--in a casino hotel!!!!!!?????? Oh, and you can't drink the water out of the tap. In fairness, this is pretty much all over China, but they give you two mingy bottles and the charge about 5 times the cost in a 7 11 for more. Next morning we went to get a cup of coffee. Nope. Must buy the entire $15 breakfast buffet to get coffee. Oh, and the TV never worked right. The casino consisted of a million baccarat tables, about 1 blackjack table and no craps. We're getting seriously pissed off. On a more amusing note, we did find a reasonable restaurant in the casino, and, one night, I asked what the soup of the day was--pork, I was told--and ordered some. After a few spoonfuls, I dipped a little deeper to get some pork and came up with a chicken foot. Otherwise the food was pretty good and cheap. We passed on the double boiled pig lung soup, though.
Our first full day, we hired a driver, but, unfortunately, we had very heavy rain. We hit a temple or two, the old Portuguese quarter, etc. Not very interesting in the rain, but we did go the the big new Venetian Casino hotel, where the captain took them for a bit of money at craps. A return trip later was not as successful. Another day, we took the ferry over to Hong Kong and took a rather long ride down to a famous market. Some good deals, especially on silk shirts. I had wished I bought more until we hit even cheaper Saigon!! Another day there was supposed to be a "famous" market near the hotel. Nope, rained out, but we managed a really nice lunch at a Portuguese place. All in all, this was a bummer of a start to our trip, but we couldn't be in China and not check this part out.
Anyway, China proper made up for it all. Piece of cake, as I said, with baggage check through, and Beijing officialdom for getting into the country (they still treat Macao and HK differently) were the best we've encountered, especially eliminating the usual 2 miles walk to immigration. By the way, everywhere we flew, there were new forms to fill out about swine flu. Our Beijing hotel was a 5 star and really was. Bottled water was free, good lobby cafe and bar, and an all you could eat Japanese Teppanyaki (like Beni Hana) restaurant. From this point on in all our travels, breakfast was included, and they were the full deal, huge buffet, custom eggs service. Our room was large and really nice with a working TV. There was a big picture window into the bathroom from the sleeping area which we still can't figure out. Kinky Chinese, I guess. Rose closed the shade over my protestations!!! The only problem was the lack of English speaking staff. In all our travels, here and Hanoi were the only places where there were serious communication problems. One night, we decided to stay in and get room service after a long day of sightseeing. They had a small menu in the room, unfortunately without numbering the items. It took a couple of calls to room service and, finally, two calls to the front desk to get anyone who could understand club sandwich and cheeseburger!!!! Small price to pay for such a nice hotel, but we didn't get dinner 'til 9.
This was an organized tour with English guides, and they were just packed days starting at about 7:30 and ending sometimes as late as 7. We had for 5 to 11 people on the tours. As a small bummer, and we knew about it, every day you had to stop at some way over priced tourist shop--Jade, Silk, etc. Just a waste of time. However, about China, all we can say is WOW. The stuff you see in the movies and on TV just don't do justice to the monuments in China. The Forbidden City is acres and acres right in the center of the city, and, unbeknownst to us, adjacent to Tiananmen Square. We were there just before the anniversary so everything was quite open. Surprisingly, they still revere Mao, although I thought he had been discredited for the excesses of his last years. I really expected to see everyone in those Mao outfits and millions of bicycles, but that's a thing of the past. Traffic is awful and everyone is in western dress. The first day, we also visited the Temple of Heaven, a giant pagoda and the Summer Palace which is a huge park--among the many in Beijing--where people do Tai Chi and there are a bunch of sort of karaoke entertainers--hard to explain. This is mainly for the old folks to get together as their living quarters are so small. The city is just full of large parks and wide Parisian type boulevards. Really quite nice.
The next day we headed out of town to the Great Wall, the section you always see on TV. Totally awesome. First we hit the Ming Tombs, also very cool. So to get to the first guard tower on the wall, you have to climb 600 odd steps, some about a foot high and quite steep. We had our doubts, but were spurred on by the sight of a woman descending the stairs using crutches. We thought the 230 steps at Batu Caves here in Malaysia were tough, but try over 600!!! BUT, the old folks made it. You could actually go up another bunch to a couple of more towers, and a couple of young girls fresh from a trip in Tibet did do that. We stopped at the first, though, and just a little way on--a flat part and then down about 20 steps--was a souvenir shop, so I went off to get a couple of bottles of water. I have neglected to mention that on our entire travels through China and SE Asia, it has been blazing hot--high 90's with humidity to match so in spite of our eating ourselves silly, we both dropped a few pounds with all the sweaty exercise. Anyway, at the souvenir shop, for about $5, they had these cool brass plaques with some etching of the wall and "I have climbed the Great Wall", and then they etch in your name and the date. Got one for us both, but on our descent, we checked out the shops at the bottom and the bastards were selling the same thing so one doesn't really have to climb the wall to get a plaque. That's really cheating, but we're glad we did do it!!! After lunch we headed back to Beijing for a trip to the Olympic village where we got poor foot massages thinly disguising an attempt to sell us Chinese medicine!
We got back to the hotel late that day to wait for our lift to the train to Xian, site of the Terra Cotta warriors. The train left at about 9:30 PM and, fortunately, they had a MacDonald's in the station. We arranged the train on purpose to get an idea of the countryside and booked a "soft sleeper". This is a roomette with 4 berths so we had room mates. A Saudi guy and his Thai girlfriend. While they weren't too sociable, there was an American expat next door, and he clued us in on the way the train works, etc. The train was quite nice with good facilities and a dining car for morning coffee and a Chinese brekkie. We were a bit late arriving--about an hour--so our guide met us and suggested we swap days and do the warriors the next day and a city tour that day. Okay by us. The hotel--4 star this time--was pretty good and near the station. Xian is a city of about 2 million and was the first imperial capital of China, seat of Qin, first emperor who has the huge tomb with the warriors. The inner city in enclosed by a 14 kilometer 10 meter high by 5 meter thick wall which is still in good shape. We climbed up--again--walked around a bit, but the rickshaw drivers up there had touristitis--somewhat a problem all over China--so we decided not to ride all the way round. Hit the local museum which was fascinating in its portrayal of ancient China, and finished at an old famous mosque. To get to the mosque, you have to wend your way through a huge outdoor market where I added a fake Omega to my collection of replicas. We followed that up with a proper foot and body massage--dirt cheap, too. On the way back, I asked to stop at a western pharmacy as I thought I was developing a tooth infection. Cost me about $2.00 for two different prescriptions!!! $100 easy in the states. God, the older and poorer I get, the more liberal I become. My brother probably won't speak to me at all now!!! Whose says socialism is all bad?
The second day was one of the highlights of the trip. Our guide spoke fluent English, and we drove out to the site of the warriors. History has known about the emperor's tomb, but no one knew where it was. A farmer was digging a well in the 70's and dug up a terra cotta head, reported it to the authorities, and now the entire site of the tomb--55 square kilometers--is under investigation. The warriors are only a small part of this tomb which took 700,000 workers 39 years to construct. Fascinating and lots of photo ops. There's also a museum with history of the Qin dynasty. Followed that up with a trip to Wild Goose Pagoda, site of the original Buddhist guys in China, then back to the hotel to wait for the train back to Beijing. This time we had some crazy Romanians that had migrated to the states as roommates. They were more sociable and brought out cookies and a bottle of the local spirits reminiscent of slivovitz. Ouch.
We arrived early AM in Beijing with our driver meeting us at the train door. This was a free day for us, and we thought we'd do some "real", as opposed to tourist, shopping at the Silk Market, a huge multistory air-conditioned place. Added a few more watches and silk shirts, while Rose got some jeans and shoes. Doesn't pay to bargain too hard with those damn Chinese though. On our return, we discovered one of Rose's shoes was missing a decorative stud. Should have checked the one she didn't try on, but we think we can repair it. I love these places, however. They ask 100; you offer 10. Bargain, bargain, bargain, and you end up about 30. One shirt Rose bought started at 425 Yuan--about $60, and she got it for 50--about $7!!! Cool, but the best shopping was yet to come and with that I will leave you as the rest of the trip was too long to get in the letter. Next day we flew to HK, changed planes and flew directly back to Penang. On a side note, the old man can get social security this year and for some reason the website to enroll is inaccessible here in Malaysia. Kudos to the guys in manila we were directed to who promptly (same day!!!!) emailed me to set up a phone call on June 3rd, called me on time and did a 15 minute interview to set up my benefits. No pain, no strain unlike the Homeland (or should I say Nazi) Security problem I'm having with my Captain's license (more on that later). Two days there doing laundry and resting up, buying a netbook computer for wifi on the road, and we were off to Siem Reap, home of Angkor Wat. How's that for a cliffhanger.
Cheers
Tim & Rose
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