Hello everyone.
WE'RE BACK ON THE SATPHONE FOR EMAIL AS OF WED. OR SO, SO PLEASE DO NOT JUST RESPOND TO THIS OR SEND ANY LARGE GRAPHICS FILES.
Well, first things first. Rose's new medication seems to be working extremely well. She's pretty much back to her old self and the pain is very manageable. In fact, my assessment is that most of her pain is now from the bone spur they found in her shoulder and nothing to do with the rheumatism. Rose disagrees and says she still has aches and pains all over--they just aren't nearly as bad. Guess she knows. So, instead of Rose worrying about handling things on the passage, she's actually looking forward to leaving on a 10 day sail. Boy, does this make our lives easier!!!!
Second, I thought I had written after we arrived in Phuket, but can find no evidence of that, so there is a bit to bring you up to date. Starting with damages from lightning: all new radar (fortunately, I had purchased a used system--as they don't make spares for mine anymore--and we smuggled that in from Langkawi. Thailand requires a license to import radar which is impossible to get and the local guy here sold a replacement out from under me), new wind instrument, new stereo, new inverter, new batteries (the good news there is there is not a 6 volt gel cell to be had in SE Asia and nothing else will fit in my battery box. As a result we had to get 6 volt wet cells but that saved me about $2,000. In return for the savings, I have to watch them and top up the electrolyte every so often--no free lunch), 3 new regulators for the alternators, all new nav light bulbs ($50 a pop!!!), repair (Yea!!!!) fairly cheaply the SSB radio, freezer repairs, Iridium repairs (non-lightning related, I think) and, finally, a new GPS receiver. There were also a myriad of smaller things we had done prior to leaving like reconditioning the autopilot motor as it was the only part of my instrumentation not to fail over the last few years, a new heating element for the hot water heater, etc., etc. We are now in pretty good shape and the guys are coming to install the radar and wind tomorrow. We expect to depart for Cochin, India on Tues or, more likely, Wed. for the 1500 mile passage. Should be at sea for about 10 days. The downside of all the repairs is we have to skip the Andaman islands on the way. While beautiful, we're hearing from friends it is an administrative bureaucratic nightmare so we're not too upset.
So, after our last letter, we hung around Langkawi a bit longer than we wanted to get parts brought in. While we weren't doing most of our repairs there, it is a duty free island so we avoided larges duties and taxes and radar prohibitions, etc. in Thailand. After fueling up at Telaga Marina in Langkawi (fuel is about 2/3 of the cost in Thailand, and we loaded up all the jugs, too, as fuel the rest of the way to the Red Sea is expensive until you arrive in the Middle East), the trip up to Ao Po Marina in Phuket was reasonably uneventful, but we were a bit worried as 1. we were hand steering all the way and 2. the batteries were cooked and 3. we had no instruments. Fortunately, the winds were favorable. Our biggest concern was taking a mooring at an overnight stop on the way and the wind and tide made it a "lee shore" i.e. the winds would have blown us on the beach if the anchor dragged. With no radar or GPS for ranging our distance off the beach it was a nervous night. We ran the generator 24/7 on the way up to insure we had power if the batteries completely failed. Oh, I forgot to mention, somewhere along the way up from Penang, we picked up a fishing net on the starboard prop. While we didn't find this out 'til Joey dove on it in Phuket, it created all sorts of problems maneuvering the boat at the Langkawi fuel dock and at Ao Po. Surprisingly, it didn't affect us motoring much, but we knew something wasn't right. We arrived in Thailand on Dec. 19th, checked in the following Monday. Pleasantly, the marina has added a bar/restaurant. While it has a long way to go service wise, the prices and the food are great. We also got a car from our old friend Mr. Morn as Ao Po is in the middle of nowhere. We had hoped to depart by the 7th of Jan., but it was not in the cards with all the work that needed to be done. Joey moved on board at the end of the year when his lease at Boat Lagoon was up and has been doing odds jobs like buffing the hull, changing light bulbs, fixing minor problems generally. Congratulations to him on completing his RYA Yachtmaster on January 2nd. He's picked up a delivery to Singapore that leaves this week which may develop into a permanent job and has a prospect with another boat here. If nothing pans out, he'll head back to Fort Lauderdale for the season there. At least in the states, he doesn't have to worry about work permits, etc. and can flip burgers if nothing else. He's in love--AGAIN--but this one seems normal. Unfortunately she lives in Sydney. He's managed to wreck 2 scooters and roll a car while here, seriously depleting his funds. One of the scooters wasn't his fault. He claims none of them were his fault.
Our holidays were mixed results. Christmas was great. We opened presents and took a leisurely drive down to Royal Phuket Marina to meet Freebird at about noon. After a drink or two on board, we segued to Les Anges, one of the restaurants there, for a really good Christmas dinner with eggnog, a bottle of wine and turkey with all the trimmings. We didn't finish 'til 4:30!!! New Year's was a different story. We decided to go over to Patong Beach for the festivities and were meeting up with Scot Free II and Shirena. Being New Year's eve and it's a long way, we hired a car and driver for the night. The other guys were over there in their boats. Unfortunately, against my better judgment we agreed to meet those guys to see the Simon Cabaret. Now I think there is a conspiracy. Several cruisers have told us what a great show it is, but I believe it's "misery loves company". The captain does not like Las Vegas style revues nor is he fond of lady boy shows. Well this was even worse than I thought. The dancers couldn't dance; half the show was screeching Chinese stuff and it was all lipsinked. They got a zero for six vote from our party--nobody liked it. Post show we walked over to the actual beach and had a pretty good dinner. Only time for one drink. Then to the beach to light these really cool hot air balloon lanterns--there were thousands sent up. By this time it was eleven and the old fart cheapskate cruisers we were with decided to go home. So Rose and I said screw it, called our driver and hoped to be back at the marina for their midnight festivities. It was not to be. We spent midnight in a traffic jam and it took 3 hours for the 45 minute trip back to Ao Po. We did get to see the extensive fireworks out the back window of the cab. I had one drink all night!!!
Or last couple of weeks have been pretty tame. We met a nice English couple at the Marina bar who are in a nearby condo and have gone out with them a few times. They found a killer Italian/Thai place with great food and even better prices. I had a full beef tenderloin dinner--cooked properly rare-- for 90 baht, less than $3. Um, I think I'll be missing Asia when we hit the Med. Freebird took off right after New Year's but Scot Free II is staying another season so we've met up with them a few times. We've loaded up the boat with provisions, especially pork products and Rose has done every possible superstitious thing she could to assure a safe journey--Buddha statues, Monk blessings, etc. Just covering all the bases.
So, Happy New Year to you all; wish us smooth sailing. You'll next hear from us in India or the Maldives, then it's on to Oman, Yemen and the dreaded pirate alley. Our take on that is if we are hijacked, we'll lose a lot of weight which is good and get a seven figure book deal which is even better!!
Cheers
Tim & Rose
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Malaysia Fall Dec 9 2009
Hello all.
Well, since our arrival in Langkawi, there really hasn't been anything to report. The
marina is quite full and some other friends have arrived back. I'm not
quite sure what they'll do when another 60 boats or so arrive on the Sail
Malaysia Rally at the end of the month. Incidentally, the Sail Indonesia
Rally was free this year after the debacle checking in for the group last
year so something like 130 boats signed up. Most of them go on to the
Malaysia rally to get up the Malacca straits. While our friends on Scot
Free II have decided to stay another year, there must be at least 40 or 50
boats heading off to the Red Sea starting at the end of the year when the
Monsoon (trade winds) are right. The usual suspects are already organizing Radio nets and convoys for Pirate Alley.
Our plan and the conventional wisdom is to make landfall in Oman and then
sail down the coast of Yemen to enter the Red Sea. I expect there will be
several "flotillas" arranged for further security, but we understand this is
not a problem close to shore. Almost everyone is starting from Phuket and
some are going directly to the Maldives, just southeast of India. We are
planning to go to the Andaman Islands on the way and then call in at Cochin
on the SE coast of India, before making the further 200 mile passage down to
the Maldives. I'm pretty sure we'll go in tandem with at least one other
cat, Freebird, and their friends, The Southern Cross, may also come along.
One of the veterans here tipped us off to locally manufactured cigarettes
(you need ciggies and coke and whisky for bribes) so we picked up 5 cartons
for 13 ringgit apiece--that's about $3.00 for a carton of ten packs. That's
like 1960's pricing.
So, even if you're not interested, because I have nothing much to report, I
thought I would chronicle a typical day here. Keep in mind this is not just
a marina, but mainly a 4 star, maybe 5, resort. The captain rises early and
does email and things like this letter awaiting Rose, the admiral, to get up
around 8. Coffee and breakfast follows, but Rose has sworn off coffee and
eats a couple of pieces of rye toast spread with banana with her tea. Yuk, but it's
supposed to help her affliction. If we're not going into town, I'll do some
boat work. Most recently we've refinished the cockpit table and fixed a
slightly warped leaf. A bit of reading, lunch, then Rose goes to the beach.
They also have a pool, all this for $300/month (I'm going to hate to leave).
Sometimes I go too, and I also just chill out and read or sometimes, rarely,
do some more work. Hey, it gets hot here in the afternoon. I usually find
time for a nap.
Okay, so I wrote the foregoing a month ago and haven't sent it. I was going to bore you some more with stories about the Halloween party, the new wood grating for the cockpit well, repairing the coffee pot, movies on the hard drive, Mr. Din, the car man's problems, massages, etc., etc., etc. However, now I have something interesting to report. On the way from Langkawi to Penang last week where we were going to haul the boat, add a coat of bottom paint and get some general service in preparation for our departure to the Red Sea, we managed to encounter a near miss with a lightning bolt. I know it was a near miss as I was hit once before. The static charge seems to have blown only circuit board type stuff, like the regulators, radar--which I had just replaced on the mast, autopilot brain, etc. etc. No human damage. However, this is requiring a refit of the whole boat including batteries which were getting a bit old anyway and inverter and autopilot course computer and I still don't know what else. Yesterday the 12 volt refrigeration went. A guy might come to look today. Tomorrow is some kind of holiday. And just try to get a serviceman here. I've alerted all the guys in Phuket who are saving time for me, but we need to get basically sorted out here before we can leave. Complicating matters is we're trying to get all the replacements into Langkawi which is duty, and hassle, free whereas Thailand in a nightmare for imports. Also the battery guy here who has AGMs at a reasonable price doesn't have them in yet--next week; yeah, right. Checking with contacts in Thailand to see if I can source them there at an acceptable cost. This, alone, is about two grand!!!! Insurance would cover this, but I'm on the cusp of the combination of deductible and the 20% no-claim discount so I'm eating all the expense. On the brighter side, I'll basically have all new electronics, and every other Ray Marine instrument had already failed so it is likely I'd be replacing the "brain" soon anyway. The batteries were already 4 years old and one had failed so I had a jury rigged system anyway as you can't get 6 volt gel cells anywhere in SE Asia.
So the boat is a pit; we're limping along on electrics and are heading to Phuket ASAP for the holidays. Oh, we really loved hand steering from Penang up here. Haven't done that since the autopilot crapped out in 1999 on the way from St Martin to Tortola. Fortunately, seas were calm and the wind right yesterday. Rose almost mutinied but found out it wasn't too bad. Hah, that's what he thinks !Rose.
The latest Rose report from seeing the specialist in Penang: The doc wanted a limited MRI of some of her joints because the pain hasn't been matching the arthritis, and the blood tests have shown good improvement in the rheumatism. Sure enough, there is only minor damage from arthritis, although they found a bone spur in her shoulder. SO--Rose is on different stuff now. She has one set of pills for the rheumatoid arthritis and another for what they call Fibromyalgia which goes with the other and causes undo sensitivity to pain. Of course, the benefits don't kick in for 3 weeks so we're just hoping this finally does it. Rose will fly back to Penang Jan. 2nd for a final visit and checkup with the doc before our departure.
Ok. That's it. I'm having a fit of depression as I hate when things break and now everything has broken and I can't get the parts or the people to fix it for at least over the weekend. The one bright spot is the electric freezer still works so we have ice!!!!
Cheers and happy holidays from both of us.
Tim & Rose
Well, since our arrival in Langkawi, there really hasn't been anything to report. The
marina is quite full and some other friends have arrived back. I'm not
quite sure what they'll do when another 60 boats or so arrive on the Sail
Malaysia Rally at the end of the month. Incidentally, the Sail Indonesia
Rally was free this year after the debacle checking in for the group last
year so something like 130 boats signed up. Most of them go on to the
Malaysia rally to get up the Malacca straits. While our friends on Scot
Free II have decided to stay another year, there must be at least 40 or 50
boats heading off to the Red Sea starting at the end of the year when the
Monsoon (trade winds) are right. The usual suspects are already organizing Radio nets and convoys for Pirate Alley.
Our plan and the conventional wisdom is to make landfall in Oman and then
sail down the coast of Yemen to enter the Red Sea. I expect there will be
several "flotillas" arranged for further security, but we understand this is
not a problem close to shore. Almost everyone is starting from Phuket and
some are going directly to the Maldives, just southeast of India. We are
planning to go to the Andaman Islands on the way and then call in at Cochin
on the SE coast of India, before making the further 200 mile passage down to
the Maldives. I'm pretty sure we'll go in tandem with at least one other
cat, Freebird, and their friends, The Southern Cross, may also come along.
One of the veterans here tipped us off to locally manufactured cigarettes
(you need ciggies and coke and whisky for bribes) so we picked up 5 cartons
for 13 ringgit apiece--that's about $3.00 for a carton of ten packs. That's
like 1960's pricing.
So, even if you're not interested, because I have nothing much to report, I
thought I would chronicle a typical day here. Keep in mind this is not just
a marina, but mainly a 4 star, maybe 5, resort. The captain rises early and
does email and things like this letter awaiting Rose, the admiral, to get up
around 8. Coffee and breakfast follows, but Rose has sworn off coffee and
eats a couple of pieces of rye toast spread with banana with her tea. Yuk, but it's
supposed to help her affliction. If we're not going into town, I'll do some
boat work. Most recently we've refinished the cockpit table and fixed a
slightly warped leaf. A bit of reading, lunch, then Rose goes to the beach.
They also have a pool, all this for $300/month (I'm going to hate to leave).
Sometimes I go too, and I also just chill out and read or sometimes, rarely,
do some more work. Hey, it gets hot here in the afternoon. I usually find
time for a nap.
Okay, so I wrote the foregoing a month ago and haven't sent it. I was going to bore you some more with stories about the Halloween party, the new wood grating for the cockpit well, repairing the coffee pot, movies on the hard drive, Mr. Din, the car man's problems, massages, etc., etc., etc. However, now I have something interesting to report. On the way from Langkawi to Penang last week where we were going to haul the boat, add a coat of bottom paint and get some general service in preparation for our departure to the Red Sea, we managed to encounter a near miss with a lightning bolt. I know it was a near miss as I was hit once before. The static charge seems to have blown only circuit board type stuff, like the regulators, radar--which I had just replaced on the mast, autopilot brain, etc. etc. No human damage. However, this is requiring a refit of the whole boat including batteries which were getting a bit old anyway and inverter and autopilot course computer and I still don't know what else. Yesterday the 12 volt refrigeration went. A guy might come to look today. Tomorrow is some kind of holiday. And just try to get a serviceman here. I've alerted all the guys in Phuket who are saving time for me, but we need to get basically sorted out here before we can leave. Complicating matters is we're trying to get all the replacements into Langkawi which is duty, and hassle, free whereas Thailand in a nightmare for imports. Also the battery guy here who has AGMs at a reasonable price doesn't have them in yet--next week; yeah, right. Checking with contacts in Thailand to see if I can source them there at an acceptable cost. This, alone, is about two grand!!!! Insurance would cover this, but I'm on the cusp of the combination of deductible and the 20% no-claim discount so I'm eating all the expense. On the brighter side, I'll basically have all new electronics, and every other Ray Marine instrument had already failed so it is likely I'd be replacing the "brain" soon anyway. The batteries were already 4 years old and one had failed so I had a jury rigged system anyway as you can't get 6 volt gel cells anywhere in SE Asia.
So the boat is a pit; we're limping along on electrics and are heading to Phuket ASAP for the holidays. Oh, we really loved hand steering from Penang up here. Haven't done that since the autopilot crapped out in 1999 on the way from St Martin to Tortola. Fortunately, seas were calm and the wind right yesterday. Rose almost mutinied but found out it wasn't too bad. Hah, that's what he thinks !Rose.
The latest Rose report from seeing the specialist in Penang: The doc wanted a limited MRI of some of her joints because the pain hasn't been matching the arthritis, and the blood tests have shown good improvement in the rheumatism. Sure enough, there is only minor damage from arthritis, although they found a bone spur in her shoulder. SO--Rose is on different stuff now. She has one set of pills for the rheumatoid arthritis and another for what they call Fibromyalgia which goes with the other and causes undo sensitivity to pain. Of course, the benefits don't kick in for 3 weeks so we're just hoping this finally does it. Rose will fly back to Penang Jan. 2nd for a final visit and checkup with the doc before our departure.
Ok. That's it. I'm having a fit of depression as I hate when things break and now everything has broken and I can't get the parts or the people to fix it for at least over the weekend. The one bright spot is the electric freezer still works so we have ice!!!!
Cheers and happy holidays from both of us.
Tim & Rose
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Phuket Sept 2009 Oct. 20 2009
Hello to you all. Some of you really do care and have inquired as to our well being since it has been a while since we wrote. Now you may look on this as whynging, but we look at it as wondering if anyone cares!!!
We are now back in Rebak Marina at Langkawi in Malaysia, having spent an entire month in Phuket. Unfortunately, we weren't sure we were going to be that long so we didn't sign up for the cheap monthly massage, etc. deal at the spa at the marina. Still got our share!!!!
Most of the month we spent working on the boat or arranging for others to do so. Remember, Joe was still on board and, until he fell in with a disreputable South African crowd, did a yeoman's job on the boat. Of course, I have now thrown my list out and Alzheimer's is kicking in (maybe it's mad cow like Denny Crane. I just acquired the original Star Trek series and Rose can't believe it's the same guy!!!), but things like buffing the topsides, fixing lights, changing oil (of course the sail drive that was leaking had to be changed again, as well as engine oil, etc. We even did the windlass) etc., etc. A friend here has advised me that we can fix the sail drive problem by drilling a small pressure relief hole in the oil fill cap. Seems like it is common for heat to build up pressure internally in the sail drive which then pushes oil out the seals. That's okay, but then, when it cool off, it creates a vacuum which sucks seawater in through the seals. The small hole stops this from happening--you just have to put a rag over the hole or when the pressure builds up, it will spew oil all over. I've never heard of this and am getting new seals when we haul out in December, but, should it recur, I will definitely do this as it is a pain to change the oil!! Now this is probably more than you want to know about sail drives, but I'm going to tell you anyway. On the old ones, the only way you could thoroughly change the oil was to haul the boat, which is quite expensive, and drain it from the bottom. You are instructed to do this every 150 hours which would mean 2 or 3 haulouts a year. No Way!! Too many gears to get a vacuum pump in there from the top. On the new ones, however, the geniuses have come up with a pressure system whereby you put a nipple at the very top and another where it goes through the hull, connected to hoses, and use a scuba tank to pressurize the drive and blow the oil out into the container of your choice. Joe had become quite proficient at this, but he stayed in Phuket, and it needed to be done on arrival in Langkawi. Don't want to leave salty oil in the drive. What I neglected to know was you pull the bottom plug first and screw in that nipple before opening up the top. This leaves a semi-vacuum in place for minimum spillage. The way I did it, opening the top, then the bottom allows all the oil to run quickly out and makes putting in the bottom nipple with the hose, while this is going on, almost impossible. Took a while to clean the bilge, but next time...
Our boat status was improved, but not completed in Phuket. Seems the mother board was blown on the radar, but they do not make them anymore. As a major win, the radar guy actually found an old one in the shop. Yes!!! (we believe the coincidence of the board blowing so soon after he worked on it and the fact that he charged us nothing for the diagnostics nor the board, indicate he knew he was at fault) Unfortunately, the mother board took another board with it which, again, they don't make for ancient systems like ours. Finally, we have tracked down the a replacement for about $350 which will allow us to avoid replacing the entire radar dome for $2,000. Some places, namely Ray Marine, say we can't even get a new scanner for our model while others here in Asia say complete replacements are available for the two grand. Nonetheless, as backup, we found a shorter range used system on line, including a display (another thing you can't get parts for) for cheap. Keeping it in reserve, and we'll let you know if our repairs work once we get the board.
Also, the genset wasn't pumping water. We tried everything, like changing the hoses in case there was a pinhole leak, but no dice. One of the great guys we have used there, took off the pump and basically rebuilt it for us for next to nothing. He also custom made aluminum alloy sea water strainer screens for the genset and freezer water intakes to improve flow. We poured acid down the freezer to clean all the crud out so it was working great. Unfortunately, on departure, it all came apart. The genset stopped pumping again, and the freezer pump (brand new) started leaking. Turns out the impeller was bad on the genset--an easy fix, but why? Had another pump for the freezer and not sure why that leaked, but all is well now. Had both the genset guy and the electrician on the hunt for some new batteries but so far, we're having no luck in either Thailand or Langkawi. Fortunately, we're on shore power and only need one 6 volt and one starter battery, according to the electrician, but we need to find them somewhere. That's really good news as we have 10 batteries and they are about $300 each. I was worried we needed a full complement!!
Other boat stuff--got the rigging replaced; reconditioned the jib; did canvas repairs; organized the haulout for Dec. 2, tried to fix a new water maker leak--again not critical as we're on the dock--but I can't find it. The element on one of the the hot water heaters is bad, but we can't find a replacement (110 volt) in Asia. Fortunately, I found a spare on board but haven't hooked it up yet awaiting some info, as an OEM part is $114 for a normally $10 element!!?? Organized a bunch of stuff in waterproof boxes; cleaned, resealed leaky hatches, etc. etc. etc. Also need to get a new dinghy prop and found that the spare from the old dinghy, which was supposed to fit the new engine, didn't. Researching that and hoping for some kind of adapter. Also discovered the almost new BBQ was rusting through. The old one lasted 10 plus years!!! Trying to see what "they" will do about that. Oh, also installed the new brighter LEDs we've had for some time. Awesome. Very bright and they use almost no power. I'm sure there's more, but I'm equally sure you are about asleep if not already!!!
Our social lives were pretty good in Royal Phuket Marina. We got a car for the time we were there from the faithful Mr. Morn. Same as last time. Joey rented and promptly wrecked a scooter which cost him $300 or $400. He, by the way, is in Bangkok finishing the RYA Captain's paper work (seems the guy in Oz was not RYA certified so we're duplicating here, folks) Congrats that he's passing his tests, but brickbats for leaving stuff in his room at the backpacker place. He's now short one IPod and 7,000 baht ($200). We finally went to the Big Buddha, a 40 meter statue on top of one of the hills in Phuket. We found a most excellent western style grocery, got massages, shopped, etc. All in all a good time and productive. A few days after our arrival, a sister ship pulled in from the Maldives with a permanent skipper, Dieter and two crew, all South African. This was unfortunate as we all know what these guys are like--Dieter knew the Voyage crowd--so Joe's work ethic went out the window. There will have to be some major adjustments when he finally gets employed. The plan is for him to return to Phuket and rent a place while job hunting. Wish him luck!!!
Because of the tides, we had to leave Phuket around noon meaning we could only get as far as Phi Phi, about 25 miles out. So the next day we either had to start on two short legs back the 100 miles to Langkawi, or really go for it. Would have left before sunup if we had radar but managed to get off at morning twilight. Fortunately, there was a bit of wind and we made the anchorage at Telaga (where you check in) just after dark. Checked in the next day, although we're still trying to get to the harbour master who seems to make his own hours, and took off for Rebak only about 5 miles away. Pissed rain but we got a break and made it to the slip. Same spot as last time, but they aren't sure we can stay after month end due to another reservation. I really don't want to anchor out with the water maker leaking and battery problem, but Telaga looked pretty full. Will call them next week to see if they can accommodate us. Quite the usual suspects here. Freebird arrived back from the states the day after we got in and Scot Free II from Canada just got back yesterday, but they won't get to Rebak until the end of the week.
Now I know most of you are only interested in the Rose report so I purposely left it until last so you had to read the rest of my drivel. Rose actually flew down to Penang from Phuket to see the doc (one of the reasons we stayed a full month was we couldn't get everything done in time to leave for Malaysia in time to make her appointment). The news is mixed. The doc keeps telling Rose her blood tests are showing improvement but the pain just keeps on. Fortunately, the next appointment is when we will be in Penang for the haulout, and we're hoping that things will improve by that point. Shortly after that appointment we'll leave for Phuket, and points west so we need to get the situation sorted!!!
Cheers from us both
Tim & Rose
We are now back in Rebak Marina at Langkawi in Malaysia, having spent an entire month in Phuket. Unfortunately, we weren't sure we were going to be that long so we didn't sign up for the cheap monthly massage, etc. deal at the spa at the marina. Still got our share!!!!
Most of the month we spent working on the boat or arranging for others to do so. Remember, Joe was still on board and, until he fell in with a disreputable South African crowd, did a yeoman's job on the boat. Of course, I have now thrown my list out and Alzheimer's is kicking in (maybe it's mad cow like Denny Crane. I just acquired the original Star Trek series and Rose can't believe it's the same guy!!!), but things like buffing the topsides, fixing lights, changing oil (of course the sail drive that was leaking had to be changed again, as well as engine oil, etc. We even did the windlass) etc., etc. A friend here has advised me that we can fix the sail drive problem by drilling a small pressure relief hole in the oil fill cap. Seems like it is common for heat to build up pressure internally in the sail drive which then pushes oil out the seals. That's okay, but then, when it cool off, it creates a vacuum which sucks seawater in through the seals. The small hole stops this from happening--you just have to put a rag over the hole or when the pressure builds up, it will spew oil all over. I've never heard of this and am getting new seals when we haul out in December, but, should it recur, I will definitely do this as it is a pain to change the oil!! Now this is probably more than you want to know about sail drives, but I'm going to tell you anyway. On the old ones, the only way you could thoroughly change the oil was to haul the boat, which is quite expensive, and drain it from the bottom. You are instructed to do this every 150 hours which would mean 2 or 3 haulouts a year. No Way!! Too many gears to get a vacuum pump in there from the top. On the new ones, however, the geniuses have come up with a pressure system whereby you put a nipple at the very top and another where it goes through the hull, connected to hoses, and use a scuba tank to pressurize the drive and blow the oil out into the container of your choice. Joe had become quite proficient at this, but he stayed in Phuket, and it needed to be done on arrival in Langkawi. Don't want to leave salty oil in the drive. What I neglected to know was you pull the bottom plug first and screw in that nipple before opening up the top. This leaves a semi-vacuum in place for minimum spillage. The way I did it, opening the top, then the bottom allows all the oil to run quickly out and makes putting in the bottom nipple with the hose, while this is going on, almost impossible. Took a while to clean the bilge, but next time...
Our boat status was improved, but not completed in Phuket. Seems the mother board was blown on the radar, but they do not make them anymore. As a major win, the radar guy actually found an old one in the shop. Yes!!! (we believe the coincidence of the board blowing so soon after he worked on it and the fact that he charged us nothing for the diagnostics nor the board, indicate he knew he was at fault) Unfortunately, the mother board took another board with it which, again, they don't make for ancient systems like ours. Finally, we have tracked down the a replacement for about $350 which will allow us to avoid replacing the entire radar dome for $2,000. Some places, namely Ray Marine, say we can't even get a new scanner for our model while others here in Asia say complete replacements are available for the two grand. Nonetheless, as backup, we found a shorter range used system on line, including a display (another thing you can't get parts for) for cheap. Keeping it in reserve, and we'll let you know if our repairs work once we get the board.
Also, the genset wasn't pumping water. We tried everything, like changing the hoses in case there was a pinhole leak, but no dice. One of the great guys we have used there, took off the pump and basically rebuilt it for us for next to nothing. He also custom made aluminum alloy sea water strainer screens for the genset and freezer water intakes to improve flow. We poured acid down the freezer to clean all the crud out so it was working great. Unfortunately, on departure, it all came apart. The genset stopped pumping again, and the freezer pump (brand new) started leaking. Turns out the impeller was bad on the genset--an easy fix, but why? Had another pump for the freezer and not sure why that leaked, but all is well now. Had both the genset guy and the electrician on the hunt for some new batteries but so far, we're having no luck in either Thailand or Langkawi. Fortunately, we're on shore power and only need one 6 volt and one starter battery, according to the electrician, but we need to find them somewhere. That's really good news as we have 10 batteries and they are about $300 each. I was worried we needed a full complement!!
Other boat stuff--got the rigging replaced; reconditioned the jib; did canvas repairs; organized the haulout for Dec. 2, tried to fix a new water maker leak--again not critical as we're on the dock--but I can't find it. The element on one of the the hot water heaters is bad, but we can't find a replacement (110 volt) in Asia. Fortunately, I found a spare on board but haven't hooked it up yet awaiting some info, as an OEM part is $114 for a normally $10 element!!?? Organized a bunch of stuff in waterproof boxes; cleaned, resealed leaky hatches, etc. etc. etc. Also need to get a new dinghy prop and found that the spare from the old dinghy, which was supposed to fit the new engine, didn't. Researching that and hoping for some kind of adapter. Also discovered the almost new BBQ was rusting through. The old one lasted 10 plus years!!! Trying to see what "they" will do about that. Oh, also installed the new brighter LEDs we've had for some time. Awesome. Very bright and they use almost no power. I'm sure there's more, but I'm equally sure you are about asleep if not already!!!
Our social lives were pretty good in Royal Phuket Marina. We got a car for the time we were there from the faithful Mr. Morn. Same as last time. Joey rented and promptly wrecked a scooter which cost him $300 or $400. He, by the way, is in Bangkok finishing the RYA Captain's paper work (seems the guy in Oz was not RYA certified so we're duplicating here, folks) Congrats that he's passing his tests, but brickbats for leaving stuff in his room at the backpacker place. He's now short one IPod and 7,000 baht ($200). We finally went to the Big Buddha, a 40 meter statue on top of one of the hills in Phuket. We found a most excellent western style grocery, got massages, shopped, etc. All in all a good time and productive. A few days after our arrival, a sister ship pulled in from the Maldives with a permanent skipper, Dieter and two crew, all South African. This was unfortunate as we all know what these guys are like--Dieter knew the Voyage crowd--so Joe's work ethic went out the window. There will have to be some major adjustments when he finally gets employed. The plan is for him to return to Phuket and rent a place while job hunting. Wish him luck!!!
Because of the tides, we had to leave Phuket around noon meaning we could only get as far as Phi Phi, about 25 miles out. So the next day we either had to start on two short legs back the 100 miles to Langkawi, or really go for it. Would have left before sunup if we had radar but managed to get off at morning twilight. Fortunately, there was a bit of wind and we made the anchorage at Telaga (where you check in) just after dark. Checked in the next day, although we're still trying to get to the harbour master who seems to make his own hours, and took off for Rebak only about 5 miles away. Pissed rain but we got a break and made it to the slip. Same spot as last time, but they aren't sure we can stay after month end due to another reservation. I really don't want to anchor out with the water maker leaking and battery problem, but Telaga looked pretty full. Will call them next week to see if they can accommodate us. Quite the usual suspects here. Freebird arrived back from the states the day after we got in and Scot Free II from Canada just got back yesterday, but they won't get to Rebak until the end of the week.
Now I know most of you are only interested in the Rose report so I purposely left it until last so you had to read the rest of my drivel. Rose actually flew down to Penang from Phuket to see the doc (one of the reasons we stayed a full month was we couldn't get everything done in time to leave for Malaysia in time to make her appointment). The news is mixed. The doc keeps telling Rose her blood tests are showing improvement but the pain just keeps on. Fortunately, the next appointment is when we will be in Penang for the haulout, and we're hoping that things will improve by that point. Shortly after that appointment we'll leave for Phuket, and points west so we need to get the situation sorted!!!
Cheers from us both
Tim & Rose
Monday, September 14, 2009
September 14 2009
I almost forgot, tomorrow marks my 11th anniversary of living on the boat.
While it sure doesn't seem like yesterday given all that's happened, the
time has truly flown, and I have no regrets. As many of you have heard me
say: "it sure beats working". Attached a 2005 and a current pic. You can print these out and put them on the fridge door!!
While it sure doesn't seem like yesterday given all that's happened, the
time has truly flown, and I have no regrets. As many of you have heard me
say: "it sure beats working". Attached a 2005 and a current pic. You can print these out and put them on the fridge door!!
Malaysia II & Phuket Sept 14 2009
Hello all.
Yes, we are seriously overdue, not having written since July 8th. Unbelievably, some of you have actually inquired as to our well-being.
Okay, so the reason there's been no letter is there has been precious little to write about. Shortly after our last one, Rose took off for Europe for five weeks and Joey took off for Singapore and New Zealand. Like he needs another vacation!!! The poor captain was left to his own devices until August 16th when the lovely Rose returned to Penang. Ah, solitude. Ah, peace and quiet. My days were filled with a long overdue thorough cleaning of the boat from stem to stern, from bilges to cabin top. The galley alone took 3 full days!!! Of course, there were a few massages and pizzas thrown in. I was also responsible for looking after Freebird while they were gone. The only excitement was a storm generated surge that spent a day hammering the boats and breaking dock lines. Installation of the new autopilot head was surprisingly easy, EXCEPT, the changeout "told" one of the other instruments that it should "lock" up due to suspected tampering. The only way, since the new head doesn't use that feature, to unlock is to send the thing to the states. Crap!! Fortunately, with some advice, we were able to solve the problem by putting the old head back in line after the new one--all the instruments are interconnected and talk to each other. Just removed that today to see if the fix was permanent and it is--saves hundreds in shipping and aggravation. Speaking of which, since we're on the way to the Med in January, I thought it would be a good idea to blow a few hundred on an AIS (automatic identification system) which works like an aviation transponder to identify other boats vital statistics. It works in tandem with the radar, and can be displayed on your chartplotter or computer--IF you have the right version. Took me about 2 weeks to figure out that I don't and that the upgrades wouldn't load properly. Fortunately, there is a free stand alone program that provides an excellent interface. Then there were the idiots at ICOM, the manufacturer that set the cabling up for a serial interface. That's one of those nine pin plugs like you used to have on the computer for your printer a million years ago. Now everyone uses USB, so I had to manufacture a cable and then the dummies don't really tell you which wire hooks up where. OK. Enough! We got it to work, and it was lucky since the radar has gone out again. Oh yeah, the genset went out too. Doesn't want to pump cooling water in spite of everything appearing okay and replacement of all the hoses. The mechanic is checking it as we speak and thinks it is a bad seal on the water pump shaft.
Anyway, after more than four months in Penang, we were ready to move on and decided to head back up to Phuket to get the rigging done, and the radar and generator fixed. We stopped off at Rebak on Langkawi for a few days to allow Joey to load up on $10/case beer and to see a bunch of friends there. Actually, we also finally (Norman and Rose) got to ride up the cable car to a mountain top. Great views 'til we actually arrived at the top when the weather decided to sock in. Had lunch at a most excellent Tapas place nearby and then did it again on our way out of Malaysia. Spent a futile day or two trying to collect Rose's passport. Unlike the US, commonwealth countries including the UK will not issue additional pages, so, in spite of having 5 more years to run, Rose had to spend almost $200 on a new passport which was issued in KL with instructions to return it to Rebak. Nope, courier service won't deliver out there, so first we wasted a Friday when, due to Ramadan, everything was closed, then Monday, we went to the wrong depot. Have finally retrieved it.
Our trip up to Langkawi was marked with high winds and heavy rain as was part of the trip to Phuket. We were also babying the port transmission as we found milky oil in there signifying leaky shaft seals. That will be okay as long as we frequently change out the oil, but it can't be fixed without hauling the boat out of the water. As for further news, Rose has put her foot down (I think she was just humoring me before anyway) and has insisted we resume our westward trek come January, so it's just as well we're doing the rigging, getting AIS, etc. Unfortunately, as she was weaned off the steroids, Rose's condition has not responded as we all hoped it would. She had an appointment she had to fly down to Penang for and put the fear of God in the docs as they have now changed her dosages, given her some new stuff and added back a small dose of steroids. After the miraculous improvement of a few months ago, needless to say, we are very disappointed with the results of the new treatment thus far, but Rose is on the comeback trail with the changes in her medication and time will tell. She needs to fly back to Penang early October for more checks, etc. and will do so from either here (Phuket) or Langkawi. Round trip is only about $50.
On the Joey front, there are some job prospects here he is working on and, in any event, he can finish up his captain's qualifications here. It's also about as cheap a place to be as there is, so being unemployed here is less of a drain on the pocketbook. Hell yes, that's why I wanted to stay.
So, here we are back in our old stomping grounds at Royal Phuket Marina, having arrived Thursday night. We were quite happy to get away from the 1000 decibel disco 'til 3 AM each Friday and Saturday in Penang only to have a couple of parties here all weekend. The one Friday night actually went 'til 8 AM Saturday!!!! Fireworks at midnight last night. Hoping it was an anomaly as this didn't happen in Feb.. We're checked in for at least a month, and today, Monday, I've called the radar guy, the generator mechanic, the electrician (I forgot to mention it looks like I'll need new batteries--don't ask what they cost), and the canvas man for some minor repairs. We also need some work on the jib, but the riggers can handle that when they change out the rigging later this week. So, all in all, we'll be in great shape for a January departure, and this is about as cheap as it gets for this kind of work. Still deciding where to spend the holidays, and won't know how long we're here until the work starts.
Cheers until later
Tim & Rose
Yes, we are seriously overdue, not having written since July 8th. Unbelievably, some of you have actually inquired as to our well-being.
Okay, so the reason there's been no letter is there has been precious little to write about. Shortly after our last one, Rose took off for Europe for five weeks and Joey took off for Singapore and New Zealand. Like he needs another vacation!!! The poor captain was left to his own devices until August 16th when the lovely Rose returned to Penang. Ah, solitude. Ah, peace and quiet. My days were filled with a long overdue thorough cleaning of the boat from stem to stern, from bilges to cabin top. The galley alone took 3 full days!!! Of course, there were a few massages and pizzas thrown in. I was also responsible for looking after Freebird while they were gone. The only excitement was a storm generated surge that spent a day hammering the boats and breaking dock lines. Installation of the new autopilot head was surprisingly easy, EXCEPT, the changeout "told" one of the other instruments that it should "lock" up due to suspected tampering. The only way, since the new head doesn't use that feature, to unlock is to send the thing to the states. Crap!! Fortunately, with some advice, we were able to solve the problem by putting the old head back in line after the new one--all the instruments are interconnected and talk to each other. Just removed that today to see if the fix was permanent and it is--saves hundreds in shipping and aggravation. Speaking of which, since we're on the way to the Med in January, I thought it would be a good idea to blow a few hundred on an AIS (automatic identification system) which works like an aviation transponder to identify other boats vital statistics. It works in tandem with the radar, and can be displayed on your chartplotter or computer--IF you have the right version. Took me about 2 weeks to figure out that I don't and that the upgrades wouldn't load properly. Fortunately, there is a free stand alone program that provides an excellent interface. Then there were the idiots at ICOM, the manufacturer that set the cabling up for a serial interface. That's one of those nine pin plugs like you used to have on the computer for your printer a million years ago. Now everyone uses USB, so I had to manufacture a cable and then the dummies don't really tell you which wire hooks up where. OK. Enough! We got it to work, and it was lucky since the radar has gone out again. Oh yeah, the genset went out too. Doesn't want to pump cooling water in spite of everything appearing okay and replacement of all the hoses. The mechanic is checking it as we speak and thinks it is a bad seal on the water pump shaft.
Anyway, after more than four months in Penang, we were ready to move on and decided to head back up to Phuket to get the rigging done, and the radar and generator fixed. We stopped off at Rebak on Langkawi for a few days to allow Joey to load up on $10/case beer and to see a bunch of friends there. Actually, we also finally (Norman and Rose) got to ride up the cable car to a mountain top. Great views 'til we actually arrived at the top when the weather decided to sock in. Had lunch at a most excellent Tapas place nearby and then did it again on our way out of Malaysia. Spent a futile day or two trying to collect Rose's passport. Unlike the US, commonwealth countries including the UK will not issue additional pages, so, in spite of having 5 more years to run, Rose had to spend almost $200 on a new passport which was issued in KL with instructions to return it to Rebak. Nope, courier service won't deliver out there, so first we wasted a Friday when, due to Ramadan, everything was closed, then Monday, we went to the wrong depot. Have finally retrieved it.
Our trip up to Langkawi was marked with high winds and heavy rain as was part of the trip to Phuket. We were also babying the port transmission as we found milky oil in there signifying leaky shaft seals. That will be okay as long as we frequently change out the oil, but it can't be fixed without hauling the boat out of the water. As for further news, Rose has put her foot down (I think she was just humoring me before anyway) and has insisted we resume our westward trek come January, so it's just as well we're doing the rigging, getting AIS, etc. Unfortunately, as she was weaned off the steroids, Rose's condition has not responded as we all hoped it would. She had an appointment she had to fly down to Penang for and put the fear of God in the docs as they have now changed her dosages, given her some new stuff and added back a small dose of steroids. After the miraculous improvement of a few months ago, needless to say, we are very disappointed with the results of the new treatment thus far, but Rose is on the comeback trail with the changes in her medication and time will tell. She needs to fly back to Penang early October for more checks, etc. and will do so from either here (Phuket) or Langkawi. Round trip is only about $50.
On the Joey front, there are some job prospects here he is working on and, in any event, he can finish up his captain's qualifications here. It's also about as cheap a place to be as there is, so being unemployed here is less of a drain on the pocketbook. Hell yes, that's why I wanted to stay.
So, here we are back in our old stomping grounds at Royal Phuket Marina, having arrived Thursday night. We were quite happy to get away from the 1000 decibel disco 'til 3 AM each Friday and Saturday in Penang only to have a couple of parties here all weekend. The one Friday night actually went 'til 8 AM Saturday!!!! Fireworks at midnight last night. Hoping it was an anomaly as this didn't happen in Feb.. We're checked in for at least a month, and today, Monday, I've called the radar guy, the generator mechanic, the electrician (I forgot to mention it looks like I'll need new batteries--don't ask what they cost), and the canvas man for some minor repairs. We also need some work on the jib, but the riggers can handle that when they change out the rigging later this week. So, all in all, we'll be in great shape for a January departure, and this is about as cheap as it gets for this kind of work. Still deciding where to spend the holidays, and won't know how long we're here until the work starts.
Cheers until later
Tim & Rose
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Southeast Asia July 8 2009
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
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
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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