S. E. Asia Cruise

Taking Off; Monday, January 28, 2013

It's about 12:40am on Monday, January 28th - the day we're leaving for our trip to South East Asia.

If you look at the trip descriptions on Nat Geo or any others, they all count the day you leave your house to join the trip as day 1. I always feel that's cheating. So, I am counting the day we leave our house as day 0.

Our flight with Cathy Pacific leaves from Kennedy airport in NYC at 20 minutes past mid-night. Strictly saying, it's January the 29th, not 28th. Today we will take the dogs for a good walk before bringing them to the kennel in early afternoon. Then we'll pick up the rental car and leave for NYC around 3pm, which will get us to the airport leisurely by 10pm. We will change plane in HongKong. By the time we arrive in Singapore, it'll be mid-day Wednesday, local time (mid-night Tuesday EST).

The timing of this vacation works out really well. I did not think I would need a transition from working to retiring, now I know I do. It was bittersweet to leave the place where I spent the last 17+ years, and the people whom I can call my friends. I am forever grateful for the touching send-offs my team, friends, and colleagues gave me!

Off to bed now. After we get up, it'll be all the last minute stuff, then leave!

Singapore; Wednesday, January 30, 2013

We are in Singapore now, finally! It is Wednesday, January 30th. 

Day 0 turned out to be rather hectic. Since our flight was supposed to be around mid-night, we thought we had plenty of time to get things done leisurely. Then Bob called the airline to check on something and found out the schedule was changed! Our original flight was canceled, back in May. Cathay Pacific notified British Airways to tell us, but British Airways dropped the ball. They booked us on a flight that was to leave at 10pm. And we lost our seats from HK to Singapore and they had to scramble to find us seats. This news sent us into a frenzy - took care of the dogs and brought them to the kennel, picked up the rental car, finished up all sorts of last-minute stuff in the house, and finally took off for NYC at 3pm, in the snow.

The drive to Kennedy airport was smooth despite the snow, which turned into rain before we reached NYC. The flight took off on schedule. 5.5 hours later we landed in Vancouver. We did not get off the plane. And the plane took off in about an hour. Another 13.5 hours later, we were in Hong Kong. We were very very impressed with Cathay Pacific! We were in business class. The seats, the service, the food, nothing to pick! Much much better than United! I think we'll start using Cathay Pacific from now on, when we go back to Asia.

The layover in Hong Kong was only about less than 2 hours. The flight from Hong Kong to Singapore was 3.5 hours. We got to Singapore about 1pm local time. And it is Wednesday. We got to the Fairmont hotel in downtown around 2pm. Our room was not ready yet, so we were sent to the hospitality suite to wait for our room. We met two other couples there - one couple was from Toronto, on their way to join a Holland America cruise; another was from London, on route to New Zealand for a month long vacation. We had a good chat and learned about things we should do in Singapore. The Toronto couple took the "Eva" airline and was very pleased with it. I think that's the Taiwanese airline.

We got into our room shortly after 3pm. The room has a partial view of the bay where the stunning Marina Sands hotel and casino is. After we took a badly needed shower, we walked out to explore the area by the hotel. The hotel is in the city center, across from the famous and oldest hotel in Singapore, Raffles. We walked into the courtyard of Raffles, browsed through a few shops (things there were quite expensive), and poked our heads in the famous "Long bar" (where a cocktail costs $28!). Boy, it is really warm here in Singapore! 30 degrees Celsius, which is close to 90 degrees Fahrenheit! We did not have the energy to walk elsewhere, so we came back to consult the concierge about places of interest to go. While talking, Ira and Fran showed up! We tried to call them twice but could not reach them in their room. But now we ran into each other at the Concierge's desk! They arrived yesterday and had already walked along the river and took in some sceneries today.

We asked the concierge to recommend some places that have authentic good local food. He told us this place called "Chef Kitchen", just a couple of blocks away. It was not a restaurant per se, more like a casual cafeteria. But the food was absolutely excellent!! We had a wonderful dinner, with black pepper crabs, salt and pepper shrimp, Kungpao frogs, and hot plate venison. Every dish was very delicious! Will have to go back there again!

Almost 9pm now. We're beat! Will go to bed soon. Tomorrow we'll meet Ira and Fran after 9am and figure out what to do - quite a few things on the list.

Singapore Day 2; Thursday, January 31, 2013

So glad that we had a very good night's sleep last night (even though waking up multiple times but were able to fall back to sleep), so we woke up well rested, and ready to go. We met Ira and Fran at 9am. Ira already scouted out the place for breakfast, which was a nice French bistro place next to the hotel. Breakfast was wonderful. Bob and I both had crepes of different sorts. Ira and Fran both had the healthy fruit muesli. And we all had the nice French coffee - I had not been drinking coffee for a long time but I could not pass on this one. We will have to go back there again!

After breakfast, we set out towards the Marina. It was a leisurely walk for about less than half an hour, to the Singapore "Flyer", which was a huge ferris wheel, with capsules. It was absolutely wonderful! We got a great view of the entire city and the beautiful buildings, including the Marina Sands - that is the famous structure with a huge boat-shaped roof garden on top of 3 buildings. There were many modern buildings. The city of Singapore is actually quite beautiful! We never thought about visiting Singapore as a destination. But I'm really glad that we came and I would love to come back again! The "flyer" spins very slowly and it took 45 minutes to complete the ride. The 4 of us occupied the capsule by ourselves. It was the middle of the week so it was not crowded at all. I think this is an absolute must-do in Singapore. We took tons of photos.

After the flyer, next was the root garden at the Marina Sands. It was a short walk from the flyer. Fran decided to go back to the hotel for a rest, so the three of us went. It turned out that if we wanted a guided tour we'd have to wait till 2pm, so Bob and I bought the tickets that would allow us to see only the front part of the roof. For $30, Bob and I got an expensive elevator ride:-). But I had no regret and was glad we did it.

We took the taxi back to the hotel. We had an hour to rest, before heading out towards the zoo. Our plan was to leave around 2pm, getting to the zoo at 2:30. We would do the day zoo till around 6, then grab dinner, before doing the night zoo starting around 7. And that's what we did.

The Singapore Zoo was probably one of the best zoos I've been to. It was not very large, and there were quite a lot of people there, including school kids, even on a week day. But everything was well organized, and clean (including the bathrooms). We took the tram ride, walked, and took the boat ride as well. The unique thing about this zoo was that the animals seemed to be a lot closer to people than most other zoos. The animals were not in cages or behind cement barriers. Hard to describe .... And we saw some animals that we had never seen before - such as the Tapir, and some strange animal whose name I cannot remember and who looked very much like the warthogs, only uglier :-), and pigmy hippos who were very cute.

The weather was really hot and humid! I was glad when we were done with the day zoo shortly before 6. We then had dinner in the area of the night zoo, called Ulu Ulu, a casual Asian eatery, before going on the night safari. Fran had been to the night safari 20 years ago when she was here, and that's when the night safari first opened. It is one of the big attractions of Singapore. We rode in the tram. The animals were just surrounding us, without barriers. Of course, the tigers and lions were behind barriers which were very unobtrusive. We were glad that we did it. But none of us thought it was that impressive. After the tram ride, we could have taken some walking trails, but none of us seemed to have the energy or interest, so we took the taxi and came back.

It was a long but fun day! Hope we'll sleep well tonight and I'm ready for another day of exploring Singapore tomorrow!

Singapore Day 3; Friday, February 1, 2013

The day started same as yesterday - we met Ira and Fran at 9am, then went to breakfast in the same bistro next to the hotel. We thought this bistro was French, but it might actually be Swiss. Good food and good coffee!

After breakfast, we got on the "Hippo" hop-on-hop-off tour bus. Ira has done the tour planning. Our first stop would be at the India Town. I really wanted to make an Indian dress for myself. After looking through many stores, Fran and I both found our favorite material in one of the stores. But we did not expect things to be so expensive - it would cost us $440 to make the 2 dresses for us. We walked out without making them .... Then while waiting for the bus to get to the next stop, I chatted with a nice lady (who I thought was Indian but turned out to not be true), and asked if paying $220 for an Indian dress was a reasonable price. She said that was too high. She recommended a different store. Fran and I might go back tonight to explore more, while the boys go do something else (instead of waiting for us there).

We hopped back on the tour bus. A short ride later, we arrived in the Malaysia town. Ira had scouted out a few spots to see, and we saw some beautiful mosques and interesting buildings. The most fun for me was walking through the Arab Street, which was lined with many many fabric stores. This is what was called the fabric heaven. I could spend HOURS here! Saw some very beautiful silk, but they're asking $35 for a meter, which I think was too high, so I did not get it. Not sure what would be a reasonable price ....

While walking through the India town and the Malaysia town, I had a very strange feeling. This whole place felt to me like a big China town! There were Chinese characters everywhere. Many stores had Chinese names, but also names in other languages. People all spoke English (or some English), and you hear Chinese (Mandarin) everywhere ..... Sometimes I had the feeling I did not know where I was ..... There is also a China town here which we did not get to see today. Ira and Fran suggested that we do the high tea in the Swissotel, and we made the reservation for 3:30pm, which will be our dinner as well. 

The weather was very hot and humid, the kind of weather I really don't like and don't handle well. We came back to the hotel around 2pm and are taking a break now. Will meet the Warrens at 3:25 to go to the high tea.

The high tea was nice. And it's on the 69th floor of the Swissotel, which got us another great view of the Marina Sands building. The high tea was buffet style, with all sorts of Asian foods. I ate more than I should, no surprise. We were done with the high tea around 5pm. After that, Bob and Ira went to try their luck at the Marina Sands casino, while Fran and I took the taxi back to the India town (it's actually called Little India). We wanted to see if we can find other places for making Indian dresses. Then we ended up back in that store. We finally decided to bite the bullet and make those 2 dresses. But then Fran found out her piece of fabric actually had some defects. It's unfortunate. We left without the dresses.

As we got off the taxi back at the hotel, we happened to meet Bob and Ira right at the hotel entrance - they just got back and were about to go have some beer next door. They did not quite like the casino there. Bob won a few bucks, and Ira lost a few. They two decided to go with Fran and me to explore the underground shopping malls. But they soon lost interest and went back to their beers. Fran and I wondered around the labyrinth of the HUGE underground shopping malls for more than 2 hours. There really was nothing that exciting - I've seen most of the stores in China and in the States. I was very impressed with the huge number of stores in all these connected malls! Amazing! And the many many different eating places! I wish I had 10 stomachs, or 30 years younger! There were so many things that I wanted to eat!! But there was no room left ..... Sigh!

Time to wash up and call it a day now.   

Singapore Day 4; Saturday, February 2, 2013

Woke up around 5am and could not fall back to sleep, so I played some games on the iPad (after doing the iOS upgrade), watched some TV (interesting Nat Geo "postcards from the edge"), then we both got up before 8am. We decided to walk to the "food court" in the underground city beneath our hotel, to see if there were any good places for breakfast (for a change). But most of the eating places did not open until late. Ira and Fran also came down before 9am, and they had the same thought as we did - try a different place for breakfast.

I ended up getting some pretty disappointing noodles ("Me Siam") from one breakfast place. Poor Bob kept me company and had the same thing, but then he went to join Ira and Fran, and had the western pastry and better coffee. Well, this would be the last time I would go near that Asian breakfast place again.

Our plan for the day was that we would first go to China town. Ira has read up on the history of China town here and wanted to see a few temples. He especially put on long pants for this. I told him that Bob and I would wait outside for him, as I had zero interest in going to any temples. Well the trip to China town was disappointing - did not really see anything special. And it was SO HOT! There were quite a lot of people there, which made us feel even hotter. After walking there for an hour or so, Bob started feeling sick, and I was feeling miserable. We suggested that Bob and I would go to the Garden by the Bay and wait for them there. Ira and Fran decided that they would leave China town as well. 

As soon as we got off the taxi at the Gardens by the Bay, we were so excited to see those huge artificial "supertrees". It was an absolutely beautiful and unique place, with these "supertrees", the two domes, and the lush surrounding. We first did the 20-minute tram ride, which took us through all the gardens (Indian, Chinese, Malay, etc.), and dropped us at the entrance to the 2 domes. Then we visited the Cloud Forest, which was very well done. It has a water fall, and all sorts of tropical plants and vegetation. It was beautiful! We spent a good hour or more inside. After we came out, we went to lunch and had dimsum. The restaurant was nice and clean, and the food was good. I had my favorite chicken feet and I was happy :-). After lunch, we proceeded to the Flower Dome. 

The Flower Dome was also beautifully done. What I liked most were the African Baobab trees! It brought back fond memories of Africa. Those trees were very unique. Don't know how they moved these matures trees here and hopefully they will be able to keep them healthy and growing. Fran did not feel well after lunch, so she and Ira had to take off early to go back to the hotel. Bob and I finished our visit to the Flower Dome. The last thing to do there was the Sky Walk - it's a walkway high up there, connecting a number of the super trees. Bob did not want to feel dizzy, so I went up alone and he sat at the end of the walk way, beneath a supertree, waited for me. I enjoyed the walk and the views from high up there! Took a bunch of pictures, of course. 

We got back to the hotel around 3pm. I then wondered into the underground shopping mall for a little bit before coming back to the room. Lucy and Chris had arrived! We just met each other in the lobby before they went to see one of their relatives here. Always had too much to catch up and we will continue tomorrow.

Bob and I went back to that Chef Kitchen for dinner. I stuffed myself silly with the delicious black pepper crab, shrimps, ginger and scallion frogs, and Bob ate his favorite hot plate venison. Yum!

Singapore Day 5; Sunday, February 3, 2013

We had a lazy start this morning, even though I actually woke up around 5 am and never went back to sleep. We met Ira and Fran in the lobby at 9am. Lucy came down to say hi - she and Chris were visiting Lucy's cousin today. We had breakfast with Ira and Fran at our good-old bistro. Then they finished packing and checked out. We left the hotel shortly before 11. The plan was to first take a boat ride on the Singapore River, then go to the aquarium, which is supposed to be the largest aquarium in the world.

The day started out as overcast, which made it less hot when we stepped out of the hotel. When the taxi dropped us off at the place to board the boat, bit rain drops started to come down. By the time we bought our tickets for the boat, it started to pour. Oh my! It seemed like the sky broke open and the water started crushing down! We quickly sought shelter under the tents. The place was built with such rain in mind, I think - the entire place where the shops and restaurants were was tented. The rain hit on the plastic tent and made such loud noises, made us feel the rain was even harder than it was. This rain showed us what monsoon is like. If it rains like this days in a row, I would run away really fast!

It rained so hard and showed no sign of stopping. We started wondering if we would be able to do the boat ride. Finally the boat people escorted each of us with an umbrella to board the boat. By the time we all got on the boat, the rain had let up a bit. The 40-minute boat ride was quite short, but we did get to see a few places worth seeing, such as the historical "shop houses" built by Chinese years ago. I was hoping we would go by the Gardens by the Bay. But the guy driving the boat said I should have told him I wanted to see that ahead of time, then he would have taken a different path. Oh well .... This boat ride was certainly not a highlight of this trip.

The rain stopped when we got off the boat. After we got in the taxi to the aquarium, I learned that the S.E.A. Aquarium was in Sentosa, which is a small island about 10 miles from the city center. By the way the taxi drivers here are all very polite and helpful, and honest about the fare. We were told that if there was any customer complain about any driver, the driver would need to spend hours in court and would be a big disgrace for them. Maybe this has something to do with the fact that the taxi experience here is always pleasant.

The aquarium and the entire Sentosa place more than exceeded our expectations! Sentosa is actually a huge resort, called Resorts World Sentosa. It's like Disney, in a way. It not just has the aquarium, but other attractions as well - a Universal Studio, a water park, many restaurants, shops, etc. And the aquarium was really really impressive! It has numerous big, small, and huge tanks, full of beautiful fish and marine creatures. Pretty amazing! Even though it's Sunday so it has quite a lot of people, it was not as crowded as the Boston aquarium. I never had trouble getting close to the tanks to get a good look of the fish inside. Unfortunately it was hard to take good photos. As I was walking inside, I kept thinking that I would really like to bring Caleb here!! It would be such a fun and educational experience! I hope we'll have the permission to bring him here when he gets a little older, in 2 or 3 years. I was told that you can get a hotel room at the resort where your room is surrounded by the fish tank, so you get to see the beautiful fish in your room! I would be willing to get such a room when Caleb comes with us, even if it's costly....

The last stop at the aquarium was of course the gift shop. I really wanted to get Caleb a T-shirt that has the beautiful color fish. But unfortunately the T-shirts there were very boring and nobody was buying them. I don't quite understand why they would not make T-shirts with photos or prints of all the colored fish in the aquarium! They would have sold out the house! Sigh ....

As we were inside the aquarium, the sky broke open again. By the time we came out of the aquarium, it was pouring so hard! Fortunately we did not have to be in the rain - all the buildings were connected by canopies. And we got into the taxi without a drop of rain on us. A very pleasant experience!

Back to the hotel before 4pm. Ira and Fran then left for the airport. We came back to the room. We will probably walk down to one of the restaurants in the underground "city" for dinner later. And I need to start packing - tomorrow our flight to Bangkok is the same as Ira and Fran's today. Not sure yet what we will do tomorrow. Lucy said she'd like to go to the Malaysia town after I told her about the fabric heaven. We'll probably do that.

Guess where we ended up having dinner? Chef Kitchen again! And black pepper crab again! Can't get enough of that dish :-). We tried the underground place. After checking out all the possibilities, could not find one that we really liked. So we decided to go back to the same hole in the wall place, for some really good food! It has not disappointed us yet so far.

Fran left us a voice msg about some bad news on the luggage with Jetstar, the airline we all use to go to Bangkok: it costs $20 per kilogram beyond what you're allowed! Unbelievable! Bob only paid for 25kg each, which is about 50 pounds. We have double that amount! Fran and Ira had to scramble, repack and store 2 suitcases at the airport. So, I had to repack - we will need to store 2 suitcases at the airport as well. Ugh! This is awful! All Bob's fault! He should have bought more luggage weight - it would have cost a fraction of the cost if he bought more weight at the time when we bought the tickets! Sigh ....

Bangkok, Thailand; Monday, February 4, 2013

Again I woke up shortly before 5am and could not fall back to sleep. Bob was awake around the same time. After checking and cleaning up emails on my comcast account, we decided to get up. It was about 6:30am and it's still dark outside. We stepped out of our room around 8am and headed to the bistro for breakfast. But it was not open for food yet until 8:30. So we again wandered to the underground "food court". I decided to have a Vietnamese bahmi and coffee, which turned out to be excellent, just as I expected. I had half of the bahmi. Bob waited till 9am when the French pastry placed opened. While he ordered his stuff, I noticed the "specialty sandwiches", especially the one with a black bun, Spanish (or Italian) ham, and arugula. I ordered one. Oh my god - it was SO GOOD! For this kind of sandwich, even though it was not a hot meal, I could eat it for every meal! As I was eating, I thought about what if we had such a place in the US!.... This place is called Tiong Bahru backery. It is by a French pastry chef named Gontran Cherrier who was supposed to have brought Paris to the East. Yum!

I spoke with Lucy on the phone and we decided to leave the excess luggage at the hotel, instead of the airport. Ira emailed us more info about the Jet Star airline - need to be prepared that they do not even serve water - you need to pay $4 for a bottle.

We met Chris and Lucy at 10 and set out for the Malay village. It turned out to be quite close, only 4 or 5 blocks away, an easy walk. The weather today was still overcast most of the time, so it was not as hot as the last time we were there. Today I got the fabric I wanted. Now I just need to figure out what tailor to use and where ....

We got back to the hotel around noon time, and went down to the food court to get different things for lunch. Then we all came back to our room. I got another "black" sandwich (the reason it was black was because the bun was made with squid ink). Our checkout time was 1:30. After we checked out, we went to the hospitality suite and rested there until close to 4pm, when we left for the airport.

Our flight was at 7:10pm, so we had 2.5 hours to kill. There really was nothing to do at the airport, so we sat there and waited. The flight was very punctual. I got very hungry on the plane, so spent $16 for a very lousy meal - a small box of rice and chicken something, and a cup of tea (the tea was $4). Ugh! 2+ hours later, we landed in Bangkok. It took us some time to get our luggage and then find the driver who was waiting for us. By the time we got into our room at the Peninsula, it was past 10pm already. We quickly went to the restaurant by the river to grab a bite before they closed. We ordered chicken basil, pad thai, soft shell crab, and a tom yum soup. Honestly, I don't think they are as good as the ones we had in Erawan in Waltham .... Oh well!

The Peninsula hotel is as nice as we remembered. Our room is on the 23rd floor, overlooking the river. This room is much smaller than the room we had in 1999 and 2000, when we had a suite. At that time, the suite cost us less than $200 a night. Now this non-suite room cost close to $300. Oh well!

It's been a long day. We're exhausted. Off to bed now.

Bangkok Day 2; Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Hard to describe how I feel about the first full day here in Bangkok ....

We met the Warrens for breakfast around 8:30. Good breakfast buffet, lots of choices and excellent fruits! My plan for the day was that I wanted to go to the Indian market near Chinatown to see if I can find the fabric and get myself an Indian sari dress. Then get an authentic Thai massage at the famous Wat Pho. So Bob, Ira, and I set out to do all this around 11:30am. Fran could not deal with the air pollution here, so she stayed in the hotel.

We took the nice Peninsula boat across the river to the Oriental boat dock. Then walked a couple of minutes to the ATM machine to get some cash (our hotel does not have an ATM machine). Then we walked back to the boat dock to take the public river taxi to the "N5" stop, which was the Chinatown stop. That public river taxi experience was pretty awful, can be compared with my bus experience in China 35 years ago! It was CROWDED! People were squeezed together like sardins. And the weather was HOT! When the boat approached and left the dock, it spewed out dark smelly smokes, ugh! The scene along the river was depressing .... some horrible huts lined the river bank. The water in the river was quite filthy.

It was a short boat ride but it felt LONG! We got off at the China town stop, then walked along the narrow sidewalks crammed with stores and food carts and tables. The food smelled good, even though I would not think of eating there. We kind of pushed our way through the streets, stepping into air-conditioned stores to ask for directions to the Indian market. Finally we got to the Indian market. There was a 4-story building called the Indian Emporium and we were told that's where they sell fabric and can have dresses made. The 2 boys followed me in and we wondered around for a long time, very disappointing! Most of the sari stuff there was very cheap and junky. I was about to walk out empty-handed, until I went into the last store just to have a look. And that's where I actually found something I liked, and the lady owner seemed very nice. Any way, I coughed up $220 and the dress is being made for me - will pick it up on Thursday. Enough said about that!

After the Indian market, we got into a taxi to go to Wat Pho. I tried to get into 2 empty taxies, but they would not take us. Then Bob approached one which took us. Go figure! I don't like this place!!

Traffic was SO BAD. The taxi could hardly move. It was the same as I remembered back in 2000. But we finally got to Wat Pho. After buying the tickets into the Wat, and walking all the way to the back, we found the massage place. There was a waiting line - there were the choices of body massage and foot massage, 30 minutes or an hour. There were 2 big rooms with individual beds side by side for the body massage (they DO change the sheets after each person or I would not have done it). We chose the hour-long body massage, which was very very nice! Bob and I may do it again on Thursday if we are in that area. Wat Pho is next to the palace where we will go on Thursday. We've seen the palace, so we may not do it again and will do the massage instead.

Wat Pho was close to the river, so after the massage we walked to the dock to take the river taxi, which was the quickest way back. Oh boy! That taxi again! Even worse than the morning! I swear to god I would never ever take that taxi again!! I felt so relieved when it finally got to the Oriental boat dock, and we got into the Peninsula boat! And the shower back in the room never felt SO GOOD!

Lucy got the recommendation for the dinner buffet at the Oriental hotel, and that's what we did tonight. The buffet did live up to its reputation. We sat by the river. The weather had cooled off quite a bit. In darkness, with the lights from the boats and buildings, Bangkok looked quite beautiful, very different from the day time ....

It'll be short night tonight - need to leave for the tiger temple at the horrible hour of 4:30am! We told the hotel to pack box breakfast for all of us. We need to get up before 4am ....

I did not take many pictures today. I could have taken some street scenes, but it was too hot and I was absolutely not in the mood.

Bangkok Day 2; Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Oh I am so excited that I can hardly contain myself to write this blog!! Everything exceeded our expectations! I cannot believe I/we were SO CLOSE to the TIGERS!! Let me calm down and start from the beginning ....

We met our guide Kung, a very nice young Thai lady, in the hotel lobby at 4:30am. Got our box breakfast from the front desk and off we went. We had a spacious, clean, and nicely air-conditioned van for the 6 of us, plus Kung and our driver, Roger, who was a handsome and polite young Thai man but did not speak much English. Kung gave us an introduction of today's activities including detailed schedule for the tiger visits. Of course it was still dark, and there was not too much traffic on the road (even though there were plenty of trucks for that early hour). 

The tiger temple is in the province called Kanchanaburi, which is about 2.5 hours drive from Bangkok, about 100 miles. It is close to the Burma border. Our first stop was the famous bridge on the river Kwai. We got there shortly before sunrise, great time for photos. Unfortunately I have not seen that movie, but now I definitely will get the DVD to watch. There were a couple of food carts already in business - the barbecued meat with sticky rice, and the porridge, were SO enticing!! But I did not dare to get them:-( We were at the bridge for less than half an hour, and we watched the day getting lighter and lighter.

We got to the tiger temple before 7:30. We were among 20+ visitors for the morning tiger program, which was the BEST time for the tiger visit. It is more expensive than the afternoon program, but is worth every single penny! 

The first thing was to give food to the monks. Our guide had already bought the food, which included instant noodles, candies, etc. etc. All the visitors were lined up behind a row of tables. There were big platters on the tables, each platter was filled with food for the monks - e.g. boxed juices, cooked hot food (e.g. noodles) in individual plastic bags, instant noodles, candies, etc. etc. There were 10+ monks who would walk by the tables. We would take the food using both our hands, respectfully place the food in the container in their hands (make sure that we WOMEN did NOT touch their container!), then pay our respect by pressing our two hands together. We would do this for each monk. Oh, we must take off our shoes - we stood on our shoes - and no hats. There were a lot of volunteers there, who walked alongside the monks and dumped the food from their container into big bags (the containers were not big enough to hold all the food). We were told that these monks had no money and they did not cook. People gave them food every day, to show their respect. And the monks eat only 1 meal a day!

After giving food, we walked into the ground of the tiger temple, where we saw wild boars, "skinny cows", deer, donkeys, etc. We were told that when some people no longer wanted to keep their animals, they would bring them to the temple. The monks would help keeping them alive.

The first encounter with the tigers was in this big temple without walls. We took off our shoes and walked up to the temple where there were a number of baby tigers who were about a month old, and a few tigers that were a few months old, and two tigers that were 14 months old. They were chained to the ground (or to the poles) - the collars on their necks were wrapped in thick plastic so they did not hurt their necks. There we got to spend quite a bit time with all the tigers! We fed the little ones with bottled milk, we stroked the bigger ones, we took photos with them, I was in seventh heaven!! When the monks started chanting, everybody had to sit down. Then the visitors were invited to join the monks (and the volunteers) for breakfast. For those of us who did not want to eat, we continued playing with the tigers. The baby tigers were only 4 weeks old. They seemed to be much much more muscular and stronger than the lion cubs I held at the Lion Habitat. I wonder if these tigers got fed more milk ....

After everyone was done with breakfast, we walked out of the temple. Next was to walk the tigers to their habitat. I chose to walk one of the two big teenage tigers with Bob, the rest of our group chose to walk the little ones. Since there were 20+ visitors, we each got to hold the leash to walk them for a little bit, while the staff took photos of us using our cameras. By the way, there were quite a lot of staff members who were mostly volunteers. They were very very attentive to the visitors - no visitor was allowed to interact with the tiger without a staff member present.

Next thing was to wash the tigers and to feed them. The staff members put shampoo on the tiger's back, we walked behind the tiger and rubbed the shampoo in, then the staff rinsed them off. Bob and I were assigned to wash and feed the teenage tigers. The place was a little stinky - not sure if it was from the tiger cages nearby or what. These tigers were fed cooked chicken - if I remember right, they needed 400+ chickens per day total. The monks are not allowed to kill. The chickens were prepared by the town people. To feed the tigers, we were instructed how to hold the meat. I held a chicken leg to the big mouth of the tiger. I don't think the tiger was too hungry. He bit the chicken, ate it, without too much enthusiasm. I was a little scared and did not dare to get my hands too close to its mouth. I think if I get to stay there longer, I would be able to be more brave and feed the tigers like the staff members. Note that most of the staff members were young Thai girls, probably in their early twenties. They had no fear of the tigers and fed them using their hands just like how I feed my dogs! How I envy them!!!

After feeding the tigers, it was time for play. We were given long poles that had some plastic bags or stuffed animals tied at the end. We were supposed to use them to get the attention of the tigers, let them chase or jump, just like when people play with their house cats. We were in the yard with the tigers, with no barriers. But the staff members were with us each step of the way. We had strict rules for NOT approaching the tigers from the front. A Thai girl staff member was very nice to me - when she saw that I wanted to take photos, she took my arm and led me to the spots I wanted to be, and pointed me to tigers around me. She was so sweet and I was very thankful!

After the play, it was time to walk the teenage tigers to the canyon. We were divided into 2 groups, each group walking one tiger. One of the male tigers was well known for peeing. We were instructed about how to avoid being sprayed on :-) We each got to hold the leash of the tiger and walked behind him. The staff members took photos of us with our own cameras.

Then it was the time to put the big tiger's big head in your lap!! Not sure how old that tiger was, but his head was quite big - bigger than the teenagers' earlier. We were instructed to sit on the ground at a specific spot besides the tiger's head, then the staff put the tiger's head in our lap, then we put our arms around its neck and we should NOT move our hands to scratch him or do anything. It was quite exciting! Funny thing was that that tiger seemed to be sleeping through this whole thing, person after person. Later on I asked our guide if they drugged the tiger to make him so drowsy and docile. She said no, but they just fed the tiger meat and milk, so he was full and sleepy. Any way, believe it or not, I am just very happy to have hold that LIVE tiger's big head in my lap!!

Last thing of the morning program was to watch the big tigers play with 4 staff members. We stood behind the chest-tall temporary fence (which the tigers could easily jump over if they wanted). The tigers played in the water with 4 staff members. It was AMAZING! You will have to see the photos to get a feeling of it. 3 of the 4 staff members were Thai, 1 was an Australian. I spoke with him earlier - he was a volunteer before and came every year, but later he got a job. He's now probably the program director. It's obvious that he genuinely loved the big cats! I wish so much I could be one of them, to hug and to play with the tigers, like I play with my dogs!!

The morning program with the tigers concluded around 10:30. It was the most amazing experience I've had, in such close contact with one of my favorite big animals! It was really a dream coming true!!!  

I want to include the URL to the tiger temple here:

http://tigertemple.org/tigertemple_new/page_article.php?article_ID=153&id=67

After the tiger temple visit, we were taken to an elephant park and did the elephant ride. Our elephant had a one-month-old baby walking with us, which was special. Since we have ridden elephants a few times before (in Thailand, Cambodia, Africa, etc.), this was not that special to us. We chose not to do the elephant bathing and playing the water thing, as none of us wanted to get in the river.

After the elephant ride, our guide took us to an authentic Thai restaurant for lunch. It was SO GOOD! Much much better than the Thai food we had in the hotel restaurant.

We got back to the hotel before 4pm. That was 12 hours after we got up this morning. A hot shower felt very very good!

We met Lucy and Chris for high tea at 5:30 in the hotel lobby, which was perfect for dinner, as we were still pretty full from the lunch. We will go to bed early tonight. Tomorrow our guide will be here at 9am to take us for a full day's tour of various places. 

Bangkok Day 3; Thursday, February 7, 2013

I got about 5 hours sleep last night, Bob got about 8. We were to meet our guide at 9am. The itinerary for the day was not too clear. We knew we would be visiting the grand palace and some temples, and there would be boat ride. We did not seem to care that much. Everyone just went with the flow.

The first stop was to the grand palace. It really is an amazingly beautiful place! But since Bob and I have been there 13+ years ago, we really did not want to bother putting on long pants in this hot weather, so we chose to skip it, and went to the Wat Pho instead, which was next door to the palace. We got another hour long massage each, and enjoyed it. I got 3 bug bites while lying on the bed, which made me very nervous - what bug was it?? Hope it was not something that would get on my clothes ..... The lady put some sort of balm on the bites which stopped the itching. I subsequently bought a bottle of the "Wat Po Brand Balm" - it's similar to the Chinese Tiger Balm.

Kung told us she would come to the massage place to find us. And it would take them about an hour to visit the palace. But it turned out she did not come to find us until about noon time. The palace was very crowded, she said, and the others took lots of pictures which took time. That's OK. After we joined the rest of the group, she took us to see the famous big sleeping buddha and other sights in the temple. Everything was beautiful indeed! But it was so hot and I found it hard to enjoy things in this kind of weather. Oh, one interesting thing was that the king's grandson and his schoolmates were in the temple. The 8-year-old boy was surrounded by monks and security people. We happened to be walking into the place they were walking out. We were told to stand to the side while they walked by. Kung told us that the school he goes to is a very exclusive and expensive school. All the kids from that school wear a specific uniform.

Talking about the king of Thailand, Kung told us that the king is a good king and very well liked. We see pictures of him and of him and his wife everywhere. He is already in his mid-80s, and is not in very good health. He has 1 son and 3 daughters. Apparently his son is no good, which is why he has not let him take over. Some say that the king might want the grandson to take over some day....

Any way, after the place and temple visit, we had the choice of visiting another temple. Thankfully others in the group were also not too interested in another temple, so we chose to go on with the boat ride. We hired a private boat, like many tourists did. It's a long narrow boat, with the engine in the back, and a canopy on top. It turned out that the boat ride took us through the back channels, which we did not even know existed. It was interesting to see the houses along the shore. Most houses were wooden huts on wooden stilts. Some had already collapsed, and many were in pretty miserable shape. But there were a few mansions. One of them was made of teak wood, absolutely gorgeous! Kung said the price tag was 16 million baht!

We saw a big "lizard" on a stone platform of some sort by the river. It took me a while before I saw it. Wow, it was huge and very well camouflaged! You really had to look hard to see it! This "lizard" turned out to be a "monitor". It is very similar to the "komodo dragon" - Nat Geo happened to be showing that dragon after we came back to the room (Lucy called us to turn on the TV). They indeed looked very much alike!

After the boat ride, we were hungry so Kung took us to a Thai restaurant nearby, which was air conditioned (our requirement). We had a small lunch, just what we wanted. Then Kung took us to the local market, per our request. I wanted to buy a pair of local pants - the pants that do not really have legs, just 2 holes with elastics and a waist. I saw someone wearing it on the street and it looked so comfortable! I wanted a pair.

The market Kung took us to is actually the night market. But it's also open during the day and is less crowded than at night. It was FUN walking through that place!! The stuff was quite cheap! I got 3 pairs of those pants, for about $7 each :-).

We got back to the hotel before 4pm. Took showers, and started writing my blog. Had dinner with the Warrens, Lucy and Chris in the hotel's restaurant - nobody felt like schlepping out. For tomorrow, we decided not to join Lucy and Chris for the floating market - we had seen it once before and I'm too lazy to go out in the heat to take pictures. We will have a relaxing day tomorrow, maybe try out the swimming pool.

Bangkok Day 4; Friday, February 8, 2013

Today was out last day in Bangkok, before leaving for Chiang Mai tomorrow and then getting on the ship next Monday. Originally we were going to go with Lucy and Chris to the floating market and the train market, but the heat yesterday really got to us. We backed out and decided to do nothing, except making a trip in the afternoon to the India emporium to get my dress. And that's what we did.

We went down to breakfast at 8 - the thermostat showed 94 degrees outside! We were happy about our do-nothing decision. After breakfast, I did a little shopping in the store in the hotel, then spent rest of the morning cleaning up emails, surfing the net, etc. Bob played on his cellphone which he used as a hand-held computer and played games, then he took a nap. Around noon time, we decided to walk out, to find the nearby restaurant where we had my favorite dessert 13 years ago. That restaurant belonged to the chef's school associated with the Mandarin Oriental hotel, and it's a 5 minutes walk from our hotel. It's called Sala Rimnam (I learned from our concierge today). For lunch they have a buffet, but we were not hungry, so we asked if we could just order 2 desserts, which usually were served only at dinner time. They were kind enough to oblige. But it took quite a bit of effort for them to understand us. The dessert finally came. It was nowhere close to what I remembered, but it was the kind of dessert. Very disappointing!

We got a taxi in the afternoon to go to pick up my dress at the India Emporium. Lucy went with us. The dress turned out to be really beautiful!! Now I just have to wear it, at least once! :-) 

I really wanted to go back again to that backpackers' night market which we were at yesterday. I googled it in the morning but forgot to write it down. No taxi driver seemed to know what market that was. I went into a couple of stores to ask, and nobody knew. So we came back to the hotel instead. Getting a taxi coming back was a struggle - they either would not take us, or asked for an unreasonable set price. The taxi fare should only be around 50 baht. Finally a taxi agreed to take us back for 100 baht, we took it. It's not the amount of the money that bothered us, but their attitude an the fact that they wanted to rip us off. The place turned out to be NOT far from the hotel at all!

Had a drink with Chris and Lucy by the river on the hotel lobby's balcony around 5, then went to a nice local Thai restaurant called Tongue Thai, across the river. The food was very good and the environment was very pleasant. The only few pictures I took were of this restaurant.

Did facetime with my sister in China to wish them a happy Chinese new year, then started packing. Will get up at 5:30 to complete everything.  

Bankok to Chiang Mai; Saturday, February 9, 2013

We're in Chiang Mai now - got here around noon time. After arrival, we were taken to lunch at a Thai restaurant near the elephant camp which we would visit afterwards. Lunch was decent - a green vege dish made of "dragon's whiskers", a chicken with cashew nuts, a fried fish, and a curry dish. Dessert was fruits - strawberries, pineapples, and yellow water mellon. I was hungry and had a hearty lunch.

We went from the airport to this restaurant in a luxury bus. Since there were only 21 of us (most of the people on this cruise chose to go to Angkor Wat), we could each take a whole row of seats. Very comfortable. After lunch, the bus took us to the elephant camp, which was about a 2-minute ride. I did not expect too much of the elephant show, but I was pleasantly surprised. The elephants were really very well trained. Each elephant has a trainer, called "mahook" (I hope I got this word right). The elephants played soccer, did all sorts of tricks including 3 elephants working together to pile up logs. The most amazing thing was the elephant painting! Don't know how they taught or manipulated the elephants so they painted some real pictures!! All the elephant paintings were for sale and they have many of them displayed in the store. The most expensive ones go for about $100 a piece. I would have gotten one, if I knew what to do with it .... Somehow I feel sad for the elephants .... don't know what they had to go through to do all this .... 

After the show, we got to feed the elephants with bananas and sugar canes. When we took photos with the elephants, it was time for the "mahooks" to ask for money .... They instructed the elephants to use their noses to beg, and we put the bill in their noses, and they gave the money to their trainers ....

Elephant rides were optional. Bob wanted no part of it. I chose to do it - I remember my sister Rulan told me that she had a good time riding elephants in Chiang Mail, so I must try it. Only 6 of us wanted to ride the elephants. I rode it with a fellow passenger named Ed, a very nice guy. We had a good chat. He and his wife had also done an around-the-world tour, but with a different company 6 years ago, with a whole LOT less $ than we paid with Nat Geo. It was something called Travel Guild World Tour - I will have to look into it and see if we can take another one to different places! For this cruise, Ed and his wife will continue on after we get off in HongKong and they will go to Taiwan, Japan, and Beijing. If I had known such options existed, I would have wanted to continue on to see Taiwan and Japan! Oh well .....

After the elephant ride, our next activity was to visit the Hill Tribe Village where we would get to see the "long necks" and "big ears" (sorry I cannot remember the real names) tribes. It was up the mountain and the bus could not go. So we went in a truck, pretty funny. This village turned out to be kind of a show place, similar to our Plymouth Plantation. People there were doing their job - we saw them sitting in a truck ready to go home when we left the place after 5pm. But the long necks and big ears were for real! Those people were actually from Berma and they lived in a separate area, and I think they do actually live there. It was interesting to see the long necks and big ears - the big ears were a bit scary and it made me cringe to think how it must have hurt ....

After visiting the village, it was time to finally go to our hotel. By this time, everyone was pretty exhausted. It has been a LONG day! We got up before 5am, got to the Bangkok airport before 9am; boarded the flight around 10am, and got to Chiang Mai before noon. Some of the group members arrived in Bangkok late last night - it must be really tough for them. Note that this is not a young group! :-)

The Le Meridien Hotel is a very nice hotel and is at a very good location. We walk out of the hotel and right into the night market! Our guide, Mr. Chula, gave us recommendations for nearby good Thai restaurants. But I started feeling sick and very tired. After resting a little bit, Bob and I decided to take a walk through the night market, and to get me a diet coke, then see how I felt. The diet coke made me feel better, but not good enough to eat anything. Walking through the market cheered up, of course :-). But for the things I liked, they're asking too much - not that it's that much in $, but I hate the feeling of being had. So I came back pretty much empty-handed.

Bob went down to the hotel restaurant to grab a bite. I'm staying back to write my blog. Then we'll call it a relatively early night. The WIFI in this hotel is pretty shabby - I tried for a LONG time before getting on the net, and not sure when I would lose it. And it is pretty expensive - the internet was free all the way till now, and they charge close to $20 a day! Despite the fact that this hotel's room is quite nice, I really don't like how they handle the internet.

Oh, by the way, Chiang Mai is very nice! Much much better than Bangkok!!! The weather is much better - after the sun went down, it was actually quite comfortable! The air is cleaner. And the mountains and fields surrounding the city are beautiful! Our guide told us this is a favorite place for Thai people as well as foreigners to come for vacation.

Chiang Mai Day 2; Sunday, February 10, 2013

Had a bad night, tossed and turned with stomach ache. Tried to have something for breakfast - luckily they had some watery porridge.

The group met in the lobby at 8am for the bus to take us to Wat Doi Suthep, which is a must-see temple in Chiang Mail. It is at the top of the mountain. The bus drove up the windy mountain road and we got there in about half an hour. The temple was indeed gorgeous. We took the cable car up, and walked around - the temple ground was quite spacious. Our guide Chula told us the history of this temple, which I did not pay too much attention to. I took some photos. After an hour or so, we walked down the mountain and hit the shopping area, which was more interesting to me. Got a couple of miscellaneous items.

Next stop was at the jade factory. This place is owned by 2 brothers who're Harvard graduates of Gemology. The lady owner (not sure if she was the mother or the wife) gave us an introduction of jade - the different kinds of jade and how they make things out of the stones. She was a very graceful lady and she was wearing some very beautiful jade jewelries. We looked at the jade jewelries for sale - they're indeed beautiful, and expensive (at least to me). Only one lady in the group bought a pair of ear rings, I think.

We got back to the hotel at noon. Lucy, Chris, Bob and I followed our guide to a nearby noodle place and had delicious noodles! I had a bowl, which actually stayed inside me.

At 1pm, we got together again and set out for the afternoon activities, which consisted of visiting some silver and silk stores. This whole thing turned out to be quite disappointing! The first was a rug store owned and operated by Indians, from Kashmere. We were given a long introduction and show of rugs. The silver store did not have anything too exciting. The silk factory/store was very disappointing - nothing special. Finally we visited a factory/store that made lacquer things. We got back to the hotel before 4pm. Lucy and I walked around the stores next to the hotel, and I found a couple of linen/cotton tops which were reasonably priced and of good quality.

Last activity of today was dinner at the Mandarin Oriental restaurant, with Thai music and dance. Food and entertainment were both OK. Got a brief look at the Mandarin Oriental in the dark - seemed like a very beautiful and luxurious place. Chula said the room rate starts from $1000.

I ate a decent meal without stomach pain yet, but feeling exhausted. Tomorrow is a traveling day - fly Chiang Mai to Bangkok, changing plane from Bangkok to Singapore, then board the ship which will set sail at 8pm. I am calling it a night now.

By the way, I'm not sure if internet is available on the ship, so I may not be able to update my blog .....

Back to Singapore then Board the Ship; Monday, February 11, 2013

As expected, today was a traveling day. Up at 6am; left the hotel at 8am; boarded the plane to Bangkok around 10am; arrived in Bangkok before noon and transferred to the Cathy Pacific flight to Singapore, boarded the plane shortly after 1pm; then landed in Singapore around 4pm. Everything was very smooth the entire way – Regent took care of the logistics and we had local tour agents helping us at every stop, which made the whole thing a lot less painful.

The local tour agent contracted by Regent (Seven Seas) welcomed us in Singapore, took care of the checkin luggage, and the big comfortable bus took us directly to the port. Bob and Chris took a taxi to the Fairmont hotel to pick the luggage we stored there, and they got to the port almost at the same time as we did.

We got into our cabin, #850, probably around 6:30. The cabin is very nice, the most spacious we've had. It even has a walk-in closet, and many drawers to put things in. I could really get used to this! J It’ll be hard to take any other cruise lines from now on ….

We waited for a while before the porter brought in all our luggage, all 4 suitcases! It did not take me too long to get things organized into the different places and stored the suitcases under the bed. All neat! I got a BIG pile of dirty laundry to do, from the past 10+ days! Each floor has a laundry place, but it closes at 10pm, and we did not get to do it today.

We met with Lucy and Chris for dinner at the main dining room at 8pm. Very nice! Unfortunately Ira and Fran are not here – Ira fell sick and could not board the ship today. They’re still in Cambodia and hope to rejoin the ship a couple of days later. We did not know about this until we got to the Bangkok airport, when I got 15 minutes free internet and checked my email. Feel really bad for them ….

Another really sad news I got from the email (at Bangkok airport) was that my brother-in-law, Lao Fei, passed away yesterday of a stroke ….. This came too sudden. He was doing quite well when I saw him in December …. I wanted to call my sister Rubi in Beijing, but I had no way of calling …. Spoke with the tour director, she said I could use her office phone tomorrow to make a call. I appreciate that!

Tomorrow is a sea day. I plan to get plenty of rest, do the laundry, explore the ship, and see what other activities they offer.

There is WIFI in the cabin, but internet is very expensive. I chose the plan of $240 for 300 minutes, which means I need to be very conscientious about how I use the net. I will need to write my blog in a document, then upload it. And I probably won’t upload any photos until we get on shore in HongKong, unless there are some really unusual things.

Bob went down to the casino. I will wash and crawl into bed now. Lucy said there’re plenty of movies on TV, and the library has a lot of DVDs we can borrow (we have a DVD player in the room). I will see if there’re any good movies.

Sea Day; Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Our ship left Singapore around 9pm last night and has been sailing in the South China Sea, near the Thailand shoreline (I think). It's a relatively small boat (capacity around 800 people), and the sea has been a little bumpy, so we could feel the rocking a bit. Some people seemed to be a little affected. Thankfully Bob and I doing fine so far.

It’s been a do-nothing restful sea day. We did not get up too late, as I was not able to sleep that well. I did the laundry around 8am – had to go to the 10th floor’s laundrinette and did my 2 loadfuls. We went to an intro ballroom dancing session before noon time. Had lunch with Lucy and Chris. Then I took a 2-hour nap (not feeling well in the stomach), while Bob went to the blackjack tournament (and he ended up winning it!). At 4:30pm, I went to the fitness boot camp – oh boy! It was depressing to realize how badly out of shape I am!! I could hardly do what people were doing, and I was sweating like crazy ….. Got to really slowly and steadily get myself into shape, otherwise I won’t have too many years left J

We had dinner with Lucy and Chris at the specialty restaurant "Prime 7". Very enjoyable food – forgot to bring my camera to take some photos. Originally the 6 of us were going, now there were only 4 of us. Hopefully Ira and Fran will join us the day after tomorrow!

After dinner, we went to the variety show, starring international entertainer Ray Solaire and magician Jay Neal. They were both amazingly good, best of all the shows I’ve seen on all the cruises!

It was quite obvious that the passengers of this ship are all “seniors”. Some of them had trouble walking, even though they were not in wheelchairs. You’ve got to admire the spirit of some of the people who were probably in their late 80s – they are enjoying life! The Chinese saying “Sunset is infinitely beautiful, unfortunately what follows is darkness” ….. Most of us worked hard all our lives; and only when we got old, we had the luxury of enjoying life with comfort. I am thankful that we are able to do this before we are too old to move freely ….

One of the beauties of the Regent cruise is that everything is included – tips, drinks, etc. etc. Food/drinks are plenty on the ship, but very few people touch them. A comfortable and relaxed feeling. I was told after you sail more than 20 (or 25) days with Regent, you get internet free. We will definitely do more cruises with Regent!

Bob is at the Blackjack table again. I’m back in the room and relaxing. Tomorrow the ship will dock at Ko Samui, Thailand. Originally we were going with Ira and Fran for a privately arranged snorkeling trip, but had to cancel it. We signed up with one of the ship’s excursions to do a cursory tour of the island.

Ko Samui, Thailand; Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Samui Island (Ko) is in the Gulf of Thailand, at the southern tip of Thailand (I think), at the opposite site of Phuket. This is the first stop of our cruise. The ship docked around 10am, the "old" time – today we changed our clock and set it one hour back, so 10am the “old” time was “new” time 9am.

The shore excursions were limited. The two involved Thai cooking class were fully booked, which I would have liked to take (comparing to the others). I did not really look at these excursions earlier and now it's a bit too late. We signed up for the excursion called “Lo Samui Discovery”, which took us to a couple of temples, the elephant camp, coconut plantation with monkeys, etc. I really did not have much interest to watch the elephant “show” again and was hoping to switch to the other excursion which involved ancient temple and monkeys, but it was fully booked. We spoke with the local guide who came on board to provide further information. We could have hired a private taxi and go through the few places of interest in 2 hours, spending about $100.  But we decided to just go with the excursion we signed up, which took 4.5 hours.

The ship anchored quite a ways from the dock. Three big tenders took all the people to shore. The round trip for each tender is about 40 minutes. Our excursion was supposed to meet at 11:10am. Our group was supposed to have more than 100 people, wow! It was the first time since we boarded the ship that I felt there were actually so many people on the ship!!

We finally got on shore around noon time. There were 5 big buses going on the same excursion, so the ride was spacious and comfortable. Our local guide was Sally, a very nice Thai lady. One thing she showed us on the way was about cashew nuts – she told the bus to stop at a big cashew tree and fetched a couple of cashew fruits to show us. It was quite amazing!! Cashew would grow nuts first, then the fruit! I took a couple of photos.

The first stop of the excursion was at the elephant camp, which turned out to be more interesting than I expected! 2 female elephants showed their tricks – sitting, standing, hand-stand, etc. No painting though. Their unique thing was to give a couple of people from the audience a massage. The one giving the male guy a massage was funny – she used her nose to suck at different places on his body …. You can imagine the rest J. Oh by the way, all the elephants here actually came from Chiang Mai, north of Thailand.

After the elephant camp (by the way, no elephant ride!), we went to see the big Buddha which was the landmark of Ko Samui. Then we went to the temple, which was gaudy beyond description. What I enjoyed most was the market place by the big Buddha – I would have loved to shop more, but we did not have the time. Sally told us that things here are more expensive than Bangkok, because of the transportation cost. So I did not try to buy the things I’d like to get.

The bus stopped at a view point for us to get a look at the famous east side Chaweng beach. It was pretty. The luxurious resort we saw was also very nice, reminding me of the Le Meridien at Phuket. This place was not affected by the Tsunami a few years ago, because it is at the east side of Thailand. Sally told us that many backpackers come to this island. There are inexpensive places by the ocean for them to stay, costing about $20/day, of course with public bathroom and shower. Meals here can be very cheap. The area around the dock reminded me of Papeete, Tahiti – there were food stands selling delicious local food costing very little.

Our last stop was at a coconut plantation with monkey working there. Sally told us that the monkeys were sent to “schools” to be trained on how to harvest coconuts. Each trained monkey can harvest 500-600 coconuts a day, earning about $20, which was twice as much as a local worker working in the field!

Back on the ship around 5:15, after waiting in the long line to get on the tender.  A hot shower felt SO GOOD! It was very hot on the island!

Shortly after 6pm, ship announced that we should all step out of our cabins and meet our neighbors. The ship officials would come to each floor, meet and greet us, champaign and snacks would be served. It was interesting to meet our neighbors! A few people around us had sailed with Regent for many times. One of the ladies, Lori, had done the world cruise with Regent – it was a sail that lasted 5+ months!! Amazing!! Lori is going to Shanghai this time, to meet her tailor. She showed me the clothes she had made in Shanghai. Wow!! I will get the name and address of her tailor and will see if I’ll have any good luck. Lori is already in her 80s – I would NEVER have been able to tell that!! She looked as if she’s in her 60’s or 70’s! She’s my role model! J

We had dinner with Lucy and Chris at the Italian restaurant on the 11th floor. It was good. Again I forgot to bring my camera to take photos! After dinner, I went to Katia’s office to make a call to my sister in China (Katia is the tour manager whom we met in Chiang Mai. She offered for me to make the call to China in her office. It was very very nice of her and I truly appreciate it!!). I finally reached my sister and spoke with her,  gave her my condolensces, and found out more details about my brother-in-law’s death ….

Tonight’s show was sing and dance – very good quality! Bob went to play more blackjack after the show, and I’ll go to bed. Tomorrow we’ll be in Bangkok – port is 2 hours away from Bangkok. We signed up for the excursion to Thailand’s ancient capital Ayutthaya. We will leave at 8:20am!

Laem Chabang, Chon Buri, Thailand; Thursday, February 14, 2013

Laem Chabang is the port near Bangkok, the 2nd stop on our cruise. We're back again and will be docked here for 2 days, leaving tomorrow evening.

We took the excursion to Ayutthaya, Thailand’s ancient capital which was built in the 14th century (if I remember right). We left around 8:20am, and the drive was about 2.5 hours. It was north of Bangkok.

Our first stop was the Summer Palace in Ayutthaya. It was beautiful – the ground was meticulously maintained. 4 of us shared a gold cart to tour the ground, getting off at different spots to visit the buildings. The weather was very very hot, which made the whole thing unpleasant for me.

After the Summer Palace, we were taken to a Chinese restaurant (in a high-end hotel) for lunch. Food was OK. By the time we’re done with lunch, it was past 2pm. Then we visited 2 temples – more accurately, the ruins of 2 temples. One of them was what the grand palace in Bangkok was built after, because the original one in Ayutthaya was badly damaged by the Bermese – they burned the place down to peel away the gold. The ruins were really fascinating. I wish it were not so hot so I could have paid more attention to the history our guide was relaying to us. But I was feeling absolutely awful, sick to my stomach ….. But I took a bunch of photos. Also took the elephant ride – we were told we would be able to get a better view of the ruins from the elephant back, so I took it, but I did not really get any better view of the ruins.

We left Ayutthaya after 5pm, and got back to the ship a few minutes before 8pm. A long day! Ship officials told us that it’s OK for us to go to the dinner buffet at the 11th floor. We really appreciated that!! The ship presented each lady with a big red rose, for Valentine's Day!

Ira and Fran finally arrived at the ship, all well!!! They waited for us for dinner and we had a good time! Now we’re back in our room, ready to shower and have a good rest!

Laem Chabang, Chon Buri, Day 2; Friday, February 15, 2013

This is the 2nd day at the Laem Chabang port near Bangkok. The only thing on our agenda was the excursion to the wood pavilion, which would take a total of 4+ hours, including the 40+ minutes bus ride. All 6 of us were in group 15, which meant bus #15, and we left around 8:30am.

The wood pavilion turned out to be a really impressive site! It's actually called the Sanctuary of Truth. The entire pavilion was built with all kinds of wood – red wood, golden teak wood, etc. The person who started this was a Chinese who was a self-made wealthy man (who died in 2000 at the age of 86). He started it in 1981, 32 years ago. It is still a work in progress and being built continuously – we witnessed workers working on the wood carvings in the area by the pavilion. The entire structure was full of carvings of different cultures. It is hard to use words to describe the phenomena! It was set right by the ocean. If we could have had the right angle to take some photos, it would have been really breath-takingly beautiful! The few photos I snapped could hardly do it justice.

After the wood pavilion, we were taken to a shopping place for local gems and handicrafts. It was one of the low lights of the trip – the place was jammed with tourist groups from everywhere, who were being herded through the halls of merchandize. We hardly looked at the jewelries. I bought 3 pewter elephants which I saw once before and really liked.

After waiting for our bus to finally maneuver its way through the single-lane parking lot, we finally left this shopping place and were on our way back to the ship. The pavilion was in the town called Pattaya. Our guide told us that this town used to be a quiet and nice seaside place. But things changed forever during the Vietnam war – this place became the R&R place for the US soldiers. It is now very touristy, and has a "red light" district. Our bus took us back through the ocean front drive. The place could have been a very attractive place! But it is a complete tourist spot, with stores, hotels, cafes, restaurants, and all sorts of other things, with signs in English (and Thai). It’s quite crowded.

We got back to the ship after 1pm. There was a shopping area right on the dock, with things twice as expensive as elsewhere. We walked around hoping to get some good finds with our Bahts. Not much luck.

Back on the ship. Had lunch together with the 6 of us – burgers, etc. Then I tried to do some laundry. Unfortunately too many others had the same idea. Then Bob and I played “Mexican train” domino with Ira and Fran till about 5pm. After that I was able to do my laundry.

Tonight the 6 of us had dinner at the French restaurant “Signal”. It was pretty good – good service, good food, good company. After dinner, all the others were too tired to watch the show or do anything else. Bob and I went up to the observation lounge for a look, then I went to see the show and Bob went to play Blackjack. Tonight’s show turned out to be very good! The couple who was the acrobatic dancers started the show, followed by a juggler from Canada. The juggler was also kind of comedian. He did very well and was very entertaining. Good ending of the day!

Sea Day #2; Saturday, February 16, 2013

This is our second sea day and it's been a very lazy and restful day. There is really not too much to write about, and I can hardly remember what we did J …. Breakfast around 8:30. Then spent quite some time to figure out what to do at the next stop, Saigon, for the 2 days. Did a bunch of changing/canceling and rearranging. Listened to a talk by the jeweler Caroline – I do like her design a lot, but the price is too high for me to get any. Lunch followed by a long nap, while Bob went to play the Blackjack tournament. At 5:30, I had a hot stone massage which was very nice! Before the massage, they recommended a steam bath. Oh boy! It was really HOT and STEAMY there! I barely stayed for 5 minutes and then escaped. I did enjoy the massage though. Dinner at 7:30. Then went to see the show – fell asleep for part of it. No photos of anything for today.

A day like this is nice, once in a while. If every day is like this, I will definitely go back to find a job!!

HCMC, Hồ Chí Minh, Vietnam; Sunday, February 17, 2013

Vietnam is THE reason why we wanted to take this cruise. And we're finally here!

The excursion we signed up for today was the Mekong Delta in Depth by Van, followed by An Evening Out in Saigon. Ira, Lucy, and the two of us went in van #5, together with 2 other couples – Chris had a business meeting today and Fran did not want to go. The destination was about a 2-hour drive. It was interesting to see the MANY motor bikes on the road! It’s comparable to the bicycles in China, 30 years ago! Apparently motor bikes (mopeds) are the major means of transportation here. One motor bike can take a whole family of 4 or 5, believe it or not! Today was the 8th day of Chinese New Year and the last holiday – people will be back at work tomorrow. This apparently made traffic worse than usual. We ran into some major traffic jam. We left our ship around 9:20, and got to the Mekong river boating place close to noon time. The 8 of us, plus our guide, got on a motor boat, which took us for a ride on the river, as well as visits to a few places along the river.

One place we visited was where they made popped rice and a few other things such as coconut candies, rice wraps, etc. Another place we visited was someone’s private home and garden. Then the boat took us through some small channels, before taking us to the Mekong Riverside Resort & Spa for lunch. The Mekong Riverside Resort was a luxury place, with over-the-water bungalows and a nice restaurant. We had a good lunch there. The most interesting and most delicious thing was the sticky rice ball, which was fried and blown up to the size of a small soccer ball. And it was DELICIOUS! We asked for a 2nd one for our table, plus some extra! I could have eaten one all by myself! Yum!!

It was already past 3pm when we finished our lunch, and we started on our way back to the ship right then. Of course, we ran into the same traffic jam as on the way coming this way. By the time we got back to the ship, it was past 6:30pm and the sun had already set.

Bob and I signed up (and paid for) for the Evening Out in Saigon, regretfully. It was my idea – I was thinking this would be an evening on our own to explore Saigon. Wrong! It was to watch some show followed by an organized dinner. By the time we got back to the ship, the buses were ready to leave already. The ship staff told us not to worry – they would arrange another bus for us (a number of us were late from the Mekong Delta excursion). Bob and I quickly changed out of our shorts, but the buses left already by the time we came to the gangway. They arranged for a van to take us to the Majestic hotel where we watched the show.

The show was very amateurish. The Majestic hotel seemed to be a fancy old hotel. The show was on the 8th floor, on the roof top half open terrace which had a great view of the Saigon river. The hotel had 2 elevators, one of which seemed to have problems. On our way up, we heard loud banging of the other elevator. Later we learned that people were stuck there for a while. Each elevator took around 8 or 9 people, max, before it would malfunction. And we had more than 50 people from the cruise …..

Dinner was at a different place, which was less than 10 minutes away. It was good. We met a couple of more fellow passengers and had a good chat. Food wise, I would have been much happier if we got some authentic Vietnamese noodles!! But I guess other passengers would be happier with this type of food.

Back to the ship before 11pm. Tomorrow we need to get up early, at 6am – our private tour will start at 8am. I’m looking forward to seeing a little more of Saigon!

HCMC, Hồ Chí Minh Day 2; Monday, February 18, 2013

Today we (Lucy, Ira, Bob, and I) hired a private van through the ship to explore Saigon by ourselves (as opposed to joining the ship organized excursions). It's kind of expensive ($700 for the van of 6 people), but we would have a lot more freedom than the big groups.

We left the ship at 8am. It turned out that we got a private guide as part of the deal, in addition to the van. He’s a young guy, around 27 years old, named "Long". His English was pretty good.

We went to quite a few places in Saigon but it’s difficult to reiterate what exactly we did or where exactly we went. Let me see …. We saw the Notre Dame (which was a much smaller imitation of the real thing in Paris), the Opera House (another much smaller imitation), the famous Caravelle hotel, the Ho Chi Min museum (just the outside), the post office, etc. We walked along the supposedly most expensive shopping street (“Dong Khoi”) and poked our heads into the various stores. The prices of the silk things were much more reasonable than what we saw in Singapore or even Thailand. We went to China town and drove around. We went to a market places and did some cursory shopping. We visited a famous temple. Then Long took us to a Pho (noodle) place for lunch, per our request. It was supposed to be the best Pho place in Saigon for the local people. Upstairs had air conditioning (barely). The noodle was good! But the environment left much to be desired – the first thing that greeted us on the table was a couple of small cockroaches crawling on the dishes on the table …. Oh well! The noodle soup was freshly cooked so we were fine.

After lunch, we went to another temple, the jade emperor temple. Apparently the 9th day after the Chinese New Year is the day when people would all come to visit the jade emperor, so it was very crowded. I really had no desire to fight the crowd, so I waited in the yard. Ira said that was his favorite place for today’s trip because it was real. I guess that’s true. But it was too hot and too crowded for me. Then Long took us to a market, which is similar to the Silk Street Market in Beijing, except that it had more things with local flavor, and it also had a food section that sold fresh produce. We did not spend too much time there. After that, Long wanted to take us to see a factory and store that do the lacquer stuff, and we did not want to go. We pretty much exhausted what he had to show us, and we still had time to kill, so we went back to that Dong Khoi street. Lucy and I (accompanied by Long) enjoyed some more shopping (did not buy much though), while Bob and Ira enjoyed coffee somewhere. We met up at 2:30 and came back to the ship by 3. As we walked up the gangway, we were told there were vendors on the dock (behind those containers). Lucy and I made a quick trip there – pure junk J

After a hot shower and some rest (playing games on the iPad), we did laundry and went onto the deck to enjoy our sail-away. The ship left the dock shortly before 4pm. It was to sail for more than 2 hours in the river before getting to the ocean. Ira and Fran also came out to their deck next door – we chatted and took photos together, watching the ship sail, until it got dark. Then we went to the Horizon lounge on the 5th floor for some cocktails, before meeting at Prime Seven for dinner, at 7pm. We had a good dinner and good company. After dinner, we dispersed. I watched the juggler show again – really liked the juggler guy from Canada, very entertaining.

Tomorrow is another sea day, before we arrive in Da Nang on the 20th. It’ll be another do-nothing day. Maybe I’ll have enough energy to do some exercise. We still need to decide exactly what to do in Da Nang. I don’t find any of the excursions that exciting. And I especially do not enjoy touring with a big group …. Would love to do some shopping and looking-around on our own …. We’ll see.

Sea Day #3; Tuesday, February 19, 2013

It's another do-nothing, full relaxation day. We did not get up until a quarter to 10, even though I woke up a few times before that. Funny thing – the more I slept, the more tired I seemed to be.

Did not do much in the morning. I went to listen in to some session about skin care, which turned out to be mainly advertisement for the skin care product line the "Canyon Ranch" spa carries here on the ship. All 6 of us met for lunch and then chatted about the itineraries for the next stop, Da Nang. Then Bob and Ira went to play the Blackjack tournament (this time he lost in the first round). I went to the talk by sports broadcaster Verne Lundquist, who told stories from his own career. It was very interesting. The events he covered included the figure skating Olympics when Tonya Harding hurt Nancy Kerrigan, the golf tournament when Jack Nicholas won, etc.  He was a good story teller and I really enjoyed it!

Later Bob and I looked through the photos and videos Ira and Fran took, and the photos I took. We relived our visit to the tiger temple, which is by far the highlight of this entire trip! It brought back precious memories and my desire to go back there again! I definitely will go back some day!! Hopefully when Caleb is old enough to go with us!!

Dinner was at the Compass Rose, the main dining room.  As usual, we met Ira and Fran in the Horizon lounge before dinner and had a cocktail. Dinner was good – I had my favorite sea bass (and Lucy taught me how I can make the same dish myself!). After dinner, Fran and I watched the show by the dancing team. Tonight’s show had an African theme and was quite impressive and very enjoyable.

Tomorrow we will be in Da Nang. The excursion we signed up for is to Hue and the Perfume river. Lucy negotiated with the destination service people and arranged for us to join the day excursion with the evening excursion, so we gain about 4 hours on our own to shop the market place! It’ll be a long day starting at 8am. I’m looking forward to it!

Da Nang, Ðà Nẵng, Vietnam; Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Da Nang is in the center part of Vietnam and the surrounding regions are rich with history. The port we docked at is called Chan May. The excursion we took today was to the Hue and the Perfume River, to the north of Da Nang. We boarded the bus around 8:30am and got to our destination around 10. After a stop at the "happy room", we went on the boat for a 35-minute ride on the Perfume River. The ride was not that memorable and the scenery was just OK.

The boat dropped us at the pagoda. Aside from taking some photos, I could not remember the significance or story of that pagoda.  After the pagoda, we went to the Citadel which surrounds the ancient palace, or “the forbidden city”. It was interesting to learn that this palace was actually built after the Forbidden City in China. Unfortunately the palace was very badly damaged, or destroyed, by the war …. This is a real shame ….. Vietnam is in the process of restoring/rebuilding it – not sure when it would be done.

After the visit to the palace, we had a buffet lunch at a high-end hotel. There were multiple buses of Regent people at the lunch. I got another taste of such big group tours ….. Lunch was OK. After lunch, we visited the tomb of the 4th king (who had 104 wives and no children). After that, we stopped at the roadside place where people made incents. That was the last of the excursion before the bus took everyone back to the ship.

I had consulted the ship's destination services people and arranged with our guide a private car (for $90), so Bob and I and Fran took off after the last stop, to go to the market called Dong Ba. The car picked us up at the incent place and took us to the market. I was imagining that the market would be at least as good as the one we saw briefly in Saigon. Boy I was WRONG! It was such a junky and dirty place! We tried very hard to find something, but just couldn’t. Then we decided to just leave. Our driver did not speak English, but he called up the guide on the bus and let me talk with him. I explained to him that we would like to shop for some good quality clothes and handicrafts. The driver then took us to a place, which I wish we had the chance to visit in the morning! This was the place where they could custom-make clothes for us! I could not really find anything I liked. Fran got a couple of tops, so at least we would not go back empty-handed.

We got back to the ship around 6pm. Our driver was very nice and his car was very clean. Bob gave him $100 and he was very happy.

After a hot shower, we met the rest of the group for dinner at Prime Seven. Good dinner, stuffed! Tomorrow our excursion will leave at 7:20, pretty brutal! It’ll be to Hoi An, some sort of a historical town. I guess we don’t get to see Da Nang at all this time.

Hoi An; Vietnam; Thursday, February 21, 2013

This was a fun but "short" day which started early. We were up at 5:30am and our excursion bus left around 7:30am. I did not read the excursion description carefully so I thought Hoi An would have temples and pagodas, with a little shopping mingled in. But it turned out Hoi An was a very quaint and beautiful little town, with some sort of a long history. It reminded me of Li Jiang in China. It has many restaurants and shops. I wish I could spend a few leisure days here and I would be able to have some clothes custom made, and shopped for some nice local things!! Well, we had about 2 hours on our own to shop around, which passed too quickly. I only got a couple of T-shirts.

The drive to Hoi An went by the famous China Beach. I tried to take some photos of the ocean and the beach from the fast moving bus on the way to Hoi An. On the way back, our bus stopped at one spot by the beach to let us take some photos. The waves were very strong. The red flag showed that no swimming was allowed – dangerous.  Our guide told us where the name China Beach came about. That area used to be a cemetery a long long time ago – people buried the china urns containing ashes in the ground. Later on when people dug into the sand, they found these china urns, so they called it the China Beach. Not sure if I got this right, or if this is really true, but it's a story.

We had lunch at a nice local restaurant. With so many buses from the cruise, of course it was a buffet lunch. But it was actually not bad – we had pho and a lot of other choices. After lunch, we stopped very briefly at a marble factory where they made big marble carvings. The marble came from the marble mountain nearby, which was a lot bigger before, we were told.

We came back to the ship around 2:45pm, 15 minutes later than we should have, and 15 minutes before the ship set sail. Now we’re on our way to Hanoi. By the way, as we move towards the north, the weather has been getting better, less hot! People were saying that Nanoi might even be a little on the cool side! How nice!

Dinner at the Signature restaurant, pretty good! Our ship will arrive at Ha long Bay, Hanoi, around 7am tomorrow. We want to be up and watch the scenery when the ship pulls into the bay, so I will be up at 6:30, hoping to take a few photos.

Hanoi, Ha Nội, Vietnam; Friday, February 22, 2013

It's been a LONG day! It’s already 11pm now – we got back to the ship at 10 minutes to 10pm and then rushed to the 11th deck to grab dinner, just came back to the room.

We took the excursion to see Hanoi – got to do that, coming all the way here, can’t leave without seeing Hanoi! From Ha Long Bay where we docked, to Hanoi, is a 3+ hours drive, so we spent more than 6 hours on the bus. And we had a late start. We were supposed to leave at 9am. But the Vietnamese officials were late to arrive to give the ship the permission to let people off the ship, and we did not leave the ship until 10am!

We spent less than 6 hours rushing through the sites in Hanoi, including lunch. We had lunch around 2pm, at a nice Vietnamese restaurant that was very tastefully decorated. The food was decent – I liked the noodle soup the best. After lunch, we first visited the "Hanoi Hilton", which was the old French prison, where John McCain actually stayed as a prisoner of war! After that, we visited the first university in Vietnam, which is now a museum and where young people come to pray for good luck for their college entrance exam.  Then we went to the Hu Chi Minh mausoleum and the “one pillar pagoda”. Finally, we had about 20 minutes to visit the old quarter. I would have really liked to spend much more time exploring the old quarter!

The bus ride was long, especially when it was dark on the way back and there was nothing to see outside the window. The ship had some kind of a party night on the swimming pool deck, with barbecued meat, etc. We were able to catch the tail end of it, so at least we would not go to bed with an empty stomach.

Forgot to mention that Ha Long Bay was truly a miracle place!! We set our alarm for 6:45am this morning, so we can watch the scenery as our ship pulled into the bay. It was definitely worth it! When I pulled back the curtains, what I saw in front of me were these islands of different shapes jutting out of the water. It was beautiful!!! Photos taken from the ship do not do the place justice!

And it was quite cold!! It was hard to imagine just yesterday that the weather could be so different here! Today we had to wear long pants and a wind breaker. The local people were wearing winter clothes – thick jackets, wool hats, some even wearing ear muffs! Geez!! Not that cold!

All in all, an interesting day! Glad we did it, but I wish we had some more time! I think I would really like to come back to Vietnam again – spend some more time to leisurely visit a few places!

It’s clear that Vietnam is still a poor country and people’s living condition was not that good. It reminded me of China 25 or 30 years ago ….. I hope Vietnam will be able to catch up soon.

Ha Long Bay, Vietnam; Saturday, February 23, 2013

Great day! Our morning excursion was kayaking in the Ha Long Bay. The bus took us to a nearby local dock to board a tour boat, which took us to this kind-of floating "town" where we got off the boat to get into the kayaks. I was very hesitant to do kayaking and was hoping to stay on the boat, but then I would not be able to see the scenery because the boat would just dock there. Our destination services folk suggested to me that I should just go into the guide's kayak and let him row, and that’s what I did. I was sorry to “abandon” Bob so he had to kayak on his own. He said he did not mind. But I think he actually preferred to have a second person. It turned out that there was a girl from the ship (I think she was one of the workers on the ship) by herself, so she got in the same kayak with Bob. Unfortunately she did not row much, so Bob ended up doing most of the work and she just sat there and took pictures, which was what I did. I did not even take a paddle. I sat in the front seat, and our guide who was a very experienced kayaker did all the work. I felt very safe with him rowing, and I tried to take as many photos as I could. Unfortunately it was hard to really capture the beauty of the place on camera. I was thinking, if I were able to take a helicopter ride, I might be able to get better photos of this entire wonderful place.

We kayaked through a few caves to visit the lagoons, which had such shallow water – it was barely knee deep. The surrounding monoliths were so amazing, with their different shapes and heights. It felt like a fairy tale place!

While we were on our tour boat, a few local junks came over, selling fruits. It was amazing how the little kids could just jump on the railing of our boat, while their own boat sailed at the same speed right next to us. And the floating “town” was interesting – there were dogs with some of the households and there was even a school, which was built with bricks on a boat! It was rather obvious that the people were quite poor ….

We finished the kayaking excursion and got back on the ship around 1:30. We then rushed through lunch and headed towards the night market (which opened around 1pm) via the shuttle bus provided by the ship. It was a good market! I was able to get a few things, such as 2 big sea shells for Caleb. I hope he’ll like them.

Back on the ship after shopping before 5pm. Our ship set sail at 6pm. Tomorrow will be the last sea day, before we reach GuangZhou the day after tomorrow.

Sea Day #4; Vietnam;Sunday, February 24, 2013

After 4 days of excursions, we welcomed this sea day, a day of doing nothing. There is really not much to write about, certainly nothing to take photo of. We had our 3 meals even though I never felt hungry. We listened to a talk about Hong Kong and it's history; played rummy cube with Ira and Fran a little bit, I took a nap while bob played blackjack, we chatted with some other passengers during lunch, that’s about it. Learned about the program called "semester at sea" from one couple whose daughter took this program. Will google it to learn more. It might be something Caleb would be interested in when he gets to college – sounded like a great way to learn the different cultures and broaden one’s views.

Tomorrow we’ll be stopping at GuangZhou. We will hire a taxi on our own and we’ll go visit the old town.

Guangzhou, China; Monday, February 25, 2013

We decided to back out of the ship excursion we signed up to tour GuangZhou – all of us were sick of going with these tour buses. Since I speak the language, we decided to venture on our own, with me being the "guide", which was like the blind leading the blind J

Lucy and Chris were taken out by their friend. Ira, Fran, Bob and I left the ship around 9am. I consulted the Chinese guy standing by the gangway, asking him what streets/places we should go in the old town, to shop for local things. He was very kind and wrote down a few names of the streets and shopping locations, plus a dimsum place.

The street outside of the port was not exactly a place to easily get a taxi. But we were lucky enough to get one. The taxi looked pretty old – I learned after talking with the driver that the car was already 7 years old. After 15 minutes or so after we got in the taxi, the driver told me that there's something wrong with the car and he was afraid it would not be able to take us that far into the city. He said he would help us to get another taxi to take us. And he did. At this time, Fran was very bothered by the air pollution and wanted to go back to the ship. The driver got us a taxi to go into the city, and another for Fran to go back to the ship.

The first place we went to was called Wan Ling Plaza. It was a shopping place for crafts, jewelries, etc. I was told. This place turned out to be a 6+ floor building, full of stores that sell everything from toys, jewelries, nic nacs, and all sorts of home decorative things. Some were very very nice!! I wish I had the capability to get some of the things back to the US!! And the place was not crowded (maybe because today is Monday and yesterday was a holiday), and quite clean! I could easily spend a whole day in that building and would not be able to shop through every store!! I really liked that place! But we did not have the time to linger too long.

Our next destination was called the “Thirteen Trade Street” (shi san hang), which was not too far away from the plaza shop. We walked through a street that was lined with stores selling dried sea food, seeds, dried fruits, etc. Very interesting! I wish I lived here and could come here to shop for what I’ll cook! Ira and I both took a bunch of pictures. After asking for directions a couple of times (most people were very friendly and helpful), we got to the “Thirteen Trades Street”. This street reminded me of the silk street market in the old days, quite interesting. Tons of clothing stores, plus other stores such as jewelry stores. It was interesting to walk through it, but there was nothing I really wanted to buy.

The next stop was the pedestrian street, which was about a mile or two away. It was kind of crowded, but not too bad. The restaurant we wanted to have dimsum in was right off the street. We had an OK dimsum lunch – not as good as I would hope for, but that restaurant was supposed to be one of the oldest and most famous places. After lunch, we continued to explore the pedestrian street. In one of the silver stores, I saw a couple of necklaces and pendants that I really liked. One was a black fox, the other was an elephant. They were both made in Thailand, I was told. But they were asking way too much, so I gave up L.

After walking through the pedestrian street, we had no idea where else to go. I guess we could have gone to the couple of places mentioned in the excursion, but none of us was too enthusiastic, and we were all kind of done with the busy streets and crowds, so we decided to come back to the ship. It took us a while to get a taxi. The driver was hesitant to take us to the port, but he was kind enough to agree after I showed him the address (in Chinese) written on our Passage sheet. It turned out he had never been to the port before and it took him a while to find the exact place. We got back to the ship shortly after 3pm.

We then learned that Fran had a horrible time coming back to the ship, because the taxi dropped her off at the WRONG dock! She was left at a very bad part of the town, with nobody there understanding a word of English. She had to call up her daughter in California (who speaks Chinese). After 3 hours of agony, finally the police drove her back to our port!! She was so scared!! …. I feel really really bad ….. None of us knew that the port where our ship docked was not that well known. I later heard that this is the first time Regent docked at this port.

I was very tired after the trip. After resting for a while, I started packing and was about 75% done by 6pm. One more night tomorrow on the ship, we will be getting off before 9am on Wednesday, in HongKong.

Lucy and Chris had a great time, with their friend (who was a local Cantonese) taking them to 3 great meals, and the few very worthwhile places. I will make sure that we will come back to GuangZhou some day to see those places – the Chen family academy, the south King museum, etc.

Arrived in Hong Kong, China; Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Our on-board travel lecturer told us that it would be a great view of Hong Kong early in the morning when our ship sailed into Hong Kong. So many of us got up early (we got up at 6am) and got on the top of the ship (the sports deck), to watch the skyline of Hong Kong, in the twilight. It was indeed quite a scene! The massive number of skyscrapers and beautifully designed buildings made up a very impressive view! The last time we were in Hong Kong was 1998, 15 years ago! I have very vague memories of this place. But things looked a lot more impressive this time.

Our ship docked next to a big shopping mall – the Harbor City mall. But we did not have the time to do any shopping today. We signed up for the excursion to see Macau and left at 8am. A bus took us to the ferry terminal to board the ferry to Macau at 10am. The ride took 1 hour. Our guide in Macau was a Portuguese guy named Mario who spoke perfect English (and Portuguese, and Cantonese, and some Mandarin!). Our first visit in Macau was the ruins of St. Paul's church. Then we walked to the old town center of Macau and walked around for half an hour, to explore the streets, etc. Then we walked to our bus and passed a statue of Portuguese explorer who first discovered Macau. The bus took us to the Macau tower where we had an excellent lunch on the 61th floor. The food was very good! It was a spinnaker restaurant. An extra treat we got was to watch the bungee jumpers jump from the 62th floor (193 meters high!), right in front of our eyes outside of the glass window! It costs 3000 HK dollars for a jump. There are at least 50 people doing the jump every day! Hard to believe …. 2 tables of young visitors from Singapore sat near us. As we were watching the bungee jumpers, I asked them why they did not go do the jump. One kid told he that he did not have balls big enough to do that! J

After lunch, we were taken to visit one of the old temples, which Bob and I did not try to go in. We followed Mario and visited the supposedly best Portuguese egg custard bakery nearby. Even though we were very full, we still tried one – it was indeed pretty good. The last visit was to the Sands casino. We walked in and looked around for 10 minutes and came out – nothing special. After that, we boarded the 5pm ferry and came back to Kowloon where our ship is docked.

Originally we were supposed to go to this famous goose restaurant Yung Kee for dinner. But it was quite far and we would need to take the ferry to Hong Kong, so we decided to explore the Harbor City mall area to find a high-end Chinese restaurant. We succeeded! We found this restaurant called Ye Shanghai (Shanghai Night). There were 8 of us – the Nee’s, Warrens, Ed and Marge (our new friends), and us. We had a very wonderfully delicious dinner!! Stuffed till we could not take another bite, and everyone was very pleased.

Back to the ship. Finished packing and put 5 pieces of luggage out by 11pm. Tomorrow we need to clear out of our cabin by 8am, and leave the ship before 9am. 

The cruise is over. We enjoyed it, even though we don’t think the Regent cruise is worth the $ it charged – the food and the service really are not that great. We enjoyed the places we visited, and the fun time we had with friends, old and new. I’m looking forward to spending another couple of days in Hong Kong. And I’m really ready to go home! Miss JJ and Djuna!

Hong Kong Day 2; Wednesday, February 27, 2013

We left the ship before 9am. The process of getting into a taxi, moving all 6 pieces of luggage into the car and getting to our hotel Langham Place, was quite smooth. We got to the hotel shortly after 9am. Our room was not ready yet. We waited in the lobby and enjoyed the decent speed internet - I was able to check and clean up my comcast emails. Phew!

As the taxi driver drove through the streets towards the hotel, my heart started sinking - not sure what kind of hotel Bob and Ira had booked .... But when we got to the hotel, i was very relieved - it was a nice hotel (supposed to be 5 star). And the location was wonderful - we could walk out to a mall and to the streets where there were many local markets!

Lucy and Chris came with us to the hotel since they had more than 5 hours to kill before boarding their flight to Taiwan. They found out that the restaurant on the 6th floor of our hotel, named "Ming Court", was a 2-star Michelin rated restaurant, including dimsum!! Of course we had our lunch there together, all 6 of us. And it was DELICIOUS! Bob and I will definitely go back there again in the next couple of days!!

Lucy and Chris left for the airport after lunch. Ira, Fran, Bob and I started towards the famous "escalator" that would take us to the middle of the mountain. We took the subway right from the mall next to our hotel, then walked through a few streets (where we poked our heads into some jewelry stores and I got a ring), before getting to the escalator. The escalator was really quite fun! We got to look at the buildings and streets alongside the escalator. HongKong was really quite amazing! Some of the high rise apartment buildings looked almost scary to me. They appeared even taller than they were, when they jutted out from the old low buildings. The whole place was really jam-packed. There were many many restaurants and stores that looked very interesting.

After we reached the end of the escalator, we decided to go ride the tram to the Victoria Peak. Bob and I were there in 1998, almost 15 years ago! It was time to see it again. We took a taxi to the tram terminal, and rode the tram to the top. The scenery from the top was truly amazingly beautiful!! Even though the air was quite smoggy and everything was shrouded in haze, it was still very impressive! When I get home, I'll dig out the photos I took 15 years ago and see what the differences were ....

We were done around 4:30pm and rode the tram back down. Then we took a taxi back to the hotel. After that, Bob, Ira, and I walked the streets by the hotel where there was a lively market selling fresh fruits, vegetables, sea food, meat, etc. etc. Even though I am not a big sea food fan, the stuff made me drool and want to cook!!

None of us wanted to eat another big rich meal for dinner, so we decided to walk to the mall and find something light. Unfortunately this mall did not have as much good choices as the Harbor City mall. We looked and looked, finally settled with a Thai/Vietnamese restaurant called Thai Orchids. Food was not bad. But I forgot to order a Pad Thai! Sigh ....

It feels like such a luxury to be on a normal internet!! I am trying to upload photos to my blog - it'll take me a few days! 

Hong Kong Day 3; Thursday, February 28, 2013

Breakfast at the hotel was so so much better than what we had on the ship - there were the usual choices of Asian/Chinese food, porridge, noodles, etc. etc. Even Bob and Ira had the porridge and noodles!

After breakfast, Ira, Bob, and I went out to explore the few places we heard about, without very definitive ideas on what we wanted to do. In the elevator, an Australian tourist told us it was fun to walk down Nathan road, so we walked along Shanghai Road for a while, then cut over to Nathan Road. We went into a few jewelry shops, and then reached the Peninsula Hotel, which was supposed to be one of the most prestigious hotels in HK. It was very nice, even though its ocean view got blocked by the new buildings. Then we went to the "avenue of stars" by the ocean. Today the weather was not very good, overcast and foggy, and quite cool with a strong breeze especially at the ocean front. If the weather were better, the view by the ocean would have been really gorgeous. But today everything was hidden behind the fog.

We then went to the Intercontinental Hotel, where we were hoping to have lunch in its Chinese restaurant and enjoy the view. Unfortunately we did not meet the dress code - Bob and I were in shorts and we all wore sandals .... Oh well! So we got a taxi to take us to the Harbor Mall, where we knew there were many good eating places. And we were right! We had a nice lunch at the Vietnamese restaurant, enjoyed the nice soup noodles and some Vietnamese appetizers! By the time we finished lunch, it was past 3pm. We were all a bit tired, so we got in a taxi and came back to the hotel.

After resting for a few minutes, Bob and I walked out to explore the "Garden Street" and the "Gold Fish Street" that were not too far from the hotel. Very disappointing. The Garden Street was kind of like the old Silk Street Market in Beijing, except more boring. And the fish and pets on the Gold Fish Street made me sad to see the animals/fish being caged or enclosed in plastic bags or glass cases ....

We needed more walk, so Bob and I walked down Nathan Road again - I wanted to get a pair of jeans from Uniqlo. Success. Then back to the hotel around 7pm, and met the Warrens for dinner at Ming Court for dinner - wanted to try dinner at this 2-star Michelin rated place. Well, the dinner was good, but not that impressive especially considering the price. Bob and I both thought higher of its dimsum.

I got in touch with my childhood friend whom I have not seen in almost 50 years!! We will meet for lunch tomorrow in HongKong and I'm looking forward to it!!

Hong Kong Day 4; Friday, March 1, 2013

Bob, Ira, and I left the hotel at 10:30am, heading for the place on Hong Kong side to meet with my friend for the dimsum lunch. We took the subway and got to the destination smoothly within 1 hour. We were all quite impressed with Hong Kong's subway system. The information was very well marked everywhere in the station and on the train. On the train, the route was lighted to indicate where we were. And it even had a light to indicate which side we should be exiting fro the car. The ventilation system inside the train was very good. Even though the train was crowded at times, people were polite and well behaved. It was a pleasant experience with public transportation.

The restaurant my friend took us to was called Maxim Palace. It was a middle-of-the-road dimsum place, quite popular among the locals. We arrived before my friend did because we were half an hour early. As soon as my friend stepped into the restaurant, I recognized her!! It was SO GOOD to catch up!! Bob and Ira chatted among themselves, and Nora (her English name) and I blurbed in Chinese for 3 hours! We could have talked for another 30 hours!!

The food was very good! I liked it better than the 2-star Michelin rated Ming Court in our hotel, frankly speaking. Very tasty! I could eat there every day!

I told Nora that the couple of days in Hong Kong left me with the feeling that this is heaven for good food and fun shopping, but I was not sure if I would enjoy living here every day, because it was too crowded and the air was quite polluted. She told me that the area we're staying at in Kowloon was especially crowded, and even she would have a hard time navigate. She said I'd find that things on the HK side would be more relaxed and less crowded. She was right. Next time if/when I come to Hong Kong, I would try to stay on the HK side.

We came back to the hotel before 5pm - Bob and I got off 3 stops before our hotel and walked along Nathan Road for me to grab a couple of things. 

We had dinner at the restaurant called Jasmine Garden in the mall next door. It was a Cantonese restaurant and the food was really wonderful, better than the 2-star Michelin rated Ming Court upstairs! Bob and I will go there to have lunch tomorrow before we leave for the airport.

Our vacation is almost over - it's been more than a month since January 28th, and I'm very ready to go home! Our flight is around 4pm tomorrow and we'll be in NYC before 8pm, then drive home.

No photos today.  

Tomorrow we're going home! This concludes my blog of this trip.