Month: November 2008

Contributed by: filbert Saturday, November 08 2008 @ 12:06 AM CST

Text by Snookums, Pictures by Filbert

Part Twenty-nine

October 25 (Saturday, Day 39, Padang Bai, Bali, Indonesia – Continued)

While returning to the Padang Bai beach in the canoe, Snookums noticed that one of the passengers in the tender looked like Charlotte so she yelled. Sure enough, Charlotte and Gary were on the tender that was getting ready to unload at the pier right when we were ready to “dock” on the beach. Filbert took Gary’s picture and Gary leaned out of the tender and took our picture in the dugout canoe.

Gary’s photo of the adventurers

More after the jump . . . We got out of the canoe and decided to go back to the ship, as is, to clean up. So, we rode the tender back to the ship wearing our bathing suits and no shoes. We quickly showered and cleaned up in order to go back out to see the rest of Padang Bai.

We took the tender back to Padang Bai and witnessed some happy crew people. Many of the crew are from Indonesia so lots of them had family members waiting for them in Padang Bai. Some of the crew were given six hours of free time to see their family and some of the families came from Jakarta which is a two-hour flight to Denpasar and then another 1 hour drive to Padang Bai! That’s a lot of traveling for six hours of time. We saw entire families coming to see their fathers on the ship.

We realized that there weren’t as many taxi drivers standing outside the fences anymore since they were probably all hired by the passengers getting off by 10 AM. We still had many vendors coming up to us wanting us to buy silver bracelets, carvings out of cow bones, Balinese fabrics and all sorts of things. We ignored them and walked around. The map that the ship provided us with showed five streets in the town and that coincided with the Lonely Planet information Snookums brought. Sure enough, this was a very small town. We walked all the streets and saw interesting sites including the gas stations. These were wood shelves on the side of the street that held 1 liter plastic bottles (refilled) which contained premium gasoline. We assumed that the gas station attendant was around, but we never saw anyone. Maybe it was an honor system.

Balinese gas station

The streets of Padang Bai

Drying fish

A front door

Another front door

The road out of town

The gates of the city

Bovine

We saw plenty of “stores” that were selling a few packages of gum and potato chips and bottles of soda but most of the stores had inventories of less than 100 items and all of the food items looked very old. A lot of the vendors were just walking around the streets hawking their wares. There were several men selling sunglasses and they would ask us if we wanted any. Mind you, we were both wearing sunglasses so we didn’t need any but that didn’t stop them from asking.

By this time we had seen the chickens and the cows and the various Hindu temples and decided it was time for lunch. We returned to the snorkel store (which sold “Kansas” brand cigarettes) since we felt bad that we couldn’t tip Mr. Wayan in the morning.

Kansas brand cigarettes. We don’t know why.

Next post: Lunch in Bali! Don’t miss it!

Contributed by: filbert Friday, November 07 2008 @ 12:03 AM CST

Text by Snookums, Pictures by Filbert

Part Twenty-eight

October 25 (Saturday, Day 39, Padang Bai, Bali, Indonesia – Continued)

We rode for about 20 minutes to the snorkel site, Tanjung Jepun. Snookums put on her wetsuit even though the water was probably 85 degrees and we jumped in. The water was crystal clear and there were colorful fish and coral everywhere. Our “captain” also played snorkel guide and took us to see two submerged buddha statues and pointed out trumpet fish and other fish to us. Too soon it was time to get back in the canoe and return to the pier. The Amsterdam was anchored between the snorkel site and the pier so we got to see it, too, from a different vantage.

Snorkeling pictures 1-10

The first one’s a tease . . . more after the jump!

Next post: We return to the ship! And go back to Padang Bai! So exciting!!!

Contributed by: filbert Wednesday, November 05 2008 @ 11:59 PM CST

Text by Snookums, Pictures by Filbert

Part Twenty-seven

October 24 (Friday, Day 38, At sea) –

We woke up and saw a bird sitting on the partition separating the verandahs. It was there at least 15 minutes before it decided to fly off. It was overcast but the seas were calm. Many of the days at sea have been overcast and drizzly but the days at port have all been wonderful so no one is complaining.

Special guest bird, on the divider between verandas

More after the jump . . . Snookums spent most of the day on the verandah reading or sleeping while Filbert stayed inside and did computer stuff. Snookums went to the basketball free throw competition in order to get a “Dam Dollar” which can then be turned in for prizes. The contest ended up being inside and it was a little Playskool hoop and foam ball. She missed her shots but ended up getting a “Dam Dollar” so all ended well.

Snookums on the veranda, pretending to sleep

The highlight of the afternoon happened around 5 PM when all the lights went out and the ship’s engines stopped. Snookums walked to the Neptune Lounge to see if it happened to everyone (it did). The emergency lights were one which ended up being half of the lights in the hallway so it wasn’t that dark. However, at two different times ALL of the lights went out for about three seconds which made the Neptune Lounge and hallways completely dark.

Dead in the water

Filbert stayed in the cabin and since the sun hadn’t set yet, it was still quite light so he wasn’t aware of the two total darkness occasions. An announcement was made saying dinner would be postponed 30 minutes but then a few minutes later an announcement was made saying that the early seating dinner was ready at its normal time. A few minutes later the ship’s engines started and we continued on our way. But, we were dead in the water for about 30 minutes.

October 25 (Saturday, Day 39, Padang Bai, Bali, Indonesia – 9,845 rupiah to the dollar) –

Filbert got up really early and took a bunch of pictures of our approach to Bali.

Padang Bai sunrise

Mists over Bali

A group of three outrigger canoes collected just under our verandah to do some morning fishing (and to rubberneck the Amsterdam too.)

Outriggers off the port side

We decided to get off the ship as soon as possible with the idea of finding our own snorkel tour since the ship didn’t offer one.

In the tender

At 8:15 we were on a tender and as we stepped off, we saw hundreds of taxi drivers and vendors standing behind the fences on either side of the pier. As soon as we crossed the boundary, we were fair game and everyone started coming at us. Women put “free” necklaces around our necks and wanted us to buy their postcards but we just kept our heads down and quickly walked away. We found ourselves walking through a parking lot and then noticed an internet café. We had no intention of using the internet right then, but decided to find out if we could bring our laptops later on and plug in. The proprietor wasn’t there, but a nice man carrying a baby came over and asked if we needed help. He yelled for the internet owner and in the meantime we said we needed to find the ATM (there was one in Padang Bai) and also that we wanted to go snorkeling. He walked to another “store” (these buildings were open air, both front and back) and spoke and another man came out.

Mr. Wayan was more than willing to take us snorkeling on his boat for a total of 1½ hours. We bargained with him and got the price for the two of us down to $40 (from $70) which was all of the money we had. (We still hadn’t gone to an ATM and didn’t have any rupiahs.) He introduced us to his wife and daughter and told us to wait there and came back about 10 minutes later wheeling a homemade cart that contained a boat motor.

Our powerplant for the snorkel trip

We followed him to the beach and watched as he put the motor on the dugout canoe and then watched as he went and got two very long bamboo outriggers and lashed them to the canoe. He and his wife pushed it into the water and now it was time for us to get in.

A family business

More on our Bali snorkeling adventure in the next post!

Contributed by: filbert Tuesday, November 04 2008 @ 11:54 PM CST

Text by Snookums, Pictures by Filbert

Part Twenty-six

October 22 (Wednesday, Day 36, Singapore – Continued)

We left off the story in Singapore’s Chinatown, where we had just had lunch, and were continuing on.

We left lunch and after walking about 1-1/2 blocks, we ran into Yvan and Alice, our Canadian tablemates. It is a very small world. They also hadn’t seen anyone from the ship in their wanderings and thought it was strange. We told them how to take the subway back to the ship and continued walking around.

We just can’t get away from those mad Canadians!

More after the jump . . . We headed for the subway station and met up with them again and helped them buy tickets. There was another couple from the ship, too, needing help so since we were the experts on the Singapore subway, we helped them, too. The Singapore subway is pretty easy but there is a $1 deposit on each subway ticket. So, after we got back to the subway stop by the ship, we showed everyone how to get the $1s back.

There were still 2 hours left before we had to be on the ship so Gary, Filbert and Snookums walked to the Singapore Cable Car for a 30-minute roundtrip ride to Sentosa Island and back. The cable car tramway went right over the Amsterdam and dock and it was neat to see the ship from above. We also saw the Merlion statue from the air. The Merlion is the symbol of Singapore and it is ½ mermaid and ½ lion. When the cable car ride was over Filbert returned to the ship while Snookums and Gary wrote postcards and found a post office to mail them. (Snookums had bought the stamps earlier in the day from an automated postage machine that seemed to be everywhere. Hong Kong had these, too. The US needs to get more of them and put them in places other than the post offices.)

Views from the cable car (5 pics):

The cable car viewed from our stateroom

When Filbert was back onboard, he watched the longshoremen unload the 11 containers. When they were done, he saw a case of Heineken, along with what appeared to be some seafood, being moved FROM the ship to the longshoremen. He assumed that was their tip for the day.

A little bonus at the end of the day

Both of us were tired and sore from the day’s activities and we enjoyed a nice long soak in the hot tub prior to getting ready for dinner. The six of us had a new table for dinner. Everyone but Snookums was hot at the old table for eight people and there was a smaller table in a place with more air circulation so the six of us decided to move. Snookums wore a sweater and the others didn’t sweat so it was a good decision to move.

October 23 (Thursday, Day 37, Crossing the equator) –

We crossed the equator into the Southern Hemisphere at 7 AM. A lifeboat drill was scheduled for 10 AM but at 9:45 it was cancelled due to inclement weather so at 10 AM a safety announcement was read over the ship’s PA system instead. We were very happy that the lifeboat drill was replaced by the safety announcement.

Filbert went to the 11 AM lecture by the female Australian anthropologist. He said it was a good lecture about how the Aboriginal people view the world.

Snookums spent the day on the verandah reading books and Filbert spent the day inside continuing working on the journal and photos. He went to the Explorations Café and managed to get four posts uploaded to medary.com. He has eleven more still to post to get medary.com current. (Oops, two more behind, as of today, making it thirteen to go . . . it’s a moving target!)

Pounding out blog posts

Tonight was formal night and Gary and Charlotte called to say they wouldn’t be at dinner. That left just Yvan, Alice and us which made for a fast dinner. Snookums thought that there would be gifts waiting in our room since it seemed like formal nights were gift nights, but there were none. She called Yvan, though, to make sure they didn’t get anything and they didn’t. So, that theory of hers was wrong.

Next: A visitor on the veranda, and–we’re dead in the water!!!

Contributed by: filbert Monday, November 03 2008 @ 11:50 PM CST

Text by Snookums, Pictures by Filbert

Part Twenty-five

October 21 (Tuesday, Day 35, At sea) –

Today we lost an hour for the first time on this cruise so our night was short. And, to make it worse, Filbert set the alarm for 8 AM in order to wake up to watch the Denver Broncos on ESPN Sunday night football. Denver ended up losing big time so he got up early for nothing. While Filbert watched the game, Snookums mended the hem of his T-shirt. The laundry mark stickers are sometimes put on the hem stitching and when they are removed, the stitching breaks. We have told them numerous times (and write it on the laundry form every time) to please put the stickers on the fabric and not on the stitching, but they just don’t get it!

We went to the guest talent show since Yvan, our Canadian tablemate, was in it. It was the best guest talent show ever and everyone that saw it echoed that opinion. Yvan sang “Edelweiss” and was part of a barbershop quartet (which he had never done before this cruise) and was part of the HAL Chorale. The cruise director, Bruce, is a Julliard graduate and decided to start a choir, so the choir rehearsed on most sea days and then performed two songs for the guest talent show. Other performers included a cowboy poet, an Irish comedian, an elderly female singer who was fantastic, a banjo playing male singer and a ukulele-playing female singer. Of all the acts, there was only one that was so-so (a male singer) and the rest were really outstanding.

The barbershop quartet

The HAL Chorale

More after the jump . . . When he wasn’t watching football or the guest talent show, Filbert spent the day putting photos in the journal from Day 16 through Day 34 since he was so far behind. Snookums read books out on the verandah. We still haven’t seen any sea creatures.

Tonight was Jae and Bari’s last supper with us since they are getting off the ship tomorrow in Singapore. We pointed out the moldy flower centerpiece to the maitre ‘d and he was embarrassed and we were all laughing. He told us that there would be 11 containers from the US waiting to be loaded on the ship in Singapore. Snookums hoped that skim milk would be in one of them since it’s been since around Day 10 since skim milk has last been on the ship. The ship didn’t want to buy any milk in China due to the melamine scandal and we all thought that was a good idea.

October 22 (Wednesday, Day 36, Singapore – 1.48 Singapore dollars to the dollar) –

Singapore Dawn

We sailed into Singapore and Filbert enjoyed listening to the local radio station giving the morning traffic commute and weather information and playing songs from the 80s. It sounded like a morning radio show that any big city would be airing.

Reprovisioning

We met Gary and Charlotte for breakfast around 8 and planned our day. We all decided to get off the ship and check out the terminal right away to see the shopping, wifi and anything else it had to offer. The stores didn’t open until 10 AM but we had to deal with passport control and immigration so we just stayed off the ship until they opened rather than returning for 30 minutes or so. When the grocery store opened we went in and Filbert bought a 6-pack of Anchor beer which is made in Singapore. Gary bought some Singapore cookies and potato chips. The men decided to check out the bookstore and Snookums and Charlotte returned to the ship.

We left the ship “for real” around 11:45 and took the subway to Orchard Road to go a “big bookstore” that various people told us about. It was a Borders! Snookums bought two Beijing travel maps for our May, 2009 trip since they were cheaper here than in the US. Filbert bought a book on the history of words and Gary bought a book about logistics in Singapore shipping. (Gary is into railroading and shipping freight and stuff like that, just as a hobby.)

Gary in Singapore

Anatomically correct statue on Orchard Road

Singapore is an easy city to get around in. Everything is in three languages – English, Chinese and Malaysian. The city is very clean and crime is almost non-existent. There are fines for littering and spitting and we noticed that the subway showed videos on what to do in case of terrorist attacks. It’s hard to believe that such an orderly city could have terrorists, but anything is possible nowadays.

After leaving Borders we saw an Isetan department store across the street. Isetan is a major Japanese department store so we decided to see if it had a food hall in the basement like all other Japanese department stores. It did but we did NOT buy anything. Instead we decided to take the subway to Chinatown to look around and get some lunch.

Snookums and Gary discuss Singapore’s Chinatown

We ate at the Wang Tang Eating House which was an open air restaurant (like the others we passed). We ordered sambal asparagus, Thai spicy chicken, fried salted silver fish, three 600-ml Tiger beers, one soda, and two rice orders for $65.18 for the three of us. The fried salted silver fish were whole fish that were the size of French fries. They had eyes and tails and everything and were in a light batter that was seasoned with star anise. They were crunchy and okay. During lunch we commented that we hadn’t seen anyone from the ship, whether we knew the people or not. It was strange since we usually run into a lot of passengers in our wanderings. Today, though, if we saw Caucasians, they were young people from Australia.

The Wang Tang Eating House

Filbert finally remembers to take a picture of the food

. . . and the beer (three tigers)

More of our Singapore outing in the next post . . .

Contributed by: filbert Sunday, November 02 2008 @ 11:47 PM CST

Text by Snookums, Pictures by Filbert

Part Twenty-four

October 20 (Monday, Day 34, Ko Samui, Thailand) – Continued

In our last post, we began our snorkel swim off Coral Island, Thailand. We continue . . .

Snookums and friendly fish

The water was very murky and it seemed like visibility was about 5 feet but the water was warm so that made it nice. We swam towards the coral and found 100s of yellow and black striped fish. They were very friendly and swam right in front of our faces. It was pretty neat. We didn’t see any other kind of fish and the coral was kind of hard to see, but it was still a great snorkel. We climbed on the boat for the return to Coral Island. (After Filbert got on the longtail boat, his feet slipped out from under him and he went completely down on his back on the little deck of the boat but he immediately quipped “What did the judges score me?” and we all knew he was fine.)

More snorkel pictures and the rest of the post, after the jump: Snorkeling in Koh Tan, Thailand:

Really friendly fish

Snookums takes the measure of a fish

Thumbs up from Filbert . . .

. . . And Snookums

Lunch was almost ready to be served when we got back. Our table of four was served a whole deep fried fish, a plate of fried rice, some kind of soup with various vegetables, meat and tofu in it and deep fried coconut shrimp. Singha beer and Coke were also served and there was watermelon and pineapple for dessert. Snookums isn’t much of a fish eater but she managed to eat all of the meat off the fish’s skeleton since it was so good. The other couple sharing our table didn’t eat much so that meant that it was okay for Snookums to pig out on the fish (and she also finished off the fried rice). It was a great lunch and after another hour or so, it was time to get back on the longtail boats for the ride back.

Fried fish – before Snookums

Fried fish – after Snookums

A caged bird at the resort – it talked, supposedly

Flowers at the resort

After the tour van dropped us off at the tender pier, we decided to walk around the Na Thon area of Ko Samui. We saw more souvenir stores and several convenience stores and decided to spend our coinage of 26 baht ($0.75) on a can of Coke Zero (14 baht) and a bag of Durian chips (12 baht). Durian is a tropical fruit that smells like rotten meat but durian chips tasted like potato chips. We got on the tender and went back to the ship and its air conditioning and our shower! Once again the weather for the day was great. It was overcast and 80° and we didn’t get any rain at Coral Island but Ko Samui did. Snookums got a little sunburned but Filbert didn’t.

Snookums decided that going to the 9:30 PM karaoke would be fun and when Filbert mentioned it to the table, Yvan immediately said he would sing. We told our waiter, WuWan, that we needed to be done by 9:30 and we were! We went to the Crow’s Nest and Yvan signed up to sing “O Holy Night”. But, when the English words were displayed on the screen for all to see, he surprised everyone by singing it in French!! He has an excellent voice. Gary, Snookums and Filbert played the role of backup dancers off to the side in the back. A few other cruisers sang and then Yvan went back up to sing and this time Filbert and Gary decided to stand right behind Yvan. Well, it was a good thing since Yvan didn’t know the song at all and Filbert and Gary provided comic relief for the fifteen people in attendance. Yvan ended the 45-minute karaoke show with “Beyond the Sea” and even the words were in French which is what he wanted. He’s a good singer but doesn’t know pop songs so although there were probably a thousand songs to choose from, he really didn’t know any others. His wife reminded all of us that he mostly sings church songs and opera.

Late afternoon sun

Next: Another sea day, and on to Bali!

Contributed by: filbert Sunday, November 02 2008 @ 11:44 AM CST

Text by Snookums, Pictures by Filbert

Part Twenty-three

October 20 (Monday, Day 34, Ko Samui, Thailand) –

We booked a snorkel tour and got on the tender for the 25 minute ride to the town. Then we got in a 9-passenger van for the ride to the location of the longtail boats that would then take us to Koh Tan. Ko Samui is Thailand’s third largest island and is known for its beaches and booming tourism trade and is the second most popular island destination in Thailand, second only to Phuket. Around 45,000 people live on Ko Samui.

Tender

More after the jump . . . We walked through the water to board the longtail boats that each held 8 people. We then rode about 30 minutes to Koh Tan (Coral Island) which looked like a scene from Gilligan’s Island except it had beach chairs, a large covered area where the meals were served and several bungalows that cost $15/night. We enjoyed sitting on the beach until it was time to get in the boats again to go to the snorkel spot.

On the longtail boat

Another longtail

Our adventurers, again

Coral Island beach

Up the beach

Down the beach

Getting on and off the boats was actually very tricky since they rolled from side to side if the weight wasn’t exactly in the middle. Filbert played the part of ballast several times by sitting on the side away from the ladder! We put on our snorkels and masks and jumped in the water and then put on our fins.

Some snorkel pictures:

The exciting conclusion to our Coral Island Beach/Koh Tan snorkel escapade in the next post!