Pat and Norm's World Cruises and other adventures

March 29, 2017

This is our first time in Taiwan and we chose to do a 7 1/2 hour highlights of Kaohsiung tour.  Taiwan is interesting in that it considers itself a country (Republic of China), but Mainland China’s position on Taiwan is that there is only one China and that Taiwan is part of China; the People’s Republic of China is awaiting reunification of the island and mainland. However, Taiwan still claims independence as a distinct State. China insists that countries cannot have diplomatic relations with Taiwan and it is not listed at the UN as a country.  However, in spite of not having an embassy here, the US is an important diplomatic partner for Taiwan.

This is an old city, occupied by Japan for 50 years until 1945.  The city is slowly being revitalized but the streets and shops mostly look like they did during the old days. Taiwan was originally named Formosa, which means “beautiful island”. It is the second largest city in Taiwan after Taipei, the capital.  

Our guide today was Ben and he was accompanied by 3 interns, Daniel, Vicky and Emma, the latter two are university students.  I sat on the bus with Vicky who was mostly curious about the ship and what was inside!  

Before we left the port area, our driver was given a breathalizer test!  That is something I have never seen before and Ben called our attention to it and showed us the measurement device!

Ben is an engineer and worked in Silicon Valley for 10 years.  His two children are still in the US but he came back to take care of his mother who is sick.  Family is very important in all of the Asian countries and children always take care of their parents, the concept of nursing homes is largely unknown here.

The air is quite polluted, not as bad as in China, but the winds this time of year come from the west, so China’s pollution affects Taiwan.  

Our tour began with a drive through the countryside to Fokuanghan, a famed center of Buddhism. It was founded in 1967 by Buddhist master Hsing Yun and is built into the mountainside overlooking the Kaoping River. Fokuanghan means Light of Buddha and this place features an array of temples, meditation halls, gardens and exhibition halls.  14,800 lanterns rest in openings in the walls of the four shrines.  The mission here is to make Buddhism relevant in modern life, often through charitable work.  We could not take pictures inside the main shrine but we could get some from the entrance.  

The 14,800 statues are built into the walls and some are lit up.  The two light pagodas contain 7200 Buddha images and are to show that Buddha’s light shines everywhere.

There are thousands of wonderful statues everywhere and there is a giant standing Buddha at the top of the mountain.  The gardens are also spectacular.  Many steps to walk up to see everything and it was worth every step!  Most of the 200 residents here are nuns, not monks.  They also have a place for visitors to stay.

My readers know that I love taking pictures of local people and here is one I couldn’t resist.  Always ask permission, though.. Occasionally someone says no.

Our next stop was the Fo Guang Shan Buddha Museum.  This is a place to “enjoy slow living”.  The whole compound consists of a main hall with the Four Noble Truths Stupas, eight Chinese Style Pagodas and the largest sitting Buddha.  There is also a Buddha tooth relic displayed in the museum.  We had time to walk around, take pictures, shop in the main hall (they have a Starbucks.. never say they don’t know how to make money!)  In fact, I bought a beautiful Taiwan Dark Jade bracelet – this is only found here in Taiwan and enriched with active magnet.  

We also enjoyed a vegetarian lunch (all of the dining venues at Buddhist places are vegetarian).  Delicious!

We then headed back to Kaohsiung to the Confucius Temple, situated on the serene Lotus Pond which was of course named for the many lotus flowers growing in the water.  This temple was completed in 1976 and is Taiwan’s largest Confucian temple.  It expresses a deep reverence for Confucious.  It is situated on a body of water ringed by more than 20 historic temples and pagodas.  There are portions of an old city wall from the early 1800s as well as the Dragon and Tiger Pagodas which are built on piers that extend out into the lake.  There is also an 80 foot high statue of the Supreme Emperor of the Dark Heaven.

These people are playing a game of Chinese chess!  And the long things you see here along the street are noodles! The young woman is adding letters to the papers.

Last, we visited a Taoist temple, Chiming Tang, which was constructed in the 1970’s.  Several different gods are worshipped here, including humanized gods of influential figures such as Confucius and the Marshall god with the red face, repreenting business.

This tour was fascinating – giving us, all is one day, a comparison of the different beliefs here.  In the Confucian temple, there was a wall where you could write  out a wish or prayer and then put the card up with all of the others.  Lots were in Chinese writing, but there were wishes for a change in American politics – I won’t post them here but these wishes seem to follow us all over the world.

Tomorrow we head to Hong Kong for 2 days.

March 27, 2017

If you like big cities, you would love Manila – it is a high speed city with stop and go traffic!  There are 101 million people living in the Philippines and more than 12 million just in Manila.  The Philipines is made up of over 7000 islands and due to the early Spanish influence, 85% are Catholic.  It is named for King Philip II of Spain.  

We were in Manila on our last trip and toured the city then, so we opted for a different focus this time.  As usual, we were greeted by music and dancing as we left the ship, and beautifully dressed women gave us hand beaded necklaces.

One of the wonderful things this cruise line does is to have the families of the crew on board when they are in their home country. We have 180 Filipino crew and we talked to so many about this.  Cate, one of our favorites of the restaurant staff, couldn’t wait to see her 10 year old son.  So, as we left the ship, it would soon be filled with the families of our crew members and they would have lunch on board.

Carlos was our tour guide and we first went to the pier where we boarded a high speed ferry to our destination, Corrregidor Island. On the way he gave us some facts about his country.  Here are some of them:

• The colorful Jeepneys are reminiscent of WWII “general purpose” vehicles which have been painted and personalized.  We saw a lot of them on the way to the pier.
• When Emelda Marcos was First Lady, in addition to having thousands of pairs of shoes, Carlos said she was in the mining business.  Everything was “mine!”  She was known as the Iron Butterfly.
• The famous Coconut Palace Hotel, which we saw from the bus, is constructed  70% of coconut materials.
• The Philippines in #1 in call centers and they are being built up like crazy.  This is because labor is so much less expensive and the people speak English pretty flawlessly.  The Indian call centers are losing popularity because their English is much harder to understand.  Carlos also says it is because Americans would never want those jobs because of all the complaining they have to endure.
• Call center business is worth 24 billion$/year here. 70% of the business is from American companies.
• Manila is 50 feet below sea level. The last storm surge they had had the water higher than the palm trees and completely flooded the American Embassy.  It has since been repaired and parts rebuilt.
• They have earthquakes every day.  Most are too small to be noticeable.

The ferry was run by MV Sun Cruises, and as we got seated (in our assigned seats, mind you), one of the crew started dancing to American music! 

That dance was cool, but after they went through the safety drill, they broadcast – on the TV screens, a prayer.  Now, that doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence especially since we have heard many stories of ferry accidents.

Nevertheless, after a 90 minute trip, we arrived on Corregidor Island which is 26 nautical miles southwest of Manila.  There are 5 islands at the mouth of Manila Bay and 4 were used by the US Army, including Corregidor.   It was called Fort Mills. It is also known as “the Rock” and is considered the Gibraltar of the East. It is the best preserved Army station largely due to a Foundation that was formed in 1986.  Much of the ruins were overtaken by forest and were in disrepair but now that the Foundation is in place, things have been discovered and preserved.

The island was fiercely fought over during WWII.  It was first held by Allied forces under the command of General Douglas MacArthur.  It eventually fell to the Japanese after MacArthur left to command troops in Australia.  True to his promise “I shall return”, the general recaptured Corregidor in March of 1945.

Today the island is strewn with gun batteries and battle scarred buildings that have been preserved for wonderful guides like Carlos to tell the story of the battles.  There are no permanent residents on the island, and the one hotel is closed and being made into a boutique hotel.  So we were in pristine areas – almost in solitude.

We boarded open sided buses which are replicas of the original trolleys that once criss crossed the island.  They were designed to be like the San Francisco trolleys.

Malta and Corregidor were the most bombed sites in WWII.  We saw the “Topside” section including the Army’s headquarters, the Mile-long barracks for 8000 soldiers and the Spanish Lighthouse – a replica built on the site of the 1836 original.

We had a wonderful lunch and needed rest outside under arbors of flowering vines.

Another very interesting part of the trip was a walk through the Malinta Tunnel where we saw a light and sound show that re-created the dramatic events of WWII on Corregidor.  During the siege of Corregidor, this concrete re-enforced tunnel provided a bomb-proof shelter for munitions, supplies and remarkably – a 1000 bed hospital. On the island is a tribute to the “angels” – the female nurses who braved the fighting to work there.  After Corregidor fell, they were imprisoned for 3 years.

There are beautiful views of the bay and several areas where you see the caves used by the Japanese.  Many soldiers died here and you can see Bataan, where the famous Bataan death march was held. 

The last stop of the day was at the Museum and the Pacific War Memorial which is in the shape of the parachutes used by the paratroopers that helped to regain the island for the US.  The Japanese were never expecting troops to arrive by air!

It was a long and hot day – 9 hours – but a really interesting one, and I realized how much history I never knew and some that I forgot.  Our lecturers on board help fill in the gaps too.  We were delayed by traffic on our return and we were glad to be on a ship sponsored tour since they needed to wait for us.  As we returned, we saw the high school bands performing and passengers on the open decks and their balconies cheering them on.  I did remember these performances from last time, they had many bands and performed for hours just for the ship!

March 22, 2017

Our next few ports are ones we have visited before – either on our first world cruise or on separate trips.  The good thing about the cruise is although these places will be somewhat familiar, we are only in each one or two days so there is always so much new to see.

Last time we were here, we visited Bako National Park and hiked all day in the forest along with taking a boat excursion on the Sarawak river. We also got to see the proboscis monkey during that trip.

This morning, we were greeted by their beautiful welcome group who gave us each one of the handmade beaded necklaces.

Our guide was James.  He was a delightful guy with a sly sense of humor.  More about that later.

Kuching is in the state of Sarawak.  It is said to be named by the first rajah who pointed to the village and asked its name.  The locals, thinking he was pointing to a cat replied, reasonably enough, “kucing”, “cat” in Malay.  Either way only in 1872 did Charles Brooke officially change the settlement’s name from Sarawak to Kuching.  There are cat statues and cat symbols all over the city and there is even a cat museum, which we didn’t visit.

Our first adventure was a trip to the Semenggoh Wildlife Center where injured and abandoned animals are rehabilitated.  The main one of interest here is the orangutan. The word “orang” is Malay for “person” and “utan” is derived from a word meaning “forest”.  At times they behave just like people and their facial expressions are particularly demonstrative.  People used to keep them as pets which is now illegal, so some of the ones here have been confiscated.  Since they lose their survival skills when kept as pets, this center in the forest allows them to re-learn.  Food is placed on platforms for them but they also learn to forage for fruit, eggs, flowers and the occasional lizard.  The platforms are considered “halfway houses” so as they reacclimate to life in the rainforest, they are seen less frequently. While we have seen these animals in zoos, this center is very different and terrific.

The orangutan is our closest relative, sharing 95% of our DNA!  They are extremely smart and agile.  They have opposible digits on both hands and feet! They are found in the wild in only 2 places – here in Borneo and in Sumatra.  The two species look a little bit different.  The orangutan is the largest tree dwelling animal in the world.  They have a 45 year average lifespan and the young spend 5 years with their mothers.  We observed the alpha male, Mr. Lichee who is 37 years old, and two others. We were lucky to observe him as he hasn’t been seen for 4 days.  No other males will come near him as he is dominant and will fight them.

Here is an example of his humor: James warned us that you could get doused with “warm Borneo perfume” and hit with small bombs!  But the animals were not close enough to pee or poop on us.

And of course, here is Norm interacting with another statue.  He even loaned out his hat!

After we had time to watch these wonderful animals, we went to a pottery factory where we saw all phases of the pottery they make here.  It seems that all of the pottery factories are right next to their garden and landscape centers and what a beautiful combination! A lot of the pottery is in the Chinese style.  The Chinese and Malays together make up two thirds of the population of 700,000.  James said this is just the place to cure the “disease of the fat wallet”.

We had a ride back to the city.  Many of the buildings contain shops on the lower level and family homes on the second and sometimes third level.  There isn’t an official Chinatown, but there are many Chinese temples, restaurants and shops.  There are people of all cultures and religions here, the most are Muslim, but James says they all get along very well and celebrate each other’s holidays.  We walked through the area on the south bank of the river.  This is the main shopping area.  The Masjid Negeri mosque and many administrative buildings are here.  This city was not bombed by the Japanese in WW II so there are quite a few historic buildings. It is an interesting combination of architecture, culture and religion.

The Sarawak River and Mount Santubong provide a very picturesque setting in this city.

In a walk through the market, James pointed out the pepper roots. Pepper is a main export here and the root is boiled for tea and helps arthritis. And, we saw this crib made of bamboo and rattan.  Probably wouldn’t be approved in the US.  The Chinese shops have many herbs, and we even saw snake skins for sale.

James lives in a small town of just 60 homes in the countryside.  They have doctors that travel by helicopter to provide health care all around the country.  Children in the small villages have primary school there but once they reach 6th grade, they need to go to boarding school in the cities.

Here, if you can not find parking, just park on the sidewalk!

I am always interested in cemeteries and the way the different cultures handle their dead relatives.  In our travels we have seen everything from air conditioned crypts to burial for a couple of years and then the body being dug up and cremated because land is so expensive.  The land is then reused for another burial and the same cycle repeats. Here at the Muslim mosque cemetery, the stones are very small and the ones for the men have pointed tops and for the women they are rounded.

And, as my readers know, I like to find unusual signs.  Here are a couple – Kuching style!

Where can I begin to tell the story of beautiful Bali and the Balinese people? Almost everything has a spiritual meaning here.  While there are beautiful beaches and surfing, diving and all kinds of sports, it is the essence of the people that really make this place special.  They are a very warm and welcoming people.  Their colorful dress and their smiles make you feel at home instantly.  And the many temples surround you everywhere you go.  90-95% of the population is Hindu and it is a quite different practice here than in India.  Although there are similarities, Hinduism here focuses more on the whole being and a freedom of happiness than the physical practice of yoga, etc.

We spent two days in Bali, a place we have never visited before.  The first day we did a tour with about 18 people called Discover Bali.  

We saw a veritable playground of activity when we arrived – boats, parasailing, etc.  And we were greeted at the dock with traditional music and dancing.

We arrived in Bali at about noon and set out on the tour to Tohpati Village for a demonstration of Batik cloth processing.  We have seen Batik before but the Balinese style is a bit different.  They use either hand drawn art or stamped art and they use more cotton than silk.  Interesting demonstration and of course I did buy a scarf!

An unexpected event was the opportunity to see a traditional Barong and Kris Dance at Stage Chandra Budaya.  The Barong Play represents an eternal fight between good and evil spirits.  A Barong (mythological animal) represents good spirits and Rangda (a mythological monster) represents evil ones.  The costumes were quite spectacular and the play was so interesting.  Luckily we got a printed description of the 5 acts as there is no dialogue at all and the story is all told through movement and music.

We visited the Bird Park which was so beautiful.  The vegetation and the beautiful birds captivated us for over an hour. It has the largest collection of Indonesian birds in the world as well as many varieties from Africa and South America.  It covers almost 5 acres of botanical landscape and has almost 1000 birds of 250 different species.  They are free range and a few in aviaries to protect them.  The tropical plants and trees attract a significant butterfly population – I captured one in the red flower.

We visited a traditional house compound.  The Balinese home is often viewed as a human organism.  Much like a human being, it has a head (the ancestral shrine), arms (the sleeping quarters and living room) and legs and feet (the kitchen and rice granaries).  There is always a temple in these homes and the compound and the temple are huge and sprawling.  Outside the home on a pillar there is a placque which lists the number and gender of the people who live there.  Our guide, Reno, says this is for census purposes. You also see these small shrines everywhere outside as you travel along and the black and white checked material is a symbol of Bali.  Inside the homes or temples you might see yellow or yellow and white.

We had to wear sarongs to visit the temples. The temples, statues and interiors of the house compound all look quite similar.

We returned to the ship for dinner, an amazing sunset and a local folkloric show of Bali.  The costumes, the music and the dancing were wonderful.  Men and women learn the art as early as 4 or 5 years old.  What distinguishes their dance is the amazing hand and eye movements.  The musicians were mostly young boys and girls and they were terrific! 

Our second day in Bali, we hired a local driver to take us to places that our onboard lecturer had told us about.  We were surprised to learn that our driver’s name was Nyoman – pronounced Norman!  We knew then that it would be a great day and it most certainly was.  We left the pier at 8:30 in Nyoman’s air conditioned white Toyota which was a pleasure as it was hot and humid.  

On the way, Nyoman told us the way children are named in Bali.  There are 4 names for both boys and girls.  The first born is named Wayan, the second is Made, the third, Nyoman and the fourth is Ketut.  If a family has more than four children, the fifth is again named Wayan!  It can get confusing.  Many people have nicknames for this reason.  Some families use “I” in front of the name to signify a boy and Ni to signify a girl.

Nyoman was a terrific guide, typical of the kind and smiling Balinese people.  We made a couple of stops at wonderful art galleries in and around Ubud including the Gajah Bali Gallery and Dewa Putu Puja Toris. We bought a piece of Balinese art and two of the masks, one natural as in the picture, carved from Hyacinth wood and the other beautifully painted.

 This area is the focus in the book Eat, Pray, Love.  When I asked Nyomen about it he said “of course, Julia Roberts!”

We visited the Sacred Monkey Forest Sanctuary in Ubud.  Monkeys everywhere in a wonderful wooded setting.  I had my backpack and unfortunately my New Zealand Manuka honey lip gloss was in an outside pocket.  The monkeys climbed on top of me and relieved me of the lip gloss- who knows if they could get it open, they were biting on the container pretty hard. And one came at me with teeth bared – I guess in case I tried to get it back.  I knew better than that.  Nyoman got pretty nervous and said not to look the monkey in the eye but just back away.  In spite of that, we really enjoyed this beautiful forest.

This area has a lot of shops and markets as well.  And we saw motorbikes everywhere carrying almost everything.  People are all covered in jackets, long pants, etc, and this is because they want to keep their skin as white as they can.  Only tourists are in shorts and sleeveless tops in spite of the heat.

There are a lot of beautiful and meaningful statues along the roads.  The traffic really kept us from getting good photos though.

We had a stop for lunch at a lovely Indonesian restaurant, again located next to a beautiful family compound.  We loved the Indonesian food.  We invited Nyoman to eat with us.  Guess what he wanted?  Spaghetti with marinara sauce!

After lunch we traveled to see the magnificant rice terraces.  These are farmed by many different people.  Many families, including Nyoman’s, have their own rice patties which supply their family needs.  The saying here is that if there is no rice, it isn’t really a meal.

We went to Tampaksiring to see the water temple.  Water comes from the mountains and is sufficient to supply all of these rice fields and terraces.  People come to the temple to purify themselves.  We again had to wear sarongs to enter and I was glad to be past the age of menstruation or I could not have entered during that time!

Our last stop at Bali Palina was to taste the coffee that is made from beans that are eaten  – the animals love the ripe red coating – and then retrieved from the droppings of the Luwak, boiled and roasted.  We had a tasting of their many teas and coffees.  The one from the droppings is very strong!  This was again a beautiful tropical setting.

On the way back from a wonderful day, we saw several road closings for ceremonies – and people traveling to and from the ceremonies.  

And they have some pretty impressive spiders here too!

We definitely want to return to Bali, and please let me know if you want to go and I will highly recommend Nyoman!

March 15, 2017

We arrived at our anchor spot in beautiful Komodo by 11 AM and we had booked a tour through cruise critic colleagues Erin and Mui.  A lot of work goes into planning these tours, and there were 33 people on this one.  It took a while for the authorities to clear the ship so that we could disembark on the tenders, but Erin was first in line to get all of our tender tickets, assuring that we would be on the first tender to the island.  

The sail in to the area was beautiful with mountains covered with greenery.  Indonesia is composed of about 6000 populated islands of the total 18,000 in the world’s largest archipelago, with more than 300 ethnic groups calling Indonesia their home.  We have many Indonesian crew on board and as Leslie, our cruise director always says when we arrive in a new country, welcome to the guests and to the crew who live here, “welcome home”.

As we were waiting for the ship to be cleared, we were out on deck 5 and there were many children in small boats coming up near the ship and shouting “money”.  Some passengers threw dollar bills down and the children would dive for them.  In spite of being repeatedly warned by Leslie not to do so because of the danger of being so close to an anchored ship which does move, people did it anyway.  Once on the island, the guides also asked us please to not give money to the children as it encourages the behavior that the native people are not proud of.  I would rather buy something from them.

They do not allow any visitors to Komodo Island who are not on sanctioned tours.  You must show tickets or vouchers when you arrive.  The main focal point of the islands is the world famous Komodo Dragon, or ora as it is known locally, which lives nowhere else but the Komodo National Park which combines Komodo with its smaller neighbors Rinca and Padar.  The park was established by the Indonesian Government in 1980 in order to protect its prime inhabitant but now expanded its protection to all of the plants and animals.  The entire park including the three main islands and the surrounding waters covers nearly 1000 square miles.  There are approximately 5000 dragons among all of the islands, the largest number, 2800, on Komodo.

We were greeted by our guide, Hendrik, and a naturalist, Tafir, who took us on a 3 mile trek through the forest.  We were able to see 10 dragons during our time there.  Male dragons can grow up to 10 feet long and weigh over 200 pounds, females are slightly smaller.  They live from between 20 and 40 years in the wild.  They have an amazing sense of smell and can detect their next meal from up to 5 miles away!  We were warned not to go if we had any bleeding wounds and women having their periods are not allowed to go on the island.  And, you cannot wear anything red as it is like showing red capes to the bull in a bullfight.  Jan, our neighbor on the ship was going to wear gloves to cover her red nail polish!

The dragons are extremely strong, with huge hooked claws and a forked tongue that they use in much the same manner as a snake.  Their saliva is full of bacteria that will kill a human or any of their prey in a very short time.  They are fast on land and can swim and climb trees.  They eat the wild pigs and Timor deer that are found on the island.  They are very territorial and will even eat each other if they cross into another’s territory. The guides have these long forked sticks that they carry.  We sure hoped that would hold any hungry dragons at bay, but they really didn’t seem that interested in us.

The females lay eggs which have a gestation of about 8-9 months, the longer the gestation, the offspring will be a male.  The females guard the eggs for about 3 months, but don’t protect the offspring and will often eat her own babies.  So the babies climb trees and stay there for about 2-3 years.  Apparently it is too much trouble to climb up to eat them.

Here are some pictures of the dragons and also one of the nest in which they lay eggs.  They have a lot of decoy holes to try to fool predators who want to eat the eggs, primarily the birds.

After our hike and dragon viewing, Norm opted to go back to the ship and I continued for the rest of the afternoon on the snorkeling trip.  The group went on the wooden boats that the guides use to travel between the islands.  Hendrik and his group traveled by boat for 4 hours to conduct our tour.  I did take my gopro and got some nice video of the fish and the beautiful coral but cannot upload it on the ship with the slow wifi. I will have to do a whole video when I am in a hotel or back at home when it will work. I even got some footage of one of the dragons moving and flicking its long forked tongue.  Trust me on that one!

The coral was the most beautiful I have seen on this trip and second to the Great Barrier reef which I saw 8 years ago.  Sadly, that one has suffered but this is varied and beautiful.  

We were also served a wonderful lunch of native Indonesian specialties and I had to tell the guide that I am the type that takes pictures of my food!

It was a wonderful day.  When the ship was leaving, we had a torrential downpour, so no sunset pictures today.  Tonight we were entertained by the fantastic pianist Van-Anh Nguyen.  We heard her on our last world cruise and it was great to hear her perform again.