Sander's Story Line

Final Thoughts on our SAS Spring 2009 Journey

2009-09-21T15:54:00.001+01:00

It is now mid-September 2009 and we have been back from the trip for 4 and half months so it is time to wind up this story with some final thoughts. I have delayed writing this piece in order to get a little perspective and distance from the many experiences, sights, sounds and tastes which one carries away from such a trip.

First and foremost, for both Brigitte and me was the joy of being able to travel around the world with our grandson, Emmett. Many times on this trip we realized what a great and unique opportunity we were having of being able to show a 14 year old parts of the world which we already knew. What made it even more fun was the enthousiasm that Emmett showed for discovering new places. Here was no laid back traveller but rather someone who was like a sponge absorbing new places and faces and having a wonderful time doing it. After each of the first 8 or 10 countries his conclusion was that the last country was his most favorite... When you have someone so interested in new things, it adds a real fun dimension to the journey. I am sure that all of these experiences will stay in Emmett's memory but will fade with time. But the overall experience will stay with him and will have a deep effect on how he sees the world. Having been around the world, seen many different countries, seen poverty, seen cultures and met people from different countries has made him aware of the beauty, of the ugliness and of the variety of this world. If that is one of the results of the travel, not only has it been fun but I has allowed Brigitte and me to have given Emmett a tool to better understand this world we live in. Thanks, Emmett for giving us the privilege of seeing the world with and through you. I can only wish every parent and grandparent would get the chance to do something like this at least once in their lives.

As I look back on the second trip with Semester at Sea I see that each voyage is very different from previous ones. Yes the outlines are the same with students, professors, adults and a gaggle of children, but the content is very varied. This voyage attempted to be more focussed on Sciences than past voyages. This voyage had a definite theme with Migration as the leitmotif. This voyage was run by a dean who is a scientist but not the best manager. The prof who ran the daily Global Studies was really not the crowd inspiror we had on the first trip. The profs this time included quite a few who really were not very good at inspiring their students. The places we visited were the same but with 4 or 5 days in each port, there are always new things to see and do. In summary, I would do an other trip in a few years on Semester at Sea and I would recommend anyone with an interest in seeing the world to take a voyage. It is by far the most interesting way to travel and the most comfortable way to see the world. Invest some of your money and some of your time and the return will surprise you. I have met no one who has taken this voyage who has not thouroughly enjoyed themself and who has lived to be thankful for the opportunity.

I intend to pull together the various chapters of this blog and create an illustrated book which will serve as our souvenir of this great trip.

Cheers and I wish you all happy traveling.

Travel Chapter 28-Guatemala and the Panama Canal

2009-05-05T04:17:00.000+01:00

Pictures for this chapter can be seen at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/akeyserlingk/Guatemala12009?authkey=Gv1sRgCNyh35LkpMzb8gE&feat=directlink

We docked early in the morning of April 28th in Puerto Quetza, Guatemala. The ship schedule originally had us arriving in Puerto Quetzal on the Pacific coast at 11am. We complained that this late arrival would mean that the day would be half wasted so they agreed to speed up to arrive earlier. Customs and immigration formalities were handled smoothly. The US embassy sent a couple of junior officers to do a diplomatic briefing which told little about the country other than that everyone was killing everyone else and that one should be street smart. This tracked the warning that the SAS leadership had given earlier. These had even Emmett traumatized about going ashore in such civil war-like conditions. They really do an excellent job of scaring the kids but I suppose their lawyers advise them to give all these dire warnings to cover their asses just in case some kids get into trouble. “We told you so”. It puts all the kids in a defensive mode and I am sure many of them did not even leave the ship because they were afraid for their lives.

Sure, it is true that there are killings and that there is corruption and that there are gang wars and that there are drug wars and that there are muggings. But, that is also the case in New York, Washington and LA. By now these kids are pretty street smart having gone around the world so they really do not need to be made too scared about that these things. By now the kids do not even take the warnings seriously because they have heard them so often that they are starting a new game of bingo where the blocks are made of the standard litany of warnings made at each port. At the briefings, if they go, one hears all of a sudden someone yell, Bingo. They have touched all the buttons on their cards. I agree that they should be made aware but not made scared. If they get scared they are not street smart and they will not enjoy the visits to these countries. If the management is so scared about the situation in a country they should not stop there. A level of violence could be posted and left at that. I one cries wolf too often, no one listens.

We were off the ship by 10 am but then had to wait for an hour and half until the Ecuadorians could find the key to the lock on some gate to let us out of the port area. The ship was parked in the industrial part of the port as the one passenger terminal was taken up by the condo ship The World. This meant we had to be bussed around the port to what is called the passenger terminal where cars, taxis and busses are allowed to await passengers. It was very irritating to be sitting around but then we were back in Manana country. What kind of a bad impression to give to 800 arriving persons that they are so disorganized that we cannot even get out of the port.

We finally were given the go-ahead and the busses took us from the commercial port where we were parked over to the passenger terminal. There we ran into Wally and Sonia. After greetings all around, we jumped into their car and headed up the hill. We went from Sea Level to 1550 meters. It was a nice drive and up the hill to Antigua. When we arrived after an hour and half in Antigua and opened the car door in front of Wally
House, it was such a pleasant change of cool air after the stifling heat at the port.

The house itself was only 3 years old but it had been in true colonial style as were all the houses in this development. Even the roof tiles collaborate and grow moss within a year giving them a sheen and a look of a Spanish colonial time house. Inside, the house was spacious and nicely laid-out with a lovely courtyard with a fountain and running water. It even had a nice Guatemalan hammock. Wally and Sonia had collected a lot of art from around the world and he house was decorated with many fine pieces. Wally has his house on the market and you can see it at:
http://www.century21casanova.com/view_detail.php?propID=A88

Having seen it, I would recommend it and I am not even getting a commission…

We headed out to lunch at a small restaurant nearby called Epicure and had a light lunch at this very nice and airy place. It is run by a former farm equipment salesman who bought a farm near Antigua from which is supplies most of the food for his restaurant.

In the afternoon, Emmett and his extended shipboard family along with their extended family parents, Sage and John had planned a trip to a nearby coffee plantation which had a zip line operation. We dropped Emmett off in front of the Cathedral and the whole family of 10 set off in Jeepmog’s to the plantation.

We decided to go to the same plantation to see it and to have a cup of coffee. We found Emmett’s group ready to head into the mountain for their zip lining. We enjoyed a fine cup of coffee on the patio of the main building looking off in the distance at some of the local volcanoes. Antigua was the second capital of Guatemala after the first; Ciudad Vieja was totally destroyed by water flooding out of a collapsed volcano. Then in the 18th century, Antigua itself was destroyed by a major earthquake and the capital was once more relocated, this time to Guatemala City. Antigua was abandoned and fell into total disrepair until the middle of the 20th century when people started to return to the city and rebuilt what had been destroyed. Today, it is the jewel of Guatemala and the home of a lot of the money of Guatemala and of many expats who decided to settle there. It is about 1.5 hours from the capital so it also serves as a week-end place for many from the huge bustling Guatemala city. We were told that traffic in the city on week-ends is impossible. The city it self made us immediately think of San Miguel de Allende in Mexico where we spent several weeks last winter. The layout is the same with a large Cathedral off the main square and city hall off on the main street. The main difference is that Antiqua is smaller and rather flat compared to San Miguel with its very steep streets. The city is a major centre of Spanish language schooling with hundreds of little schools throughout the town. It is a big business which has also developed a parallel housing business for the students who stay there. As the Guatemalans speak a soft Spanish without the lilt and accent of places like Mexico or Cuba, it offers foreigners the possibility to study the language while living with local families.

Later we picked up Emmett in town and went out to dinner at an Argentinean restaurant. For a small town, there is an amazing number of restaurants. The town itself still shows the ruins of many churches, hospitals and convents which were never rebuilt after the earthquakes. It adds an eerie feeling to the city and the ruins are considered part of the heritage of this city.

At 0400 the next morning, Emmett and I were picked up by a microbus to transfer to the airport in Guatemala city for a flight to Flores in the north of the country. From there we were again picked up for an hours drive to the site of the Mayan Tikal site. Emmett had studied this site in school and was very interested in visiting it. B and I had been there on our previous visit so B opted not to do the visit again. This turned out to be a wise decision on her part at the visit is rather strenuous. It takes one along jungle trails for about a mile to the main site, then along smaller trails to other ruins which are very impressive but by 11am it got very hot and the trails got smaller with boulders and roots making walking difficult. We visited the whole site and Emmett climbed up every pyramid available which was no mean feat. After walking for 4 hours, we were given a good lunch and we headed back to Flores for our flight back to Guatemala city and then on with a microbus to Antigua.

We got back to Antigua at around 8pm tired but it had been a great day which is certainly worth the effort. We had dinner at home and we all hit the beds early to catch up on the sleep we did not get that day. It was nice to sleep in a house after so many months of ship cabin life broken only occasionally with nights on trains or in hotels. Home cooking and being in a house is totally different from canteen food and spaces shared with many others. Of course, the attraction on the ship is that there are always people with whom one can spend time talking, chatting or discussing. Also the academics on board do offer a rich tapestry of knowledge from which one can learn. There is usually someone on board who, if not an expert on a matter, at least knows a lot about subjects under discussion. The kids also offer a lively forum for talks and discussions and views. This is why we went back to the semester at sea formula as it offers a unique time and type of voyage not found on the standard cruise ships.

The next morning, Wally produced some of his signature pancakes which were well appreciated. We visited a jade museum con store. Guatemala has some of the best jade and the Mayan tradition of using Jade as jewelry is alive and well in Guatemala. The Mayans worked jade which was revered as a good luck stone. There are theories that maintain that the Chinese learned to work Jade from their contacts with the Mayans and also theories that the Mayans learnt it from the Chinese who visited this area in 1421, long before the Europeans arrived. The fact that the chickens used by these people are Asian breeds is one of the indications of contacts between the Chinese and this part of the Americas.

In the afternoon, after a nice lunch overlooking the ruins of the Antigua capital, we headed down to the coast to rejoin the ship. Sonia and Wally left us at the passenger drop off point and we returned to the ship after a nice visit.

We headed south for the next 2 days towards the Panama canal where we were promised a day passage. We had gone through twice before but each time at night so this was a new experience. The students wrote their last exams in those 2 days so there was still tension in the air.
On the third day at 0800 we were heading into the Mira Flores locks on the Pacific side of the Canal. I always find going through a canal with locks is a special experience as I am impressed to watch such huge bulks like ships rise and fall within the closed area of the locks. The crossing of the inside lake Gatun was like boating down the Amazon as the lake is surrounded by very heavy tropical forests. At times, the canal in the lake is very narrow and there is work now being done to widen the channels. Also, one can see at both ends of the canal that work has started on building the new locks which will allow the canal to accommodate the larger and newer ships.

On our crossing which took very little time (the shortest ever according to Captain Jeremy) we saw only 4 ships going west. This explains our fast crossing as there was no waiting at either the Pacific or Caribbean locks. This is no doubt the result in the dramatic drop in shipping due to the recession which has reduced shipping by some 25% worldwide. The Canal authority is so sensitive to this drop in tonnage that they are currently reducing the canal fees.

We are now underway to Fort Lauderdale our last stop. We will be passing just west of Cuba tomorrow morning and we will be docking at 0800 May 6th. The trip is really over and everybody on board is now packing and getting ready to disembark. Goodbyes are everywhere and one sees a lot of hugging going on as friends made on the voyage say good-bye. Emmett is running frantically making sure he sees his whole fan club before the end. He has been busy all day with various activities. He will miss his networking which he has developed to a fine art. But everybody on the ship will have to readjust to their normal lives after 3 months of travel together.
I will write a final contribution when we get home to Virginia and I have some time to take in this wonderful experience which I would hope to do again in the not too distant future.

Travel Chapter 27-At sea enroute to Guatemala

2009-04-28T03:51:00.000+01:00

We are now approaching the coast of Guatemala after 7 full days at sea. The sea has been calm for the most part but cloudy most of the first 4 days. Things lightened up on the 5th day and we have had nice sunny days since then. It is 4400 miles from Honolulu to Puerto Quetzal and that is only half of the Pacific Ocean. It is a huge body of water especially compared to the Atlantic. During those 7 days, we saw 2 ships and were followed at various times by Albatross and Boobies, which are both sea birds. We saw a few dolphins in the water but mostly these waters do not exactly team with wildlife.

The days have been busy with classes ending and the kids studying for their final exams. As a matter of fact, the word must have gotten around as I saw more people studying on this last leg than on all other legs together. It is only then that one realizes that there are 730 students on board the ship. It would appear that a third is always sleeping, an other third is always sunning and the final third is in class. Rarely if ever does one see the full complement of students.

But with finals being so important to the overall grade they will get for the semester, reality has hit. They had their Global Studies exam day before yesterday. This a daily course every morning which all must attend. I gave a lecture on Development, Banking and the World Bank and 5 of the 100 questions actually covered my material. So there are now 700 odd students and perhaps 50 adults who know more about that subject then when they came on board three months ago.

As we approach land, we have got the news of the swine flu outbreak spreading around the world. A suggestion was floated this evening at dinner that perhaps we should continue cruising on the high seas until the flu is over. By staying in our own world we would not be exposed to the bad things happening on land. But that will not happen and we will have to face the flu when we rejoin the community of humans on land. Hopefully, it will not be too bad and most of us will survive. Too bad that young and old people are the only ones who do not seem to be getting the flu. Those are the breaks but we will take those and hope our own younger people will not be harshly hit by this most recent epidemic. I did buy some Tami flu pills for us a year ago but they are safely ensconced in Virginia so not too much help there at least until we get home.

Exams are taking place. Emm has written 3 so far and has one more when we get back to the ship after visiting Guatemala. I asked the University of Virginia registrar on board whether they would give him some sort of credit document for his work and doing well in the exam and they declined. I have suggested that Emmett contact the individual professors when they get back to their campuses so that they can issue him a letter attesting to his attendance at the course and his good grades. That should not be a problem as they all appreciated his active attendance and his good grades at the various tests and exams. It is interesting to see a 14 year old who is doing more work and doing better than many of the college level students. One prof was telling me about a student who was asked in the final exam to answer 20 questions and to write a short essay. The kid got 15 answers wrong and then in the essay section he wrote only;” I guess I should have attend the classes.” Amazing to see how irresponsible some of them are. But for the most part, the student body takes the courses and results seriously as they become part of their academic record no matter where they are currently studying. As many have fairly high GPA’s when they come aboard, they are interested in seeing that their results from this semester do not bring down their average scores which are important when applying to graduate studies.

We will be docking tomorrow morning and then driving with Wally Daniels up to Antigua where we will be staying at his house with his wife Sonia. Wally used to work with me in our Abidjan office and he and his wife decided to build a house in Antigua and retire there.

Emmett will be going with a group from the ship under the supervision of our medical assistant and his wife to a Zip wire place just outside Antigua tomorrow. The next day, he and I are booked for an early morning start to fly up to northern Guatemala to visit Tikal, a Mayan ruin. We will return the same day. After 7 days at sea, everyone is looking forward to some time on land.
More on this later.
Cheers

Travel Chapter 26- Hawaii

2009-04-22T09:13:00.002+01:00

Pictures for this chapter can be seen at:

http://picasaweb.google.com/akeyserlingk/Hawaii2009?authkey=Gv1sRgCPTRvpjR8sSxPw&feat=directlink

We left Yokohama far behind us as we left Tokyo Bay and headed east to Hawaii. It was an 8 day crossing of over 4000 miles. The Pacific showed us all its facets from almost becalmed seas to very rough stretches of wind and waves. Throughout the passage we were often accompanied by groups of up to 12 albatross following in the slipstream of the ship. They are dark colored birds with amazing abilities to fly with little or no expenditures of energy. They followed in our slip stream riding the wind as the expert fliers they are. For hours on end they would slid in behind the ship then swerve to the left or right and fall back a few hundred yards to once again approach and catch up with the ship by flying high and then low over the waves for no obvious reason as they did no fishing while demonstrating their talents. It was almost as if they were showing off to us or each other. They apparently fish at night and I surmise during the day they just fly around, hundreds and then thousands of miles off the nearest coast or island.
We were also visited by red-footed boobies who preferred flying around the bow of the ship and who would land from time to time on the ship to rest and look around.

Otherwise, we saw very little pelagic life on the crossing. The days got sunnier as we headed away from Japan and the daily routines of classes, meals, afternoons on the decks or in one’s favorite places on the ship became the norm again. After a few weeks of constant ports with only 2 days between stops, it was nice to get a long stretch of sea life again.

I gave my lecture on the World Bank and on the current financial crisis to the assembled students at the daily Global Studies session. I had adapted the presentation to first lay down some definitions of what development really is by using and contrasting what the students had seen in India, Vietnam, Thailand, China and Japan. It is easy to understand what makes development when they had visited these countries and seen the dilapidated situation of the infrastructure of India in contrast to what they had seen done in the other countries. I then followed with a slide show description of the World Bank group which I had picked up from the Bank before I left and finished up with a quick discussion of how we got into the mess we are currently going through. It was well received and some students thanked me later. Later that week, I spoke in the business class which is now studying non profit organizations. I told of the experience I had gained setting up and managing the two projects I managed in my last decade at the Bank. It is so much easier to understand these concepts when they are described in terms of real live experiences. Finally, on one evening we hosted a career advising session for students thinking about going into different professions. 4 of us hosted the business careers but clearly the social sciences and teaching areas were more popular with the students who attended the various break out sessions held in different parts of the ship. What surprised me was the innocence of most students on how they should go about preparing themselves to enter the career world. These are juniors and seniors in college but clearly most had done little to prepare themselves and their CV’s to be able to compete for what will be a diminishing demand for their services given the current downturn. But I think we at least convinced some of them to start thinking about their futures and hopefully they will be better equipped to do what they need to do to get into the market. Several professors have noted how immature so many of these students are and that they will need to get a strong dose of reality as they move forward into the job markets. It would seem that few universities feel it is their duty to prepare students for their entry into the job markets. Perhaps it is because the academic staff of these universities do not feel it is their role to do this preparation or perhaps it is because they are really not equipped themselves to carry out this function. I am not sure whether one is not the cause of the other. But regardless, I believe that universities should then go out and get help in better preparing their students. So many cannot write, speak or present themselves in public. Many cannot seem to learn the basics in science or mathematics. If they do not learn that at college, when will they ever become functioning adults in a business environment which requires them to think, deal and innovate in a changing world which will only be able to use people who can convey and develop improving products, ideas and concepts in a world which will need knowledge and brain power. But, I suppose it will all get sorted out in the medium term but it does concern me how many will need to radically get their heads around the idea that there is real competition for the important and interesting jobs down the road. During my years of hiring young people, I was always struck how many young people do a great job in preparing themselves by gaining experiences which then differentiate them from the rest of the pack. It always strikes me on this ship with 700 students that the norm seems still to put all effort into conforming rather than being different, better and smarter. I am not sure when this changes but I think it had better begin soon for people who are 18 to 20…
After 8 days at sea we arrived early in the morning into Honolulu harbor. The ship tied up at the foot of the Aloha Tower at pier 11. US Immigration insisted on starting the procedures at 6.30 am for some unknown reason. So at 0600 the whole ship was awakened and one was ordered to proceed to the lounge to pick up one’s passport and to present it to Homeland Security officers who had set up shop there. It took about an hour and a half to process the whole shipboard company of passengers and crew so by 8.30 am on that Sunday people were headed ashore. Of course, there was great jubilation for the American citizens to be back on home territory. They were particularly happy that there would be no need to exchange money and that taxi drivers would be able to speak English (but no bargaining with the drivers).
We headed out to attend a church service at the main Hawaiian church where we had been told the service would be in Hawaiian. We found the church which was in front of the palace of the last queen of Hawaii. Sure enough the songs were done in Hawaiian but the service sermon was done in English interspersed with many Hawaiian words by a pastor who stood barefoot between the aisles and spoke as if to friends. It was well attended by a large crowd which was mainly made up of Hawaiian families. It was in this church that the last king of Hawaii had been crowned and it was in the castle across the street that the last queen of Hawaii had been jailed for years by the US businessmen who had run her out of power in order to take over control of the state to better their personal businesses. It is a sad story of how US business interests too often have driven US foreign policy for their benefit to the detriment of the rights of locals. The story tracks the infamy of United Fruit’s support of killing squads in Guatemala to ensure that land reform did not happen as it could have taken back land which United Fruit considered theirs to grow bananas. Or as was the case in Chile, where the US interests supported the barbaric military regime which overthrew the democratically elected government. In Hawaii, the US sugar barons forced the annexation of Hawaii in order to ensure they could sell their Hawaiian sugar to the mainland free of taxes. Hawaiians still regard the abolishing of the monarchy as a travesty, which it truly was. There is still a movement to reverse the process but it has little support today. The language and customs of Hawaii are now in the process of disappearing with very few persons able to speak the language. The mixing of the population has further diluted the historically indigenous population so that despite efforts to maintain the traditions and language, it is now largely a tourist attraction but not in the mainstream. The Mormon Church is strongly supporting the maintenance of the Hawaiian traditions but clearly it is not going to survive in a generation or two. The language is not even taught in the mainstream schools any longer. It is a very sad story of a civilization which had been founded on a communal principle of support and mutual respect faced with the harsh reality of capitalism at it rawest. It is too bad that a country which prides itself to be democratic has such a history of supporting regimes which are antidemocratic over such a long period. I would hope that US foreign policy one day would start to represent the consensus of the American people who are law abiding and respectful of human rights rather than the interests of a few who have influence over their elected officials. It is hardly surprising that many foreigners view Americans as being imperialists. It plays well into the hands of all shades of governments from Africa to Latin America to Asia who point to the many cases of US interventions into local politics to ground the accusations. So often this happens without widespread US popular support and even less consultation. It always surprises me how US foreign policy and practice is the tool of a few or small interests groups rather than reflecting the ethics and interests of the American people. Foreign Service officers seem to be in the employ of these interest groups rather than in the employ of the US population. Perhaps things will change one day. The new US regime under President Obama is already starting to unwind many of the silly positions into which the US forced itself against the general interest, starting with Cuba and reaching out to Iran. One can really be hopeful that one day US foreign policies as well as US immigration policies serve the interest of the country as a whole and not the interests of lobby or other isolated groups.
But that is enough on this subject. I just feel strongly having watched the situation over the last 20 or 30 years and always felt the disconnect described above.
In the afternoon of the first day, we joined a group to go snorkeling at Hanauma Bay which is about 15 miles out of Honolulu. It is a lovely round beach belonging to a former volcanic caldera which was invaded by the sea. It was the most heavily used beach of Honolulu after Waikiki to the point that the coral reef and the fish were almost killed out until 1969 when the beach was declared a national park and protected. Today, each visitor is required to see a video on the conservation of the coral reef and fish before even going down to the beach. Then visitors are required to leave the park after 2 hours and the overall number of people is limited by an entry gate. We rented snorkeling equipment and Emmett and I went out beyond the first coral reef to see the main coral growths. Brigitte decided to stay within the first reef area. We spent about and hour and half swimming up and down the width of the bay. The water was clear but a little misty but there was a huge collection fish types. We even followed a sea turtle for about 15 minutes while it gracefully visited various corals. We then went back to the ship to rest and decided to go to Waikiki for sundown and later for dinner. We got to Waikiki by taxi and sat down at a beach side bar for a drink to watch the sundown. The last time I had been there was more than 15 years earlier. Of course, the place has taken off since then. When I last stayed there we lodged at the pink lady, the Royal Hawaiian which was one of the only hotels there. Today, it is wall to wall hotel and it looks even worse than Miami Beach. Masses of people surge up and down the beach in gaudy clothes. Not a nice sight.
We left the hotel and went to a store nearby where Emmett was decked out with Hawaiian shorts and shirt. Coincidently, he had worn a brown shirt like mine which we had both bought in Namibia and he was most embarrassed. In his new garb, he looked like a typical surfer just off his board… And he was happy.
We had dinner at some non descript place and headed back to the ship for the night.
The next morning we picked up a rental car which I had reserved the previous day as it was the easiest and most economical means of seeing the whole island. We headed out up the Pali highway which cuts across to the northern side of the island. We stopped at the outlook at the top of the pass which offers an impressive view of the windward side of the island. This side receives far more rain and the vegetation is much more tropical than the Honolulu side. We then spent the morning driving casually along an excellent road which hugs the coast on which there are few if any beaches. We stopped for the obligatory Starbucks coffee and drove up to the Turtle Beach Hilton and residential development. I checked into the availability of a condo with a view of the ocean and found that a 1600 square feet 3 bedroom box unit costs US$2.5 million so I decided we would not be buying anything that morning. We continued on until we got to Sunset beach which is one of the prime surfer beaches on the north coast. During the period of September through March each year, the storms off the coast of Alaska create huge waves which are what hit these beaches and make all surfers go wild. Now, in April, these same beaches are calm with hardly any waves and of course, no surfers to be seen.

After a nice lunch at a restaurant facing the ocean, we headed south back to Honolulu. In the middle of the island, between the two ridges, there is a huge valley extending 2 or 3 miles from ridge to ridge. It is here that the great sugar and pineapple plantations were set up by the white settlers. It was also along this long valley that the Japanese airstrike came into on the tragic day of the Pearl Harbor bombing. It is a straight line down this long valley extending some 30 miles the length of the island straight into Pearl Harbor.

We stopped at a store to stock up on comfort food for the cabin for the next crossing to Guatemala which will take 8 days. One probably should not do it but everyone does return to the ship on departure date with plastic bags full of goodies to get them through the days at sea. After returning the car to the Enterprise office, we were driven back to our ship to prepare for our departure. At 8 pm on the nose, Captain Jeremy executed his usual excellent maneuvers to move the ship out of the harbor of Honolulu. I stayed on the upper deck to watch our departure from this beautiful island. The lights of Honolulu give no sense that there is any energy shortage as the place is light up as if there is no tomorrow. Nice to look at but one has to wonder who funds this extravagant display in this day and age. Particularly, as all or most of the power on this island is generated from petroleum imported from the mainland, or at least subsidized by federal subsidies. Even gasoline is cheaper in Honolulu than back in Virginia. But I guess there is some rationale for all of this show of wealth.

We sailed into the night and soon were rocking and rolling like in the best of times. We slept like babies although I know many people were feeling wheezy and dizzy. It will take some a day to get their sea legs back while others will suffer as we have 8 days to Guatemala. This is our last long sea journey on this trip and I look forward to the days ahead. Classes will be completed and the kids will be writing some of their exams before we get to Guatemala. So we shall be enjoying our last days.
Cheers

Travel Chapter 25- Japan 2

2009-04-11T12:51:00.001+01:00

Pictures for this chapter can be seen at:

http://picasaweb.google.com/akeyserlingk/Japan20091?feat=directlink

After a pleasant day at sea between Kobe and Yokohama, we arrived early in the morning into Tokyo Bay. This bay extends from Tokyo to the Pacific some 60 miles inland. It is a huge natural harbor and thus very protected. We were heading for a berth in the Yokohama port. Tokyo itself has a huge area and a population of 12 million people. As the city extends continuously to Yokahama, the greater Tokyo area has a population of around 35 million people or 25 percent of the total population of Japan.

After passing under the huge suspension bridge of Yokohama at around 7 am, we executed an elegant 360 degree turn before sliding smoothly into our position on the passenger dock of Yokohama. This is by far the most functional and beautiful passenger terminal we have seen on this trip. It is huge and can park 4 ships on the pier. The pier itself has a huge arrival and departure terminal with all the floors done beautifully in solid teak planking. Even the roof of this terminal can be accessed by persons awaiting the arrival of ships as the roof which has a lovely curve in it has been laid out with grass, teak floor and benches so that persons awaiting ships are almost at the level of passenger decks of the ships. The morning we came in there were some 100 persons there to greet us, This included a number of our own students who had made their way to Tokyo on their own the night before and were looking forward to getting on board for breakfast and showers. The port terminal had a wonderful boarding machine similar to what one sees at airports. This meant an easy transfer from the ship to the terminal by a sky walk.

After minimal formalities as we had never left Japanese territorial waters, we were cleared to head ashore. I had laid out three goals for the day in order to give the day a sense of adventure. First, I had an address in Tokyo to which we had to go to pick up my new American Express card, find some foreign language newspapers and magazines as we had 10 days ahead of us at sea and find a sim card for my phone.

So we came off the ship by 10 am and consulted with one of the nice ladies at the reception desk. She showed us where the Amex offices were and gave us instructions requiring getting on 3 different subway and rail lines to arrive at our destination. Armed with this information, we headed to the local subway station, figured out which tickets to buy to get to the Yokohama transfer station, changed subways and purchased new tickets. Got to the main Tokyo station, got new tickets and boarded the third line for our destination. Nowadays this is a little easier as they show the station signs not only in Japanese script but also in roman letters. After 75 minutes of travel, we arrived at our destination station. The problem was to find the address of Amex which we had been given. I was once again amazed at out little English is spoken in Japan. It took me 5 people before I found one who understood what I was looking for which I written on a sheet of paper and who knew in which direction to send us. Japanese street addresses read as follows: 3.56.49. I presume the numbering system means something and I hope one day someone will explain it to me. But at any rate, the numbers do not appear on the buildings so I am not sure how much use it is to anyone anyway. So we found the Amex offices and sure enough, within 10 minutes of our arrival and of my producing my credentials, a nice lady appeared with my new card and we were on our way.

I had reserved 3 tickets on the 1.40 pm Tokyo tour bus. We had to get to the World Trade Building which was on the other side of town. So we reboarded the metro system and headed to the assigned station. We got there in time for the bus which we boarded and off we went to visit Tokyo. The tour took us to the Imperial Palace of which we saw only the outside wall and then on to the Tokyo TV tower which is similar to the Eifel Tower in Paris and a little higher than the French one. The view of Tokyo from the observation deck showed a city which extends as far as the eye can see in every direction. It is quite amazing how the Japanese can keep a human element in such a large city but the little side streets are always clean and with flowers, trees are everywhere. We lucked out again as the Cherry blossoms were still in full bloom in this city. The tour visited the large Asakusa Kannon (built in 645) temple and dropped us off near the Ginza area. I asked the tour guide where we could have good sushi and he pointed to a little place just under the Japan Rail tracks headed into the Central Station. As it was only 5 pm we decided to walk to the Ginza street which is the main shopping street of Tokyo. It is a huge street lined with every trademark company stores from Rolex, to Gucci to Burberry and many more. We stopped in a sidewalk café and had a nice coffee while watching the population walk by. We then headed back to the sushi restaurant and sat down at the counter. A little belt goes around the counter with plates with different plates of sushi come by and one picks the ones one wants. Each type of sushi comes on different colored small plates. After the meal, the bill is prepared based on the number and color of the plates. We sat there and had a good meal. Emmett hat a great meal as he ate 15 different plates saying sushi was and is his favorite meal and he showed it that night!

We then headed back to the ship in Yokohama which took us a good 55 minutes on fast trains and Yokohama is considered a part of Tokyo. When we got back to the ship, the lights of Yokohama were in full force and were very beautiful. They love their lights in Asia.

The next morning we joined a ship organized trip to visit Mount Fuji and Hakone which are both about 50 miles south of Tokyo. The drive through the country certainly gave a different view of this country from what one sees in the big cities. It is a mountainous country in which only 13 % is arable and 73 % is mountainous. But the countryside is beautiful with high mountains and large valleys between them. We got to Mount Fuji which is about 2 hours from Tokyo along great highways but without views as there are sound barriers almost everywhere on Japanese freeways. But the drive up Mount Fuji to the fifth station at 3000 feet was really quite pleasant. The station had only opened a few weeks earlier and there were about 4 feet of snow still around. The views of this mountain are quite spectacular and more impressive than what one sees on postcards. The mountain is closed all year round except from July 1 to August 30th when the Japanese are allowed to climb the mountain. The views from station 5 into the valleys below were quite spectacular. We again lucked out with a clear sunny day so one could see the lakes which have formed from previous volcanoes around Mount Fuji. It looks very much like the Swiss alps albeit not quite as high. There is no skiing on the mountain which is considered sacred and is located in a national park.

After spending an hour we reboarded the bus and headed for Hakone which is locate on the range some 30 miles away from Mt Fuji. There we took a cable car which provided a further great view of Fuji as well as lake Ashi which itself is at about 1000 feet altitude. We all enjoyed the afternoon and after a short boat ride on the lake we headed back to the ship.

There the whole ship company had to disembark again and go through Japanese exit formalities which meant having our passports stamped by an emigration officer. This took an hour for most people and delayed our departure to 9pm. With 3 toots on the horn, we pulled away from the Yokohama pier and headed south out of the Tokyo Bay. As I do often, I stayed for well over an hour on the top deck watching our progress down the west shore of the Bay in a clear and full moon night. It was nice to be at sea again although it was the last we would see of Asia on this trip, we were now heading for home. We have 10 days at sea, including 2 Easters as we cross the date line. This will take us to Honolulu where we have 2 days before heading to our last port in Guatemala. Being at sea is nice and the sea routine settles back into place with classes and other activities. I will be working on my presentation to the student body scheduled for April 15th when I will be the morning speaker at Global Studies. I have been asked to talk about the World Bank, Japan and the Global crisis. All this in an hour presentation. I guess I will have to speak quickly to cover that much ground in the time available. More on that next time.
Cheers

Travel Chapter 24- Japan 2009 (1)

2009-04-08T14:16:00.000+01:00

Pictures for this chapter can be seen at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/akeyserlingk/Japan2009?feat=directlink

We sailed last night after two days in Kobe. The contrast between Japan and China is almost like coming from say South Africa to the UK. I had the distinct impression that China is a modern country being built but far from being modern. Yes, China has skyscrapers and subways but all of this is so new that it really has not yet fit into the real landscape of China. Japan is a modern society which has been modern for so long that it fits totally into the local scenery. Japan is as clean as a hospital, Japan has everything under control and under regulation, Japan is comfortable with the density of its cities, Japan is used to glitz and glanz. In China, many of the same things exist but they feel and look out of place with the rest of the country. China is a developing country which has built it glitz and glanz in the last 20 years while the rest of China seems stuck in the past. The Japanese are polite to the extreme; the Chinese are pushy to the extreme. People in China dump stuff in the street. In Japan, one could almost eat off the street. People in Japan speak in small voices; people in China are loud as everyone else is loud. In China the streets team with vendors pushing products on every passerby. In Japan, there are no street vendors, only shops with doors. In China, almost every building consists of sidewalk front little stores, shops, work areas with people crammed inside doing whatever they do for a living. In Japan, there are stores with doors, workshops in side streets and the cleanliness and order make Germany look like chaos…

But I still prefer China over Japan. Japan gives me the impression always that it is so developed there really is no where to go or to improve. It is a regimented society where everyone obeys the law and everybody is respectful to the extreme of the space of the next person. Japan’s society gives me the feeling that there is little room for people to be different and that conforming to the norms laid down by society is the proper way to move. China also has rules but they seem more like guidelines, suggestions or indications and everybody is pulling and shoving to achieve their own goals at any cost to their surroundings.

In China there are illegal tour guides, illegal bike taxis, illegal sellers of illegal fakes, illegal restaurants, illegal prostitutes and illegal all sorts of things and nobody does anything about it. In Japan, there is nothing illegal and if there were it would be stopped immediately.

China is still a developing country. It has amazing infrastructures but huge areas of poverty and destitution. China has a very rich upper class followed by a thin middle class with the vast majority of the population poor and outside the real economy. Japan, on the other hand, has a thin class of rich persons, followed by a huge middle class and very few really destitute persons. At times in Japan, I imagine I am seeing China 50 years from now if it is able to continue developing at the current rate. Japan is a highly developed country and such a level of development requires a high level of social organization given the density of its population. Given that only a small percentage of Japan’s area is habitable, the already high population density (327 per square km vs. China 119 and US 27) makes real population density extreme.
So there we arrived in Kobe, a city of 1.5 million persons with an infrastructure to die for. The passenger terminal was by far the best so far without the glanz of the shopping centre in the Hong Kong terminal. The big negative was the bureaucratic procedures involved in arriving in Japan. First the night before, the whole ship company, 1000 persons had to have their temperature taken by the ship’s medical team. Each person’s temperature was recorded and each person was then issued with a numbered quarantine card. The morning we arrived in Kobe, at 8 am, the whole ship company had to have their temperature taken again, this time by the Japanese authorities. We were then told to wait until called to go through Japanese immigration and custom procedures. This took well over 4 hours until the last persons were through this painstaking procedure which consisted of picking up one’s passport and forms already completed. Standing in line to eventually step up to some Japanese authority that required one to put each index finger in a reader and then the picture was taken. Then, without any luggage we had to go through an other screen of a customs officer who dutifully looked into the passport and at us and waived us through. As we were not going ashore immediately, we just turned around with out passports and went back on the ship. From them on we were free to come and go off and on the ship with whatever goods we would have wanted. Silly controls which do not control always amuse me. I think in fact the Japanese were doing this all to show their US visitors that they too can jack people around. Bearing in mind the way the US now handles arriving visitors almost as criminals: requiring visas which must be obtained before arriving and only after personal appearances at a US consulate, fingerprints on arrival, picture on arrival and potentially secondary treatment at immigration which can take several hours, I think the Japanese were doing a tit for tat.

By 1pm, after lunch on the ship, we walked out of the ship and onto the subway station which was 3 minutes from the ship. We had decided to jump the bus which made a tour of the city. It ran from the Sannomiya station where the metro ended. We found the bus and boarded a rather small bus which was full of tourists already. We had the pleasure of sitting on this fine bus listening to some Japanese girl babblings away in Japanese about something. Too bad they have not yet adopted the technology which one finds in some countries where the tour conversation is taped and available in several languages.

We decided to jump off the bus at the stop which leads to the bottom of the Kobe Ropeway, which in reality is a cable car rising some 3000 feet above the city. As often happens on these visits, we ran into a number of people from the ship who were also doing the same ride. In a very modern gondola for 6 we went up this rather steep mountain which is part of a chain running at the west of Kobe and through a good part of Japan. Kobe sits at the foot of this chain. On the top of the mountain, the view of Kobe was quite spectacular. Once more we were lucky with the weather and the view down on Kobe was very beautiful.

We then headed down to the city by cable car. When we got to the bottom, Emmett headed off back to the metro with Joan Knecht, our ship nurse. Brigitte and I then decided to walk back to the metro center as it was still light. It was quite a change to walk down a sidewalk which was not half used by people selling food, watches, pens, knives and many other things and not being approached by people offering their services or goods as is usually the case in the middle republic. We stopped in at a Japanese coffee and pastry shop where we had a small piece of cake and a cup of coffee. The bill came to the equivalent of US$12 but whose counting???

I then set on my tasks of finding a Japanese sim card for my phone and some foreign newspapers. All the way back to the center of town we stopped in at places where either or both of these things are available in most countries: hotels, telephone shops, convenience stores, drugstores. All to no avail. Sim cards do not seem available for purchase here according to the ten people I consulted. Not a large sample for such a large population but significant as two worked in shops selling phones. As far as I can tell so far they come with the phones as is the case in North America but I will continue to investigate. As for foreign newspapers, they are apparently just as rare. I finally found some later that evening when I returned alone to town after diner and went through a local department store. I was looking for an insulated coffee mug with a plunger as I am getting desperate because of the bad coffee on board the ship. I finally found an insulated cup but I was not willing to pay US$ 79 for the one cup so I settled on some filters with which I will make coffee I purchased in Vietnam. I found a book store on the 6 floor of this building and went wild buying an Economist magazine for US$11 and a financial times newspaper for 6 bucks. Well, it is only money…

While there I went to my favorite part of any store which is the electronics section. I can report that most electronics in Japan cost 2 to 3 times what they cost back in the US. I priced the flat screen TV and Sony blue ray DVD player we had bought about 5 months ago and they both cost almost 3 times what we paid in Virginia! I guess the locals support the industry so we can get our electronics cheaper.

The next day we went off on a ship organized trip in 2 large busses to Kyoto to visit the amazing temples of this city. Early on I realized that Brigitte and I had already done this tour back in 2004 but it was still fun to see these beautiful buildings. We were also blessed as exactly this week, the cherry and other blossoms are in their full glory. This is a huge event in Japan and is quite spectacular to see, as you can see from the pictures posted to the website.

When we got to the last site, Brigitte and I were templed out and slid out of the group and headed to a quiet restaurant looking out on a bubbling fountain. There we had a nice cup of copy and enjoyed the simplicity of Japanese interior decorating. It reminds me very much of the design one finds in Finland. Simple but beautiful using wood and stone and large open views of natural settings.

We got back to the ship in time for dinner. As it had been a long strenuous day, we decided to stay on board as the ship was leaving at 11pm that evening. The ship headed out at 11pm and we stood up forward on the 7th deck as it was a warm clear evening. Despite the late hour, Captain Jeremy insisted on sounding 3 long and loud toots on the horn as we moved out of the huge empty harbor of Kobe on our way to Yokahama, 450 miles away were we will arrive tomorrow morning.

This one day at sea is the first real cruise time we have had on the voyage. No classes, no meetings, no mandatory anything. As most people opted to stay on land and make their way to Tokyo or elsewhere on their own, there were only 250 people on board. It was a quiet day to read and catch up with work and play. Many students are at the end of their travel budgets so cannot really afford any expensive traveling with overnights and food at the costs in Japan. For us, it was a restful day without plans and without having to jump in and out a bus to view some wonderful relic of the past. That is strenuous work when it goes on for several hours. Tourism is not for the week. Beside the knowledge overflow which happens from the continuous talk of some local guide. It is all part of one’s education, but sometimes it is a little much.

Tomorrow we hit Tokyo. As my credit card had to be cancelled because someone used it fraudulently, I need to find the American Express office which will be the challenge of the day. Get from the ship to Yokahama and then to Tokyo and to the Amex office. It is kind of like a game. I will report more on this in the next chapter.
Cheers from calm see off Japan where we are cruising along at a slow pace of 11 knots.

Travel Chapter 23- China

2009-04-05T14:05:00.000+01:00

Pictures of this trip can be seen at the address below. There are a lot of pictures but they are part of our memory of these days.

http://picasaweb.google.com/akeyserlingk/China2009?feat=directlink

We are now two days away from China and I am going to try and report on our 5 days in China. To start, I must say that I was overwhelmed by what we saw in China on this trip. It had been 5 years since our last trip and the progress noted back then has continued at the usual Chinese breakneck speed. The country is putting masses of resources into building up its own infrastructure and in bringing the country into the 21rst century. New roads, new buildings, new airports, new trains are seen everywhere. One sees now where much of the money earned by China is going. Masses of resources are being expended to ensure the country becomes a long term player in the world. With its own internal market so large, China will be able to compete on the international market for as long as it remains a stable country.

This stability is the one area where I am concerned. It is quite obvious that China is able to do what it is doing because it has a very strong central government which is making the hard decisions. It does not need to consult with the people, with groups or with anyone. What the party decides is done. What the party decides is good for the country is done. The planning and execution of the works one sees throughout China are the result of the power wielded by the Communist Party in Beijing. Works which would take years obtaining the necessary approvals in western democracies are done immediately a decision by the party is made. The build-up of China is only 15 to 20 years old yet the country is on par and exceeds the infrastructures we have in many of our countries. Everything is new in China. Whole airplane fleets are the latest models, airports are built not to meet needs of a decade ago, but to meet the needs of decades in the future. Road systems are in place long before their carrying capacity has been met. Trains run at high speeds all over most of the country on rails which have been laid in recent years. The pollution of Beijing which was legendary has almost be legislated away by means such as moving polluting industries away from the city and banning motorcycles totally from the city. The last time we were in Beijing, traffic and pollution were so bad due to exhausts from millions of motor bikes one could hardly breathe, let alone cross a street with first writing one’s last will. Most of the taxis in Beijing today run on electric motors and there are many hundred thousand of them no long polluting the air. As a result of the Olympics, Beijing has learnt how to improve its quality of air and has put that in place by decree. This is perhaps a weakness in the eyes of some, but from a practical point of view the country is benefiting now and will benefit from the current efforts for many years in the future.

China is so large that we outsiders cannot really grasp its extent. It is not a county as we define it; China is rather a continent which has been unified by force and decree. This is what holds it together. A decree in the late 50’s stated that the national language would be Chinese as spoken in Beijing, which is known in the west as Mandarin. This decree flew in the face of existing languages but was forced on all Chinese people. Bear in mind that in China there are hundreds of dialects or regionalects so that there really is nor has there ever been a Chinese language. The people in Shanghai speak Shanghaiese, those in the south speak Cantonese and neither group understands the other. With decree forcing the Mandarin speak on everybody, one now has 2 generations of Chinese who have been taught and who can speak Mandarin. They still speak their regionalects but they also speak and understand Mandarin. This has unified the country in a big way. Only a powerful central government could enact and enforce this kind of legislation. It has worked to allow all regions to understand each other. This kind of change not only requires a powerful central government but one who has the staying power to ensure that the efforts continue for several generations so that the common language becomes radicated in everyone’s mind.

The worry I have after the few days in China is whether the central government is now isolating itself too much from the people. There is cynicism abounding in China about the central government much of it driven by the obvious abuse of power the politicians show the people. Big fat black limousines circulate with sirens blaring through the traffic, politicians block off huge areas which are forbidden to the people, and corruption of politicians is rampant which then spills down to lower level officials. One effect of this is that there is very little respect for the Party and even more concerning is the inability of the Party to recruit young people. Today I understand that only 1 to 2% of the population belongs to the Party. What will happen when the old folk who run the party die off? Where is the next generation who will continue? One has to worry that this could cause a breakdown in power and a loss of the ability to make the hard and fast decisions China still needs to progress fully into the 21rst century.

But enough on that; let me record what we did and saw during our 5 great days in this fascinating country, or continent to be more precise.

We arrived right on schedule in Kowloon on the morning of March 29th which gave us a few hours before we headed to the airport for our flight to Xi’an. The ship was again parked right beside the Star ferry terminal so as soon as we were cleared we got off the ship and headed through the amazing shopping mall which makes up the passenger terminal on Kowloon. We jumped on the ferry so that Emmett could get a quick view of Hong Kong which is across the water from Kowloon. We had time to amble the streets for an hour or two and even though it was Sunday morning, the stores and shops were all open for business. The people were in the streets and life was open for business.

We then got back on the ferry and returned to our ship to pick up our knapsacks as we were to meet our driver in front of the Marco Polo hotel which is in the same shopping complex. Sure enough, there was Wilson awaiting us at the appointed time and place and we headed out to the new airport of Hong Kong. What is amazing about this airport besides being the most convenient airport in the world is the fact that the entire infrastructure is in place to move people to and from the airport. There is a brand new road system with double decked bridges going from Hong Kong to the airport, there is a high speed train connection the airport to the city and there is a myriad of busses and taxis also available to make the trip of some 35 miles in roughly 40 minutes at most times of day. Once at the airport, we checked in and proceed to go through emigration as one needs to leave the special area of Hong Kong to travel to the mainland. The procedure is the same as leaving for any foreign country and is part of the undertaking of the Chinese government to provide the Hong Kong area with a special status for 50 years from the take back from the UK in the 90’s. We then had a leisurely 20 minute walk to arrive at out gate for the flight to Xi’an. The flight itself was a little over 2 hours with wonderful service of a meal in a brand new airbus 320. On arrival in Xi’an one first goes through a machine which measures one’s temperature as the Chinese are very worried of a new outbreak of Sars. The measurement is done very subtly and most people do not even notice the little machine through which one walks while an infrared light reads the temperature to an agent seated in the booth.

In the airport we met Nichole, one of our fellow travelers who was traveling on her own in China. We found our guide and driver and they agreed to take Nichole to her hotel and to help her book the train to Beijing for her. We checked into our hotel which was a state-owned hotel. I found out a few days later that the agency with which I had done all the bookings was also state-owned. It seems the government has not privatized everything in China.

That evening I went for a long walk around our hotel. It was fun as it was the first time I had been able to use the Chinese I had been studying for the 18 prior to this trip. Not being of a shy nature, I went into to stores seeking more conversation than to buy anything. I started putting meaningful sentences together and I was quite pleased how I was progressing.

The next morning our guide and driver were waiting for us at the hotel and we headed to the Terra Cotta museum. This is an enormous site where excavations of the warriors has now been stopped. Just the size of the building which has been constructed over the dig is impressive as you can see from the pictures on the website. The actual size of this site is hard to fathom without actually going there.

After lunch at a state-owned restaurant which typically consists of a market offering the great assortment of Chinese made products, I spied a North face parka. It was obviously a knock-off given the price I paid but it does give an indication of how lax the Chinese authorities are on blatant Trademark violations. There are so many people who earn their keep making and selling fakes that the government cannot crackdown on them. So rather than cracking down, they sell them in the government shops. Emmett tried his new North face jacket and was quite proud of his new acquisition. You can see him wearing it almost continuously in the pictures of this section.

Next on the agenda was a visit to the Qin dynasty summer palace. Like all ancient objects, this one has undergone a major rehab in recent years in preparation for the Olympics. We had a quick look and then noticed that there was a gondola lift to the top of the mountain. As this was not on our program we had to pay for it but it was worth it. It was particularly fun as our guide Qing had never been on such a machine. She was scared stiff to ride on it but convinced her to come along. Like a good trooper she came and enjoyed the trip very much.

That evening we were booked on a sleeper train (Soft bed) from Xi’an to Beijing. After yet another Chinese meal we were escorted by Qing to the train station. It was teeming with people and it was a good thing we had her with us to guide us through the mass of people. We got to the soft sleeper waiting lounge where she left us. She had been an excellent guide and we thanked her appropriately. The waiting room was quiet and we sat there until our train was called. In a reasonably orderly fashion we went to our platform, found our car and boarded the train. We then found our compartment and settled into the very clean and well appointed cabin. We had the two lower sleepers and Emm had one of the uppers. The second upper was taken by some lady who Emmett thought was from Tibet. She never said a word during the whole time. After a bit of reading we all settled down for a good sleep after a full day of visits.

The next morning after an 11 hour ride on a fast train having covered over a 1000 miles, we awoke in Beijing to be greeted on the platform by Ting, our Beijing guide. She showed us the way out of the Beijing soft sleeper station which was not at all chaotic as had been the station in Xi’an We boarded our bus and headed for a Chinese breakfast as laid out in our program. As there was no toilet in the restaurant we decided to go next door to a McDonald to have a coffee and to use the loo. We found the toilet to be a standing toilet, not a sit-down one. Although the standing toilet is probably more sanitary it does take a bit of training.

We then headed off to visit Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City which lies behind the square. It was a beautiful morning with blue skies and sun albeit a bit nippy. We walked through this huge square which carries the sad memory of the massacre of protesters back in 1989. It was not an event the Chinese like remembering and the collective memory has been suppressed by the authorities. But those who do remember it still do not forgive the authorities for their action. Not only were several thousand killed, many more witnessed the brutality of that day and even more had friends or relatives who were victims of the near panic of the authorities who had never witnessed the fury of the Chinese people. It scared the authorities to such a point that it was the beginning of the opening of the economy as we now see it. They said, ok, we will open the economy but we will control the politics. It diffused the anger to a point and has led to the economic boom China saw until recently. It remains to be seen if the downturn now going on does not have terrible consequence again.

We walked all the way through the forbidden city which is almost 2 kms long going from one building to the next in a very well maintained series of buildings. Much work had been done to spruce up this palace in the run-up to the Olympics. It is quite amazing how much effort the communist government puts into showing off these relics of the past. I presume it is because it legitimizes their own regime by showing themselves as the continuation or as the improvement over the past. The extent of this palace is astounding not for the height of buildings but for the number of them spread over this 2 mile long and one half mile wide collection of temples, housing etc..

After another state owned restaurant we headed out to visit the summer palace which again is a huge complex of buildings all in pristine condition.

After a long day, we headed home to our hotel to check in and to have dinner. We had invited a friend of our son Nicolas to dinner. Nick had asked us to meet with Brian Watling who is a Canadian based in Beijing. Nick sits on the board of one of Brian’s companies involved in power generation using wind turbines. Brian joined us at a close-by hotpot restaurant and we benefitted from his insights into China where he has lived for the last several years.

Early the next morning we were off to see the Great Wall of China, which the Chinese call the Long Wall. One has to drive about an hour and half out of Beijing including a substantial amount of hill climbing to arrive at the foot of a gondola which takes one to the top. I opted to go for the gondola as it does save considerable energy compared to hoofing it to the wall. Once on the wall we spent over 2 hours as it was again a beautiful day and Emmett could not get enough of it. I walked with him part of the way and then sent him off on his own with instructions to turn around when he was starting to feel tired. He did return somewhat out of breath about 40 minutes later. Brigitte and our guide stayed at the top and awaited our return. It is still a very impressive visit to see the extent of this construction.

In the afternoon we visited an other palace. We then headed to visit my Chinese language school. I had been working with Echineselearning for over a year. This virtual school employs some 60 teachers and does all its teaching using Skype or MSN which are free internet communication tools. A brilliant idea developed by its founder Fred Rao. For me it was quite a visit as I had never seen any of my teachers in real life and had only seen their faces. We arrived at the school and my teacher, Hao Jie came out to the street to receive us and show us back to the school premises. I think we caused quite a stir in the school as I had been taught by many of the teachers whenever Hao Jie was not available so I, Wang Da Wei, was well known to many of the teachers. The CEO of the company came out and greeted us and we had an interesting chat. I told him that I intended to come back to Beijing in October to take a 4 to 5 week intensive course at Echineselearning. Fred was quite interested in the idea and offered to help me find some quarters I could use while in Beijing. Hoa Jie was quite sweet and had brought presents for Brigitte and me. We also had brought her presents for her and her baby which is due later in the year.

After parting our ways from the school, we had a early dinner and we then went straight to the station as we were taking the night train again, this time to Shanghai which is 1900kms to the south. Again, the train proved to be clean and comfortable. The train was a high speed train which can reach 390 kms per hour (over 200 mph) on specially laid tracks which allow these high speeds. During the night the train changed speeds quite often which would indicate that the new track is still not completely in place.

We arrived in Shanghai again after an 11 hour trip and found our Shanghai guide, Tao waiting on the platform. After a breakfast, we headed to our ship to deposit our bags but found that a large group of students had arrived just before us and a long line of people were waiting to board the ship. So we headed back out to visit the Bund area of the city. This is the area where the foreigners lived. It was a concession rung from the Chinese following the opium wars. There is still resentment amongst some Chinese that the authorities at the time gave away these rights to foreigners. This was run as a separate enclave where Chinese law did not prevail and Chinese were not allowed to live unless authorized. The Bund still has most of the main buildings as neither the Chinese nor the Japanese wanted to incite the fury of the foreigners by bombing these buildings. Across from the Bund, on the other side of the river there stand a collection of the most modern skyscrapers in the world, except perhaps in Dubai. These buildings are not only huge but they are beautifully designed. They stand today in what were rice fields 15 years ago. This city is no doubt the showcase city of China and the Chinese are very proud of this.

In the afternoon, we spent time visiting the shopping area of old Shanghai as well as the adjoining Lu gardens. It was a pleasant way to end our stay in China. We went back to this area after lunch again to get a Starbucks coffee and found that the place was teeming with police. When we asked what this was all about we were told that Musharaf, the former president of Pakistan was finishing lunch in the restaurant and was about to come out. So Emmett and I took a strategic position to observe Mr. Musharaf. Sure enough, he came out of the restaurant but instead of heading straight to the street and awaiting limos, he decided to work the crowd which had assembled. He went from side to side talking to people. The Chinese police did not enjoy this as they tried to steer him along. As he approach the end of the passage to his car, he turned towards Emmett and approached him. He asked Emmett where he was from to which Emmett stated “Canada”. Very good said Musharaf and proceeded to get in his car. Why the Chinese were giving him the royal treatment as was after all the deposed head of Pakistan is not clear. Perhaps they had debts to pay to him. Emmett was thrilled.

We boarded our ship and at 8pm we slipped our moorings and headed down the river towards the sea. The city was lit up like I have never seen a city and really looked wonderful. I stayed on deck for over an hour and all along both banks of the river were ships and moorings and factories and more ships. It was a fitting end to our visit to China. I left with a little better understanding of this country and look forward to coming back to learn more.
Cheers

Travel Chapter 22- Vietnam

2009-03-28T13:08:00.000Z

Pictures of this chapter can be seen at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/akeyserlingk/Vietnam2009?authkey=Gv1sRgCOT1vuP__r6uNw&feat=directlink

As we sail away from 5 days of Vietnam I cannot but be impressed again by how this small country has been able to pull itself into the 21 century in such a short time. After the end of the years of the American War in 1975 which had destroyed so much, Vietnam 30 years later has become a success story almost without precedent. Despite or some would say because of the Communist government, the private sector has flourished and Vietnam has become a major exporter of many products. It is the second largest exporter of coffee sending 1 million tons a year around the world. It is competitive and is now even competing with China to attract foreign investment.

We arrived in Saigon after a lovely trip up the Saigon River which takes about 2 hours as Saigon, or now called Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) is about 50 miles inland. It is an impressive trip as from the ship one sees farming on both sides of this huge river where rice, shrimp and other products are being farmed. The port of Saigon extends along one bank of the river for miles. Huge numbers of ships float up and down this river carrying the imports and exports of this industrialized city and region. The weather was hot and humid as usual. The place is so efficient that we picked up 2 immigration officers in Thailand who did all the paper work for our passports while at sea. This meant that we were cleared to go ashore as soon as we were tied up. This time our ship was given a birth almost down town and the ship had set up a shuttle bus to take us to downtown which was very convenient and avoided the need to deal with taxi drivers and motorized tuck tucks and bicycles and motorcycle drivers who always congregate at the port gates in all cities.

We opted to go to visit the Cu Chi tunnels which are about an hour out of Saigon. We hired a taxi to take us there and back. The tunnel system is how the Vietcong hid from the French first and later from the American troops. The Cu Chi system was one of the most elaborate and allowed the Viet Cong to come out of the tunnels, attack and then disappear without trace. The American troops knew little about the system and built one of their biggest bases in South Vietnam almost on top of this system. The system was huge with place for thousands of troops, hospitals, weapons factories and meeting halls. It is too bad that the presentation one now sees shows only a small remnant of what once was very much larger system. In these modern times, one could really produce a wonderful virtual reality presentation with computer developed images of what the tunnels once were. In addition to the tunnels, the Vietcong had made many rather gruesome traps into which soldiers fell in holes with spikes and other lethal killing equipment.

The Vietnamese show off this system with considerable pride and tourists come in droves to see them. They do give a sense of the dedication of the Vietnamese to fight against what they considered invaders and of the difficulty foreign troops fully equipped would have had to seek and destroy an enemy which was largely unseen. What is particularly impressive to me each time I visit this country is how well the Vietnamese have but this bad chapter behind them and have gotten on with developing their country. They do not dwell on this period in time which they refer to as the American war. They consider they won and they have moved beyond recriminations and self-examination.

We returned in the afternoon to Saigon and I headed to the main market while Brigitte and Emmett headed to the local department store. I was in search of an extra trunk which will be needed to move the loot we have already and will continue to collect. Although we always promise not to buy a lot of “stuff” it all adds up. No doubt it will still be a tight squeeze when packing day happens. I also needed a sim card and a new phone as both my phone and my MP3 were lost or stolen from by bag somewhere between Bangkok and Siem Riep in Cambodia. They were not very valuable except that my MP3 had all my music and my Chinese language courses. Although I did not know it, I also needed a pair of knock off Ray ban sunglasses which a street vendor offered me for US$10. When I told him I already had a pair of sunglasses he was unphazed and continue to offer his glasses. In order to get rid of him, I offered him $3 which he immediately accepted…

I bought the new trunk, a Samsonite roll on at a cost of $30 and got a new phone and a local sim card for another $40. So I rolled my new trunk back to the Rex hotel wearing my new phone and my new Ray ban sunglasses. The ship shuttle arrived and we all returned back to the ship in time for dinner. It was great to get back on the cool ship after the very hot day out and about.

The next day we were up at 0400 to get to the airport to catch a flight to Ha Noi. This time we travelled on a ship organized trip with some 45 others. I had hoped to set up a trip on our own but the trip offered by the ship ended up being a better deal. After a smooth flight of 2 hours north we arrived in Ha Noi. We immediately boarded busses and headed east to Ha Long Bay which is about a 3 hour drive. It is an interesting drive as one sees the countryside with it endless rice paddies and small towns. We stopped on the way to visit a local market and a store where handicapped persons were selling their production of jewelry, embroidered silk and the usual array of tourist souvenirs. We arrived in Ha Long around noon and had the afternoon to amble around the huge tourist market there. It always surprises me that tourist markets all over the world all seem to be supplied by the same wholesalers. They all sell the same gadgets and carvings and most of it is of poor quality.

The next morning we board two junks for our 4 hour ship ride through the waters of Ha Long Bay. I took extensive pictures of the place as can be seen in the pictures as I find it to be a most magical place to which I love returning and to which I will return again. The pictures describe this bay better than words and I recommend you look at them to get a sense of the beauty and tranquility one experiences on these waters. We were served a wonderful lunch on board and we got back to the shore around noon in time to reboard the busses to head back to Ha Noi. After checking into our hotel, I ambled along the streets searching for English or other language newspaper. Despite walking for more than an hour, nothing was to be found. This reflects the difference between Ha Noi and Saigon, between the North and the South of Vietnam, even today. Han Noi lives cut off from the world and is the administrative capital of the country. Saigon is open to the world and is the industrial motor of Vietnam.

That evening after an other Vietnamese dinner we went to watch the water puppet show which is a traditional Vietnamese folklore presentation. The puppeteers are behind a bamboo curtain and control the puppets which are on long poles under water. It is really quite ingenious. I did suffer through the presentation as the distance between the rows of seats was about 6 inches less than I needed. I survived by almost kneeling through the whole presentation with my circulation almost cut off. What one all does for the arts…

The next morning we went off to visit the sights of Ha Noi: the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum, the first university of Vietnam and a few other sights. As we headed to lunch, it started to rain so we decided to have lunch at the City View restaurant which is on the 5th floor of a building downtown near the lake. It was a great vantage point to watch the traffic feeding in from 5 different directions. There seem to be no laws but in fact the law is that you do not try and jockey for position, everybody has the right of way if they are ahead of the other person. The traffic works almost like a zipper does and the flow is constant with everybody making their way around everybody else. Most of the traffic is motor bikes and scooters and it works. It rained for almost 3 hours so we took a long lunch at a table outside and watched the world from our vantage point. Eventually, the rain stopped so we paid and set off slowly making our way back to the meeting point to pick up the bus for the airport. Our amble took us through a huge market selling everything from meat through vegetables to clothing and other dry goods. In these countries, I am always impressed how many people are selling. It seems that the majority of the people are selling but not that many are buying. As one walks the streets of these cities, it is wall to wall stores one beside the other. I do not understand how this works but it does. I have to presume that sellers must find enough buyers but I wonder how they make enough money to survive.

We met up with our bus and headed out to the airport. After a smooth check-in through a modern airport we had an hour before our flight. Here I once again attempted to find a foreign language newspaper but again found none on sale. Our flight boarded and we left on time arriving back in Saigon at around 9pm. We were back on the ship by 10.

The next morning we decided that we would not do any serious tourism. Emm was still a little under the weather and opted to have a quiet day on the ship. B and I headed into to town on the shuttle bus after lunch. We walked down to the central market for her to see it. The temperature was well into the 90’s and the market was stifling hot so we spent only a short time there. We headed back to the area of the Rex hotel as B wanted to find some silk sleeping bag liners she had seen at the big department store earlier. I then headed up to a book store to find a book for Emmett on Ho Chi Minh who is his current hero. B headed back to the ship on the next shuttle. I followed after buying a book on Uncle Ho and a foreign newspaper available at several street corners. I then got off the bus near the ship and headed back to a store just outside the port gates to buy some shirts for Emm. He loves Lacoste shirts and I found this place selling them for very little, knock-off’s no doubt but they look alright. I still had $15 of Vietnam dong in my pocket so I decided to get myself a watch. I picked out a red and black Rolex and asked the price. The girl said it would be $55. I told her I only had 300 dong left ($15) and she agreed. I am once again the owner of a fake Rolex. The market for fake brand name products is rampant in Asia in general, and in Vietnam in particular. It is a market which employs millions in these countries, particularly China and the authorities are reluctant to shut them down despite the reputational costs involved. I always marvel how they can make watches for $10 or 15 and still make profit.

So we all boarded the ship that night by 8pm. The ship then spent the night in port and left at 0600 hours as the transit down the river is best done in daylight given the traffic and the fishing boats on the water. It is a beautiful ride down and worth an early morning rising which we did not manage to do.

So here we are at 250 miles from Hong Kong where we arrive in the morning. These short days between ports do not really give one enough time to transit mentally from country to the next. In this leg, we had two days at sea. I was fairly busy as the Economics professor asked me to speak to all 3 of his classes. I gave me presentation on the World Bank which was useful as very few of the students had ever heard of the World Bank before.

Tomorrow we fly from Hong Kong to Xian then by train to Beijing and then after 2 days by train to Shanghai. The ship will move from Hong Kong to Shanghai where we will meet it after our China tour. More on that when we get back.

All is well with us. We passed the mandatory fever test which all passengers had to take to satisfy Chinese entry requirements, so we are good to go.
Cheers

Travel Chapter 21 Thailand and Cambodia bis

2009-03-21T16:29:00.002Z

Thinking about what I wrote yesterday in the previous chapter, I realize that it was factual with little personal input so I am adding a few anecdotes and thoughts to complete the picture

The infrastructure of Thailand

Coming straight from India to Thailand was a major shock. It is clear that Thailand has done everything that India has not done in the last 20 years. As opposed to India where roads date back to the time of the Britishers, poverty levels are everywhere to see; Thailand has obviously made the hard decisions and invested in its own future. Highways are as modern as anywhere in Europe or North America, Ports and airports, planes, busses, taxis, sewerage systems all have been updated and run smoothly. I am still very upset with India for not having made these investments and now finds itself almost overwhelmed and will probably never be able to catch up anymore. I find this totally irresponsible of the Government officials of the last 40 or 50 years. The cost of not having their infrastructure up to international standards will make India increasingly less able to compete on the international market precisely when its population is about to exceed that of China.

The temple of Angkor Wot and other Cambodian temples

The amazing Angkor Wot temple is a UNESCO world heritage site. The beauty of this temple is still visible despite the years of rot and ruin under which it lay for 400 years. Someone calculated that Angkor (meaning big in Khmer) is so large that it required more stones to build it than the pyramids in Egypt. Not only is it huge, but in the general area of this temple there are dozens of other strewn over the landscape. The dimensions vary but each is a huge work of art in its own right. Why Indians would have built so many temples is not clear but those who believe they built these temples base their view on the fact that the Indians were the only ones who had the technology to build such immense works at that time.
While we were waiting for our guide at our hotel in Siem Riep, I was introduced to an elderly Cambodian guide of about 70 years who spoke fluent French. We had a nice conversation and he informed me that he had worked with the French in discovering and clearing away the jungle from Angkor Wot. Interesting as we met in Xian China with the old farmer who first discovered the Terra Cotta warriors when were last there.

Chance meeting in Siem Riep

During the course of our visits of temples in Siem Riep we went into a nice restaurant down-town to have lunch. I went into bathroom and washed my hands. Five minutes later, I heard a loud voice of a man asking whether someone had left their sunglasses in the men’s’ bathroom. He held up the glasses and I recognized not only my glasses but a former colleague from the World Bank with whom I had worked some 20 years earlier. He was a South American and he also recognized me. In a very loud voice he said across the restaurant in Spanish: Alex, what are you doing her? We greeted each other like long lost brothers. He was on a consulting contract in Cambodia for 3 weeks. Small world.

Rice boat restaurants in Bangkok

On our last evening in Bangkok we were the guest of the wife of Ton de Wilde, a good friend from my time in Amsterdam. Ton was stuck in Jakarta but had insisted we dine with his Thai wife. We met that night on an old rice boat which was 70 years old. These boats were used to transport rice down the river. Many now served as floating restaurants.
Bangkok is beautifully lit up along the river at night so these boats float by the wonderful temples and building in a show which makes the city look so much nicer at night. There are huge dinner boats which are larger than the ones on the Seine in Paris.

Our boat was managed by a retired Irishman who had opted to run the restaurant after too many years as an international consultant. He was adamant that it had been the right decision but was very upset with the current political upheaval going on in Thailand currently. According to him tourism has dropped drastically in Thailand as a result of riots in the streets, the blocking of the airport back in December and the continuing bickering going on between parties supported by the King and others supported by the peasants. It is tragic for a country where tourism is a major source of revenue and where the season is bracketed by the end and beginning of the rainy seasons.

Enough for now.
Cheers

Travel Chapter 20-- Thailand and Cambodia

2009-03-20T16:39:00.004Z

Pictures for this chapter can be seen at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/akeyserlingk/Bangkok2009?feat=directlink

http://picasaweb.google.com/akeyserlingk/Cambodia2009?authkey=Gv1sRgCKHjy_DClcaeLw&feat=directlink

We arrived in Thailand on March 15 at 0800 hours at the newly completed port of Laem Chabang which is 80 miles south of the city of Bangkok. This port is reputed to be the 20th largest port in the world. It is huge and is very modern port which is clean and amazingly clean. The water is so clean in this port that the ship continued to make water as opposed to the port of Chennai where everything was so dirty our ship looked gray when we left.

I had developed a full package for 5 days in Thailand with a local travel agent. I had ordered a driver to pick us up at 11am and sure enough our driver Yai was at the foot of the ship awaiting us at the appointed time. Not only was he there but he brought with him a Thai sim card for my phone as I had asked the local travel agent the day before by email.

We boarded the minibus Yai was driving and headed towards Bangkok. The road out of this new port led to the national highway. In fact, the highway was quite amazing. It is a six lane highway with lots of fast moving traffic. I asked the driver to stop to get so we could buy some water. After a few miles he pulled off the superhighway to a rest stop where we jumped out and could hardly believe our eyes. There in front of us was a long row of stores including a Starbucks; a Kentucky fried Chicken place and a 711… I was like being back in North America except better as one does not find such a selection of stores at any road stops like this one. We had a coffee in Starbucks, read an English language newspaper and then stocked up with some travel food at the 711. We then continued our trip to Bangkok on about 50 miles of an 8 lane elevated highway which was better than many of the highways in North America.

We arrived at the hotel the agency had reserved for us which was 10 minutes from the brand new Bangkok airport. Given the traffic and distance I had decided that to make an 8am flight, we would be better off overnighting near the airport. I asked our driver to wait for us and he then drove us downtown to a place we could board one of the famous Bangkok river boats. These boats are about 25 feet long, very narrow and have high bows. You can see pictures of them in the album. They are equipped with huge engines taken usually from pickups. The propellers are mounted on 10 feet shafts and the whole machinery and shaft can be manipulated to steer the boat by the driver who sits at the back of the boat. The boats can reach very high speeds and race up and down the rivers and canals of Bangkok. We booked ourselves a 40 minute boat tour and enjoyed the sites and scenery along these canals.

After our tour we found ourselves at one of the most elegant hotels of Bangkok so we went in to see it and to buy a newspaper. There, on that Sunday afternoon, we found the hotel was hosting its regular Sunday High Tea, from 4 to 6 pm. On the dance floor of the hotel some 40 Thai couples all dressed with jackets and ties were dancing waltzes and fox trots and other classic old dances. It was a scene straight out of the early 20th century England or even Shanghai.

We then called Yai to come to pick us up at some small market we had visited. Yai took us back to our little hotel called the Floral Shir Resort. It was not much of a resort but we did get a good night's sleep. We got up early to be able to get to the airport by around 8am.

The new airport is huge and amazingly efficient. Our 50 minute flight to Siem Riep in Cambodia went smoothly. Although it was a short flight the Bangkok Air crew managed to serve a substantial breakfast with wonderful coffee.

We arrived in Siem Riep airport which is a very nice small jewel of an airport. It is built in Cambodian style with a red roof and only one story. We were processed quickly through the visa line after paying our US$ 20 fee and a driver was waiting for us outside. He introduced himself as Johnny but he told us his Cambodian name was Kim. So he was Kim for our time with him. We were driven to our beautiful hotel Prince d’Ankor where we checked into our large triple room. The hotel structure and decoratative walls was made mostly of local wood with a wonderful swimming pool into which Emmett and I dove into to escape the noon day heat of around 35 degrees Celsius.

In the afternoon we were taken to see some of the sights of the town. We had some extra time so we decided to visit the recently built National Museum. It is a great museum which gives a wonderful history of the Khmer empires. In fact, the history of this country is a sad one as the country has been overrun by many different nations and much of the land has been taken away over the centuries. A large portion of now South Vietnam was formerly Cambodian, Laos was a part of Cambodia and Thailand acquired tracts of the country. The French controlled country for decades, the Vietnamese overran the country and then the Khmer Rouge regime which killed over 1 million people, or about 30% of the population.

Despite this harsh history, the Cambodians are now optimistic and proud of their country.

The next day we went early to visit Angkor Wat and Ankor Thom and Bayon which are huge temples built in the 12th century. It is not totally clear who built them as they were abandoned in the 15th century and lost until 1850 when a French archeological group rediscovered them. By this time, written records were lost and the jungle had taken over the sites. Today some believe they were actually built by Indian traders who spent the rainy season months in Cambodia before going home. They are Hindu in their construction and look very much like what one sees in India, in the Tamil area. Some maintain that they could only have been built by Indians who had the technology to cut the stone and lift the large stones to the heights of the temple steeples. But they are clearly now part of the Khmer history.

We drove out about 50kms to the Women’s temple which is a lovely temple done in red sandstone. It also gave us a chance to visit the flat and rich countryside. As the rainy season had not yet started the fields were dry awaiting the rains and the rice planting which is extensive here.

That evening we went for dinner which included Aspara dancing which is a type of dancing inspired by Indian dancing. I was fascinated at the hand gestures and you can see my fascination from the many pictures I show in the albums I mention above.

The next evening we flew back to Bangkok and checked into the 4 Wing Hotel. We had extended our stay to spend the next day in Bangkok with the wife of a good friend of ours, Ton de Wilde. His wife Dang and a lady friend of hers Anonn spent the whole day with us and invited us for an other ride on a canal boat. In the evening we dined with both these lovely Thai ladies on a loveley floating restaurant which in fact was an old converted rice boat which cruised up the river. Bangkok at night is very beautifully lit up.

The next morning we headed back to our ship with our driver to Laem Chabang. It was nice to be back on board. We are now cruising slowly to Vietnam and will arrive there in 36 hours for an other 5 day visit on which I will report next time.
Cheers
March 20, 2009

Travel Chapter 19 India

2009-03-14T15:28:00.004Z

I am writing this piece after we have been at sea for 4 days traveling out of Chennai. During this period, I realized what a great advantage it is to do this traveling by ship rather than by air.

One does not have to pack up trunks, get taxis, take planes which may be late and then repeat the process at the other end. On a ship, one goes ashore with what is needed for the days ahead and leaves all other things on the ship. On this trip, we are all 3 using backpacks which are easy to pack and carry.

But the real advantage of traveling by ship is that we have a lot of time between countries we visit. This gives us time to reflect on the experiences, the impressions and the first reactions collected in these countries. It gives one time to sit and discuss with other travelers about what one has seen, heard, smelled and felt. Jumping from country to country is dangerous in any case but a ship provides a period to absorb and to reflect on what one has seen. These days between ports allow the traveler time to sort out a lot of experiences and sort out the facts from the fantasy and to order the experiences in memory.

Now to our travels during our stay in India. You can see pictures of this visit at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/akeyserlingk/India2009?authkey=Gv1sRgCOibrM7FwpX_owE&feat=directlink.

We arrived in Chennai right on schedule at 8am. Indian authorities required that each of us complete 4 different forms: 1 form for arrival, 1 for departure, 1 for customs and one for landing pass. Amazing amount of paper but that was just the beginning. Although in most ports, the authorities do their review of passports as soon as we arrive and clear the boat within an hour, the Indian authorities needed well over 3 hours to clear the ship. We were then required to carry a shore pass as well as a customs form when we went ashore.

Anticipating this long delay, I had ordered a taxi for 11am to take us to Pondicherry. I went out ahead of the others to find the taxi on the pier but could not find our driver. I wanted to get my cell phone activated. In India, in order to get a cell phone one must go to an authorized store armed with passport, a copy of proof of residence and money to pay. Then one fills out forms required by government. The phone is activated but it takes 3 days to have full use of the phone pending government review of the documents submitted. If the documents clear, the cell phone is then given the full range of services.

But I did not have time or the inclination to go through this elaborate procedure. I enquired from the ship agent how I could get an Indian cell phone card. He said that I would find people willing to sell me a sim card. So when I got to the end of the pier where several taxi drivers were waiting, I enquired who had sim cards and a man stepped up, pulled out a stack of cards. He offered me one saying it would cost US$20. I then took the sim card and inserted it into my phone. Sure enough it worked although it only had the equivalent of US$ 10 on the card. My man then checked that the card was active by phoning my phone on the number provided on the card. I then paid him and I was immediately in business. I was hardly on land for more than 5 minutes and I had already broken two government regulations. I had acquired a cell phone without doing all the paperwork and I had paid for it in for currency. I am told that the paperwork is required for security reasons but if the cards can be obtained as easily as I had just done, I wonder why the Indian authorities go to such trouble. This was but the beginning of my exposure to Indian government regulations.

Armed with my new cell phone I rang the cell phone number of my driver that I had been given by the hotel in Pondicherry. I reached him but could not understand a word he was saying. So I turned to one of the guides who were waiting for the students who were going on tours and asked him to speak to my man. After a few moments, it became clear that my driver had not been allowed into the port area and that we would have to walk to the gate to meet him. We could have taken one of the taxis but they wanted $3 just to drive us the 1 mile to the gate.

For some unknown reason, the Indian authorities required all the passengers to walk or take a rickshaw to the main gate which meant walking on the main port road which was not only filthy with coal and other dust but dangerous as it was the main road in and out of the port with trucks barreling along at breakneck speed. On a previous voyage, we had been permitted to exit the port through a gate just in front of the ship but Government regulation now required the long march. When we finally got to the gate, it became clear that the real reason for this was that the rickshaw and taxi drivers were paying of the guards at the gate to have access to the port to then be able to rip us off. Thus the bribing going on in front of us was also being paid by us. A wonderful picture of corruption in operation with 700 foreign tourists as witnesses.

So after the long march through the dirtiest port I have ever seen, in the noon day sun, we finally got to the gate 7 where we were allowed to exit after a close scrutiny by the guards at the gate seeking to find errors which would allow them to hassle out students. Nice welcome. We found our driver Ravi waiting there for us with a sign with our name. We got into his car and his first question was whether we wanted Air Conditioning or not. With temperature at 95 and the air filthy dirty with pollution, that was not a difficult question to answer. I know that this would ad $6 to our trip cost but well worthwhile for the 3 hour drive. I had agreed to the fare in advance with the hotel which quoted $40 for the trip.

We then headed out into the traffic of Chennai. I had the dubious honor of sitting in the seat beside the driver. This gave me a prime view of the chaos of traffic with which I never really got comfortable. Traffic in India is like no where in the world. I had been away from Indian traffic for several years and had forgotten how terrible it is. The only saving grace is that cars cannot go very fast anyway and road rage is an unknown thing in this county. Cars zig zag through mazes of motorized 3 wheel rickshaws, motorcycles, cows, trucks, buses while everybody is hooting their horns and mutually cutting each other off. It is the most amazing scene to watch except that one is so white knuckled that the experience is somewhat strenuous as one is constantly pressing ones foot to the floor or grabbing the “holy shit” handle above the door… Indians make maximum use of the small road space and there is nothing wasted. But traffic moves constantly, albeit at a snail pace. We stopped on the way out and visited the church of St Thomas who had come to India as the first missionary of the Christian faith. He lived many years in India and wrote and epistle which was not accepted into the New Testament. Apparently, mainly because he advocated that man really did not need a church to communicate with god. This of course did not sit well with church authorities and it was the beginning of what became know as the Gnostic believers. Many consider Thomas was influenced in his thinking by the various religions he encountered on his arrival in India. He is very much seen as an Indian saint and his Church in Chennai is considered a very holy place where his remains are said to be buried In fact, in the area we visited there are many Christian churches to be seen today and a good percentage of the population is still Christian. According to his gospels, he is seen as the father of the Gnostic belief which holds that no one needs a church for relations with God. This is the reason his gospel was not included in the New Testament.

We then drove on out about 30 miles south of Chennai when we started in at the Fisherman’s Cove hotel where we had stayed on our last trip to India. There we went for a walk on the beautiful beach and then had a lovely mean of the best Indian food. We then carried on to Pondicherry which is about 130 kms from Chennai. The road we traveled was a two lane highway with the usual collection of modes of transport including bikes, taxis, trucks, cows and an assortment of sheep and goats. Despite all this, traffic does move albeit slowly.

We arrived at hotel, the Coloniale Heritage at around 4 pm. It was a converted old French house with 6 rooms. We got the biggest room which had a high ceiling, air conditioning and even a little garden off the room. The manager of the hotel was a French woman married to an Indian. We dropped our things in our room and Emmett did the same in his room. We then headed out to the walkway along the coastline. It was a beautiful wide walkway with lots of people enjoying the afternoon sundown. It was clean and houses were well painted. The whole area of Pondicherry is called the white sector. I am not sure that is because the houses are white or because the quarter was reserved for the French living there. Interestingly, the official language of Pondicherry is reported as French and the street names are not only in French but are written on blue signs as they do in France today.

Nick and Milena arrived an hour after us. They had flown into Chennai from Delhi and driven down to Pondicherry also by taxi. It was a fun reunion as we had seen them last in Nassau, Bahamas when we first left. Emmett was quite pleased to see his parents and had many stories to tell.

We had a fun family diner that night and turned in early to our respective rooms in the hotel. The next morning we had arranged for a three bench taxi to take us out to visit Aurorville which is a kind of ashram con peace community set up in the 1960’s. It is also a tourist attraction. There are many Europeans who joined the sect and took up residence there. They are the last remnants of a community which was supposed to reach 50,000 persons and today has only 2000 residence. So one sees many elderly white persons pedaling bicycles around the city. The place has an enormous ball set in a garden which has the diameter of about 8 stories. In order to enter, one must make reservations several days in advance. It was an interesting visit but somewhat frustrating as one feels excluded by the sect.

That afternoon I went to a little hotel down the street which had an internet café. I was told that I had to register before I could use the internet. I asked why, and got the usual answer:”Government regulation”… I struck up a conversation with the hotel owner who told me that he had finished the hotel 18 months ago but he had only received permission to have enough power to run 3 rooms. I asked why and was told:” Government regulation”..

That evening we met up with George and Maggi Thomas . He is the professor of Linguistics on the ship and both Emmett and I take courses from him, although different subjects. They were staying also at the same hotel.

The next day, Brigitte and I headed back to Chennai with our driver. Emmett stayed with his parents to do some sightseeing at Bahamalipuram which we had seen on our previous trip. It was also good for Emm to have a couple of days with his parents.

We returned to the ship after 2 days away and found our ship to be totally dirty from standing 2 days in the dirty harbor of Chennai. It is so dirty that one does not even see seagulls who no doubt cannot deal with the coal dust and polluted air. Our ship is white and blue but in Chennai it became grey. Every railing and floor was cruddy with black soot.

The next morning we went from the ship to the hotel where Nick and Milena were staying for breakfast with our Indian computer guy , Tumul Sharan. He had come in overnight from Bangalore to meet with us. Tumul is the person with whom I developed the family website:
www.keyerlingk.info
He now is the one who administers the website. It was a fun lunch as we had not seen Tumul in 5 years and it was a good occasion for Nick to meet him. Nick and Milena were off at 11am heading to Delhi and Montreal. The 3 of us with Tumul headed off to a local shopping mall where we ambled around and I bought a very nice silk shirt. We had lunch with Tumul and then returned to the ship and Tumul went off to visit a friend in town.

We had hoped to have Nick and Milena visit the ship. The ship had given the necessary approvals and sent it to the Indian authorities who refused to give them permission to enter the port. When I asked why I was told:”Government regulations” This time I was really ticked off with Indian Government regulations. I pressed them to tell me why and I was told it was because Nick and Milena had Tourist visas. Of course, they had tourist visas as they were tourists. When I continued to question the logic as all 800 of the passengers of this ship had tourist visas and came and went into the port, I was again told: “Government regulations” I gave up and continue to believe that India is choking itself because of a plethora of Government Regulations.

Prior to the departure of the ship, I had a conversation with the local ship agent who was about to leave the ship. I said I was very upset that the Indian authorities had required our ship passengers to exit the dirty port of Chennai after walking almost a mile to the main gate rather than a gate in front of where the ship was tied up. Not only is the port the dirtiest I have ever seen, it also the most dangerous one as passengers must walk the distance to the main gate or take one of the taxis or rickshaws which were standing at the foot of the ship. Each one of these had bribed the guards at the gate to get into the port and we were paying these bribes each time we used the any one of them. I said the impression left with our students was that not only did corruption exist but that it was blatant. I really felt that this was a shame for India to project this view of the country. I told him that in my opinion, the only reason the authorities had required that our students had to go the whole mile to the main gate was that the guards wished to collect bribes from those drivers who came to the ship. I strongly suggested that next time if this ship decides to come to Chennai he should lay on a bus to take passengers from the ship out to a local shopping center from which they could continue on their own. He said he would discuss it.

Even our Captain and the program director got caught up in the mess. They had gone to dinner together and when they returned the guards at the gate did not want to let them return. Eventually they were allowed in but obviously they were looking for bribes but picked the wrong persons.

So we left India. The impressions are there. One day I would like to return to India but this time I would like to visit the northern part of this huge continent.
Cheers

Travel Chapter 18. Mauritius:What a difference an island makes.

2009-03-04T16:42:00.001Z

As we now approach India, I have been musing about why there is such a great difference between India and Mauritius. Mauritius is a small island with a population of about 1 million. India is a continent of around 1 billion people. Yet the differences are not only physical but they are also visible in the economic situation of these two nations.

Mauritius is a small nation but has managed to build up its economy to the point that it is a successful example of how a country can be well managed. India is an example of a country where chaos is the rule, where bureaucrats run almost every aspect of life, where a social caste system stifles upward mobility, where nationalism stifles competition by protectionism and socialism add its own level control and state intervention. The result of these layers of control and chaos makes life very difficulty and keeps the economy from growing at anywhere near an acceptable level rate.

In Mauritius, one sees clean streets, painted buildings and streets where one can actually walk at ones own pace rather than at the pace of the crowd which covers the whole sidewalk space. The noise level is no higher than in any other part of the word. The traffic in the small capital cities of Port Louis is heavy but moves smoothly with traffic lights, pedestrian crossing and pedestrians who respect traffic rules. Horns are not constantly blaring. It is actually not a hustle to drive in the countryside. The roads are paved, painted and well maintained. One does not see thousands of motorized vehicles from two wheelers, three wheelers to four wheelers including bikes, chuck chucks, taxis, buses, trucks etc. There are no cows ambling around the cities or towns. There are no bull carts in the streets. There are no elephants in the street. There are no dogs in the streets. Everybody in Mauritius speaks English and French in addition to Creole and many also speak another language.

I have spent the days since we left Mauritius thinking why there is such a huge difference. The one thing these countries have in common and that is both of them are governed by Indians. Why do Indians do so well managing the small Mauritius while Indians in India have not been able to move their country out into the 21rst century? Mauritius has spent the last 20 years developing a plan on how to make sure that the small island can earn its living and grow. In Mauritius huge amounts of resources have been dedicated to educating its population to allow them to compete in the open international markets. Mauritius used to depend totally on exporting sugar. Today, Mauritius has passed through phases where they specialized in textiles, tourism and now banking. The country has installed very high speed internet connections. The telephone system works, internet cafes are high speed and readily available, even in small towns.

In India, most of the above items have not happened. Economically, the country has made some progress in recent years, but many decades have been lost due to government policies which do not allow Indians to compete due to protectionism which only protected inefficient local industry. The result is that India is still looks and maybe also living in the 19th century. The existing caste system which defines people’s social system by who their parents are. This means that if you are born of poor parents, you probably are in a lower class and the cast system does not allow people to rise out of their caste. It means that children of higher castes will get educated whether they are smart or not. It means that if they are children of lower castes, they probably will not get educated even if they are much smarter than people in the upper classes. It is such a degrading system which I would say is far more drastic than the segregation system of the US or the Apartheid system of South Africa. It is justified in the religion of many Indians which claims that one is reincarnated and appears in a new form. Thus, if one is born into a lower caste it is because that is one’s fate and therefore one has no option but to accept it and work as a slave or be exploited by the higher castes. The government’s positive discrimination laws may have been passed but I would imagine that the attitude of the people still has not changed.

What I conclude from this long text is that if India could rid itself of the caste system, promote its private sector energy and open the economy it could make giant steps and let its people improve their standard of living and move out of one of the lowest level of poverty in the world. Amazing things could happen in India if they would free themselves of these self imposed limitations, the continent of India could be as prosperous as or even more prosperous than Mauritius. Both places are run by Indians. Indians have emigrated for decades from India frustrated by the limitations successive government have imposed on them. Indians abroad thrive in almost every country of the world. If India does not wake up soon and take drastic steps to ramp up its economy by freeing up the talents and energy that Indians possess, the world will see this continent being passed by China which has already made more progress in 20 years than India has ever made in modern times. India needs to reclaim the leadership position it held so often before in history. The price being paid by its population for the lack of decision of its leaders is a tragic chapter in the history of this rich continent populated by people who deserve more than being dependent on outside financial and economic support. Examples from Mauritius and elsewhere show that Indians can do it and can do it well.

Tomorrow we arrive in India and I will be fascinated to see what progress has been made in the 5 year since we were here in 2004. We will meet our son Nick and his wife Milena who arrived from Montreal earlier this week.We will team up in Pondicherry and do day trips to visit the lovely sites of the area. Emmett is excited to see Nick and Milena.

More on that when we get back to sea in 6 days.
Cheers

Travel Chapter 17 A day on MV Explorer

2009-02-26T18:26:00.001Z

Travel chapter 17
Life on board the MV Explorer

This piece is to give a sense of what goes on when the Explorer is at sea. The voyage we are on carries 730 students, mostly juniors and seniors from over 100 colleges in the US. There are very few international students on this voyage, perhaps only 4. Some 70% of the students are girls. This gender split is a constant, and tipping even to higher female student participation. It seems there are many explanations for this gender imbalance but no one seems to have a definitive answer. It is a concern to the managers of this program as boys will come in even less numbers if the student population shifts to too many girls.

Life of board the ship is a new environment for the vast majority of the students. Quite a number of the students have travelled outside the US but for the vast majority this is their first trip outside of their country. What is interesting on this trip, compared to our first voyage in 2004 is that the students are once again proud to be Americans due to the arrival of Barack Obama as president. Everywhere they have been so far, they are welcomed with good words because of the election of Obama. Prior to this, many Americans traveling abroad tried to downplay their citizenship, some even going to the extreme of declaring themselves Canadians to avoid being the butt of comments, not always friendly.

The faculty is made up of some 30 professors teaching subjects such as business, sciences, linguistics, history, psychology, literature, comparative religion, art and music.
The professors are mostly senior or recently retired full professors, all with their PhD’s in their fields. The largest group is US Profs, mainly from the University of Virginia which sponsors the program now. There are 3 Profs from Canada. Again a very weak international presence. All the courses are credit courses which can be recognized by the home universities of the students. UVA is responsible for course content to ensure that it meets their own academic standards. to ensure that course results can be accepted in the home universities of the students.

The ship has some 10 classrooms either cut out of larger spaces or of room formerly used for other things on this former cruise ship. In addition there is the Union which sits some 500 persons. The ship is well equipped with technical equipment to pipe presentations in the main Union into outlaying classrooms and/or cabins to ensure that everybody gets a chance to follow Union events.

Classes are held each day the ship is at sea, including Sundays and holidays except on a few days when things like the Equator crossing or Olympics are held. As a rule the ship is in port about the same number of days as it is at sea. Students are required to carry 3 classes in addition to the daily Global Studies class held each day at sea in the Union. Classes start at 7:55am and continue all day until the last classes start at 4.15pm Classes are scheduled for 75 minutes but rarely go for more than 65 minutes, including role call at each class. Class sizes are at the most 35 so are small compared to many campuses. This allows the profs to get to know their students. This is in fact, one one of the great features of this program because not only are the classes small, but professors are available in corridors, at meetings, at meals and on shore trips. Students and profs can get to know each other much more than on a traditional campus where a Professor gives a class and then is not be seen until the next class. They say that on a ship there is no place to hide, which in this case is a good thing. I have seen many students and profs who become friends and the profs can spend more time counseling their students.

The workload for the profs can be overwhelming as each teaches at least 3 classes so they are teaching one course every day and two on the other day while on board. This means they have about 100 students but they do not have any assistants as would be the case on land. This means that not only do most have to develop a particular syllabus to fit the voyage theme (in our case it is supposed to be migration) but they also have to prepare tests, administer and then grade all these papers. Given that there are courses every day sometimes for 5 to 6 days in a stretch, the pace is fairly quick and students have to attend classes in order to keep up. They then also have to spend time doing the readings required for each subject and write term papers as well as prepare for periodic exams and tests which happen several times during the semester.

So for all involved it is a pretty hectic pace. One thing that disturbs the pattern is the fact that each 6 or 7 days, we are in a port often for 5 days. Kids and profs go off for land excursions and have a hard time regaining the momentum of where the course left off.

During sea days, the ship is a bundle of activity with classes going on, seminars being planned and studying going on at all times in all parts of the ship. As the students are housed in double and triple cabins, most studying must be done somewhere outside the cabin. The ship carries a fairly extensive library with 10,000 books as well as a couple of professional librarians. There are some 20 computers in the lab which allow free access to a number of academic websites. The ship provides each person with a free email for communications and there are limited internet connections via satellite which can be very expensive. Profs and staff have unlimited internet access and students can buy time, albeit at a high expense.

Each morning all professors, students and we the adult passengers (known as Life Long Learners) are required to attend. At Global Studies general subjects are usually covered. Up to now, this course has been very sketchy as it has consisted of one prof after the other getting up and summarizing his or her subject in one hour. Boring! Perhaps things will improve.

As LLL’s, we are allowed to attend any class we wish as long as there is enough room in the class for students. We are attending the following classes:
Brigitte: Zoology and tropical ecology
Emmett: Marine Biology, Language policy reform and zoology
I: Linguistics, Medieval travelers and History of China, Qin and Han dynasties.

So are our days at sea are spent. They also include discussions with students and professors at meals and on the decks which are always interesting and lively. This is such a difference from the days on cruise ships with strange people. I do not miss that kind of travel. I can heartily recommend such a voyage.

Tomorrow we arrive in Mauritius for one day. Emm and I intend to Flic en Flac to find a beach to do some snorkeling. We leave for India in the evening,
Cheers

Travel Chapter 16-South Africa

2009-02-23T20:19:00.002Z

Cape Town and other travels in South Africa.

Pictures of this chapter can be seen at:

Cape Town and surroundings
http://picasaweb.google.com/akeyserlingk/CapeTown#

The Baldies
http://picasaweb.google.com/akeyserlingk/SAS09Baldies?authkey=UXmhEJ0ib8c#

Sea Point
http://picasaweb.google.com/akeyserlingk/SeaPointSA#5305709340849647170

We arrived into the Cape Town area on Wednesday February 18th as scheduled however that morning the whole area was shrouded in fog. As a result, we had to hold our position for over 2 hours waiting for a clearing in the fog. We made our approach into the rather tight passenger pier of Cape Town but the clouds had not lifted enough to see Table Mountain. This is a shame as the view is spectacular. Many of us were up early to see this entry but could have stayed in bed that morning.

I had booked tickets for the 3 of us for the 11am ferry boat out to Robben Island, the former political prison where Nelson Mandela and his other anti-apartied companions had spent many months. Luckily, Brigitte negotiated our way off the ship before the diplomatic briefing was finished as we would otherwise not have made our appointed boat. It is a fast catamaran which seats some 200 passengers for the 25 minute ride. Robben Island is almost a must for a visit to Cape Town. This is also a tool to limit the number of visitors to the island to maximum 1000 a day. It is very well organized and the guides originally were all former political prisoners who told their story with conviction. Our guide was one of only 10 former prisoners working as guides as it has been almost 25 years since they were set free. Our guide walked us around and told of his own life in this prison which the South African government used to confine all the most important political prisoners during the Apartheid era. Mandela was imprisoned for 26 years and spent most of those years here on this island in an 8 by 8 cell with little or no furniture or any comforts. It was a degrading experience and I have always admired how this man whose youth was stolen from him could walk out of prison and not succumb to the temptation of wanting and seeking revenge. Of course, that would have led to a bloodbath and the total collapse of the country.

The tour can be depressing but on the other hand I have found it to be an uplifting story of how these inmates supported each other and even managed to further their education during those harsh years. It was also a case of how the inmates and their guards bonded over the years to a point that years later some of them are still in contact with each other.
It is a sad period for South Africa, but only one of several sad periods this country has gone through which include the Boer wars which pitted British Empire troops against the Dutch descended farmers or Boers. The Robben Island prison is being maintained as a reminder of what one group of persons can do to the other and perhaps as a warning that such behavior is human but unacceptable and highly barbaric.

We had planned to visit Table Mountain that afternoon but a cloud sat on the top which is referred to as the Table Cloth. So we ended up doing shopping and other chores. I picked up a mobile phone sim card so that we had a mobile phone which is always useful. One thing I needed to use the phone for was to reactivate my American Express card. It had been blocked in Namibia by Amex when I went to buy something there despite the fact that I had notified them I would be traveling. Very irritating, as I had notified them that I would be traveling and I had even given them a list of the countries I would be visiting. After many holds and ghastly elevator music, I finally was able to convince them that I was me. Even more irritating as the same thing happened to my Visa card in Spain. They are so focused on fraud that they forget that they are in the service business.

The next morning, Budget car rental delivered our car to the Table Bay hotel which was just in front of our ship. Very convenient. So we took our spiffy new BMW and headed out of the city. With no fixed time to arrive in Tulbagh which is about 150 kms we headed first to Paarl which is in the heart of the wine producing area of SA. There we visited the Afrikaans language museum. Afrikaans is the language which developed in South Africa based first on the Old Dutch which the first white settlers brought with them and then added to over the centuries by the Koi languages of the locals and other languages of peoples imported from Malaysia, Indonesia and Madagascar. In fact, many of the slaves imported from Asia were Muslims and as such had learned to read the Koran and were therefore better educated than their Boer owners who were often illiterates. The Afrikaans language was therefore written for these people in Arabic script and there are even books written in Afrikaans in Arabic script. Afrikaans is still widely spoken in SA but it is tainted as the language of the Boers who are directly associated with Apartheid. It is now one of the 11 official languages of this country. I am not sure how you run a country with 11 languages. Canada has enough problems with 2 languages. But in SA the language of Parliament is English so at least there everyone understands the others. Whether they listen has not yet been established…

After a visit to the Paarl museum which is an historical one, we had a light lunch and continued on our journey. At one point, we headed for Bain’s Kloof Pass which is a high mountain road out of one valley and into an other. The views from this mountain pass are spectacular although B was white knuckled in the back seat with Emmett enjoying it no end. We stopped several times at look out points to enjoy the views. It was a clear day and you could see forever, really.

We arrived around 5pm in Tulbagh where we had scheduled to have dinner with our cousin Kurt. As earlier reported, Kurt had had a fatal bicycle accident only the week before we arrived. We checked into our very nice bed and breakfast. It had a small swimming pool of about 3 meters in length. Emm then proceeded to swim 101 laps while I went for a walk on the main street of this small town. On my return, we decided to pay our respects to our deceased cousin and drove up to his house on the outskirts. We paused for a moment of remembrance. Kurt’s house was small but had a beautiful view of the surrounding mountains which are snowcapped in winter. We then went back to our B&B in time for a delicious meal in a the restaurant where the chefs are an Irish couple who have won several awards.

Early the next morning, we were on the road as we had booked into a private game park and needed to be there at 8am. After a good breakfast in the game park, we loaded onto special vehicles designed for game viewing with 4 or 5 rows of benches rising towards the back. We took the back row as that is where the view is best as one is higher than the other people. We were assigned a young ranger who was completing the practical year of his ranger training and who did an excellent job of pointing out and explaining the animals. At one point, he explained that certain animals could not be found in South Africa as they were native to Africa… The South African are like the Brits who do not feel that the UK belongs to Europe. We asked him to repeat the statement but he corrected himself. But no more than 10 minutes later he made the same distinction. For Emmett it was a great thrill as he had never seen wild animals out in the open fields. We saw all the animals with the exception of cougars which can only be seen in Africa, we were told…

After lunch on the reserve, we drove south down to the Ocean and back to Cape Town. It is a beautiful drive through huge and lush valleys where wine and fruit are grown in massive quantities. It is quite amazing to see the contrasts of the extensive infrastructure of roads, harbors, railways and agriculture in SA compared to the rest of Africa. SA is a power house producing more goods and services than the rest of Africa combined... Despite naysayers who predicted that the place would go to hell in a hand basket when the black majority took over, SA is physically in good shape. Politically, they have not settled down yet and have not mastered the corruption and crime which is rampant and very detrimental to the country. It is interesting to come to this country every few years and to see that things have not changed much although with the very free press everything is known and reported. I only hope that gradually a sense of country and sense of duty will replace the sense of entitlement and rampant abuse of public office.

We drove back to Cape Town against bumper to bumper Friday evening traffic which one finds in any industrialized country. Between rush hour and week-end traffic, we were glad we were going into town. We parked our car in the lot of the Table Bay hotel and headed to the ship for dinner.

On our fourth day, we were joined by the ship’s official photographer who asked me whether he could join us on our planned trip to the Cape of Good Hope. I gladly invited him to join us and we headed south taking the eastern route to the Cape as the Western road was still under repairs after rockslides which had happened months or years earlier. It is a lovely drive through small towns like Simons town which are nestled along the coast and which are residential as well as tourist towns. We spend several hours on the cape admiring the amazing views from about 1500 meters above the sea. Despite popular belief, the Cape of Good Hope is not the most southerly point of Africa. That distinction belongs to Point Aguhlas which is about 300 kms to the east. I had planned to show Emm that point but it was over 300kms from Cape Town and more than one could drive in one day.

On our return from the Cape we stopped in Simon’s town to visit the Boulders beach where a large flock of African penguins live. In an excellent layout of walkways, one can amble along the beach and observe these penguins from very close up. The birds seem as interested in humans as we were in them. So one ends up staring a standing penguin often no more than a meter away and realizing the penguin is doing the same to you.

We then went into Simons town where I had seen the entry to the local Yacht Club on our way through that morning. As most clubs are limited to members, it took a bit of brazen walking in to convince the guard that I must be a member with my guests. We had a nice lunch overlooking the piers upon piers of sail and motor boats. There is a lot of money still in South Africa although I did not see any black faces in this club.

On our final day in South Africa, we decided to use the double decker tour bus as we had in Grenada and Sevilla. In this case, one of the stops was the cable car which was fine as we intended to take the cable car up to the top of Table Mountain if it was clear. On that morning, the mountain was clear so after an hour of touring the city, we jumped off the bus, stood in line for 20 minutes to get out tickets and turn to ride the very sophisticated cable car to the top. One goes from about 200 meters altitude to 1083 meters in about 5 minutes in a cable car which can hold 90 people and where the floor rotates 360 degrees during the trip. In fact, the cable car is capable of carrying a substantial amount of water to counteract the often very high winds on the face of the mountain. The ride up is impressive even though this was my 5 or 6th time. The car rides on a cable which is 1200 meters from the bottom station to the top one with no supports on the way. Once on the top, the views are breathtaking and the winds are also breathtaking and it is cold up there if there are clouds. But it was worth the trip.

We came down the mountain, got on board one of the double decker buses and completed our circuit by going along the beach towns on the west side of the Peninsula such as Clifton, Sea Point and others which are beach towns and crawling with Sunday afternoon beach crowds. A bit gaudy but such are beach towns throughout the world.

We returned to waterfront in time to visit some of the handicraft markets where we purchased a nice painting which we intend to give someone as a Christmas present. We were scheduled out at 8pm that evening. At 8 pm the winds in the harbor and out to see were so strong that the captain decided to delay our departure for a few hours. In fact, we did not leave until 8 am this morning when the winds had died down and the tugboat and pilots crews were once again on duty. Still the passage around the Cape was rough with winds reported at 45 knots, which is almost 50 miles per hour. Considering our own speed of almost 30 miles per hour, the winds on the decks were howling and no one was allowed out. We passed the Cape and our now steaming towards Mauritius which we expect to reach on time despite the delayed departure.

South Africa is a great destination and I would return again and again.
It was great to be back in Africa where I had spent many very interesting years professionally and personally. I too am bitten by the attraction of this great continent and it people.
Cheers
February 23, 2009

Travel Chapter 15- Beatrix of Nambia

2009-02-17T14:21:00.002Z

Travel Chapter 15
Namibia 2

You can see the pictures of this post at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/akeyserlingk/Namibia20091?authkey=H3tNtDj9FwM#

We are now underway from Walfis Bay and Cape Town about 350 miles from Cape Town where we will arrive in the morning.

Yesterday we had a wonderful last day in Namibia when we met up with our friend Beatrix Hill. Beatrix, whom we met 2 years ago by chance, is a Namibian whose husband runs one of the many fish processing plants in Walfis. She was born in Luderitz in the south of Namibia and speaks English, Afrikaans and German. When our itinerary was changed shortly before our departure from a Suez Canal transit to an around Africa trip, I contacted Beatrix to set up a follow up meeting in Walfis.

We agreed to meet yesterday morning at 11.30. All this was done by email as I could not reach her on the phone. In fact, Beatrix ran into problems at the main gate and she was delayed. But being the resourceful lady she is, she parlayed her way through the security gate and appeared in her car just at the foot of our boat. It was a fun reunion as we had not seen each other in 2 years. Emmett was pleased to meet her as he had heard the story of how we had met on our last trip.

Beatrix took us to see the Spanish owned factory where her husband works. It is a fish processing plant which has five good sized fishing boats supplying it. The fish, mainly hake, is filleted and packed in ice. It is then trucked up to Windhoek the capital of Namibia and flown to Spain, packed for the supermarkets to be on the markets of Spain
Within 24 to 36 hours of landing. This is a huge industry in Namibia which has very rich fishing grounds due to the cold waters of the Benguela current which bring cold water up along the coast from the Antarctic latitudes. These waters are not only cold but rich in nutrients.

We then drove out to see the flamingoes and huge pelicans which thrive in the shallow waters of the huge bay which lies in front of Walfis Bay. In fact, the bird life of this area would make any birder very happy for many days. Theses same fish rich waters sustain a huge bird population all year round.

In fact, the little town of Walfis has thrived since we were last there as a result of successful efforts of the government in attracting foreign investments which have created new jobs and industry in the area. It is still a small place but its huge sandy seacoast makes it an attractive location. The result is that the harbor is humming with ships stacked up offshore awaiting their turn to enter the port. There are two floating dry-docks, there is a company doing repairs to oil derricks as well as cruise ship traffic and normal goods traffic. The stability of the government of Namibia is paying off although there is a limit to what can be done in a country of 2 million people where only a small percentage of the land is arable. A smart decision of the government has been to make English the national language rather then having a hodge podge of local languages trying to vying for position as is the case in countries like India and South Africa.

We then went off to a nice restaurant called the raft which stands in the bay about 100 feed from the shore on pylons. I once again gorged myself on Namibian/Chilean oysters and a good piece of kingklip fish. Life is good when living near the ocean… The only thing missing was a good bottle of cool, white, dry South African wine but that is no longer on my menu.

In the afternoon, we went into town as Emmett needed some sandals, shorts and shirts. Beatrix drove us to a local store where the prices were so low I could hardly believe what I saw. Of course, as a result, I bought lots of things I probably would not need but at those prices it would be cheaper to buy the things than have them sent to the ship laundry!
We walked out with a huge bag of stuff for Emmett, for our granddaughter in Texas and for me. Lots of fun.

We then drove to a huge beach development half way between Swakopmund and Walfis bay called Longbeach. Beatrix told us that they had just sold their nice house in Walfis and that they had decided to move to Longbeach. This is the place the actors Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie had come when she was pregnant. Their child was actually delivered in the hospital in Swakopmund. It is mainly a vacation complex but mainly people live there year round and commute to either of the cities.

And so our days in Namibia ended when Beatrix drove us back to our ship. It was fun to see her and it also gave us a little more insight into the country than one can get just being a tourist. We will return again one day. Thanks Beatrix.

We boarded the ship and at 8pm we slipped our lines and were underway. It was nice to be back at sea and everybody slept well, tired from their experiences and lulled to sleep by the gentle roll of the ocean. If one does not get seasick from the roll, it is similar to being rocked in a gently hammock. Babies love it and so do adults who love the sea.

Today, it is a beautiful day at sea with the sun shining and water calm except for long slow ground swells to which we are now accustomed. The amazing thing so far is how little marine pelagic life we have seen. Except for some flying fish and a rare dolphin, so far we have seen nothing. With ocean so large, it is a lucky thing to see whales and other creatures that probably scamper as far and as fast as possible away from our oncoming ship making huge amounts of noise in the water. But one continues to spend hours watching the sea in the hope of seeing something.

That’s all for today,
Cheers

Travel Chapter 14- Namibia1

2009-02-16T08:58:00.000Z

Travel Chapter 14
February 15, 2009

We arrived early Friday morning, February 14th into the harbor of Walfis Bay, Namibia. This is a fairly large harbor now and the main one of the country. It used to be a whaling station where it got its name,

We are in this harbor for 3 days so we had scheduled some activity on land. B and I had been here two years ago when we met our Namibian friend Beatrix. It was a chance meeting in the supermarket of Walfis. We had gone in there to buy some water as we had decided to take a taxi to Swakopmund, a town about 20 miles north on the coast. I saw a nice lady shopping ahead of us so I went up to her and asked her how much it would cost to take a taxi. She that she did not know as she never takes taxis but if we wanted she would take us there herself. We thought that would be fun so we accepted and spent a nice day with our new found Namibian friend called Beatrix.

This time Beatrix was tied up in traveling to Windhoek, the capital so we were on our own. I therefore booked us into a hotel in Swakopmund called the Schwiezer Haus. I had got a very good rate on the internet and had asked the hotel to send a driver to pick us up. Swakopmund is the resort town of Namibia and has retained a great amount of German influence in buildings and even language. Until the end of the First World War, it was known as German South West Africa, a colony of Germany. A great number of German families had settled there and had been involved mainly in farming. I even have two families of relatives who had lived here and one of the children had been born here. The colony has a gruesome colonial history.

South Africa occupied the German colony of South-West Africa during World War I and administered it as a mandate until after World War II, when it annexed the territory. In 1966 the Marxist South-West Africa People's Organization (SWAPO) guerrilla group launched a war of independence for the area that became Namibia, but it was not until 1988 that South Africa agreed to end its administration in accordance with a UN peace plan for the entire region. Namibia has been governed by SWAPO since the country won independence in 1990. Hifikepunye POHAMBA was elected president in November 2004 in a landslide victory replacing Sam NUJOMA who led the country during its first 14 years of self rule.

Luckily Emmett noticed that we had reservations to visit the desert the next morning starting at 7.30am so I cancelled our hotel reservation in Swakopmund but retained the taxi service. So at 10.30 we got off the ship for the first time in 8 days and there stood a lady taxi driver with a board with our name on it. Always a nice touch when arriving in a country to have someone waiting. We boarded our minibus and drove the 30kms north along the coast. It is an impressive drive as one has the desert on the right and the ocean on the right. The Namib desert is immense as it never really rains. On the right one sees huge dunes of orange colored dunes. The water of Namibia is cold and rich in plankton which makes it great for fishing. Endless beaches are a feature of this coast although swimming is a bit of a challenge as it rarely gets above 20 degrees.
Swakopmund is the name given by the local tribes to the river that comes out at this town. It means brown water as drinking it results in sure stomach problems. The Germans set this town up as a resort place where people from inland could come and vacation by the sea. One can only imagine the pleasure it gave people living in the dry and desertic inland would derive by being near water and to be able to frolic in a medium which is a rare commodity in their lives.

The city itself is as clean as it a whistle and the houses are all very well maintained, streets are named Bismarck Strasse, Bahnhofstrasse and others. The beach is nice and there is a cool breeze coming off the ocean.

We went straight to the Crystal Museum which we had visited on our last trip. Emmett is an avid stone collector and of course he was in seventh heaven. There are huge Chrystal stones as Namibia is a great source of all sorts of stones, including a huge industry of gem and other stones, including off shore diamonds which bring in $500 million a year. A fun aspect of the museum is that one can by an empty plastic bag which one then can fill up from piles of various polished stones laid out in a small garden of the museum. Emm spent 20 minutes going from one pile to another collecting all manner of stones.

After that we ambled down to the beach and went into the Two Ocean restaurant which is on the beach. We found a table at the window and I ordered my favorite South African fist, the king clip. It is a medium sized fish with white meat with a consistency almost of lobster.

After lunch, we visited the German museum which is really quite good for a little place like this. It is full of bric a brac of German memorabilia. But it also has a section showing the way of live of the various indigenous tribes of Namibia. We then headed up to the Schweitzer Haus hotel and Café Anton. On the way, we walked through a rather large handicraft market with a large variety of handicraft. Brigitte saw a headrest she wanted for Gaby and I was delegated to negotiate the piece from the vendor. One of my favorite pastime is negotiating. We then separated and I headed to the local supermarket to get a newspaper. On my return, I found B and Emm sitting in a local conditorei or pastry having ice-cream. I joined them and we returned to the Café Anton where I phoned our driver to pick us up as we had had enough of the town and wished to return to the ship. She then drove us back to Walfis. Luckily she could enter the port area as our ship was parked more than a mile from the main gate and it is a long walk in the hot sun. I do not find it very friendly of the local authorities to have given a ship with 700 passengers such a faraway berth.

This morning at 0730 we boarded a group of 5 minibuses and headed into the Namib for a geological and botanical tour of an area called the Moonscape.

You can see pictures of this visit at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/akeyserlingk/Namibia2009?authkey=tYp06X_MBAo
It is a very appropriate name as that part of the desert is made up of great rocks and hills of stone rising up from the floor of the desert. It was an interesting drive of over 4 hours. At one hill, we climbed up to find huge rocks which were very high in iron content. The rocks could be pounded with a stone and gave off various notes almost sounding like the tones one would get by hitting a large piece of iron. We had the music prof with us and he set up his sound equipment to record a rock banging session of 10 of us doing our rendition of the Concert in the Namib Desert…

Luckily the minivans were air-conditioned as it got to over 40 degrees Celsius. A nice touch was that after viewing a plant which only grows in Namib and lives up to 1500 years, the group ended the tour with a snack set up for us by the tour group. It was great to get something to eat and drink in the heat of the desert. But the real treat was some 4 dozen Namibian oysters lying in ice with lemons and a bottle of Tabasco sauce. Most of the others did not eat oysters but Emm dove in and had a few. I dove in and had at least a dozen if not 18 of the best oysters I have ever had, and I have had a few in my time. In fact, I was told that these oysters were imported very small from Chile. In Namibia, with its rich and cold water, these oysters thrive and grow quickly to edible size. It takes them only 9 months in the Namibian waters to grow to a size which takes oysters in Europe well over 18 months.

After oysters in the desert, we continued on heading towards the now famous Dune 7. This dune is named as it is 7 miles from Walfis Bay. It is an immense dune well over 100 meters high rising fairly steeply to its top. From our group of 20 students and adults, only 2 girls and Emmett started up the climb to the summit. It looked like a hard climb as the sand is soft and each step is tough. But all three made it and they sat there enjoying the view of the ocean. The Emmett started down the hill taking giant strides and sliding. Suddenly his hat flew off his head and headed across the dune with Emm in hot pursuit. He had to run but the hat kept being blow ahead of him. Bear in mind that the sun was pouring down on his now shaved head so the hat was vital. Finally the wind stopped pushing the hat and it stopped so he could collect it and return to the bottom, exhausted but proud of having accomplished the climb of Dune 7.

We then headed back to the ship in time to take a shower to get rid of the sand and to make lunch before it closed down. The afternoon was spent quietly resting from the events of the morning.

If you want an other slant on this trip, the website of this program carries a blog which is being written by a professional writer. It also carries pictures and can be seen under: www.semesteratsea.org under current voyage. It also carries pictures and the current one shows all our baldies from Neptune day. Emmett can be seen in the first rows on the right of the picture.

It has been a sad month in our family as we lost 4 male Keyserlingks in that period. First the grandson of my sister Cecile, the son of Katrin and Sebastian Spano of Ottawa lost his battle against cancer at the age of 12. Then a 5 year old Jon Keyserlingk was killed in Australia by a crocodile. An other cousin, Curt von Keyserlingk who had only recently retired as a journalist with the national business journal was killed while bicycling Curt was an avid cyclist and had moved south to be in a quiet town north of Cape Town. Brigitte and I had agreed with Curt to stay in Tulbagh and have dinner with him next week while we are in Cape Town. We both liked Curt and will still go to Tulbagh and overnight there to pay our respects. Curt is survived by his only son Curt von Keyserlingk who is in his early 20’s and is a highly gifted mathematician studying at Cambridge in the UK. Curt also has a daughter living in Cape Town whom we will try and meet while there later this week.

Finally we learnt that my cousin Alexander Keyserlingk brother of Ulli Barrett of Johannesburg and who ranched in Veron BC in Canada also passed away. It is appropriate that we are currently in Namibia, as Alexander was born here and then moved to Canada in the 60’s to start up ranching.

Well, on a less somber note, we are off to have lunch with our Namibian friend Beatrix. More on that in a next chapter.
Cheers

Travel Chapter 13-- Pictures

2009-02-11T15:55:00.004Z

Being on a ship, one has to be superstitious as there is not much else happening. For this reason, this post will be short to avoid jinxing the whole community. Just to inform you that I have now posted pictures of the Neptune event as well as of our extended family and our travel pictures of Spain and Morocco. You can see these links in the texts of Chapters 6, 9, 11 and 12.
Cheers

Travel Chapter 12 Extended Family

2009-02-11T11:15:00.005Z

Travel Chapter 12
At sea just over the equator
February 10, 2009

Our extended family

There is a tradition on the SAS voyages whereby adults are asked to adopt a group of students to become their extended families. For many students, this trip can be traumatic and apparently many suffer profound homesickness. It is understandable as not only are they far from their family and friends but they are in strange countries and traveling on board a ship. These are all new and difficult situations by themselves but, but put together and it may be too much for many.

To alleviate this problem, each adult couple is asked to adopt a number of kids. In the first days of the trip, the kids are asked whether they wish to be part of such an extended family. Of the 700 students, 388 signed up for the program. There are only so many adults and some do not want to participate. We signed up to take 7 kids as our experience on the last trip showed us that this is an ideal number.

The kids are assigned on a random basis and a list comes out with their names. I then walked around the ship and invited each one to meet us for dinner in the dining room on the fifth deck. I organized with the dining room steward for him to set aside a table for 9 for us on the appointed day. It was interesting as we did not know any of them, nor did they know us. At the appointed time of 6.30 pm B and I were at the table and no body was there. No one showed up for what seemed to be quite some time but was probably no more than 5 minutes and suddenly they all appeared. Two boys and 5 girls. More or less the same proportion of boys and girls on the ship. As with any such first meeting, it started off a little tense but we went around the table and saying each others names. I then told them who we were and asked each to say a bit about themselves. I took pictures of each one in order to remember names and faces. They were from different parts of the US and studying geology to philosophy. After a pleasant dinner we broke up and agreed to meet again once we had left South Africa. Since then, I have run into most of them in classes and corridors.

You can see the members our extended family at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/akeyserlingk/ExtendedFamilySAS09?authkey=VuOGiMSvZ2U&feat=directlink

So now we have 7 kids on board, in addition to Emmett. We will get to know them as the voyage on continues. On our last trip we had 5 such students and we are still in touch with 2 of them.

Cheers

Travel Chapter 11 Neptune

2009-02-10T21:38:00.006Z

Travel Chapter 11
February 10, 2009

Neptune celebration.

Yesterday as we approached the equator, an age old maritime rite was celebrated on board this ship. The crossing of the equator has always been a big even when sailors go through a rite of passage. This celebration goes on all ships crossing with passengers or crew who have not made the crossing. At 0730 some 25 crew members walked the cabin decks awakening the pollywogs informing them that they must report to the aft deck to meet King Neptune. Most of the adults had volunteered for roles in the court. I was the royal barber/butcher. We then paraded from the lounge forward of the ship to the aft deck 7 where there is a swimming pool. We were royally welcomed by the assembled students. They then had to be covered with oatmeal, go into the pool for cleansing, come out and kiss a great ugly dead fish and then kneel in front of the King. The king was covered in green color and had a long flowing wig. Under all that was the British captain of the ship who put up with all this for hours.

You can see pictures of this event at http://picasaweb.google.com/akeyserlingk/NeptuneOnTheExplorer2009?authkey=jXoqRnayQZA&feat=directlink

Part of the cleansing on such an occasion is to shave the hair from the head. This is voluntary but 4 of us spent the whole morning shaving heads. I am not sure what the final count was but certainly more than 50 including adults students now have bald heads. This includes our own grandson Emmett who sat down in my chair and I shaved his head. How many grandfathers get to shave the head of their grandson who submits to this voluntarily?
Emmett is now part of an elite group around the ship who run around with bald heads. There will be a group photo taken tomorrow and no doubt that will be a cherished souvenir of the voyage for Emmett.
Cheers

Alexander NIcolas Graf Keyserlingk,
Aboard the good ship Explorer
Somewhere going around the world in 104 days.
See my blog at:sandersstoryline.blogspot.com
Time of my email Greenwich Mean Time

Travel chapter 10 Rock and Roll again

2009-02-07T16:12:00.002Z

Travel chapter 10
At sea between Casablanca and Dakar, February 7.

We reboarded the ship in Casablanca on time and again just before a huge rain downfall. All students and adults made it back on the ship in time. On this ship, everybody has to be on board the ship 2 hours before sailing time. Everyone, including adults, is subject to penalties if they do not make the deadline unless they are on a ship organized trip which returns late. The penalty is called:”dock time”. This implies that if one is late at a port, one is not allowed to go ashore for a determined number of hours depending on how late one was. It is a system which forces everybody to make every effort to be back by the time the ship leaves. As ships have fixed schedules to keep, if a passenger does not make it back to the ship their passport is left with the local agent and the passenger then has to make his or her own way to the next port. And this would also result in severe dock time penalties in addition to the embarrassment and the costs involved.

Before we pulled out of Casablanca harbor, the captain announced twice that due to heavy seas and the fact that the stabilizers would not be extended until well clear of the harbor, he expected serious rolling of the ship again. By this time, people took his announcement seriously after the mess our arrival made. We headed up to the 7th deck lounge for the departure and ship gently eased away from the pier. In the harbor, the water was calm as we made our way to the mouth of the harbor and the high seas. As we cleared the last wave breaker, the ship started again to roll very sharply to left and right reaching 28 or 29 degrees of list in both directions. In our lounge, chairs started to slide and people had to hang on tightly to the small tables which were secured to the deck. Many of the students sat on the floor in the main lobby using each other as support. The whole ordeal lasted only 10 minutes but caused huge damage around the ship and several people were injured by sliding or loose furniture. The toll was a cut head, a broken wrist and several leg and shoulder injuries. The roll was such that on the 7th deck one had the impression that the ship would roll all the way to its side. Of course, this did not happen but it was impressive.

Obviously, the port of Casablanca has a design fault if such waves occur so close to the harbor entrance. But also, it is clear that the ship crew did not do a very good job in securing the ship for this event. One has to wonder why they were not better prepared. The damage in several cabins was also quite extensive with TV’s and computers flying off desks. I had luckily secured my laptop under our bed as everything on our desk and night table was on the floor when we got back to the cabin. Even the mini-fridge which is lodged in the wall above our chest of drawers came out of its hole and did not break only because the drawer below the fridge also opened and caught the fridge before it fell to the ground. Clearly these waves were much higher than is normal, but one wonders why these objects have not been properly secured. The ship has been around for 10 years and one wonders how much damage could have been avoided.

Then after a period which seemed quite a bit longer than it really was, the fins came out and the roll was reduced to more manageable proportions. One could now move around but one had to hold on to the rails to avoid being pitched against a wall or against an other person. So was the adventure of Casablanca.

We have steamed south now for 2 days and the seas have become gradually calmer. The winds have died down and the sun is again warm enough to lie out which the students are doing en masse. Yesterday afternoon, we passed close to the Canary Islands. It was a clear afternoon and one saw both of the big islands which are part of Spain. Now we are heading for Dakar where we will stop tomorrow to take on fuel for the last leg of the trip to Namibia where we will arrive in 7 days. At Dakar, we will not get off the ship as we would not get to Namibia in time to meet the schedule. We are steaming at 25 knots or 28 miles per hour which is fast for a cruise ship of this size. The ship can actually do 30 knots but its fuel consumption almost doubles. But this fast speed allows this ship to make destinations others would not reach in time to be able to stop for several days.

Classes have resumed after a period of 10 days and the school routine sets in again. Most people are operating at full tilt as the sea is quite smooth with gently rolling from ground swell. By now, most people have their sea legs and are starting to enjoy the pleasant days at sea that such a trip affords. Classes take place everyday while at sea so in this leg; there will be 9 days of class straight. This can be strenuous for both Profs and students as each class requires reading. However, on this trip, the students are allowed to drink almost every evening with a limitation of 2 bear per person. This controlled by issuing ration cards which are stamped each time a bear is ordered. It seems to work but when 500 students are standing around on the pool deck, it would be hard to control whether some students are not providing their beers to others.
One of the sad results of having more drinking evenings than on previous voyages (when there would be 1 beer night a week), is that the evening events are no longer well attended. Last evening after dinner, there was a session in the main union auditorium for students to tell of their experiences in Spain and Morocco. B and Emmett went and report that there were only 40 students. On previous voyages, these debriefing sessions were packed and the students exchanged some amazing travel stories. It is too bad as these stories enriched the experience of the places visited. Emmett got up and gave his views on Spain and Morocco noting how friendly the people of Moroccan had been, in his experience.

On my way back to the cabin, I went through the pool deck and I estimate that there were at least 450 to 500 students there having a beer or two. I guess the kids have their priorities but the travel story tradition which will get lost because of this change of policy.
That’s it for today. Must go off and attend a class.
Cheers

Alexander NIcolas Graf Keyserlingk,
Aboard the good ship Explorer
Somewhere going around the world in 104 days.
Time of my email Greenwich Mean Time

Travel Chapter 9 Morocco

2009-02-06T21:28:00.002Z

Travel Chapter 9
Our visit to Morocco

At sea off the coast of Morocco.

Due to some very rough weather, our departure from Gibraltar was delayed causing us to arrive in Casablanca 18 hours behind schedule. The winds and waves on the way from Gibraltar to Casablanca reached 9 meters at times and the ship really rocked and rolled, pitched and yawed and whatever else a ship can do. We approached the entrance of the Casa harbor about 7 pm. The captain came on the loudspeaker to announce that he would have to retract the stabilizer fins when approaching the harbor and that the ship would start to rock seriously.  The stabilizer fins are actually fins which can be extended from the sides of the ship and act to reduce the amount of roll of the ship by counterbalancing the movement of the ship. This allows the ship to move ahead without reaching any great angles of roll. About 10 minutes after this announcement, at a time when many were still having dinner, the ship commenced to heel over to almost 30 degrees. Brigitte, Emmett and I had immediately gone up to the 7th deck lounge to watch the entry. We had to hang on with all our strength to the tables in the lounge which are fixed to the floor. The ship heeled over to a point that it was a little unnerving, particularly from this high point of the 7th deck. In fact, the result of this was that the ship lost many glasses and crockery as the kitchen crew did not have time to secure everything. Why the captain did not give more notice of the upcoming rolling is not known. He certainly new he would be retracting the fins and one wonders why he gave notice only 10 minutes before the event.

Once into the harbor, the water was calm. We learnt that the storm had caused enormous damage in Morocco, with flooding, heavy winds and snow in the Atlas Mountains. In fact, we learnt later that the local travel people had already scrubbed all our tours as they did not think we would make the harbor because of the storm.  But we did, we tied up and everybody got an early night. The trip I had booked had been a 3 night bus trip to Marrakesh, Essaouri, Safi and back to Casa. In fact, the first night was dropped from the tour and we were scheduled out the next morning early. I had looked into organizing our own trip to the same destinations but car rentals in Morocco were so expensive, I could not do it cheaper than the trip offered by the ship.

You can see pictures of our Moroccan trip at: http://picasaweb.google.com/akeyserlingk/Morocco?authkey=xEJ_4JP0x2c&feat=directlink. The next morning at 8am we loaded on the bus with 40 other students and adults and headed for Marrakesh, a 3 hour drive from Casa. We had an excellent Moroccan guide with us who gave us a very good introduction to the country. We arrived in Marrakesh and had an hour walking through the main square and into the souk. The main square of Marrakesh is a huge flat area about the size of 3 football fields. It is an amazing area where all sorts of activities can be found from snake charmers to monkey trainers to groups singing and merchants selling their wares. The square is surrounded by a covered souk, or market place where there are hundreds of little stores side by side. The labyrinth of alleyways can be very disorienting and one can easily get lost as there are no reference points.

After a good Moroccan lunch of couscous with lamb at a very traditional restaurant, we were back for another tour of the main place. As the trip time had been shortened we had little time on our own. By 6 pm we were at our hotel where we checked in for the night. Dinner was not scheduled until later that evening so Emmett and I set off to reconnoiter the area which was a shopping and residential area, away from the centre. We had been charged by B to find some small colored glass vases to add to her collection.  We came across a fine store selling all sorts of typical handicraft of the country. We looked for the glass vases but found none. Emmett had expressed an interest in buying a Jebella, which are long robes with a hood which is the typical garment worn by men in Morocco. We casually asked whether they had any and of course, they did and they had many. I had given Emmett instructions in bargaining and he took to the art of bargaining like a fish to water. He tried on various garments until he found one he like, he then enquired the price and indicated that that was far too expensive. As there was no other clients in the store, we now had 3 people dealing with the Jebella purchase and Emmett was having a wonderful time as he could finally use his French with these people. After quite some time and even more price reductions he arrived at a price which was agreeable to all. He then put on his Jebella and seemed quite proud of his new garb.   I bought a few long dresses, called booboos for Brigitte and Emmett added a pair of Moroccan slippers to his collection. We then went back to the hotel, Emmett looking like a local in his hooded garb. He was quite the hit at dinner when he appeared wearing it as well as his new slippers.

The next morning we boarded the bus and headed to the coast to visit Essaouri, a beach and resort area already built up and where the Moroccan government intends to invest some US$ 1.8 billion more in developing the tourist infrastructure.   We visited the medina which is the old walled city and reboarded the bus to Safi where we spent the night in a strange hotel from city center which had no facilities. So we all went to bed early as there was nothing else to do.  They did not even have internet connection.

The next morning we headed north towards Casa but stopped in the city of El Jadida where there is a very well preserved city built by the Portuguese. There is even a huge water cistern built by the Portuguese in the 16th century which was only rediscoved in the later part of the 20th century. The whole old walled city is a UNESCO world heritage site and is well worth the visit. We reboarded the bus and headed for the harbor where we loaded back on the ship.

The trip was a good view of Morocco and certainly gave everybody a good sense of the country. It is a huge country which is endowed with a temperate climate and huge gently rolling valleys which go from the Atlas Mountains to the Atlantic. It is a fairly intensely cultivated country which exports it vegetables and fruits to Europe in the winter season. The politics seem reasonable with a king who seems to be doing the right things and who is liked, perhaps not loved, by his people. It is one of the most westernized Muslim countries which has a history and tradition of openness and hospitality. It has the problem many developing countries are facing of having a population of which over 50% is under 25 with high unemployment. Given it heavy reliance on tourism, Morocco will suffer until Europe gets over the current crisis.

Cheers

Alexander NIcolas Graf Keyserlingk,
Aboard the good ship Explorer
Somewhere going around the world in 104 days.
Time of my email Greenwich Mean Time

Travel Chapter 8-- Cocoon Effect

2009-02-05T22:34:00.002Z

SAS Travelogue Chapter 8
At sea off the coast of Morocco
February 5, 2009

We are currently just out of the harbor of Casablanca heading south towards Namibia. The sea is rough so there will be a lot of heavy sleeping by some and others will feel a bit or very woozy. The sickness bags are out everywhere just in case.

We just spent 3 days traveling around Morocco and I intend to report on this in the next chapter.

For this chapter, I want to write about the cocoon effect of taking long voyages has on travelers. Despite having fairly small cabins, it does not take long for passengers to develop a strong attachment to their cabins and to the ship itself. It becomes a comfortable environment where one's world is secure in the four walls of the cabin as well as in the public spaces which become more and more one's home away from home. As one starts to get to know more and more fellow passengers, other adults and students, the sense of community builds a fairly tight bond to the ship and shipboard life. One of the features of this cocoon effect is that one feels some apprehension to leave the ship when one arrives in a new port. All of a sudden, one is forced to leave this known environment to confront new and challenging situations. I presume prisoners in a jail develop similar feelings while locked up and when the time comes to leave the prison.

On board the ship, the routine is known, the classes take place at fixed times and the day is structured which already gives a sense of comfort. Meals happen, meetings take place one is not confronted with a world where all sorts of things can and do happen which were not in the daily program.

We have only been on voyage for 2 weeks and already this evening on returning from 3 days ashore, the students were commenting how happy they were to be getting back on board. They were saying that they were looking forward to being in their cabins and catching up with their fellow students they had not seen for 3 days!! And they only met their fellow students 2 weeks ago. It is interesting how such common and shared experiences can weld people together and create a shared world. I will be watching this effect in the course of this trip as I have watched it before. By the end of the voyage, very strong friendships have been built during the time in the cocoon.
Cheers

Alexander NIcolas Graf Keyserlingk,
Aboard the good ship Explorer
Somewhere going around the world in 104 days.
Time of my email Greenwich Mean Time

Travel Chapter 7-- Hanging out off Gibraltar

2009-02-05T22:02:00.004Z

Travel Chapter 7

Well, at sea everything can and does change. When we left last evening, Saturday January 31, we were headed for Gibraltar 100 nautical miles (115 normal miles) down the coast from Cadiz. The night was rough and things were falling off shelves as we are on the edge of a huge low pressure area just off the coast of southern Spain. We rocked and rolled but this morning we awoke to rough sees, rain and no visibility. We were in a holding pattern in the Med waiting for the weather to lift so we could get a fuel tender to come alongside and give us a load of bunker, or fuel. Around noon, the weather lifted and the sun came out but the winds were still howling. We steamed into the bay at the foot of Gibraltar and had a wonderful view of the great rock. At 5pm the fuel ship came alongside but 2 hours later it left as the seas were deemed too rough for refueling.

The whole idea of coming to Gibraltar was we need fuel to allow us to get to Dakar Senegal our next expected fueling point. Of course, the ship was in Cadiz for 4 days and surely it could have taken on fuel there. The reason we were given was that fuel in Gibraltar is cheaper.

But now we have been holding our position for almost 24 hours as we cannot anchor and I am sure any fuel savings have been consumed in just sitting here waiting. This evening it was announced that there will be another fueling attempt tomorrow if the seas quiet down but that is not expected to happen until later in the day. This means that will be arriving in Casablanca our next port at least 12 hours late and perhaps 24 hours. On a long voyage like this one can expect this kind of incident but it causes havoc with all the land arrangements the ship and the passengers have made. The original plan had been to arrive early tomorrow morning in Casa and most of the arranged trips were to leave by noon. We had booked onto a 3 night trip to Marrakesh and Essaouri. Now we are unsure what the arrangements will be but luckily that is a trip the ship organized and they will have to figure out what to do. Being on a ship, such an event is so much easier to deal with than a delay when flying. On the ship, it only means an extra day at sea, time to read, to chat, to nap and catch up with blogs all in the comfort of the great ship facilities. I would take a ship delay any time compared to sitting around an airport for hours on end with no place to relax.

This evening the ship is abuzz as there have been indications that the ship may get a signal allowing it to broadcast the super bowl. The students are all sitting around hoping to hear. Of course, as we are now 6 hours ahead of Florida, the game itself will not be played until 3 or 4 am. One kid I met at the purser’s office was seeing if he could purchase 300 minutes of internet time (at $ 250) so that he could watch it on his computer. He was fully garbed in a Pittsburg uniform which is a dead giveaway..

This evening the dean organized the second reception for the adults in the adult lounge, this time to welcome a new lecturer who lives in Morocco. The first time they held such a reception, we were not sure whether Emmett should also come but we brought him anyway as he is a full paying passenger. He loved it and spent his time chatting with various ladies in his usual suave manner. He has always been at ease with adults and being on the ship is no exception. No one minded and so he again came to the reception this evening. Up to now, he has not bonded with the college students and we hope he will eventually so that he can enjoy the student life. He does attend a 2 or 3 classes, interestingly these are science classes. Perhaps he will find his interest in the sciences later in his study life. This is one of the advantages for him to be on this trip as he can sit in on classes and get a sense of what is covered in various courses. He is also doing the reading assigned to him by his teachers back in Montreal.

Enough for today, I want to take a last look of Gibraltar all lit up at night.
We just left Casablanca. More on that later.
Cheers

Travelogue Chapter 6 Gibraltar and Spain

2009-01-31T12:25:00.006Z

Travelogue 6
Written in Cadiz Spain

We arrived in Cadiz Spain on a dark morning of January 28th. As I do as often as
possible I was out on the deck as the ship approached the pier. I always try to be on deck when the ship arrives in a port. Despite having done this so many times in my early Navy days and now later on many cruises, the sense of accomplishment of seeing land and then tying up after a voyage is wonderful. After being at sea for almost 9 days the sight of land, buildings, lights and other humans is always impressive. It is probably like returning from space. One lives in an environment where there is nothing but sea as far as the eye can see in all directions and one wonders whether this is normal or is land the normal situation of life. One sees no life, no ships and one starts to think that being on the water is actually the normal place to be given the huge expanses of water of this globe. Being on land is rather the exception but it is still nice to see that land does exist and that life is not only being on the ocean.

By 8.30 am the ship was cleared and we could collect our passports from the purser. On most ships, the passports are held by the purser’s office in order for the local authorities to do the immigration thing. As were going to be off ship for a few nights, we needed our passports. Then came leaving the ship. On most ships one is given a swipe card which is scanned when one leaves the ship and scanned again when one returns. This controls whether all passengers are on board. On this morning, the scanning system broke down and 700 people tried to disembark at the same time. The security people were reduced to handwriting each name and number and the line snaked half around the ship. Brigitte went straight to the security officer and stated that we had a plane to catch and we were whisked to the front of the line. I do not want to know how long others had to wait.

In fact, we had no plane to catch but a rental car to pick up. On this trip we had decided that we will travel with knapsacks when going ashore rather than roll-on trunks as we have in the past. We got ours from LL Bean and I got one that has wheels and a handle but which can be worn on the back. We managed to get all our things for a 3 day trip into my bag and we were good to go.

I had reserved a car from National rental on the internet while still in America. The rates on the internet can be 50% less than quoted in Europe. Our rate for 3 days worked out to be $160 plus gasoline for unlimited kilometers and a medium sized car. So we jumped into a taxi which took us way out of the city to the rental place. Cadiz is in fact a long thin spit of land so there is no room for large parking areas. We arrived at the Atesa offices and sure enough they had the car ready for us. After they filled out endless papers, we were given the keys and told the car was parked out in the street around the corner. My first attempt was not successful and I had to go back and get help to find the car which meant the lady from the office came out and trudged around until she did find the car. I then went into an office of Vodaphone and bought a Sim card for my open phone. In the rest of the world, one can purchase sim cards which are little chips that go into the phone allowing one to have a local mobile phone. This cannot be done in North America as the phone companies do not want people to have this flexibility. I have 3 such phones and I get a chip in each country just to have the security of a phone while puddling around the country side.

We then got into the car on a beautiful sunny morning and headed towards
Gibraltar which Emmett absolutely wanted to see. The Spanish roads are excellent and are very nicely laid out. The drive to Gibraltar took about 2 hours and we arrived at the boarder control at around noon. Passing through Spanish and UK immigration took all of 10 minutes and we were on the peninsula which is Gibraltar. We headed for the cable car which takes one up from sea level to the top of the rock. I had forgotten how big the rock is in fact. It is about 1 km long at the top. The view from the top on this clear morning was spectacular with a clear view of Spain, the mouth of the entrance of the Gibraltar straight and the mountains of Africa in Morocco all in one panoramic sweep. Of course, Emmett was most fascinated by the Macaque monkeys which run free at the top of the mountain as he had never been that close to one of these sweet looking robbers. They sit everywhere and wait until some tourist comes by with food which is then snatched and they are off. One can almost hear them chuckling…

You can see some pictures of Gibraltar at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/akeyserlingk/Gibraltar?authkey=IB-pudwRFeM

We spent over an hour walking around the summit taking in the wonderful views in all directions which this altitude provides. One can understand that the Spaniards would want dearly to have the rock back but there have been several referenda organized by the brits to establish whether the locals want to be Spanish and the results have been a resounding “NO”. So Gibraltar remains UK territory. But at least they do not drive on the wrong side of the road. Most people speak Spanish and the Euro is quoted everywhere. But there are British military as well as bobby policemen and British street markings so one has the sense of being in Britain,

So we jumped on the lift and headed down. On the way down we learnt that the lift will be closed in March so all the cables and equipment can be changed after 7 years of use. It was a little disconcerting to be riding a system which was nearing the end of its useful and safe life. But I am pleased t report that we made it to the bottom safely. But not before we received a lecture from the cable car driver on how the monkey’s numbers are controlled either by sending the excess numbers to zoos or by culling which he found repugnant. “They even look like us”. Well, that statement held true for him but not for most people…

So we jumped back into our nice new Citroen and headed north towards Granada. I had not made any hotel arrangements as I was not sure how far we would get in that first day. We headed along the Costa del Sol passing through huge numbers of housing developments the Spaniards had built and sold to German and British tourists over the years. I had not seen these places and frankly I was astounded at the vast numbers of theses building all along the coast. Not the kind of place I would want to spend a vacation but apparently these had been hugely successful for years and sold like hotcakes in their time. Nowadays, there are vast projects sitting half completed awaiting customers, even more so now that the recession has officially arrived in Spain. Just yesterday it was announced at the same time as one of the biggest building companies declared bankruptcy leaving banks holding about US$ 5 billion in unpaid debt. One wonders what archeologists will have to say about our society when they discover these honey combed hills with thousands of flats stuck together on the hillsides. They will probably think that our society was a very friendly one as these people all chose to live within spitting distance from each other…

The drive then turned off and we headed northeast into the Sierra Nevada Mountains towards Granada. We hit fog patches as we climbed up to over 3000 feet and then the air cleared as we approached Granada which we reached at around 4pm. I had no idea where we would spend the night but took some streets which were for pedestrians only and ended up facing what looked like a nice place near the cathedral of Granada, in the old part of the city. After negotiating with the front desk for a room for 3 at Euro 70 a night we unloaded our gear and took possession of our fairly large room on the main pedestrian street of this lovely part of Granada. I parked the car in a parking building a few blocks away as I did not want to have to drive the narrow streets of this city.

The first thing I needed to do was spend an hour on the phone with the Bank Credit Union which had blocked my visa card when I went to use it for the first time in
Spain. This took a good hour and a lot of bad thoughts on my part. Before leaving home I had sent the Credit Union a note which they acknowledged receiving in which I informed them of our travel plans naming the cities we would visit. In the first city, they blocked my card which is my main source of cash when traveling. I also carry another card just in case. After an hour with someone in Washington who excused himself for the blocking as he could see my travel notification. One wonders where they draw the line on security and start to be incompetent. I have since received many excuses from the management of the credit union but it is irritating.

That evening we walked along the busing pedestrian streets, through the many plazas of the area and found a small restaurant for an early Spanish dinner at 8.30 pm… We decided to stay 2 nights in Granada given our nice hotel and the fact that the next day we would be visiting the Alhambra. I had booked tickets on the website (http://www.alhambratickets.com/) which is needed as they control the crowds by issuing tickets which only allow one in at the assigned times. The next morning after a leisurely breakfast and some more walking we jumped one of the double decker tour busses one finds in most European cities. These allow one to jump on and off at different stops and the tickets are valid for 48 hours. We saw that one of the stops was the Alhambra so we could jump off there, do our tour and catch the next one to complete the circuit.

The visit to the Alhambra was again amazing. I had been there 3 or 4 times already and each time I find it more beautiful. It was the palace of the Arab governor of Spain and Morocco and it is one of the most beautiful buildings in the world. There is a sense of beauty and peace in this building that is unique in the world. It emplacement high above the valley of Granada affords it the most beautiful views in all directions. The intricate stone carvings, reflecting pools and geometric gardens with flowering trees and oranges always gives me a sense of being in a world away from the world. To visit the place really one needs a full day. We spent many hours there on that beautiful sunny afternoon and left only because some of us were starting to starve.

We hopped back on the double decker and headed back to the starting point of the tour which took about 45 minutes. B loves these buses. So much so that she and Emmett decided just to stay on the bus and do another tour. I headed off to an internet café to catch up on my email traffic which I cannot get onboard the ship.

We met that evening and had a pleasant dinner on Plaza Bid and headed back to the hotel. Emmett needed to catch up on his Facebook traffic so we went to another café where I used my Skype connection to talk to a number of people. We got back late and slept a short night before heading to Sevilla.

We arrived in Sevilla after a 2 hour drive from Granada. The countryside is beautiful even in these winter months. The road goes through huge valleys where hundreds and thousands of Olive trees are planted from the valley floor up to the tops of the lower mountains. Part of the beauty of Andalucía is its mountains, some of which were snow covered in the distance where there are ski stations at this time of year.

In Sevilla, we parked the car on the way to the center and walked down to the old part of Sevilla. The streets are so narrow here that a car is a hindrance. After a nice walk we arrived at the center and visited the Cathedral. As it Granada, the Cathedral of Sevilla is almost too overpowering. One sees the riches which had been Spain’s in the masses amounts of gold which had been plundered from North and South America. A dark period in Spanish history for most but a glorious one for Spaniards. Again, we found the tour bus and took a long drive around Sevilla. This city does not nearly have the charm of Granada as it is much more an industrial city with a Hodgepodge of architecture from all the various periods of the city. It is also basically flat so there are few breathtaking views. After a light sandwich lunch at the Starbucks in front of the Cathedral (how touristy is that???) we jumped into a taxi to reclaim our car in the parking building near the outskirts of town and hit the road to Cadiz. We made Cadiz by 7pm in time for dinner on the ship; I dropped B and Emm at the port gates and then drove the car off to the appointed parking building where I left it and dropped the papers through a slot in the door of the office.

It just started to rain when I boarded the ship and it was nice to be home. After an early dinner, we headed for our cabins for an early night as we were all tired after a long but fun trip.
Today we ship out to Gibraltar to get fuel and then head to Morocco where we will be for 4 days.
I am posting this chapter and Chapters4 and 5 sitting in the Plaza de Minas in Cadiz where the city has set up the whole square as a free wireless area. It is a beautiful day with the sun shining and the birds chirping in the trees. Spring is in the air as the weather is slowly warming and the locals are out for their Saturday walks with the kids. Although it is about 70 degrees (21), the kids are bundled up in parkas as we would do in the dead of winter. Its what you are used to. We walked around the city and B and Emm decided to head back to the ship for lunch. I have just had some great calamares while watching the scene. We have picked up provisions for munchies and other necessities for the cabin as well as newspapers and magazines.

Pictures of our stay in Spain can be seen at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/akeyserlingk/Spain2009?authkey=YmAjkcZyQh8&feat=directlink

We ship out at 8pm this evening but everybody has to be on the ship 2 hours before shipping time Otherwise, one gets dock time which means that one is delayed from disembarking at the next port for 2 to 6 hours depending on how late one is. This is the first port so there will be some who do not realize the length of the lines one has to endure as each bag is searched to make sure the students do not smuggle stuff on board like booze. As there is only one entry, this procedure can be long so I intend to get the ship before that happens.

Cadiz, January 31, 2009.

Travelogue Chapter 5

2009-01-31T12:21:00.008Z

It is now Thursday January 23, 2009, I am told. Being on a ship in the middle of an ocean, one looses the sense of the days of the week as there aree no points of reference like a newspaper, TV news or some other medium. The only reference one has is a one page news sheet called the Deans Memo which lays out the activities of the day. Otherwise, one day does look like the other and one has difficulty trying to remember what one did on any day. This is why I write this travelogue to fix in my memory the happenings of such a long voyage.

Shipboard life is broken between A and B days and courses are taught on one or the other. As there are not enough classes to accommodate all the courses, professors share the 10 room available. In the first two or three days the student have the possibility to listen in on the courses they chose to see if they want to persue the subjects and profs chosen. If they do not like one or the other they have the option of dropping courses and choosing others. However, the classes are kept small (35 as a rule) and students are not guaranteed if they drop one course that they will get into another. For us the passengers, we have the right to sit in on any course if there is room as the students get priorty. So far I have been able to sit in on the courses which interest me. Of course, as this is my Chinese period I am in on two chinese litterature and history courses as well as one on linguistics. I shall see if I stick with that. Brigitte and Emmett are also out sniffing courses which could interest them.

Emmett is in a strange situation. He is the first young person ever to be admitted into the special group maid up of adults on this programme. There are others his age on the ship but they are dependents of Profs and staff and have limited rights. Emmett, so far, has been accepted by the other adults as he quite at ease with adults. He also sits in the one room class set up for dependents. Here he works on his own studies assigned by his teaches back home in Montreal. He will have to learn to balance his position as he will not be able to attend all adult functions. But he has been given permssion to use the adult lounge on deck 7 where no students are allowed. As long as he does abuse of this he will probably be able to move from the students to the adults while doing his own work and attending classes that interest him.

One of the things I am still dealing with on this ship is the sense of déjà vu and the impression of time stopped. Here I am, 5 years after our first voyage in 2004 and when I look around the kids are the same age as 5 years ago. They even look like the students who were with us 5 years ago. It is almost as if time stopped for 5 years and these kids just stayed the same age, 18 to 20. I struggle not to ask some of them how they managed to stay so young in the last 5 years… I suppose for professors who teach have the same experience each September but for me, it has been 5 years since I was on a ship with 720 students of this age.

Life on board is settling down as people start to get their routines fixed and assignments have to be done. But the level of activity on the ship is actually what makes this kind of traveling fun. There is always something going on but as a Life Long Learner, as we older farts are called can do as we please and do not need to write exams, term paper or even take part in quizzes.

There are some 20 professors on ship teaching some 60 classes so the choice of subjects ranges over litterature, business, sciences, philosoph, sociology and law. Some classes are definetly underattended with only 5 or 10 students while other are up to the limit.. So during the day, at the break of classes, students pour into the passage ways on their way to their next classes or their cabins. There is a fairly well equipped computer lab with about 25 machines available to students. In addition, the ship has been wired for wireless connections in most part of the vessel and many of the students have their own laptops. Like any camputs, students can be found sitting around at all hours of the night studying, writing, listening to music or just chatting.

That’s it for today from the mid Atantic.

Travelogue Chapter 4

2009-01-31T12:21:00.006Z

January 27 2009

We are now less than 200 miles from the coast of Spain as we approach Cadiz. After steaming for 8 days we will be arriving in Cadiz tomorrow morning around 6 am. The immigration people have to do what they do and we will be allowed to go ashore.

After eight days at sea during which time classes happened each day without a break and we lost an hour a day on six of the eight nights everybody is feeling tired and ready to do some land time. One of the professors described it as “Death by a thousand hours”… For both students and staff, it has been hard as it was the first leg of the trip and people had not yet settled into their normal routine. By now, classes happen smoothly although the courses I attend have regularly had a number of students who do not appear. Roll call happens in most classes so attendance is being monitored. But even those students who show up for classes often spend the hour either sleeping or doing email. As the ship is wired for wireless and many students bring their laptops to class, one can see what anyone of them is doing with their computers when one sits in the back of class as I do.

I have attended several classes to find out which subjects were interesting and which Profs were good. We can audit classes as long as there is space and the professor agrees. This means we can attend the classes but we do not need to sit for exams. I have decided to go with 3 classes, languages of the world, Chinese literature and medieval travelers.

In addition, at 0920 each morning there is a course called Global Studies which everybody is required to attend. It is a very diversified course looking at the countries we are visiting, and a range of subjects of general interest. Only one of my courses is at 0800 which means rising before the sun is up. One course at that hour is enough. Some of the classrooms are very full, while others a not well attended. I went to a class in Chinese poetry and found that there were only 2 students in the class. It really was not a very interesting course and I could see why it had so few classes. I will not being going back to that one.

Yesterday we had a tour of the ship’s bridge. It is a large area stretching all across the ship. It is manned only by the officer of the watch and a lookout while the ship is at sea. Given the high level of technology on ships today, the number of crew needed has dropped dramatically. There is no longer a helmsman as the ship is on automatic pilot, no radio operator as the ships communications are monitored by computer all the time. In fact, we have been on the same course since we left the Bahamas some 4000 miles ago. There is now a system which automatically sends out a signal to all other ships in the area which names the ship and its vital information including final destination. This is similar to what Air Traffic control does for planes but for the ships it is automated. In fact, it is really useful only in heavy traffic areas. Since we left the Bahamas, we have only sighted 3 or 4 ships. It is an indication of the size of the oceans I expect that during the night traffic will increase as we approach Cadiz and the straight of Gibraltar which handles all traffic in and out of the Mediterranean.

For the last 3 days, Global studies have been delivered by a Professor Gies of UVA. He teaches Spanish at UVA and has a deep knowledge and deeper love of Spain. In his lectures, he has convinced the students how great Spain is He has lectured on Spanish cities, paining, food and history. This is the beauty of Semester at Sea that prepares the students for the countries we visit so that they get the most out of the days in port. When we arrive in most ports we stay 4 to 5 days which gives students and adults time to travel within the country and to see many of the sites discussed in the preparatory lectures.

We are off tomorrow in a car I had already rented. Our plan is to leave Cadiz as soon as the ship is cleared by immigration, get the car and head south to Gibraltar. Emmett wants to see the big rock. We will then head north to Granada to over night there. I have not made hotel reservations as I am not sure we will get to Granada and may stop somewhere before. This should not be a problem as January is not high tourist season and hotels should be available.

For Granada, I have booked our tickets for the Alhambra which is wonderful palace built by the Arabs during their 700 year reign of Spain. We will overnight in Granada as the visit to the Alhambra takes several hours to really appreciate it. On Friday, we will head out to Sevilla and depending on how we feel we may overnight there or in Jerez de la Frontera or continue on to Cadiz after seeing Sevilla. .

Weather is expected to be cool with showers which are normal at this time of year. So we will dress warmly or at least make sure we have enough in case it does get cold. This trip we have decided to travel on land only with knapsacks which brought on board rather than with trunks. As most of visits are only for 2 to 3 days, one can live from such a bag. Or at least, that is the theory. More on that when we get back. I do not expect to be writing much while on land as we will use Internet cafes and memory sticks rather than carry around our laptops. I will also be carrying my new telephone system called Magic Jack which will allow me phone wherever I get a high speed internet connection. It is a little contraption the size of a small box of matches which plugs into the computer and allows phoning anywhere in the world. Given the high cost of Internet on the ship
(US$ 0.25) it is not worth using on the ship. Internet cafes are not expensive so we will do our bill paying and other chores like loading up pictures (of which I have few so far) while on land.

So much for now.

Travelogue Chapter 3

2009-01-22T18:34:00.003Z

From now on I will be posting to this blog via email. As I now have a free email on board the ship, I will be able to post more regularly than last time when I was dependent on shore based internet café. As for internet, the Semester at Sea programme allows free access to some 20 websites useful in research and gives 2 hours of free internet access to other sites. After that, one pays a hefty fee while on the ship. My email on board is:ankeyserlingk@semesteratsea.net

But let me start at the beginning.

On January 16th we moved into the Dulles Marriot hotel to spend the night before our departure near the airport. We do this as it permits us to leave our home in leisure and also to be near the airport in case of snow. It beats trying to finish packing, clean the house and close the house on the morning of the flight. On two trips, this has saved us from missing ships because of heavy January snow storms. It is a cheap insurance to be sure to make the flight. Ships don’t wait and you would need to fly to the next port if you miss the ship.

We arrived in Nassau as did our 4 bags and we headed to our hotel, the Nassau Palm. It is a somewhat rundown hotel built in the ‘60’s but is very convenient to downtown and to the port. Nick, our son, his wife Milena and son Emmett arrived late that night. The meeting in Nassau was the hand over of Emmett from his parents to us for the long voyage.

The next morning I checked out of the hotel and found that the meaning of “It is better in the Bahamas” actually refers to paying taxes. In the Bahamas, one pays some 40% in various and sundry taxes above the quoted room rate. I was quite upset by this as I would imagine most visitors are as there is no mention of this punitive tax in the quotes and literature. If you like taxes, “It is better in the Bahamas”…

On the morning of Saturday, we the Life Long Learners (LLL’s) who are non staff adults were allowed to board the ship. On this trip we are only 1 LLL’s including grandson Emmett. This is a great improvement because when the 750 students board, it can take 3 hours of standing in line. This is what we went through in 2004, the first time we sailed with Semester at Sea.

Once on board, we were shown to our cabin. It always shocks me on boarding a ship to find the small size of the cabins. This time our cabin is 10 feet by 15 feet plus the toilets and closets. It takes a while to settle that this is going to be home for 3.5 months but in fact after storing the gear, hanging the family calendar and the world atlas on the walls the place looked like ours. Also there are huge mirrors which give an added sense of space. At any rate, one does not normally spend a lot of time in the cabin as one attends classes, reads on the outside decks or in the various lounges throughout the ship.

On Monday, we finished up doing a few purchases for the trip and after lunch with Milena and Nick, we boarded the ship for a 5pm departure. It was a beautiful sunny day. The ship rails were shoulder to shoulder with students waiving to about 500 parents who had accompanied their kids to Nassau. The next time most kids will see their parents will be in Miami on our return. The captain backed off the pier, turned the ship in an elegant manner and headed us out to sea.

So we are now on the first leg of this around the world trip. B and I have been to all the ports we will visit but the fun thing will be that will be able to show our grandson Emmett around the world.. It will be a unique experience for all of us and a voyage of discovery.

From 1000 miles off shore heading 080 degrees, I sign off. More later.

Travelogue Chpater 2a

2009-01-22T14:29:00.001Z

Travelogue 3-Travelogue by email
This is my first posting using a tool which allows me to post to the travelogue via email. As I now have a shipboard email address, this will allow me to post even while at sea, if it works....
This will be a short post as I am not sure how this works. I am writing this on our 3rd day at sea about 1/3 rd of the way between the Bahmas and Cadiz in Spain.

Alexander NIcolas Graf Keyserlingk,
Aboard the good ship Explorer
Somewhere going around the world in 104 days.
Time of my email Greenwich Mean Time

Travelogue Chapter 2

2009-01-08T15:56:00.006Z

January 8, 2009
Well, we are now a little over a week from our departure and we are like squirrels who are preparing for the winter. Piles of things are being assembled here and there around the house to be packed when the trunks come out. We both have our hordes to which we add as we think of things we want to have with us. As I will be traveling for over 3 months, I like to have as many of my toys (read electronic gadgets) as possible with me without going bancrupt paying overweight on the flights to and from the ship. My experience is that one can get most things one really needs while underway so I have cut back my must-have list over the years. At the end of this contribution, I have pasted in a useful packing list provided by our group leader. It applies to any trip and could be useful when going on longer trips.
This will be our second voyage with the Semester at Sea program as we did our first trip with them in 2004. You can see more on this program by visiting their website: http://www.semesteratsea.org/
We are both looking forward to it as our experience on longer cruises on normal cruise ships is that they are really not intellectually very stimulating. Semester at Sea, SAS, is a floating university with 650 college juniors and seniors from over 100 universities, mainly Americans but also a few from other countries as well as some 40 professors so that one lives in an enclosed university campus which is very intense. We will be attending classes and I expect I will again be recruited to participate in various functions around class work as was the case back in 2004. It is fun and it is alive and people think and talk and read and exchange ideas.

An added element on this trip will be that we will be taking our 14 year grandson, Emmett with us. He is the son of our son Nico. Emmett has always been quite a bit ahead of his age level having already jumped one class. He is interested in many things, eats books, plays music, has a memory like a sponge and wants to learn more all the time. He will be able to sit in on the various classes if there is room and will also have to keep up with his own class work to be able to write his exams on his return to his high school in Montreal in mid-may.

Will all meet up in Nassau on the 17th of January as Emmett and Nico and Milena, Nicks wife, are all coming down together. We then have 2 days in the Bahamas before shipping out on the evening of the 19th of January.
The big news today is that the ship management has decided they do not want to have to deal with pirates in the Gulf of Aden and our itinerary now does not take us into the Mediterranean (no Italy, Turkey nor Egypt). Now will go to Spain and then head down to Morroccco, Namibia, South Africa and Mauritius on our way to India where the voyage continues as planned before. Frankly, we are quite happy with the change as we both love going to Africa and it will us the chance to show a bit of Africa to Emmett. The itinerary is shown below as well as our port contacts through most of the voyage.

As you can see from the itinerary, the trip routine is 5 days at sea when classes take place and usually 5 days in harbor when everyone can go ashore an explore the countries we visit. For the students, these trips ashore are most often related to what they are studying on board the ship.

Spring 2009 Itinerary/Calendar (Revised)
Destination ArriveDepart Day Date Time
Nassau, Bahamas
Depart Monday 19 January 1700
Cadiz, Spain
ArriveDepart WednesdaySaturday 28 January31 January 08002000

Casablanca, Morocco
ArriveDepart MondayThursday 02 February05 February 08002000

Walvis Bay, Namibia
ArriveDepart SaturdayMonday 14 February16 February 08002000

Cape Town, South Africa
ArriveDepart WednesdaySunday 18 February22 February 08002000

Port Louis, Mauritius
ArriveDepart FridayFriday 27 February27 February 08002200

Chennai, India
ArriveDepart ThursdayMonday 05 March09 March 08002000

Laem Chabang (Bangkok), Thailand
ArriveDepart SundayThursday 15 March19 March 08002000

Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam
ArriveDepart SundayFriday 22 March27 March 08000600
Hong Kong/Shanghai, China
ArriveDepart SundayFriday 29 March03 April 08002000

Kobe/Yokohama, Japan
ArriveDepart MondayFriday 06 April10 April 08002100
(Cross International dateline, add one day)

Honolulu, Hawaii, USA
ArriveDepart SundayMonday 19 April20 April 06002000

Puerto Quetzal, Guatemala(Antigua, Guatemala City)
ArriveDepart TuesdayThursday 28 April30 April 11002000
(Transit Panama Canal - Sunday, 03 May)

Fort Lauderdale, Florida, USA
Arrive Wednesday 06 May 0800

C A L E N D A R A N D COMMUNICA T I O N - SPRING 2009 VOY AGE

Communications Port agents
Telephone/Fax: Dial the following toll-free number: 877-266-0986 (if calling outside the U.S.: 872-335-3265). You will be asked to provide a credit card number and charged approximately $3.95 USD per minute. A shipboard operator will answer the call and
connect you directly to the phone in the participant’s cabin (note: charges initiate as soon as the shipboard operator receives the call). To send a fax, call 954-538-6163 (regular toll call). The recipient will be charged $5.00 USD per page.
Airmail: The U.S. Post Office recommends sending international airmail at least two weeks in advance, or earlier, as mail service varies in each country. Do not send currency. Sending packages is not recommended because of customs restrictions and/or duty charges (as a result, packages are not always received by the intended recipient onboard). The port agent in each country makes every possible effort to deliver mail to the ship or forward delayed mail to a future port, but cannot assume responsibility for undelivered or lost mail.

Address mail to participants as follows:
Name of Recipient
C/O: MV Explorer
Arrival Date
Port Agent Address (from list below)
PORT ARRIVE DEPART ADDRESS OF PORT AGENT SUGGESTED AIRMAIL DATE

Cadiz, SPAIN Jan 28 Feb 01 Perez Y CIA S.L. Jan 14
Phone: 34 956 276 112 0800 2000 C/ Ecuador, 2
Fax: 34 956 276 766 11007 Cadiz, SPAIN

Casablanca, MOROCCO Feb 02-05 Phone: 212 61 29 8894 Fax: 212 22 48 4793 January 18
LASRY MAROC S.A. 30 Avenue des Far 20000 Casablanca, MAROC

Walvis Bay, NAMIBIA Feb 14-16 Phone: 264 64 201 2200 January 31
OCEAN LINER SERVICES The Maritime Building2 Third Steet / PO Box 4 Walvis Bay, REPUBLIC OF NAMIBIA

Cape Town, SOUTH AFRICA Feb 18-22 Phone: 27 21 419 8660 Fax: 27 21 413 0290 February 4th
JOHN T. RENNIE & SONS19th FLOOR No.1 Thibault Square 8001 Cape Town, SOUTH AFRICA

Port Louis, MAURITIUS Feb 27th Phone: 230 202 70 40 Fax: 230 208 58 14z February 13
IRELAND BLYTH LIMITED Shipping Operations DepartmentNo 6 Dr Ferriere StreetPort Louis, MAURITIUS

Chennai, INDIA March 05 March 09 J. M. Baxi & Co. Feb 19
Phone: 91 44 252 12032 0800 2000 3rd Floor, Clive Battery Complex
Fax: 91 44 252 43813 4 & 4A, Rajaji Salai
Chennai 600 001, INDIA

Bangkok, THAILAND March 15 March 19 OIA GLOBAL LOGISTICS (THAILAND) Ltd Feb 27
Phone: 66 2 285 6880 0800 2000 1168 / 20 - 4th Floor
Fax: 66 2 285 6686 Lumpini Tower Rama 4 Road
Thungmahamek, Sathorn
BANGKOK 10120, THAILAND

Ho Chi Minh City, VIETNAM March 22 March 27 General Forwarding Agency March 6
Phone: 84 8 825 7996 0800 0600 5th Floor Osic Building
Fax: 84 8 824 2996 8 Nguyen Hue Avenue
D. 1, Ho Chi Minh City, VIETNAM

HONG KONG March 29 March 30 Inchcape Shipping Services (HK) Ltd. March 13
Phone: 852 2786 1155 0800 2000 Units 1802-1805, 18th Floor
Fax: 852 2744 3240 N° 3 Lockhart Road
Wanchai, HONG KONG – CHINA

Shanghai, CHINA April 02 April 03 Penavico Shanghai March 19
Phone: 86 21 6323 1350 0800 2000 3/F 13 Zhong Shan Road (E 1)
Fax: 86 21 6329 1519 Shanghai 200002, P.R. CHINA

Kobe, JAPAN April 06 April 07 Inchcape Shipping Services (Japan) Ltd. March 23
Phone: 81 78 391 3046 0800 2000 Kenryu Bldg, Room 502
Fax: 81 78 391 3105 6, Kaigan-dori, Chuo-ku
Kobe-shi, Hygo-ken 650-0024, JAPAN

Yokohama, JAPAN April 09 April 10 INCHCAPE SHIPPING SERVICES March 26
Phone: 81 45.201 6991 0800 2000 2F Asahi Seimei Yokohama Honcho Bldg
Fax: 81 45.212 1614 36, 4-Chome Honcho, Naka-ku
Yokohama-shi, Kanagawa-ken 231-0005, JAPAN
Honolulu, HAWAII April 19 April 20 Inchcape Shipping Services April 3
Phone: 1 808 599 8604 0600 2000 521 Ala Moana Blvd.
Fax: 1 808 599 1950 Suite 256
Honolulu, HI 96813

Puerto Quetzal, Guatemala April 28 April 30 Transoceanicas S.A. April 14
Phone: 502 7881 2325 1100 2000 Modulo #208
Fax: 502 7881 1319 Nuevo Edificio de Servicios Auxiliares II
Puerto Quetzal, Escuintla, GUATEMALA, C.A.
Arrival/departure times are listed above in local times. Based on Eastern Standard Time, the time on-ship is behind by the number of hours listed below:
Spain: +6 hours Italy: 7 hours India: +10.5 hours Thailand: +11 hours
Vietnam: +11 hours Hong Kong: +12 hours China: +12 hours Japan: +13 hours Hawaii: -6 hours Guatemala: -2 hours

Suggested Packing list
Address book
Advil/aspirin
Aftershave
Alarm clock-portable
Backpacks X2
Extra backpack(s) (to bring home purchased items)
Baggies—sm. and lg.
Bandaids
Batteries
Birthday cards
Beach towel
Binoculars
Booze/wine
Business cards
Calendar
Cameras
Sewing kit
CD’s and DVD’s
DVD player
Clothespins
Coffee mugs w/tops
Credit/ATM cards
Contacts/cleaners
Cotton balls
Deet
Dental floss
Deodorant
Dirty clothes bag
Dominos
Ear plugs
Extension cord
Cell phone/charger
Fanny packs
Flashlight
Foot spray
Gel
Gifts (small give-aways for foreign children)
Gifts (small treats for your on-board “family members”)
Reading glasses
Hairbrushes
Handwash-anticeptic-water free
Heating pad
Laptop
Lotions
Make-up/bag
Magnets
Markers
Money
Nail clippers/file/polish/remover
Neosporin
Nightlight
Notebooks/paper
Nuts/munchies
Paperbacks
Passports and copies
Pencils/pens
Photos from home
Pills/vitamins
Playing cards
Printer/color cartridges
Power bars
Q-tips
Razor blades/razors
Room deodorize
Seasick patches/pills
Shampoo
Shaving cream
Shower gel
Sleeping bags (if planning to camp)
Snack foods
Stationery
Sunglasses
Sunscreen
Superglue
Swiss army knife
Tape
Special teas/coffees
Thank you cards
Tooth brushes/paste
Towelettes-moist
Travel books/maps
Umbrellas/rain gear
Watches
Water bottles

CLOTHES:
Underwear
Socks
Sweatshirts (2)
Turtlenecks (2)
Scarves
Sweaters/jackets for indoors (2)
Jeans (2)
Sweats (2)
Sneakers (1 pr)
Dress boots/flats (1 pr)
Flip-flops (2-3)
Slippers
Rain coat/jacket w/liner
Cocktail dress/shawl …forAmbassador’s Ball
“Business casual” outfits (2)
…for Captain’s dinner, etc.
(ie. skirt/nice pant outfit)
Pants (2)
Shorts (2)
Blouses (2)
Capris (2)
T-shirts (4)
…short and long sleeved
Bathing suit
PJ’s (2)
Jewelry (not much!)
…earrings/watch/necklaces
Caps
Gloves

Joe’s List
(Scratch the blouses/ capris/
skirts/scarves, etc. J and add…

Sport coat/tie/dress shirt (Ambassador’s Ball)
Dress shoes
Dockers/nicer pants/
shirt/sweater (2)
…for Captain’s dinner, etc.

Traveloque chapter 1

2008-11-24T22:34:00.003Z

I will be using this blog to write about our upcoming ship voyage around the world with our 14 year old grandson Emmett. We leave from the Bahamas on January 9, 2007. If you are interested in following our progress, just log on from time to time to this blog. Feel free to share this blog with other who you think would be interested in our story.
While I am on this voyage, my email will be
ankeyserlingk@semesteratsea.net.