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
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Travel Chapter 21 Thailand and Cambodia bis
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
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
Friday, March 20, 2009
Travel Chapter 20-- Thailand and Cambodia
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
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
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Travel Chapter 19 India
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
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
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Travel Chapter 18. Mauritius:What a difference an island makes.
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
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
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Travel Chapter 17 A day on MV Explorer
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
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
Monday, February 23, 2009
Travel Chapter 16-South Africa
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
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
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