Suppose This is God Talking????

Yes, we got to the hotel.  And it is everything you dream of in a luxury hotel.  There were Bentleys and Lamborghinis and Mercedes parked at the entrance.  And the entrance was grand, marble everywhere.  After all, this is one of the capitals of modern world commerce!  It's what you would expect, right??

Just some of the expensive
road trophies in front of the hotel

Splendid Lobby of Shangri-La

 And God felt he needed to teach me a lesson.  A lesson about enjoying life a little too much.  Now, granted, we were in a crowd of 200 people from the ship checking in in waves of crowds.  And I was exhausted after the heat, the humidity, the birds, the flowers.  But I am also a klutz.  I guess God thought it was the perfect time to take the shine off the rose, so to speak.  So, hauling a wheeled carryon, I tripped on one of the marble stairs and fell, face-forward on my left knee, catching myself with my right hand and my right foot.  Yup.  It hurt.  Yup.  I can't walk.  Or use my right hand. Yup, I'm in a wheelchair.  Nice ending.  Especially with 3 days in Hong Kong, stuck in a hotel room.

So, after the shock wore off, we felt we better see a doctor to see if anything was broken.  We called the hotel concierge and she arranged for a bellboy to wheel me (no kidding) out the front doors (with the Bentleys surrounding me), to the shopping center next door where the doctor was located.  In a shopping center -- and I do mean shopping center.  Do we have that in the states?? blink. I just kept saying to myself, "I'll never see these people again.  I'll never see these people again!"

The Bellboy at the door.

So there I was, with a bellboy with his red coat and cute little hat, Bos huffing along, going past store after store (some great jade things in the window of one store), up the elevator to a doctor.  Who saw me right away, no waiting.  Cost $80.  And that included bandages, medicine, visit.  Such a nice guy.  He trained in Sydney and he was headed to Atlanta Saturday to the CDC for more training and research.  He looked 20 (as all Asians seem to look!) but was 45 and told us his wife worked for Cathay Pacific, which is the airlines we are taking, hopefully, HOME!!  We told him about a restaurant in Atlanta that Betsy loves and he wrote it down, so he may actually go there.  And, after examining my broken parts, he asked if there was anything else I needed him to look at!  Wow!!!

Damage from my fall?  He thinks there are no breaks, although, without x-rays he couldn't say definitively.  And this morning my knee feels improved, my foot is slightly better -- my hand, however, not improved. His orders were to stay put and not move; no walking for now.  Of course, we are in one of the world's most fascinating cities.  So definitely stay put in the hotel!!  Ugh.  And I found out how much one uses a right hand, unfortunately!  But we have arranged for airport transportation, wheelchairs at the airports, and we still have a day to go here to see if things get better!!!

What is Bos doing?  Well, you all know him.  He went out browsing to some of the plethora of shops around and, instead of buying stuff for our family and friends, he took PICTURES to show me!  So I could have the final say, if at all.

And I guess we could say that is sightseeing in Hong Kong via proxy!!

THE END!

Herbal medicine shop near hotel

Get your own stone seal for your letters
documents in this place nearby

One of many buildings that have a hole
to allow the dragon that resides in the mountain
behind to reach the sea.  Feng Shui.
Owners say its to reduce wind resistance.

Hong Kong ... The Good, Bad and Ugly...

The smog can with us
to Hong Kong

So, about Hong Kong.  First, I need to tell you we sailed into Hong Kong a day and a half before we got off the ship.  That meant that we had a shore trip introducing us to Hong Kong while we were still onboard.  Here's what I learned: Hong Kong is made up of 3 parts.  Originally, Hong Kong island was what Queen Victoria had.  Then, because they were crowded, they got Kowloon.  When that filled up, they asked for and got, what they called New Territories, where the airport is.  Hong Kong has 7 million people, 3 million of whom live in public housing because they don't make enough to ever buy a house.  That makes, according to our guide, Hong Kong government the biggest landlord in the world.  Interesting.  Also, those people living in public housing, which means you make less than $1050 a month, pay only 10% of their gross income for housing.  And that yields you a living space in a high rise of 90 sq. ft. per person -- for a family of 4 that would be 360 sq. ft. Another fact, in Hong Kong, there are 4800 people per square mile, while in the US it is 35 people per square mile.  an interesting comparison.Taxes??  Well, Hong Kong government is so rich that last year they gave everyone over 18 $6,000 back.  And they may do that again, they say.  In addition, the highest tax rate is 15%.  No one pays over that.  As to property tax, some years no one pays property tax either.  It just depends.

  And you don't own a car here because, to park a car, it would cost you $450/month for your home parking and another $450/month at work.  So you take public transportation --mostly double decker busses.  Another reason you might not want to buy a car is: depending on the car, you pay tax on that car based on what it is.  The cheapest might be a Toyota Corolla.  And a Bentley or Mercedes would cost you 85% tax, while a Lamborghini would cost you 100%.  Funny thing:  we saw LOTS of Mercedes, Bentleys, Lamborghinis on the road and at our hotel!

The steep climb to Victoria peak

Tram station at bottom

The guide so you know what you're NOT seeing in the smog

The millionaires row and apartments
in the Aberdeen area

The impossibly poor fishermen that live in these sampan
villages at the foot of the multimillion $$$ apartments,
also in theAberdeen area.

Giant floating restaurant. One of many in the harbor

Sampan tour dock

MOtorized sampan for ferry traffic

Anyway, the richest Europeans live on Victoria mountain, which has a tram going up that we got to ride.  And the Chinese were forbidden to live on the mountain, so they chose the beach location!  I'd rather be at the beach, personally!!  And shopping.  Well, shopping is what Hong Kong is all about.  In fact, a clever Hong Kong tailor even came on board our ship in one of our stops and proceeded to offer custom suits made to measure by the time our boat got to Hong Kong!!!  For men and women.  And I must admit, when we got to Hong Kong, I see custom tailor shops on every block here!!  In fact, the men and women dress impeccably in their tailored suits and we, from the casual boat environment, look very "country bumpkin"!

Just had to have this for lunch!

Aren't these 

One giant Toys R Us

Shopping centers are also EVERYWHERE!  When we got off the ship, we had to walk (clever Chinese merchants!) through the world's largest shopping center at the cruise ship terminal -- 700 stores in one location!!  From KFC to Rolex to designer duds to a plethora of kids' shops!  And, when you ride around and ogle the streetside shops, you need to look up -- because on the second floor and up, you will undoubtedly find a shopping center!!! In fact, when I needed to see a doctor, he was in a shopping mall next to the hotel.  But more on that later.  We would call it enterprising Chinese!!!  Throughout history, the Chinese have been very clever and smart merchants, even in ancient Egypt!  And you can see that continuing here.  Lots of ways for the Chinese to part you from your money.


Patrick our tour guide took us to the Hong kong bird market.  Bird market!?  Well, there's an explanation.  With the very tiny apartments people can't have dogs or cats; not enough room.  So, people buy songbirds to be companions and to talk to.  You will see men (mostly men do this) 'walking' their birds.  That's right, walking their birds.  They go out to the park to give the birds fresh air and socialize with their friends.  Just like dog people.  They talk to the birds every day and our guide's father has four birds and spends time apologizing to the other birds because he can only take one out at a time.  The market has all kinds of birds; magpies, cockateels, parakeets, etc.  there also lots of food like crickets, mealy worms and all sorts of seeds to suit your bird's taste.

This sign was found at the entrance of the bird market.

Looking over new arrivals!

One of the favorites
oriental white eye

He also took us to the Hong Kong flower market, which appears to be a never-ending block after block area of flower shops, where flowers from all over the world are flown in and sell out daily.  There are flowers from Holland, from Hawaii, from South Africa in stall after stall.  And the market is open daily, so both hotels, offices, homes are well supplied with this profusion of unique and colorful flowers. By this time, we were dripping in sweat, praying to get to the hotel.

More 

Just some of the variety

OK, I just had to ad this odd one.  Bottle plant to catch flys

One typical shop

Just one log row of the blocks of shops

FINALLY!! We got to the hotel.... and then the next disaster struck!  Next blog!!

Where Opium Played a Part...

Canton harbor (Huang Pu) from our balcony at mid-morning.

It sounds romantic to say you are cruising on the South China Sea.  At least, it does to me.  But what we found when we docked in Canton, China, was thick thick smog.  Canton is the largest province in China and is probably one of the biggest manufacturing ports in China as well.  It is at the mouth of the Pearl River, one of the three most important rivers in China.  Why important? Because these three rivers carry a lot of the goods made in China to market, rather than trucks on roads!! The other part of the Canton area is Macau nearby.  Macau was originally owned by the Portuguese -- these southeast Asia islands were originally "owned" by a pollyglot of nations!  And Macau is a huge gambling area.  Gambling is forbidden in China, so, if you have the desire to lose your money, you just go the hour to Macau -- between Canton and Hong Kong.  And there are casinos, casino boats galore, all sorts of ways to gamble and/or do illegal things.  Because the Chinese really do love to gamble!  Anyway, to go on....

Canton is no longer called "Canton" anymore though.  Now, as a Chinese province, it is called Guangzhou.  So, if you are reading the newspaper (or internet) and they say Guangzhou, you'll know where they are talking about!  Anyway, as part of your today's history lesson, (and the part I find most interesting!) is this is the location of the two Opium Wars.  Now I had no idea what the opium wars were, although I had heard of them.  They occurred, #1: 1839-1842/ #2: 1856-1860.

It seems Great Britian had a lot of opium (from Afghanistan) and they found a very ready market in China.  In the 17th century, the Chinese, who already knew about opium, learned how to mix it with tobacco to smoke it -- and it was a big hit!!  So big in fact that by 1858, the Chinese were consuming 4,480 tons a year!!  Well, the emperor at the time, in year 1838, was distressed by this -- lost work time, "drunk" Chinese everywhere, lost tax money as well.  So he passed an edict that it was against the law to sell opium in China and arrested all the opium dealers.  The Brits were, obviously, very unhappy about this, so they sent an army to fight the Chinese and won, culminating in the Treaty of Nanking in 1842 -- which made China open to opium and other trade things and ceded Hong Kong to Queen Victoria, whom I am sure had no idea where it was or what it was!  The Chinese call the following century, "The century of Chinese humiliation." The second opium war opened even more China and the Brits got Kowloon, a kind of suburb of Hong Kong, as a prize!

 And it stayed that way until 1997, when Britian's "lease" on Hong Kong ran out and China took over.  Personally, I remember the fear I read about as the international companies, who had enjoyed the British rule for over a century, worried what would happen with China.  Fortunately, they had nothing to worry about! In fact, China allowed Hong Kong to become a SAR, Special Administrative Region, which means they have a lot of privileges including a different set of laws that the rest of China does not have.  I imagine that has to do with the booming economy in Hong Kong and the tax dollars generated there!

At 2:00 pm

In any case, history lesson over.  Smog still there.  Eyes burning, throat sore, we left Canton and its industrial aspect, to sail to Hong Kong....and my views of Hong Kong next!

The Easy Way Out…

View from stateroom
as we sailed into Haung
Long (Hanoi)

Today was a day we skated out on sightseeing trips!  We had our choice of an 11 hour trip to Hanoi (3 hours to get there and 3 hours to get home) or a nice easy ride on a Chinese junk without sails to look at “monoliths” in the bay.  Guess which one we took??!  Hanoi was the capitol of the Viet Cong during the Vietnamese war (or as they call it here “The American War”) and is, as they describe it, “grim.”  We loved Saigon, which I’d call bright and cherry, and Da Nang, which we enjoyed from the perspective of seeing Hoi An, the ancient trading center.  I didn’t need “grim.”  And all of a sudden, it is COLD here!  Did I pack cold clothes?  Of course not.  Not even a jacket or long sleeve sweater!  Why oh why does this always happen on a vacation??!!

Our "Junk"

So off we went for a short bus ride to get on the junk and float to see the monoliths.  I bet you are wondering what monoliths are.  The monoliths are huge toothlike structures made of weathered limestone, sticking up out of the water.  Actually, they are quite remarkable.  And, because we are in a country where superstition and myths predominate, each one of the many, many structures have names – one looked like the face of an old man and another looked like a banana or ----.  You get it! 

The Littlest vendor!

One of the fun things was, as soon as we got a bit out in the bay, we had other junks sidle up to our boat.  They had baskets of odd and assorted fruit like apple bananas, star fruits, dragon fruit, mango and papaya.  And little kids, not much older than

3- year old Iris, would jump from that boat to our boat and try to sell us the fruit!  And there was laundry drying on the back of the boat.  So we figured they live on the boat!!  The littlest kid had no shoes and he had the dirtiest feet and legs, raggedy clothes and was darling.  His dad was steering the junk.  And they kept up with our boat until, finally, finding no takers, they jumped back gracefully onto their boat home and took off to find another boat full of tourists!  How lucky our kids are that they don’t live on “junks” and can take baths!!!

Along with that, a Vietnamese young lady appeared with a box of irregular pearls in various size strings, trying to sell us necklaces or earrings.  And, when that didn’t work, she tried to sell us embroidered pictures.  Because she didn’t speak English, she would write a figure on a piece of paper and then you were supposed to write a lower figure on that paper --- until you came to an agreement.  I felt sorry for her, but I really didn’t need any more pearls!!! 

Monoliths

More monoliths

Monolith called the
 "Thumb" or......

Floating village among the monoliths

This was our last tour in Vietnam and a good one to end on.  We have seen enough temples, markets, monoliths, cultures in Southeast Asia to last a lifetime.  So tomorrow is our last sea day and then on to a days’ stop in Canton, China followed by our disembarkation in Hong Kong.  We are excited to see Hong Kong, a city we’ve heard so much about.  We will be able to compare it to Singapore.  And, regardless, when we get home and are reading the newspapers and news magazines, we now won’t be able to lump all those exotic names together.  We will now know what they are talking about when they say “Bangkok”, “Singapore”, “Hanoi”, even “Darwin.”  And we will feel we are much better educated internationally. 

"Pearls" before us

Us among the monoliths

What can I say

Exit the monoliths

BUT we will be overjoyed to be home, snow and all!!!

Shopping New Jersey " Style in Vietnam...

Morning view from
our stateroom

Da Nang downtown an our way to Hoi An

I'm sure in happens on every vacation, on every cruise, nearly every day.  The "shoppers" appear, like magic.  We had planned a trip to Hoi An, a village on the registry of historic sites worldwide.

Canal in Hoi An

Japanese covered bridge.

Ancient traders house

  Why, you ask?  Hoi An, at one time long long ago, was a major trading location on the "perfume route" in the Far East, where traders from many different countries met to exchange and bargain.  This area, as a matter of fact, is one of the premiere silk producing areas still in the world.  And the village is largely intact, with one old Chinese traders' house that was over 400 years old.  We thought this would be a good historical visit and you know how I love history!!

Silk cacoons drying after dying.
The shoppers took one,
hope the USDA doesn't find it!

But I had forgotten the "shoppers."  Our bus took us the hour into Hoi An, stopping first at a silk manufacturer's shop to show us how silk is made from the silkworms to finished product.  Then, as we gathered to begin our trek into town, the "shoppers" yelled, over the din of the crowds, "Excuse me, excuse me.  We were here yesterday and we came back to shop."  This was good and bad.  First, that meant there were good shops to browse and buy.  Second, it meant that the group was going to break up and we could all get lost.  Our little Vietnamese guide shook his head but, not wanting to lose out on potential tips, told the shopper ladies from New Jersey, where to meet for lunch.  And we were off.

Unwinding the silk from the
dyed caccoons.

Lantern maker

Embroiderers in a room with walls
of picture embroideries priced at
thou$and$.

Shoppers and tourists in Hoi An

Wood carvers making decorative panels

Frankly, the ladies were not wrong.  Of course, not!  These were professional shoppers!  They knew where to get the goods, the bargains.  So, while we strolled up and down a Main Street in this historical little village, we saw hundreds of today's VIetnamese "traders" plying their trade, from trinkets to jewelry to medicinal herbs to fruits and vegetables.  And I'm sure it looked much like it did hundreds of years ago.  And what I can tell you is everything is cheap by American standards -- and by much of the other locations we've visited.  When we were at the silk market in Saigon, for instance, we saw buyers from the states buying hundreds of yards of silk to bring home for clothing, I would imagine.  And the same thing was going on at Hoi An's silk "factory."  And I got caught up in the goods, but also the atmosphere.

For instance, my daughter has been giving us a running dialogue on her potty training efforts back in the states, particularly the pooping part.  Well, in the middle of the dirt "Main St" we saw a little girl just about Iris's age, without pants or diapers, pooping in the street!  And we stopped to buy a couple of kids' clackers from an old lady who reminded me of my mother, chewing her bettle nuts, which had stained her teeth black.  This is the basic hand-to-mouth economy.  And our New Jersey shoppers were loading up.  It was their shopping heaven.

Marble carvings you could have
shipped home, 3ft high and
very heavy

After leaving the village, we drove to Marble Mountain.  Yes, it is a group of mountains made of marble and the next village was overrun with marble carvers.  Shop after shop carried the most beautiful marble pieces, everything from huge dragons and lions for your palace, to small pieces for your library shelves.  And even the pieces chipped off the big pieces were used to make the small easily portable pieces.  The shopper ladies were in heaven.  And the work was magnificent!  We noticed that the shop we were at was shopping huge crated pieces all over the world from Australia to France to the US.  And I wouldn't be surprised if a large piece or two ended up in New Jersey either!

On the way back to the ship, we drove past beautiful beaches with crashing waves, including the famous China Beach which has been renamed "Marble Beach".  And, built on these beaches, were parts of potential vacation homes and condos, few finished.  There was even a large casino waiting for customers and our guide explained that only foreigners could go to the casino.  Vietnamese were not allowed in.  But most of the structures were deserted, waiting for what the Vietnamese investors had hoped would be an influx of foreign vacationers that never appeared!

More carvings available

When I asked our guide where they expected guests from, he answered China and Japan.  When I asked a German couple if they would travel to Vietnam for a vacation, they said a resounding no -- they had much closer choices to home like Dubai and Greece.  However, our one conclusion about Vietnam is that they are on a path of strong infrastructure development and are determined to be not just a tourist destination, but a trading partner for other nations.  The Japanese have built not just bridges here, but tunnels through mountains, becoming a partner in that development.  Thinking for the future?!  We did not see this in Thailand or Indonesia.

A little girl

Old ways still work!

Selling noise makers and
new years trinkets.

Hoi An river with new year decorations

One of many clothing makers.
They made some for passengers,
in three days!

Vegetables

Hoi An

Tunnel built by the Japanese.  7 miles long.

Beautiful Marble (China) Beach waiting for tourists.

The shoppers, loaded down with bags and boxes, happily returned to the ship.  And I am sure they are readying themselves for Hong Kong shopping, some of the best in the world, they tell us.  I guess we should follow behind them so we don't have to do any research!  What do you think??