March 15, 2011 Mekong River Cruise

This morning we visit the capital of Cambodia, Phnom Penh.  We traveled by cyclo, these are carriages where you sit in the front and a fellow sits behind you and pedals.  We visited the Royal Palace and the National Museum.

In the afternoon we visited the "Killing Fields" made famous by the movie of the same name.  It was a very sombre visit.  Much like visiting the death camps in Germany from the Second World War but this was much more recent.

In the evening on the boat we had a presentation by some Cambodian orphans showing traditional dances.

Vietnamese Wedding

Mekong River Day 3

In the morning we took a rickshaw ride around Chau Doc, the biggest border town.  Visited another market and visited by a small boat a floating fish farm and a Cham Tribal village on a nearby island.

The afternoon was spent on board as we had to clear first Vietnam border guards followed by Cambodian border guards.

Sunday March 13, 2011

In the morning, we visited a small Vietnamese village, Cai Be, where we saw how they make popped rice, Vietnamese rice paper and coconut candy.  The people are quite gracious and all the children say "hello" and love to have their picture taken.  Sam loves it she takes many pictures of the kids and relishes showing them the shots.

In the afternoon we travelled by a traditional Sampn to visit a brick factory and rice mill in Sa Dec  followed by a visit to a local market.  It is amazing everything is pretty well done manually there are very few machines.  The workers are mostly women who work 10 hours days for $2.00.  They work 6 days a week.  The work is very demanding as I often saw women hauling small carts over rough muddy paths that must have weighed more than twice their weight.  But they were all happy and all smiled at us and said hello.  \the children go to the plant with the women and play in amongst the work.

Saturday March 12, 2011

We were picked up in Saigon and transferred by a bus to the Pandaw ship, the RV Mekong Pandaw.  The port was approximately 72 km from Saigon but took almost 1.5 hours due to roads and traffic.  There are 9 million people in Saigon and they have 6.5 million registered motorbikes.

We arrived at the port around 13:30 and were met by the gracious ship's crew and fed lunch.  The meals have been excellent a combination of western or Asian food choices.  There are three Canadians on board, Sam and myself and a gentleman from Vancouver who turns out to be Ian Swan's second cousin.  For those that don't know Ian and I worked together at PSP and dealt with and travelled together fairly frequently.  Again another small world.

Today we only cruised to our first stop no excursions.

March 14, 2011

I have a very brief window of opportunity to post to the blog. We have not had Internet for the past few days. We are on the Pandow Cruise at the moment. We left Saigon on Saturday and have been traveling up the Mekong River. When I have a better Internet connection I wil post some pictures of me drinking snake wine, something I would not endorse. This morning we were in a fishing town that ship Talapia fish around the world. The people live on the river, their houses are on stilts and the only way to shore is via boat (sampan). They keep the fish in large traps under their home (approximately 20 metres by 60 meters). They keep approximately 1,500 fish at a time. They are loaded into large river boats with holes in the side. As the fish are loaded the boat sinks until just the side boards are above the water level and then the fish are transported live to Saigon for processing.

We have received a few emails from people concerned about our safety and the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. We fortunately had left Japan a few days before the event and were very grateful that I had not occurred while we were there.

We are approaching the Cambodian border crossing where we will pass through Vietnamese border guards and then Cambodian border guards, the staff on the ship tells us this could take as long as three hours depending on the mood of the guards.

I will post another entry as soon as I am able.

Hoi An City Vietnam

We arrived in Danang around 23:40 and were picked up by a cab sent from the small resort we are staying at in Hoi An City. We arrived at the resort at 00:40. It is a small family run resort with six rooms. This morning we found that most of the people here were from Australia and France.
This morning we went into town where Sandra visited a tailor shop recommended by our hosts and ordered two blouses and a pair of Capri pants that will be made to measure and ready tomorrow. The cost was $75.00 US. I will report on the quality and fit after Sandra has received them. They also offered men's dress shirts handmade to size for $15.00 US. To bad I'm still not working I could have changed my complete wardrobe of dress shirts for under $100.00. We then visited the local market area and were offered everything from exotic fruits to foot massages and pressure acupuncture.

Sandra had something done called threading it removes hair similar to waxing but they use a thread and a crab like motion with their hands to catch the hair and pull it out. It was bizarre but Sam liked the finished work. Her whole facial area was done for $12.00 US. She could of had a manicure and pedicure for $2.00 US. One can live quite cheaply in Vietnam. A 15 minute cab ride cost us $1.60 US in a brand new Toyota Rave.

Departure from Thailand for Vietnam

Sunday, March 6, 2011

Sandra is feeling better today.  We have three flights to get us to Danang Vietnam. Krabi to Kauala Lampour to Ho Chi Mon City to Danang  we are suppose to arrive around midnight. Thank God Sam arranged for a pick up at the airport from the resort.

I will update after we have a day or so in Vietnam.

Krabi Thailand

We are at the Sheraton Hotel in Krabi (to see the hotel google Sheraton Krabi).  The hotel is very nice, however Sam is still very ill and we had to seek medical help at the hotel.  They have given her medication and we hope it works.  Tomorrow we leave for Vietnam and it is a brutal day as we have three flights and don't arrive until well after midnight so I hope  she starts to feel a little better.

Photos of Tokyo and Area plus Koh Lanta Thailand

Week 2

Tuesday March 1st, 2011

 Sam is still not feeling very well, she is unable to do much other than fall into the pool.  Thank God, it is a really nice clean pool, steps from our room.  We unfortunately have had to cancel our snorkeling excursion as Sam will not be able to breathe with the mouth piece due to her cold.  Perhaps when we move to the Sheraton on Thursday we might find another trip.  As Sam doesn't have much energy at the moment we are staying close to the Cabin and will spend the time reading.  It is really quite relaxing, snoozing whenever you get the urge and just enjoying the time together.  i mentioned to Sam that I am feeling better than I have in months.  I think it is just being able to get some good sleeps and eating at normal times

Welcome Message

Hello All, This is my first attempt at the blog.  I will try and keep update as we move from Country to Country.  Some days i maybe more verbous than othes but will try and do my best to describe what we are doing and seeing.  Eventually I beleive I will figure out how to put pictures into the blog hiwever for now it is jus text.

Travel Diary

Monday Feb 21st, 2011:

Preparations continue, Sandra was up all last night.  She was confirming hotel/pickup/travel arrangements. Today I will shut off the gas, water, wash all the bed sheets,clean fridge/freezer and stove, cover the upholstered furniture.

Jason came over at 17:00 to help with the details.  We took our car over to his place as he willuse our parking spot for the fourteen months. Our car fit nicely into his garage. Sandra completed her final tasks about 20:00 and we shut down the rest of the electrical outlets.  Jason, Sandra
and I then went to the Buzz Restaurant and had dinner using a gift certificate from our Condo friends Brian and Jennifer, Colleen and Anne.

After the meal we loaded Jason's car and he dropped us off at the Southway Inn where we spent the night prior to departure.  The last time we were at the Southway it was a small motel it is now a very large fairly nice hotel, perhaps in some small way we contributed to that growth.  We
stayed there the night of Nov 18, 1973. We were leaving the next day for our four year posting to Germany.

Tuesday, Feb 22nd and Wednesday Feb 23, 2011:

Departed the Southway for Ottawa Airport at 07:30.  Departed Ottawa for Toronto at 09:00. Our flight to Tokyo left Toronto at 12:10, right on time.  It was nice having the opportunity to fly first class (points were used or else we would have been in economy).  The flight was fairly uneventful, Sandra's power seat in her POD acted up but they were able to fix it for us.  We had some nice meals and landed in Tokyo some 13 hours later (01:15 Feb 23 Ottawa time/ 14:15 Tokyo time.  We then picked up an Airport shuttle to our hotel the Prince Park Tower.  The hotel
is right in the centre of the Ginzo district which is the main shopping and commerce area.  We have the discovered the delights of Japanese toilets. The one in our room is separate to the shower and sink area.  The toilet has an automatic lid that goes up when you enter the room, if you want the seat up for a performance by a gentleman you just press a button and the seat lifts.  After your performance you press an electronic button to flush and it closes the lids.  The interesting thing about it is there is a control panel beside the bowl that you can select an assortment of services, for example you can have an undulating or soft wash (warm water sprays on your butt) that is followed by a pleasant dryer of warm air. Ladies have the additional option of a bidget. This is the highlight of our trip so far but I am sure it will prove to be just one small item in a coming year of firsts.

We are going to pick up a small snack (they fed us really
well on the flight) and head right to bed.  It is 20:00 here 07:00 in Ottawa. Eventually we will become acclimatized to the time difference and should be fine.  Good night.

Thursday, February 24th, 2011:

We both hadpretty good sleep last awoke around 09:30 local time.  We decided to explore Tokyo today.  We started at the Imperial Palace after which we walked through some of the business district and then visited some Temples. We had an interesting lunch, we stopped at a small Mom and Pop restaurant and had a nice lunch of what we think was chicken and pork with rice and vegetables.  It was pretty good but sometimes you are better off not asking what part of the chicken or pig was used.  We returned to the Hotel to refresh and then went out to an area called Roppongi, it is an area that is famous for it's Restaurant's. We were very lost when two gentlemen happened a long and offered assistance, this is a regular occurrence when ever you don't know where your are just look confused and within seconds someone will offer assistance.  Well it turns out the
Restaurant we had picked was in a little back ally far from where we were, the gentlemen then proceeded to lead us to the general area and when even they couldn't find it, they started to call friends on their cell phones for directions and eventually (20 minutes) we found the restaurant.

It turns out one of the gentlemen is Kensuke Sasahira, the CEO of Serene Corporation.  When we started talking he said he had been to the States when he was young because his father had been a VP of a company that had sent him to New York City for a few years.  The company his father worked for was Mitsui. For those that don't know my dad had worked for Mitsui in Montreal for over 25 yeats. Talk about a small world.

We had an interesting meal as it was a Yakitori Restaurant that specializes in grilled meat, but this one only did chicken. We tried quite a few dishes, we liked most of them,there were a few again where we
had no idea where the meat had come from on the chicken.  I also tried their Japanese chicken wings even after being told they were hot, well let me tell you there is no wings place in Ottawa that could compare to that hot. They were delicious but my mouth was numb for over an hour and there
were only three wings in the dish.  After the meal we returned to the Hotel via subway, we have figured out the system and it is quite efficient. 

Friday, February 25, 2011:

We have gone to Kamakura, about an hour by train from Tokyo, it is the home of the worlds largest Buddha, while their we travelled down to a small town on the coast where we were able to see Mount Fuji. In the
afternoon we visited a number of Hindu Monasteries.  We were back to the Hotel a little late and decided to eat here.  We ended up both eating Pasta Boulegense and were into bed fairly early.

Saturday, February 26, 2011:

When we woke up Sam wasn't feeling well (cold) so we decided to take it easy.  Sam wanted a cover for her ereader that we were unable to get in Canada as they had been sold out for months. We went to the Sony HQ'S to try to get one.  They had them in stock but would not sell one
to a foreigner as they could not that it would work.  They thought the North American version was not the same size and hey had a rule of not selling product to foreigners as they could not guarantee that they would work. Seems strange but they were not going to sell us one even though they had them in stock. After that attempt we returned to the hotel to wait for our shuttle to the airport.  We are flying to Krabbe Thailand departing Tokyo at 00.25 through Bangkok and arriving in Krabbe at 09:25 tomorrow morning. I am not looking forward to this flight as Sam is sick.

Sunday, February 27, 2011:

00:20 We left Tokyo on flight TG661 for Krabi through Bangkok, we arrived in Bangkok at 04:00 (6.5 hours).  We have now boarded for Krabi with a
departure time of 08:00. At Krabi we are to be picked by an arranged car and transported to the dock for a boat trip to Koh Lanta where we are to stay for 4 days in a guest house owned by a Japanese-Canadian lady from Montreal.  So we are looking forward to meeting her.  Quite the trip to Escape Cabins, we were pikes up in a Toyota van by a young Thai and his girlfriend and drove to our hotel.  We had to take two ferries to get here and it took 1.5 hours.  We were met by Miko, I was quite surprised as she is quite young and had obviously not spent a lot of time in Canada as. Her Japanese accent was quite strong.  The room is decent, however the local
amenities are quite basic.  As Sandra is sick with a cold we had a nap and then went out to have a look around.  The town consists of one street with open air restaurants lining both sides.  It is brutally hot 40 deg C and very humid. Sandra's cold is really bothering her so we went back to the room and I went out to buy supper.  The restaurant was very busy by this time with traffic stopping on the side of the road to pick up food to go.  There were quite a few western people around, mostly middle aged German couples and a few British couples.  I picked up 2 x Pad Thai and a
Tom Ca soup for us.  The meal was delicious and much two generous we could easily have only has one Pad Thai between us, now we know.  It was relatively inexpensive CDN$24.00 (690 Bhat). They put the soup in a plastic bag that presented some challenge I got it back to the room, but we managed. Watched a bit of satellite tv and went to bed.

Monday, February 28, 2011:

I woke around 06:30 Sam slept well and woke around 09:00.  Sam not feeling great so we went for a short walk around the neighborhood. Went down to the beach and booked a snorkeling trip.  i hope Sam will be up for it and her cold will be gone.  Spent the afternoon in the pool, spent a lot of time thinking of all our friends in the snow storm we had just seen on the internet weather for Ottawa.  Both Sam and I have pretty good sunburns.  Tomorrow it is forecasted to be 35 degrees C. 

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