Roatan

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December, 2017 just before Christmas we visited Roatan, Honduras. Click on the photo to see an album of our adventures.

Roatan is a small narrow island off the north shore of Honduras in the Caribbean Sea. We had to cancel a booking to go there some years ago when Kate's work took her to Australia. We wanted to go here as we heard through several friends that there was great snorkeling right off the beaches. This year we rebooked a last minute flight on Air Transat from Toronto to a week long all-inclusive at the Media Luna Resort.

The resort is on the south west side of the island about mid way. It's a long shuttle bus ride from the airport. There's a major road running north and south along the island and our resort was a good distance off the main road on a rough narrow lane that was quite steep -- an adventure in itself. I understand that most resorts are down on the south west corner of the island in an area called the West End where there are good sheltered sandy beaches. Our resort was quite isolated with rocky outcrops and not much of a beach. The isolation was fine and the swimming was fine as well -- the coral reef was only a very short distance off shore. But you're on the wind ward side of the island and can have some very windy days.

We had a private cabin a good walk away from the main buildings near the diving dock. Most of the rooms were cabins like ours (some were duplex) with bamboo thatched roofs. At one time, when they were first built, that would have been very nice but the bamboo has rotted and the roofs are being maintained on the cheap -- they've removed the rotted bamboo (a great home for bugs and critters) and covered things over with tar paper. Not as pretty but effective for a while. The day of our arrival was quite cool and there was no heat at all in our room. There's air conditioners that are supposed to generate some heat but they didn't work very well. I got the impression that this had been a 4 or 5 star resort that was sliding down the point scale.

Nevertheless we got what we came for. We took a couple of boat trips to go diving. Lots of visitors come to do scuba diving with air tanks and so on. Some even come to get their scuba certification. We're just keen to do some snorkeling over easy access reefs that haven't been pummeled by too many tourists. We were really pissed to see a fellow standing on the coral in our bay -- that soft coral takes years to grow!

One day we went south with a crew of divers to Big French Key with the Fantasy Island Resort nearby. On the way there and back we made several stops to snorkel while others dove deeper with their scuba tanks. Another day we took a long boat ride north to Pigeon Cay Beach (a very small island in the middle of the ocean) where we had a beach lobster BBQ. Other days we snorkeled in the waters around the resort. The reef off our bay and the diver's dock is quite accessible with steep drops and great formations. Some days it was a little too rough to swim out there -- I don't like to be bouncing against the fragile coral. When you scuba dive I understand the weather isn't so much of an issue.

We saw lots of iguana on the rocks around the resort and especially on the sands of Pigeon Cay in the far north. One fauna I was not so keen about was what ever took a liking to my flesh. In spite of using lots of insect repellent I still ended up with a ton of itchy bites on my legs.

This resort had just one large dining hall and it was not terribly busy -- we were definitely there in the off season. I understand it gets busier at Christmas time. The food was Ok, not very exciting and the wine on tap was awful. A fun trick during meal time was to have my Android phone cast music to the resort's sound system. We'd play the Ramones and other punk music but nobody seemed to notice .... well the guy who was trying to control the sound system probably did!

We've been to all inclusive resorts before and, as Canadians, the inclusive part many are interested in is the alcohol. I've already mentioned the crappy wine, there's more. The single bar by the pool (the dining hall, etc.) wouldn't serve us any alcohol until near noon -- we found that odd. Even odder still, one day they ran out of rum! How can that be?

We met lots of people who were returning to this resort. I suspect there are other places which are better. On the plane back we met a couple who rented a cottage on the West End privately through AirBnB. I don't know if I'd be willing to do that, but if you've been here before and know the lay of the land that might work as well.

Anyways, there's lots of good snorkelling (and diving if you're able) on Roatan. We enjoyed our break from the grey days of early winter. The diving is certainly better than anywhere on the Florida Keys. We've snorkeled off St Lucia but never found any dramatic coral as there is here. We've investigated Belize, which is supposed to have the best diving of any in the Caribbean, but have never been. I'm not sure if we'll go back again, but, if we did, we'd probably stay at a different resort.

David Hockney Exhibits

We were really impressed with the David Hockney exhibit we caught at the National Gallery of Victoria (the NGV) in Melbourne back in the March of 2017 (our late winter, their late summer). If you're interested there are exhibits coming up which you catch. Well worth while if you can.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City is scheduled to exhibit David Hockney, November 27, 2017–February 25, 2018. His work will also be featured in the upcoming exhibition David Hockney: 82 Portraits and a Still Life at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Spain, November 10, 2017 – February 25, 2018.
The David Hockney page at Artsy.net provides visitors with Hockney's bio, over 400 of his works, exclusive articles, and up-to-date Hockney exhibition listings. Well worth a visit.

Many thanks to Jenna from Artsy.net.

Back to the Garden

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Sunday August 20 found us at "Back to the Garden" near Dorchester/Ingersoll. An outdoor free concert of local talent hosted by Brent Jones and Peter Denomme.

As well as some great music on two stages (one inside the barn) there were several vendors. We bumped into our friend Mario who was enjoying the day and running a "Fundon" booth.

Luckily we had a sunny day.

Heidelberg Project and the Detroit Art Institute

A July visit to Detroit (the Heidelberg Project and the Detroit Art Institute) with our good friends Deborah and Jerry.

Here's some photos of the day.

Lindi Ortega

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We saw Lindi Ortega at a festival in Perth Ontario. We met up with Kate's brother Gordon and his wife Leslie and stayed together at a nearby Bed and Breakfast.

I really like her music. She sings effortlessly, she sings country with a bit of a rock tinge.

Sheffield

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In June of 2107 Kate had her annual KBS conference in Sheffield England. Click on the photo to see an album of our adventures.

We flew into Heathrow airport (there's a daytime flight from Toronto on Air Canada that we often take when travelling to Europe) and rented a car the next day for the drive up to Sheffield -- it's just over 3 hours on a turnpike (the M1). An easy enough drive -- we even stopped for "fish and chips" on way.

We took a short ride in a black taxi cab from Heathrow to the Hyatt Place on Bath Road arriving sometime around 10:00pm or so. We got checked in (we had booked through Priceline which I often use) and were heading up to our room when I discovered that although I had my camera bag of lenses and accessories I had left my Canon t4i DSLR in the cab! The front desk at the Hyatt were very helpful and called around but couldn't locate the cab (after all, they're all "black cabs"). I was in a panic, of course. They assured me that the cabbie would find the camera, recall the trip and drop it off at the hotel. By the time we were leaving the next morning they still hadn't. I was resigned to having lost my camera and would have to use one of the small pocket cameras we had with us -- a Canon ELF. That turned out to be the case, and a bit of a revelation. If you follow the link to the our photo album you should know that all photos were taken with a pocket camera.

One of the reasons we stayed at the Hyatt (it's a very nice hotel but not cheap) was that it was conveniently located within walking distance of several reliable car rentals (more on that later).

Luckily, when we got to Sheffield, we got an email note from the Hyatt that the camera had been found by the cabbie and returned to the front desk -- many thanks to honest folks in England. We called and talked to the front desk who gladly held the camera for our return. We picked up the camera on our return from Sheffield a week later.

In Sheffield we stayed at the Novotel Sheffield City Center right next door to the Winter Garden (a green house oasis), the Sheffield Town Hall (not to be confused with the nearby Sheffield City Hall, huh?) and nearby Peace Gardens, the Graves and Millenium Galleries. Kate's conference was held at the University of Sheffield a short tram ride to the east (walk-able distance) not to be confused with the Sheffield Hallam University which was just across the street from our hotel. Navigating our car to Sheffield wasn't too hard (once we got on the M1), navigating in Sheffield to drop of Kate at the hotel and take our car to the Hertz car rental was a bit of a bother.

Sheffield was famous for pins, cutlery and Sheffield Steel (I'm reminded of the Clash song "This is England" from their long out of print "Cut the Crap" LP). The chorus is

This is England
This knife of Sheffield steel
This is England
This is how we feel

The slums, Steel works and factories are long gone and the core of the city is being redeveloped. Nevertheless there's lots of vacant land and shuttered buildings. During the industrial era there were incredibly nasty slums with factory workers who died very young. It;s really a sad history.

The River Don wanders through the city with canal works surviving from the industrial past. I wandered the city on walking tours visiting places like the Kelham Island Museum (industrial history), the Sheffield Cathedral, the Weston Park Museum (by the university with an excellent gallery), the train station, market and much more. The weather was often cool, windy and wet. Typical weather for the season I understand.

On the Wednesday afternoon the KBS social gathering that we took (there were several) was a bus trip to the village of Castleton in the Peaks District. It was a sunny day but very windy. Kate and I explored the village (we were turned away from visiting the castle ruins because of the wind). Others did a long hike into the hills to explore some caves.

On Thursday we took a train to Manchester. The train traveled through the Peaks District where we had visited the day before. There had been a Manchester Arena Bombing only a few weeks before our visit. You'll see some memorial flowers at the Sheffield Peace Gardens and note security guards with serious weapons at the train station. But we didn't see much of that in Manchester. We visited the John Rylands Library (a cathedral to knowledge), had lunch nearby, and visited the People's History Museum where we bought a "Pits and Perverts" T-shirt (from the Thatcher era miners' strike of 1984-85 and the London LGBTQ support of the miners). We visited the Science and Industry Museum (like the Kelham Island Museum but many more stationary engines from the industrial era) and tried to get up to the Beetham Manchester Tower -- I was expecting an old historical tower, instead it's a modern mixed use high rise. We did get to the Central Library -- a lovely circular building that reminds us of the Pantheon in Rome. It's big, bright and modern but the architecture is classical.

As an aside, we were there in 2017 for the election on June 8 where Theresa May was seeking a majority government to better negotiate Brexit. You'll see some posters in the photo album and of course the conservatives didn't get the majority they were after.

On our return the KBS banquet was held in the Cutlers Hall in Sheffield. It's a grand historic building in the town core that now seems to be a hospitality center. In the past it was the guild hall for the cutlery industry which was a big deal in the industrial era.

We left Sheffield by train to visit over night with our No. 1 son Chris, his wife Amy and their new daughter Charlotte near Nottingham. Chris had to fly out of Heathrow the next day and dropped us off at the Holiday Inn Heathrow where there was a car hire on site which we had booked -- it was cheap and a very bad idea. We had arranged to have a car on our arrival so we could go visit our No. 2 mom in Woking for lunch. However, they didn't have any cars available for us in spite of us having made a reservation. I'll never make that mistake again -- always rent from a reputable name even if it costs a bit more. We dashed around trying to find an alternative car hire and ultimately ended up back at the hotel to get a car in the early afternoon -- so much for lunch with mom.

Anways, Sheffield (and Manchester too) was both interesting and historical. It was good to touch base with family again. And I learned you don't need to lug around a heavy DSLR and camera bag of gear -- a pocket camera will do for most travel photography.

Rizdales

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Saturday May 27 found us with some friends at the Richmond Tavern in London for one of those late afternoon parties with the Rizdales. It was fun, great music and lively dancers who thoroughly enjoyed themselves!

Here's some photos from the show,

Kate's Retirement Party

Here's some photos of Kate's retirement party hosted by Sam and Al at their home in London. Kate worked 37 years with the Addiction Research Foundation which later became part of the Center for Addiction and Mental Health. Some of these photos are by Sandi Tamowski, others are by Robert Camacho and a few are mine.

Melbourne

Luna Park, St Kilda Beach

Kate and I visited for a week in Melbourne, Victoria (in the south east corner of Australia) in March of 2017 after our South East Asia and Darwin holidays. This was a working visit for Kate with colleagues at Deakin University in Geelong and Latrobe University in Melbourne. We managed to add on some adventures in an area we have visited several times over the years.

We have a photo album of our visit to the area you may wish to visit. We've been to the area many times over the years so there are lots of albums from previous visits: Melbourne (2010), Melbourne (2011), Melbourne (2015). It's ground well trodden, we like the area.

We flew in from Darwin on a Sunday and rented a car at the airport for a couple of days. Our first visit was to the city of Geelong which is a little outside of Melbourne on the west side of Port Phillip Bay. We could have tried public transit (we love the public transit system around Melbourne, it's extensive, fast and reasonable) but a car seemed easier especially with our luggage.

Kate has a colleague at Deakin University whom she has collaborated with for years. On the Monday they met while I explored the Bellarine Peninsula. It's a wine region at the west side of the mouth of Port Phillip Bay. Kate and I had spent a weekend exploring the wineries and beaches during our 2015 visit. This time I was on my own and, while I didn't get to see many wineries (most where either closed, it being a Monday, or places we had visited before), I did get into a very small vineyard, Barrgowan Vineyard, by just driving up to the door to see if anyone was at home. I met Dib Simonsen who, with her husband Dick, grow and produce their wine on site.They make a lovely Shiraz from a few rows in their front yard and we brought a bottle back to share with some colleagues in Melbourne. A wine that few will have tasted given their very limited production (I recall Dib saying they produce about 1,200 bottles in a good year).

I drove through the seashore towns of Port Arlington and "Indented Head" -- now isn't that an odd name -- and had lunch (fish and chips yet again) at the seaport town of Queenscliff where we had stayed last time. Bumped into some fellows riding very old motor bikes ("Ridden not Hidden"). Queenscliff is on a spit on the very tip of the peninsula where there's a ferry that crosses the bay to Sorrento on the Mornington Peninsula side (we toured wineries there at the end of our visit). Back in Geelong Kate and I wandered the Geelong Waterfront and the Cunningham Pier near our hotel looking for a nice restaurant with a view of the bay..... we ended up having fish and chips (again). There are a couple of nice restaurants on the pier but one was closed and the other didn't have any window tables that weren't reserved.

We were back to Melbourne on Tuesday morning where Kate had meetings with colleagues at Latrobe University. We stayed at the City Tempo apartments (as we had back in 2015 which is just outside the CBD and right across the street from the Latrobe building near the Queen Victoria Markets where her work friends are located. The main campus of Latrobe is out in the north-eastern suburb of  Bundoora but I've never been there.

While Kate is meeting with colleagues I explore the city. Federation Square by the Flinders Street train station is a sunny meeting place in the centre of the city. Nearby the Yarra river flows through the centre of the city out to Port Phillip bay. I explore the interesting graffiti of nearby Hosier Lane.

We have myki cards from previous visits which we reload with a bit of cash so we can use the public transit system. Within the CBD public transit is free -- even touristy with the quaint old Circle Tram which circles the CBD an essential ride for every visitor. We ride the 109 tram out to the Melbourne Port on Port Phillip bay and from there we rent city bikes and ride down to St Kilda Beach for lunch and a swim. It's the end of summer but the beach is still very busy, the water is warm, but not too warm. People are swimming, sunbathing and paddle boarding. The Luna Park Amusement Park is still open for the season but only on weekends and holidays.

Back in the city Kate's colleagues have a netball game we attend in the nearby Flagstaff Gardens. I've seen the game a few times over the years. It's a strange game, very popular in Australia (we even saw some professional games on television), somewhat like basketball where you put a ball into a net but without the dribbling. There's lots of passing, no physical contacts, and no running with the ball. There tend to be a lot of whistles and I can never tell who is wining. Our colleagues are wearing orange "Volunteer" T-shirts from the Lausanne KBS meeting of a few years ago. We've brought a couple of shirts that match and donate them to the team.

Melbourne is famous for it's lanes and arcades in the CBD. These lanes and back alleys are populated with funky restaurants, bars and coffee shops. Some are very fancy, others more graffiti laden. One day after work Kate's friends took us down an unattractive graffiti sprayed back alley near their work and up some creaky back stairs to an obscure roof top bar. The only "signage" was sprayed on the curb: "rooftop bar". The tiny graffiti laden rest-room (do they say toilet, washroom or rest-room in Australia?) was a challenge to enter as the door swung in and was in the way of the toilet. An odd place indeed, they didn't have a name! Kate tells me they were a "pop-up" and their licence was going to run out soon.

On International Women's Day we march with a good sized group from the Parliament buildings through the CBD. It was a fun march with "pussy hats", songs and shouted slogans, lots of interesting signs: e.g.,  "Patriarchy is for Dicks", "This Pussy Grabs Back" (in reference to the Donald), "Fight Like a Girl"; and T-shirt slogans too: e.g., "This is what a Feminist Looks Like", "Solid Gold Clit", "Nasty Woman" (again in reference to the Donald), "Fries before Guys". On Swanston Street we skip out of the parade and have a dinner at the Noodle Kingdom in China Town -- they're hand pulled noodles, one of Kate's favorites.

Another day we went to the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) on St Kilda Road just across the river from Federation Square for a special exhibit of the artist David Hockney. We went at the recommendation of some friends who had been. We weren't sure what to expect and were very pleasantly surprised. He's an established British artist, lived for a while in LA (although now he seems to be permanently in North England), late in life, and his current medium is the iPad! It was interesting to see some pieces in "playback" mode on huge screens -- you could see the work develop from a blank screen through to a finished product. The printing of these works was impressive as well -- very fine grained even when printed very large.

We have lunch together at the NGV but Kate had to get back for another meeting with her colleagues. I explored the rest of the gallery and then went across the river to the Ian Potter Center of the NGV on Federation Square. I've visited both galleries many times and there are some favorite works there.

Our last day, the Saturday before we head home, we rent a car again and tour the vineyards of the Mornington Peninsula (we've been there several times before, e.g., photos from 2010 and again in 2015 with Angela and David). This is an important wine area and famous for the Pinot Noir and Chardonnay that they grow there. They tell me it's "Cool Climate Wine" but I tell them they really don't know about cool climates -- we have freezing winters, they have cool ocean breezes. As we've been to the area several times before we decide to explore vineyards that are off the beaten trail and pick a few that are only open on the weekend (bigger wineries can afford to be open all week).

Our first stop is at Blue Range Estate Wines which is quite a struggle to find. It's off the beaten trail and we get very lost but ultimately find it down a farm lane. It's a fair sized modern winery on a hillside with a scenic cafe overlooking their vineyards. They also run a vacation stay. It's late summer so the vineyards are netted to protect them from the birds. We sample a few wines and enjoy them all.

The next winery, Nazaaray, is the furthest south and well off the beaten trail. There doesn't seem to be anyone around but we poke around until we find someone and have a tasting with one of the owners, Nirmal Ghumman (her husband Paramdeep makes the wine, she doesn't drink!). We are very impressed with their wines and buy a couple of the white wines. We ask about getting some plastic glasses so we can have a picnic with some of the food we've brought from the Victoria Markets and she tells us to use their patio. It's not busy today (we were the only callers in all the time we were there) and we're welcome to use it. And here, use these nice wine glasses. And hey, here's some Indian appetizers to go with your lunch. They really made us feel welcome. If you're in the area, visit this winery!

On the area known as the "main ridge" we visited Paringa Estate Winery on Paramdeep's recommendation. It's very good wine and quite busy with a restaurant overlooking the vineyard. While we don't immediately recognise that we've been here before, we recognise a fellow behind the counter conducting a tasting -- he looks familiar. He should because he's from Canada. We've met him before -- we've been here before with David and Angela! We visited Myrtaceae, a very small winery and down a lane we find Main Ridge Estate where we enjoy some of the most expensive wines we've ever purchased.

It was a nice way to end our trip with the wines of Mornington Peninsula. We both enjoy the graceful Chardonnay and Pinot Noir wines they make in their "cool climate".

The next day, a very long day, had us flying home through Sydney, then Vancouver BC, Toronto ON, and finally London.

P.s. at the Sydney airport you could buy the iconic Penfold's Grange (that's an inky big Shiraz) for only $849 per bottle -- it made the Main Ridge Estate wines seem a bargain!

Darwin

Kate & Jumping Saltie Croc

Kate and I spent a week in Darwin, Northern Territories, Australia in March of 2017 after visiting Saigon and South East Asia (Bangkok, Songkhla, Siem Reap and the Mekong River Cruise). After Darwin we had a week with Kate's work colleagues in Geelong and Melbourne before heading back home to Canada.

We have a photo album of our Darwin adventures you may want to visit.

Darwin was one of the few places in Australia that we had yet to visit (although we had tried). In March, 2011, we had set out to drive the 4,000km+ from Perth in Western Australia (WA) up to Darwin in the Northern Territory (NT) at the very top end of Australia (see the photo album of that trip) but we only got as far as Broome, WA -- the wet season flooding at Fitzroy Crossing in the NT had closed the only road through to Darwin. The flooding lasted for months!

This trip to Darwin was a more leisurely affair - a flight from Saigon to Kuala Lumpur and then a second flight to Darwin .... the bad part was we spent the better part of a day in transit (with a long layover in Kuala Lumpur at the not very nice airport) and only got into Darwin at 4:00am on the Monday morning.

The cab ride from the airport to our Quest Apartments Parap (that's in the village/suburb of Parap, midway between the central business district and the airport), was a welcome relief from the crowded streets of Saigon. At 4:00am, we were pretty much the only people on the street! This turned out to be the norm for Darwin -- it's not a very big town and March is the end of the rainy/hot season so there aren't many tourists visiting the city. There's lots of room in the NT and lots of room in Darwin.

Staff were at the Quest to greet us (or at least let us in) at 4:00am and we were given a "bachelor" styled apartment on the second floor, as we had reserved. In the morning we switched to a larger one bedroom unit (quite big really) with a patio area beside the pool and internal court yard. We had a few lunches there, enjoyed the rain a few times and I even cooled off in the small pool. I don't think Kate even tried the pool -- she likes to do lengths and one or two strokes would cover the length of the pool. Nonetheless, it was a well equipped unit with a good kitchen, two tv's, a comfy lounge area, etc. It was air conditioned but seemed to be struggling to keep up. We ended up buying a fan to cool us down a bit more.

Our first day we took a short cab ride into the city and explored the "Inner Harbor" area. There's a secured swimming area with a beach, wave pool and break wall. It's "secured" in the sense that the water will have no sharks, crocodiles or poisonous jelly fish -- it's fed by seawater but not connected directly to the sea. You can't swim in the ocean in this part of the world -- it's far too dangerous. The crocodiles seem to be the big issue. On a harbor cruise one day we were shown a crocodile trap on the shoreline and told that about 150 crocodiles are captured in the NT every year (14 in Darwin alone -- see Crocodile Captures in NT). It's a sprawling city with a lot of water front, but gosh that's an awful lot of crocodiles to try to avoid.

While crocodiles are endemic in the NT -- even far inland -- the other important water hazard is "box jellyfish". I've never seen any in all the times we've been in Australian tropical waters. But you don't want to have a run in with them either.

We did go swimming a couple of times in the protected area. I enjoyed the swim; however, Kate found it too warm for doing "lengths" or "laps". One of the swimmers told me to listen for the "clicking" sound of crabs feeding under water. Yup, I could hear them plainly when I lay on my back floating in the warm water. Didn't see them and can only take his word that it was the crabs making the noise.

The inner harbor has condominiums, several hotels, shops and a busy restaurant/night life area by the sandy beach where you swim. We're not night people and it was off season so fairly quiet . There wasn't see much going on there. Beyond the break wall that separates the inner harbor swimming area from the ocean, there's two piers with a gap in between. The one pier is where tour ships dock -- the "Norwegian Princess" was in town for part of our visit. The other, Stokes Hill Wharf, became something of a favorite hang-out for us.

At the end of the Stokes Hill pier there's a large building with a couple of nice white table cloth restaurants and a interior "mall/arcade" with several take away restaurants. We often ended up having fish and chips (Kim's Fish and Chips for $10 was the best) on the pier with a bottle of wine ($20) and enjoying the spectacular end of day views of the ocean to the east of us. Tables, chairs and umbrellas are provided so you're pretty comfortable. The clouds were always towering and slowly evolving while in the distance you could see lightning storms flashing and rain falling. All the while we're enjoying our dinner and the cooler sea breezes. Sometimes large fish could be seen near the water surface as people tossed bits into the sea for them to eat. It was always a nice place and a great way to end the day (or at least when it wasn't raining).

There's also a museum/attraction on the pier: Two Iconic Territory Stories -- The Royal Flying Doctors Service and the Bombing of Darwin Harbor. The Flying Doctors should be well known -- there was a airplane you could explore (a flying ambulance/hospital). The geography of the Northern Territories is quite large, the population quite sparse. Without the Flying Doctors there would be no emergency health care! The bombing of Darwin Harbor on February 19, 1942 was only the first of several bombings by the Japanese during World War II. It was, and remains, a defining moment for Darwin and all of Australia. The exhibit had lots to see and enjoy but the most interesting part was a virtual reality experience of the bombing. You felt like you were right there during the event -- you wore goggles and the scenes you experienced were very real and quite dimensional (e.g. you could turn around and look behind you). We did it twice as recommended by the guide at the door. The second time through you had a better understanding of things having explored the other exhibits.

For ocean views at sunset we went to Mindil Beach one night; another time we had more fish and chips at Cullen's Bay; and one evening we caught the sunset at Northcliffe. There's a picture in the album of a couple who have set up some lawn chairs, a table and a couple of bottles of wine to enjoy the sunset at Northcliffe -- typical Australians. You're not supposed to have alcohol in public places but it's never enforced when you're well behaved (affluent and white).

We rented a car for most of the time we were there. Car rentals around Darwin all seem to run about the same. The nasty part is you can't get a car with unlimited mileage -- they're all a reasonable base rate with very limited mileage. Distances are huge once you leave the city so it is a bit of a scam.

We took a cab out to the airport to pick up our rental (and dropped it at the airport when we left Darwin for Melbourne). From there we drove out to Litchfield National Park which is on some higher table land about an hour and a half out of Darwin. Most of the territory around Darwin is very flat low land, almost swamp like. The table lands are a bit higher and there are some spectacular water falls, especially during the rainy season. All of the pools, below the many falls, were posted for salt water crocodiles (salties) and our friends from the area told us to take the postings seriously (see Crocodile Leaps at Tourist, 2012). The only place you could safely enter the water was a small water feature at a place called Buley Rockhole. We did take a dip but weren't cooled very much. It was a stinking hot day with intense sun.

Another feature in the park was the giant termite mounds. These are grass termites and the mounds are the huge colonies they build. We'd seen these before in Western Australia and on our long drive across the continent back in 2004 but nothing like the one we saw in Litchfield.

One day we visited the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory in Darwin on Fannie Bay (sic!). We had a nice lunch at the museum restaurant on the verandah overlooking the bay and a tour of the exhibits. There were, of course, lots of Aborginal works of art and museum exhibits. At the museum entrance there was an outdoor display where an Aboriginal artist painted on large automobile parts, As for art work I was particularly impressed with some of the photos on display in the "EX!T ART, 2016 Year 12 Student Exhibition".

The museum had a huge (I mean really, really, really big -- 5.1 meters) stuffed crocodile on display called "Sweetheart". It had been causing trouble back in the 1970's and was captured live but drowned in an attempt to have it relocated. There was also an interesting wing/exhibit hall on boats and small ships over the ages.

But the most interesting exhibit was on Cyclone Tracy which literally destroyed the entire city on Christmas eve and Christmas day of 1974. The city at the time was made of lightly built tropical homes built to let the air through. Louvered walls, light corrugated metal roofs, and homes on stilts (for cooling) -- that was the norm. None could stand the prolonged cyclone which lasted from Dec 21 to the 26th! Even stone buildings, like the old town hall, were demolished by the winds. Since then building standards are much better and hopefully the city will survive the next serious cyclone which is sure to arrive (when we left Darwin a cyclone was bearing down on the city but thankfully it veered off it's projected course).

We made a couple more car trips out of town on the road towards Kakadu (that's a big, important National Park some distance to the south and east -- basically a day trip to get there). We went to the Fogg Dam Conservation Area and were able to take a lot of very good bird pictures. The dam that was part of a failed agricultural project (see the Humpty Doo Rice Trail (sic!)) is all that remains of a project to make rice growing into a major agricultural export commodity in the NT. The dam was built during that project to control water flow to the rice fields which are now long gone. What remains is an important preserve for birds and other fauna .... e.g. you weren't supposed to walk on the dam as there are aggressive crocodiles, and then there's the snakes too. Anyways, we visited a couple of times and really liked seeing the birds. And really liked not seeing any crocodiles!

Back in the city we did a harbor tour one morning and learned a little about the harbor history. Pearling, as in Broome, remains an important venture. Originally the pearling was to harvest mother of pearl from the shells which was then used to make buttons. That folded with the invention of modern buttons. What remains is cultured pearls where the oyster is tricked into making a pearl. It's still an important business in Darwin -- see Paspaley Pearls. There's lots of development around the harbor. One area is all fill from the cleanup of the city after Cyclone Tracy. Stabilising that area to allow for building will be a challenge. Our guide showed us the mud flats and mangrove groves which border the area.

We returned to the area of the Fogg Dam to take a boat cruise on the Adelaide River to see jumping crocodiles (see The Original Jumping Crocodile Cruise) one morning. It was a small boat and you were definitely up close and personal with the crocodiles. Kate wrote about this:

We went on a river cruise to see jumping crocodiles today (and we did - close up and personal). As we were starting, the skipper was giving the safety talk and told us where the life jackets were because they were legally obliged to do so (they appeared to be under some bolted down flooring that would take a screwdriver to open. But then he said, "If we tip, the last thing you want to do is put on a life jacket because they are red and crocs are attracted to red. So if we end up in the water, all you need to do is swim away from the old man in the orange shirt (i.e., Reg). Reg was pretty pissed about being called an old man -- I was more worried about whether I would be one of the rats swimming away from the old man in the orange shirt!

There were only a few of us on the cruise that day. Several were young kids, just a bite sized snack for some of the bigger crocs! I found it a little frightening, they were that close and really can jump awfully high.

After the cruise we stopped at the "Window on the Wetlands"  on our way back to the city. This is a museum on a bit of high land with panoramic views of the surrounding country side. During the wet season the land is often flooded, in the dry it's dry and parched. There's quite a bit of farming in the area but it is challenging. e.g. crocodile captures are often because they are harassing the cattle!

Our final adventure on the Saturday was a walk around the historic down town area with a tour of the NT Parliament. The parliament building is called the "Wedding Cake" -- it's tiered and looks a bit like a white wedding cake but others tell us it's called that because it's "full of fruits, nuts and a bit of rum"! The guide for the day was a nice older retired lady, Jenny Armour, who had worked in the State/Legislative Library which is housed in one part of the parliament building (a wing originally set aside to be the Senate of a bicameral house). She was very knowledgeable and helped acquaint us with the NT flag, the NT Coat of Arms, the politics of the NT, the construction of the building (opened in 1994 and designed to withstand the next Cyclone Tracy) and much more. One of the interesting items in the library is the Darwin Commemorative Quilt -- it's a very large patchwork quilt with nearly 2,000 names of people who had spent time in the Northern Territory (NT) during the war years. Patches were signed by people attending the 50th anniversary celebration of the Japanese bombing of Darwin in 1992. The patches were assembled into a huge quilt on display in the State/Legislative Library. Kate asked who made the quilt (thinking that it might have been some local Women's Institute or the like) and Jenny informed us that she had made the quilt!

Our last night in Darwin was a nice dinner at a Thai restaurant in the CBD not far from the Parliament (we couldn't have fish and chips every night!). While there the clouds opened and a huge deluge followed. We were getting out of town in advance of the next cyclone of the wet season.

Saigon

Rooftop Bar - Lief Hotel, Saigon

Kate and I visited Saigon, Vietnam (now known as Ho Chi Minh City -- I'm not sure which is the preferred name) in February of 2017 at the end of our Mekong River cruise. We were there for three nights arriving shortly before noon on the 23rd and flew out to continue our adventures in Darwin on the 26th.

We have a photo album of our visit which you might want to visit.

At the end of our river cruise we were dropped at one of the big hotels in the central business district. A posh hotel outside of our price range. We grabbed a cab to the "Lief" Boutique hotel which is just a little outside of CBD. Cabs were reasonable and a good way to get around the busy streets. There's a major construction effort ongoing in the city to build/extend the underground system but we never took any public transit.

The traffic in Saigon was simply shocking -- it made Bangkok, Songkhla, Siem Reap and Phnom Penh all look like a walk in the park. Streets were packed with cars and many small motorbikes which seem to take no heed to any traffic rules. You'd find them zooming down the wrong side of the street driving against the traffic. You'd see them loaded with impossible parcels -- we saw one guy packing a mattress and box spring onto the back of his bike, I wonder if he made it home? Another time we saw a fellow with a rider on back holding onto a full sized door and frame perched between them. I wonder how that went. And when they weren't parked on the busy sidewalks blocking all pedestrian traffic you'd sometimes see them zooming down the sidewalks to pass stalled traffic! Near the cathedral we witnessed a motorbike being bumped by a car as everyone tried to merge through an "anything goes" intersection. He just righted his bike and continued on. It was amazing, I couldn't imagine driving in the city. Fortunately we had hired a guide and driver to help us along.

We booked our hotel through the Agoda web site: it's one of those booking agencies like hotels.com, priceline.com, expedia.ca, etc. However, they seem to have better penetration in that part of the world. We booked the hotel under it's old name "I am Vietnam", it has only recently been rebranded as "The Lief Boutique hotel". We were on the patio one morning as they installed the new signage. It is a newer, modern, stylish, fresh, well equipped, low-rise hotel in a French colonial/Art Deco style with a ground floor restaurant and patio (I enjoyed my breakfasts on the patio every day, we had a late lunch on the patio another day) and a roof-top open air bar. It's down a narrow alley off a side street and a little hard to find -- fortunately the taxi got us there safely but he had to ask for help. We were warmly greeted by the staff on duty and treated to a cold drink (some kind of sweet iced tea) while we awaited our room. Our large front corner room on the third floor had a curved floor to ceiling window overlooking the neighborhood with a small balcony off the side of a small eating area. We had a comfy king sized bed, nice bath, a small kitchen facilty, and air conditioning! We were happy, we really enjoyed our room. The hotel also hosted a roof-top happy hour on the 7th floor (I think that's the floor number -- it's not a great tall building) which had good views of the surrounding neighborhood and the city center off in the distance. We took advantage of the sunsets from the roof top on several occasions. I would not hesitate to recommend this hotel. And, as it was outside the CBD, it was much cheaper than the down town hotels.

Since we were only in the city for a few days, and it's a huge city not so easily managed by folks like ourselves, we had arranged several tours ahead of time. On the Thursday evening when we arrived we were picked up at our hotel by our guide Lin (we had her for Thursday and Friday) and taken by car to the Saigon Opera House to see the "Teh Dar" show. The opera house is a classic French colonial building and a landmark in the city. We were encourage by our friends, Paul and Sandra, back home to see a different, but similar, show  -- the AO Show which was on tour at the time. Both are visual spectaculars with lots of very athletic actors performing well choreographed feats of coordination and acrobatics -- something like the Cirque du Soleil troupe in North America. The "Teh Dar" show is a celebration of the culture of the hill people of Vietnam and the performers were dressed accordingly -- none of the fluff and neon of Cirque du Soleil. In fact often times they reminded us of primitive cave men. We enjoyed the show -- it's all spectacle with rhythmic chanting, banging of drums and acrobatics on huge sticks that they formed into moving patterns that they clambered about on. There is no language issue, it's visual and rhythmic.

That night we were shown the Notre Dame Cathedral which is very near the Central Post Office -- both of these and the Opera House are well preserved buildings from the French Colonial period. Lin told us the cathedral is an exact replica of the one in Paris -- I've seen both, it's impressive yes, but no where near as big or impressive as the real Notre Dame! After the show Lin took us to our late night dinner at the "Time Bistro", a second floor restaurant nearby specialising in Vietnamese Cuisine. It was nice enough but not very spicy. The local wines in SE Asia are usually pretty awful, the imported stuff is very expensive. The street nearby was quite busy with lots of neon lights in celebration of the Chinese New Year. A pedestrian mall between the two streets was busy with people enjoying the evening. The sidewalk was a bit of a danger with motor bikes parked and sometimes driving on the pedestrian right of way. Lin was happy to take us for a walk to see more but we decided to head home.

The next day, Friday, Lin (our guide from the night before) picked us up at our hotel in the morning with her driver. Our adventures for the day involved a trip out of the city to see the Chu Chi Tunnels (Viet Cong tunnels from the war) and a return to the city for more sites. On the way out of the city we stopped at another lacquer and handicrafts factory. This factory was special as the workers were all handicapped -- all victims in one way or another of the "War of American Aggression" (land mine victims, birth defects because of Agent Orange). The Chu Chi Tunnels is quite a large complex of huts and hidden tunnels which would have been constructed to hide Viet Cong and North Vietnamese "insurgents" who were trying to unite their country. In some measure it's a pretty sad place, but you'd never know that by the tourists who seemed to be having great fun posing with tableaus of incredible hardship during a nasty war.

We had a spicy lunch on our return to the city (Lin had taken our comments from the night before to heart), then vistited the very old Jade Emperor Pagoda (a Chinese Temple that Obama had visited in 2016), then the War Remnants museum, and finally the Independence/Reunification Palace. For us the whole day was an insight into the Vietnam War. The photo exhibit at the War Remnants museum was particularly moving -- the "Napalm Girl", who now lives in Canada, is instantly recognisable.

On Saturday, our last day in Saigon, we went on "Sophies Art Tour" which is billed as a journey through Vietnam's art history. This was recommended by Paul and Sandra (they also recommended the Opera House show) and it's well worth recommending to the reader. It's a small, no more than a dozen, conducted tour with an "art consultant" (ours was a Brit named Stu) -- "tour guides" must be from Vietnam -- who takes you around to some of the very small private galleries to show you art works and explain their historical context. The tour starts at a downtown restaurant where we met -- we took a cab from our hotel. We're given some of the historical context starting around 1930 when a school of art hosted by the French started -- before that "art" was more "crafts" than art. For example, the lovely works at the lacquer factories are crafts where a fairly static work is repeated by craftsmen. Art for arts sake is apparently a rather recent notion (it might also have something to do with the affluence of the culture -- to be wealthy enough to be idle).

We visited private galleries. There is a City Museum of Fine Arts, which I understand is well worth a visit.

Of the works we saw there were a couple that impressed us. At the "Lotus Gallery" we were taken to an upstairs office and shown some examples from a folio of drawings made by a North Vietnamese soldier during the war of "American Agression". The Viet Cong/Vietnamese documented the war with patriotic sketches of life in wartime much the same way that photographers would. The art works were in pencil, chalk, carbon from burnt sticks, etc. .... from whatever was at hand. Photography wouldn't have worked as well with the heat and humidity, besides, the equipment at hand was pretty primitive. You could carry a pencil and paper pretty easily, a dark room would have been hard. And the artist was a soldier as well who would have been involved in fighting as well as documenting the war. Some of the works are obvious propaganda of the time but others were more thoughtful moments of soldiers at ease captured in a quick sketch. I'm ashamed to admit I can't remember the artists name. I know that I was saddened to see their deterioration into brittle, yellowed, aged paper. I asked why these had not been digitally scanned to preserve them. Apparently, in Vietnam, there are no copyright laws and they are concerned that the artist's ownership will be lost to a digital world.

Another exhibit at the "Hien Minh Company" (antiquarian and gallery) was the art of Nguyen Thi Hien. A woman whose work seems to have been very much inspired by Europe. One was like a Modigliani, another like Picasso. A lovely, but fading, portrait of a young girl was painted on a piece of wood from a dresser drawer. And on the other side a landscape painting. A patriotic painting of a woman soldier on burlap was sadly falling apart. Her work would have been condemned as "decadent" during the early communist regime and we're lucky that this much has survived.

The final galley was "Salon Saigon" located down an alley in what had been a private residence -- formerly the home of Henry Cabot Lodge during his stay as ambassador to South Vietnam. This was a very modern gallery, well lit and cared for with a performance space as well as exhibition halls with very modern works of art. There were some lovely pieces there -- contemporary and sometimes a bit edgy.

Sophie's Art Tour was an informative tour that we thoroughly enjoyed.

The tour dispersed in the early afternoon and we got a ride home in the tour van with Stu -- it turned out he lived down the street a bit from our hotel. We had a late lunch on the patio of "pho soup", enjoyed a final sunset evening at our hotel roof top bar, and a final night time stroll through our neighborhood.

The next day, Sunday, we left Saigon and flew to Darwin via Kuala Lumpur. We enjoyed our visit to Saigon and may return another day. Kate tells me there's things to see in Hanoi and it would be nice to see some of the countryside too.

Mekong River

Life on the Mekong River

Kate and I explored some of the Mekong River on a cruise aboard the RV Mekong Prestige II in February, 2017. We were on an 8 day/7 night guided trip from Siem Reap in Cambodia to Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) in the former South Vietnam. We have a large photo album from the trip if you are interested in following that link. Here I'll try to document the day to day adventures.

The cruise travelled with a sister ship the Mekong Pestige I (both are flagged out of Vietnam). The older ship had only French speaking travellers while ours had 41 German speakers and 14 English speakers with a bilingual German guide Matthias and excellent helpful staff who all had a good command of our two languages. Each day there would be some interesting town and sights to explore. Some days there were morning and afternoon excursions; some days we were travelling the river. Every night there was a lecture, film, or some other event on board. And it was a cruise so they take care of you and when all else fails there’s always food and drink to keep you entertained.

Thursday, February 16

We met our cruise at the Sokha Angkor Resort on the morning of Thursday, February 16. This very large and posh resort was a short Tuk Tuk ride from our much smaller and more modest digs at the Green Leaf Boutique hotel where we had stayed while exploring the Angkor Wat (and several others). During high water rainy season, when the Mekong floods Tonle Sap Lake,  it’s a short bus ride to meet up with the ship at the pier in Phnom Krom on Tonle Sap Lake. That’s nice as you get a day to explore life on the lake. It's the largest fresh water lake in all of South East Asia and in many ways the life blood of the Cambodian economy – the rice fields and fishing being the obvious.

We were travelling at the start of the dry season at low water when Tonle Sap drains back into the Mekong and unfortunately low water levels meant the ships could not navigate into the lake so our first day involved a bus trip to meet the ship down river at a town called Prek K'Dam. I think high water would be interesting as the flooding is extensive and crucial to the rice farming.

The bus trip did make a couple of stops. Once for a box lunch at a modest lakeside dining room, another at a village market where you could try (but not recommended by our guide) fried bugs of various sorts, tarantulas, spiders and other such "local" cuisine. Both had crappy crappers which required a coin to enter (who carries Cambodian coins?). Kate was not at all keen about the porcelain hole in the floor. How can you squat over these and keep your clothes clean. Men had it much easier -- they'd just piss discretely against an outside wall and not pay anything.

From Prek K'Dam, where we met our ship around 3:00 pm that afternoon, we navigated up the Tonle Sap river and anchored overnight near the town of Kampong Chhang which is very near the lake. 

Along the way we saw  lots of the daily life along the river: fishing with nets from narrow long boats, floating homes, livestock (like oxen and water buffalo), water pumps hammering away to flood rice fields, homes on stilts, homes on boats, homes on bamboo rafts, lots of little ferries that cross the Mekong (bridges are few and far between) and the daily rituals of bathing, cooking, etc. for those who live on the river. And there are lots who live along the river.

Friday, February 17

Friday morning breakfast we sit with a German couple at one of the tables by the window of the dining room. We ask "Do you mind if we join you?" and are met with silence. Hmm... this doesn't bode well. Was it something we said?

In Kampong Chhnang City, on the morning of Friday, February 17, we explored by our narrow long tender boats the very large floating Vietnamese fishing villages that populate the river. The town itself was very busy with crowded active streets, overloaded vehicles with passengers precariously perched on top, street vendors hawking food, farm workers winnowing rice and Buddhist monks out begging for their daily meal. Kate had the misfortune of yet another hole in the floor pissoir. We used to see these a lot in parts of Europe, they're still common in Cambodia.

Down river at Kampong Tralach the afternoon excursion involved an Ox cart ride to Wat Kampong Leu (one of the oldest temples in Cambodia that was abused by the Khmer Rouge) where a monk blessed those who wished to be blessed. We then had a bus ride to to Oudong (the former capitol) and visited the hilltop complex of the Vihara of Vipassana Center for another temple (this one far grander) and more blessings by monks. There's a reclining Buddha at that site that's comparable to the one in Bangkok (but not gilt with gold leaf).

Kate, who was still recovering from her cold that she brought with her from home and had already seen far too many Buddha’s in Thailand, stayed on board and missed the afternoon excursion.

Saturday-Sunday, February 18-19

At Phnom Penh, where the Tonle Sap River meets the Mekong Kate explored the Silk Island and the city while Reg nursed the cold that he had got from her. Back on board the staff insisted on nursing me back to health with hot ginger tea.

Kate tells me of a distressing encounter with on of the Germans at breakfast (I'm too sick to get out of bed). She's gone back to the buffet and picks up a piece of bread. A German fellow scolds her "Nicht mit der hande!" Hmm... this doesn't bode well either! Do you think we're children in need of etiquette lessons?

On the Silk Island: Kate and the rest of our troup visited a small grade school and met young children who were keen to practice their English; a silk weaving factory where the weavers worked manual looms (unlike the card-punch jacquard loom silk factory we visited later); road in rickshaws and enjoyed the scenary. In Phnom Penh that afternoon they had a free day to explore the city. The next day they visited the Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda; toured the National Museum and visited the art-deco Central Market. Back on board we were entertained with some traditional Cambodian music and dance while at dinner Reg celebrated his 65^th birthday and the staff surprised him with a birthday cake. Matthias, the tour director, has everyone’s passport so birthday celebrations can’t be kept secret!

One of the not so nice things about Phnom Penh was the docking. Our two ships were lashed together at a floating dock. That meant that our balcony was right up against the balcony of the other ship and hence not very useful.

Monday, February 20

On our last day in Phnom Penh Reg felt well enough for a brief morning walk in the city (so he could really say that he had been there).  We didn’t see much and were almost run over by a Tuk Tuk driving on the wrong side of the road – you need to look both ways when you cross the street! Traffic in Phnom Penh was pretty wild but nothing compared to what we later found on the streets of Saigon.

Back on the sun deck we're on a pair of lounge chairs talking when a couple of chairs down a German woman scolds me (in German) for my snorking and snivelling (I guess she's never had a cold). I don't understand German but it's clear that she's telling me I'm "disgusting", ruining her day and to go get a Kleenex or better yet that I should go back to my room. This doesn't bode well at all! As the ever polite Canadian I apologize but I am pissed off. This won't do.

So, I write to my German speaking friends back home (we have a spotty internet connection on the ship) to learn how to politely tell a German to "Fuck off!" in preparation for the next encounter. They encourage me to not venture there, or, if I do, to stick to my native language. We decide that an informal "Maginot Line" is required and prepare our trenches. Fortunately we find comfort with our English speaking allies and no further hostilities are worthy of reporting.

Another struggle in Phnom Penh concerned our visas to enter Vietnam. Reg had purchased these on line and got the dates wrong by one day!  The staff on the ship handled this problem at the embassy in the city. It ended up that we had to pay for new visas. That ate up some of our American cash (I recall it cost around $75 each for the visas).

The rest of that day was a leisurely travel adventure down on the river into Vietnam with a stop anchored at the border while some of the ship’s staff went into a small port to deal with Vietnam’s customs and immigration.

Along the way we saw lots of fishing villages, fishermen in small narrow long boats, dredging for sand, modern boats laden with sand and older wooden boats laden with rice. Reg and a few others had a tour of the ship’s bridge – it’s quite a modern ship and well equipped with all the navigational aids one might need but navigation is largely by sight. Interestingly the bridge uses a joy stick rather than a wheel to steer the ship!  Others went to a chef’s carving lesson in the dining room but most of us spent the day on the sun deck enjoying the view and drinks from the bar. Kate and I played a lot of Scrabble on the sun deck.

We crossed under one of the very few bridges on the Mekong and anchored that night near the Vietnamese town of Tan Chau which we toured the next day.

Tuesday, February 21

Tan Chau is a large town on the Mekong in Vietnam with many ferries busy shuttling people back and forth across the river – there are no bridges. Morning finds us taking a tender into town where we meet up with bicycle powered rickshaws that take us on a long, but fairly quick, drive along the river to a silk factory where we have a lesson on silk production and the industrial weaving on mechanical jacquard looms where the pattern is controlled by punch cards. These are noisy old machines that clatter and bang away (you really need ear plugs) as the silk is weaved into lovely patterns controlled by the punched cards (they’d be about 2’x3’ big).  Jacquard looms are famous in the history of computing – there’s the story of the Luddites who rebelled and destroyed the looms back in the 19^th century.

At the store of this silk factory we bought some silk shirts for our men friends and some silk kimonos for our women friends back home.

After the silk factory another rickshaw rides takes us to a sedge mat weaving factory – the mats are used as sleeping mats. The weaving is mechanical but a person is manually inserting strips of sedge as the loom hammers away – a tedious job for sure. From there we walk through backyards and green gardens to the river where we meet up with our tender. The tender takes us to one of the many floating fish farms on the Mekong where we have a good look at our dinner – Kate is not keen about fish farming and even less so now.

The rest of the day is a leisurely trip south on the river to the Mekong delta town of Sa Dec. Along the way we now recognize the many fish farms we see on the river.

Wednesday, February 22

At the Mekong delta town of Sa Dec, the morning excursion by tender takes us to a Cao Dai temple. It’s low tide and more than a little awkward getting off the tender as there is no dock or pier at the temple. Some of our group could not manage the rough, rocky shore and waited while the rest toured the temple.

Cao Dai (literally the "Highest Lord" or "Highest Power") is the supreme deity, believed by Caodaists to have created the universe. The symbol of the faith is the Left Eye of God which looks very much like the symbol over the pyramid on the American dollar bill. This uniquely Franco-Vietnamese monotheistic religion sees itself as a merger of everything that’s gone before. One of the oddities is they consider Victor Hugo (the French author) as one of their three founding saints. The religion was founded in South Vietnam in 1926 and, not too surprisingly, was persecuted (perhaps it still is). Currently it’s an accepted religion in Vietnam and recognized by the government since 1997.

The temple is colorful, very garish with lots of neon – a bit of Las Vegas meets Buddha at a Chinese Temple with a Hindu fruit offering thrown in to keep it real. There’s a very FALSE story that Charlie Chaplin is revered as well – that’s simply not true! ... or if true it's only partly true. The Wikipedia article on Caodaism says:

"Reports that Winston Churchill and Charlie Chaplin were also "saints" are based on an inaccurate 1956  Time magazine article, since both of them were still alive at the time (and lived for several more decades)".

Afterwards we walked some of the downtown streets of Sa Dec including the busy market area and then visited the “Lover’s House”. This is an ornate home from the French colonial period where the French writer Marguerite Duras lived between 1928 and 1932. Duras as a 15-year-old schoolgirl met Huynh Thuy Le, 27, the son of a wealthy Chinese family and a love affair followed. Neither family approved of the relationship. She later wrote about it and the story was made into a film.

Downriver that day at Cai Be we passed through a floating market and visited a Catholic Cathedral  – a reminder of the French Colonial past. From there we walked a short distance on village streets and visited a candy factory where they were making popped rice candy squares and coconut toffees.  This was a busy family affair with everyone involved from toddlers through to adults. Along with the candies, they were also brewing and distilling rice liquor and selling the ubiquitous snake wine -- we men sampled some (apparently it’s a good tonic for men).  Reg was reluctant to try it but did.  The snakes are supposed to be venomous but we understand that many of them are in fact just plastic toys.  We also saw a lady making rice paper (the kind you soak in water to make spring rolls). After our tour we had some time to sample the candies and tea ... to help wash the snake liquor away!

That evening was the last night on the ship. We had a lovely dinner with our Norwegian friends. The dinner was plated inside the typical straw hats you see so often in pictures of Vietnam (our friend Inger had bought one from a street peddler when we visited the cathedral that morning). Dessert was a “Baked Alaskan” with a chocolate “Thank You” written across the plate.

The evening entertainment was a final goodbye from all the staff and crew on the boat who had taken such good care of us.

Thursday, February 23

The last day of the tour, February 23, had us disembarking at My Tho on the Mekong delta for a morning bus tour to Ho Chi Minh City (or Saigon), Vietnam. This part of the tour had a couple of stops along the way.

The first stop was an ornate Chinese temple with colorful , huge and interesting incense burning away (some were huge smoldering sticks, others where large hanging spirals and of course lots of the smaller incense stick we see here). We took a group photo there of our English speaking friends.

The last stop, before being dropped at a downtown hotel, was a lacquer factory where they make that highly polished furniture and art work with inlays of egg shell, mother of pearl, etc. There were several “Picasso” inspired pieces that really impressed me.

The bus tour ended shortly after noon at the Sofitel Plaza in the central district of Ho Chi Minh  City – another posh resort well beyond our means. We took a taxi from there to the “I am Vietnam” hotel (now renamed the “Lief”) not far from the central city.

Siem Reap

Siem Reap and the Ancient Sites

Kate and I spent a couple of days in Siem Reap, Cambodia in February, 2017 after visiting with Paul and El in Songkhla Thailand. We arrived on the 13th and met up with our Mekong river tour on the 16th.

If you are interested we have a photo album of our few days visiting the city and the historical sites.

But first we have an interesting story about our arrival at the Siem Reap airport. You need to queue up and get an entry visa at the airport - it's pro-forma process but has to be done. In the line behind us was a young English woman and behind her a middle aged American. Of course the conversation ends up on Donald Trump (what new crazy thing has he done today) and the American starts to regale the English woman with how great the Donald is, and how he'll make America great again, and how he had won with the largest electoral majority ever (I recall him saying that over 80% voted for the Donald -- which is just a ridiculous bold faced lie). Kate and I over hear all of this and are rolling our eyes at one another when he tells the English woman that the Donald is against abortion and he'd vote for him on that alone. Now, how could any male in their right mind ever say that to a young woman? You don't have a right to choose what happens to your body! It really blew our minds. He's sees we're reacting and tries to engage us in conversation on his side of things. He sees Kate is wearing a T-shirt from the Niagara Wine region which has a slogan "Winning the war on terroir" (that's terroir as in wine region not 'terror' as in terrorist) and says that we must be Republicans as everyone in upper state New York is and aren't we ever so pleased that the Donald is in office. We explain that no, we're from Canada and we have an entirely different view of things. In particular the Donald has promised to gut health care and what will people do then? Oh, well I'm covered and I'll be much better off with lower taxes. This was the point when we recognized the futility of debating with a table leg -- I told him to go away, do not talk to us!

Anyways, back to the travel adventures ....

Siem Reap is one of the largest cities in Cambodia (after Phnom Penh of course) and is most famous for the Angkor Wat (and the many other similar structures) built by the Khmer Empire back around 1100 or so. That's around the time of the Battle of Hastings. The Khmer were a very advanced civilization by comparison if these structures are anything to go by.

The first full day we visited the Angkor National Museum and then Angkor Wat that evening for sunset. Angkor Wat is a huge and very busy complex of nested courtyards. We never got beyond the first before closing time at dusk. It's the most popular Wat to see but they're all impressive and all very crowded with tourists like us.

The next day we visited Ta Prohm which is famous for the strangler figs and banyan trees which envelope the ruins. And then we saw Angkor Thom (the Banyan) which first appears as a jumble but as you explore the site the organization becomes clear with the many 4-headed towers in a regular geometric pattern.

All of these temples have had lots of work done to try to restore them towards what they might have looked like a thousand years ago but there is a ton of work to be done. Both are famous from Hollywood movies made here -- Laura Croft's "Tomb Raider" and Indiana Jones' "Temple of Doom" (see this article which has some lovely pictures).

We stayed at a lovely oasis of a hotel off the busy streets and down a dusty alley called the Green Leaf not too far from the "Pub Street" area. I would highly recommend the hotel, the swimming pool, the helpful friendly staff, the excellent food and service, and especially the two house cats -- Oscar and Ginger who welcomed us! We read about the hotel in the Toronto Star -- it's a non-profit owned by Canadians. Their mission is to train locals and get them into work in the hospitality industry.

We loved our Tuk Tuk experience with Mr. S.B. -- these little motorized rickshaw affairs powered by small motorcycles are a cheap and fun way to explore the city and country side.  ..... once you've learned to trust that you're not going to be killed in the busy traffic! There are very few "managed" intersections.

Songkhla

Reg, El and Paul - Songkhla

In of February, 2017 Kate and I visited for a few days with my brother Paul and his wife El in Songkhla Thailand where they run "The Blue Smile Cafe" in the old part of town - a funky little restaurant with great sunset views of Lake Songkhla from the rooftop bar.

We have a photo album of our visit you may want to visit.

Unfortunately El's dad had only recently passed away in Bangkok and she was rightly still very much in mourning. So the restaurant was closed to customers for a few weeks. But we had some sunsets to enjoy from the roof top bar together when she returned during our visit. The restaurant reopened just after we left and seems to be doing very well.

We stayed at the Baan Nai Nakhon, Boutique Hotel, in Old Town Songkhla which was just a short block or so walk away from Paul and El's place. Like the Blue Smile Cafe this was also a funky little place and only recently opened. We had a very nice room -- air conditioned! Breakfast was included and there was a courtyard oasis in which you could enjoy it but usually we'd be up very early and have something with Paul and El instead. One day they insisted we have something and sent a Curry and Roti breakfast with us that we shared with Paul and El. Often times we'd have fresh fruit from the market for breakfast. The Jack Fruit was particularly interesting -- we'd never seen them before. It's an large odd looking lumpy fruit with a stringy yellow inside that you sort of peel apart.

We explored "Old Town Songkhla" where the restaurant is located, the mermaid on the sea shore at Samila beach, several street markets as well as the nearby city market, a hill top view of the city complete with some clever monkeys that mooch peanuts, several Buddhist temples and retreats, a sea side dinner, a drive around the lake and back by ferry boat, and of course enjoyed the sunsets and the company of Paul and El.

But gosh was it hot! The trick we learned was to get up early before it gets too hot, take an afternoon nap and enjoy the cooler evenings. Paul tells us that you need to change your clothes several times a day and take a shower to cool down and wash away the sweat. Especially during the rainy season when it's particularly hot and muggy with rain every day -- I can't imagine what that must be like.

Paul did give me a nice traditional Thai cotton shirt that was much cooler to wear than a T-shirt. They're effective but deem to have fallen out of fashion -- locals wear T-shirts with English/American brands and slogans. We brought them some souvenirs from Canada -- more funky art for the walls of the cafe.

At the Samila Beach seashore we tested the waters the first day with Paul and marvelled that no one was swimming. The water was warm and seemed to be very clean -- fishermen were casting nets right there by the shore. Paul tells us that it's just not the culture of Thai people to swim in the ocean. We weren't aware of any risks (sharks? jelly fish? pollution? strong currents?) that would prevent one from swimming and decided to try it another day. They day we came back to the water with our bathing suits the wind was up and the waves were very rough so we didn't get in at all. I guess that's the one that got away ... Paul tells me he's never been in the ocean in all the time he's been there. And he's a good strong swimmer!

One day we asked Paul and El to take us to a super market (a north american style market rather than a street market) and we visited a Tesco at a local mall. We were after packaged foodie things to take home as souvenirs. We had an interesting lunch at a restaurant in the mall where we cooked our own "Pho". The table has a hot plate with a vegetable broth bubbling away and you order plates of vegetables, noodles, etc. to add to the broth. You cook the vegetables just a bit in the broth. It worked very well and was some fun. Throughout our trip to South East Asia, that style of food made a big impression on us. When we got home we discovered that our local super market carries a "Pho" soup broth and we've been making that a lot with udon noodles, baby bok choy, mushrooms, shrimp and/or tofu, and whatever else is at hand. It's also good practice at using chop sticks and pretty healthy too.

It was good to see my little brother who turned 59 in May and his wife El who keeps him on the right path. Every good Buddhist needs a partner to remind him that "In Peace and Love We Trust" is more than just a slogan.