Our Travel Blog

Today we headed off to Chiang Mai in the Northern part of Thailand. This meant another early start to our day. The restaurant opened for breakfast at 0630, we were there at 0628, and were the first customers! That was a first for us, that I hope won’t be repeated.

We checked out and our guide and driver took us to the airport, a trip that took 90 minutes when we arrived was completed in 35 minutes this morning. Today we wouldn’t have the luxury of a lounge to wait in as we were travelling in economy. The sacrifices we have to make sometimes :-).

Despite turning right as we boarded the aircraft AND walking almost to the back of the plane to find our seats, we managed to survive the one hour trip.

We were met on our arrival by our guide, this time here name was Bammie, the last guide was Boomie! We were not able to check into the hotel until 3PM, mainly due to the fact the hotel was busy in absorbing guests that had been evacuated from other properties.

We drove to a temple located 3300ft above the city, with a 300 step climb from the street to the temple itself.

Looking down the 300 Stairs

Fortunately there was also a funicular railway that could take us there if we wanted. We wanted!

Once at the top we were greeted by many buildings, which is typical of the temples we had visited previously in Thailand. I was expecting a temple to be just that, a single building.

Below are photos from around the temple grounds.

In Thailand religions peacefully co-exist, below is a shrine with a Hindu Goddess, and below that a shrine with a Chinese Buddha.

We discovered a large moth on the wall, believed to be a Japanese Lunar Moth

The building below has just been renovated and is covered in 24 carat gold leaf.

The top of the building switches to 15Kgs of pure gold for it’s construction, the very top portion is made from crystal glass.

The city of Chiang Mai

From there we headed back to the hotel, it appears that we made a good choice. We are also finding prices here for food and drink is way less than in Bangkok. Tomorrow we are off to the elephant sanctuary for the day!

The good news was that we received our Cambodia visas. The day before we left I got an eMail saying that the Cambodian govt. had revised their Visa requirements with immediate effect! This involved answering numerous questions on line, providing (thankfully, electronically) a passport photo and a copy of the passport. We had the hotel print them out last night as they were required to be in paper form.

The bad news that I got in an eMail was that there had been severe flooding up north where we are heading tomorrow and the elephant sanctuary may be closed, however our tour director assured us, that if that was the case, they would rearrange our last few days in Phuket (pronounce it as you see fit!) to ensure we got to visit one. Next, while on our way this morning we were advised that the new hotel was open, but was surrounded by water. The hotel was “ferrying” guests to dry pick up points for their tours in “large trucks”, were we OK with that? On the way home we learnt that the hotel gave up on that idea and was now closed! We had to choose a new one! On the good news side, so far the elephant sanctuary appears to be unaffected.

Today’s trip was an even earlier start, 0700. We headed out of town for our next adventure. On the way we also encountered some flooding!!

Our destination was the Train Market. Many of you may have seen this on you tube. There is a market with stalls along both sides of the railway track, so close that their awnings cover the track! When the train comes, the awnings have to be pulled in and people moved back behind the safety line. The safety line gives about 15cms (6 inches) clearance from the train! Immediately after the train passes, every thing is opened up, and life returns to normal

Our guide was very good, and she got us a ring/track side seat in a restaurant, complete with Mango and Coconut smoothies!

Health and Safety anyone.

Having survived the train, we left the market and headed for Thailand’s equivalent of a Maple Sugar Shack, a Coconut Sugar Shack. This particular one still used the old method of production. The sap is gathered from the tree by cutting into the green branches and letting it drip out.

It is then reduced in a series of heatings over a wood fire, the wood being old coconut husks.

Some of the product is drawn off as coconut syrup.

Some of the syrup is is further processed to make Coconut sugar

In addition to the syrup and sugar, there are many other products such as coconut toffee and coconut chips.

Next it was back into the van and to the floating market. The area was full of small canals, and in one area there was …….. a market, some of the stalls being boats! We took a boat tour around, the boat was similar to yesterdays long tail, but was human powered!

There were some powered boats around, this guy was obviously proud of his engine

Once off the boat, there was also a “normal” market to navigate! Lyn managed to find some things to buy as souvenirs. We also had lunch there.

After lunch it was time to head back to the hotel. The weather is still hot and humid so we headed to the pool, unfortunately any hopes of cooling down in the pool were dashed as soon as we got in as the pool was quite warm.

Tomorrow we’re up early and flying about 1.5 hours north, hopefully the flooding situation up there has improved.

An early start to the day (for us!), 8AM!

It appears that Thai meteorologists are no better than our own, yesterdays forecast was for 0% chance of rain. When we woke up it was pi$$ing down. Our first stop was the Wat Arun (the Temple of Dawn) if you want more info https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wat_Arun. Buddhism is the predominant religion in Thailand, and there are temples everywhere, they add a splash of colour to the city.

Way back when, well the 1700’s or so, Thailand bought a lot of china and ceramics from China, unfortunately the packaging of these goods left a lot to be desired, and much of the shipment was broken. Not wishing to waste the goods that had already been paid for, the remnants were used in the building of the Temple of Dawn as the pictures below show.

Above is the complete tower, decorated the same way all the way to the top

What’s the password??

Thankfully the rain had stopped by this point as the next part of the trip involved a ride on a “Long Tail” on the canal.

View from the Long Tail

The long tail name comes from the long drive shaft that connect the engine to the propellor. The engines on these boats are large, I’m guessing 6 litres or so AND turbo charged

One of many monitor lizards that we saw

Canal work in progress with the equipment on a floating barge. The barge had no engine, it was propelled using the digger bucket to pull it along.

Some of the houses along the canal. They ranged from shacks to mansions.

And of course Temples

A long tail coming out of the lock

Our boat driver stopped an bought some old bread to feed the fish. It was a feeding frenzy when we threw it in. I am told they were cat fish.

Where does one sit?? Luckily there were “western” toilets available as well!

Next it was back to the van, for some reason we had 10 seat passenger van to ourselves. We headed off to the Grand Palace. Again, I’ll give a reference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Palace, it saves me typing! Below are some of the pictures. The place was beyond description, even the photo’s won’t do it justice.

What’s the password (again). This poor guy had to stand their for 3 hours in the heat and humidity!

The door above is inlaid with mother of pearl, the lower picture is a close up of the detail

The palace above is loosely modelled on Buckingham Palace as it was designed by the same architect. A different one designed the roof!!

This lamp outside the palace may be familiar to Londoners

That’s why!

The elephant mounting station! The King would get dressed in the building and come out on top of the white platform. The elephant would be secured on the lower platform, the King would hop on, and off they went

Wasps in a flower!

Our last stop of the day was at the temple of the reclining Buddha.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wat_Pho

I’ll let you read about that as this has taken a long while to write. There was a problem with WordPress not accepting the pictures earlier which took a while to sort out.

It seems as though our electronics do not like to travel! Lyn’s cell phone got stuck on the boot up page, and after a little fiddling, it now refuses to turn on. Next I tried to adjust my watch to the local time zone, but it refused to obey. Being one of these electronic gizmos there is no manual way to adjust the hands. The electronics move the hands backwards or forwards to match the time in the local time zone. The hands would move forwards OK, but wouldn’t go back more than 15 minutes. The result, it’s 1345 now, but the watch says 1458!! I knew I should have bought that new watch I’ve been looking at before we left.

We arrived in Bangkok at 0600 local time. We got off the aircraft and were met by a guide to take us through immigration. We were able to use the fast track, but the term fast was only relative to the other track. Entering Thailand was reminiscent of flying into the US. Fingerprints left hand, finger prints right hand, thumb print left hand, thumb print right hand and finally photograph. The good news was, that having taken a while to get through immigration we arrived at the baggage belt just as the bags started coming off. We did well; Lyn’s bag was second off and mine was fifth. Once through customs our airport guide handed us over to our tour guide for the next few days. We headed out of the airport to our transport, it was hot and humid, even that early in the morning. It took about an hour to get to the hotel due to rush hour traffic, however at least they drive on the correct side of the road here, which is surprising as Thailand was never a British colony. Once there we got settled in and went for breakfast. The hotel is billed as a resort, and in fact it is very similar to any of the resorts you would stay at in the Caribbean.

After breakfast it was time for a quick nap and shower to ward off any jet lag. Thailand is 11 hours ahead of Ottawa. We then headed off to check out the local shopping mall attached to the hotel. The mall was interesting in that it had a few high(ish) end stores as well as Burger King, Boots (a UK pharmacy), Starbucks and a 7-11!

After this mornings downpour, the humidity has dropped, even if the temperature hasn’t. In an hour or so we are heading out with our guide for a tour of China Town for some food and drink.

Just as we entered Chia Town we were met by a transformer like figure. A lot of the work in China Town involves working on truck engines. What parts can’t be used are made into sculptures

We headed out to the older part of Chinatown first with some of the buildings dating back over 200 years

Below is the original Chinese Temple

Above is a shrine to Grand-parents!

Today was the first day of the “Vegetarian Festival” in China Town, the aim of this is two fold, for 10 days eat vegetarian meals and cleanse the body of all the bad stuff from eating meat. Secondly is to showcase how close to the real thing vegetarian meals can taste!

We stopped off at a local bar to sample the Thai beer, this was located on a roof top so I could get a few pictures of the Bangkok skyline.

The building above was designed with the bits “missing”

After the beer it was back down to the streets which were lined with people selling their wares and the place was mobbed. No photos unfortunately as it was very crowded and pouring with rain!

Next we stopped at a restaurant for a mixed Chinese Thai meal which was very tasty. By the time we finished the rain was still coming down, so we decided to head back to the hotel.

Above, the entrance to China Town at night.

Tomorrow we’re off to see more sights of the city.

As I said yesterday, just a travel day. As many of you may be aware we have developed an aversion to turning right when we board an aircraft, i.e. we fly business class on long haul flights. If you are prepared to do a fair bit of research, reasonable prices can be found. I found a reasonable price on Qatar airways, arguably one of the best business class airlines in the world.

We boarded the flight to Doha at Montreal, the business class cabin not only has lie flat sleeps, but each seat is its own cabin with a closing door. In our case we got two middle seats, where the divider between the two passengers goes down, and each seat has access to the aisle via the sliding door. All very comfy and private!

We both got a good seven hours sleep.

The picture below is us flying 35,00ft above the Red Sea

The temperature on arrival was 37C (100F) at 5PM!

The airport is amazing, as is the lounge. All interactions we have had with the Qatar staff have been amazing, I have a new favourite airline!!

Below is a view of about one quarter of the lounge! No overcrowding like a certain Canadian airline lounge!! A refreshing shower was had!

Below is a view of part of the terminal from the lounge

The flight from Doha to Bangkok was a short one, just under 7 hours! we managed to get a little more sleep as it was technically a red-eye, local time. The service again was excellent, the only disappointment on the first flight was the food. On this flight it was way better, so I’ll blame it on the Montreal caterers.

Here endeth day 2, I think. The time zones are getting too much to manage. So much so that my watch has thrown a wobbly. More on that tomorrow.

Well, we’re back on our travels again! This one started with a rail trip from Ottawa to Montreal. This was the first time I had taken a train in Canada since I was banned (temporarily) from flying with Air Canada!

The journey was about 1 hour 45 minutes, reaching dizzying speeds of 160km/h (100 mph). It was a pleasant trip, they even gave you booze and food!

Lyn was happy!

From the station at Dorval airport we caught a shuttle for the 10 minute ride to the airport. Check in was a little slow due to “problem” customers ahead of us, but security was a breeze, sort of! Our hand baggage got selected for a deeper inspection. I think I now know why. I asked the guy what needed to be taken out of the bag, he said only laptops, tablets were ok. I suspect a tablet with a keyboard is classed as a laptop, and there was our problem. Talking of problems, we always live in fear of forgetting to pack something important. Today my fear was realised, I forgot the charger for my tablet laptop! Luckily Lyn has the same one, hopefully she didn’t forget hers!

We’ve got about an hour to wait, then an 11 hour flight to Doha in Qatar, a couple of hours there, then off for 6.5 hours to Bangkok, Thailand for our first stop, arriving at 0610 in the morning!!

That’s enough for day one, as tomorrow is primarily travelling there may not be a blog, I’ll see how it goes.

Disaster struck on the last day! Normally on the days with early starts we order a room service breakfast. As today was our earliest start, up at 0600, it would have been perfect. It turns out that on the last day of the cruise there is no room service!

We survived! We headed off for a quick buffet breakfast then headed down to the theater to wait for the disembarkation message. After clearing customs our large suitcases were whisked away to the airport to be stored for later pickup.

Our tour today was pretty much a repeat of our ranch tour in Uruguay, with a couple of exceptions. There was even more BBQ meat!! I also got to ride a horse!! We also wet for to ride in an old horse and cart, and last but not least, it didn’t rain!

We got back to the airport and retrieved our bags, only to find that check-in didn’t open for a couple of hours! We finally got checked in and through security, then we had to pass through “migracion” where they checked the passport took our photo and fingerprints. I thought that big country to the south of us was bad, but I think Argentina has them beat.

We finally made it to the lounge, which is surprisingly quiet. I managed to grab a a shower and Lyn grabbed some shut-eye.

This is pretty much the end of the trip, we arrive in Houston around 0530,then connect to Pensacola, Florida around 0930.

Was the trip worth it? Yes. Could it be improved upon? Certainly; in my mind, the Machu Picchu trip would have benefited by being less busy or extended by a couple of days. Most everyone was pretty tired at the end of the trip.

We were very impressed with the organisation associated with the Princess Cruise, the staff were very friendly, polite and helpful and the food excellent. So much so we are considering a Panama Canal / Central America cruise with them next year,

For this year we have another 5 weeks in Alabama before taking an indirect route home via Paducah, Kentucky. Evidently there are quilt stores there!!

In the fall we have a S.E. Asian trip planned for Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam and Singapore. Stay tuned!

Today we moored for the last time, this time in Buenos Aries, Argentina. Our tour today was a short one of the city. This is probably the most modern of the cities we have visited.

There were only two stops, plus we chose the wrong side of the bus to sit so there aren’t too many pictures!

Like many of the cities we visited, murals were everywhere

Also prevalent was Eva Peron, below is a statue

and a sculpture, for want of a better word. It shows her with a microphone in her hand and it is on the building where she made her final public broadcast. I suspect it is lit at night.

We passed another sculpture, this time a flower. The petals used to open at dawn and close at dusk, but if you look at the photo you may notice the left most petal has fallen. This was due to a very rare tornado that hit the city a few years ago. It also damaged the cruise terminal.

On the tour we passed through the richer parts of the city, which was nothing spectacular. Many of the old waterfront warehouses have been converted into up-market condos.

To balance things out we also went to the poorer part of the city. As usual these areas have far more character and colour than the “posh” areas! Some pictures below to illustrate the point! Some are a little blurry as they were taken inside the coach.

In the picture above you can see the houses are built from corrugated sheets. These houses were build in the early 20th century by sailors from the ports. The materials for the houses were found in the waste areas of the ports and brought to the area to build with.

Much like Ushuaia, there is a massive cemetery in Buenos Aries, just a couple of shots from this one.

The last two photos show the mausoleum of Eva Peron

Tomorrow will be a very long day, we depart the ship at 0700, but don’t fly out until 2200. We have booked an all day tour, which will be similar to the one we did yesterday in Urugauy, but at least it will help pass the time.

I’ll try to do a final blog from the lounge, if not it will be later in the week when we get back to Alabama.

After a full day at sea yesterday we arrived at Montevideo, Uruguay this morning. It was tet another early (for us) start.

Today’s tour was to see the city of Montevideo and then travel out to a working ranch about an hour outside the city.

Some pictures of Independence Square in the city. The statue below is to honour Artigas who started the movement to free Uruguay from the Spanish

Below is the first concrete building in Montevideo, built in the 1920’s and hated by the locals. It was built as a hotel, but as no one liked it it was a failure. One hundred years later, the locals love it and it now houses offices and condominiums.

We travelled about an hour on the coach to a working ranch

At the ranch we toured on hay waggons drawn in some cases by vintage trucks and a couple of people managed to get a ride in an old Ford car!

It was a hot, humid amid oppressive day, and once we got amongst the eucalyptus trees the mosquitoes considered us fair game !

At one stage we drove through a field of bulls, they weren’t happy, and a few of them made threatening moves against us! Unfortunately I forgot to upload the pictures.

We headed back to the main part of the farm for food and drink with thunder rumbling off in the distance. As we got closer to the shelter, the thunder got closer to us. The thunder won! The heavens opened, the lightning was very close and we drowned!

Once in the shelter we had lunch of beef, chicken, piglet (sorry Catriona!) sausage, potatoes and veg. This food had been cooked over a large wood BBQ.

After lunch there was a drum and dance demo by some local dancers

Lyn got roped into dancing, I ran and hid.

By now the rain had stopped so we went outside so some people could try their hand at milking a cow.

Unsurprisingly the cow was not amused!

Once the humans had finished terrorising her, her calf was let out of it’s pen and ran full speed towards her for its lunch. (Not doing well tonight, another photo I didn’t upload)

To make up for the missing calf here’s a 2 week old foal.

The final demonstration was how they saddle a horse, Uruguayan style and also how they prepare the horse for carrying loads when they ride around the ranch for a few days.

The blog was a little rushed tonight, sorry. Tomorrow is our last stop, Buenos Aries for two days.

A day at sea today, before we arrive at Montevideo, Uruguay. Overall we have been pleasantly surprised with life aboard the Sapphire Princess, there are plenty of activities organised throughout the day if you wish to participate.

The ship has been brought into the modern electronics era with their “medallion” that I mentioned before. This little gizmo has a multitude of uses. It can unlock your door as you approach, it is used to register you when you leave or rejoin the ship at a port. There is an associated app for phones which allows WhatsApp like messaging between people who have set themselves up as a group, it also allows you to locate any members of the group and will give you instructions on how to meet up with them.

All around the ship are large (50 inch plus) screens that you can interact with to get information about activities, restaurants etc. You can also present the medallion to the screens and they will act very much like the phone app.

The medallions are used by the ships staff if you wan to order food or drink. The staff have cell phone devices that can “read” the medallion from a few feet away, so often they will approach you and say “What can I get you Mr Barry” All very easy.

Another pleasant surprise we had was the quality of the internet, whilst maybe not quite good enough for streaming movies at certain times of the day, it worked well for eMail , browsing, WhatsApp etc. Even better was the fact that out upgrade package gave us unlimited internet on one device each; however you could easily swap devices between cell phone and tablet and back again! I am not sure why anyone would buy the $400 upgrade for multiple devices.

Dining on this ship is different to others we have been on. Rather than there being one large main dining room, there are 5 dining rooms around the ship. There is one dining room that is much larger than the rest and has open seating so that reservations are not required. They all have the same menu, but 4 of the 5 are smaller and quieter than one large one. When we first got on the ship we were under the impression reservations were needed for the 4 smaller restaurants. We tried making reservations, but none were available until the last 2 days of the cruise, and these were for 5PM sittings. We were not impressed. On the second or third night we decided to try our luck and went to one of the smaller restaurants to see if we could get a table with no reservation. “No problem, sir” was the answer, ever since that is what we have been doing. On a couple of nights we felt like a break from all the “posh” eating and just went to the buffet.

In the evenings we would go to a bar for pre dinner lubrication before heading off for food. I am glad we got a booking for this cruise that offered a “free” upgrade to a plus package which included amongst other things, free booze (up to 15 drinks per person per day with a maximum value of $15 per drink). These drinks included pop, coffee alcohol etc. Some days it was easy to blow $60-$80 as alcoholic drinks were $10-$12 each and coffees at $5. The package also included gratuities, which if you follow the companies guidelines could easily work out at $450 -$500 for each of us. I wish they would do away with this tipping mentality and just build it into the price, and up wages accordingly!!

After dinner we went back to one of the bars for coffee and a night cap. This was one occasion where the medallion caused us “problems”. One night we ordered coffee and our drink, and somehow the waiter talked us into a double for the drink. For the next few nights we kept getting doubles!! There was often entertainment in the bars, and there was one particular guitarist/singer we kept meeting up with. For those of you at Anchors Aweigh his music and singing were very much like Jimmy.

Like all big ships it is easy to get lost, medallion app not withstanding. A couple of days ago I made a discovery that I am sure seasoned cruisers already know. The carpets on each side of the ship, although appearing identical in design have one subtle difference. Those on the port (left) side of the ship have a small red design in them. Those on the starboard side have a green design. Problem solved.

Lyn particularly likes the idea that we can go to breakfast and on our return the the cabin has been miraculously cleaned and the bed made. The same thing happens on a smaller scale in the evenings!Hopefully I won’t have problems when we get back home

Today the temperature is around 27C (81F) with clear blue skies and a fairly calm sea. Balcony weather!