Our Travel Blog

Well, with a seven hour time difference, jet lag reared its ugly head. An early(ish) night last night led to a 12 hour sleep! Lyn still has the lingering cough which leaves her a little breathless after short walks, but it is improving. Originally we had planned to take a tour up into Translyvania to see the castles, but all of the tours were 12+ hours long, so we decided that may not be a good idea. We started looking around for some sort of city tour (unfortunately Bucharest does not have a Hop-on-Hop-Off bus. We eventually found a tik-tuk tour which looked ideal, unfortunately there were no tours available until Saturday. While I was on the site there was a pop-up chat window, so I asked if there was any chance of a tour today… there was. There was a tour already in progress that would finish at our hotel, so we grabbed it.

Looking good amongst the Mercedes, Range Rovers and Audis!

We met our guide and were immediately impressed by the quality of his English, very easy to understand.

Although our hotel was in the down town area, there didn’t appear to be much of interest. We were wrong, within a few hundred feet of the hotel there were a number of sites. As usual more pictures than words from me, if you are interested in more detailed history, the web can help. Here is a link to the Communist Era

St Joseph Cathedral

A stone commemorating the Popes visit

Romanian Athenaeum Concert Hall at the end of the Avenue

Bucharest Lutheran Church

The tuk-tuk moved at a sedate 30km/h (20MPH), so we had time to see things, and our guide had time to explain things. One thing we really liked was the fact that our guide did not fire off names and dates at a high rate of knots, rather he described more of the history of the area, and it’s role in modern day Bucharest / Romania.

Communism played a big part in the history of the country after WW2 under Nicolae Ceausescu. In the true spirit of Communism equality he destroyed many thousands of homes in the south of Budapest to build himself a small home.

1100 rooms later it was completed! There are seven underground levels as well!

In front of the building is a square where the people were meant to gather to hear the speeches from Ceausescu, this never happened as he was arrested and executed before it was completed.

Today there was a small protest there urging Romanians to come out and vote in there elections this Sunday. You can see a few people in National Dress, if you have good eyesight and imagination!

Leading away from the building is the Bulevardul Unirii, in the centre are 44 fountain arrangements, all of which are synchronised for water displays.

At the far end is a large pool, again with many fountains. Weekly a new light and water show is put on in the evenings.

Looking back to the palace from the pool area

A new Cathedral was started in 2010 on the grounds next to the Parliament building. The primary religion here is Romanian Orthodox (not related to either Greek or Russian churches) with 85% of the population following it.

After WW1 Romania gained land as a result of many battles. The King at the time wanted to build a monument to celebrate this and to unite the country. Does it look familiar?

There was also a monument built to WW1 Pilots

A monument to WW1 pilots

Within the first few months after the fall of Communism, the first western advert appeared in Romania!!

In front of the glass building (a hotel) the front entrance of the old National Theatre has been restored. The rest of the building was destroyed in WW2 bombings. The target was in fact the white building to the left which was left undamaged.

Again, Communism equality at work. Built by Ceausescu, the white building on the right was a hotel for important communist party visitors, on the left a typical apartment building for the workers. Many of these buildings have now been declared as structurally unsafe following the earthquake of 1990.

All in all this was the perfect trip to take, not too much information, but much more was available if you asked for it!

Time for more travelling and new countries! Unfortunately I had a bad cough/cold a couple of weeks ago that I have just recovered from, but Lyn is still suffering from a lingering cough. Hopefully this will disappear in the next day or so.

The trip started with an Uber from home to the Ottawa Rail Station to catch …… a coach! Since Greyhound Canada bit the dust, there is no mainline bus terminus in the city, they use the train station instead. As a result the signage isn’t that great. A coach arrived at around the right time so we followed about 50 other people to line up for it. There seemed to be a few more people than there were seats! When the driver checked our tickets he shook his head and said the Airline coach is the one behind! We sheepishly headed to that coach, noting there was a small sign on a pole identifying it as the correct coach. There were only about 10 people on it! We got to Montreal and checked in, amazingly the aircraft was on time as it was over an hour late coming in from Amsterdam due to a “last minute technical repair”

Once on the aircraft, operated by KLM (Royal Dutch Airlines) I was amazed to find everything was in English, passenger announcements, signage and even the safety video. No Dutch and no French. Airlines in Canada have to be fully English and French and risk lawsuits if they are not!

The crew’s English was excellent, as was their attitude and service, very impressed. Even the Captain came back and introduced himself prior to start-up. At the end of the flight we were each given a Delft pottery house filled with Dutch gin! Delft is a Dutch town famous for its blue pottery. The KLM Delft houses have been a tradition for a number of years with 103 different models!

We had a 90 minute connection in Amsterdam, which was just about enough as it was the early morning rush and immigration was busy. We had a 2.5 hour flight to Bucharest which went fine, then an Uber to the hotel. We grabbed a quick nap at the hotel and then went for a short walk around the area, managing to grab a geocache in the process. We were also looking for a place to eat later in the evening as the hotel only has a Sushi bar.

I have no idea why this bear was plastered over the roof of an old Fiat 500, but it made for a photo-op!

Tomorrow, health permitting we’ll do a little more touring in the city.

Still at the airport, only 5 hours to go before take off!! The lounge is good, restaurant, buffet, drinks and most important a shower!

So the trip is essentially complete; was it worth it? Certainly, new countries, new cultures and maybe a few too many new temples. Our brains hurt from all the new information we tried to absorb.

Would we do it again? Probably not. We underestimated a few things on this trip, number one being the effect of the heat and humidity. It wasn’t just the odd day, it was every day. The temperatures averaged around 32C (90F) and humidity in the mid 90% range. It saps your energy while walking around the different areas. The full, 9+ hour days really took a toll. When we had a few hours spare, it was great to kick back in the A/C or the pool, BUT there was always this voice in the back of the mind saying “you’ve come al this way, you should be doing more than lazing around”.

Kensington Tours, the group who organised this did a good job (thanks Dave), we only had a couple of small hiccups where we had an issue finding our guide at the airport. The hotels we stayed in ranged from good to fantastic.

So, what do we do in future? I suspect we may lean more towards cruises, especially for countries where the culture and or driving is way different to what we are used too. I would not have liked to drive on this trip; 40 years ago I would have considered driving here a “fun” experience!!

We are considering a trip to Scotland in the spring for a family birthday and possibly a side trip to the Scottish Islands. Next fall looks as though it could be a cruise around Japan and maybe a stop somewhere on the flight out. Hawaii remains the only state we haven’t visited.

In the meantime we’ll have about 9 weeks at home before heading down to Alabama for 3 months.

Hopefully, if anyone did read the blog, it gave an insight into the trip. I am getting lazy with the descriptions, but the pictures may be interesting to some.

Our guide suggested we switch our itinerary around today, which we agreed to. Originally we were to continue our city tour in the morning and then be picked up from the hotel around 3PM to go to the airport. The only problem with that plan was that we had to checkout at noon, which was not too good. Now we are being picked up later in the morning, then going straight to the airport. This gave us a bit of free time, so we headed out after breakfast to see the Raffles Hotel (link here)

Heading out of the hotel we found a company that offers city tours with an old Vespa scooter and side car.

Raffles was slightly out of our league with rooms starting around $3500 a night and breakfast around $80!

We were picked up at 1230 by our guide and taken to the old port area where all the trading ships docked in previous centuries. The area has been cleaned up a lot recently, but the facades of the buildings remain as they were. The river has also been cleaned up, and is now restricted to electric boats.

We took a trip on a bumboat around the area, the name bumboat describes the small boats that used to ferry provisions from shore to the larger boats at anchor.

Whampoas Ice House was one of those brilliant ideas that wasn’t thought through very well. The plan was to collect ice from Alaska and ship it to Singapore so the ex-pats could enjoy ice in their drinks. Unfortunately all that arrived in Singapore was warm water! The business collapsed after two years!

Form the boat we headed back to the van for a short trip into China Town

We then visited a newer temple

Next it was lunch time in the local market, our guide ordered a mix of dishes for us.

In the China town area we also discovered a Hindu temple with a very colourful tower .

After a little more wandering it was time to head out to the airport for the flight to Doha. This was a seven and a quarter hour flight arriving around 10pm local time. There was a lot of turbulence for most of the flight, but I still managed around 3 hours of sleep. Unfortunately we couldn’t avoid a long layover in Doha, our flight to Montreal doesn’t leave until 8:20AM, so we have 10 hours to wait. Luckily the lounge is open 24 hours a day.

I’ll probably write a quick summary in the next day or so.

We met our guide after breakfast for a city tour. Like many of the places we have seen there is a mix of religions and cultures all living happily together.

As our guide put it, Singapore is very much a rule based country. There are many rules, most of which are just common sense / courtesy e.g. don’t litter, be polite, clear your table if you’re at a fast food place or street side eating area. The difference between Singapore and many Western countries, that also have rules, is that Singapore will enforce them, either through fines, jail time or caning. It works; the place is clean and safe. We need to bring back some discipline in the West, regardless of the views of the tree huggers and others of their ilk. Ok, rant off!!

We started in Little Arabia. Again, mostly pictures!

These bottles were collected from the poorer Muslims in the area. The gold ball represents the wealth of the rich, the soy bottles the poor. They are both incorporated in the design to try and show equality among the people, if not the wealth.

As we were walking along the car above parked. It was a 1983 Panther Kallista made by Westwinds Panther in Surrey UK.

In Singapore they believe all people should have the right to a decent lifestyle. Above is a poor shot of a high rise apartment block. About 80% of the population live in this type of dwelling. The size of the apartment is determined by the size of the family,the cost of the apartment will never be more than 35% of the family income. This lifestyle has come a long way in stopping violence and vandalism within the country. Beneath the apartment buildings are markets and food stalls, so the whole complex is like a small town. Again it seems to work very well.

After driving around a few more areas of the city, we were off to the botanical gardens. I took many photos here, if I was “templed” out before, I was “flowered” out after this. If you need more info on the flowers, I suggest you consult google lens!!

There’s still about 50 more to show, but I’ll spare you.

Singapore is a mix of the old and the new, as we saw from visits to little Arabia and India. In those areas life is very similar to what we have seen in other countries on this trip. On the other hand, the majority of Singapore is the complete opposite, very modern, well maintained and interesting in it’s own right. In my mind you could class some of the places 3rd world compared to Singapore, but likewise I would suggest many western (and North American) cities could rate as second world compared to Singapore (puts on flak jacket and standing by for incoming!!)

After getting back from the tour, we headed out to find a geocache, we were successful, it was the first one we had found for some time. We also decided to go up to the roof top to see the view. Disappointment followed! I thought we had done well getting the 30th floor; the elevator only went to 36 floors. This time we got a different elevator, it went to floor 70! Once there the area was closed for a private function, although from what we could see, the view wasn’t too much different from ours.

Tonight we’ll head back down for some more local food. Tomorrow is our last day, we’ll be visiting other parts of the city as well as going on a bumboat ride, whatever that is!

After breakfast we met our guide at 0800 for the trip to the airport for our flight to Singapore. The trip was uneventful, and again we got served a hot meal on a 90 minute flight with free beer and wine. North American airlines take note, it can be done!

All the immigration at Singapore was automated, with a few officers around to help if there were problems. We had no delays at all with the process, and as we walked over to the baggage claim, there was my bag. Lyn’s was four behind it. Again North American airlines take note, it can be done!

We had a panic moment as we exited customs, again there was no one holding a board with our name on it! Fortunately within half a minute some one came up and introduced himself to us, I was a little nervous but saw our names and tour company name on his phone so all was OK.

We headed out to the hotel, again driving on the “correct” side of the road. It was so different to the other countries, nice wide and uncrowded roads with no kamikaze scooters. At the hotel, check in again was automated with help available.

We were soon on our way to the room. The room was great and the view even better. We were on the 30th floor. Pictures to follow

After settling into the room for a while, we headed out to the “basement” area, which is full of restaurants that serve meals at a much more reasonable price than the hotel!!

We travel half way around the world and what do we find:

Apart from Marks and Sparks (British department store), there have been numerous sightings of 7-11’s (corner store on steroids) in most of the countries.

Having surveyed the restaurants earlier, we headed back in the evening in search of food. We found somewhere on our third attempt! The restaurants tended to be Chinese, Japanese, Malay, Korean, Thai or Subway. We settled on a Thai Noodle house. Automation ruled again, we had to scan a QR code to get the menu and order. After a few futile attempts where I seem to have ordered all the food in the restaurant, we managed to order what we wanted with a little help from a bemused waiter!

After filling ourselves with a tasty meal we headed back to the room to view the city at night.

We’re off touring tomorrow morning at a reasonable hour, 0930!!!

It rained overnight, but it was dry when we got up. On our way to breakfast we spotted this flower.

After breakfast we met our guide and travelled 40 minutes to a village on the coast of the Indian Ocean. From here we took a 40 minute boat ride in a long tail boat to an area to go snorkelling. The trip was quite “lively” once we got out of the lee of the land, I hate to think what it would have been like yesterday.

There were hundreds of islands in the bay, some large and inhabited, others only a few metres across.

We reached the snorkelling area, but although the sea was nice and warm, there weren’t too many fish to be seen so we carried on to the beach and lazed in a couple of old fashioned deck chairs.

Although it was cloudy we could feel the effects of the sun on our skin after a while. In the distance we could see rain showers but they were polite enough to avoid us!

Once we had decided the burn factor was enough we headed back to the boat, and then off to a floating restaurant for lunch. We had stir fried black crab with curry powder, it was fresh as we saw the crabs being carried from the water to kitchen! It was a nice, if somewhat messy meal!

After we finished the meal it was back to the van for the trip back to the hotel. There were not too many photos taken as I left the camera behind and used the phone. It spent most of the time in the bag, away from the spray.

Tomorrow morning we head out to the last country on the trip, Singapore.

It rained most of the night, and was still raining this morning. We were meant to be going on a boat tour to a local island for swimming and snorkelling, but our guide phoned at 0730 to “suggest” that we postpone the trip until tomorrow as the boat operator said the sea was too rough for a safe crossing. We weren’t going to argue! As we were already up we ordered a buggy and went for breakfast.

Why order a buggy? The accommodations here are bungalows built into the hillside of a coconut forest, with some steep roads. Rather than risk slipping on the wet roads (how’s that for an excuse), we can call reception and they’ll send a buggy (golf cart) around to pick us up!

After a long breakfast just watching the waves roll in we went back to the room and lounged around. We are on vacation, after all!

Around 1:30 we grabbed an umbrella each and risked the trek down to the pool restaurant for some lunch, showers kept coming an going, but we took a walk down to the beach after lunch. The water was amazingly warm, but rough with large breakers. The red flags were flying, so no more than paddling was allowed.

It’s now about 1800 and the rain has stopped and the skies are clearing, maybe tomorrow will be a better day?

Just came back from dinner, well a drink and dessert in reality! The drink was at the beach bar. The beach had tiki lamps spread around to add to the ambience of the waves crashing on the beach. We then went up to the outdoor restaurant for dessert. Lunch had left us full.

We had a 0930 pick up from the hotel to the airport. It was about an hours trip. Previously it would have been a 10 minute trip, but the Chinese built a new airport for the city, as there were so many Chinese tourists arriving, the old one could not cope. The airport was deserted, it turns out that after completion, a couple of years ago, tourism fell in the wake of Covid, coupled with China placing a travel ban on many of its citizens.

A number of the airports have driverless cleaning machines. They are very polite, if a passenger is in the way it says “Excuse me the robot would like to clean”, if the passenger does not move, it will drive around them!

We had two flights today, Siem Reap to Bangkok, then on to Phuket. As both were with a regional carrier I was a little concerned about seat size and service, given some of the regionals in N. America. Our first flight was on a propellor aircraft similar to s Dash 8. The flight was fine, and surprisingly quiet for a prop. plane. Amazingly were were served a snack bag with a tasty roll and muffin.

Shortly after we arrived at Bangkok, the heavens opened and the thunder and lightning started. It wasn’t long until the airport stopped operating. To compound the delay, the aircraft operating our flight was delayed 2 hours on it’s previous leg, and was experiencing further weather delays operating out from Phuket. Not looking good. Although the airline made no announcements there are other ways using the internet to see what was going on!! We were meant to depart at 1705, at that time an aircraft pulled up to the gate, and we were boarding about 20 minutes later. Bangkok air had brought another plane over to operate the service! It was an hour and 20 minutes flight, the first half of the flight was turbulent and the seat belt sign remained on. Once it was turned off, the crew sprang into action and served us all a hot meal. Try getting that on Air Canada.

When we originally checked in, we were on an international flight from Cambodia to Thailand, the second flight being domestic. We cleared immigration at Bangkok, but it turned out in Phuket we would have to be escorted to the International Terminal to collect our bags and go through customs!

With bags in hand, we went outside to find our guide, there were a multitude of signs, but none with our name on it. We looked around hopefully for about 10 minutes, but no luck. We decided to head to the domestic terminal, as technically we were on a domestic flight. No sign of our guide. Other guides in the area saw us wandering around, and offered to help. In the mean time I went back to the International terminal, but still no sign of the guide. Back to domestic, Lyn was now on the phone (leant to her by one of the helpful guides). They had tracked down our guide, and he was coming over. I am still not totally sure what happened, but I get the impression that our guide was wandering around trying to find us, which is why we couldn’t find him at the usual reception point. This was our first mis connect of the trip.

About forty minutes later we were at the hotel, 12 hours after we left in the morning.

After breakfast we were met by our guide at 0800, this time we had a new driver and van. It seems yesterdays van needed a little more TLC before it will start.

We headed out of town for about 40 minutes to a village area where we were told we would likely be the only Westerners. This suited us as we much prefer to see the true way of life of the locals rather than the city life.

First stop was the local market

Below is a vehicle we saw a lot in China, an engine balanced on 2 wheels with open drive belts on the other side controlled by oversize handlebars!

After the market we headed out to a newer complex which was sponsored by Dutch business man. It has many functions; health, education and collection and distribution point for many local products from the farms. Often the farms don’t produce enough product to sell profitably, by pooling their products they stand a better chance of selling them, as well as getting a better price.

On the subject of the farms, back in the 60’s around the time of the Khmer Rouge, each family was given land to farm. The size of the family determined the size of land. Most farms are divided into 3 areas, rice, fruit and vegetables and livestock. There is enough land to feed the family on about half of the produce, leaving them the other half to sell. This extra income is needed as health care here is expensive, and many people prefer to send their children to a private school as the state ones only provide a very basic education.

Back to the trip, below is a picture of a local school run by the complex we just visited.

Moving right along we switched from van to tuk-tuk, today it was intentional as the roads weren’t fit for vans!

Next it was time to see (and taste) the production of rice wine.

Cooked rice and yeast are fermented in the vessel on the right, over heat. The liquid then passes through the tube into the distillation vessel, and the finished product is collected via the red funnel into the plastic container on the floor! The end product is 20-50% alcohol. We tried some, it was amazingly smooth, but boy did it have a kick. Retail price $1US per litre (2 pints).

Next stop on our rural tour was a lady producing floor mats. It takes around 50 hours of work to make one mat, and they retail for $12.50 US! In Cambodia, women over 60 will generally have shaved heads as they feel they no longer need to beautify themselves, it is also easier to maintain and is cooler!

Next we got our daily temple fix at the local village temple. As we drove along we could hear mournful music coming from the loudspeakers. This was because a member of the community had died yesterday, and the music is played for 24 hours.

Like a lot of places around the world, regardless of how poor the community is, the places of religion always seem to be grand in comparison.

The walls of the temple were lined with pictures depicting the life of Buddha.

From one temple to another, this one was located back in the jungle, and unfortunately had lapsed into disrepair. It was build around 900AD.

We continued through the countryside which consisted mostly of rice fields.

We then stopped at a farmers rest spot where they would spend the night while harvesting or planting the crop. There is a hammock for sleeping and cooking utensils.

Next stop was a girl making brushes.

She could make up to 100 brushes a day, for sale at $1.25US, but some days she would be out gathering materials from the fields to make the brushes.

We headed back to the complex to have a locally cooked lunch, and then by van back to the hotel. On the way back the heavens opened, reducing visibility to near zero for a while. Very quickly there was flooding on the roads and in the fields. When it decides to rain in Cambodia, it does a good job.

By the time we reached the hotel the rain had eased off quite a bit.

When we first arrived at the hotel we were tired and it was the hottest day of the trip. We were not overly enamoured by it, in particular the fact that the bath room, although private was open air! This meant it was always hot and humid there. After a day or so the hotel grew on us a bit, and apart from the bathroom set up it has turned out OK. The food is good with choices of Khmer or more western meals. The pools is good and we have made good use of it.

A few pictures below.

And finally

There may be no blog tomorrow as it is a travel day with two flights, the first back to Bangkok, then connecting on to Phuket in Thailand for a couple of days of beach life!