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Where In the World Are Tom and Jet

bay guy

By bay guy,
in Holland America Line

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bay guy

bay guy

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February 27, 2018

Aboard MS Amsterdam

Today was a full day in Bali. It was extremely hot and humid. Jet didn’t go with me today due to the heat. Therefore, I spent the day with our guide Bagia.

It was a busy day. We first visited a temple that was built in 994 AD. They were restoring some of the limestone carvings and it was interesting to watch the craftsmen work. Bagia told me that they had literally started several weeks ago with a few big blocks of limestone and they were close to finishing all the rough cutting and starting to do the fine smoothing of the stone surface. In deference to the temple, I had to wear a sarong.

After visiting the temple, we then went to a batik crafts location followed by a wood carving shop and then a artist painting gallery. Everything was very pretty and took a great deal of work to finish. The prices were reasonable but I didn’t really see anything that would be appropriate for our house.

After that, we went to the Ubud part of the island. This seemed to be an area definitely geared to the tourists. There is a huge market there that had people selling any type of souvenir item or clothing that you could think of. If you’ve ever been to the Straw Market in Nassau, the Ubud market was that on mega steroids.

In the Ubud area, the main temple had been chosen to be the site for the funeral ceremony for a Hindu Queen that had died recently. The temple was elaborately decorated and they had constructed a huge tower about 25 feet tall that the body would be placed on to be carried by at least 100 people to a location where it would be cremated. After the body was removed from the tower, it was to be placed in a large statue of a bull which would be set on fire to cremate the body. There were two “bands” playing typical Balinese music in the temple.

Please don’t take what I’m going to say next as a criticism of the Hindu religion, because it isn’t meant that way. After hearing about and watching the activities of people in the temples, The religion seems to be a major job creator for people. There were many people working to prepare the decorations for the queen’s funeral. Also, every day, the people make a small tribute to the appropriate god for various purposes. The tributes are usually in small trays made of palm fronds. I saw several people weaving these trays and there were people who then filled the baskets with flowers that were picked the night before by flower sellers. Others also added other items, such as rice or other food items to the trays. When you start thinking about all of these preparations, they definitely provide employment for may people. It’s also very obvious that the Hindus are very religious people.

After visiting the Ubud area, we worked our way back to the ship. Bagia stopped for me to take pictures of a huge display on one of the major intersections which depicted what he called the Hindu version of Romeo and Juliet. The main character in the display was a very large statue of Vishnu, one of the major gods. The story is that his wife was kidnapped and taken to an island and held hostage. In order to get to her, Vishnu enlisted monkeys who brought large stones and boulders to build a bridge to the island so he could rescue his love.

As we continued to the ship, Bagia stopped the van because a cremation was taking place at a small temple. Too say it was a crude method is an understatement. The cremation area consisted of an oblong pit which had a piece of corrugated metal on either side and another across the top. The man handling the cremation had a propane tank that was attached to something that put out a large flame and he was monitoring the progress of things by lifting the top metal piece every once in a while. After the cremation, the family would, at some later date, throw the ashes into the ocean. They believed the dead person will be reincarnated again and their karma they earned, good or bad, during their life, would determine how they were reincarnated.

A funny story now. I mentioned yesterday the thousands of mopeds we saw on the streets. While Bagia was parked waiting for me in the Ubud, he told me a lady who had rented a moped was trying to find it among the hundreds and thousands that were parked in the area. She had two problems: 1) she couldn’t remember exactly where she parked it and 2) she didn’t keep the moped registration with her so she had no idea what the license plate number was. Therefore, she was literally trying her key in every single moped there. She’s probably still trying to find it tonight.

As we leave Bali tonight, I have a few thoughts. It is was of the most fascinating places I’ve ever visited. It’s very beautiful in many respects but there is also a good deal of poverty here with many people seemingly trying to eke out some type of living. Bagia told us that he, and members of his family, were very fortunate to have good jobs in the tourism industry. While we were out, he took me to visit his house where I met his grandchildren and his daughter in law. The house was nice but also very simple in its decor but I’m sure they have a much better level of living compared to some of the hovels I saw along the roads as we traveled around. There are nine people that live in his house. His grandchildren are fortunate that the family can afford to send them to school to be educated well. Those children whose families can’t afford to send them to school may not have the knowledge or ability to improve their lot in life compared to those of their parents. Bagia is from a farming family but he was fortunate enough to have an Australian man take interest in training him many years ago to work in the tourist business he started in Bali. It just shows how luck does play a part in how our lives turn out.

We leave tonight for the Philippines.

 

Until tomorrow.

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bay guy

bay guy

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February 28, 2018

Aboard MS Amsterdam

Today is very hot with smooth seas and very little wind. We’re definitely getting closer to the equator again.

They had an anti pirate drill for the crew this morning where they manned the anti boarding devices we have on board. The captain specifically asked the passengers not to take pictures of how things were set up on the involved decks and then post them on their blogs. I guess you never know who’s looking at the blogs because there are several people who are writing them for this voyage.

We had a mentalist do our show last night. He was good and kept the crowd guessing about how he figured out the different things he revealed.

There is a Hong Kong based tailoring company that has a representative aboard to do measurements for custom made clothing including shirts, pant suits for ladies, and mens’ jackets and suits. I was considering getting a new sport coat made but, when I heard the salesperson tell another man who was looking for a sport coat that the prices were $850 and up, I took a pass on that idea. I’ll stick with my guys at The Quality Shop at Hilltop.

Our crafts class today was fairly simple. We made birthday cards. Tomorrow, we continue with another jewelry making project.

While we were in Bali, we saw several very different looking tropical fruits at the various outdoor markets. The ship apparently brought a good supply of these on board and they were available for passengers this morning. We tried several of them and found most of them to be fairly tasty.

Our show tonight was done by a female British singer discovered on the 2012 Voice UK show. Her name was Toni Warne. She had a very pretty strong voice and sang a variety of music. The audience especially liked the medley of Barbara Streisand songs that she finished the show with.

Tomorrow is another sea day as we make our way to Puerto Princessa, Philippines. No pirates were sighted today. Only some flying fish and a few dolphin made an appearance by the ship.

 

Until tomorrow.

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bay guy

bay guy

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March 1, 2018

Aboard MS Amsterdam

Today was a sea day as we head to the Philippines. One more day at sea and we then arrive at Puerto Princessa which is in the Palawan area of the islands. It’s supposed to be one of the most beautiful areas of the Philippines but there is also a State Department warning for the area warning about some kidnappings for ransom that have happened in the region. First we have to worry about pirates and then possible kidnappers. Who knew?

So far, our water cannons are still in position and no pirates have been seen. However, I did see a couple of large pieces of vegetation floating by the ship today and I figured the pirates may have been hiding in those to check the ship out as we went by. Perhaps the pirate equivalent of a duck blind?

It’s hard to believe that tomorrow is day 57 of our 63 day adventure. The trip has been both fascinating and frustrating. Fascinating because we’ve been able to experience and see many parts of world and their cultures that we never could have done if we set out to do so by flying from one place to another. Frustrating because Jet hasn’t been able to enjoy everything as much as I have due to the effects of her illnesses, after the trip started, which affected her mobility. Many places have done a great job preparing areas for access by those in wheelchairs or using scooters but others aren’t so good about that yet. Some areas, especially some in Indonesia, would have been very difficult to make handicapped accessible just due to the fact that that doing so would destroy parts of historical locations hundreds or thousands of years old.

However, as usuall, Jet has been a real trooper and as long as I’ve been able to find a way to get her someplace in a van or wheelchair, she’s gone there. I’ve gotten real good about picking out the smoothest routes over cobblestone or brick walkways and streets for the wheelchair.

One of our Lido serving ladies, Marissa, has decided that Jet needs to eat as much of a tropical fruit they brought on board in Indonesia to help her get better so she has squirreled away several pieces of a fruit called Mangostine (sp) and keeps doling them out to us when she sees us. The fruit has a white flesh and tastes very much like litchi nuts and is supposed to be very high in antioxidants. Julia, one of the Lido waiters, showed us how to break the fruit open so we didn’t have to cut it with a knife.

For activities today, we did our trivia and played Bingo plus did about 2 miles in laps. We also made more jewelry in crafts class. The lady in charge of crafts, Nancy Grace, and her helper, Mary, have really done a great job and all of the projects have been fun to do.

Well, I want to finish a book I’ve been reading, so I’ll sign off for now.

 

Until tomorrow.

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bay guy

bay guy

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March 3, 2018

Aboard MS Amsterdam

This has been quite a day in Puerto Princesa, Philippines

We arrived on time to be welcomed by hot humid weather which wasn’t really unexpected.

We took the shuttle bus to the SM Mall in town. Our first stop was at Plaza Cuartel where there is a memorial to 139 American POWs, and their Filipino comrades, who were executed by the Japanese during WW II.

From there, we drove through heavy traffic to the mall. Whereas we had tons of mopeds in Bali, here, we had mostly what are called tricycles by the locals. A tricycle is basically a small motorbike that has a small car body attached to it. The tricycles were taking people all over the place and are basically their version of taxis. They even had a designated drop off and pick up place outside the mall. These held anywhere from 2 to 6 passengers depending on their size.

Another popular form of public transportation was small extended bed trucks that had benches on each side of the truck bed and a canopy over the bed. They had their destinations and routes written or painted on the sides and people hopped on and off as desired.

I wasn’t able to find out the cost of either of these modes of transportation.

The mall was nice and had a large food store, department store plus tons of food places. They even had an Ace Hardware store in the mall. We went into the department store which had very nice merchandise and lots of employees to help you. Jet saw a different type of tee shirt she thought I might like and before we knew it the sales girl was opening a box and unfolding one so we could see it. The employees all had nice uniform slacks and shirts on and really went out of their way to help us.

The prices were VERY reasonable and we found a few things to buy for each of us. One thing that was interesting happened at noon while we were in the store. The store music stopped and a person on the intercom asked for some moments of silence. Then several Catholic prayers were cited. After the short prayer session, the store music started again.

One of the ship passengers ran into us and told us that she’d seen the mall dentist to have a loose crown reglued. She said the total price for removing the crown, X-ray to be sure nothing had cracked in the base tooth, cleaning the crown and gluing it back in place cost her $30. Not going to get that deal back home.

While in the mall, we accessed the free wifi and I saw that I had a voicemail from American Airlines, which we’re using to fly home. I was told I needed to call them due to some flight changes. When I got back to the ship, I looked up our reservation on line before calling. Talk about a screwed up mess! They had us leaving Dallas to fly home 6 hours before our flight from Hong Kong arrived in Dallas!!!! I called them and we are now having to leave Hong Kong a day early and will arrive home on Friday evening March 9 instead of March 10.

Well, such is travel these days. You’d better be able to be flexible and change things if necessary.

Now we have to make arrangements with the ship to leave much earlier than we had planned in order to catch a morning flight whereas we had an afternoon flight before they messed things up.

We’ll probably start some packing tomorrow while we’re at sea again.

 

Until tomorrow.

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bay guy

bay guy

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March 5, 2018

Aboard MS Amsterdam

We arrived in Manila early this morning and were greeted by the hottest weather we’ve had on the trip. 95+ degrees and probably 100% humidity.

I took a tour to Corregidor today while Jet stayed on board the ship. It was about a two hour ferry ride each way to the island, which sits at a strategic central location at the mouth of Manila Bay. That is why it has been so important to those countries that have controlled the Philippines over the centuries.

When the Spanish ruled the Philippines, they used the island as a toll or taxi collection point for ships entering the harbor. That’s where the island got its name. Apparently Corregidor translates to the equivalent of “collection.”

After the Spanish-American War, the United States paid Spain $20 million for the Philippines, Guam, Puerto Rico and some other islands. The U.S. recognized the strategic importance of the island and started to fortify it. They also built a large tunnel complex in the mountain on the island, the Malinta Tunnel, which would later be the last refuge for the US and Filipino troops who were under siege by the Japanese after they had captured Bataan.

Our tour guide was definitely somewhat biased against the Japanese for what they did in the Philippines during WW 2 and because, to this day, Japanese tourists to the island are not told the true story of what they did nor do Japanese history books tell the story of the savage cruelty of the Japanese.

For example, the Bataan Death March involved over 75,000 US and Filipino fighters plus about 20,000 civilians. !0,000 died on the brutal march, 50,000 ended up being interred in POW camps and about 40,000 managed to escape from the Japanese. To the Japanese tourists, the Japanese guides tell them that it wasn’t a death march but a “picnic” the Japanese gave to all of those people.

There are also a few stops on the Corregidor tour that Japanese groups don’t goto. One included a small museum which contained paintings depicting atrocities committed by the Japanese, including the hell ships and the “comfort women” and some other atrocities that I won’t go into. Suffice it to say that it was a very jarring stop and one of the ladies on the tour, who apparently had a relative who was killed by the Japanese, left the building sobbing.

Apparently, the fact that the US and Filipino troops held out so long on Corregidor may have affected the war plans of the Japanese quite significantly. The Japanese commander, General Homa, was told to take over the Philippines in 50 days after they invaded the islands on December 8. That gave him until February to accomplish his mission. However, general Wainwright, the US commander, and his troops held out until early May of the following year. Because of the delay, it derailed the Japanese plans to invade Australia and several other strategic places due to the number of troops committed to the Philippines.

When the US attacked to retake the Philippines, there were about 5700 Japanese troops on Corregidor. When the Japanese were defeated on the island, there were only 22 Japanese POWs plus another 11 Japanese troops who were found 11 months later hiding on the island. The rest were either killed in combat or, as they did on several other Pacific islands recaptured by the allies, they committed suicide rather than be taken prisoner. During the fight to retake the island, the Allied troops had to contend with kamikaze planes as well as kamikaze boats that were loaded with explosives and rammed into Allied ships.

There’s so much more we learned today but I don’t want to take up the entire blog today with that. Manila is a bustling, crowded, chaotic city of about 15 million people in its metropolitan area. The average wage is $10 PER DAY and there really isn’t any type of meaningful retirement system for the people. Unemployment is very high and the main industries are IT businesses, including the ubiquitous call centers, manufacturing, agriculture, fishing and tourism.

Many people try to get visas to the visit the US. Not all of them are granted. Our tour guide had been turned down 5 times, despite having a US citizen as a sponsor, because she’s a single woman and there is a fear that single women given visas would go to the US and marry someone to be able to get a green card. When we drove past the US embassy, there was a line about 3 blocks long of people trying to get visas. They start lining up at 5 a.m. each week day.

There is a great deal of new construction in the city and they have the largest mall in Asia here, called the Mall of Asia.

After I returned to the ship this evening, I found that Jet had been doing a good bit of walking while I was away. She walked to the Lido for lunch and to a few other areas of the ship, on her own.

The families of many the Filipino crew members also came on board this evening after having to wait because the port authorities wouldn’t allow them to start coming this morning. The ship had set up the Lido pool area with tables and colored lights and put out nice hats for the children. They were expecting to serve over 1000 guests dinner this evening. It was great to see all the families enjoying seeing their loved ones and having a good time. I’ve really got to commend Holland America on how it has gone out of its way to welcome crew families in Bali and the Philippines.

Tomorrow, we plan to take the shuttle bus to a mall in the city to give Jet a chance to get off the ship and see some of the city.

Until tomorrow.

 

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bay guy

bay guy

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March 6, 2018

Aboard MS Amsterdam

Another very hot muggy day in Manila.

When I came back from my tour yesterday, the ship had removed the water cannons so I guess we’re out of pirate territory now.

The crew families had a great time visiting last night and this morning. Some passengers had saved hats and other items given to us along the way by the cruise line and were giving them out to the children as they boarded this morning. There’s a lady, Miss Dolly, who lives on the ship, who had a huge bag of hats down by the security station this morning and she was having a great time handing them out to the children.

At the family dinner last night, the children were really enjoying the ice cream. I asked the ice cream lady how she was doing today and she told me that she didn’t finish until after midnight and woke up about 3 a.m.with a bad cramp in her right arm due to scooping so much ice cream.

We went to the Robinson Mall this morning. It’s huge with 4 stories and countless stores and eating places. It was also pretty crowded, especially for a Tuesday morning, compared to our malls at home.

We did some shopping and picked up a small gift for one of our trivia team members who has invited us to her birthday party this evening. It’s being held in Caneletto, the Italian restaurant on board.

While I was on my tour yesterday, the guide said that McDonalds had varied its menu here to cater to the food tastes of Filipinos. There were the usual burgers on the menu but they also had McSpaghetti, which our guide had mentioned. Not sure what type of sauce it had on it but that’s the last thing I would want to eat at a McDonalds!

When we went to Italy the first time, I thought those drivers were crazy. However, having seen traffic in Manila, the Italians don’t even come close for doing crazy things. Between mopeds going every which direction, along with the Jitneys, tricycles and cars, it’s pure bedlam driving here. The traffic in Bali would have to come in second to here and Italy is a distant third.

We have lots of things to do tomorrow. I’m doing a ship laundry and galley tour first thing then we’ve been invited to a brunch by the captain and then a farewell reception tomorrow evening. Sometime tomorrow we’re going to get laundry done as well. It will be busy, that’s for sure.

After our birthday party this evening, we’ll go see the Motown singer, Giovanni, who did a show the other night. His show then was excellent so I’m sure this will be good as well.

That’s all for now.

 

Until tomorrow.

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bay guy

bay guy

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March 7, 2018

Aboard MS Amsterdam

Today has been a day at sea while we head to Hong Kong tomorrow morning. We ran into a storm last night and we were really rocking and rolling until mid morning today. There’s still a pretty good sized swell in the waves this afternoon but we’re not all weaving down the halls like we were this morning.

I received bad news last night about one of my friends and former coworkers passing away. That has put a damper on the last couple of days of the trip.

Today has been a busy day. This morning I took a tour of the ship laundry which was quite interesting. Seeing all the stacks of linens, towels and napkins, I can’t even imagine how much stuff they wash each day. They have three washing machines of 200 pound capacity plus a few smaller machines.

In addition to laundry used for cabins and the dining rooms, they also handle the laundry that passengers send there, so they’re quite busy to say the least.

We also saw the storage room they use for all the dry goods and alcohol for the ship. They were stuffed full.

After the tour, Jet and I were invited to attend a Mariners Society brunch where the captain gave out medals to several cruisers who had cruised hundreds of days with the line. It was very nice and the food was excellent.

After that, we picked up our ship photos, exchanged money and then came back to the cabin to do 3 loads of laundry. It sure has been convenient to have that right across from our cabin during the trip.

I’m leaving to have another massage this afternoon to prepare my muscles for the long journey home in a couple of days and later this evening we hope to attend then show and do a little more packing.

Our 5 a.m. departure for the airport on Friday morning is coming up faster than we want it to.

Tomorrow we have a morning tour of Hong Kong and then final preparations to leave.

 

Until tomorrow.

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SilvertoGold

SilvertoGold

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This has been a fantastic thread, very much enjoyed. Great style, interesting info, super descriptions!

 

Thank you for taking the time to write up this blog. It has been a pleasure travelling along with you.

 

Hope all goes well on your trip home.

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