Zuiderdam drug bust

[rkacruiser]

2 hours ago, bennybear said:

yikes, hope you made a full recovery. 

 

Thank you for your comment.  After arthroscopic surgery on my knee, yes, I had a good recovery.

 

1 hour ago, chengkp75 said:

The boxy things on the side of the canal are pontoon assault bridges to get across the canal. 

 

We were told by whomever was providing commentary during our passage of the Canal that they could be used to block the Canal if Egypt found a "reason" to do so.  

 

An important reason why I have no desire to return to Egypt was the obvious, heavy military presence that I encountered.  Armed soldiers in Jeeps accompanying the tour buses to/from Safaga. soldiers with long guns at the Valley of the Kings and at Luxor, and less than friendly vendors whom I encountered.

[chengkp75]

2 minutes ago, rkacruiser said:

An important reason why I have no desire to return to Egypt was the obvious, heavy military presence that I encountered.  Armed soldiers in Jeeps accompanying the tour buses to/from Safaga. soldiers with long guns at the Valley of the Kings and at Luxor, and less than friendly vendors whom I encountered.

Actually, those were most likely police.  It is very difficult to distinguish police from military in Egypt, as the uniforms are almost identical, and the police carry long guns.  I remember that there were special "tourist police" that had green armbands.  If you got in a cab at your hotel, they took down your passport info and the taxi number and driver license, in case something went wrong.

[Copper10-8]

3 hours ago, bennybear said:

Such interesting stories!  @Copper10-8 are those tanks?

..........................................

 

The one shown is one of two captured IDF Chrysler Defense Industries M-60A1 Patton main battle tanks displayed on the Sinai Peninsula side of the Suez Canal along with a big Egyptian memorial. The white chevron pointed up on the turret is an IDF company or platoon identifier. The Egyptians gave the Israelis a very nasty surprise during the early days of the Yum Kippur War of October 1973 which resulted in some heavy Israeli losses, both on the ground, as well as in the air.

 

What these two captured MBTs don't tell however, is that after regaining their composure, the IDF counter-attacked, crossed the Suez Canal themselves, and encircled pretty much the entire Egyptian 3rd Army, and getting within 62 miles of Cairo itself before a seize fire took place

 

OK, back to HAL cruising 😉     

Edited March 28, 2022 by Copper10-8

[Copper10-8]

1 hour ago, rkacruiser said:

 

....................

 

An important reason why I have no desire to return to Egypt was the obvious, heavy military presence that I encountered.  Armed soldiers in Jeeps accompanying the tour buses to/from Safaga. soldiers with long guns at the Valley of the Kings and at Luxor, and less than friendly vendors whom I encountered.

 

The Mrs. and I took a ship shorex from Alexandria to Cairo/Giza some years back while on Rotterdam VI and we wound up in a convoy of approx. ten busses for the multi-hour trip. Each bus had a plain clothes Egyptian police officer seated behind the driver with a big handgun strapped to his trouser belt underneath his coat. This gentleman actively took part in the noon prayer on one of our stops and his personal firearm was very visible during that prayer which was done out in the open.

 

At the front, very end, and in between our convoy of buses were numerous dark blue Peugeot 450 sedans belonging to the Elshorta Elwatnia Elmasriya / Egyptian National Police as we travelled through the desert to Cairo. Upon arrival at the grand pyramids in Giza, more police, this time belonging to the Tourism & Antiquities Police at fixed check points, in Toyota pickup trucks, on foot, and on camel back. One might not like all that police but in today's world, it is a necessity. We felt pretty safe and thanked our personal bus escort upon our return to Alexandria late that night, actually during Ramadan  

[OlsSalt]

Trials and tribulations of Egyptian travel continue. You reminded me of my first trip and port stop in Alexandria on the Chandra's Fantasia in about 1969.

 

We did the overnight bus trip to Cairo and came back to reports from the ship passengers who stayed behind, that they were greeted all night long with depth charges being set off in the Alexandria harbor to ward off any possible Israeli submarines. Cairo was blacked out, sand bags everywhere and all the cases in the Cairo Museum had tape across the glass. No photos allowed of bridges and every intersection had armed guard towers. 

 

Plus like Cuba is was a time warp for large old US sedans, even though now the Russians were in charge, no one wanted to give up their big, comfortable US cars - held together by coat hangers and duct tape, and certainly not showing off the loving gloss those old opulent US sedans now get in Cuba.

 

Needless to say all of us who took the excursion to Cairo came back with wild cases of noro-virus (tourists back then) which made our bunk bed cabins with "bathrooms down the hall" a real shared passenger experience. This was the trip where I had my first "culture shock" experience - way out of my comfort zone (I was in my mid 20's) with people grabbing at you and the "gully gully" men port side that performed bizarre tricks for the toss of the coins from passengers the ship railings.

 

Well outside any experience I had to date. I still have the tiny inlay jewelry box that I thought I had bargained for a good price .... in the dark by the gangway ... only to see in the full light  it was marred with some varnish stains...but that too is now part of its long story. 

[cccole]

I've been to Cuba but I think I should put a cruise that includes Egypt on the top of my list.  I love a bit of adventure on a cruise or land vacation.   I carry a photo of my father on a camel in Egypt in my wallet, taken many years ago.  Just loving this thread!!  Cherie    

[bennybear]

Thanks for all the responses!  So interesting!  My friend was shocked by the goats on the top of apartment buildings she could see from the main streets in Cairo. 
My nearest experience was in the 70s in Morocco where DH was offered a camel for me but he thought I should be worth two as I was pregnant.  Luckily he survived🤪. I wasn’t allowed to ride the camels, only a donkey. 

Edited March 28, 2022 by bennybear

[OlsSalt]

Picture us sitting at the classic Mena House Hotel near the the pyramids.

 

106 degrees in the middle of a sun-blocking sand storm coming off the Sahara that was finally cooling things off, sipping a Stella beer in tall fan shaped wicker chair between the hotel lobby palm trees, under a slowly circulating ceiling fan. (Yes, it really did look like this in the1960's).

 

In comes the caftan-robed gentleman with his kifayah wrapped head dress, announcing" Ladies and Gentlemen, your camels are ready". 

 

Picture us now in the sandstorm atop the camels and the sand blowing so hard  we cound not even see the pyramids right in front of us. They actually took us back the next day when the wind had died down, so we could finally get our pyramid photos. But no camels. Egypt is glorious.

 

Picture this - close enough:  https://www.pinterest.com/pin/769130442592989695/

Now the Mena House Hotel is an upgraded Marriott with A/C.

 

Edited March 28, 2022 by OlsSalt

[cccole]

OlsSalt, I have the visual and it looks something like a Bing Crosby and Bob Hope "Road to...." movie.   I so wish I had traveled to some of these exotic locations before the world changed.  Cherie

[Copper10-8]

19 hours ago, OlsSalt said:

Picture us sitting at the classic Mena House Hotel near the the pyramids.

 

106 degrees in the middle of a sun-blocking sand storm coming off the Sahara that was finally cooling things off, sipping a Stella beer in tall fan shaped wicker chair between the hotel lobby palm trees, under a slowly circulating ceiling fan. (Yes, it really did look like this in the1960's).

 

In comes the caftan-robed gentleman with his kifayah wrapped head dress, announcing" Ladies and Gentlemen, your camels are ready". 

 

Picture us now in the sandstorm atop the camels and the sand blowing so hard  we cound not even see the pyramids right in front of us. They actually took us back the next day when the wind had died down, so we could finally get our pyramid photos. But no camels. Egypt is glorious.

 

Picture this - close enough:  https://www.pinterest.com/pin/769130442592989695/

Now the Mena House Hotel is an upgraded Marriott with A/C.

 

 

You might like the latest "Death on the Nile" movie with Belgian super sleuth "Hercule Poirot" 

 

Edited March 28, 2022 by Copper10-8

[OlsSalt]

1 hour ago, cccole said:

OlsSalt, I have the visual and it looks something like a Bing Crosby and Bob Hope "Road to...." movie.   I so wish I had traveled to some of these exotic locations before the world changed.  Cherie

 

Good question, when did the world "change"?   I grew up seeing the world through 1930's National Geographics inherited from an uncle's estate - I would spend hours as a kid thumbing through those photos and when I first started traveling world wide in the 1960's, it was still pretty exotic. Even to the point of a lot of "native dress" still in Europe - which was truly $5 a day back then.

 

But I also remember once in the 1970's coming in from a hike across the rice paddies of Lantau Island in Hong Kong, with water buffalos still grazing and old ladies playing MahJong on little stools in alleyways, to catch the once a day ferry back to Hong Kong Island. I then heard a young Chinese teenager in the crowd of passengers playing Saturday Night Fever tunes on his large boom box carried on his shoulder.

 

At that moment -in the mid 1970's I realized ....things were going to changing. That early magic is gone. It also happened when I was served frozen tiramisu in Italy one year that came prepared from a box.  Which may be why I always chose Pakistan, when anyone asks what was my favorite country visited. 

 

The Graduate (Dustin Hoffman) may have gotten "plastics" as advice for the future of the world. But I think it was the age of electronics that shrank the world and started this slow cultural homogenization process - for both good and bad. It is now a small, small world.

 

Thank goodness HAL kept peeling back new layers for me with their wonderful far flung itineraries.

[cruising Katie]

My memories of Suez, Egypt, etc. came from my father.  As a young Scottish man he joined the British Merchant Marines.  He travelled around the world several times and had many interesting stories.  Riding camels, seeing pyramids', going ashore, as a young crew and having some wild adventures in Cairo.   Australia being his favourite place, hence my 69 day trip this year.  In 1939  unfortunately, his ship that was carrying oil, was in German waters, when it came over the wire, that war had been declared  and their ship was confronted by a German war ship and captured.  My dad spent the entire war in several prison camps returning to London May 12, 1945.  As he would say, it was not like Hogan's Hero's.  He and my mom immigrated to Canada and he lived a long and  happy life, passing away at age 97. I get his love of travel and sailing from him.    Kate

[cccole]

cruising Katie, What an amazing story.  I'm sorry your father did not spend his POW years in a camp like Hogan's Heros.   I can't even imagine what Cairo was like when he was there.  As is said in one of my kids' favorite movies "A wild and crazy time."  So nice that you were able to hear his stories of adventure.  Cherie

[12cruise2]

On 3/23/2022 at 10:05 PM, MisterMatthew said:

There is a cable t.v. show.. cannot recall the network.  But, it is titled TO CATCH A SMUGGLER.  It has showed some things in Peru.  And, in Brazil.  Wow, how the airports/staff find the bad guys -- just fascinating!

Love that show--we just watched an episode tonight.  We've watched many episodes over the last few weeks.  And we'll also be on the 4/3 Zuiderdam cruise, and the one after it as well.

[Boatdrill]

Drug bust March 23 update from Crew Center:

"A 27-year-old man has been arrested in Raiatea, French Polynesia after the discovery of 46 pounds of methamphetamine found in his luggage. The authorities say that the passenger, who is a Tahitian national, sailing aboard the Holland America Line cruise ship MS Zuiderdam wanted to offload a suitcase when the vessel arrived in Raiatea on Thursday, March 17. When they inspected his luggage they found more than 9 pounds of the illicit drug in the suitcase. Authorities continued the search in his cabin where they found 33 pounds of methamphetamine hidden in his luggage.

During a press conference, Public Prosecutor Hervé Leroy said that the border police were checking the documents of passengers arriving on a cruise ship in transit in Raiatea, when one of the passengers, identified in the investigation as a mule, wanted to offload a suitcase in Raiatea. Checked by the authorities, his luggage contained 9 pounds of methamphetamine, and a further search revealed additional 33 pounds of ice. In French Polynesia, a gram of ice sells for more than $US 2,200, while the price in Mexico is "5 to 6 dollars per gram," said the Public Prosecutor, Hervé Leroy.

 

After four days in police custody, the defendant was processed to the prosecution yesterday morning. According to investigators, the drugs were loaded by the mule in the United States.

 

This is a record amount of the illicit drug seized in French Polynesia worth about US$50 million. The man who has been transferred to Papeete for further questioning, faces a jail sentence of up to 10 years."

 

Methamphetamine has been a source of great concern to the public authorities in recent years. Various indicators suggest that trafficking has intensified and consumption has spread among the population: ice is now the most widely used drug in French Polynesia after cannabis."

 

https://crew-center.com/cruise-ship-passenger-arrested-after-police-find-46-pounds-meth-his-luggage

 

 

 

Edited March 29, 2022 by Boatdrill

[MAVIP]

On 3/28/2022 at 3:48 AM, bennybear said:

My nearest experience was in the 70s in Morocco where DH was offered a camel for me but he thought I should be worth two as I was pregnant.  Luckily he survived🤪. I wasn’t allowed to ride the camels, only a donkey. 

 Anecdote in the family, because DH, children and son-in-law heard this question for marriage from our guide and my answer: 500 white camels. 😅. 

[TiogaCruiser]

1 minute ago, MAVIP said:

 Anecdote in the family, because DH, children and son-in-law heard this question for marriage from our guide and my answer: 500 white camels. 😅. 

Inflation