Holland America Volendam
Singapore to Vancouver cruise
April 14 - May 18, 2011
A group of us hired a boat and went snorkeling and cruising through the maze of islands and fishing boats.
many vendors wore long sleeves and cloth masks
to cover their skin from the strong sun.
with the animals.
the half hour elephant ride we took with a Mahout
through the Thai jungle.
were dazzling with porcelain and real jewels
used in the architecture.
was a working market, not a tourist market.
and wouldn't know what to do with them.
like this woman who was baking small muffins
in a clay oven the size of a large flower pot.
full of fishing boats.
the people were throwing paper clothes and money
into the Cai River to make an offering to the river god
to keep them safe for another year.
They do this all day, every day.
Mats are still important to use
to sleep, sit and wrap corpses before burial.
(by women who did not speak English).
It was easy to see how quickly sitting cross-legged and
stooped over would become back-breaking work.
As we were leaving; we saw the area where the women
were sitting on the floor, washing dishes in pans.
drinks; we were not tempted to drink any of the local
"Snake Wine" made with snakes, frogs, hard boiled
goose eggs, seahorses, plus secret herbs and spices!
tables and did amazingly intricate work with silk thread,
but were not allowed to talk while they worked.
Bird Market, to the Flower Market, Ladies' Market, Jade
& Pearl Market and finally ended at the Night Market!
the 10 story statue of the Big Buddha. It was the first time
we were in a country without large Easter celebrations.
a great way to see the harbor.
above the Huangpu River.
transportation to get to Suzhou, a canal town 60 miles
from Shanghai. Our first problem was learning to read
Chinese on all the signs! Thankfully, the automatic ticket
machines at the metro were also in English.
making something like what we had eaten.
Nagasaki, Japan a black pillar stands to show where
the devastating bomb hit that destroyed the city in 1945.
In front is a pillar from the salvaged
from the remains of a Catholic Cathedral.
in 1629. It's position behind a hill miraculously allowed it to survive the bombing.
looking at the Gukje Street Market
and the vendors selling their foods...
Yul Brenner's birth place is one of the highlights.
grey, cold and damp weather
at the Farmer's Market in Revolution Square.
pretty much described the rest of
the cold, damp, slushy, in need of repair Siberian town;
which is Russia's nuclear submarine base.
Neovsky Christian church. There were no pews,
but while we were there several local people came inside
to pray and light candles in the well-built log structure.
we were greeted with hilltops covered with snow
and high temperatures in the mid 40s.
were dotted with white. As we looked closer,
we saw that they were filled with eagles.
surrounded by mountains - and even a volcano.
wild, unpopulated, rugged and filled with wildlife.
We saw sea otters in the harbor and a pod of whales
and dolphins followed our ship when we sailed away.