Travel With Bob and Mary

Friday, May 27, 2011

Photos of Zagreb Croatia

Sunday, March 20, 2011

I"ll go anywhere in the world...oops, well maybe not

I often said I would go almost any where in the world….. even Iran. Well I guess I’ll get my chance. But when it came to going to Egypt, thats one place in the world we decided not to go. We had booked a trip to Egypt but when the riots started, we waited a couple of days and then finally cancelled it. We weren’t as concerned with safety, but stores were closed, banks were closed (ATM’s were out of money), many tourists’ sites were closed, and the airports were closed.

So we scrambled to find another destination, and scheduled a cruise down the Dalmatian Coast to visit Croatia, Montenegro, Albania, and Greece. Of course the cruise was more expensive than the Egypt trip and we had to reschedule our flight to New York,another expense. In our rush to get something finalized I booked a flight from Athens to Istanbul on the wrong date, non-refundable even though I caught the mistake minutes later. They charged us $150 to change flight dates… per ticket! All I can say is when we die, we’ll be broke but, we’ll die happy. Despite the frustration we did not endure the nightmare the tourist in Egypt went through or the agony the Egyptian people are enduring.

A Trip to Iran

Why go to Iran? Despite the news media and the political rhetoric (Death to Americans) the Iranian people do not hate Americans. Forget about all the xenophobic, anti-Iranian propaganda dominating the media. What they say about terrorism and your life being in danger in Iran is anything but untrue. If anything, Iranians can be accused of is extreme hospitality. It’s been said you can knock on any door and be welcome. I can’t say the same about an Iranian knocking on any door in the US. We’re looking forward to experiencing the people’s hospitality in person.

The #1 site listed to visit in the Middle East is Esfahan Iran the jewel of ancient Persia, so great it is referred to as ‘half the world’. Rick Steves is the host of the public television show on Europe for many years, a travel guide, published many books on travel, said of Iran “the most surprising and fascinating land” he ever visited. He said the best attribute he had in Iran was that he was an American.

Getting Our Visas

November 29. We made travel arrangements with a travel agency in Iran for our trip. Americans must have a tour guide in Iran.

December 22. We submit request for a visa through our travel agent in Iran. They cannot submit it to the Iranian government until 60 days before we arrive in Iran.

January 25. We get word from our Iranian travel agent saying she will apply for our visa. She says we should have our visa by March 15. We plan on going to Iran April 11 but we leave on our trip March 21. It’s going to be cutting it close getting our visa before we leave

January 26. We send our passport to Washington DC to a passport/visa service company so they can get our visa for Syria and Iran.

February 2. The visa service has picked up our Syria visa and will hold our passport until they can get our Iranian visa.

March 10. Our visa for Iran is appoved, but must wait 3 days before it can be taken to the Washington DC ‘Embassy of Pakistan interest section of the Islamic Republic of Iran’. (there is no Iranian Embassy in the US).

March 15 Tuesday. We are starting to worry we need our passport by Friday so we can leave on Monday and although our visa from Iran has been approved, per our tour company, we do not have it. The visa service took our passport to the Iranian office on Monday and the personal there said they could not issue the visa right then but must leave the passports and wait. We tell the visa service to leave the passports. We tell them they must get the passport back by Thursday regardless so they can FedEx it to us Thursday so we can have it by Friday. The visa service takes our passport back to the Iranian office. We do not have a flight into or out of Iran yet, we were waiting for our visa. If we do not get our visa we’ll be planning a last minute trip somewhere else…….

Wednesday we hear nothing.

Thursday. We are anxious we need our passports by tomorrow. We call the visa service and they say in order to get our visa, Iran wants $58 more each to process the visa. The visa service asked if we still wanted to go ahead and they would go back on Thursday with the extra money and pick it up on Friday. They would FedEx our passport and visa over night and we would get it on Saturday. We Said OK.

Friday we call at 3:30 DC time and the visa service said the courier is setting there waiting for the visa and would call when he picks it up. The visa service office closes at 5:00.

Friday 4:30 DC time. The visa service now has our Iranian visa and passport and will call when they have a tracking number. The visa service office closes at 5:00.

Friday 6:15 DC time the visa service calls with the tracking number.

Saturday 9:30. Our passports and visa arrive and I wanted to kiss the FedEx driver but I don’t think she was as excited I was to see the package in her hand.

It’s been quite and adventure already and we haven’t even left yet. Yesterday I heard about protests in Syria.

Friday, May 21, 2010

Hong Kong

We arrived in Hong Kong after a two day delay due to Airplane malfunction. We were set up in a 5 star Bali hotel for the night and the next day we were to be at the airport to leave at 8 PM. It was quite an ordeal because we left Bali about 1 AM so we lost two days in Hong Kong.

We arrived in Hong Kong around 6 AM with the overnight flight and very little sleep. They did bus us to the center of Kowloon but we had to then get to our hotel so with the help of an English speaking hotel person he was able to tell the taxi driver where to take us.

I was really amazed that most of the people on the street and in the retail establishments do not speak english. It became important to me when I found myself lost for about 1 1/2 hours on the busiest street in Hong Kong and could not find a person who could speak english to get directions from. After 3 months together Bob and I found it imperative that we go separate ways for awhile so I went off on my way. It was not the best of days to do this as we had very little sleep for two days with the airport snafu and so had very little patience as well. (I did know where I was just on the opposite side of the street and there was no sign on that side for my street, I was a little slow figuring that out)

We set up a tour to the Northwest Territories for the following day and that was very nice as I like the country side especially after the packed streets of Hong Kong.

We then had to prepare to leave Hong Kong so Bob took off to some Temples to take photo’s and I rested knowing full well it would be a long day.

The great thing we liked about Hong Kong is their subway system, ferries, double decker buses and subway under the harbor. Those were great but since our visit in ’96 they put in a new airport which is far away from the city so they put in a train system to take you to the airport. You can pick up a free shuttle to take you to the train station and at the station you can check in to your airline, get rid of the bags and proceed on to the train for a 23 minute ride or go back out to do more shopping. What a great idea and very modern, clean, comfortable train to a big airport.

After using all my energy with the crushing crowded sidewalks and not enough sleep it made me want to go home so I was ready for this 3 months to end, at least for a week or so.

Hong Kong

Mary at a Hong Kong temple

Bob at a narrow village ally near Hong Kong

Riding the double-decker street car

Many Faces of Bali

Bali has many faces but the first one that you see are the many, many motor bikes zipping in and out of the traffic with up to 5 people on each bike. You are allowed to travel with up to 5 and only the adults are required to wear a helmet.

The roads are very narrow and not well paved with no shoulder so that when the motor bikes come dancing around they find any piece of space and create their own bike path weaving in and out in precarious places with seeming little or no fear of being hit by the very very close traffic. This is the place to hire a car, driver & guide. For $55 per day you can have someone else deal with the “crazy” tight streets and endless traffic. We had a little map to follow with our guide and we never really knew where we were, just the vicinity.

Yesterday we went to the mountain rice fields to view and take pictures. The sun was shining when we left our hotel but as we ventured up the mountain area it started to rain and we wanted to take pictures of all the terraced rice fields so we got out to walk and the driver parked on the side of the road, which means not quite in the middle of the road. When we tried to continue up the hill the road was slick with rain and he slide into the ditch. It was thundering and raining very hard and as the cars came up the road many people got out in the rain to try to help. After the third try with three different cars hitching to our bumper, we finally got back onto the road. The tourist police were the first to arrive and they were unable to pull us out but stayed until the “right” vehicle with good grip tires arrived to do the job with many people pushing as well. I think this is Bali, where people are open and willing to give service and help until the job is done.

The next face of Bali that you see is the traditional dress and offerings to their God. We were very lucky to arrive in a week where the local Hindu and Balinese people were preparing for a religious celebration which takes place every 6 mo. This particular celebration will take place on the 12th after we leave. It is a celebration to their God and is about good overcoming evil. They believe that there is evil in the world and they give offerings to the God so everyone is either making the baskets and putting together the offering and taking them to the appropriate temples or as in the cities many are too busy and buy the baskets and materials to put in them and make the offerings.

We saw many Hindu people dressed in their traditional clothes for the few days before as they had also another celebration to do and they were taking their offerings to the family temple as well as the community temple. Every family has a family temple at their home and it always sits on the north east side of the house which is in relation to the highest mountain in NE of Bali, Mt Agung.

There are many celebrations in Bali and so it is very costly to each family as these come up often. There is the tooth filling celebration which is done by the priest and since the cost is the same to do many than just one many wait to do as a community or family. They trim off the incisors as they think of this as like the animal instinct. Cremation is also very expensive so it is acceptable to be buried, then every 5 years each village will have a mass cremation when the bones will be dug up and burned along with many in the village and the rest thrown into the river which will go then to the sea. It is a child's responsibility to take care of this when the parents are old and the child is now married and not a parents responsibility.

There are 5 types of celebrations in Bali.

To the God
For the priest
For human beings
For the ancestors
For the Destroyer, like for cremation

We usually buy art in the countries that we visit so we visited many artist shops looking for the “right” pieces. We purchased a traditional rice field painting. The artist was notified as to the price we were offering and could accept or negotiate with us through the dealer. Both the dealer and the artist needed money for the upcoming celebration and were willing to take less for their painting. Our male guide said after he married they say their life is over as the male takes on the duties of providing for all the celebrations that take place in a Hindu’s life, he must make money for them. The female, at least in the village, makes the baskets out of leaves like the palm tree or coconut leaf by cutting strips and putting them together so that the offerings can be put in the baskets and taken to the temples. They get on their motor bikes, dressed in their traditional dress and put their offerings in a traditional painted basket on the bike or, if walking, on their head and go on their way to the temples. There may be more than one temple they are taking them to as we saw the village temple, the family temple and the city temple.

On an ordinary day each morning they also give an offering for the day. It may be outside their business door, in their family temple, at their job or just about any place. The place that I got a massage had an offering on the concrete outside their door, the people selling tours at the beach had a raised small temple where I watched two different people giving their early morning offerings in two locations. This is how they start their day giving thanks.

The day that I will remember is the early morning that we walked down a side street near our hotel looking for a place to have our clothes washed. After settling with the laundry people we asked to take their picture then continued down further into the street life. People were friendly and were willing to let us take their picture and talk some, if they spoke a little english. When someone asked where we were from and we said US they said Obama. We saw the area where they do Cock fighting. The Hindu believe that blood sacrifice is necessary so the blood of the cock is used. It is not legal but tucked away in back streets. We saw families dressed in their traditional garb for the upcoming celebrations and all taking their offerings to the temples and they were happy to have us take their pictures. They seemed happy to see us come into their back street life.