Finally, on Board

The taxi driver told us that 9 pieces of luggage and 3 passengers were too much for his cab.  I could understand that much from his body language.  I didn’t have to speak Spanish.  Somehow Wyona fit all of us in, and Greg offered a generous tip, so the driver left the port happy. 

We proceeded to get on board.  For us – entering the day of final miracles – no need to unpack again until we leave for home.

The same delicious Sunday market was in full swing and Wyona and I had pesos to spend at the market. Knowing that this would be that last of the really big markets for us we proceeded to the best market of all.

Greg found coins that had been carved so as to leave the interesting figures still in the circle of the coin and the rest cut away.  If only he were a jewellery wearer.  But he couldn’t bring himself to buy one of those, nor lls one of the purses that other men carry.  But to give him his due, he happily carries any of Wyona’s bags, often two or more at a time.

At the end of the day the church bells were ringing at the San Telmo Catholic Church.  We stopped in to watch a priest dressed in jean light the candles getting ready for the service.  Then we headed for the bus, only to be stopped by Spanish music coming from a derelict hacienda.  The front courtyard was full of musicians.  A sign said, come in, stay, free, the musicians are not being paid so give what you can.  At first we watched through the spaces in the high wrought iron fence.

from a website for One Day Cafe in San Telmo
(http://onedaycafe.me/tag/san-telmo/)

Then we could smell the grill where chorizo sausages were grilled, split, and place on buns that were only vehicles to get meat into the mouth.

I would have stayed forever.  Greg and Wyona forever and a day.  The end of a dream day.

Back to Tianjin, China

... riding in the put-put ...

We spent a long day in Beijing.

The next day we went only have 1/2 way – just to Tianjin.

Greg loves the beautiful new cruise terminal where we are docked.

In order to make it a pleasant place for westerners the Chinese play western music.

Whomever chooses the music picked a seasonal genre for us to hear – Jingle Bells play for us in April.

This is the place where reading English is as interesting as it can get, for there is a translation needed.

One of the beautiful restaurants was called Heaven on World, a huge sign on top of the restaurant that could be seen from the train, enticing us in. 

“Heaven on Earth is what they meant to say,” Greg whispered to me.

Getting off at the Citizens Plaza and looking around would have been enough to do.

Can you help us find a street market?

Hoping we could squeeze in a Traditional Market Wyona approached some young students who looked like they might speak English.

She said to them, “I see taxi drivers refusing to take people who are speaking Chinese to them.

What chance will we have in them taking us.”

The students went to work, later explaining that many of the taxis are not licensed to go over a nearby bridge and they have to refuse passengers who want to go there.

... thanking the driver with cash ...

To get around this problem, she put is in two put-puts telling the driver to take us to a market – what turned out to be a market celebrating traditional beauties of China.

Before we she left the young woman said that she doesn’t live here, but that she was meeting friends to go for western food and they wondered if we would like to join them.

We laughed and said, no, we have come a long way for Chinese food. Western food just won’t work for us.

... pearl display at street pearl stall ...

At the market, I found a pearl vendors and some silk scarves.

After negotiating prices on those for me, and further down the way, Wyona found another pearl vendor. “I want both of these necklaces and ½ of another, all restrung and I will be back at 3 pm to get them.”

 ... Wyona at pearl merchants ...

Wyona told them all of that without speaking a word of Chinese, nor them speaking a bit of English.

Sign language is a wonderful thing.

 And so was this market.

Many days later we were saying, “What was wrong with our heads. Why did we leave that market so early. We should have spent every cent we had there.”

... red rope is to keep too many customers from entering the store ...

On our journey home, the subway line we needed to take was broken.

We would not have known, just the 5 of us standing there waiting for a train.

But the penny didn’t drop for us.

 OR ... keep your hands out of the subway door ...

A young man with fashionably shredded jeans tried to speak to us.

Then he went to find someone in the subway to translate for him.

She came back and said in English, “This person is telling you that you should not stand here, for the train will never come. Follow him and he will take you to the right spot."

... goodnight Tianjinn ...

That was the answer to a tourist’s prayer.

One not yet even uttered.

Arta 

Going to Beijing

... dividing up the precious money ...

“Where do you catch the #102?” and “Does the #513 give change?”

Those were the first questions we heard after we had run through the parking lot, past the Celebrity Tour Coaches, trying to make our way to Beijing on our own and save the $450 the tours would have cost us.

No, the driver did not give change so an English speaker ahead of us on the bus opened up his wallet, gave Greg change for a 50 yuan and that answers the next question,“How did we pick up with those Australians?”

Greg hadn’t remembered that they were the ones who gave us the change to get on the bus.

They too were making their way to Beijing on their own.

Unlike us, they had never travelled somewhere before where no one spoke English.

And that was the glue that stuck them to us.

Wyona had sign-languaged her way into a young fellows heart who had a suitcase, and she trusted that he could get us off of the street where the bus dropped us, and into a train station.

We took an hour on the underground, then another hour on a train to Tianjin, and then a half an hour on a bullet train to Beijing.

... vendor selling paper hats ...

There wasn’t a corner that wasn’t fraught with difficulties – all five of us trying to figure out where to buy tickets, how to put the tickets into the turn styles, how to read the tickets so that we got on the first class trains and into the correct seats.

Grandma, can we take your picture?

“Grandma, can I take your picture?”

That is what two young girls said to Wyona in the square by the Forbidden City.

Yes, and you get in the picture too, she said, and in return, tell us how to get back to Tanggu.

“Oh, we are not from here, but we are tourists from another place in China,” they laughed.

.  guarding the Forbidden City ...

“Look at me. Now I am walking like an old person.” Those are the words of the 9th person who was crammed into a 7 seater taxi that brought us home.

A guy from Arizona (Greg suspects he was from Russia from his accent) had to sit on his friend’s lap, and he was perched there, one of his own arms on the driver’s headrest and one on the seat behind his friend.

They had been charged $500 American for their taxi ride into Tianjin in the morning, and knowing they had been ripped off, were standing beside us, trying to negotiate a fairer price on the way back to the ship at night.

Wyona had been off talking to a Chinese businessman this time, and asked him to negotiate the price for us.

Soon there was a yelling match going on, the three taxi drivers who were swarming us, trying to get us to pay their fares for rides pack to the port, and him, yelling at them in Chinese that they were ripping us off.

The language got louder and louder, the taxis were parked out in the street, as though the traffic back up and around them didn’t matter, and the student yelling louder and louder at them, taking on each new taxi driver that stopped.

Finally a larger van drove us, gave us a price of 180 yuan to take 9 people back to the port and we climbed in.

But only 8 of us made it into the taxi ... Greg still out on the street.

 ... We saw a portrait like this in a house in 7 Springs, Lee River ...

“I am not leaving without him. Let me out,” said Wyona.

So everyone scooched over and the Russian / Arizonian sat up on his friend’s lap, to make the whole deal work.

“Can you climb over this taxi barricade?” We were caught between a rock and a hard place – now in the taxi queue, but this time Wyona finding out from the woman ahead of us, that a taxi would take longer on top of the ground, than the subway would take below, but there was no way to get out of the line-up.

Greg was the first one to check out the barricade, to see that it was bolted to the ground, thus stable enough for all five of us to climb it, swing our legs over it, and head back to the subway to get to the Forbidden City.

Not dignified, but it worked. Won’t be able to travel when I can no longer swing my legs over high fences.

Arta

Nagasaki, Japan

The trip is over. 
Our home away from home is behind us.

Wyona was dividing up the yen that we have between us.  She counted it out.  Two, two, five, another five, yes, 12 thousand yen for you she said.  I learned a quick conversion tip at one of the seminars.  Knock off 3 zeros and that is how much money you have. 

Thanks for the $14 American dollars.  I can figure out the money.  I hear everything is expensive in Japan. My allotment of money will keep me from overspending.

Wyona's hand at the base of the monument in the Peace Park, Nagasaki
She is trying to show you
there is water running at the base of the monument

We did have a trip that was the right price.

For 5 dollars you could buy an all day pass on the trolley.

The trolley is not the high speed train.

It lumbers along, stopping every two blocks, picking up the school children, the shoppers, the old people.

And there were the 3 of us who rode the #1 all the way to the Peace Park.

Then we continued on the line, until the car was empty.  The driver ran to the other end of the train and we began the return journey.  

  

... a small rest for Wyona ... Greg moves on at the Peace Park ...

Greg told me that we must really take a taxi in Japan.  

The passengers sit on seats covered with white doilies.  

The drivers wear white gloves.  

“They take their taxi driving seriously here,” he commented. 
 

Cherry blossoms on the ground at the Peace Park

Our trolley driver also had on gloves.  And a broom in his cabin.
  
Taxis and trolleys.  Serious business.

Arta

Hong Kong

We took the Star Ferry over to Hong Kong today.

The journey is about 5 minutes.

The ferry goes as fast as a well paddled canoe.

We emptied our pockets of change, trying to find enough money to get on the ferry: $2.50 HKD each way. That is the equivalent of $.40 a ride for the Upper Deck. The lower deck is cheaper. “Did we ride first class when we were here ten years ago, Greg?” Neither could remember. 

... the bottom half of the building ...
... I couldn't get it all in one frame ...

The walk over the foot bridge to the city, proper took us past a construction site.

We leaned over the rail and watched a long time.

Wyona spotted a digger, not at ground level, but one at the bottom of the excavation. Greg watched an 18 wheeler taking earth away from the construction site. He was curious as to why all of the wheels were washed before the machine went out onto the road. 

... Not the Hong Kong I remember ...

“This is not the Hong Kong I knew,” he said.

The shopping consisted of Armani, Dior, Cardin ... all of the big French and Italian designers.

I won’t say that the windows were not breath-taking. We had shopped a bit at Harbour City, Kowloon before we left. The Star Emporium, which Wyona and Greg remembered from the past, is not up-scale. I stopped to see the jewellery in a window, where the sign in its bottom left corner said, and “Sorry. We do not sell zircons or silver.” Whoops to anyone who wants silver or something that looks like a diamond, flashes like a diamond, sparkles like a diamond ... but is a zircon. 

... China, always under construction ...

Greg stayed in Hong Kong.

“Don’t hurry home to join us for dinner. We will probably just eat the fruit in our room. Enjoy yourself wandering the streets of Hong Kong to the very last minute,” Wyona said as we left him, turning ourselves back to the ferry.

She has a good sense of when to turn back. I want to go on with Greg, but I know that I can’t do 18 hours straight with no rest. Greg stopped to take out a map and give us detailed instructions as to how to get home. We both listened, for walking the streets has been easier when he is out in front. 

In Chna this is smog in the air
In Dubai it would be sand in the air

“Oh no,” Wyona said later. “We are half way beneath the underpass that leads to the subway, just the way Greg told us not to go. Oh well, at least we know where we are. Grab the map and let’s make some corrections. He never needs to know how we failed. New route -- down Salisbury, up Handkow, across Peking and up Lock Street,” she murmured. “How could we have followed so exactly the very route he told us to avoid?” 

We came home to rest, something she got none of yesterday.

We want to go back to the equivalent of the Chinese Five and Dime tonight where there is stuff piled in all of the isles, good hanging on high hooks from the ceilings, shelves partitioned and then crowded with merchandise still in boxes – no high end designers for us.

Not even looking at anything as low as zircons or silver. Tonight we are going right to the bottom. 

... a double decker bus goes one way ...

This can only be matched by yesterday’s adventure at the Temple Market. 

For the best purchase of the night, Wyona found the lazer light she had been admiring in London – one similar to the mirror ball. The best price at the front of the market was $60. By the time she got to the end of the market, she found the same model for $20. Now that was fun.

... a second double decker ...

I even loved it when the rain started to fall. 11:30 pm and Greg said, “Let’s get out of the rain and take a taxi home.” Every empty taxi window that rolled down for him rolled right back up.

... images of buildings in buildings ...

 “What is wrong?”, Wyona asked.

“They won’t take us. They want fares that are going to the Hong Kong side and we are only a few blocks away.”

So we ran in the rain, me just a few feet behind them – which is why my pedometer finally measured 8,524 steps last night. If our hotel had been a little further away, I would have made it to my 10,000 step daily goal.

Arta

Vaikom, Kerala

The most popular trip was sold out -- boat rides through the islands.

We were told that they were trying to arrange more excursions, but the problem was finding enough small boats.

Since that was out of the question, my second choice was to visit a village. Because I live near a small village in the summer and am always interested in what is going on there, I thought a small hamlet in India would be of equal interest to me.

Greg, Wyona, Moiya and David felt the same way so we signed  up for the same trip.

... on the way to the village ...

The ride to the village would be an hour, we were told.

Greg said afterwards how surprised he was, since an hour ride to a village seemed to us to mean that we would be seeing the countryside.

Instead there were stores and houses along the road, almost until we arrived at the village.

People were walking along the streets, families drove by on bicycles, and trucks whose cabs were psychedelic works of art were parked by the sides of the road.

... village drummers welcoming the tourists...

 We were met by village drummers.

And then we transferred to a tuk-tuk (auto rickshaw) for the rest of the journey to the village.

The transfer did not happen without resistance.

I have been warned so many times not to engage in conversation with anyone approaching me with an offer of a local tour, that I walked by the first 6 tuk-tuks, thinking it was my job to walk to the village.

... Moiya's head marking begins to wilt ...

I would have never made it in the heat.

Afterwards someone said, "The bus tour guide should have explained to us that we were to get into those vehicles."

I didn't agree because no one could get enough explanations to take care of all of the vagaries that happen along the way of such a trip.

... a moment together in the village ...

I do not know which was more surprising to me of the following three things.

First a small boy motioned to me that I should put down my head, and he put a flower lei around my neck.

Then a woman came by and made a red mark on my forehead.

Then a huge coconut with a straw extruding out of the top was thrust into my hands.  

I could just hear myself thinking ... boy, this is already a lot of fun and we haven't even entered the village, really. 

... a candid in an Indian village ...

The general theme was to show us the village: a woman making clay pots, another woman weaving baskets, and a third preparing herbs to cure headaches.

We saw a man doing silver smithing; we watched women preparing lunches for their families.

... am I in that picture? ...

I am having some trouble with the text of this post, since one part of the tour felt like we were going from station to station, as we would if we were going to see a group of students displaying their science projects.

On the other hand, there was this amazing feeling of being in the jungle, hearing the sounds of the birds, being overwhelmed by the humid air, observing the details of the jungle growth, walking on the dirt paths and turning corners around trees and walking over planks that crossed streams.

... everyone's turn for a funny face ... 

The little boy who had put the wreath around my neck followed me along, asking my name, practising his English on me.

I began taking pictures of the flora and fauna, but their little faces were far more interesting to me.

Wyona said to me, "Where are the girls?  We haven't seen any of the girls."

"I noticed that too," I said.

Wyona asked one of the women where the little girls were.

And soon the little girls appeared -- so sweet, hanging onto their mother's hands.

I was worrying that I would not be able to fully experience everything around me.

I was taking pictures of clay vases by the side of the road, of the washing hanging by the houses.

Why am I always taking pictures of that, I thought.  Venice.  Rome.  Egypt.  Alexandria.

Now India.

I want to see that invisible work of how people really live.

 

... Greg pauses in the jungle shadows ...

But somehow it is more than that. 

I want to see how they hang the bananas by the side of the store, where the little stream runs to, ask why there is only one bucket by the well

I am charmed by the 3-person toilet that has been set up for us. 

"You aren't going to use that," a woman said to me.

"Are you kidding.  I am trying everything whether I need to or not," I reply.

I am still working at making this whole experience complete.

The village is working hard to show us how they live.

I want to do my part to take enough in that I can work out the bits and pieces I don't understand when I get home.

... capturing the serenity of the village ...

When I saw this quiet stream running beside one of the paths, I thought it captured what the village must feel like when it is quieter ... not on display.

... a complimentary snack ...

So beautiful, the cottage on the other side, the well tended paths, the hedges carefully planted and trimmed.

Coke or coconut shell with straw

Complimentary snacks -- that is what the tour guide told us about the L-shaped table.

Coke or cocoanut milk.

Your culture or ours.

I have been running my set of photos from the village on my desktop since I got home.

I stop each day to take another look at the magic of a small Indian village in the province of Kerala.

Arta