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Sweetie pie
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18-01-2018, 05:14 PM
11

Re: Stories of your leisurely travels

Oh, thank-you for your stories - I am loving every word.
Now I am hooked I want more.
San Miguel and The Hard Rock cafe seem to be the all over the world.
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18-01-2018, 05:30 PM
12

Re: Stories of your leisurely travels

On our last day of a visit to Niagara Falls, staying in the USA. We wandered over the Rainbow Bridge and came back an hour later with some duty free Vice (Vodka mixed with Ice Wine) and liquorice allsorts.

The USA Border Guard asked where we had come from, where we were going, and if we had bought anything. When we told him what we had bought, he asked how long we had been in Canada. About an hour, says I.
Oh no, you have to be out the USA for four days minimum before you can bring back any Dufree products.
Well, we've been going across every day for a week, says I.
No says he, it makes no difference. You have to stay out the country for four days.
Oh, says I.

Anyway, he was a nice chap and said in this case he would let us off as it was obviously an honest mistake since we hadn't tried to hide anything.

Thank the Goddess of the White, cos he had a gun and the power to have us Irish Stewed.

So my friends, if you want to bring duty free liquorice into the USA, make sure you have been out the country for at least four days.
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18-01-2018, 05:35 PM
13

Re: Stories of your leisurely travels

Originally Posted by Sweetie pie ->
Oh, thank-you for your stories - I am loving every word.
Now I am hooked I want more.
San Miguel and The Hard Rock cafe seem to be the all over the world.
Niagara Falls, USA.

realspeed
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18-01-2018, 05:58 PM
14

Re: Stories of your leisurely travels

Having been to China i would love to go back there. The culture is so different. yes it was a long flight but at the airport in China the tour guide took us to the hotel we stayed in. We were only given a couple of hours to settle in then whisked of to see the tourist sights of Bejing then flew to Zian

I did take loads of photos such as the first courtyard you come to when entering the Forbidden city


yes we did everything from that to the warriors and the great wall and so much more, far to many to name on here
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Alcatraz what a place to see in the USA how the prisoners survived I have no idea. then the Kennedy space centre. the size of the rockets are unbelievable. Yes done the Disney thing as well as Yosemite and the redwoods absolutely outstanding scenery

Oh so many places like Tunisia (where we spent our honeymoon)- Brittany- Brazil- Argentina- Spain-
Paraguay- Russia -Germany- Lativia- Egypt just to name a few.
Going onto an active volcano -seeing Pompeii where does one start? as there are the countries around the med we went to as well
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19-01-2018, 12:08 AM
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Re: Stories of your leisurely travels

we ate at some of the finest restaurants and at other times sitting on small stools on the pavement at midnight with a cooking pot in the centre with a big bowl of something. when we first arrived we were told don't eat street food you will get sick of course this wasn't true and our kids would buy street food on the way home from school regularly. we once sat at a normal table under a concrete freeway with traffic roaring up above eating some of the finest duck cooked over coals you could ever find and rats as big as cats running between the tables. this was the magic of HK!

we lived on the border of Kowloon with the New Territories which ran all the way to the fenced border with main land china - out in the new territories was peace and quiet and of course plenty of duck farms.

the key to getting around and having good experiences was having a range of mulitcultural friends - men and women who had married into the local Chinese populations - and did they know their way around - but isn't that always the case. Teachers are revered and feared in HK so we were exaltled to 'pop star' eminence and basked in the glories like Mandarins of old!
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19-01-2018, 09:33 AM
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Re: Stories of your leisurely travels

In 1954 while on National Service I went on leave from Singapore to Hong Kong.

60 years ago cheap air travel was still a little way in the future. Large troopships met the transport needs of the late colonial armed services. It must have been a major logistical task to plan trips with personnel embarking and disembarking at the various ports. Singapore was near the end of a major route. On the way out it would go to Hong Kong and then on to Japan, where there was still a British element in the Army of Occupation, before starting the return journey ending up back in the UK. There was an excellent system, curiously called an Indulgence Passage, which enabled soldiers on leave to take up unoccupied places on these ships.

The Army bean counters took a splendidly un-Thatcherite view of the cost to those who used this scheme. Since the ship was going to make the journey anyway they reckoned that the only additional cost was the food that was eaten. (This method of reckoning would never do today.) So a reasonable charge was made for our food and a group of five young Sergeants went to Hong Kong by troopship. It took five days to get to Honkers, we disembarked, and nine days later the same ship was back ready to return us to Singapore. So we had a nine days holiday with zero travel cost there and back.

I retain two indelible vivid impressions of that leave. Firstly, arriving in the harbour just as dawn was breaking. As the daylight increased we could make out the teeming life on the water. Not only the big ships at anchor but innumerable little boats on which whole families lived and worked. The different islands enclosed the magnificent natural harbour. Rising out of the water were the steep mountainous elements of the colony. Already blessed with some skyscrapers the city extended up the slopes. The other memory was from the top of the Peak at night looking down at the lights spread out beneath stretching out over the harbour. They tend to show this view on TV every now and then and it gives me a little thrill every time I see it.

I also recall the exhilaration that came from being in a more temperate climate after Singapore, which being almost on the Equator is hot and humid all the year round. There seemed to be a lot more energy about the place. (I imagine that Singapore later got its energy with the widespread introduction of air conditioning.) We took a day trip across the mouth of the Yangtze (Pearl) River to the Portuguese colony of Macau where, as you would expect, the public buildings, including the Cathedral, were built in the Portuguese manner.

A family friend of the Magoos was working as a nurse in Honkers. She drove three of us on a tour of the New Territories where we could see agriculture as practised in China from time immemorial. We drove as near as was permitted to the border with China itself. This was not terribly near as the HK authorities were anxious not to provoke any incident. She took us to tea at her country club (very nice too, that was colonialism for you) before returning us to our hostel.

Since then I have always paid special attention to what was happening there. I was especially riveted by the handover in 1997. I enjoyed one particular irony. We were told that in China the handover was being hailed as the liberation of the people from hated imperial rule. However when the Chinese President arrived he was whisked away to a hotel where he stayed out of public gaze until it was time for the actual ceremony. Tony Blair, who was still walking on water, on the other hand went on walkabout. The Hong Kong citizenry, still somewhat fearful about their ‘liberation’ enthusiastically cheered this representative of their oppressors wherever he went.
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19-01-2018, 01:56 PM
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Re: Stories of your leisurely travels

Thank you, Fruity, realspeed and Mr Magoo.
I will post a story later.
I truly love them all.
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19-01-2018, 03:26 PM
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Re: Stories of your leisurely travels

This is a blog I wrote after our visit to Baja. Very long I am afraid.

On the 8th of April 2009 my son and I arrived in San Diego on a proposed whale watching trip aboard a fishing boat called “The Spirit of Adventure”. We arrived the day before the trip in order to be sure that our luggage came with us on the trip and was not lost in transit. The thought of two weeks at sea with no clean pants was just not acceptable.

As we had a day to spare we bought tickets for the Trolley Bus tour of the city which enabled us to see the whole of San Diego, hopping on and off wherever we felt like it. This was a great relaxing way to see the city after a long flight from the UK.

Our group was to led by Mark Carwardine, an eminent Zoologist and expert on cetaceans, and broadcaster, with whom my son had been to Antartcia previously. He has been going to Baja for the last twenty five years and is still as thrilled as the rest of us with all our wildlife encounters, his enthusiasm is extremely infectious and he is a very unassuming and approachable individual. It is certainly thanks to him that the trip was so very enjoyable and informative

his enthusiasm is extremely infectious and he is a very unassuming and approachable individual. It is certainly thanks to him that the trip was so very enjoyable and informative.

The final night saw the most marvellous sunset of the whole trip, and Dean served us up a wonderful Prime Rib Roast accompanied with jugs of Margaritas. What more could anyone want. Good company, good food and a trip of a lifetime?
The following day we met our fellow travellers for brunch in a quayside restaurant, then spent a few hours again sightseeing before boarding the fishing boat at 6 p.m. ready for the 10 p.m. sailing on the tide. There were just 14 extremely tiny cabins, one could only stand side by side by the bunks, so we then realised why we had been told not to bring suitcases… However, we managed to stow away our clothes into the two small drawers under the bottom bunk (or should I call it, my coffin, because that was what it seemed like?). The engine was so noisy that conversation in the cabin was totally impossible, how on earth would we manage to sleep for the next two weeks?

We had been warned that the first 2-3 days might be a little rough and this worried me considerably before we set off. Oh boy, they were not wrong. It was very rough indeed, for about four days and for the first couple of days the numbers of our party sitting down for meals was less than half (about ten of us). However, despite my worries I consumed all meals, kept them down, and became very adept at pouring coffee whilst at an alarming angle and conquered walking like an old sea-dog. I can’t say I saw much of my son during that time (he must take after his father), ha ha, the old gal is a born sailor!! It was a challenge trying to have a shower one handed, whilst hanging on for dear life with the other, as was trying to stand on one leg to put on one’s pants whilst being thrown about!!

The food was prepared in a tiny galley by Dean who served up some wonderful meals, all freshly cooked three times a day, and the most scrumptious hot muffins mid morning. Shock, horror, I put on half a stone thanks to his wonderful cooking. He was a culinary genius, with a great sense of humour, forever laughing despite working such long hours.

We sailed down the Pacific Coast of Baja California, Mexico, seeing Harbour and Elephant Seal colonies on the way until we reached the San Ignacio Lagoon, which is one of the main breeding grounds for Gray Whales where we spent three days. Three local fishermen came out in their pangas (22 ft fishing boats with outboard motors) which held eight people. Several trips were taken in skiffs to uninhabited islands . On one, there appeared to be clam shells laying on the rocks but in actual fact they were 5 million year old fossils. They looked so fresh one would have thought you could bend down and pick them up.

We experienced three absolutely incredible days with the female grays and their calves all around us. The males had already begun their migration to the Arctic. The females were actually pushing their young up to our boats and bumping the boats as they swam underneath and rubbed their backs on the hull. The young poked their heads out of the water to be scratched and rolled over to have their stomachs rubbed. The harder you rubbed them the more they liked it, we even put our hands in their mouths to feel the baleen (instead of teeth). It was amazing that such enormous mammals should actually seek our attention. If we saw whales in the distance all we had to do was lean over the side of the boat and slap the water vigorously they would then head in our direction. Now I really can say that I am “an old slapper”. It is a sad thought that these female greys and their young are due to start their migration north any time at all and have to run the gauntlet of Orcas off the Californian coast who prey on the young calves, many of whom never make it.

After this wonderful experience we travelled to Magdalena Bay to encounter Blue and fin whales with their calves – the largest creatures on the planet.

The weather continued to be very rough, so Mike our skipper found a quiet bay for those who wanted to swim and snorkel and we anchored up for a night of gentle rocking and a little less engine noise, bliss.

One evening we experienced the magical sight of luminescence of the sea when it seemed like we were sailing through milk and despite being a black black night we could see the multitude of fish glowing in the water as they swam around the boat. Numerous brown pelicans were taking advantage of all of these visual fish.

At the southern tip of Baja on the Gorda Bank, we came across about a dozen hump back whales and spent a magical nine and a half hours with them. It transpired that it was one female being pursued by males. They just accepted our boat as one of “their gang” and when a large group of pilot whales appeared on the scene near the boat, the hump backs chased them away. We constantly were sprayed with ‘spit’ from their blow holes and the noise they made was just like elephants trumpeting, such a roar.

We saw hundreds of dolphins, long-beaked, short-beaked, common, Risso’s, bottlenose and Pacific white-sided. These spent many hours bow-riding or wake riding our boat. It was wonderful to see dolphins coming from all directions, just to join in the fun. Oh boy, could they motor!

The snorkelers in the group saw wonderfully coloured fish and swam with Guadalupe fur seals, which in 1954 were thought to be extinct due to decimation for the fur trade. However, the colony is gradually increasing through conservation by the Mexican government, although still on the endangered list. On the rocks above we saw Magnificent Frigate Birds and Blue Footed Boobies and hundreds of brown Pelicans.

The final evening really was show time, we were surrounded by literally thousands of Mobula (a type of ray) which it would appear have ambitions to evolve into birds. They would suddenly leap out of the sea, flap furiously half a dozen times and then hit the water with an almighty slap. These creatures were grey above and white underneath – although why they weren’t red from all the belly-flops is a mystery. They were impossible to photograph because of the sheer numbers and one could never guess where they would erupt out of the water, so I was never quick enough on the trigger to capture one on camera.

The final night saw the most marvellous sunset of the whole trip, and Dean served us up a wonderful Prime Rib Roast accompanied with jugs of Margaritas. What more could anyone want. Good company, good food and a trip of a lifetime?

We disembarked from the Sprit of Adventure at Cabot St Lucas, Mexico for our flight back to San Diego. Those of us who were not leaving there until the following day met up for a final lovely Italian meal in the evening sunshine before heading back to UK reality.
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19-01-2018, 04:29 PM
19

Re: Stories of your leisurely travels

What wonderful memories of enjoyable trips. Particularly that last one by Ceecee.
I feel as if I have just been there. I like the idea of not having to dress up but just enjoy the magic of being there.
 
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