by Posted in: 2012 World Cruise | Cruising | Regent Voyager | Seven Seas Voyager | TravelTags:

We are sad to have to say goodbye to some friends today as the 2nd segment in our Grand Voyage comes to an end in beautiful Singapore.

Singapore is a pretty amazing place.  It is a small, clean, modern, multi-cultural city-state located just south of Malaysia and just north of Indonesia’s Riau Islands.  It is made up of 63 islands and most of the people live in the downtown urban area of the main island known as Singapore, Singapore (just like New York, New York).

Here is the Top Photo Gallery:

Click here for the detailed Singapore Photo Gallery.

It is governed with a parliamentary republic with its foundations in the English common law system.  Approx. 5 million people live in Singapore, approx. 3 million were born locally with the remainder made up primarily of Chinese, Malay (Malasian) or of Indian descent. There are four official languages: English, Chinese, Malay and Tamil.

We learned that when you are in Singapore you must follow their very strict rules or risk heavy fines or worse.  There is no spitting, no chewing gum in public, no graffiti of any kind, no littering, and you must flush public toilets after using it (or face a fine).  There is zero tolerance for drunk driving and illegal drugs.  If you are caught with even very small amounts of illegal drugs, you are sentenced to death!

All boys at the age of 18 must enlist in the military and serve 2 years.  They also have very stringent rules about the percentage of any one religious group living in apartment buildings.  They do this to keep their myriad cultures blended in all aspects of living.

Today we took an overview tour of the island on an air-conditioned coach with approx. 30 other Regent cruisers.

Our first stop was a visit to a local “wet” marketplace, where on Sunday’s they have stalls filled with fish, vegetables and most everything else.  Unfortunately, it was Monday so there wasn’t much going on.

As we drove around the island, which is only 272 square miles, we got a good overview including how close Singapore is to Malaysia…at one point it gets low enough at low tide that people can walk across!  Creates an interesting immigration situation.

Our next stop was at a beautiful hillside military cemetery.  We learned that Singapore fell to invading Japanese forces in WWII (1942). Winston Churchill called this loss “the worst disaster and largest capitulation in British history”.  The Sook Ching massacre of ethnic Chinese living in Singapore claimed between 5,000 and 25,000 lives. The Japanese occupied Singapore until the British repossessed it in September 1945 after the Japanese surrender.

We had a great lunch at the Orchid Country Club and even got to see some school children play in a bowling match.  Continuing on, we were brought to the Kong Meng San Phor Kark See Monastery.  This is a very large Buddhist Monastery spanning many acres with multiple elaborate buildings done in ornate Chinese architecture. It has one of the largest and most spectacular bronze images of Buddha rising 45 feet high and weighing 55 tons.

Dale and I hadn’t realized that the tour today was over 6 hours and, since we wanted to see a bit more of downtown, we opted to jump off the bus and take a taxi to Raffles Hotel.

The hotel opened in 1887 and was named after Singapore’s founder Sir Stamford Raffles.  My Dad had told me that he and my mom had some Singapore Slings at the Long Bar at Raffles – saying that a British businessman was buying them in an effort to use up the remainder of his Singapore dollars before leaving the country.  Dale and I had one each and the total was S$61 approximately $50.00 US!  I would guess 20+ years ago they probably weren’t as pricey.

After our drink we walked around the property and then out to the main downtown area where we decided to do some shopping.  The shopping mall we entered (called Raffles City) is very modern with all the top end shops and brands represented.  We had a great experience, found what we needed and took a taxi back to the ship in time for dinner.

We sat outside on the back of the ship at La Veranda and we were delightfully surprised with a light, color and water show from a nearby attraction.  Pretty cool.  We really enjoyed Singapore and think it is one of the safest, prosperous and culturally diverse cities we’ve seen so far on this trip.  We hope to visit again someday.

Photography Comments:

What an incredible city.  Sterile by some measures, especially in terms of eliminating the excitement caused by drugs and crime but who would miss that?  Our tour was a bit short on photo ops, especially on a gloomy day when the marketplace was closed and the tour didn’t include the vibrant downtown area.  But, we managed to get downtown anyway, albeit without actually making it to the real downtown area replete with all those big office buildings.  I had to settle for a drive-by in a cab…not even as good as a bus by the way.  If we had to do it again we would have taken the The Ins and Outs of Singapore because they actually DID go on a subway (a great system here), take a rickshaw ride (the guy I saw wanted $50 an hour) and also went to the really high end retail complex downtown.  Oh well, there’s always next time!  It was an honor to pay respect to the incredibly dedicated military men who died in wars protecting this critical city state.  The Buddhist temple was amazing but with mid-day white-out style lighting it didn’t do the colors justice.  I also noticed on editing that the colors weren’t as vibrant as I thought.  Much of the spectacular nature was due to the intricate detail of all the snakes and dragons but much of the exterior color wasn’t as vivid as you’d think…maybe it is fading already even in this fairly new building.  I found out after we were there that it wasn’t cool to take pictures of the people praying, even from the outside. Nothing bad, just not cool.  I guess you need to put them in the picture with photoshop?

Facebook Share|Tweet Post|Email Post|Contact Me
comment

by Posted in: 2012 World Cruise | Cruising | Regent Voyager | Seven Seas Voyager | TravelTags: | |

We arrived a little late at 6:30 am with high humidity and a little rain at Semerang on the north side of the island of Java.  The tour today was driving to the Borobudur Temple which is nearly in the middle of the island and a 3 hour drive each way with a rest stop half way and lunch after our temple tour.

After waking up this morning with a wake-up call at 5:15 am I discovered that Margaret was feeling under the weather so we quickly decided that I would go it alone while she rested and finished up her new Angry Bird level.  I had a quick breakfast in La Veranda, gathered up my camera equipment and headed to the Constellation Theater to get my bus ticket.

It was raining lightly but, fortunately, it let up just as we were getting on the buses.  On the dock a local group was performing traditional Javanese dances and playing their music dressed in their fancy clothing.  Very nice!

Click here for the detailed Borobudur Photo Gallery.

There were six busses each with about 32 people on board.  Nice, air conditioned and comfortable.  Our tour guide spoke decent enough English and had a good sense of humor, starting out by saying that “my name was Jane, like with Tarzan”.  His real name was Jean. We had a police car escorting the front of our bus caravan with its lights flashing.  Still, the trip was a bit exciting at times as we wove our way through what many times were narrow streets in very busy villages.

We drove through crowded city streets past densely packed houses, most which had businesses in the front.  Lots of activity on the streets.  Halfway we stopped at a coffee shop that was quite nice.  They sold the cat poop coffee in addition to all standard fare.  $10/cup for the good stuff, $2 for standard cappuccino.

The busses dropped us off about half a block from the temple.  We had to put on a sarong to cover our lower body, whether you had long pants or not.  We followed the guide who stopped at key locations to give us background on the structure.

Borobudur is the most famous tourist attraction in Indonesia and the oldest and close to the largest Buddhist temple in the world having been built in about AD 800 during the golden age of silence.  It was planned that it would take 60 years but it ended up taking 200 years.  Around 1000, it was covered in ashes following an eruption and was covered for over 800 years until it was rediscovered by an Englishman in the early 1800’s.

The temple is built from 2 million sandstone “lego” blocks from 5 km away.  Built with 10 levels it has no rooms inside and is 36 meters high.  The temple is located on an elevated area between two large volcanoes which are clearly visible.  There are actually three Buddhist temples in this area and they are on a straight line.

In the time they were building it they discovered that it wasn’t going to be able to support the weight so they had to put more square stones around the corners, covering up some of the reliefs.  The lower 6 levels are square, each about 8 feet smaller and the upper three are circular.  The top level, which is called Heaven, has 72 bell-like structures called stupas surrounding one large central stupa.  Each of the 72 enclose a Buddha statue.  It seemed that only one of them still had the head so I tried to get a picture of it by sticking the camera through one of the holes.  Hopefully it came out.  There are actually three symbolic levels of the structure which represent the three realms of Buddhism, Kamadhatu (the world of desires), Rapadhatu (the world of forms) and Arupadhatu (the formless world).

A total of 1,460 stone carving relief panels on each level tell various stories/myths about Buddha.  They are about all kinds of things and far too much detail to get into in an already too long short blog post.  Let’s just say it is like Aesop’s fables in a way with many of them giving advice on how to lead a good and honest life.

The monument has been restored twice, once around the turn of the century, just on the first level and another time in the 70’s by Unesco on levels one through seven.

On the bus ride we saw fruit with pricklies on the outside called something like “durian”.   The old saying is “Smells like Hell, Tastes like Heaven.  We also found out that in Java the people who work in the rice fields get about 25% of the crop as pay, the owner keeps the other 75%.

The bus ride back was uneventful with the obligatory restroom stop for fifteen minutes.  I made some new friends and hope to get together with them on the next leg.  It is amazing how much traveling these people do. One couple had some great ideas for an overland trip from China to Russia on a train.  Not sure if we’re up for it but it sounds absolutely fascinating.

Photography Comments:
Mostly grey skies but with a little definition of clouds.  There were just a few drops of rain all day at the Borobudur site.  The monument itself is massive and mostly dark grey to black in color.  So, you had to set the camera so as to get some detail without completely blowing out the sky.  We’ll see how I did.  I tried to capture some of the reliefs because that really is how they told the stories at the temple.  There were a LOT of people around so it was pretty difficult to get a virgin picture without colorful shirts randomly in the way and our group had to keep moving pretty quickly so it wasn’t easy to get people in the right places to make for interesting shots.  We were on the site for about an hour altogether before we headed to lunch.  Another frustrating day missing great people shots out the bus window.  Very colorful place and a great place to spend time walking around at a slow pace.  I took the D700, 28-200 and 17-35 lens today as well as the Canon S95.
Facebook Share|Tweet Post|Email Post|Contact Me
comment

by Posted in: 2012 World Cruise | Cruising | Seven Seas Voyager | TravelTags: | |

Today is our 2nd day in Bali and we opted to take a tour called “Bali as You Please” with our friends Franco and Judy.  The tour included a mini van with a driver and a tour guide and we got to pick the itinerary.

Click here for the detailed Bali Day 2 Photo Gallery.

Our first stop was at the Royal Temple that is locally known as Mengwi.  The grounds were lush and as we moved closer to the entrance, our guide told us some of the rules they have in Bali about whom can enter the temple.  The primary rule is that you must be “decently” dressed…which means shoulders and knees are covered.  They also have a rule against menstruating women entering the Temple.  Now, I didn’t (and still don’t) want to broadcast the timeline of my cycle, but I had a feeling that if I didn’t say something that I might have bad karma (don’t need that when we still have another 5 ½ weeks to go!).  So I told our guide that I couldn’t enter.

He was glad I told him (this subject is not taboo in Bali as it can be in western societies) and he told me indeed I could not enter.  Our guide, it turned out, is a high priest of his village temple…so he was probably stricter than another tour guide might have been.  So Dale went in to take some photos while Franco, Judy and I walked around the garden area.

The next stop was at a coffee “plantation”, although we didn’t see coffee bean fields, we did see some plants and they had examples of the different ingredients they add to their coffee, and how they hand toast the beans.  The coffee they produce, called Kopi luwak or civet coffee, is one of the world’s most expensive and low-production varieties of coffee.

The coffee gets its name from the luwak, a cat-like animal that has a unique way to “season” the coffee so it ends up tasting less bitter.  After the luwak eats the coffee berries enzymes in its’ stomach seep into the beans making the peptides shorter and creating more free amino acids. The berries then pass through the luwak’s intestines and the beans are defecated, all the while keeping their shape. After gathering, thorough washing, sun drying, light roasting and brewing, these beans yield an aromatic coffee with much less bitterness.  This type of coffee became popular in western cultures after being referenced in the movie “The Bucket List”.

We got to see some luwak’s (in cages) and then we tasted the luwak coffee as well as some other coffee, cocoa and tea products.  The coffee was interesting, the kind they gave us was “instant” and that may have been why it didn’t taste too strong.  It was a fun experience…they even had a jar of the actual feces studded with the coffee beans.  At first we thought the jar was full of candy bars…not even close!

It was lunchtime so we stopped at the Saranam Eco-Resort and had a nice lunch with a great view overlooking terraced rice fields.  The countryside is pretty and we were lucky that the weather was getting clearer and the temps cooler as we climbed higher toward the wild monkey area just past Lake Bratan.

We started spotting monkey’s in the trees and before long we turned off at a small turnout area.  There were some local women selling banana bunches for 20,000 rupiah (about $2 US).  When the monkeys saw us with the bananas, they’d come down out of the trees and jump up to grab the bananas we held out.  There were very cute and would “perform” for us, making noises, bobbing their heads and generally trying to get our attention so we’d give them more food!   There were 15 or 20 monkeys of varying sizes and we did our best to feed them all.

Next we drove a few miles back to Lake Bratan and visited the Temple on the Lake, which is beautifully situated on the shoreline.   Again, I couldn’t go in, but this temple’s surrounding gardens were more extensive and I was happy to hang out and take pictures of the temple from the outside, confident that Dale was taking great pictures of the inside.

Our last stop of the day was at the Tanah Lot Temple.  This is one of the most photographed temples in Bali due to its location on the cliffs of the Bali Strait.  The weather was much warmer at sea level and we felt both the heat and humidity as we made the rather long hike out to the cliffs.  It was getting late so we opted to take a few pictures and head back to the ship.

All in all, it was a great day.  Between what we saw and learned yesterday and today, we now have a good understanding of the Balinese culture.  It is a beautiful area and the people are happy, friendly and highly skilled in their crafts.

Photography Comments:

Having spent two days in Bali and observing what happens on our taxi and bus rides around the island I have suggestions for our next trip here.  First, I’d stay in one of the eco-resorts that are located in the middle of one of the villages, typically near a rice field.  This allows you to observe the villagers in their natural environment which creates lots of good photo opportunities, almost all of them with interesting characters.  Next, take the time to walk around the village, find out when the temple ceremonies are and make friends with your tour guide and other locals you might meet.  I talked with a couple on the ship that came to Bali 10 years ago and ended up being invited to attend a funeral (both regular and cremation) at someone’s house!  They even got to participate in the processions to the cemetery.  Fantastic!  I had some plans to capture images of several things (women carrying things on their heads, families riding on motorbikes, temples in front yards, etc.). This proved difficult in the time we had and so I managed to do a halfway job of it through the car windshield or side window.  Better than nothing when I wanted to fill in the gaps for you and remember it for myself.  Next time, just walking around is the way to go.  My favorite pictures are the ones of the holy man sweeping up and the young boys at the temple ceremony.  What an interesting and spiritual place and one worth returning to someday.

Facebook Share|Tweet Post|Email Post|Contact Me
comment

by Posted in: 2012 World Cruise | Cruising | Regent VoyagerTags: | |

We arrived at Bali this morning and had a great day visiting one of the rural village marketplaces and checking out the local artistic talent including wood carvers, jewelry makers and fabric weavers.  We also got to see, feed and ride on elephants!

Bali is an Indonesian island located in the westernmost end of the Lesser Sunda Islands, lying between Java to the west and Lombok to the east.  With a population of almost 4 million, the island is home to most of Indonesia’s small Hindu minority. Approximately 93% of Bali’s population adhered to Balinese Hinduism while most of the remainder follow Islam.  The remainder of Indonesia is Islamic.

Click here for the Bali Day 1 detailed Photo Gallery.

It is the largest tourist destination in Indonesia and is renowned for its highly developed arts, including traditional and modern dance, sculpture, painting, leather, metalworking, and music. Bali, a tourist haven for decades, has seen a further surge in tourist numbers in recent years after the release of the book and movie, “Eat, Pray, Love”.

The architecture is highly detailed with most buildings built from stone.  There are temples everywhere.  A “temple” can be anything from simple platforms at the front of a home, to an ornate backyard area, all the way to the larger village temples as well as Royal Temples.  The Balinese people place their “offerings”, which range from small baskets with tidbits of food, flowers or other small gifts, all the way up to full-blown pyramids of food, enough to feed a large family, in the temples.

They make offerings to their Gods, they have a lot of Gods and Spirits to which they pray, so that they can get safely through this life and have good luck in the next.  They believe in reincarnation so it’s important to them to be diligent in their efforts so they will be rewarded.  They make multiple offerings a day, including one they place in front of their home, another they might place in a temple that they pass on their way to work, to ensure safe travel, etc.   Larger offerings are brought to the village temples during regularly scheduled events.  One of the interesting things about the offerings is that much of them end up becoming food for the roaming chickens and dogs!

Dale and I were taken with the sheer volume of high-quality craftwork.  Because there was so much of it (wood carvings, stone statues, etc.), we weren’t convinced that the work was actually done in Bali.  We thought perhaps it was shipped in from China or some other mass production area.  When we asked our taxi driver, he said it is all made in Bali…that this is what they do.  Dale was still unconvinced, so the driver took us to a wood working production house and we got to see for ourselves the artists working on carving wood.  It was incredible.  They work from inspiration with no sketches or guidelines except the physical limitations of the piece of wood they are working with (some is softer, the sizes of the wood pieces varies, etc.).  Pretty cool.

Another stop we made this morning was at the Sukawati outdoor market.  There were the many stalls with locals selling their wares; much of it carved wood, baskets, fabrics, etc.  There were some persistent “wandering” sales people who would follow you around and say “pick me, pick me” – meaning they wanted you to buy something from them and not go to someone else.  Their prices would fall swiftly the longer you said “No thank you” or simply ignored them.  Not my favorite way to shop, but you start to get used to it.

We were back on the ship just in time to have a quick bite and get on the coaches waiting to take us to an exclusive Grand Voyage excursion to a “Balinese Safari Under the Stars”.  This was a VIP event for those of us on the full cruise.

The 1 ½ hour ride was adventurous…the roads here are twisty and narrow and there are a LOT of motorcycles and locals walking.  We ended up getting stuck in a traffic jam as a village temple celebration was underway and their procession needed to cross the road to get from the staging area to the temple.

The Elephant Park was large including a large lake, an activity field and lots of open areas where the elephants lived.  They had 26 elephants on the property including 2 babies!  We had the opportunity to feed the elephants and walk around the park.  These elephants were rescued from Sumatra and are now actively bred at this facility.

After a demonstration of the elephants skills that included walking on narrow planks, kicking soccer goals and painting with their trunks, they organized twilight elephant rides around the park.  After the ride we had a nice buffet dinner and then boarded the buses to drive back to the ship.

The bus ride back was interesting…the narrow windy roads seemed even windier in the dark!  We made it back safely and were even serenade by our guide.  He sang very well and knew every word to Danny Boy and Take Me Home, Country Road, by James Taylor.

Back on the ship Dale went down to check out the finale of a local Balinese performance the ship had organized in the main theater.  He even managed to get his picture taken with the entire troupe!

Photography Comments:

Typical day lately, gray and a some sprinkles but we avoided outright rain.  This is really the first time that we’ve chosen to use a taxi on our own instead of using a bus tour and I had high hopes.  However, it takes a while to get from point A to point B in Bali because of the traffic.  So, it really isn’t that practical to ask the driver to stop when you see something interesting…and it gets real annoying when you have another passenger (that’s Margaret in this case).  So, I was back to trying to grab pictures out the window (it was pretty hot and Margaret likes the air conditioning ON).  I had to grin and bear it and come to the realization (finally) that I was just going to have to stay in the villages to get real interesting and good photos.  Once I came to that realization I sort of went in the photo journalist mode and just tried to get some pictures that showed where we went.  Not proud of that but that’s the way it worked out.  I rushed to the on-ship Balinese dance show after the elephant trip and managed to get some video of their last dance and then, after going upstairs to quickly change out of my grubby clothes, was the last person taking pictures of the dancers on stage with the S95.  Not bad!

 

Facebook Share|Tweet Post|Email Post|Contact Me
comment

by Posted in: 2012 World Cruise | Cruising | Seven Seas Voyager | TravelTags: | |

On the sea day yesterday we saw lots of flying fish.  They were about six inches long and some flew as long as a quarter mile in the air!   Hundreds of them went flying as the boat pushed forward at 18 knots (over 25 mph).

Today, in fairly calm waters, there were pods of smallish dolphins jumping completely out of the water as we ate lunch at Compass Rose restaurant on-board.  Just wonderful!

Click here for detailed Komodo Photo Gallery.

We arrived at the Komodo National Park in Komodo, Indonesia and set anchor at 9:30 am.   The destination lecture had told us that this island was the inspiration for the 1933 King Kong movie and, of course, the home of the Komodo dragon…big lizard-like creatures that will eat you if you aren’t paying attention.  The island was beautifully green and lush as well as completely remote.

The park is a World Heritage Site and a Man and Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO, both indications of the Park’s biological importance.  It is located in the center of the Indonesian archipelago, which consists of 17,508 islands.  Komodo is located between the islands of Sumbawa and Flores.  It is home to approximately 2,000 people and 1,200 Komodo Dragons!

In the wild, an adult dragon weighs around 150 lbs. although captive specimens often weigh more (true of most of us…).  The tail is as long as its’ body and they have 60 frequently replaced serrated teeth that can measure up to 1 inch in length.  The dragons have a long, yellow, deeply forked tongue that it uses to smell, making it similar to a snake.

We met at the Constellation theater at 11:30 am and took the ship’s tender to shore for our guided tour of the park.  The only excursion offered today is this guided tour around the island.  They let us know a few days ago that we could expect significant heat and humidity, so they offered a shorter, 1-hour tour which we opted to take.  The island is known primarily for the Komodo dragons, but is also home to many different types of birds, deer, wild boar, large spiders, spitting cobras and poisonous vipers (yikes!).  So when they told us that we had to be accompanied by a guide, we said “no problem”!

Our guide walked us along a jungle-like path, pointing out interesting birds and plants along the way.  Every plant seemed to have some use in their life, whether it was for making pillows, sweet fruit or for medicinal purposes.  Within 15 minutes we had spotted our first footprints and then the actual dragons…two large males who were pretty docile…just sitting calmly on the ground.  Once in a while they’d look at us and flick out their tongue to get a smell.  After a bit we moved on down the trail and within a minute or two we spotted another one, this time a female, in the thick brush.  We had 3 guards with our group of 20 and each of them carried a long, forked wooden stick that they would use to stop a charging dragon??  Not sure how they would do that, but they seemed to know what they were doing.

Throughout the walk we heard strange bird calls and even got a glimpse of a beautiful yellow bird that we have yet to identify.  Soon after one of our guides caught a flying lizard and held it up for us to take pictures and admire.

As we approached the town area our guide pointed out another dragon and then a few more!  We were pretty excited to see that not only were we getting lots of dragon sightings, but in the same area we could see 4 or 5 deer and in the distance a wild hog!  It was a plethora of wildlife.  Dale was taking pictures and I was making sure there was a guide around so as not to get into a position where Dale, I or the other people in our group became lunch for a dragon!

We safely finished our walk, which ended up being the start of another adventure…navigating the locals selling their wares.

The locals here do a great job putting their handiwork on display and, as we’d heard on the ship, they would have great bargains on local pearls and wood carvings.  We hadn’t really expected what we were walking into to,  it was an intense shopping experience!

I was excited to buy some local pearls and had heard the prices were quite reasonable and the quality decent.  I started to look and quickly found out these local guys were looking to close deals…not a good place to be a “looky lou”.  I found some pearls that I liked, negotiated with the guy and then looked around for Dale.  He was over on the other side of the tented “shop” area looking for me!   When I told him I’d found something he indicated that he’d also found something and, of course, we’d found very similar things!

The market was bustling with about 30 stands and before long, we noticed that it had started raining.  We were under a thatched roof structure that had numerous stalls attached that were covered with plastic tarp roofs.  The sales guys were pretty aggressive and before long I’d negotiated a beautiful double strand of 20” pink pearls for $30 (down from $60)!!!  Nice.

Once the guys saw me buying, they were all over us.  It was as crazy a scene as I’ve ever experienced.  On top of that, the rain was really coming down…so much so that the tarps were starting to fill with water and dump onto the display tables!  It was crazy.  Luckily we were still under the thatched roof, but it was still pretty wet.  We waited a while for the rain to subside, but it just didn’t stop.  We had a choice, wait for a break in the rain and deal with the never-ending harassment from the locals to buy one more stand of pearls, or make a dash to the pier.  Now the pier was only about 1,000 feet away, but it was raining HARD and we didn’t have an umbrella.

Finally, after getting our fill of the constant harassment from the vendors, we made a mad dash for the pier.  We got drenched!  And, to make things more complicated, we needed to have guides go with us as there were still Komodo dragons hanging about that could eat us!  When we got to the pier we were relived to see there was a tent structure set up, but sadly no space for us under it…at this point it really didn’t matter as we were already as wet as we could get.  After what felt like an hour the tender finally disembarked it’s passengers for the next tour (yes, they got off the tender in a torrential downpour), and the rest of us packed like sardines, made our way on-board.  Finally out of the rain.

It was an amazing experience and, while we wouldn’t want to do it again, we wouldn’t have missed it for the world.  The funniest part was, after our tender boat pulled alongside the Voyager and we were set to disembark, two of the local pearl sales guys, who it turns out, had gotten into canoes and followed us all the way back to our ship, stuck their head through the side of the tender and started trying to sell us more pearls!!  Unbelievable.  The tenacity of these guys was incredible!

After a hot shower and some dry clothes, we met our friends Judy and Franco for dinner and re-lived the day while plotting out our plan to do Bali…a great day with another one just around the corner.

Photography Comments:

Today started off with a bust of a sunrise.  I was all ready to go up to the top deck like yesterday but it just didn’t happen.  It cleared up a bit but, by the time we left the ship to go to shore it was clouding up as predicted and, by the time our tour started it was another white-out.  I set the D700 to ISO 1600 since we were going to be in the forest and probably should have gone for 3200.  It got pretty dark and, as it turned out, you had to zoom out to get the dragons since the guides kept you a safe distance away.  As you know, when you zoom out the F stop on the lens goes up as the shutter speed gets longer to get a proper exposure when you are Aperture mode.  This results in a shutter speed under 1/100 which will give you a decent exposure but won’t get your crystal clear focus on a moving dragon or his VERY speedy tongue.  Still, I got some decent enough shots.  If you were in a normal situation you would learn from your first day and go back another day and get it perfect, or perfect enough.  When you are on a cruise ship you just don’t have second chances so you get used to dealing with what you have.

The rain storm presented it’s own challenges.  I had been planning on just going back to the ship but it started raining.  I had set the camera to ISO 400 when I was playing with taking shots of the last dragon and forgot to set it back to 1600 or higher when we got in the dark tented sales area.  That’s the reason for the slightly blurry shots of Margaret. Quite frankly, I was just trying keep from having my camera equipment AND me get dumped on with the huge volumes of water that were dropping on us from time to time without warning.

 

Facebook Share|Tweet Post|Email Post|Contact Me
comment
  • March 6, 2012 - 8:20 pm

    Cheryl Cowan - Wow… what an amazing trip this is for you both. Absolutely beautiful photos. Must seem like you’ve been gone forever. You are having experiences people like myself only dream about. I get excited to think about ridding a bike down GW Parkway! LOL Love reading about your adventures. Thanks for taking us on the trip with you. Love you both. Oh and I’m repeating the mantra about buses to encourage myself to ride the bus here.The bus here in town that stops in front of our house… No lines, no hurrying to get there, not crowded but for some reason I’d rather walk.

    Love you,

    CherylReplyCancel

  • March 7, 2012 - 9:50 pm

    Marlene Shirley - Dear Dale and Margaret,

    I feel so badly that I did not have your website to follow you trip until Cheryl gave it to me. I thought for a while that you had dropped off the face of the earth. I am going to have to get caught up on your travels. I quickly scanned through you last few posts. AMAZING …..wow and absolutely beautiful pictures. Am excited to read through everything. By the way, not sure if you have been on FB. But Marlon is racing in So. California on April 21st. Kerry and I along with Mary and her kids are going to be there. Any chance of you guys coming down? Not sure when you are going to be home. Love to you both, MarleneReplyCancel

  • October 15, 2012 - 4:57 pm

    Trip Summary » Travel with Dale & Margaret - […] Komodo, Indonesia […]ReplyCancel

« PREVIOUS NEXT »