June 19th, 2013 - Destiny loaded!

Desinty did finally get loaded the afternoon of the 19th. Frank had a rough time of it and so did our boat. He is exhausted. I will write more later as he relays his experience to me. I had a very long trip home and hate being so far away from them. Frank took footage for me - the wind was a real problem for them. My nerves would have been shot watching this live.

June 17, 2013 Shipping Destiny…Loading Day!

This is really happening! The skies are clear and the seas calm for the first time in ages. The ship is here, Destiny is first to load in about an hour - Whoop! Whoop!

We thank God and any of you who have been sending prayers and kind thoughts our way for this amazing window of good weather.

Well just as we got close to the ship the wind kicked up now it's blowing like crazy - too rough to load so they're moving the ship hoping to find a calmer spot.

Destiny did not load after all. We were nearly to the ship, they were preparing the deck with our cradle and then the winds began howling, seas kicking up and it became too rough to load. We circled for a couple of hours but it worsened and storms came along. They finally called it off around 1:00, telling us tomorrow will be worse than today so not to expect to load before the 19th.

I'm in a hotel room at the new little Nai Yang Beach hotel, just by the airport market until 9:30 tonight. I fly home tonight at midnight. My poor little mom is fading and I have to see her. I'll meet Frank at Marmaris in a few weeks. Frank is stuck on the hook by the beach outside Ao Pao, and will have to move to the deep water port (Panwa??) on the 19th to load. Then he'll stick around here for a week and take it easy before heading on to Turkey.

Oye! What a world - huh? Love this cruising life - it makes great stories :)

SevenStar was going to feed everyone but obviously there were no others out there today so when they aborted, they dropped off 8 sandwiches for him! They told me I had to leave then and there or be stuck on the boat until the 20th! So I got a hotel room for 8 hours near the airport to wait.

June 16, 2013 - No ship yet

We have been told the ship will be here tomorrow. Destiny is to be at the ship at 9:30 to begin loading. I'm flying out tomorrow night for Texas. Our plans of a trip to Hong Kong have been cancelled. I have to go home and take care of personal family matters. My parents’ home has to be put on the market and my job is to clean out 40 years of accumulation. They are not capable, as they are both in a memory care facility now.

Frank will be staying around Phuket for about a week before flying on to Turkey to meet Destiny on her arrival there.

The weather here is absolutely dreadful - we now get massive storms every day that bring very high winds and hard rain. Three of the yachts to be loaded require fairly calm conditions for the straps to be attached, so the loading process here may take a fair amount of time as they dodge the storms. Destiny is scheduled to load first. Fingers crossed - and lots of prayers going up for everyone on this shipment.

June 6, 2013 – More Venting & Another Visa extension to Singapore!

We are having real problems here. Boats only get 6 months in Thailand before they have to be "imported". Destiny's 6 months runs out the 20th, so if we aren't gone by then I don't know what we'll do.  Most of the other cruisers booked on the transport are European and have flown out to their respective homes, leaving 7-Star to hire captains to load their yachts at 7-Star's expense. There is no way we are going to leave the sealing and  loading of our boat to anyone else.

We are so disappointed and a bit angry - have spent beau coups $$$ fooling around with the darn visa extensions, and only had until June 11th on our final one. Now the ship is not due here before the 16th. So we were trying to figure the easiest and least costly way to extend from that date. We found that the minimum cost (just a couple hundred $) would be if we rent a car and drive to the Thai border, take the boat to Burma (again), but will only get 15 days, and that is a horrible trip. We never want to do that again! Meanwhile the others who are really griping and making a fuss are getting all kinds of things paid for, such as extended marina fees and so forth, by 7-Star. We really don't know what amount they are getting but do know that paying for a captain to load their boats and paying their boat fees here in Phuket are not cheap.

That's not our style, but finally we told the local 7-Star Rep. about our issue with the visas. She called Frank and told him they had a surprise for us for my birthday. They said they would pay for our air ticket to fly to Singapore to get our passport stamped for 30 more days. That was a very sweet gesture and one that we appreciated, but if we had done it ourselves, we were just going to fly to KL, in and out in one day. We want to spend our money on a trip to Hong Kong on the way to Turkey during our 3+ weeks off the boat while it's being shipped.

7-Star booked the plane ticket for us (we did not get a choice of where or what airline or date - probably b/c they were looking for the cheapest airfare from Phuket). They booked us for an overnight stay - out on the 5th and back on the 6th. Frank asked if they were going to pay our hotel, airport transfers and meals and they said NO.

For some crazy reason we had a real hard time finding a hotel for one night in Singapore - everything was booked or required minimum 3-night stay, except for some backpacker hostels in Chinatown. We finally found a room at the Swissotel. That plus meals plus all the airport transfers ended up costing us over $500 (and we used the train - no taxis!!!). The air ticket that they paid was under $300 for us both on Tiger airways. We have never been on a plane with seats so small. Frank's knees would not fit into the back of the seat in front of him because his legs were too long! He had to sit sideways. Our ticket was not upgradable or refundable. He was NOT HAPPY.

I know they were trying to be helpful and in spite of the frustration, we did have a good time (at least I had a nice birthday), but Frank grumbled the whole time about this being our most expensive visa extension and not what he would have planned. Frank said my present from him was the hotel. Now we are back in Phuket waiting and waiting. I sure hope that getting to Turkey is worth all of this because right now, we are ready to ask for our money back. It would have been so much cheaper and less stressful if we had sailed back to Penang that second week of May and sat out the season in the nice marina there, where at least I could do my own laundry and be in walking distance of groceries, etc., which was our original 6-month plan. But then we thought we would have been shipped between the 14th and 25th of May too.

OK, so we did really enjoy our quick trip to Singapore. Enjoyed a wonderful dinner on the Singapore River. Our room had a nice river view, and we visited the astounding Botanical Gardens before returning to Phuket.

views from our room of the river

travel docs for Singapore

May 20-30, 2013 – Growing Frustrations/waiting /killing time

Our projected ship date came and went with a shrug and sincere apologies from the reps at 7-Star. It appears the vessel that had been contracted for us was making unscheduled stops along the way to pick up cargo and not moving as quickly as promised. The agreement with our transit company was that the yachts were to comprise the entire cargo because we were paying for the entire ship. No one really understood what was happening but nonetheless we all stood at the ready for the yachts to go. Meanwhile our Thai visa was about to expire.

Have been given a new date of before May 25^th. Monsoon season starts soon here so we are a bit anxious to get this done. Our Visas are running out soon.

Phuket Friday, May 24, 13 Another Visa extension

It is raining pitchforks and devil babies here nearly every day now. Yesterday we went to immigration to get the visas extended. We were hoping not to have to do this again and that the ship would come before any of this became an issue but time is not our friend here. My unexpected hospital visit last week affords us an opportunity to ask the doctor for a medical extension since I am due for a follow-up on Monday (27th). He only wrote 15 days on it and apparently didn't "tick" the correct boxes on the form so we had a real hassle with it but eventually got the extension - the stinkers charged us the 30-day fee ($65.00) anyway.  He must have stamped our passports 10 times each - I have no idea what all those stamps are about. I'm just happy that is over - and happy we never have to deal with Thai visas again!

We are marking "paid" to Thailand and are ready to move on. Because of all the hassles it hasn't been our favorite place. I'm wanting to get the blogs caught up and it is a stretch to write about it in a positive light. Maybe it is because we have spent so much money on the boat here although it is purported to be the cheapest place to get boat work done but certainly was not. Or maybe it is because of the tremendous number of tourists here - literally thousands and about 80% are rude, nasty ugly Russians, or maybe because the traffic is insane and it takes us over an hour just to go to the grocery store, or maybe it is because crime, drugs and Aids are so rampant here. Take your pick…

May 25^th – more delays

The transport ship was due to arrive here the 24th, but that has already been pushed back. We don't have a load date and probably won't until it actually arrives in Thailand. The company told us not to book any airline tickets until Destiny is on that ship. We need to find somewhere to go for two weeks, which is the anticipated amount of time that it takes to get from Phuket to Marmaris, Turkey. Where we go while she is being shipped is kind of up in the air because it will all depend on what kind of last minute air fares we can get to somewhere between this area and Istanbul. It is so weird literally flying by the seat of our pants. We are told to be in Marmaris a week before the ship arrives so we can work out the import/immigration/customs clearances, etc., with the shipping agent at the arrival port. It is all a little exciting and nerve-wracking at the same time.

There is a lot of red tape involved in shipping a vessel, and then all these rules about how long we can stay in the country, etc.

May 30^th  - Invited to a group dinner with all yacht owners due to ship; something smells fishy!

Well we now understand why 7-Star invited us all to dinner tonight - it was to soften the blow of bad news! And this way they could tell us all at once instead of emails flying around.

The ship, MPP Shield that was/is to be our transport is now telling 7-Star that they will not arrive here until June 8th.

Chris, the lead 7-Star contact said that the ship and his company are having a bit of a row. Several reasons were thrown out - there are mechanical problems, the ship wants to take on more cargo in Singapore and is waiting for a full load (or some such nonsense), and they are Russian and therefore liars and untrustworthy (according to Chris).

Great.

Chris said we are stuck in a difficult situation now because they are trying to get another ship to replace this one in case it doesn't come through, but the replacement cannot be here before June 15th.

We are seriously not wanting to use the original ship now after this mess up but we are over a barrel and have to wait to see what happens.

May 9 - 19th, 2013 - Getting Ready and Quick (fruitless) trip to Burma

We needed our sails repaired and a visa extension.

We once again rented a car and set off for the Rolly Tasker sail loft with our sails to be restitched. What a massive place! While there we picked up country flags for future ports in the Med and dropped off the sails.

Rolly Tasker Sail Loft

While we had the car for a few days we did a bit more shopping and stocking up and marveled at the crazy moped drivers on the freeway holding babies in their laps or out to the side riding down the road. No wonder so many die in traffic accidents here!

Since we are not going to Malaysia we have to leave the country to get a 30-day visa extension somehow. Zara at the marina office told us to get a bus to Rangoon and take a water taxi over to Burma, get our passports stamped and we will get 30 days. She forgot to tell us not to go until the last day of our current visa. We were looking at this as an adventure and were excited about the trip. Off we went at 4 AM on a miserable, hot and long bus ride to a filthy village where you can tell you are going to get ripped off so you just hold your breath and get ready for the ripoff. We were immediately set upon by helpful locals who wanted to take our money in order to show us where to go. Turns out it was only 2 blocks away but we paid anyway. Then we got in line to get our passports tamped and then another queue for a ride on one of the rickety little boats bobbing in the small harbor. There were so many open planks in the bottom of the boat I nearly broke an ankle. It was so creepy, we almost felt as though there was something untoward happening. Arriving at the Burmese border we were scrutinized by the scowling officials and told not to look at them or smile. I snapped off a couple of photos before being told that was illegal and I might lose my iPhone!  We then walked through a dirty village toward the customs office where, we were told to hire an agent. We paid a man who was standing around to get our passports stamped and then paid him to escort us back to our awaiting boat. Back across we went to Thailand where we stood in yet another queue to get stamped back in. To our horror, the Thai customs official only gave us 7 days! He said the extension starts today, not on the day our current visa expires, AND you now only get 14 days at this particular border crossing. OMG. We are in a world of hurt and frustration. We sulked back to the bus stop where we waited until 6 pm for the return bus, arriving back to Yacht haven late, tired and quite upset.

beckoning us aboard - had to step around prop!

Rangoon wharf

official pointing at me and yelling b/c I'm taking photos

Burma (Myanmar)wharf

dreading this wet and rough ride back!

April 26 – May 8, 2013 Return to Phuket and Surprise Decision to Ship Destiny

Back to Phuket and Yacht Haven to complete the unfinished work on Destiny by the canvas maker. Since deciding to stay another year in Thailand we had arranged a berth in Penang and were eager to get back there, hunker in for the rainy season and enjoy the wonderful food and sites of that city again. BUT we were hit with a big surprise hearing that more of our friends here were shipping their yachts to Turkey. Even Scallywag with whom we had planned to spend the summer months announced that the only yacht transit company left on this route, 7-Star, was adding a May shipment from Phuket departing around the 16^th, and they had decided it was time to move on. We have missed out on so much having had Destiny stuck to the dock in Yacht Haven that we didn’t want to leave yet. They asked us to think about shipping Destiny, warning us that the deadline was within a few days. Many considerations weighed on us in making this decision and I felt a real tug to get us closer to home to my daughter, grandson and ailing parents. The cost was just around $50,000 cash, which meant that we would have to liquidate some investments to make this happen. Eventually we decided to go for it and on May 8^th we signed the contract within a hare’s breath of the deadline. Frank blogged about it, detailing our many reasons for deciding to ship the boat.

We spent as much time as possible with Ute and Hans (Taimada), rented a car to provision the boat with all of our favorite Thai products. Paul and Glor wanted to hit the beach at Patong, hearing that it was a do not miss. Well, we did and found that there is every reason that it is called “A paradise for Hedonists”. Teeming with a pretty disgusting lot of  international visitors. Anything goes here – so use your imagination. Glor and I walked along behind the boys laughing & watching them try not to stare at the eye candy.

More to come…meanwhile some interesting photos, including Thai rubber trees, sunset over the beach at Phang Nga and some humor.

April 22- 25, 2013 – Bangkok, Thailand

We met Pauline and Martin at the airport. They had flown in from Sydney, us from Cambodia. What a wonderful reunion!

Although Pauline had recommended we stay in the city center, we had already taken someone else’s insistent advice that we would want a quiet luxury spot with a river view and booked a self-catering apartment at Chatrium down the river from the center that offered free water taxi service. Big mistake. The water taxi ran on a schedule that didn’t exactly coincide with ours and didn’t take us within walking distance of most places we wanted to go and so we ended up using taxis and the sky train. Side note: the river view room that we booked turned into a view of a demolished building with a slice of river view if we stood in a remote corner of the sitting room. Will we ever learn? Probably not.

OK, so we’re over that. We set out to explore Bangkok with friends who actually knew the place. We came to enjoy and dislike Bangkok on many levels.

The highlights of our group holiday:

Having a delicious dinner at the funky restaurant, “Cabbages and Condoms”, where instead of after dinner mints you are given a condom.

Walking curiously and timidly down the short sleazy red light street just to get a look at the rumored young girls/prostitutes and Lady Boys who would perform bizarre sex acts inside the bars (that we were unwilling to enter for because of a deep-seated, guilt-ridden southern Bible Belt upbringing). Many of our cruiser friends had submitted to curiosity and had gone to the sex shows in Phuket.  None of us could get up the nerve to go in for a show, pay the $60 each for a watered down drink to watch a girl shoot darts, ping pong balls and strange slithery creatures out of her private parts. As we emerged onto the main drag at the end of the street we felt slimy and in need of a shower.

Parking the men at the Hard Rock Café while shopping with Pauline and running all over town together to the Jim Thompson Museum, the huge malls with outrageous fashion designs, visiting trendy hotels where Pauline can charm us into looking at rooms as though we are considering hosting an event there someday, having girl-time over coffee, getting lost and just laughing like kids because we enjoy each other’s company so much.

Because Martin and Pauline had been here many times they told us to take a riverboat tour and go see the palace while they took care of some personal business. We did, and after several stops had grown weary of the temples and Buddhas. Finally arriving at the stop for the palace, we walked a country mile to the entrance only to be told that we were at the wrong entrance and also that the palace was closed for a special event but due to reopen in an hour. A little man in a taxi cart told us he would take us around to the entrance side. We got into his cart and off he dashed through town taking us on a long and confusing drive. The entire time, I’m leaning up into his ear insisting that he was going the wrong way, and that the entrance could not possibly be this far! Frank was punching me and telling me to relax. I kept saying we were being hijacked. Eventually, the driver stopped in front of a jewelry shop and told us to go inside. Frank jumped out, and I grabbed his arm saying, “This is a hoax! I don’t want jewelry, this guys is scamming us!” The little man became very angry with me and started pushing us along saying we must enter the shop. I went in, used the bathroom and walked back out to the taxi cart. The man was livid that I didn’t look at jewelry. Frank is meanwhile playing peacekeeper, accepting a cup of tea inside the shop. I insisted that the man take us back to the palace. He refused saying we owed him more money but if we go to see the giant Buddah and take his tour then he would return us to the palace. Frank said OK; I fumed. We were driven even farther into the belly of Bangkok to a religious site with a giant Buddha. We got out, trying to be nice snapped some photos and then I said we were ready to go back to the palace. He refused again. So I hailed a cab. We paid a fortune to get back to the palace. The cab dropped us at the same spot we had departed from over an hour earlier where we were immediately set upon by more people telling us the palace was closed...yada, yada, yada. We were so hot and annoyed we walked back to the boat dock and caught the tour boat back to the hotel. Later that night I read my friend, Judy’s blog and found that they had also been taken for a “ride” in the same manner. Should have read her blog beforehand.

We flew out the next day ready to leave Bangkok but not ready to leave Pauline and Martin. We said our teary goodbyes and boarded our return flight to Krabi (Phuket).

April 17 – 21, 2013 Luang Prabang, Laos

I just love saying Luang Prabang! It is as delightful as it sounds, and is a World Heritage site. Wat's it all about? Wats, of course. Temples abound. Buddhist monks stroll about and icons are everywhere.

We checked into Hotel De La Paix, which has an interesting history of its own. It is a World Heritage Site. We've been told (and also read that) it was a former prison for elite inmates, also that it was the French governor's compound and yet both sound like reasonable explanations.  It is completely unmarked and surrounded by a white wall.  Very private and exclusive.

As you walk the lovingly manicured and expansive grounds you will note the guard towers at the four corners. At the back of the property lies the Library, which is also the restaurant and a separate building that contains the spa. We booked one of the 4 suites with a private pool. We seriously did not want to leave our own little private compound because it was like being in a Heavenly retreat after the nightmare of Vientiane.

We took full advantage of the bicycles provided, cycling to the various temples and ruins during the daytime, meandering along the Mekong River and hiking up temple mounts and along trails from one historic site to another. We found an abundance of lovely riverside cafes and boutiques.  We visited the expansive night market/street market and even participated in the alms giving ceremony at sunrise when the monks parade down the street to collect alms (sticky rice). We participated through the hotel and followed their instructions carefully so as not to offend the locals or the monks. Many tourists are quite rude and pushy trying to vie for a photo op, completely disrespecting the monks, who are in prayer during the ritual. It was a very moving experience for us. If I were Buddhist I think this stop would have been even more spiritual for me. In fact I would put Luang Prabang at the top of my list.

Our time in Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos was at an end, but we had one more exciting stop to look forward to…Pauline and Martin Broadhead were flying from Sydney to meet us in Bangkok.

April 14 – 17, 2013 Vientiane, Laos – An Unfortunate Side Trip

 A visit to Luang Prabang was really the reason we added Laos to our trip, however, there are select embassies outside Thailand that will grant us a 60-day Thai Visa with an option to extend an additional 30 days (you cannot get this inside Thailand). Vientiane, Laos, is one of those cities, hence it was added to our itinerary, and would serve as our "visa run".

During the cab ride from the airport to our hotel we noticed the streets were alive with an atmosphere of utter chaos. The cab was bombed with water balloons and people were running the streets like apocalyptic madmen tossing buckets of water at us. As he dodged the lunatics our cabbie informed us delightedly that we had arrived just in time for Songkran. Oh No! Never in a million years did we think about the timing of our trip to the capital city. Although this is something people travel far and wide to celebrate, it meant only one thing to us at the time: all government offices would be closed for the duration of our stay and there was nothing to be done about getting our Thai visas.

We decided to make the best of an unfortunate situation and suck it up, so we checked in to the hotel and dropped our bags off at the room and then hit the streets to see what was going on and to scope out a place for dinner. The minute we left the security of the hotel's entrance, we were doused by buckets of water from a passing pickup truck! People were literally driving around with children's inflatable swimming pools and large tubs in the beds of trucks from which they would full their "Super Soakers" and water buckets to douse unsuspecting passers by. The element of surprise was the theme of the day. We literally ran the next few blocks bobbing and weaving to avoid the attackers. Every place we came to had a Closed sign prominently displayed on the door. We eventually spotted a restaurant attached to a hotel and arrived completely soaked to the bone and smarting from the impact of some of the water balloons. A kind employee handed us towels and pointed us toward a table. We enjoyed a fantastic meal and then caught a taxi back to our hotel where we hid safely in our room for the night. During the night we were both struck with severe stomach cramps, vomiting and diarrhea. We both spent the entire next day in utter misery so sick and weak we could hardly get out of bed to use the bathroom. We called the front office to have water and sodas delivered. It was absolutely horrible. There was no pharmacy open, no doctor and no relief.

On the morning of the 16^th, we emerged from the room still weak and crampy but starving for breakfast. I seriously dreaded leaving the hotel. We had no festival spirit in us whatsoever at this point. We forced ourselves to get out touring, and tried to cover our cameras and Frank's iPad as much as possible in case we got an unmolested chance to snap some photos.

We walked away from the center of activity until we found some sites and monuments. Although everything was closed we were able to get some good photo ops. As interesting as the street food looked, we avoided it at all costs. We were ready to get out of Vientiane. Another time…an different mood and we probably would have loved this place.