Lifesaver

Sometimes small things can make a big difference. We have been traveling to lots of hot, sticky places lately; and one thing I find I can’t do without is my little portable fan. It can sit on a bedside table or clip to something like a headboard, and swivels in several ways to point where it’s needed. It’s small enough to pack easily, runs either on its rechargeable battery or USB, and provides just enough of a breeze and white noise to make sleeping comfortable. It’s one of the best purchases I’ve made in years.

Second day in Havana

Our second day in Havana started with a walking tour of the old town. We were docked in that part of town, so all we had to do was walk out of the port building and we were in a plaza. Havana followed the standard plan which the Spanish crown followed throughout the New World. The plan called for a large Plaza de Armas in the town center, with smaller plazas connected by boulevards, and a broad boulevard along the waterfront. Havana has many beautiful building from the old colonial period built of native stone and many narrow streets between the plazas.

The first plaza we visited is known as St Francis Plaza, although it has another official name. Everyone calls it after the Franciscan convent that stands on one side of the square. Our guide told us it’s now a museum of religion.

On the other side stands the building that used to be the stock exchange before the Revolution.

My favorite was the Plaza de Armas. This one was different from the others in that it had trees and fountains and was ringed by a low stone wall with benches. There were several statues of local heroes. It was all very peaceful and pleasant.

The last plaza we visited was Cathedral Square, which obviously takes its name from the Cathedral. It’s an impressive stone building in the Cuban Revival style, at least on the outside. Our guide told us that one of the bishops didn’t like the style and had the interior done over in a much plainer Neo Classical style. It’s a striking contrast. I rather like the outside more.

After our tour ended we had time to wander around a bit on our own. In Cathedral Square Van found his “beard brother”. He wanted to pose for photos and everyone around took their picture.

Coming back through Plaza de Armas we saw a school group on an outing. Children in Cuba wear school uniforms, and you can tell what grade they are in by the colors.

On the way we stopped for ice cream topped with fresh mango in a little shop on one of the side streets.

When we got back to St Francis Plaza there were some stiltwalkers passing through. We had heard that there was a dance festival going on that week. We had seen some groups practicing their routines earlier that morning.

Then we made our way back to the ship. In the afternoon we sailed out, with a mojito party on the top deck and great views of the harbor.

Havana was everything we had hoped it would be, and more. I’m very glad we got a chance to see it as it is now, before US tourism changes it.

Havana Night

We experienced a bit of “Old Havana” when we signed up to do the show at the Tropicana nightclub. The club has been doing their show since 1939 in the same location. And what a location. You are dropped off in a large circular driveway at an entrance that is a half-round tunnel ringed with lights. Outside the door is a small jazz combo playing to help set the mood.

Once you enter you are greeted by a set of hostesses handing out flowers for the ladies and cigars for the men.

You are then escorted into the club. The club itself is outdoors in a courtyard that is a jungle of trees and vines and flowers. There are tables in the middle of the courtyard and the stage is actually in several parts all around and above the seats. The main part of the stage is raised so that everyone has a good view of the dancers and singers, while the band is in a box above and off to one side. There are satellite stages all around so everywhere you look there’s something to see.

While we waited another jazz combo played and there was a slide show of acts from the past. Back in the day all the great American performers played here. Shots showed the likes of Duke Ellington and Cab Calloway and Josephine Baker.

Our group had very good tables reserved. The ticket includes a glass of sparkling wine each and a full-sized bottle of Havana Club rum for each table of 4 and a bottle of Coke. I think they intended us to make some very strong rum & Cokes, because we got a big bottle of rum and tiny little bottles of Coke. Just enough for a splash in your glass of rum. It was such good quality rum that it went down very smoothly and we both drank more than we usually do. But since we had a bus to take us home that wasn’t a problem.

The show is so over the top it almost defies description. Dozens of dancers, singers, even acrobats. And amazing costumes. You know it’s a nightclub show when the girls are wearing more above their shoulders than below. Huge, incredible headdresses 3 feet tall, and pasties and a g-string. To be sure, there were also many scantily clad boy dancers. The big numbers had 10 to 15 dancers and a couple of singers on the main stage. There were usually also 4 other singers way up high at the top of the main stage. Then there were another 8 or 10 dancers on the far side of the stage dancing on a three-tiered scaffolding.

Often there were other dancers on the platforms that jutted out over the seating area and sometimes dancers in the aisles as well.

In between big numbers there would be a simple one with just a single singer or a duo singing with just the band playing, giving the cast time to change into the next over the top costumes. For a change there were acrobatic acts. One of the most amazing was a spectacularly muscled pair who did a number of strength moves. What was striking about their act is that the woman lifted the man and he did things like handstands on her head, the reverse of what you might expect.

Another pair had a 10 foot long pole which the man wore in a harness around his waist which had side braces that rested on his hips and a band that went around his neck. This let the pole stand up from his waste, (Nope, nothing phallic about that. Not in the least), while the girl climbed up it and did pole dancing moves suspended in the air. For their last bit he switched from the neck strap to holding the cable by a bit between his teeth.

I have to give the dancers credit for being able to come out in some of those costumes and keep a straight face. One had them wearing a palm tree on their head and a body stocking that had just a little round red dot, ( I think it may have been a cherry), over each nipple and had three leaves sprouting from “down there”, both in front and in back. I can’t even imagine what the costume designer was thinking.

It seemed that each number was bigger and more elaborate than the last.

At one point they flew a big crystal chandelier in over the stage on a wire. The girls came out with crystal chandler headdresses, which they managed to keep on their heads as they walked around.

Of course, all the songs were in Spanish. But you didn’t need to understand the words to get the emotions. I seemed to catch a lot of “mi amore” and “mi corazon”

It was great fun; but it was a late night. The show ended at Midnight. The club stays open for dancing afterwords, but our buses were waiting to take us back to the ship. We got in after 1:00. We had just enough time for a bit of sleep before we had to be up for breakfast at 7:00 and our morning tour. It was a bit rough. But because of the good quality of the rum, we didn’t feel any ill effects at all the next morning, although we were dragging a bit from lack of sleep. But I’d say it was well worth it.

By the way, the Tropicana charges a fee to take photos. Since Van’s camera does better in low light we took his and he took all of these pictures. My thanks to him for letting me use them.

First day in Havana

Havana

Our time in Havana was short, but quite full. We sailed into Havana harbor on a bright, clear morning after sailing overnight from Ft Lauderdale.

Although it’s only about 100 miles, we took it slow. We were told in the morning that the port authorities had changed our docking time, so that we wouldn’t be allowed to dock until 10:00. With having to have the ship cleared, this meant that we wouldn’t be getting off until after 10:30. This caused them to have to scramble and redo the tours they had planned. There had originally been an 8-hour tour and a 4-hour tour. Instead they just combined both of them into one 6-hour tour, which was basically the 4-hour tour with two hours for lunch.

The first place we visited was Finca Vigia, Ernest Hemingway’s home. The house has been left just as it was when he died. The grounds mostly have as well, except that the swimming pool is empty (I’m sure it could tell some tales), and they took out the tennis court to make a place to display his boat, Pilar.

Then we went to lunch at a privately owned restaurant called La Bonita.

It’s in a neighborhood that was a wealthy part of town before the Revolution. Now the old mansions are mainly embassies, and a few have been turned into restaurants. We sat in the courtyard and sipped mojitos and listened to a jazz trio while eating our lunch.

Van and I had a “Ropa vieja” type dish of shredded braised beef with peppers and onions served with rice and black beans and vegetables.

After lunch they took us on a tour of the city. We saw several different neighborhoods. There’s not as much equality as there would have been in the old days. Today people are able to have private businesses, like the restaurant we ate at, which allows them to buy better houses in nicer neighborhoods. And there are still some very poor areas, which have suffered from the lack of money coming into the country. But everywhere we went things were clean and maintained as well as they could. The people were well dressed and seemed well fed and happy.

Of course we stopped at Plaza de la Revolución. At the center is the monument is to José Martí, who, while considered to be the father of the Cuban revolution, isn’t well known in the US. It’s a 350 foot tall tower of gray marble with a large statue of Marti on top. Besides that there’s not really much in the Plaza itself. It’s mostly open space for crowds to gather to hear speeches. There are iconic portraits of Che Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos on the walls of the government ministries surrounding the square.

There were lots of the old American cars there. They operate as taxis and give rides to the tourists, anything from around the block to a whole city tour. The ones that do that are very well maintained and painted in bright colors. There are other vintage American cars that are just used by the locals. They are usually not in the same shape, with dull paint and patched bodies, since their owners don’t have the income from tourist dollars to spend on them. There are also lots of Russian and Chinese made cars on the streets. They are much, much cheaper than German or Japanese cars, but they aren’t as well liked since they don’t last very long.

Our trip is on a “Cultural Exchange” visa. In order to fulfill its terms they have planned a number of cultural activities into our program. On our tour of Havana we visited a community art project called Muraleando. It started 16 years ago with a group doing murals on walls. Over the years they have taken an abandoned building that had been used as an informal trash dump and made it into an art center with studio space, gallery space, music and dance classrooms and a small community theater space. It’s all been self-funded by selling art. We saw some amazing artworks and the music students played for us. It was a lot of fun.

That night we took the excursion to see the show at the Tropicana nightclub. That was totally amazing, but it was a very late night, at least for us. We got back to the ship about 1:00 am. More about it in the next post.

Embarkation Day

Embarkation Day

Everything went very smoothly today. We didn’t need to get up very early. We ate breakfast at the hotel then gathered up our stuff and checked out. The hotel offers a shuttle to the cruise ship port, so we took that around 11:00. Once again we were very glad that we are sailing on a small ship. Several people were dropped off at the berth where one of the big ships was boarding, and the line just to get inside the terminal was as long as the building and doubled back on itself a couple of times. There were easily several hundred people queuing to get on that ship. Then the driver took us to the berth where the Pearl Mist was docked. We found a number of helpful people hanging around out front with nothing to do. They took our bags and directed us inside. There we walked almost up to the gangway before we encountered anybody else. After a very short wait in a very short queue we were checked in and on the ship.

While we were eating lunch we sailed out around 13:00 into a calm sea on a bright, sunny day. It seemed like we sailed past Miami for an hour or so. In the afternoon we had a briefing about how the cruise will go, and then a welcome cocktail party before dinner.

Tomorrow we will arrive in Havana around 10:00. We have lots of things planned for the two days we will be there. It should be quite an adventure.

Cuba

Tomorrow we fly out on a trip to Cuba. This is something I didn’t ever think I would be saying. As a child born two days before JFK was elected, all of my life the Castro government has been our enemy and Cuba has been off limits. The sudden relaxing of relations came as a surprise. I had read stories and seen old films about what it was like to go down to Havana in the 20’s and know some people who had visited in the 50’s, before the travel ban went into effect.

When some limited visitation was opened up we talked about going. Both of us wanted to see Cuba, and both of us felt that a cruise would be the best way to do it. There were a number of options on offer, of lenghts of 3 to 10 days. In the end we chose Pearl Seas. The trip they are doing is 10 days, long enough to get a good feel for the place. Also, they aren’t just going to stop in Havana. We’ll be there for two days; but we will also visit 4 other cities in other parts of the island. Hopefully this will give us a bit of a glimpse of the “real Cuba”, away from the Capital.

First we will fly to Ft. Lauderdale where we’ll spend the night. Tuesday we’ll board the Pearl Mist, a 210 passenger ship, and sail toward Cuba.

We are due to arrive in Havana the next morning and spend two days there. The other ports we will call on are Cienfuegos, Trinidad, El Cobre, and Santiago de Cuba. Pearl has a full schedule of tours and programs arranged for us. Since this is technically a “cultural exchange” trip there should be chances to meet and interact with the local people. I’m really looking forward to it.

Although I understand Internet and phone service in Cuba is spotty at best, the ship has WiFi, so I should be able to post updates throughout the trip.

Flying Home

There’s not a lot to say about our flight home. The reason we chose to come home from Singapore was United’s new nonstop to San Francisco. At just over 15 hours it’s the longest route United flies. They run a brand-new Boeing 787-800 Dreamliner on that route, and it was our first chance to fly on one.

It was as nice as we had heard. Although it didn’t yet have the new Polaris seating, its business class seats were very comfortable, and we did get the fancy Saks 5th Ave pillows and bedding.

The cabin is quiet and the mood lighting is nice. You can feel the somewhat higher air pressure and humidity they are able to maintain. The windows are also noticeably larger than normal. All this is due to the new composite material fuselage, which besides being lighter and stronger, isn’t prone to corrosion like aluminum.

It was a very comfortable and uneventful flight. After a short stopover in SFO, (where we arrived about two hours before we had left Singapore due to the wonders of the International Date Line), we made it home safe and sound.

This proved to be a good trip, with many wonderful sights and experiences. We were pleasantly surprised by some things, such as the Emirates being less oppressive than we had expected. We found India warm and welcoming and endlessly fascinating. Indonesia was just as exotic and intriguing as we had imagined. We hope to be able to return to all three areas to explore more someday.

Singapore, Last Day

We spent most of our last day in Singapore packing and getting ready for the long flight home. We did take time to enjoy some of the amenities the Marina Bay Sands offers, including the Skypark. This is the signature feature of the hotel. It’s a 1,120 foot long deck that spans all three towers and juts out 220 feet from the building on one end. There are bars, restaurants, an observation deck, and the almost 500 foot long infinity pool, all 55 stories above the ground.

Van enjoyed swimming in the infinity pool, which is only available to hotel guests. It’s very impressive, and said to be the world’s longest rooftop pool.

While the infinity edge is striking, it’s really an illusion caused by the viewing angle. Because the Skypark deck is curved, from another part of it you can see that the edge of the pool is really quite far from the edge of the deck, with a trough to catch the water that flows out and a walkway below that.

In the afternoon we took a break from packing to enjoy the deck. Almost as soon as we got up there a rainstorm swept across the city. We laughed at the people scrambling out of the pool when the rain started. (Were they worried about getting wet?) Knowing that tropical rain showers seldom last long, we sat under the pergola and sipped Singapore Slings and enjoyed the cool breezes.

We really enjoyed our stay at the Marina Bay Sands, and would recommend it to anyone visiting Singapore.

Singapore, 3rd Day

We set aside our third day in Singapore for doing the Gardens By The Bay, which is a 250 acre complex built on reclaimed land adjacent to Marina Bay. It’s also right next to the Marina Bay Sands hotel, and they are connected by a bridge and a tunnel.

We knew it was going to take all day to see, so we set out after breakfast. We started by taking a shuttle from the entrance to the center of the park. From here we could walk to the domes and the Supertree Grove.

There are actually three parts, Bay East Garden, Bay Central Garden, and Bay South Garden. Bay Central and Bay East are mostly open spaces, with lawns and groves and theme gardens showcasing different tropical environments. There are promenades and lawns for picnicking and outdoor concerts.

Bay South Garden is the largest part at around 150 acres. It’s where the most iconic and impressive structures are, the Supertrees. The trees are 18 enormous steel sculptures from 80 to 160 feet tall.

Their outsides are covered with living plants such as ferns, vines, orchids and bromeliads.

Besides their living covering making oxygen, the trees also have solar arrays, and one of them has a restaurant in its top. There’s an elevated walkway running between some of them.

Our favorite attractions were the two enormous conservatories. With their distinctive glass shells suspended from steel arch ribs, they are the largest glass domes without internal columns.

The wider but shorter one, the Flower Dome, covers 3 acres and the taller one, the Cloud Forest, covers 2 acres. Besides their size, there’s something else unusual about the conservatories. While many botanical gardens have glass houses that are heated to grow tender tropical plants, these domes are chilled to grow temperate species in Singapore’s tropical climate. The domes are cooled to around 75 F and in the Flower Dome the air is dehumidified. The excess heat and humidity is vented through one of the Supertrees nearby. When we walked in to the Flower Dome from the 90+ degree and 90+ percent humidity it was such a relief I turned to Van and said “Call the hotel and have our bed sent over here”.

There are several areas inside the Flower Dome, showcasing plants from the Mediterranean, Africa, Australia, and other cool, dry regions. Some of the beds feature cacti and succulents, which I imagine are as exotic to Singaporeans as orchids are to us.

I was especially impressed by the Olive Grove. They had transplanted very large full-grown olive trees, and they seemed to be thriving.

The even had some sunflowers for my little sunflower.

Because Chinese New Year was coming, there were several pavilions set up displaying lucky flowers and fruits.

We spent quite a while enjoying the cool, dry air as well as the flowers until it was time to go find some lunch. The Supertree Grove has a number of restaurants, and we found one that served both Asian and American foods, so we could both be happy.

After lunch we took a tram tour, which let us see some of the outlying areas. There are theme gardens representing the homelands of the cultures that make up the Singaporean population, such as a Chinese Garden, a Malay Garden, an Indian Garden, and a Colonial Garden that shows examples of the types of plants the Europeans grew on their plantations, such as indigo, coffee, spices, and rubber. There are many fountains and sculptures around the grounds.

Perhaps the most striking and unusual is titled “Planet” by Marc Quinn. Modeled after the artist’s infant son, it seems to float in the air despite being 30 feet long and weighing seven tons.

After the tour we went into the second dome, the Cloud Forest. While also cooled to around 65 F, it’s kept very humid to house plants from high, wet rainforests and cool jungles. The first thing you see when you walk in is a 115 foot tall waterfall cascading down the side of the Cloud Mountain. You ride an elevator up to the top of the 135 foot tall structure then walk down a curved ramp that winds around the mountain. The outside of it is clad in ferns, vines, orchids, and bromeliads.

Misters spray every few minutes to keep the humidity up, creating clouds and rainbows.

The ramp winds its way down through the different layers of the jungle, from the top of the canopy down to the floor, with different plants on each level.

Tucked in amoung the plants are native carvings and sculptures from people who live in the various jungles represented.

One display I really loved was of tiny epiphytes each with its own magnifying glass so you could see the little flowers, some no bigger than your thumbnail.

After finishing with the Cloud Forest we were feeling like a snack. There was a little bakery-cafe where we stopped for some cake. I had their rainbow cake, which had colored cake layers with almond buttercream between them. It was almost too pretty to eat….almost.

By now it was late afternoon, so we walked back to the hotel. This time we took the elevated bridge that leads from the Gardens through the hotel lobby.

It was a fun day and very enjoyable, even though we didn’t see all the Gardens have to offer. And they aren’t finished yet. There are several new areas due to open in the next few years.

Singapore, 2nd Day

We didn’t try to do as much on our second day back in Singapore. Our tour bus tickets were good for 2 days; so we rode around some more, this time getting off to see a few of the sights. It also gave us a chance to get better pictures of things we didn’t get the first day. I got a photo of the Royal Thai Embassy. It’s a nice compound in a wealthy area; but the narrator told us that its main claim to fame is that the property was originally bought be King Rama IV of Siam. Yes, that King of Siam, the one from the musical.

The highlight of the outing was stopping at Merlion Park and seeing the merlion up close. As I mentioned before, the merlion is the symbol of Singapore, so everyone comes to take their picture with it. The park is on the shore of Marina Bay, directly across from the Marina Bay Sands hotel, so we could see it from our window.

The statue is 8.6 meters high and was made in 1972. The esplanade was built later and the statue was moved to its present location in 2002. She, (the tourist board says the merlion is female), shoots a jet of water out into the bay.

Like the “holding up the Leaning Tower” photos, here the popular tourist photo is to stand so that the jet of water appears to be going into your mouth or into your open hand. This causes congestion at the couple of spots where that angle is possible. We opted for the water shooting over our heads.

Of course we couldn’t resist getting a little one to bring home. Ours doesn’t shoot out a stream of water.

The rest of the day we relaxed and enjoyed hanging out at the hotel.