Day 27

The last day of the trip. We got everything packed up and ready to go, and went down to breakfast. The car was due to pick us up at 8:55, and we were concerned that they'd come to the right place. TCS assured us on Friday they had our arrangements correct, but the sheet they gave us said we were going to be picked up at the Dorchester rather than the Rubens. But we brought our bags down about 8:30 and hoped for the best. The guy showed up right on time, but only had Sam's name. We weren't about to let him go with Sam and hope someone else showed up for us, though, and he didn't blink an eye at having two more passengers. We got to the airport with plenty of time to spare. We had worried our bags would be overweight, but the lady at check-in didn't say anything and we just headed upstairs to the waiting area. We had quite a bit of British money still, and Jan can't stand for that so I spent a little on a couple of T-shirts and a key chain and then she took over and spent the rest. By the time she was finished, our flight had its gate assignment so we headed over there. There weren't many people at the gate, and as it turns out the flight was less than half full. That was OK with us. Plenty of room in the overhead bins and if he had wanted to, Sam could have laid down across the four seats in the middle section to sleep. He wasn't that relaxed, though, and sat up for the whole flight. They only showed two movies, "Get Smart" and "The Devil Wears Prada". It was an Ann Hathaway mini-festival I guess. They also showed several CBS shows. I'm sure it's nice for them to have a captive audience. Anyway, the flight was just a little bumpy in spots, but otherwise uneventful. When we got to RDU, there was a long line at passport control and only two officers to process everyone. There was one line for US citizens and resident aliens and another for foreign passport holders. The two lines were pretty even, but our guy was processing all of the flight crew people first. That didn't seem quite fair unless they were trying to make another flight, and I'm willing to bet they weren't. After passport control, we went down to Customs. We made our report of the things we bought, expecting to have to pay the import duties, they x-rayed our bags, and then said "Thank you, through that door please". That door led out to the terminal. So we got a cab and headed home. Everything was pretty much as we left it except that the house was covered in leaves. We dragged our stuff into the house and started getting settled back in. I'm just a little sad that I'll never be in the TCS jet with Rhys and Julie and Gail and Ann and Chris and Rachel and everyone again, but as Dorothy said, there's no place like home.

The End.

Day 26

Our last day in London was going to be busy. Our first stop was the Tower of London. The Underground lines were all running with no down areas, so getting there was much simpler than it was over the weekend. We had gotten fast pass tickets to the tower from Dave, so we didn't have to stand in line for that. We just went straight to the entrance. As we waited for the first tour of the morning, quite a crowd gathered. Even the Yeoman Warder that was our guide was surprised by how many people showed up on a cold Monday morning to see the Tower. We learned some very interesting facts about the Tower, and Bill the Warder was very humorous. Most people think of the Tower as a prison or site of execution, but in fact over its history it hasn't held that many prisoners. It was mostly a defensive structure where the kings and queens of England were housed and protected. To satisfy the crowd, though, Bill told about some of the more gruesome executions. Beheadings were reserved for nobility, while commoners that were convicted of treason were hanged, drawn, and quartered. I never quite understood why you would draw and quarter someone you've already hanged, but this wasn't a hanging like we used to have in the States where one dies from a quick snap of the neck. They pull you up so you strangle. When they're going to draw and quarter you too, they let you down before you're dead and revive you. Then they slice you open and pull out your entrails while you're still alive, and plop them into a sizzling pan. Then, they cut off your head and cut your body into four pieces. This is what they did to William Wallace (hero of the movie "Braveheart"). According to Bill, he passed through the Tower of London, but being a commoner, he wasn't beheaded and wasn't held in the Tower. He got the hang, drawn and quartered treatment. We saw the Crown Jewels, including the Star of Africa, set in the Scepter With the Cross, and the Koh-i-noor diamond, which came from India. Bill said that the British stole from everyone.

We also saw the Bloody Tower, originally called the Garden Tower, but the name was changed for marketing purposes (according to Bill). This was where Sir Walter Raleigh was kept prisoner, and tortured every day. His wife was locked up with him (another Bill joke). Then we went through the White Tower. This contains the ancient armaments and armor of the royal families and their defenders. This included the armor of Henry VIII. If you look at the pictures, you'll note that he was a man of considerable girth. You may also note what Bill referred to as "psychological warfare" in the construction of part of the armor. I'll say no more.

Our next stop was the London Eye. I had resisted this, and not planned on doing it. I'm not very comfortable with heights, and hate ferris wheels. I was assured I would be comfortable in this, though, as it's completely enclosed and safe. We took the Tube to Westminster Station, and crossed the bridge and it was right there. When we went through the security check, the officer asked if I had any knives or weapons, to which I replied no. Then she asked if I had any chocolates or sweets, and again I had to reply no, but promised next time I would be sure to have some. As we were going up, we could see rain heading our way, and while we were on the ride, it was raining quite heavily. After we rounded the top, though, it moved off and by the time we got to the bottom, it was no longer raining, and the wind had even died down somewhat. I don't think we got any great pictures because the capsule we were in was covered in rain drops, but it was an interesting view and at least we were out of the rain.

Back on the Tube, it was only a couple of stops to Victoria Station. This time, we knew which way to go but wanted to head down Victoria Street to see what kind of shops were there. I kind of wanted a clean shirt to wear on the trip home tomorrow, but we only found one store with men's clothes and I didn't really see anything I liked so we headed back to the hotel. Jan had to stop and look for some souvenirs of London for a few people, and I went to see if Dave could call the Dorchester and make sure our package got sent off alright. They assured me it had, so when Jan showed up we headed up to the room to rest up before our "Jack the Ripper" walking tour.
We bundled up for our night on the streets and headed to Tower Hill station to meet up with the tour. There were a lot of people gathering. I couldn't believe that on a cold, wet night like this so many people would want to go out on a walking tour. I guess I'm not the only nut in London. It turned out there were two guides, so they split the group up. We went with the first guy because it didn't seem like many people were going and I preferred a smaller group. He didn't seem like he must have been very experienced, though, because we were walking along a fairly busy sidewalk and he turned off and most of us didn't notice and kept walking. Someone finally asked where the guide was, and we walked back a short ways and found him down a side alley. The group was rather smaller than when we started, so he ran back to the street and flagged down the rest of the group. He was giving us all the gory details of the Ripper murders, and Jan was clearly not comfortable with it. When it started raining, that was the last straw. We left the group and walked back to the main street and flagged down a cab. In just a few minutes we were back at the Rubens and heading back up to the room.

The rest of our party were all going to the theater, and we were cold and tired so we just went upstairs and ordered room service. The food was pretty good, and it was nice to just relax and watch television and eat together.

Day 25

The day started with snow. A few flakes, anyway. There was a little on some cars, but nothing on the streets or buildings. Today is forecast to be rainy and cold, so we thought it would be a good day to go to some museums. We got together with my brother's family and headed to the British Museum. Dave told us which bus to take and the driver told us which stop, but there were no signs pointing us to the museum. So we stood out in the rain trying to figure out where we were going, and finally stopped a man on the street and asked him where the museum is. He pointed the way, and it was actually quite close, but there are no signs and it doesn't stand out very much. Probably the most interesting part of the museum were the exhibits about the places we had visited on the tour. They had a moai, but it didn't look quite like the others we had seen. The oddest part was that the back was carved out. I don't remember any of the ones I saw on Easter Island being carved like that. There were also exhibits from Papua, New Guinea, and Africa. I offered to loan them my "museum piece" dagger, but they weren't interested for some reason. Rather than go out in the rain to find a place to eat, we decided it was easier to just eat at the museum. The section where the cafe is located was closed, but they opened it almost immediately so we ran in to get at the front of the line. It looked like there was some sort of problem like a bomb scare or something because an older couple was complaining that they had left two desserts on their table, and they had been removed. The food wasn't very good, but that was OK. We had reservations for a great dinner at Rules Restaurant. After lunch, Dad decided to get a cab back to the hotel and the rest of us headed over to Trafalgar Square to go to the National Gallery. The building itself is a work of art. If you only notice the paintings, which are stunning, you miss half of what the Gallery has to offer. Every room is different, and the main hall is just breathtaking. I won't waste your time trying to describe all the amazing art work. Suffice it to say if you get to London, the National Gallery is a must-see stop.

When we finished at the National Gallery, we headed back to the hotel on the tube. When we got to Victoria Station, it wasn't nearly as obvious which way to go to get back to the hotel as Jan and Sam thought. We looked around the station for a while, and discovered that they have a Krispy Kreme stand there. I had no idea that it was an international company. I hope they actually make the donuts there and don't actually ship them from the US. Finally we asked the guy in the information booth where Buckingham Palace Road was and he pointed us in the right direction. We headed on down to the Palace gift shop to look around before heading back to the hotel room to rest up before dinner.

Jan got out the iron and pressed our shirts and ties and got Sam and I looking as good as we could after a month on the road. We met everyone down in the lobby and the concierge flagged down a couple of cabs for us. Rules restaurant was pretty close by, and we were shown to our table, and Lonnie's family to theirs. Dinner was very good (we all had the roast beef with Yorkshire pudding and roasted potatoes), but dessert was fabulous. Jan and I shared a rich chocolate pudding with chocolate sauce, and Sam and Dad shared a chocolate soufflé with cream sauce. Both were just incredibly good.

Rules let us down after dinner, though. We asked them to call us a cab, and what showed up was what's called a mini-cab. It's not a proper taxi at all, and the guy didn't know the Rubens Hotel or how to get there. He at least knew where Buckingham Palace Road was, but he turned the wrong way. We informed him of his mistake, but it took him several blocks to get turned back around. When we arrived at the hotel, he told us how much we owed and it was almost twice what the taxi to the restaurant charged. I gave him as close to the exact change as I had and we went inside. Dave the concierge said we should have refused to get into the car, but that would have meant finding our own taxi, which would have involved walking at least a block and a half in the cold to get to a main street. I didn't think Dad was up to that. In hindsight, I should have gone to get a taxi and brought it back to Rules and picked everyone up. Hindsight is 20/20, as they say. We were glad to be back at the hotel safe and sound, anyway.

Day 24

Our last meal on TCS is breakfast, and we made the best of it. We got Eggs Benedict and orange juice. It was very good. We tried to coordinate with my brother and his family and my father. In the end, though, Jan, Sam and I transferred to the Rubens Hotel before them. We got in a cab, and they got our luggage in with no problems at all. At the Rubens, we registered and were offered an upgraded room for a nominal charge, so we took them up on it. The upgraded room was ready, so we had our luggage moved up and we unloaded a few things and then headed out into London. Dave the Concierge here at the Rubens recommended we go to Portabello Road and see the antiques sale. It only happens on Saturday, so we decided to head there and see what they had. We bought a travel card that gives us access to the Underground and buses and we got on the number 52 to head to Notting Hill. What they had was a whole lot of people in small streets, and loads of junk. Anything that was a legitimate antique was overpriced. It's cold here (high in the forties) so Jan bought a wool scarf to put around her neck. That was our big buy in Notting Hill. Jan had heard about this restaurant called Wagamama and wanted to try it. We had seen it (one of many around London as it turns out) from the bus, so we went back to the bus stop to wait for the returning number 52. Every other number that came to that stop came by at least twice, and we gave up and started to walk toward an Underground station. Just as we turned the corner, our bus showed up so we ran back and jumped on and started watching for the restaurant. Shortly before we spotted it, a crazy woman got on the bus and took offense at the driver asking to see her travel card. She started shouting at him and he was shouting back thank you. I still don't know what she was so upset about. I guess a crazy person doesn't need a good reason. Thankfully, the restaurant was just past the next stop so we jumped off and went in. I was put off immediately. It was loud and chaotic. Everyone was sitting at long tables, and waiters and waitresses were running around like crazy people. Jan and Sam were not deterred, though, and we went in and got a seat. Our first encounter with our waiter was when he asked Sam to move down so another party could sit at our table (the tables were marginally divided at groups of four). He eventually came back to take our order, and Jan and Sam's food showed up pretty quickly. For some reason, mine took longer. The food was so-so, but after we finished, we couldn't get a check from the waiter. We walked over to the cashier, and they weren't there, and the lady showed up about the time our waiter noticed we had left and ran over to get us the check. Needless to say, he didn't get much of a tip.

Next up was the Tower of London. We headed to the closest Underground station, which was not as close as I had thought. We did get to walk past Kensington Gardens. There were some guys playing roller hockey in the park. It looked like they were having fun. We finally managed to find the station at South Kensington, and thought it would be a simple matter of getting to Tower Hill. Unfortunately, the Circle line was down completely and the District line was down from Earl's Court to Embankment, which means we couldn't just get on and ride where we were going. We had to go up to Picadilly Circus and change lines to get down to Embankment and then change again to go from Embankment to Tower Hill. By the time we got there, it was 3:30 in the afternoon and the tower was closing in an hour, so we just went into the gift shop and looked around the area a little, and then headed back to the hotel. We had to switch around Underground lines again on the way back, and when we got to Green Park, they said it was the stop for Buckingham Palace. That sounded like it should be our stop, so I said we should try to get off there. As it turned out, it's a lot further to the hotel from the Green Park station than it is from Victoria, and we took a very indirect route which made it even further. Jan and Sam said Victoria Station was right next to the hotel, and said it often as we walked through the cold and gathering darkness.

Dad wasn't up to going out to dinner and Lonnie's family wanted to go to Covent Garden, so Jan and Sam and I went looking for an Indian restaurant that Dave told us was nearby (Quilon). We found it pretty easily and went in and discovered quickly that we were under dressed. They were very nice to us, though. The place was empty when we got there, and thought it was funny that they asked if we had reservations. The food was excellent, and by the time we left, it was almost full. So the reservations question wasn't as silly as I thought.

Day 23

This is our last flight on the First Choice jet. I've been completely spoiled. The crew has been so nice, and so accommodating, and the seat is comfortable and I've gotten used to having a place to plug in my laptop and use it for the whole flight, it's going to seem like duty on a slave galley to fly coach on American Airlines back to Raleigh. I really can't say enough about the crew. The cabin crew are the nicest people you can imagine. I don't know how they can work so hard and smile at us all the time. I feel like I'm leaving all my new friends behind. The engineers and cockpit crew are great, too. They come through the cabin and talk to us and answer any questions we have. Chris the engineer has been a real blast to talk to. He showed us pictures of his family and told us some good places to go in London while we're visiting there. Eddie the first officer was also a lot of fun to get to know a little bit. It turns out he has family in Dubai, and took some of the crew on a special outing there. I think they had a better time than we did. I know they did the first day.

The crew are wearing clothing they bought at the souk yesterday. They've had a real flair for dressing up. They had asian costumes on after Cambodia, and Indian garments when we were leaving Agra. It really makes things fun when they mix things up like that. They seem to have a really good time, too. It was surprising to learn that they've never worked together as a group before. They seem so friendly and at ease with each other. Maybe you have to be that way to be a flight attendant.

We arrived at Luton airport, which is a private airport some ways away from London. It took about an hour and a half to make the trip into town, mostly because of traffic. The Dorchester is absolutely decadent it's so luxurious. Every fixture, every piece of furniture is absolutely as fine as it can be. It's a wonderful place to end our tour. Jan and I scrambled around to get our things together to have shipped back home because we didn't have room and available weight to get the carpet home. Since we were having to ship that off, we figured we might as well send the clothes we weren't going to use in London, and it ended up being quite a bit. We used my duffel bag to get it down to the concierge desk, and it was more than my big bag could hold. It's probably going to cost a fortune to send it. We told the man we wanted the slowest, cheapest transportation he could arrange, but it is still going to be quite expensive.

Once we got that straightened out, we went to dinner. The food was great. They had a prawn dish that was particularly good. Everyone was saying goodbye. Some were getting teary-eyed. I have to admit, even the people that I didn't think I would get along with seemed like old friends by the end of the trip. Everyone has their eccentricities. Except me. I'm perfect. Ha ha.

Day 22

Our only full day in Marrakesh started with me waking about 3:30 am with a headache. It wasn't bad, and I was very thirsty so I assumed if I drank some water, I'd be OK. After laying awake for a long time, I finally got up and took a shower and got dressed and went downstairs to see about using the Internet. I got the information with the username and password and signed on and was able to get to gmail and a couple of other things, but couldn't get to my blog or picasaweb. I was able to upload pictures, but I had wasted so much time trying to get connected to the other web sites that my laptop was running out of power, and it was getting close to time to start the excursion. And my headache was getting much worse. After uploading several sets of pictures, I went upstairs and took three Advil. I grabbed my backpack and Jan and I went downstairs to catch the bus for the city tour of Marrakesh. The tour would have been really interesting but my headache was not getting much better and my nausea was getting worse. The first place we went was to an old market area with raw meat hanging up and being butchered right there, cars and motor scooters going by putting out exhaust, and people doing metal working, banging on their little anvils. It was sensory overload, and just about the worst place you could be with a budding migraine. Even with that, though, seeing the craftsmen making shoes, belts, the metal lamps and other items was fascinating. The butchers I could have done without. We went through a Marruseh, which is a Muslim university, and is different from a Medrasseh which is a primary school. We also went inside a bakery. These are very primitive looking facilities, with a large wood-fired oven. The local women bring their dough and have it baked, which seems odd to me, but I guess you get to have bread made by your own recipe. It certainly smelled good. Some of the other groups got to try it, but no one offered any to us. I wasn't up to eating anything at the time anyway. After looking around at a few other places, we headed back to the bus to return to the hotel. Cathy gave me some real medicine. Excedrin Migraine. I took them and laid down. I missed lunch, but by the time I got up to go to the Souk to go shopping, I was feeling almost completely well. That was good stuff.

Our first stop was a government run store selling traditional craft items. The prices were supposed to be set, but it turned out some people managed to negotiate better prices. I think everything is negotiable in Marrakesh. I immediately started looking at the daggers. I picked out a camel bone one, and had the salesman set it aside while Jan continued to shop. She was looking at jewelry and Sam and I were looking at some daggers in a case. I wasn't even sure they were for sale, and the man told us they were museum pieces, very nice. I asked how much and found out that a museum piece of real silver can be had for a few hundred dollars, so I bought it. I guess I can start my own museum now. Jan made her choices and we paid and got out before he sold us something else. The salesmen in Marrakesh are not as pushy as other places, but they can be very persistent. They are very good natured about haggling, though. Some places don't like to haggle, but these guys do.

The next stop was the souk. The souk (a traditional marketplace) was quite a sight. Where we first entered, there were stalls selling more modern things like baby clothes (there was a set that was actually called "Baby Iman"), cell phones and other modern items. As we got further in, though, we got to the more interesting shops. There were shops selling carved wooden items. The boxes were beautiful, but as Jan pointed out, what would be do with it when we got it home? Other stores sold cloth items. Some had daggers (in fact, it seemed like everyone sold daggers, no matter what the main stock of the store was), some had carpets, some had clothes, some had jewelry. The first order of business was helping my father's friend Admah find some necklaces for the ladies in his family. We stopped at a couple of place, and finally found a man with some nice looking things that was willing to dicker. He started at a hundred dollars for each necklace, but finally came down to fifty-one. He still seemed happy when we left, so I'm not worried that he took a loss on the deal. Next stop was a place that had lots of odds and ends. Sam was looking for a dagger, and they had some (as did just about every place, as I said). He picked the one he liked and struck his bargain. The next order of business was getting Jan a carpet. Someone asked what we were looking for, and we said carpets, and he directed us toward a carpet shop. An old man waved us on into the shop, and I think he was going to ask for a cut for getting us in there, but we were heading there anyway. The man laid out a couple of rugs, which Jan didn't like, and said she wanted something thicker. Then he unrolled one she liked but said it was too big. So he got out a smaller one, but she liked the colors on the larger one. He pulled out several more, but every time she said she really liked the colors and design of the bigger one, so I just asked the price of the big one. We worked it down to an acceptable figure and walked out with our rug. I should say I walked out with our new rug, and my daggers. And Sam's dagger. I am, in fact, the family pack mule. It was getting close to time to meet back at the rallying point to head to the main square so we started back that way. Sam was eying some local clothing, so we stopped in a shop that had some very nice caftans and he started looking at them. They were pretty expensive, but Sam talked them down somewhat and he walked out wearing a hooded caftan they call a jalapa, and looked like one of the natives. He should have gotten the cap or a fez to go with it, but we were pressed for time. When we rejoined the group, we headed to the main square of the souk and saw the snake charmers, and the monkey trainers. People were having their pictures made with the monkeys so Margaret had to get in on that. Jan wanted to stay and shop, and I wanted to get back to the hotel with the carpet because it was getting heavy. So Sam and I headed for the bus and Jan went with Lonnie's family and kept shopping.

Tonight is our last official night of the tour, and we're having a special dinner to celebrate. We went to an old residence that's been converted into a restaurant. We had to ride in cabs because buses can't get down the street to reach the entrance to the riad where the restaurant is. The traditional architecture is called "hidden architecture" because it's supposed to look unassuming from the outside so that it doesn't inspire envy in other people. Inside, it can be very beautiful and ornate. This one was. It had a very small courtyard, but it had a little pool and was very pretty. We climbed the stairs to have a look at the view from the roof. It was a beautiful clear night and the stars were out, glistening on the satellite dishes that were on the roof of almost every house in sight.

Dinner started with fried dumplings. They had chicken and lamb. They also had a large variety of other items. Sautéed green peppers, sweet tomatoes, olives, carrots, and many other things. Everything I tried was delicious (I didn't try the olives). Next up was chicken. The chicken was baked until it was almost falling apart. It was served in a large dish in the middle of the table, with the chickens still whole. I was wondering how we were going to serve it and my sister was reaching for the utensils when the waiter returned and pulled off the leg and thigh, and pulled the breast bone out with no trouble at all. Serving it was easy then. We thought that dessert was next, but then they brought a large joint of lamb baked in the same style, and the waiter pulled most of the bones out we dug into that. I thought it was delicious, but several people passed on it. Dessert was next. It was a large wafer with some sweet creamy sauce. Again, it was delicious. That wasn't the end, though. They took that away and brought a tray of cookies. I hadn't planned on having any, but when the others started making yummy sounds, I couldn't resist. Time enough to diet when I get home, I suppose. Dinner ended with no fanfare. We just got into taxis and went back to the hotel. We have one more buffet dinner in London, but this was the big send off. We did get to eat with Lynn Garrison, our tour leader. It was nice to get to talk to her about something other than dumb tourist questions. We had to get our big bags out for collection by ten pm, and it was getting close to that when we got back so we got our dress clothes off and packed and put out bags out with minutes to spare.

Day 21

This was set to be a traveling day. We left the lodge at 7 am. We got Donald for a driver again, and while we rode he told us about the four ethnic groups of Tanzania. He was Bantu, of the Chaga tribe (I think that's what he said). There were also the Nile peoples, the Khoizin and one other I can't remember. The bushmen were part of the Khoizin group. I wish I could remember more details, but it was loud in the jeep and I didn't even hear all of it. We saw some lions crossing the road, actually they had just crossed the road and were walking away when we got there, but I think I got some decent pictures of them. We saw the hippos in their pond again, but they wouldn't come out for us. One of the later jeeps said they saw one walking along the road. Bad timing, I guess. We got to the air strip at Seronera early, so we waited for the planes to arrive. As expected, a group of people ran to the smaller planes. The same people that ran to the larger plane the first time, no doubt. We didn't have any problem with it being too hot on the plane, though, and we didn't waste a lot of time on the ground so there was no issue with the plane being uncomfortable on the ride back to Arusha. We saw a couple of mountains, but Kilimanjaro was right in front of us and when we finally turned so we could see it, it was obscured by clouds.

When we landed in Arusha it was a shopping frenzy. They had some great stuff there in the shops, and most of it was very reasonably priced. Even the tee shirts were only ten dollars. Jan bought several beaded baskets, including one that was being used in a shop to display some other wares. Jan offered her ten dollars for it and the lady said "No, five". Jan didn't argue and paid the five dollars.

On the plane, Cathy asked if anyone else still had their departure cards and Jan and I answered that no, they took them when they stamped our passports. She hadn't had her passport stamped either, so I guess officially my brother Lonnie and his wife are still in Tanzania.

The rest of the day was traveling. It took almost fifteen hours altogether to get to Marrakesh. We touched down about seven pm local time (three hours behind Arusha). We processed through immigration and boarded our buses to the Sofitel Hotel. The dinner buffet was more interesting than most, but the food wasn't very good, at least to my taste. We were exhausted from our day of travel, so we turned in early.

Day 20

Safari day. We got an early start, leaving the hotel to go out for game viewing at 8:00. Our guide was Donald, who was also the guide we had on the drive from the Seronera air strip to the lodge. He was funny and informative, so we were happy to have him again. The viewing started fairly slowly. We saw a bat-eared fox that we couldn't get a picture of because he disappeared into a termite mound. We saw a cheetah, but it was very far away and couldn't possibly get a decent picture of it. We saw a few zebras, but Donald didn't stop, and we weren't sure why. We found out in a few minutes when we came to the migrating herds of zebras and wildebeest. The lines were as long as the eye could see. The zebras and wildebeest move together because the zebras have keen eyesight, but poor sense of smell. The wildebeest have keen smell, but poor eyesight. So they work together. The gazelles also migrate, but at a different time than the others. We got lots of shots of zebras and wildebeest in various groupings. The sheer numbers were overwhelming—thousands. They got out of the way when the jeeps drove up, though. Even though they're migrating together, the zebras and wildebeest seem to stick to their own groups. We also got some shots of lions resting in trees. Donald said they get up there to try to catch a breeze when it gets hot. We also saw a "honeymoon couple" of lions that were sleeping under some brush next to a rock outcropping. While there's not much to write about, this was one of the most interesting and impressive stops we've had on this trip. I never imagined seeing the variety and multitude of animals that we were seeing. We saw monkeys, baboons, impala, eland, gazelles, and all manner of birds. Many of which I couldn't get a picture of because I was too slow, or didn't have good enough equipment. I still managed to get some decent shots, though.

By lunch time, the flies were starting to get bad. We were having a "bush lunch" outside. The food was good, but it was hard to eat for all the flies buzzing around. I put on some more insect repellent, and it helped, but didn't keep them all away. The table we were eating at was on a slope, and when I sat down, my knee bumped the leg and half the glasses on the table fell over. Leave it to me. After lunch some people went directly back to the lodge and the rest of us continued with the safari. Donald asked what we'd like to see. We all said elephants. So we took off to find them. As it happens, the driver heading back to the lodge spotted the elephants so we had to turn around and go looking for them. There was a family herd of about thirteen. The lead elephant is the family matriarch and shows the way. The male doesn't travel with the rest of the family. Another adult female travels at the rear of the herd and makes sure all the young ones keep up and don't stray from the herd. We followed them for a ways, and eventually cut in front of them on a road they were approaching. The jeeps left a gap which the elephants walked through, which was right behind our jeep. One of the babies was less than three months old and could walk right under the mother. She managed to not step on it, though, which was pretty amazing for a gigantic elephant. After all the elephants crossed the road, the last one stopped and turned toward the jeeps and lifted her trunk and flapped her ears and trumpeted. It didn't look that threatening from our vantage point, but the people in the jeep that was closest to her were fairly alarmed. The driver just drove off, though, and she turned around and went with the herd.

After the elephants, Donald tracked down a warthog for me. He put on a pretty good show, and I got some good pictures of him. Or her. It's hard to think of a female warthog, they're so fierce looking. We came across several areas that had mixtures of animals. One area had zebras and baboons. I couldn't tell if the baboons liked being around the other animals for protection or warning of predators, but they didn't seem to mind each other's company. Another area had buffalo, giraffes, and elephants. They were too far away to get a good picture of, but the combination of species was interesting. On the drive back, we went off the main road and took some bumpy paths. We saw some more monkeys and impala and baboons and buffalo. There was a group of buffalo quite close to the lodge.

When we returned to the lodge, Larry had apparently been to the gift shop because he knocked on the door to tell Jan the shop keeper was ready to resume negotiations. So she headed down to the gift shop. The shop keeper said he had talked to his manager and could come down further on the price. Jan came up some, if he would throw in a gold chain. So the bargain was struck and Jan ended up getting her tanzanite necklace for half of the original asking price. The shop keeper still seemed pretty happy with the deal.

Before dinner, there was another dancing demonstration. This time it was Masai dancing. It seemed comprised mostly of jumping up and down and stamping their feet. The bugs were starting to bother us, so Jan, Sam and I headed inside. Dinner was a buffet so no worries about being forgotten this time. The choices were more interesting than usual, with Moroccan lamb, and Arabian chicken, and an Ethiopian beef. It was pretty good, but not great. I guess we'll have to wait until London to get some great food.

Day 19

We leave Dubai early today. I'm not sorry to leave, but I'm not sure it got a fair shake. Maybe it just didn't fit with the rest of the tour, but it definitely wasn't a highlight. There's not really any traditional culture left there, just a frantic race to build as much as humanly possible. The drive out to the airport took a lot longer than it seems like it should have because of traffic. They're working on a metro system, but I can't believe that anyone but the workers would give up their cars to ride public transportation. Besides, they're only building three stations, I think. It doesn't seem terribly helpful. They think it will help with the traffic problems, though, so I hope they're right. We went fairly close to the Burj Dubai. Someone asked how tall it is. The answer is one hundred sixty stories. So far. They won't disclose how tall they ultimately expect it to be. It looks more like a missile than a building already. Once in the airport, we had to recover our passports. The lady tried to give me Margaret's. She probably doesn't even know that Margaret is a woman's name. She certainly didn't look at the photo. I finally got the right one, after convincing her I'm not Margaret. The guy at passport control asked me something that sounded like was I going to Kenya. I replied no, Tanzania, and that seemed to confuse him. It took several minutes longer for him to process me than other people going through the line, so what I said must have been the wrong thing. They had Pepsi in the duty-free shop, so I got one. It was only twenty-eight cents, but since I didn't have any Dubai money, I had to give them a dollar, and they don't give change in American money, so I kept one coin and put the rest in a charity box.

The plane ride to Tanzania was four and a half or five hours. Again, the time went very quickly as always. The airport at Arusha was small, but modern and nice. They had quite a few shops with souvenirs, most of which were pretty interesting. We didn't have too much time there, but Jan managed to find several items and Sam found a mask he liked. The group heading to Ngorongoro crater left first, then we started out to our planes. One was a "big" plane, a Dash-7. It's a four-engine, turbo-prop plane that holds about twenty-five or so people. There were also two Cessna 208 planes. Single engine high-wing planes that hold ten. Only seven got in ours. Barb Kelley, John Slajyak, Lonnie, Cathy, Jan, Sam and I. The ride to the Seronera Air Strip was fairly smooth and uneventful. We heard when we got on the ground that the people in the Dash-7 were uncomfortably hot and they were going to try to get on the small plane for the return trip. When everyone arrived, we all got into jeeps and started heading toward the lodge. We almost immediately came to a pool with hippos. They weren't interested in photo ops, though, and all we saw were their backs. Then we came to a leopard up in a tree. The carcass of his kill was in the adjacent tree in a fork in the trunk. Apparently leopards are very elusive and hard to spot, so were were very fortunate to see one right after arriving in the Serengeti. Then there were several lion cubs in the grass playing together. There was quite a traffic jam of jeeps all trying to get a view of them. They were a little hard to see and get pictures of, but I got a couple of short video clips that turned out OK. Then we came up on a group of giraffes. The guide called a group of giraffes like this a "johnny". There were adults and babies all eating off the acacia trees. They were fairly close to the jeep, too. Giraffes are very impressive looking animals. It's also impressive that they eat the acacia, which are covered with long sharp thorns. They have prehensile lips that can get the leaves from the acacia, eating around the thorns. Very handy adaptation, that. We also saw a jackal, an ostrich and a sable cat, but couldn't get a picture of that. It ran off into the woods before I could get the camera ready.

The lodge, while not luxurious, was nicer than the one in Papua New Guinea and at least you couldn't see cracks through the walls. They had a gift shop, and Jan almost immediately headed there to make sure someone else didn't get all the good stuff before her. I got the room key and took our things there and came back to find Jan haggling away with the shop guy. She desperately wanted some tanzanite jewelry while we were there, but the guy wanted a ton of money for what he had. Everything in that shop was expensive, so it was no surprise that the tanzanite would be at a premium. She got my brother-in-law Larry (a geologist) to look at the stones, and he declared them good stones, but couldn't or wouldn't pass judgment on their actual monetary value. The shop keeper came down, but not enough, and negotiations broke down for the evening. The dinner menu was interesting, but only a few at our table wanted the soup. After they finished, the bowls were collected and we didn't hear from the waiters again. We were about to give up and go to our rooms when Admah intervened on our behalf and got them to bring our dinner. It wasn't worth the wait. I ate a token amount and Jan and I went to the room. They had been in to turn down the room. Not just the bed, the room. They close the sliding glass door, close the drapes, pull the mosquito net around the beds, and turn off all the lights. This last part is important because if you leave your lights on, you attract all manner of bugs into your room. We never really saw any mosquitoes, but the flies could be quite bad and there were moths, beetles, and other bugs that weren't good to have in bed with you. The bed, by the way, was hard. No box springs. After a hard day of traveling and game viewing, though, it was soft enough.

Day 18

When I looked out our window first thing this morning, it looked like it had been raining. That figures. It rains about seven days a year in Dubai, and we have the luck of being there not only during a sand storm (which is only about twice a year), but during a rain as well. I guess I can't complain. We've had some amazingly good weather on this trip. We went down to breakfast and see about our transportation to the water park. Leslie, the advance person in Dubai said she'd work out something. After we ate, we went back to check on the arrangements and Lynn, the tour leader said they arranged for a car to take us and wait for us. Jan started thinking about it, and figured it could add up to quite a bit of money for just a trip to the water park. We headed out to the city tour, the morning excursion, hoping for something more interesting than the long sit in the car we had yesterday. The "city tour" turned out to be a tour, not of the city of Dubai, but a mocked-up old city. It was mildly interesting, but I would have rather seen the real Dubai, which is not the old city by any means. We also went to the Dubai museum which is pretty cheesy for the amount of money they have available in that country. It was mostly mannequins and sound effects. I think they could have had real people demonstrating the crafts, and then sold them at the gift shop.

The next phase of the excursion was a short trip in a boat on the "creek". This is a waterway that has been dredged out and comes just a little ways inland. It's only used for commercial traffic; no pleasure boats, etc. There is a constant flow of dhows and abras (water taxis) up and down the creek. We got a pretty good view of the Dubai architecture along the water. There's an unbelievable amount of building in Dubai. You hear things like half the world's large cranes are here. It's easy to believe when you see the amount of construction underway. The hotels have to be soundproofed because there's a constant din from construction twenty-four hours a day. When I opened the sliding door on our balcony, I was struck by the noise immediately. The area around the creek seemed pretty quiet by comparison.

We ran into Lynn during the excursion and asked about the cost of the car. We decided it wasn't worth the trouble and expense and she offered to get us into high tea at the Burj al Arab. That sounded good to us, so we took her up on her kind offer. After the boat ride, we went back to the hotel, and had some time to rest before tea. We boarded the bus to the Burj al Arab and headed over. This was a seven course tea. We started wishing we hadn't eaten so much for lunch. The desserts at the hotel restaurant are excellent, though. I got a coffee mousse that was delicious. I wasn't very hungry, though. The Burj was just awesome. They have a gate to keep out the riff-raff, which ordinarily would be me. The lobby has a tiered jumping fountain, two escalators that go up two stories, and aquariums on either side that go all the way up and are filled with exotic looking fish. The interior of the lobby is open many stories high, and every detail is lavish and beautiful. Our tea was on the top floor, so we headed up in the elevator. It's called the twenty-seventh floor, but every room in the hotel is a suite and is two stories tall, so we were actually fifty-four stories high (give or take a story). We sat down to our tea and I had to try not to embarrass Jan. Formal occasions are alien to me. Our server came around offering tea. I'm not a real big hot tea drinker, but this was very good tea. Then they came offering scones. They didn't look like the scones I'm used to, and I didn't have high hopes they would be good, but the cream came by and the preserves, and I added them to my scone, and it was very, very good. Then she offered some finger sandwiches and I took a chicken sandwich. Then she offered some others and I took a little tuna sandwich. Finally came dessert, and I took a chocolate pastry. Everything was very tasty, but I didn't have room for anything else. After we finished, we decided we were going to cancel our dinner reservations because we couldn't eat anything else. We had a chance to enjoy the view from the top of the Burj for a little while before the tea was over. Pictures just can't do it justice. It was an impressive sight.

After tea we went to the Souk (a marketplace). It wasn't really a traditional marketplace, just like a mini-mall. We did find one store that was interesting-- Sinbad Antiques. They had a lot of stuff and the guys were friendly and willing to negotiate on the price. I have no doubt I was still taken advantage of, but it was fun anyway. Since we weren't going to dinner, we went back to the hotel and repacked for Tanzania. This is our last wheelie stop, and I had put all of our souvenirs into my wheelie and I had to rearrange things so I could put clothes in there. I didn't think it would work too well trying to wear papier mache boxes instead of pants. I stayed up as long as I could catching up on my blog and pictures, and then turned in.

Day 17

Today we leave India for Dubai. Not without one more trip to Sunshine Alley, though. They had a few of the papier mache boxes that we hadn't bought, so we had to snap those up before we left. We also bought a small marble box. This one was a little more interesting than some because it had a knob on top of the lid, and some inlay in the top of the knob which is supposed to be fairly difficult. The trip to the airport was the typical horn-blowing, hair-raising event. I managed to get a shot of the leprosy clinic, but I missed the elephant in the road. I was on the wrong side of the bus. Those are the breaks, I guess. India is interesting because they love to stamp things. We had to have special tags on our carry-on luggage so they could stamp them. They don't do any extra inspections, they just stamp the tags. Then we went through security. We went through a metal detector, but I'm not sure why because they wand everyone that goes through. My sister said they create jobs and people do them whether they make sense or not. If someone has the job to stamp luggage tags, they stamp them for all they're worth. I guess that's a good work ethic. It really wasn't all that much more trouble, it was just kind of silly. It was a four and half hour flight to Dubai, and like most it went by pretty quickly. It's amazing to me. I thought I would be going nuts in the plane, but it's very comfortable and with my laptop plugged in to keep me entertained with these blog entries and going through pictures, the time just flies by.

We arrived at the Dubai airport and came into what appeared to be a cargo terminal. There were quite a few people going through passport control and Customs, though, so we weren't the only passenger plane to come through there. In fact, the line was so long they opened two more lines. Jan, Sam and I were too slow to get into the new lines, though, so we were among the last to be processed. After going through immigration we had to surrender our passports to John Thiede so they could do something with them. They did give us a copy to use for identification for shopping, etc. though. When we exited the terminal we got into four by fours to go into the desert for a falconry demonstration and dinner at a desert camp. It was almost an hour drive out to the desert, and almost as soon as we arrived, a sand storm blew in. We took a couple of pictures with a Bedouin and a camel, and ran back to the car. They started driving us into the desert, and it was fun for the first few minutes, but then it was boring and then we started getting queasy. Sam was particularly suffering. It turned out they were killing time to see if the sand storm would abate, but it didn't. They finally decided that we would just go to the hotel, so we left the desert conservation area (apparently they conserve the desert by driving around on it), and headed back to town. It was a long drive back to town, and then we were stuck in a terrible traffic jam. All told, we were in the car over three hours with very little break. Not a happy start to our visit to Dubai. TCS checked us in and told us we could get dinner in the hotel at the buffet restaurant. We went up to our room and debated getting room service, but the lady who answered said they were too busy and had to call us back. She didn't even take our room number, which we didn't take as a good sign that we were going to get any food, so we just went down to the restaurant. The food was good, but not great, and certainly plentiful. After eating, we went upstairs to wash the sand out of our clothes and our bodies. The tub was very sandy after we finished. Hopefully, tomorrow will be a better day.

Day 16

Today we headed out to Fatehpur Sikrit, the abandoned city. To get there, it's about an hour's drive through Agra, and then the countryside. Our tour guide was Yogesh, but he said to call him Yogi. He was the Indian Jay Leno. He spent most of the drive facing us and telling us about India. He said it was tiring, but it was better than facing forward and having to watch the traffic. He wasn't kidding. Sometimes watching the oncoming traffic was literally that. Oncoming. He said in some countries you drive on the right, in some you drive on the left, but in India it's optional. And that certainly seemed to be the case. I heard another guide said you need three things to drive in India: Good brakes, a good horn, and good luck. Yogi said if you see a car without a dent, it's either brand new or just out of the body shop. A new car will usually go about a week until it gets a dent. He said if you want to open a business in India, open a body shop. You'll never suffer from lack of work. All of the commerce in India seems to take place out on the street. Open air markets, barbers working right out on the sidewalk, kiosks selling drugs (over the counter), shoes, and just about anything else you could imagine. People were everywhere. There's just nothing like it in the US. Even in a big city, the crush of people doesn't cover the same huge area that this does. If you want alone time, you have to go far from the city.

Yogi explained to us that the city we were going to was built by Akbar to honor a priest that blessed him. It took five years to build. There's no complicated architecture like at the Taj Mahal. Just pretty basic post and beam construction. It was inhabited for about twelve years, and then it was just abandoned. It doesn't seem to have fallen into disrepair like Angkor Wat or Machu Picchu. The stones were pretty much intact. There were guys there that would dive into a pool of fetid green water and wanted money for the show. They did the diving, but we didn't pay for it. It seems like everyone in India has their hand out. I was taking pictures of the cockscomb flowers, and the guy tending them wanted some money for the picture. I wouldn't go for that, so he tried to sell me some seeds. I told him I had no intention of trying to grow them, I just wanted the picture. Jan waved at a little boy from the bus and next thing we knew, he was bringing his goat across the street. We assumed he was going to ask for money to have pictures made with he and the goat. Hopefully he didn't intend to sell us the goat. It's getting so we can't even be friendly here because it's interpreted as an overture to some kind of business transaction.

The drive back to the hotel from Fatehpur Sikrit was pretty much the same as the drive out. There were several hair-raising incidents that Yogi stayed blissfully ignorant of by facing the other way. Horns seem to be honking constantly on the Indian roads. It seems like they would lose their effectiveness and people would just ignore them after a while. That doesn't stop people from using them liberally, though.

Back at the hotel, we went to check out the hotel shops. They had a small store called "Sunshine Alley" that had little papier mache boxes that were hand painted. Most were very pretty and they were very reasonably priced, so we bought several. We were running late for our afternoon trip, so we had them sent up to the room.

The afternoon excursion was a trip to Kohinoor Jewelry. They have sold jewels to the maharajahs for centuries, according to their sales pitch. They also deal in tapestries that have jewels sewn into them. They have quite a few on display in the main hall, but they have a museum with ten or so that are just amazing. There was a master of three dimensional embroidery techniques named Shams that created some tapestries that were incredibly beautiful. We got a tour by the owner (Mr. Kohinoor, I guess) and he said they were offered 2.8 million dollars for one of them, but they turned it down. After the museum tour, we went upstairs to the jewelry showroom to look at some of the special pieces they have. They allowed some of the women to try on an eleven carat emerald ring that was cut from a forty-four carat stone that had belonged to the wife of a maharajah. These pieces weren't for sale, but Jan managed to find two very nice stones that were. A beautiful blue topaz and an amethyst. She also got a cross. The salesman gave her a special price for getting all three pieces. That made her very happy. The only thing better than buying some beautiful jewelry is getting a few dollars knocked off the asking price. When she was finished at the jewelry store, we went over to the marble artisans shop. This is where they make tables, boxes, and other items out of marble. They inlay gemstones using the same techniques used by the artisans that built the Taj Mahal. The fact that they probably don't pay the artists hardly anything doesn't make the end result cheap. Some of the little boxes went for over a thousand dollars. They'd take seven hundred, though. They also sold clothes and jewelry at this same place, but the jewelry wasn't of the same quality as Kohinoor. We ended up walking out of the marble place empty handed.

When we returned to the hotel, we went back to Sunshine Alley. The man was unwrapping a new shipment of the boxes, and several were by an artist named "Suffering Moses" from Kashmir. His work was particularly beautiful, but more expensive than the others. I had to have one of his boxes, though, and Jan found a couple of others that she couldn't live without so we walked out with several more. On our way to the lecture, we passed the hotel jewelry store. Jan found a smaller blue topaz with a star shaped window in it that she thought her niece would like as a graduation gift. I don't think she's reading this, so don't tell her so it'll be a surprise. We were having dinner in the hotel's continental restaurant, but they would let you order off of the Indian restaurant menu, so we did that. I got a prawn curry that was good. Jan got chicken curry, but said it was too hot.

Day 15

Our last morning in Cambodia was another beautiful one. We're here during the Water Festival, and last night there were fireworks which we totally slept through. Lonnie and Cathy actually participated in it. They were passing through the lobby at the right time to become part of a procession down to the water to launch some little boats with candles that the hotel made up. They took them down to the river and launched them and came back to the hotel. They said it took quite a few uniformed personnel to make all that happen because there was an incredible throng there. If they had been lost in the crowd it might have been difficult to get back. Jan and Sam and I went out this morning to survey the aftermath. There was a lot of litter around the gardens across from the hotel, and a beer bottle in the middle of the fountain, stuck on the nozzle. It had obviously been placed there, not thrown, so someone walked out into the fountain to place it there. We were trying to get some shots of the locals driving by. I really wanted a picture of a family of at least four on a scooter, but never got a good one.

We were told that our liquids and aerosols had to be in our carry-ons, not our checked bags. When we got to the airport, though, they had apparently changed their minds and said they couldn't be in our carry-ons. The lady from TCS was getting it straight, and letting the guy at the airport know they were the ones that had screwed up and should coordinate such decisions a lot better. I was kind of surprised to hear her talking to the airport security guys like that, but it's not the only time. The TCS people really don't take getting pushed around by the locals.

Back on board the TCS jet for the flight to India, time to go through the pictures and watch a movie. Since I had caught up on the blog entries, I had time for a little light entertainment. Our arrival in India was interesting, and should have prepared me for the rest of our stay. The airport at Agra is actually a military airport, and they don't let civilian aircraft land there very often, so they're not well set up to do immigration processing for large groups. We had to go through passport control one at a time and it took quite a while. They take their paperwork very seriously, though. When we finally got through immigration, we boarded buses for the hotel, which is very close to the Taj Mahal. We didn't get our rooms yet, just a place to drop our backpacks because we can't take them to the Taj. I got my camera and Tour Guide System and got back on the bus. We took an electric bus to the Taj Mahal itself. They don't let pollution too close because they don't want it to stain the marble. Security is ridiculous. They frisk everyone going into the site, and they're very picky what they let in. They don't even like the Tour Guide System because they think it's some kind of walkie-talkie and we're going to coordinate an attack of some kind. The women and men go through separate lines, and the women's line is twice as long as the men's for two reasons: the women carry more purses, etc. that have to be searched by hand and takes longer, and the men have two lines while the women have one. Why they would have half as many lines for the group that takes longer makes no sense to me. They have to separate the two sexes because they can't have a man frisk the women.

We waited a good twenty minutes for the women to get through the line, and then we started into the site. The first section you come to is the outer gate. It's a courtyard with three gates to the outside, and one to the Taj Mahal itself. The first look at the Taj through the gate is awe-inspiring. It was tempered somewhat by the fact that there was an incredible mob there, though. It was very difficult to get good pictures because of all the people. We did our best, though. We saw the Taj in the reflecting pool, got some information about the gardens (the English redid the gardens more to their liking while they were in charge; they were originally more flowery, but redone to be basically green). We headed up toward the Taj, and put on our booties. They actually slip over your shoes. If you don't have them, you have to walk around in your socks or bare feet. We headed up the stairs to the base of the Taj, and looked around there at the marble work and inlays. Then we headed up the stairs to the tomb. Here's where things got really close. The stairs were full and then some. People just don't like taking turns for some reason. So we pushed our way up the stairs to the level of the tomb. And our guide (Shakti) showed us more of the inlay work around the door. The line started getting longer just while we were standing there, so we jumped into line and again had to shove our way into the tomb. It was dark and hot in there, and smelled bad. Either because of the sweaty tourists or the birds that were apparently nesting inside. The inlay work here was lovely, what I could see of it. In the middle is a four sided marble screen, which was carved from one piece of marble, and took six months to carve into the lattice work and do the inlay. The tombs are inside the curtain. The wife's tomb is exactly in the center. The husband's is off to one side. It's supposed to be in balance, but the son of the man who had it built was too cheap to build a separate tomb for his father, so he just stuck him in the Taj beside his mother. We couldn't take too much of the heat, so we left and went out to the back side of the building facing the river. The river was low, and wasn't a very impressive sight. On the other side there's an observation garden. Supposedly, that's the source of the myth of the black Taj Mahal that Shah Jahan was going to build for his own tomb. No such building was ever planned. The gardens are just there as a spot to view the Taj. We looked around the outside of the upper level for a bit, and got to talk to Shakti about various things. As we were standing there, the line to get into the tomb was getting enormous. Just trying to get down the steps to the lower level was a challenge. The Taj Mahal was not built to accommodate huge crowds of people. They need to throttle the crowds somehow. The visitor makeup is about eighty percent Indians and twenty percent foreign. The reason is that the locals are only charged twenty Rupees (< fifty cents) to get in, and foreigners are charged twenty dollars. The site is considered a national treasure, and they try to make sure Indians get to see it if they can make it there. It makes for very crowded conditions, though. Add to that the fact that it was closed the next day, and everyone was trying to get in at the last minute. Apparently some men come there to get their jollies groping women as well. While in the dark crowded tomb, several women said they were getting "petted" on the rump. Pretty low, even for the third world.

We headed over toward the Mosque that's to the left of the Taj as you face it. The building on the other side is there just for balance and serves no purpose. To go into the Mosque, you have to take your shoes off. The covers aren't sufficient. I wasn't willing to do that, but Sam really wanted to. Some old guy took him into the Mosque and showed him the best places to take pictures. I was starting to worry about him, but he emerged safely and seemed happy with the pictures he got. The old man was happy too because Sam gave him almost ten dollars worth of Rupees that we got from TCS. Just as Sam was getting back, another guy came up to me to show me where to get some pictures. I tried to beg off, but he insisted and Jan encouraged me to go with him, so I got some decent shots of the Taj Mahal from the places he showed me. I would have never found them on my own. He was pretty happy, too, because I gave him five dollars for the help. After we got all our pictures, we rejoined our group and got back on the bus to the hotel.

Before dinner, we had a demonstration of native dancing. That seems to be a popular entertainment everywhere we go. This dancing was very different from that of the other countries, though. Even though there was a man and a woman, they didn't seem to interact very much. They were just sort of both dancing at the same time. Dinner was the normal tour buffet. They had a few Indian dishes, but also some generic type stuff like pasta. After dinner, we went up to our room and went to bed.

Day 14

Our first full day in Cambodia started well before dawn. We were heading out to Angkor Wat to see the sunrise. There were only seven of us from the whole tour who got up to do it. You have to stop at the entrance of the temple site to have a picture made for the ticket. We got to the temple just as it was starting to get light. I got a couple of pictures of the main gate and causeway as the colors were starting to change, and we headed into the temple. We weren't the only people there by a long shot. It was hard to get a picture without other people in it. I found out later that this was nothing, though. When the tourists really start arriving, you can't get a picture of anything without someone posing for you. We ran into the crew from the jet here. Some of them look the same, but some look very different in their civilian clothes. It seemed ironic that there were more of them (sixteen) than there were of us who bothered to get up and come out. It was good to see them relaxing and having fun, though. After getting our sunrise pictures, a few of us decided to stay there and keep looking around while the rest of us went back to the hotel to have breakfast. We also wanted to join up with the rest of our family. Breakfast was delicious. It has been the most consistently good meal on the whole trip. I guess eggs and bacon are hard to mess up. We met up with my father, sister and Larry and managed to get on the same bus to the temple. Instead of heading back to Angkor Wat, we went to Ta Prohm, which is also called the "Tomb Raider Temple". This is where parts of the Tomb Raider movie were shot. It has large sections that have strangler fig trees growing into the walls, and it looks very intriguing. They can't remove the trees without destroying the walls, so they leave them. Plus it looks pretty cool and attracts tourists. At the entrance there was a group of musicians playing that had all been injured by land mines. The music was very soothing, but I don't think it's something I would necessarily want on my MP3 player. We left a donation, but didn't buy their CD. After looking around Ta Prohm, we headed back to Angkor Wat. We got long explanations of the stone work. There are lots and lots of images of snakes there. And birds. The temple was built as a temple to Vishnu, who apparently had two main servants: a snake and a bird. Both of which he rode on to get around at various times. So those images are repeated a lot in the stone work. There are also hundreds if not thousands of Apsaras, or dancing girls carved into the stone. These are minor divinities that danced to entertain the gods. Each one is slightly different. Just the amount of carving that went into the temple is amazing. There's barely a spot on a wall or window anywhere that doesn't have some kind of carving. However, after a while it achieves a certain sameness. I don't know, it just didn't capture me like Machu Picchu did. The quality of the stone work didn't seem as good, though it was much, much more ornate.

At the end of the temple tour, we went back to the hotel for lunch. Lunch was a buffet, but a very impressive buffet. They had grilled pork, cornish hens in a delicious curry sauce, coconut rice, and a dozen other dishes. The array of desserts was almost overwhelming. I had to try several. They were all yummy. Sorry, Dan, still no pictures. I had had enough camera-toting by the time we got back from the temple. After lunch we got to do a little shopping. First was the Artisans School. They teach wood and stone carving, silver work, and sewing and fabric work. They had some very nice wares for sale there, at mostly reasonable prices. Jan found a few things to pick up. Then we were headed to the old market, which reminded me of the stalls at the bottom of the mountain from Machu Picchu. There were a bunch of little stalls all selling very similar items. They all seemed to have some silver items, some silk purses, wallets, statues of Buddha, and things like that. We found a couple of things to buy there as well. The quality wasn't as good as the Artisans School, but the prices were better. We didn't get long there, though. We were scheduled to go back out to see Angkor Thom, so we had to head back to the hotel. We skipped the afternoon outing because it didn't sound like the afternoon temples were going to be any different from the morning temples.

I spent the afternoon catching up my blog, organizing pictures, and helping Sam with his homework. He had two labs to try to get done while he's here so he can study for his quiz and take it when we get to India. He had loaned his laptop charger to someone else on the tour who misplaced his, and Sam was almost done with the second lab when the battery died. So he had to wait until after dinner to get it back and finish. Dinner was a feast. They had different stations with various types of food. They had a tempura station, a tandoori oven, a Khmer Kitchen with stir-fried items, a Mongolian Wok station, a Bar-B-Cue station where they had several delicious grilled meats, a salad station, and two dessert stations. I ate so much I didn't have room for dessert, though. Again, sorry Dan. There was also a show with dinner. They had some dancers show off some Cambodian dance numbers. One reminded us of the Peruvian dance that turned into a fight between the woman and the man. The dancers were very good, and the show was entertaining. It had been a very long day, though, so we had to leave and turn in.

Day 13

We were up early again today, though not quite as early as before. Plenty of time to get dressed and walk around a bit before breakfast, though. We had our bags packed way before they were due, but I had added a pair of Jan's wet hiking shoes to my luggage, so I just wanted to be sure it was still within the twenty-two pound weight limit. We talked my father into taking a look around the gift shop, which he did, and found a few things that interested him. Just about everyone found something they liked. Rather than try to carry it in his luggage we just had him add it to our lot to be shipped home. You have to just give them your credit card and they'll charge whatever DHL charges them, so it will be very interesting to see what the final tally is. We weren't leaving the lodge until 9 am, so we had lots of time to kill before the buses left. When we got to the Tari air strip, there was not as big a crowd as before, but there were lots of people in the area going to the market. We waited for what seemed like a long time, and in fact, the plane was quite late arriving. No point in making a big deal about it, though. In Papua New Guinea things just happen when they happen. Two other planes landed before ours, both smaller. Their arrival attracted a crowd, though, and by the time ours arrived, there was quite a throng gathered. I was glad that our luggage was already on our side of the fence. The plane came to a stop and let some people out, and they started removing the baggage. They took two small coffins out of the hold with the other luggage. That was pretty sad. This plane was configured differently from the one we had arrived in, and there wasn't room for anyone but our party. So we took off and headed to Mt. Hagen airport to fuel up. Mt. Hagen was a real airport, with a paved runway and everything. No one was getting on or off, so we refueled and were on our way to Port Moresby pretty quickly. It was one thirty before we got to Port Moresby, which was way behind schedule. The other two groups had apparently been there for quite a while. Getting through airport security and passport control was surprisingly painless. They said if we had our outgoing cards, they would take them, but if not just go on. I had left mine in my passport, which they kept (and TCS now has), so I didn't have mine. We were finally on the TCS jet and I felt like I was back home. Eddie the first officer came back and was talking to us and said that the guy that was supposed to refuel the jet didn't want to come to work, and so he had to call someone in Australia to get the jet refueled for the flight to Cambodia. Nothing seems to work like it's supposed to in Papua New Guinea. It was an interesting place, but I'm glad I'm out of there. I'm also glad I didn't know how close we came to not being able to leave. That would have sucked.

On the seven hour flight from Papua New Guinea to Cambodia, I thought I was going to be able to get my blog entries up to date and caption some more photos. While I got the entries done, I never had time to do the captions. Lunch got in the way. When they serve you a meal on the plane, you have the tray sitting in front of you, and you're trapped. I should have skipped it, but I hadn't eaten breakfast, and I felt like I needed to eat something. And it was pretty good.

We got to Cambodia around 6:30 in the evening and it was quite dark. There were lots of uniformed people standing around looking very official. We were doing a group check through passport control, so we just all walked through. About half of us had already passed by when this confused looking customs man emerged from an office asking if we had customs cards. We told him we were with a group and all our cards would be coming to him at once. He didn't seem happy, but he didn't stop us either so we just kept walking. Small buses called "coasters" took us to our hotel, the Raffles Grand Hotel d'Angkor. Our guide on the bus was telling us some things about Cambodia, and Siem Reap. Everyone in Cambodia over about the age of twelve has seen some very bad times. They are still cleaning up the land mines in the countryside. There are several organizations that help provide money and resources for this purpose. The most famous is probably one started by Princess Diana. Some of the mine are even made of plastic so the mine detectors have trouble finding them. Civil wars have ravaged this country for years. It was only ten years ago that bullets were flying over the very spots were were driving through. I have to say it looks like they've come a long way for having had so much difficulty. Don't get me wrong, this isn't like a big American city. There are still dirt streets, and a lot of people wear paper masks to protect from the dust. There are more motor scooters than cars on the roads. I saw one family of five on a single scooter. But there were people outside eating at open air cafes and everything seemed very safe. The hotel looked very nice. It's a very pretty old building that has been thoroughly renovated and is quite comfortable. We were allowed to order off the menus in either of the hotel dining rooms, and we went to the hotel cafe (as opposed to the more formal restaurant). My father joined Sam, Jan and I. Everything we ordered was delicious. I ordered Cambodian fried noodles, and they were great. It was a long day so we headed up to our rooms and hit the sack.

Day 12

Day 12 started bright and beautiful. We got up very early again today. We laid around for a while, but decided to go ahead and shower before everyone else got up and started using the hot water. We went out and started taking pictures, but it was so dark it was hard to get anything good. We had signed up for a bird watching outing that went out shortly after dawn, so we boarded the bus and headed up to where the birds of paradise were supposed to be. We stopped a couple of times, but birds of paradise are apparently not just shy, but downright determined not to be spotted. I got two glimpses of the birds. One was when it flew over across the road, and the other was jumping from branch to branch. Neither was a good look. I only saw them basically in profile. Some people in my bus saw another bird, but it flew away when the bus passed, and I was on the wrong side of the bus and never saw it. We continued up to Tari Gap and saw the wide open plain between several mountains. Our guide told us that certain times of the year, young men will come up here to hunt on their father's land. It is very important among these people that you not get caught hunting on someone else's land. If you are caught, you have to pay compensation or there could be a clan war. When they come up there, they stay in small huts. These huts may last one to five years, and then have to be rebuilt or at least get new roofs. How long they last, and how much repair they need depends on how much sun they get. If they're in the shade, they tend to rot faster than the ones that get sun and can dry out. Cars would go by every so often, so Jan asked our guide where they were going. He replied that we were on the main highway to the coast. This was a dirt road, and we had to practically stop in places because the ruts and holes were so deep. We just don't know what a bad road is in the US. When we got back, I heard someone saying what a great, successful outing we had. I guess I've learned a valuable lesson about believing what I read. When we picked the Southern Highlands destination, it was based in part on the presence of ten varieties of bird of paradise. Many of these bird outings don't see any at all. I had somehow convinced myself that we would get good sightings of at least three or four. What a joke. I will say, though, that the outing wasn't a total loss. Seeing the Tari Gap and learning a little more about the Huli way of life was interesting.

Breakfast was on when we got back, so we ate and relaxed a little. We had seen some people building a fire when we came back from birding, which was going to be used to cook mumu, a traditional meal of taro, banana, greens, and corn. I thought they were going to cook a pig, too, but that didn't happen. We went to see how they prepared the mumu and the Huli wig men and sing-sing dancers were getting ready. The food items were placed on banana leaves, and aluminum foil, wrapped up and hot stones were placed underneath and on top of the bundle. It was then covered with dirt to hold the heat in. We watched the sing-sing dancers putting on their adornments and paint, and got quite a few pictures. Then we went over to the area where they were going to do their presentation. The wig men were first. They were from the wig school. They explained that young men go to the wig school to grow their hair out to become a wig. It takes about eighteen months for their hair to be long enough and shaped and colored correctly to become a wig. They water their hair three times a day. They take a handful of ferns, dip them in water, and sprinkle the water over their hair. The water is supposed to make their hair turn from black to a lighter brown color. I guess it works because they had four men in various stages of completion, and the hair definitely does get lighter. After the hair is long enough and shaped and colored correctly, the man goes to the specialist to have his hair cut. It doesn't sound like much is done to the cut hair. If it's done correctly, what you have is a wig that can be placed back on top of the head. There are two basic shapes: an oval shape, like the crescent moon, and round like a mushroom. These wigs are called everyday wigs. They can be worn by any man that can grow one at any time. The other type of wig is called a ceremonial wig. It's made by taking two everyday wigs and forming them into a new wig. The bottom is a round wig, and the top is a crescent wig. The ceremonial wig is rubbed with soot to make it black, and shaped and sewn by the wig school specialist. These wigs can only be worn by permission of the village elders, and at special ceremonies. The wigs are elaborately decorated with bird of paradise feathers (they must have better luck finding them than we did), other animal elements (one had the whole backside of a possum sticking out the top of his wig), and other items. One looked like he had some tinsel in his wig. You may ask why have wigs in the first place. The feathers and things are necessary for the costumes these dancers wear. If you don't have any hair, you don't have any place to put those things. Besides the chance of becoming bald, long hair isn't always particularly convenient in this environment. It takes a lot of work to keep up the hair until it's cut, and if your hair won't grow, or becomes discolored or something else happens to it, the head of the wig school assumes you've done something bad and punishes you.

After the wig men came the sing-sing. The guys with the yellow and red makeup and very ornate outfits came out. Several of these men were wearing the ceremonial wigs. They look like some kind of hat, but they're made from hair and adorned as I described earlier. They would start beating their drums and jumping up and down. Each of the men was wearing bundle of leafy branches behind them like a bird's tail. As they jumped, the branches would shake and rustle. This is apparently how they attract women. They do the dance in short bursts. Someone will start beating their drum and the rest will join in and when they start jumping, they get together and synchronize very nicely. They also vocalize. They don't sing words as far as I can tell, just sort of chanting. It was hot and sunny while this was going on, and the sing-sing men were obviously getting tired and hot. The guide came up and talked about their costumes some. The wigs had already been described, but he pointed out the bird of paradise feathers, the rear end of the possum, and other elements. Every wig has a head band to help hold it on while the wearer is jumping around. They also have waist bands to hold on the bundle of branches, and a bone knife made from the thigh bone of a cassowary. The knife is used for defense, but it is also used to hide the owner's money in the hollow part of the bone.

After the show, the villagers had set up a small area where they had items for sale. Boar's teeth necklaces, string bags, axes, bows and arrows, dolls, etc. They also had one of their kunda drums which I wanted, but again Jan said no. One of those things that looks good there, but what the heck would I do with it at home. I think she was afraid I was going to sit around playing it. Sam found an awesome necklace, and Jan got some little bead necklaces for gifts.

We took our buys back to the room and rested a little while before we went out on a two hour hike in the rain forest. We found out they don't call it a rain forest for nothing. It was hot and sunny during the show, but it quickly cooled off and the clouds rolled in. It started raining just as we were leaving for the hike. It was two hours of slippery, muddy trails that were dotted with rocks and logs that were intended to make it easier to walk, but in the rain just made it more slippery. Many people fell at least once. There were three vine bridges on this path. They have to be replaced every six months, and we didn't dare ask how long it had been since these had been replaced. We had to walk across such that there were no more than three people on the bridge at once: one at the beginning, one in the middle, and one at the end. They were just wide enough for your foot, and not a lot more. They had sturdy hand rails, though, and I never felt like I was in danger of falling in the deadly rapids below. The highlight of the hike was the three waterfalls. Two smaller ones, and one large one. The large one is close to the lodge, and can be heard easily from our room. It's quite impressive, but it was raining pretty hard by the time we got to it and that cut down on the awe quite a bit. By the end of the hike, Jan was calling it a "death march". The end of the trail was at the bottom part of the lodge compound, and we were glad to see it. Several of us went up to the lodge to see what we could do to get our shoes cleaned off since they were so muddy. The lady that runs it (and indeed, all five lodges owned by the same company in various parts of PNG), got one of the native workers and said he could take our shoes down to the river and wash them off if we'd leave them with him, so we did that. We walked down the path barefooted, and I mean to tell you that HURT. The path is stones set in concrete, and my feet are not used to such rough treatment. I got back to the hut and laid down for a little while. They were having a local man come to talk about weapons and warfare, so I wanted to hear that. He ended up talking about a lot more than that. Young men, at age 7 or 8 are sent from their mother to the men's house where they're taught how to do manly things like use a bow and arrow. At fourteen or fifteen, they can go to the wig school and start growing their hair out. After they graduate from the wig school, if their prospects are good, their parents may pick them wife. Then they have to come up with thirty pigs for the bride price. There are three things that are important to the Huli tribesmen: land, pigs, and women. In that order. Women come last in just about every respect. They have no rights to speak of, but they have lots of responsibility. They tend the gardens, tend the pig(s) and tend the children. I'm not sure what the men do other than hunt and fight. And what do they fight over? Land, pigs, and women. And everything involves compensation. If you're caught hunting on someone else's land, you have to pay compensation. If you have sex with a woman not your wife and you're caught, you have to pay compensation. If you start a clan war and someone fighting for you is killed or seriously wounded, you have to pay compensation. And we're talking about a lot by their standards. Two hundred twenty five pigs (slaughtered) to be divided up among the dead man's family. More pigs alive, and another payment to the parents which is made in private, at night. That's a lot of pigs and money for a Huli. I don't see how they can ever afford to start a clan war. And quite often, nothing is really settled by the actual war. When they get tired of fighting, or the chiefs make them stop, they settle the dispute by mediation and then start settling up the compensation. For a simple people, they have some very complicated rules of compensation.

After the weapons and warfare talk, they had an elder of the tribe come and speak to us. He didn't speak English so he had another man there to translate. He told about his first encounter with white men. He saw an airplane before he ever saw a white man, and didn't know what to make of it. When he first saw a white man he thought it was a ghost. He was asked whether his life was better before the white man or after, and he said after. He said now he can send his children to school, and buy soap to wash his body and his clothes and get a job and earn money (he works for the company that owns the lodge). Then the lady that runs the lodge(s) spoke up and told a story about 9/11. She said when they heard about the attacks over the short wave radio, they knew there would be a war, so they looked on their map of the world. Now, when the Huli have a clan war, they fight in the land in the middle of the people having the dispute. So when they looked on their map, which has Australia in the middle, North America was on one side and the Middle East on the other, and Papua New Guinea in the middle. So they showed up at the lodge in their full war paint, with their bows and arrows, and axes and promised to protect the lodge and the managers from the people coming to have a war. That's how strongly they felt about the white people who came in to bring tourists to help support the Huli.

Dinner was so-so as usual at the lodge, and afterward I went to bed rather than stay up for part of another movie.

Day 11

Day 11

The day started very early for us. Having fallen asleep around seven the night before, we woke up about 3:30 and never really got back to sleep. We bathed and dressed and killed time until it started to get light. Then we went outside with the camera to take some pictures of the hotel grounds. We ran into the lady from TCS who was doing advance duty in Port Moresby. She told us how to get to the breakfast area, which was a good thing because we would probably have never found it by ourselves. Breakfast still didn't start for a while, so we went back to the room and watched it getting light from our room's sliding glass window. We got Sam and Dad and headed up to the restaurant. And I mean up. You go up to the third floor of the hotel, and go across a breezeway, and then up a lot of steps to get to there. We went through buffet line which had fruit and bread and I got what I wanted. After eating all of that, they brought me an omelet with bacon and a potato cake. I wish I had known that was coming before I ate all the other stuff. After breakfast, we went back to the room to get our wheelies and take them to the lobby. This was where the different groups were splitting up. One group of people were going to the Sepik River basin, one to the Western Highland province, and one to the Southern Highland province. We were going to the Southern Highlands. The Sepik River and Western Highland groups left the hotel first, and the Southern Highland group after. I'm not sure why it was important other than perhaps splitting up the luggage because when we got to the airport, we all ended up in one big group again anyway. They were all going to Mt. Hagen first. The Western Highland group would then take a bus to their lodge, but the Sepik River group would have to take a second flight, then a boat ride to their lodge. Our flight was a charter, but since we didn't fill up the plane, several locals got on as well. We were in a Dash-8 model 300. There were thirty-six of us plus eight or so locals, so I'm guessing the plane held 45 or so. It's a twin-engine turbo-prop. This one looked like it's had some hard miles. One of the panels with the lights and vents fell open and they couldn't get it fixed while we were flying. Not a problem aerodynamically, but it didn't inspire lots of confidence. The flight wasn't particularly pleasant, but it only lasted an hour and a half.

When we arrived at Tari Station, it was just a gravel strip and no buildings to speak of. It did have a fence, for which we were grateful because there was an enormous crowd of people waiting there. Most didn't seem to be waiting to greet anyone, or send anyone off. It seemed like most just didn't have anything better to do than see who got off the plane. I don't think they were disappointed. They seemed to be fascinated by seeing so many white people at once. There were three trucks to carry us to the lodge, and each held twelve people. Since there were thirty-six of us, there was no extra space. The Williams clan claimed one truck with one extra person. The trip to the lodge was bumpy, but John Thiede said the road is much improved over what it used to be. Along the way, a lot of people waved as we passed, and seemed genuinely glad to see us. We also saw groups of men by the side of the road who, we were told, were gambling, but the nature of the games were not explained. We stopped at a Huli village to see and hear how they live and work. We heard all about the women and the work they do, and how marriages are made. When a young man is of marrying age, and has sufficient means, his parents pick a woman for him. A good woman is one that has worn all the hair off her head by carrying heavy things, has short dirty fingernails from working in the garden, and is generally a good worker. They are a polygamous culture, so second and third wives can be selected by the man based on looks or whatever he wants. He has to be able to come up with thirty pigs, though. That's what a woman costs. An "unused" woman, anyway. Women who have been divorced can be had for less, apparently. You'd better not be caught trying the wares ahead of time, though. It sounds like our guide did that and now he owes thirty pigs to the parents of the girl he got pregnant. I would think as a working man, he would be in a better position to make good on that debt than most men in the area.

After the village, we headed to the Ambua Lodge (Ambua is Huli for yellow. Yellow and red are the colors they use to decorate themselves). It looked homey, but very basic. As people were checking in, we were one of the last to get our key. When I asked, it turned out that our water heater exploded just an hour and a half before we got there and they were still trying to get it fixed. They offered to let us use another room until ours was ready, but we hung around the main lodge area and headed over to the gift shop. The gift shop was loaded with amazing crafts. There were carved and painted figures and masks, necklaces made of shells and boar tusks, woven baskets, and various other articles. I would have liked to take about half of the place home, but Jan wouldn't let me. Our room was ready by this time, so we headed over and unwound briefly. A local woman was giving a talk on the life of a woman in the Huli culture. It didn't sound like much fun. Especially for her. Her husband beat her and took half of her wages. And there's not much recourse for a woman in Papua New Guinea. She ended up saving enough money to buy her way out of the marriage, though. That's not an option for most women, though, because most don't have jobs other than tending their husband's gardens and keeping the pig(s). It's nice that there is at least one happy ending, though. After dinner, they showed a video, "First Contact" about the first white men to discover the indigenous peoples living in the interior of Papua New Guinea. The initial reaction to the white men was almost universally fear. The natives thought they were spirits of their ancestors that were returning, bereft of their natural color. Some of the natives followed them as they answered nature's call, though, and discovered that not only did they have all the normal bodily functions, their excrement smelled as bad as the natives'. They inferred from that the strange looking men must just be normal mortals after all. Many tribes traded goods, food, or work for the steel axes, knives, and other things the natives couldn't make for themselves. Others, however decided to try to take them by force. They learned the hard way that attacking people that have guns with bows and stone axes is suicidal. The video was starting to get into alternating interviews with the two groups involved, and since we were getting very sleepy, Jan and I went to bed. It was very cool at night in the highlands, so the beds had electric blankets under the fitted sheet. Since the bungalow wasn't very tight, it was nice to have the extra warmth.

Day 10

We got up early and made sure our luggage was ready for the trip to Papua New Guinea. As I mentioned, we only got twenty-two pounds in the wheelie, and fifteen in the backpack, so we pared down to the bare essentials. As it turns out, Jan, Sam and I made it with plenty to spare. Jan and I were down to sixteen and a half pounds, and Sam only had eighteen. Our backpacks weren't even close to the fifteen pounds. Australia was even stricter leaving the country than they were coming in. Several people had containers of insect repellent that were slightly over one hundred milliliters that they had to throw away. We all got aboard the plane, and when we were getting ready to take off, Eddie announced that they were going to give us an aerial tour of the Great Barrier Reef. They flew at fifteen hundred feet, and made several long slow turns so people on both sides of the plane could get a great view of the reef. They said no commercial plane had ever done this before. It didn't last really long, but it used a lot of fuel (2000 gallons). That's the difference between flying TCS and a commercial airline, though. Their primary concern is their customers' enjoyment and entertainment. It was a fabulous surprise. When we arrived at Port Moresby, there was a terrible thunderstorm in progress. We made a couple of circles before we came in and landed. It was still raining, and everyone put on their rain gear in preparation for walking to the terminal building. We stopped briefly before pulling up to the gate, and to our very pleasant surprise, we got to use the only gate with a jetway so we deplaned in dry comfort. I found out later that the airport manager of operations saw us coming in, and while we were landing, he was forcing another plane to leave the jetway so we could use it. When we were taxiing over to the terminal, he actually came out and bodily blocked our jet to make us wait for the other plane to leave and directed us to the jetway. Again, TCS had gone before us and given the manager some gifts and that's the kind of result they get. As we entered the terminal, the power went out. We immediately thought "I guess this is just how it's going to be in Papua New Guinea", but it came back on after only a few seconds. There was some confusion at the baggage claim. We were supposed to just go straight through passport control and our bags would be handled by TCS. The New Guinea authorities kept our passports, along with our incoming and outgoing cards, and barely even looked at them while we were there. One guy was being a pain, though, and made us all stand and wait for our bags and take them through individually. I guess he didn't get his gifts. Anyway, we got our bags and walked through the customs desks and handed them our customs cards. They didn't even X-ray most of the bags, so I don't know what the point of making us wait for our bags was.

We boarded buses and drove through Port Moresby to the history museum. Half of us were supposed to go to the art museum/gallery, but the power was knocked out by the thunderstorm that was going on right before we arrived, and we couldn't go there. The museum looked interesting from the outside, but that promise failed quickly. We were told in no uncertain terms that we couldn't take pictures inside the museum. Some of the pieces in the museum were very good, but were not particularly well displayed. There were necklaces made of dog's teeth and pig's teeth. There were canoes of various sizes. Some of those were ornately carved. There were tools, and other implements of daily life. And there were statues, and artistic pieces. Other pieces were just mock-ups, stuffed animals, or something that didn't seem to quite fit with the rest of the museum. There were several places where the paint was coming off the wall, and many of the exhibit lights were burned out and made the exhibits hard to see. The art gallery was supposed to be the better of the two, but I guess we'll never know for sure now. After the museum, we headed to the Airways hotel. It sounds like it's about the only nice hotel in Port Moresby. Within the city there wasn't much that looked nice there. There were people everywhere, but no one appeared to be really doing anything. They were just hanging around. Since this was Saturday, perhaps that wasn't surprising, but we were told the unemployment rate was 70% or more, so I expect a large part of these people were always just hanging around. There was less barbed wire, barred windows, and broken glass protecting buildings in Port Moresby than in Lima, but I get the feeling there's less to protect. The hotel was nice, but there's a high steel fence with a gate and guards protecting it. It felt like a lonely island of security in a sea of potential crime. We got checked in and went to our room. Since we didn't go to the art gallery, we ended up at the room a little early, so we laid down to rest just for a minute. When we woke up, it was time to go to supper, but we weren't hungry and were very tired, so we just skipped the meal and stayed in bed. We found out later that the main course wasn't served until after nine pm, so I'm just as glad we didn't go.