Reverse Chronology Reversed

Typically blog entries are posted in reverse chronological order so that the most recent entry appears first.   

Now that the trip is over, presumably anyone reading this blog would like the sequence of entries to lead them from the beginning to the end of our trip.  For this reason, I have used artificial dates and times to put the posts in that order.  Any date in a title is accurate, it is just the date posted that has been altered.  

When you get to the bottom of a page, clicking OLDER POSTS will actually lead you to newer dates (i.e. the continuation of blog post in chronological order). 

An Overview of Our Itinerary

March 13

• Marion to Boston - spending night at airport Hilton

March 14

• Boston to Chicago
• depart Chicago for Beijing

March 15

• cross international dateline
• arrive Beijing

overview of China segment of trip,
including some of the places we will visit
(more detailed maps in future postings)

March 16

•  independent touring in Beijing

March 17-20

• air and land in Beijing and Xian
• March 20 in Beijing 

March 21 - April 09

• board Regent Cruises VOYAGER on March 21
• port calls (more on tours in various ports in future postings)
• disembark VOYAGER in Bangkok on April 09

April 09-12

• Angkor Wat tour 
• rendezvous with Guild in Bangkok on April 12

April 12-13

• Bangkok
• day trip to Ayutthaya

April 14-16

• Luang Prabang, Laos

April 17 & 18

• Vientiane, Laos

April 19

• Udorni Thani, Thailand 
• Bangkok

April 20

• Bangkok to Boston via Tokyo and Chicago (all in one calendar day thanks to crossing the international dateline)

Slideshows - China Segment of Trip

The slideshows are:

Click on a title to download and view (in PDF format)...


Summer Palace

Great Wall & Ming Tombs

Xian

Tiananmen Square & Forbidden City

Shanghai - river approach & city

Shanghai - trip to Zhujiajiao

Shanghai - trip to Suzhou

Xiamen

Hong Kong

As you will see, these slideshows have rather a lot of moving parts in the form of links. The Law of Large Numbers practically guarantees that not all the links will work. If you come across one that does not, please let me know so that I can repair of replace it. Likewise, I will appreciate a heads-up on any factual errors you may discover.

Slideshows for Vietnam and Cambodia

Click on a title to download and view (in PDF format)...

VIETNAM

VIETNAM

 Halong Bay

 Hue

Saigon

Mekong Delta

CAMBODIA

CAMBODIA 

Sihanoukville

Angkor Archeological Park (and evening activities)

Tonle Sap Lake 

 

Slideshows for Thailand & Laos

Click on a title to download and view (in PDF format)...

Ayutthaya to Bangkok, Thailand

Luang Prabang, Laos

Vientiane, Laos to Bangkok, Thailand

It has begun!

We departed on schedule...and without rushing to do so. Hopefully it sets the tone for the entire trip.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:Blue Star Memorial Hwy,West Wareham,United States

Our Breakfast-time on Wednesday is Your Dinner-time on Tuesday

With the arrival of daylight saving time in the USA this Sunday, Beijing will be 11 hours ahead of Boston; Bangkok 12 hours ahead.  

Going to China, crossing the international dateline is boring.  We take off from Chicago on March 14 and arrive in Beijing on  March 15.  Thankfully the flight is only about 14 hours long, but timezones make a bigger impression than the international dateline when going east to west.  It is going west to east coming home that the impact of crossing the international dateline is more pronounced. 

We take off from Bangkok about 7:00 AM on April 20 and start leaping ahead through time zones all day long. Somewhere over the Pacific we cross the international dateline.  A few hours later, it is 7:00 AM on April 20 all over again.    

Beijing: Summer Palace (March 16)

After a surprisingly good night's sleep given we are 12 hours out of sync with our previous day's bio-rhythm we had a good breakfast that was an interesting mixture of western and eastern components. We then caught a cab to take us to the Summer Palace; a 40 minute trip.

 

We spent about three hours walking around, seeing less than 50% of the palace and it's grounds. This is where the famous marble boat is located. 

 

The structures in the background of the picture below are on the Hill of Longevity. Climbing the staircase just above and to the left of my head has the potential of reducing longevity. 

The vast majority of people visiting the palace were Chinese. A Chinese woman stopped us, asking to have her picture taken with Pam.

We saw some men flying truly impressive kites both in terms of size and design. 

We returned to the hotel, had a early dinner that was another mixture of eastern and western cuisine, then called it a day.

Tomorrow we have a formal tour including a visit to a nearby section of the Great Wall.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Beijing, China

Beijing: Great Wall and Ming Tombs (March 17)

Our first stop today was the Badaling section of the Great Wall of China.

It was very impressive, and a steep climb!

 
The other major destination today was the Ming tombs to see the one erected by and for the third Ming Emperor.

The day was inevitably riddled with rest stops and meeting places that happened to be (no doubt purely be coincidence) within gift shops.

In the evening we were taken out to a traditional Peking Duck dinner that was a liberal interpretation on the real meal. The food was good and the company at our table pleasant resulting in an enjoyable outing followed by an enjoyable return to our hotel and to bed.

-Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Beijing

Xian: Terracotta Warriors (March 18)

We left the hotel in Beijing at 0830 to catch a 1040 flight to Xi'an. Security at the airport was similar to that in the USA although I got to leave my shoes on. The China East plane was cleaner and newer than many I have flown at home. A free meal was served.

After arriving in Xi'an, meeting what proved to be a most excellent guide and getting situated on the bus it took an hour to get to the site of the Terracotta Warriors. At this point we had invested six daylight hours of a limited time in China to be able to see them. Would it be worth it? Yes, the site was amazing!

The pit shown in these pictures is one of three on the site. The three pits combined represent a small fraction of the items the emperor had made to accompany him into the after-life. It is estimated the entire burial site encompasses 53 square kilometers with 100 or more pits.

We went to our hotel for a brief period, then proceeded to dinner and an elaborate floor show.

By the time we got back to hotel, going straight to bed was on everyone's mind.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location: Xi'an

Beijing: Tiananmen Square & Forbidden City (March 20)

Today we visited Tiananmen Square, The Forbidden City and the SIlk Market.

As with many preconceived notions, I was wrong in my expectation to find Tiananmen Square a larger version of a classic enclosed square such as Plaza Majore in Madrid. It is much more open and isn't just bigger, it is vastly bigger.

The electronic display in the background is 50 feet across. The picture is taken from a position less than halfway to any edge of the square. There are two of these monitors in the square and they are just on one side of Chairman Mao's Tomb pictured below.

Turning 180 degrees from where I took the first picture this next picture in the way to the entrance of the Imperial City and the Forbidden City.

It was a mite crowded moving from the square into the Imperial City...

...and on into The Forbidden City.

After a hair-raising street cropping it was on the bus again and off to lunch.

In the afternoon we went to the Silk Market, perhaps better named the "knock-off market". It was fun to see and the vendors were aggressive but not pushy or unpleasant.

BTW, so far I have been unable to see anything that I have posted to this blog. Having tried numerous alternate ways to access it, I'm guessing in China BLOGSPOT.COM is on the same unavailable list as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. I am hoping to be able to access my blog once aboard the ship at which time I may be able to tune up any horrific layout errors, grammatical train-wrecks, etc.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Guanghua Xi Li,Beijing,China