THE FINAL CHAPTER ON OUR 41,154 MILE, FOUR AND A HALF WEEK JOURNEY AROUND THE GLOBE

Well, here we are. I’m sitting on a United Airlines Flight from London Heathrow to Dulles airport outside of DC. From there we get our bags, clear customs, drag them to Delta, recheck them and catch a flight back to Atlanta on Delta. We should be at our home by 930 tonight. This flight is only 8 hours long and after some of the 12 plus hour flights, it seems like a piece of cake.

I said I would try and write my reflections on India and I have struggled with that. I am not a skilled writer and I worry that I cannot capture in written words what I feel on this topic.

I am going to put two photos below as a way of illustrating how I think about India and then explain it. Please double click on the second one so it will be enlarged and you will be able to see the details that I am going to write about better.

THE PARADOX OF INDIA




To me, the two images above represent the way I think of India. The first one is from the airport in Mumbai. In various places there are these AirTel (a phone company) Kiosks. They have 12 to 20 cords coming out of the kiosk with every kind of connector one could dream up. You can take your cell phone (always called Mobile everywhere but in the US) and plug in the connector that matches your phone and charge your phone up while you are waiting for the plane. This is a very innovative invention that I have not seen anywhere else. And while I haven’t been everywhere, I’ve been enough places to know this is not common.

The second photo is of a roadside market of sorts. It is hard for a tourist to really understand what things are because we don’t live there. It appears that every few miles there is a random collection of carts, vendors, cows, children and random men milling around. This was one of those places. As with all of the places, the ground surrounding the carts and stalls are filthy. They appear to simply take whatever they do not need and just dump it in the street. There is no other word that I know of to describe it other than squalor. This image is further compounded by the poorest of the poor who are on their hands and knees going through the garbage trying to find a scrap of paper to salvage-perhaps for writing paper. Or a piece of cow dung that can be used for fuel or the walls of a home. Or a can or bottle that can be sold.

Of course the first photo represents the promise, and I believe the future for India while the second photo represents the challenge they face. Someone said there are 310 million middle class or higher Indians. I do not know if that is right but that is more people than we have in the US. And then it begs the question “Where do the other 900 million fit in terms of economic level?” And the answer is sad.

I always try to be very sensitive when I am in India (or anywhere else) about taking photos. There are thousands of opportunities to take photos of young children dressed in rags, living under a concrete bridge at a busy intersection where they tap on your window and beg for anything you can give them. No one in India ever looks at them. The doors are locked, the windows sealed and the driver and passengers simply look straight ahead. This is not cruel-they have no choice. To acknowledge one, or to give something to one will only cause gridlock as swarms of needy people will suddenly show up.

I do not take photos of situations like this. To me, while it is part of the India I love, it is not what should be published and shared with others. I know that our colleagues in India are caring people and they have a list of charities to recommend that they give to. Some of their employees just worked on Habitat for Humanity to build housing in India and Caliber Point (our partner) supported them. But the people I have worked with, that I respect and admire and genuinely like, are the future of India.

In the meantime, as a board member of Freedom From Hunger, I know that there are exciting and encouraging things going on in India to help in the hunger issue. Through our partnerships in India we participate in a program called Reach that helps the mothers of poor children start and manage micro businesses that will at the very least, help them develop some income and a small amount of savings that will sustain them when the next flood, or draught, or plague hits them. We have a saying that “There is no person more motivated than a mother trying to feed her children” and I believe with organizations like Freedom From Hunger, with people like my colleagues at Caliber Point who are creating jobs and pushing people to be educated, over time, perhaps 50 to 100 years, poverty and hunger in India can be dramatically reduced. And I am encouraged that there is forward progress being made.

This was my third trip to India in the last two years. It was Cathy’s first. She liked the people she met and she was intellectually stimulated by the diversity of people, religions, languages and customs and she was constantly asking questions. She has an incredible curiosity about things and my favorite photo of her at the Taj is below. She was looking up close at the inlaid stones on the Taj in that wonderful way she examines and inspects everything. She has an insatiable need to understand how things work and why things are the way they are. And she has this huge intellect that allows her to absorb and remember it. She has more unusual facts in her brain than Wikipedia.




On the other hand, the amount of trash that was lying around drove her crazy. I was surprised, knowing her, that she didn’t jump out of the car, grab a broom and begin tidying up the countryside.

In the end, I hope I have many opportunities, whether with Trustmark, with Freedom from Hunger or for other reasons to return time and time again. I really like the food, the people, the chaos, the diversity of religions and I particularly like the people at Caliber Point that I know the best-Ashok, Neil, Aditi, Guhan, Kamalika and Kiran.

In our six hour layover in Singapore, I came across what is known as an Asian Bathroom. You don’t see them in Singapore normally as they are probably the most modern, clean and efficient city in the world. But seeing it reminded me of our first trip to China back in 1985, when this was the only type of bathroom you could find other than a ditch or bush. So I snapped a photo of both the outside and the inside for your viewing pleasure. The last time I saw one of these was on the Asian side of Istanbul.






CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA

We flew Business Class on Singapore Airlines to Cape Town and it was a fabulous experience with their lay flat bed seats. The trip was over 12 hours but we didn’t notice it as it was all night and we slept much of the way.

The Mount Nelson where we stayed treated us well. They brought us this enormous bouquet of flowers as soon as we checked in and we had a small suite with a balcony that greeted us with an incredible view of the famous Table Mountain.

THE MOUNT NELSON HOTEL IN CAPETOWN




THE BOUQUET



VIEW OF TABLE MOUNTAIN FROM OUR HOTEL ROOM BALCONY




And the hotel had lovely gardens as can be seen in these photos:












We did tourist stuff the seven days that we were there. We took a city tour on one of those Double Decker on and off buses and both got burned as the sun was hot and we were still taking daily Malaria medications which cause you to burn easily.

We contracted a driver and a car one day and saw the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Point with its the penguins, baboons and wild ostriches and the scenic coastal towns as well as the wine country with its wonderful town of Stellenbosch.

A JAPANESE TOURIST AT A WINERY IN STELLENBOSCH



ONE OF THE MANY COASTAL TOWNS-YOU CAN SEE THE WHITE LIGHTHOUSE IN THE DISTANCE



A VIEW OF CAPE TOWN AND ITS HARBOR FROM TABLE MOUNTAIN



A COASTAL TOWN 15 MINUTES FROM DOWNTOWN



At the Cape of Good Hope there was a busload of German tourists having a champagne breakfast and so we could never get a photo of the sign below without Germans standing there for a snapshot so I took this one and just cut out the top part of their bodies when I edited it.

THE CAPE OF GOOD HOPE SIGN




We spent two other days down along Cape Towns waterfront which has so many restaurants and shopping I can’t describe it. So I will show photos.

CAPE TOWN OCEAN FRONT SIGN THAT SAYS IT IS 16,990 KILOMETERS TO SAN FRANCISCO WHERE WE FIRST LEFT THE USA




CAPETOWN HARBOR WITH TABLE MOUNTAIN IN THE BACKGROUOND




We spent a lot of time relaxing and eating and while I passed on the Crocodile ribs, the Ostrich Neck and the Loin of Warthog, I did try some Ostrich steak and some Medallions of Springbok which is sort of like a wild antelope. We did meet up with Bernie and Joan Rabinowitz who I mentioned in a previous posting we had learned were in South Africa at the same time and we had a wonderful dinner with them at a restaurant called The Five Flies that used to be a private club. Bernie grew up in Cape Town and goes back every few years to visit.

All of our meals in Cape Town were very reasonable and particularly the wines which were all superb. At the top restaurants in Cape Town with a great wine the price all inclusive was usually less than a hundred dollars for two of us.

So, what are the pluses and minuses of going to Cape Town? Well, it is a great city reminiscent in life style to Seattle, Portland of San Francisco. It has the water, great weather, a wine country nearby that produces super wines, a relaxed feel and prices are great. It is almost as spotless as Singapore. No brooms needed here.

The only downside other than the distance is the crime. Outside of the airport there is a shantytown or “settlement” as it is called that has 1.2 million people living in tin shacks and cardboard boxes. That is one of several of these settlements and from these horrible tragic places large gangs of disenfranchised, uneducated, hungry and angry young men who you have to watch out for. In the tourist areas the police and private security firms keep you safe but venture out of the main area and you likely may not return. I never saw a home that did not have circular razor barbed wire fencing, a private firm who will react to a break in with an armed response and very mean dogs and usually an electrified fence. It is just scary and sad.

The night before we ate dinner with Bernie and Joan, they were staying in Stellenbosch and the electricity went out in the whole town because a gang of thieves had cut the central electrical supply to the entire city so that they could steal the copper wire and sell it on the black market. That is a good enough example to help you understand how serious the crime problem is.

Having said that, we enjoyed our time there immensely and both agree we would go back. The lifestyle is just great (assuming you are safe).

The last day we hung out at the hotel and did their famous High Tea in the afternoon which we felt was overpriced and over hyped but you can’t go to Cape Town they say without having High Tea at the Nellie (what the Mount Nelson is called). We checked out at 5pm and went to the very nice Cape Town airport and soon were flying another 12 plus hours all night to London on South African Airways. Their Business Class section had 42 seats, every one of which converted to an extremely comfortable bed. Cathy slept for 8 and a half hours straight which one does not normally do on a plane. I have heard that this airline ranks up their close to Singapore Air and I agree with that.

We had rented a room at the Hilton in the Heathrow airport for the day since we arrived at 8 in the morning. We ate breakfast in their Executive Lounge, went to the room and did emails and cleaned up and met Andrea about 130 in the afternoon when she arrived from her house. We visited with her and then checked out and met Lee at 330 and the four of us flew to Newcastle where Lee’s family picked us up for the start of the weekend celebration.

Over the next two nights we went to a wonderful party at La Riviera, a restaurant that sits right on the River Tyne and in a private room we had a super dinner and drank wine with Lee’s extended family and good friends of his parents. At 1130 when we finally all left there were a few folks that were on a roll.

We also had a great dinner just with Lee’s parents, Leslie and Linda and his sister Claire the other night at a wonderful Spanish Tapas place that is the most authentic Spanish food I’ve ever had outside of Spain.

On Sunday after a lunch at their home, Leslie and Linda took the four of us to the airport and we flew back to London. While waiting for the luggage I went to the bathroom and in between the many condom machines hanging on the wall was a machine that said it sold Instant Toothbrushes. You would get two for a pound (about two dollars). I thought to myself “What kind of an idiot would fall for this gimmick?” as I placed the pound coin in the slot and turned the handle.

Out of the machine I received two of what is shown in the photo below:



The machine said no water was necessary-just put it in your mouth and chew so I decided to try it. To use a common British expression, I was Gob smacked (surprised) at how hard the plastic shell was to chew but once it was digested, the little packet of toothpaste was quite tasty. Cathy tried to tell me I was supposed to open the plastic ball and take out the packet and eat it, not the plastic shell but it didn’t say that so I am sure I was right.

We left the airport and checked into the Hyatt Churchill in Central London and they (no surprise here since it is a Hyatt) gave us this huge suite that had just been remodeled. Since I was staying for free by using points that made it particularly nice. They gave us a bottle of champagne and for some reason I decided to open it while it was sitting on their new credenza that was of course sitting on their new carpet since the room had just been remodeled.

I took the foil off and the wire cage and turned around to do get some glasses and off comes the cork like one of those Iranian missiles that they claim they don’t have. The cork put a dent in the newly painted ceiling and ricocheted around the room. The champagne came gushing out like Old Faithful all over the new credenza and as I watched it (instead of grabbing a towel as I should have) it ran down the credenza and formed a cute little puddle of bubbly on the new carpet. I felt bad but was happy it wasn’t red wine.

We met Andrea and Lee for dinner at 730 at a place called Osteria Basilico and sat at the world’s smallest table. The food was okay-for some it was great and for others just so-so.

We told them good night and the next morning we flew to DC and after going through Customs we connected to Atlanta and by 10 that night we were at our home. I was worried that the Customs people would question our declaration since we had been gone over four weeks and had been to seven countries and yet our total purchases were only $400 for both of us. And we were telling the truth. But I guess we looked honest as they didn’t question it.

We started our trip by going to Wes’ first birthday party and now we were home again. It had been a long trip and a long time but we started it on such a happy note




And I want to close it on a similar happy note by sharing below my two favorite things of the trip.

MY TWO FAVORITE PHOTOS AND TWO FAVORITE THINGS OF OUR MONTH LONG TRIP AROUND THE WORLD

THE RED FORT AT AGRA

In my last posting I said I would write a little on my overall reflections after my third trip to India. But I also realized that in my last posting, when I shared photos of the Taj Mahal, I mentioned the Agra Fort and other than a photo of some monkeys playing out in front of the Fort, I forgot to put the photos in of it. So first I am going to share some photos of the Red Fort at Agra and in a day or two I will write my reflections on India. Here is one of the photos from right outside the Fort that I like:

A TOURIST (WITH THE MONKEYS SCAMPERING AROUND BEHIND HER) NEAR THE ENTRANCE TO THE RED FORT



The Agra Fort is the most important Fort in India. It is unknown when it was built but the first recorded reference to it being captured in a war was in 1080 A.D. so it is older than that. It was the governing capital of many of the most famous Mughals, exotic names from our childhood stories like Akbar, Babur, Shah Jahan and others ran the country from here. It is the reason that Agra was the original capital of India. During the Middle Ages this was where travelers coming from both the East and the West would meet to trade silks, spices and furs with the Mughals.

I am not sure if it is the largest Fort in India-it may be or it may be second after The Amber Fort in Jaipur which you can see photos of if you go to my archives of February, 2006. It is just gigantic.

One of the things it is famous for is that the son of the man that built the Taj Mahal arrested his farther and imprisoned him for 8 years in Agra Fort until he died. The father was put in a cell where he could look out across the plains and see the magnificent Taj, the monument he built in honor to his deceased wife. There is a great view of the Taj from the part of the Agra Fort where he was imprisoned but we could not get a good photo due to the haze. Again, there are some on my postings from a year ago. I did put one of the photos I took this time below but it is not as clear as I would like for it to be.



As I mentioned the other day, we were so fortunate that we were there almost completely to ourselves, allowing me to get some great photos of the Fort without hordes of other tourists. We all really had a great time here and enjoyed the immensity and solitary feel of it. It is easy to understand why it is one of UNESCO’s Protected World Heritage Sites. I hope you enjoy these photos below.

I LOVE THE SOLITUDE AND TRANQUILITY THESE NEXT SEVERAL PHOTOS OF THIS MAGNIFICENT FORT SUGGEST















THAT SAME TOURIST-OR MAYBE SHE WAS ONE OF THE GARDENERS?



WHERE THE ROYALTY HELD COURT. I NEVER HAD AN OFFICE QUITE LIKE THIS ONE



KEEPING THE FORT CLEAN WITH A STRAW BROOM



MOST OF THE GROUP WALKING IN THE FORT WITH TWO RANDOM GUYS ON THE SIDE



A GROUP OF SCHOOL KIDS STARTING TO TOUR THE FORT JUST AS WE WERE LEAVING



I THINK I WOULD HAVE LOVED TO BE ONE OF THOSE GUYS THAT WAS IN CHARGE OF THIS PLACE

INDIA CONTINUED

I had started writing about the trip down to Agra a few days ago. I posted several photos of some of the many means of transportation we encountered enroute. We eventually arrived in Agra and went to the ITC Sheraton hotel and checked into our rooms and had a typical tourist bus group luncheon (even though we weren’t in a bus). It was a strange combination of some good Indian food, Lasagna and another pasta and strawberry ice cream.

We then left for the Taj. We had to park the car in a lot about 2 kilometers or so from the Taj as no cars are allowed near there due to pollution. We jumped in a tiny motorized bus to take us to it. I was disappointed as last year we got in Tuk Tuks and I couldn’t wait to hear Jane when she got in one of those. But it was not to be.

They are quite rigid about what you can and cannot take into the Taj Complex since there is a high risk of the Taj being bombed by Muslim extremists. That doesn’t make a lot of sense to me since it was built by a Muslim. Wait-now that I think about it I realize it makes perfect sense. The Islamic Jihadists love blowing each other up (and anyone else they can find) in the name of peace so they likely do want to blow up the Taj with the rest of the world.

They searched our bags and had us go through metal detectors while the guide Neil hired (who was quite good) bought the tickets and in we went. Since I wrote on my Blog a year ago when I was here all about the wonderful love story that caused the Taj to be I won’t do it again. You can go to the archive section on the left side of my Blog and click on February, 2006 and read about it.

Instead, I will just post a bunch of photos, some of which I think are pretty cool, that I took during the couple of hours we were there. I think the photos tell a lot. If you click on them you can see a much bigger image and much more detail.

THE ENTRANCE TO THE TAJ MAHAL




A COUPLE OF TOURISTS FROM ATLANTA. HE PESTERED HER SO LONG THAT SHE FINALLY CAVED IN AND AGREED TO COME SEE THIS MAGNIFICENT SITE WITH HIM



ONE OF THE OCTAGANOL SIDES OF THE TAJ. THE ISLAMIC WRITING THAT SURROUNDS IT IS NOT PAINTED-IT IS HANDCARVED NICHES FILLED WITH HANDCUT INLAID BLACK STONES



NO, I DID NOT TAKE THIS BY SNAPPING A PHOTO OF A POSTCARD!.



ONE OF THE BEST PHOTOS I'VE TAKEN IN A WHILE. I TOOK IT THROUGH SOME LATTICE WORK NEAR THE ENTRANCE.



THESE NEXT TWO PHOTOS ARE OF SOME OF THE KIDS THAT WERE THERE VISITING WITH THEIR FAMILIES.






When we were done the guide took us to this factory showroom that sold everything from tables with inlaid tiles to clothes and rugs and you name it. It was the third time I had been involuntarily drug there so I just went outside to wait until the rest of the group spent their money. As I stood there, I suddenly decided to stand in the street in the middle of the chaos and take photos of all the unusual and different (to our eyes) things that would likely come by. The photos of just a few of them, taken over a ten to twelve minute period, are below.

NOTICE ANYTHING ODD? THE RANDOM COW STROLLING ACROSS THE CONGESTION.



SEE ANYTHING STRANGE HERE? THE WHITE CAR WAS PULLING INTO ONCOMING TRAFFIC AND GOING DOWN THE WRONG SIDE OF THE ROAD




THE LITTLE GIRL WAS POINTING AT ME AND TELLING HER DAD



THE DONKEY SEEMED OBLIVIOUS TO THE FASCINATING TRAFFIC PASSING BY



PAYING THE TUK-TUK DRIVER



A STREET VENDOR AND HIS PUSHCART



A MAN ON A HORSE CARRYING A CARPET



THE OLD FASHIONED WAY OF TAKING FIREWOOD HOME




USING TECHNOLOGY TO CARRY THE FIREWOOD HOME



THIS GUY ON THE BIKE APPEARED TO CARE LESS THAT A BUS WAS ABOUT TO RUN OVER HIM



THIS GUY WAS WALKING, NOT RIDING, HIS BIKE-DOWN THE ABSOLUTE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD



AN INTERESTING HORSE DRAWN TAXI PASSED BY-NOTE MY DONKEY FRIEND HAD MOVED INTO THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD ON THE OTHER SIDE



ANOTHER HORSE DRAWN CART BUT THIS ONE FOR FREIGHT, NOT PEOPLE-I HOPED THE BUS COMING UP ON HIM WOULD SEE HIM




RUSH HOUR CAR/CYCLE/BIKE/TRUCK POOLING. I COULD NOT FIGURE OUT HOW PEOPLE KEPT FROM FALLING OFF, ESPECIALLY WHEN THERE WERE THREE PEOPLE OR MORE ON THESE BICYLCES OR MOTORCYCLES



A DELIVERY TRUCK AND TAXI COMBINED



After returning to the hotel and cleaning up we met about 8pm for drinks and a wonderful dinner at Peshawar, a fabulous restaurant that is in all the Sheratons in India. I have eaten at a couple of them and really enjoyed it and I did again this time. I think all of us did. It is just fabulous food and it is all eaten with your right hand only, no silverware. We won’t get into on this G-rated Blog why it is your right hand only.



There was a wedding scheduled to start a little before midnight and everyone was dressed in their finest-so many gorgeous costumes and colors. Cathy had a thousand questions about it for Aditi.

We went to bed about 11 and at 5am I was in the lobby doing emails and the wedding was still going on strong.

We all met at 730 that morning to leave to go to the famous Red Fort. This was a brilliant move because we got there when no one was there other than a lot of monkeys. Here is a photo of a family of them playing near the entrance to the Fort.




We had this huge Fort almost all to ourselves. It made it magical. We spent two hours wandering around it and got some great photos which are below. Cathy said she liked it as much and maybe more than the Taj. When we came out we were besieged by vendors of post cards, fake snakes, kites and you name it and for some of the group not used to this it was a little scary but they were harmless and soon we were on the way back to Delhi. It was on that ride back that our driver deftly chose to drive on the wrong side of the divided highway into oncoming traffic as I related in my Posting of a few days ago titled: Only in India

To help you better understand how chaotic the driving can be, I have pasted below the actual written comments of our State Department in their Country Analysis of India:

Travel by road in India is dangerous. Buses are usually driven fast, recklessly and without consideration for official rules of the road.

On Indian roads, the safest policy is to assume that other drivers will not respond to a traffic situation in the same way you would in the United States. For instance, buses and trucks often run red lights and merge directly into traffic at yield points and traffic circles. Cars, auto-rickshaws (Tuk-Tuks), bicycles and pedestrians behave only slightly more cautiously. Indian drivers tend to only look ahead and often consider themselves responsible only for traffic in front of them, not behind or to the side. Frequent use of one’s horn or flashing of headlights to announce one’s presence is both customary and wise.

Outside major cities, main roads and other roads are poorly maintained and congested. Even main roads often have only two lanes, with poor visibility and inadequate warning markers. On the few divided highways-(NOTE TO READERS-READ MY POST TITLED ONLY IN INDIA)-one can expect to meet local transportation traveling in the wrong direction, often without lights. Heavy traffic is the norm and includes (but is not limited to) overloaded trucks and buses, scooters, pedestrians, bullock and camel carts, horse or elephant riders en route to weddings, and free-roaming livestock.

If a driver hits a pedestrian or a cow, the vehicle and its occupants are at risk of being attacked by passersby. Such attacks pose significant risk of injury or death to the vehicle’s occupants or at least of incineration of the vehicle. It can thus be unsafe to remain at the scene of an accident of this nature and you may instead wish to seek out the nearest police station.

And you thought I had been exaggerating.

En-route we stopped for a bathroom break and some of our group turned traitor and munched on something I refused to eat while in India just on principle. I won’t say who these traitors were or what they ate but a picture is worth a thousand words.



After stopping to shop for some souvenirs we went to the airport and boarded our flight to Mumbai. The men and women have to go through separate security screening lines and as soon as we were comfortably seated on the plane Cathy realized she had left her black leather jacket at security. I flew out of the seat and went to the front of the plane and they radioed inside and within ten minutes they delivered her the coat. This said a lot about India to me. It may be poor as a country but that does not equate to dishonesty. A lot of people had to see it lying there and could have taken it but no one did. I would not give the probability of that happening with our TSA folks at 1 in a 1,000. If she left it in Atlanta at Security she never would have seen it again.

We arrived in Mumbai and of course the Hyatt did it up right for us with a wonderful suite, wine, fruits and great service. I love the Hyatt Corporation!



That night we met Guhan who we had not seen yet as well as the rest of the senior team from Caliber Point and had a great dinner, complete with one of India’s up and coming wines that I am considering investing in. We first had this wine in London with Andrea and Lee in November at an Indian restaurant and I was glad to see it was available in Mumbai.



The rest of the time in India was devoted to business and we were exhausted because it was a sunrise to late night exercise. Tuesday Aditi took Cathy out sightseeing in Mumbai while the rest of us went to Caliber Point. I continue to be impressed with how bright, polite and just fun to be around the people are there. We did an awards ceremony and I had the honor of giving Special Achievement Certificates to 28 people that had achieved a Sigma of 3.1 or higher. Than the CEO, Ashok and I jointly cut the ribbon to a new gymnasium and workout room they have built for their employees.

We had a wonderful dinner that night with about 30 of their supervisors and team leaders at the JW Marriott right on the Arabian Sea but due to major traffic headaches we didn’t get started until 930. When we left near midnight the Hotel Disco was really starting to rock as it was the night before Valentines Day and they begin the celebration then.

Wednesday several of us left the hotel at 7am to catch a flight to Chennai (an hour and a half south of Mumbai) to see the operation there. Cathy was going to go shopping with Kamalika but decided just to stay in the hotel and rest up.

Chennai is the hometown of Guhan Ramanan who I have written about before in my Blog. I loved this town. It is much lest congested, cleaner, more organized and just has a different feel to it than Mumbai. To me, Mumbai is like New York City and Chennai, although it has nearly 5 million people, has a smaller town feel. It reminded me a lot of Santiago, Chile, another city on the ocean that I like.

I had a quick visit to the offices there in Chennai and flew back to Mumbai that evening, arriving at 9pm. I managed to make it to the hotel by 9:30 and Cathy and I had our Valentines Dinner at an Italian Restaurant in the Hyatt.

Thursday it was time to pack up and say goodbye to India. As always for me, it had been a great trip. I really like India and I love being with the folks from Caliber Point.

We took a car to the airport, had an easy check in and went to wait in the Singapore/Emirates Lounge. For some reason they had sprayed something in the Lounge and it just smelled horrible. Both of us thought we were going to be nauseous so we left and just waited in the terminal until the plane left at 11:30 that morning.

The five hour flight to Singapore was pleasant and we arrived a few minutes late at 7:45 (there is a 2 and a half hour time change) and while we had a reservation at the Transit Hotel in the Singapore airport to sleep for a few hours we decided just to stay in the Singapore Lounge as it is so nice and comfortable. We stayed there until a little after midnight watching the news, reading the paper and doing emails while snacking on their buffet.

Our plane left for Cape Town at 1:40 am and with the six hour time change, we landed in Cape Town a little after 7am and the car from the hotel picked us up and took us there.

I have basically talked about our time in India. On my next Post I am going to give you my reflections on India, which are based on our time there.

A QUICK SMALL WORLD STORY

When I was a kid in 5th or 6th grade at St. Mary’s School in Kingman, Arizona, I would go to our one room library (the same room where Father Hageman would take me and beat me with a paddle for cutting up in class). I would go to the shelf that had the biography books and pick one out that I had not read. All of them had a milk chocolate cover and inside the pages were made from some kind of rough paper that had specks of wood in them. They were held together with thick, yellowish glue at the top and bottom of the pages and they were stories of famous people-Christopher Columbus, Booker T. Washington, Thomas Edison, Magellan and Vasco de Gama.

I would read one every couple of days. My favorites were the explorers like Columbus, Magellan and Vasco de Gama. Ever since those books I have either wanted to or actually have been wandering the world.

Today Cathy and I were at the most southwestern point in Africa, the famous Cape of Good Hope where Vasco de Gama first planted a cross in Mossel Bay in 1499. I remember so well reading about that voyage and believing he was the first European to make it to the Cape. But I have now learned that he was not the first person to make that turn around the Cape. Rather it was Bartholomeu Dias seven years earlier. But I don’t care-to me it was Vasco de Gama. Coming in second is close enough for me.



Two minutes later we came on some wild ostriches roaming by the Atlantic. Please note the photo below is neither an optical illusion nor a very flexible and nimble two headed ostrich. The second one is hiding behind the one you can see.





After that we drove up to the Wine Country and the town of Stellenbosch, South Africa. We do several things but then we go to Lanzerac Vineyards for a wine tasting. When we leave, we arrive back at our hotel an hour later.

I go to check my emails. A friend, Curt Furhmann, has spoken to my assistant Andrea Currie today and she told him where we are. He in turn sends me an email and says “You are in South Africa? Bernie is there also.”

He means Bernie Rabinowitz, someone Curt worked with for years, someone I have known for years and am currently working with as he is the Chief Actuary of USHealth Group in Ft. Worth, Texas, and I am on their Board of Directors.

So, I sent an email to the CEO’s assistant in Ft. Worth and asked her if she has Bernie’s number in South Africa. She said she just talked to him and gave me his number. I called it and knocked Bernie off his feet when he told me he was at a wine farm one quarter of a mile from Lanzerac Vineyards and so I told him we were just there an hour and a half earlier!

So we are going to try and get together here in Cape Town on Wednesday night. And I will finish my story about India on the next post. But in the meantime, I had to share this bizarre small world story.

Bizarre-as bizarre as two penguins French kissing which I took a photo of today.

INDIA-WHERE DO I START?

It is now 6am Saturday morning in Capetown, South Africa. I’m sitting in the Tea Room of the Mount Nelson Hotel. After spending nearly a week in India, we left Mumbai Thursday morning, flew the five hours to Singapore, spent 7 hours at the Singapore Airlines Lounge trying to catch up on emails and then left at 1:30 in the morning and flew 12 hours to Capetown, arriving here at 7:30 in the morning local time since there is a six hour time change. With all these time changes, I spent much of yesterday either sleeping or resting.

I got up this morning determined to journal about the India experience as there was not a single minute of opportunity during the time there. I will do much of it through photos rather than through words.

SATURDAY IN DELHI

We got up and went to the Regency Club Lounge and had a nice (and free) breakfast. Unlike their buffet in the restaurant, which has both Indian and Western food, this was only Western food. The coffee was great.

At 11:30 we met Neil Parekh and Aditi Medhekar from Caliber Point, our (Trustmark) Indian partner. These are two really good folks who I wrote about in my Blog last year when I was here. We sat and visited while they had a bite to eat and then got in the car we had rented with a guide and the four of us were going to tour Delhi right as it started raining. This put a damper on things but we still drove by the government buildings, the various Embassays ,The Presidents Palace


photos india

and the India Gate where they have an eternal flame for all their soldiers who have died in battle.




Then we went to an outdoor market I have been to before that it called Delhi Haat. Although it was raining there were a lot of people out and while Cathy was shopping I snapped this photo of this interesting string of kites.



We walked all over the market for a long time looking at all of the handicraft and things for sale. This is a market where the quality and authenticity is certified by the government so you know you are getting what you think you are getting. The only thing you have to do is to negotiate the price, which is what Cathy and Aditi (mainly Aditi) were doing below:




Aditi is, of course as I wrote last year in my Blog about the rugs I bought in Jaipur ultimate negotiator. She told this guy whatever she could think of-how we had only so much money to spend and if he didn’t sell them at this lower price we would tell our friends and no Americans would come to his shop and on and on. In the end, she managed to get the price down to about one third of what he was asking and everyone was happy so I took this photo of Cathy, Aditi, the seller (holding a Pashmina), Neil (on the right) and some random spectator.




We’d been out for several hours so we went back to hotel, cleaned up and joined Neil and Aditi for dinner at 730. We had a fabulous meal with delicious Chicken cooked in a Tikka style and several incredible vegetarian dishes (Neil, like many Indians, is vegetarian).

We kept watching out towards the lobby as the three people from Trustmark I was going to help show the Taj Mahal to were due to arrive. At 930, Jane, Steve and Brooke arrived after about a 35 hour or so flight from Chicago. I had given them my typical anal and detailed instructions on when they should sleep and for how long and they had followed them and all said they felt amazingly good. They had slept exactly two hours in the Transit Hotel I had told them about at the Singapore airport and then taken the free two hour tour of Singapore. They get an A plus for following my instructions.

We encouraged them to go right to bed as we were starting early the next morning for Agra and the Taj Mahal. We did the same


SUNDAY-TRIP TO AGRA

We left at 8am in two cars we rented. They say it is a 3 or 3 and a half hour drive but the it always takes between four and a half and five and a half hours. I wanted to have time with each of my three colleagues so we decided to split it up. Jane Bergman, who I did not know well, joined Cathy, Aditi and me for the trip down to Agra. I have not laughed so hard in a long time. Jane was hysterical. Below is a photo we took at the Maharaja Motel where we stopped to pee on the way down to Agra. From left to right we have Brooke, Steve, Jane and Aditi.




I said Jane was so hysterical as she evidently had no idea what to expect and we were not five minutes out of Delhi when she saw some cows just ambling down the highway and in the middle of talking about her family she screamed “Oh my God! Those are cows!” It was really funny. These weren’t the specific cows she saw but you get the idea.




We passed a lot of camel trains in the state of Harayana, pulling wooden carts with heavy loads. Below is one of them followed by a better photo of the size of the load that the camels were carrying.




INDIA-WHERE DO I START?


We passed every kind of vehicle imagineable, including the ubiquitous Tuk-Tuk that is designed to carry two people and often would have many more.










Okay-it is now Sunday morning and I have come to the conclusion it is going to take me days to sort through the over 1,800 photographs I took while in India to be able to put a few on here and write something about it. So I have decided to post this now and will show you more about the trip to Agra in the next posting.

ONLY IN INDIA

I have a jillion things to share with you about the time in India but we are going from sunrise to midnight with our hosts. I likely will not be able to post much about it until we are in Capetown late this week.

Today I have to leave in a few minutes to go to the office and make an awards presentation to the employees plus a bunch of meetings. But I just had to get this one quick story on the Blog.

Yesterday we were returning from Agra. In the car were the driver, Neil (one of our hosts), Cathy, Brooke Terry who is one of our executives at Trustmark, Cathy and me. The others in our group were in a car behind us.

We were on a divided highway driving to Delhi. Suddenly, the traffic came to a standstill. It looked like there may have been an accident a ways ahead of us. Sure enough, soon we heard sirens and a police car, followed by an ambulance filled with about 10 men in it passed us.

Our driver decided not to wait. So, he simply backed the car up in the middle of this huge traffic jam (see first photo below which is when he was halfway through backing up). We had no idea what he was doing.

Suddenly we were driving the WRONG WAY into oncoming traffic down this divided highway. Now, if you were going to do something this crazy, you would think you would go on the shoulder or at least yield to the big trucks coming right at you at 60 or 70 mph. But not this guy. He drove right down the middle of the two lanes beeping his horn incessantly and flashing his lights at the oncoming cars. See second photo.

The reason he was doing this was because about 3 or 4 miles back was an intersection and he had decided to go back to it and then make a U-Turn and drive toward Delhi on the wrong side of the road for however many miles it took until we passed the accident.

WE made it alive to the intersection and fortunately he could not turn around as there was a massive traffic jam. So after ten minutes there we headed back toward the accident, now driving on the right side of the road. Suddenly another car was coming right at us driving as we had down the wrong side of the road. It looked like it was going to hit us and neither that car nor ours was going to give in. Suddenly both came to a stop and it was the car with the rest of our colleagues in it!

So our guy turned around again and headed back down the road going the wrong way behind our other car. Finally they pulled off, had a meeting with several onlookers and decided to go the right direction. Finally we got past the mess which was not a traffic accident but a bunch of farmers who had blocked the road because the rain over the weekend had ruined their crops. They thought if they blocked this main highway with their cars and horses that the government would give them money.

Remember the ambulance with ten guys and the police car? Well, instead of getting money from the government, these guys got to the blockade and, as Neil put it, gave the farmers a good thrashing for blocking the road.

It was an interesting experience!

SINGAPORE

We flew uneventfully (always a good sign) from Perth to Singapore in five hours, arriving around 2:30 in the afternoon. As always, we breezed through passport control and grabbed our bags. Like everything else in Singapore, the airport works perfectly. You don’t have to fill out customs or declaration forms or even pass by any inspectors. You just get your bags and leave. The whole process from plane to taxi was about 15 minutes.

We were soon checked into the Grand Hyatt where I have stayed 8 other times (if I counted right) because if you fly Singapore Airlines, you are going to connect through Singapore. They gave us a nice suite, a fresh fruit tray and a huge box of chocolates.




We unpacked our bags and hit the street running. We took the metro (best, easiest, cleanest and safest in the world) to the City Hall stop and walked over to the famous Raffles Hotel and went into their Long Bar where Cathy and I last were in 2002. She had a Singapore Sling (it was invented in this bar) and I had a glass of wine and we sat at the old wooden bar with its bamboo swinging fans for an hour or so eating peanuts and throwing the shells on the floor as is the custom. I had Cathy take this photo of me because I was just sure it was a girl I used to date in high school whose photo was hanging on the wall.




After that we walked down through some of their shops and we went to the Batik Shop (Blue Ginger) where Tom Dodd and I bought a bunch of things two years ago. Then we went down in the courtyard and sat outside and had another drink and watched all the people. We both really liked the Fan-like Palms that grew all around the Raffles compound.






We wandered around some more and man was it hot. They said it was 90 but it felt hotter due to the humidity but then Singapore always feels that way. It is so lush and green-it is a beautiful city. By now it was almost 6pm and so that means Happy Hour when I'm in Singapore. Not Happy Hour as in drinks, but Happy Hour as in Satays. We caught the metro up to Newtons Circus, one of the many Hawker markets in Singapore. I went right for the Satays as a little pick me up before dinner. I have posted a before and after photo below along with some other photos of what a Hawker Market looks like.

















The story of Singapore and what a miracle it has become is well known. In 1965 it was a very poor place with no natural resources. The Founder of modern Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew decided to fix it. His two part biography which is tough to get through due to the volume but a must for anyone to understand Singapore talks about his determination to create a law-abiding, religiously tolerant, affluent society and he has done exactly that.

You are reminded about this everywhere from the second you step into the airport with its free internet, free massages, free napette lounges to grab a few winks to it’s immaculate train system, it’s friendly taxi drivers and their spotless cabs to a thousand other examples.

But I was reminded of it on this day when I saw several Muslim women with their heads totally covered and in conservative Muslim dress, walking with some other smartly and chicly dressed Singaporeans, all giggling and chatting happily. One of the Muslim women was clutching and carefully carrying a bright red Koran and one of the other Muslim women was walking along carrying a Squash racket. This mixing of the cultures is one of the first thing you notice in Singapore. You see beautiful Catholic churches and the Cathedral, giant and intricately carved Hindu Temples, Muslim mosques, Jewish Synagogues and of course, Buddhist Temples. All of them are equally protected and maintained with Singaporean pride.

One of the things I learned when I read this biography was that he (Lee Kuan Yew) believed that it was important to set an example so he wanted anyone who was a Civil Servant to work harder than everyone else. When we were on this Singapore Air bus a tour guide was explaining that all Civil Servants were expected to work harder and longer hours than private enterprise employees and if they didn't they were fired.

Let's contrast that to the American model of Civil Servant. In case you are not sure what I mean, go to the Post of mine from last year titled TSA-Animal-Penises-and-Post-Office.

That night we went to dinner at a restaurant inside of their massive (and I do mean massive) Botanical Gardens. The name of the restaurant is Au Jardin de les Amis (loosely translated it is French for The Garden of Friends) and it is rated one of the finest in the city. I have never been but it was recently recommended by The Economist so we decided to go.

The taxi driver had a horrible time finding it because the Garden is so huge and it ended up taking a half hour when it is only a ten minute walk from the hotel. We decided not to walk because we were dressed up and it was so hot and humid, even at 8pm. Am I glad of that as we never would have found this place.

The garden is the old Administrative Compound of the Government back in the Colonial days and the restaurant is in this old whitewashed Colonial building that was right out of a movie. It was architecturally really neat. We sat on a balcony by a window overlooking the garden and it was a perfect setting. The food, at any price but particularly at this high price, was not worth it. Not bad, just not good. We were not impressed.

Thursday we took advantage of the fabulous free buffet in the Regency Club Lounge for breakfast and then went on a tour. Singapore Airlines has a tour bus that goes all over the city and the tickets are $12 for all day but if you show your boarding pass from one of their flights it is only $3 which was a great deal. We then learned that we could have had a 20% discount on our drinks at Raffles the day before (and they were not cheap drinks) if we had done that but we didn’t know it.

We rode the bus all around the city and got out near Chinatown which I had hoped would be all decorated for Chinese New Year. Last year when I was here was right after the celebration and it was beautiful. This year, while they were beginning to decorate, it was still ten days away and it wasn’t at scenic. I did snap one shot of one of their bridges that was decorated that I liked.




We wandered up to Clarke Quay and found a restaurant on the river that serves Persian food, one of our favorites, so we went in and had a great lunch. The name of it was Shiraz .

After that we went to the metro and took the train to a new shopping mall that is getting rave reviews globally. It is called Vivo City and just opened last October. I have never been in a mall quite like this one. There is no question the Singaporeans love to shop (there are over 150 shopping centers in the city) and now they have even more places to do it. There were scores of American stores and European stores and I read that this mall has been the first time many of these stores have had a presence in Singapore. All we bought was a tee shirt for me.

We took the metro back to the hotel. Their ticket system is interesting. When you buy your ticket at a machine, you pay a dollar more than the fare. You use the ticket to get through the turnstiles both going to the metro and when you are exiting. You simply tap the card on a magnetic reader. After you exit the metro, you put the card back in the machine and get your dollar back. This does several things-it keeps people from throwing them on the floor the way they do in many of our cities. It also allows them to recycle the cards as they use a heavy plastic instead of paper. But most of all, it makes sure you get off where you said you were going to get off (and therefore the fare was calculated based on that).

We learned this last part the hard way. I mentioned above that the day we arrived we took the metro to the City Hall stop to walk to the Raffles Hotel. That is where we thought we should get off and so we bought a ticket for that destination.

However, when we got on the metro we noticed the next stop was Raffles Place which sure sounded like where the Raffles Hotel would be located so we stayed on the metro one extra stop. We exited the train, went up to the exit, passed our card on the turnstile and it wouldn’t let us leave because we had paid 20 cents less than we were supposed to. We had no choice but to get back on the train and double back to City Hall and exit there. We intended to then buy another ticket and go to the next stop (Raffles Place) but saw a sign for the Raffles Hotel so it turned out we were right in the first place when we bought the ticket. But it was a good example of how efficiently the system works. Like everything else in Singapore.

I decided to go buy a small digital camera since the last two I have had broke. The last one by me dropping it on the ground when trying to take a photo of a red-leafed tree in our neighborhood-I had only had it two months. I have a nice camera that I have been using to take the photos I have been posting on the Blog but it is a large and heavy Nikon-70 and I wanted something just to have in my pocket.

I gave up after 45 minutes. There are camera stores on every corner but these guys just know much more than I do about the cameras and it was impossible for me to negotiate (which you have to do) because I was at such a disadvantage. So I went back to the hotel and cleaned up.

We had a nice dinner at a restaurant called Pete’s Place in the Hyatt basement. It is Italian (despites its name) and is a typical Trattorria style place with checkered table cloths, a wood burning oven, a good Italian wine list and good food. It was a nice way to end our short time here.

We had to get up at 430 this morning and take a taxi to the airport for our flight to Mumbai. The driver started talking and I realized he is the same driver I had a year ago about the same time of the morning. It was too weird. He brought us up to date on his son who is working in China and his daughter who works for Johnson and Johnson and his grandkids. Last year he thought his son would be moving back in 2 months and now, a year later, he is still hoping it will only be a couple of months. What a strange coincidence.

It took less than ten minutes to check in and get through passport control. We went to the Singapore lounge and had coffee and some fruit and then boarded. At first we were the only ones in the entire cabin (see photo) but later two executives, one Indian and one Chinese also joined us. We had a nice breakfast and five and a half hours later we are now about to land in Mumbai. It has been a very rough and bumpy ride over the Bay of Bengal and Sri Lanka. As we get nearer the Arabian Sea I am hoping it will settle down a little.

I know Cathy has some trepidation about India and it is well founded. It simply overwhelms your senses. Today will be a hard day because we land at the international terminal and have to reclaim our bags (which are not light) and find a bus to take us to the domestic terminal where we have to then check in for the domestic flight to Delhi. This will not be easy as I don’t want to let the bags out of our sight for a minute. I am not sure how we are going to do that with the bus. Fortunately we each have only one suitcase (Cathy’s is a medium and mine a small) and we each have a small carryon bag but they are still heavy and there will be about a thousand people offering to help us so I know it will be a little overwhelming for her. But, that is India and I also know that assuming we stay healthy (always a big if) she will have a great time.

Right as I was typing this an announcement came on that we need to stay in our seats because they are going to come through and spray the entire plane (as we are in the air) with a special spray required by the World Health Organization. Cathy is shooting uncomfortable glances my way.

I will close by sharing what we have had in terms of vaccinations and medication in order to avoid problems. First the vaccinations:

1. Hepatitis A
2. Hepatitis A Booster 30 days later
3. Hepatitis B
4. Hepatitis B Booster 30 days later
5. Hepatitis B Booster #3 six months later
6. Yellow Fever
7. Typhoid
8. Tetanus
9. Flu
10. Mumps, Measles and Rubella

Then we have the medications:

1. Malaria Medicine to take daily for 39 days
2. Loperamide (prescription strength Immodium-you get the idea)
3. Cipro the anti-biotic in case the Loperamide doesn’t work.

Plus an assortment of cold medication, benadryl, ointment, SunBlock with Deet (needed due to the Malaira Med causing you to burn easily and the mosquitos that carry the Malaria), Pepto Bismol, a thermometer and what have you.

And I still think it will be a fun trip.

And I am finishing this from our room at the Hyatt Regency in New Delhi. We did make it and perhaps more about the trip on the next Post. But we made it. And of course since it was a Hyatt, they went all out for us with a fancy suite and when we arrived the manager and several of the staff were waiting outside to greet us and they put red circles on our heads, hung a wonderful Lei of red and white roses and some other kind of flower (they smell so, so good), marched us up to our room, sat us down and took our photo. We are going to have a great time. Such a great time I took a photo of myself with my red deal.

More next time.

GO PERTH!

I thought I would keep in synch with everyone at the office who has been chanting, to no avail, Go Bears. That’s the way I feel about Perth as we fly from there on Wednesday to Singapore. Perth is a winner in my mind.

But first, in the interest of full disclosure, I need to confess that today on the airplane, to use a Landon expression, "I caved". I really haven't seen any of the photos from the wedding other than some that Lee's sister sent. We haven't seen the official ones yet and I didn't get to see everyone walking down the aisle as I was back with Andrea.

Today on the plane I opened up an email from John and Belinda Harrison that had a slide show of a bunch of photos of my family at the wedding and although I did great and smiled the whole time at the wedding, I admit I got pretty teary eyed on the plane.

Why?

I realized how lucky I am and how beautiful my family is. The first photo was of my dear Mom walking down the aisle with me, with both of us grinning. I get it from her. I am so lucky to have her as my Mom.

The next photo I loved was of Grover, holding Wes and walking down the aisle with his Mom, my gorgeous Cathy. I realized looking at that photo that he is not my boy any longer-he is a grown man, on the downhill side of 40, with a growing family, a successful executive career and he was walking my wife down the aisle at his sisters wedding and I was filled with pride.

Then came my Cris-my word she looked fantastic. I had seen her in the room when the makeup was done but it was very frenetic-yesterday seeing that photo of her positively radiating as she walked down that aisle touched me deeply. She looked beautiful.

And then came my crazy and oldest grandson I love so much, Landon, in his Eton suit with shorts and Converse shoes holding hands with his cousin Avery who he had never met until the night before. I can't wait to see the vide0-everyone said he did a super job and I was worried he might do somersaults down the aisle.

Then came a photo of Andrea and me walking down the aisle and that is when the tears started leaking out. She looked so beautiful and happy. I will treasure that photo forever as well as the one of us dancing the first dance. Wow. Good stuff.

There was another photo of the other two of our family, Gustavo and Dorte that might be the best photo ever taken of them. It was just a year and 4 months ago that we celebrated their beautiful wedding in Copenhagen. I am so happy they are part of our family whether by birth or not.

What is weird is that there weren't any photos of Lee only because they were all taken as we walked down the aisle and he was waiting at the altar for me to give my daughters hand to him (which I forgot to do in my zest for hugging him). But there will be lots of family photos with Lee for decades to come.

And finally, a photo of my dearest friend Mike and I at the reception, our heads touching, in a moment of tenderness that meant a lot to me. I will write about Mike some other time (I have plenty of stories) but for those of you who do not know who he is, he is my best friend, the Dad of Rachel who was the Matron of Honor and the guy who clearly believes in the theory of "Dance as if nobody is watching". I love you Mike.

Now back to Perth. Monday we drove to the town of Mandurah which the guidebook says is the fastest growing city in all of Australia. But it also says that of a town called Bunbury so I am not sure which is right but everyone said this place is exploding in growth.

It took about an hour driving south from Perth, the first half hour on the only Freeway I mentioned earlier. It is amazing that the speed limit is generally 100 KPH or 60 MPH as a maximum on this road and everyone-I mean everyone complies with it. It must be part of the laid back atmosphere because everyone drives so slow and law-abiding.

We went along the water part of the time but in general were out in the Bush or going through small towns that have one housing development after another popping up like asparagus in the spring.

When we arrived in Mandurah we walked around the Marina with all its new shops, tons of condos and multi-million dollar yachts. It was very quiet and few people were around but then we learned it was the first day back in school for the fall quarter. I badgered Cathy into posing for this photo:



We then drove into the main part of town and booked a cruise at the Tourist Office on their canal system. As usual, everyone was friendlier than I can describe. We wandered around the pier for a half hour until it was time for the cruise.

This was amazing. They have taken the estuary that flows into the Indian Ocean and filled it in so that they could build high-end houses with a water traffic system patterned after Amsterdam, minus the Red-Light District and Coffee Shops. There are canals everywhere and this boat wound its way around all of them. The homes are almost all holiday homes for people in Perth, other parts of Australia and wealthy people from China, Indonesia and other places in South Asia. These homes are as nice as anything you find at Newport Beach. We saw enormous homes of 10,000 square feet or more and costing 2 million dollars for the lot alone. Of course, they all had their own dock and their multi-million dollar yacht.

Having been in China in 1985 when it had just been opened a short time before to the outside world, it is almost beyond belief to see that someone from China owns several of these homes. Hail Capitalism!

The tour was billed as a Dolphin sighting cruise and the pilot of the boat did a good job of finding dolphins that would surface around us. One pair was a Mama and a little baby dolphin and all of us on the boat were trying so hard to get a photo but they would pop up and back under in a heartbeat. The photo below is the best I could get after taking 127 photos-it is a good thing I have a high speed continuous shutter or I would not have gotten this photo.



After the tour we went to a restaurant that had been around since 1903 or 1904-it all depended on which of their signs you believed. It was called Ciccarello’s and specialized in fresh seafood. We went there so Cathy could have Fish and Chips in honor of Lee. Since everything around the entire town was brand new I never could figure out how the restaurant could be over a 100 years old.

We ate up on the balcony outside and there was a sign posted on each wooden post that said “Do not feed any of your food to the Seagulls or they will S.O.Y.” which was pretty clear.

Afterward we went to this little ice cream place called Sammi’s I think and had some of the most delicious home made ice cream.

Monday night we went to Kings Park again but this time on our own. Below is a photo of the entrance to the park with it's huge Lemon Gum trees lining both sides and a photo of Matilda Bay, part of the Swan River, from the park.






I took a ton of photos of the skyline and of course none turned out quite the way I visualized them but here are two. The one I took at night was with the camera sitting on what I thought was a flat surface but obviously it looks a little tilted. Poop!





We had tried, again, to get into the restaurant in the park named Frasers but it was booked. There is a Frasers Botanical Café so we went there and had an okay meal with a nice bottle of wine and a beautiful view of the city. As we slowly drove down the mountain and through the city at 10pm it was as dead as Kingman, Arizona is at midnight during the week.

Yesterday, Tuesday was a good day. We walked down to the Perth Mint and took a tour. They had a gold pouring show that was very interesting. This guy pulled (with tongs) this special crucible made in Chile out of this round oven that was glowing like the sun. It was heated at 1,300 degrees, one sixth the temperature of the sun he said. Inside the crucible was $120,000 of gold that was melted to a syrup. He poured it out, the brightest yellow of a summer sunflower, into an oblong mould. He then picked it up-you could see how incredibly hot it was and plunged it into a tub full of tap water and in sixty seconds it had hardened and cooled. That’s right, cooled so much he could touch it. And they have done this same thing (heated it up, melted it, poured it into a mould and plunged it in water and started all over again) thousands of time and they never lose any of the gold. It was really interesting.

We toured the rest of the museum learning about some of the history and I took a picture of a camp they have set up to replicate the prospectors of the late 19th century. Just like in the United States they had a Gold Rush in the late eighteenth century and most of the gold that was discovered was in the state of Western Australia. I also had my picture taken with a couple of these very old prospectors.







We took one of their free buses again and went down to an area they call London Shops that has a lot of little stores in a narrow street that feels more British than Perthish. We saw a sign for Borders Books and we went there since Cathy left a book she was reading not once, but twice (two different books) on flights on this trip. Proof positive of the effect of aging when combined with jet lag. I may have to edit that last statement out.

She found one of the books and although it is about 11 dollars at Borders in Atlanta, it was $22.95 AUD or $18.40 US in Perth. It was a good example of how things cost more due to the transportation costs because the city is so isolated.

We were walking down to catch the bus again and I saw this hotel that had been around for nearly 100 years. It was called Miss Maud’s Swedish Hotel:




We went back to the hotel and got the car and drove to Northbridge, a section of Perth near the Museums and University that has lots of Clubs in it. It is in an old Aboriginal section of town and can be a little unsafe (for Perth) late at night. We were there as I was on one of my searches-I had read that the guy that received the Naples, Italy Association of Pizzaioli (Pizza Makers) had named a guy named Nunnio from Sicily the world’s best pizza maker in 2000 or 2001 and that he had a restaurant in Perth named Il Padrino. That was all I needed to know. I HAD to find it and eat there.

We happened to be there on half price day so we had two really good pizzas and two glasses of wine for around $30. The restaurant did not have a single uncovered space on its walls. They were completely covered with photos of Nunnio and he even had a video playing on a monitor with clips of him with famous people and also receiving all the awards. This guy had an ego bigger than Donald Trump but he also had darn good pizza.

Was it the best in the world? I can’t say as I have not eaten all the other pizza in the world. It was very good but I think the pizza we ate in Quito, Ecuador in the late 80’s was better and I think the pizza I ate while being a bum in Pasadena, California in the 60’s was also better.

This is a lousy photo of the restaurant but I had to put it on here so you will be able to find it the next time you are in Perth. It is right down the street from the other photo I took of the Brass Monkey.






We then walked down to the Art Museum and toured it. They had some very interesting Aboriginal Art and the political statements that were made alongside of the art suggested that the white settlers of Australia treated the Aborigines with the same kindness and support that our settlers gave to our Native Americans.

We packed up and after my pizza nap (it must have been good pizza) we went down to the Regency Lounge and just had a few free appetizers and champagne for dinner since we were still stuffed from the pizza six hours earlier. We watched some kids flying kites out on the strip of land below the hotel that abuts the Swan River bank. It used to be the main airport and now it is just a tranquil area for walkers, kite flyers and people who just enjoy being out.

Today I got up at five to do email and we packed up and left the hotel at 7 for the airport after taking the first daily dose of Malaria medication we need to take daily for the next 39 days. A pain in the butt but a necessary thing if you travel to India.

As I was sitting in the Singapore Lounge I was reflecting on our experience here in Perth. I will try and capture it in words below.

I would begin by saying if it wasn’t so doggone far I would sell our home in Florida and buy a second home here. But it is just a tad too far!

Perth is one of the friendliest places in the world and also one of the cleanest. They have an incredibly laid back populace who love the outdoors, who never seem harried or in a frenzy, who believe that work is over at 430 or so and you don’t stay late or take it home. They drive their car very slowly, obey the laws and must be totally accepting of diversity for the city is as diverse as Toronto or London. You hear many, many languages here saying nice things about each other. Their food is just Okay, no doubt due to the isolation and lack of exposure of many people in Perth to how great food can be. They love the outdoors and love the water. They have beautiful, immaculate and well maintained parks that are safe at night and that people flock to and use. These parks are filled with interesting flora and fauna such as tall and stately Lemon Gum trees with their snow white bark that line the entrance to King’s Park. They have free buses and cheap health care and like people everywhere they grumble about both. Yet when they get off the bus at least half of them say Thank You or Cheers to their driver. They truly seem to enjoy having travelers from other parts of the world come and see their city. In a half hour one can drive from the heart of the city to a gorgeous area that makes wonderful red wines, olive oils and cheeses.

And finally, they appear to drink Champagne all the time and I think the reason is because they have much to celebrate because they live in Perth and therefore, many good things to toast each other to.

THE WEEKEND IN PERTH

Before I do anything, this is for you Landon and Wes. It is a photo of your Grammy hugging a goose




This is a really great city. They have all these slogans such as The largest park in any city in the world (King’s Park), or The 3rd windiest city in the world after (no surprise) Chicago and Christchurch, New Zealand as you can see below




Or, The Most Isolated City in the World (the closest city is over 1,500 miles away). Or, The Most Laid Back City in the World (they may be right)as you can also say below.



Or, The World’s Most Beautiful Skyline. Again, they may be right. Again, see below!



We really have enjoyed it so far. Saturday we did the tourist things. Actually, I guess everything we do is a tourist thing since we are tourists.

We took a tram ride for a little over two hours to get a feel for the city. It was 95 degrees inside the tram the driver said. I loved the architecture. They have worked hard to preserve the past so that you have many old style buildings but inside they are modern. They simply leave or redo the facades and then build a new building behind it. There also all many old style Colonial Buildings just like the South Sea hospitals you see in World War Two movies where the nurse falls in love with the wounded soldier.

The old and the new create this odd juxtaposition and I tried to capture it with this photo below, although it doesn’t do it justice.



After the Tram tour we had lunch and then had the brilliant idea that we would walk down to the jetty to take a 2 and a half hour cruise down the Swan River, through Matilda Bay to Fremantle, the largest shipping port in Western Australia and the point where the Swan flows into the Indian Ocean. I asked the guy how long of a walk it was and he said it would be 8 to 10 minutes.

So off we went in 105 degree or so heat. We almost died. It took 25 minutes and there was not a dry spot on our bodies. We got on the cruise ship, bought two bottles of water and just sat in a daze for the first 20 minutes or so. We saw many cool sights on the way down including the most expensive home in Australia that is currently on the market for 90 million Australian dollars, about 72 million US dollars. The real estate market has gone nuts here-in the last two years the median price (US dollars) of a home has gone from 230 thousand dollars to 400 thousand dollars. The economy is booming and I wish I would have been here five years ago as I would have bought stock in every company I could afford.

The economy is so booming they cannot get workers. They have had to recall their retired police officers as they cannot recruit enough police. The good news is they have hardly any crime. Think about it. Why would a criminal come here when they would have to travel 1,500 miles from the closest city just to get here to break into a car or a house. It is much easier to stay where they are and rob and pillage.
Along the way we saw thousands of brown jelly fish floating on top of the water. It was quite weird. From Perth to Fremantle it is nothing but beautiful water, yacht clubs, tons of sailboats and one mansion after another.

We also saw many bush fires on the horizon as it is so dry and hot. You could even smell the smoke from these fires inside the hotel.

When we got to Fremantle we turned around after a brief stop and returned where I took 128 (I’m not kidding) photos of the skyline. I have spared you with just the one above.

We walked back to the hotel so we could sweat some more, capturing this neat photo of some Kangaroo Statures and also The Government House below.





We cleaned up to go to dinner and we decided we were so tired (mostly me) that we just ordered room service and ate it over a few games of Gin Rummy.

Sunday I did emails and then we ate at the Regency Club buffet. They had the most incredibly sweet cantaloupe and what they call Rock Melon which is like a Honeydew. Later in the day when we were up in the Wine Country we would see hundreds of roadside stands selling them as well as cold grapes that had just been harvested.

I rented a car and we drove up to the town of Guildford which is the start of the Swan Wine Country Driving Loop. Of course, as happens every time we are in a country where you drive on the other side of the road, I had a few problems, almost hit several things, went the wrong way and couldn’t figure out how to turn around, turned on the windshield wiper every time I tried to use the turn signal.

We went to the really important sites, beginning with this one where we had several free samples:



We stop and bought some recently picked grapes and went to Elmar’s In The Valley for lunch. The guy that rented me the car recommended it. It was a German restaurant and he said the Pork Shank was delicious. So, I ordered Wiener Schnitzel but Cathy ordered the Shank. As the waitress was standing there I asked Cathy if she wanted something else and the waitress replied “The shank is quite a bit of food.”

So Cathy only ordered the shank. When it came I really wanted to go get the camera and take a photo but Cathy nixed that idea. It was about the size of a small dog. I have never seen anything so big.

As she is beginning to tackle it (needless to say she couldn’t eat all of it) a Chinese family of four adults and four kids walked by. They all sort of paused and looked at Cathy’s plate. Then they sat near us and we watched them order ONE shank for all eight people and it was enough to feed them.

We then drove to the Houghton Vineyards and did a wine tasting. They have a wonderful picnic grounds and there were some young guys playing a pick-up cricket game which was interesting.

As I am typing this it is 830 Monday morning and Cathy just turned to the live broadcast of the Super Bowl and Chicago is ahead by seven points. I am so fascinated by that. Not by the score because I thought, until yesterday, that Chicago was playing the New England team so that tells you how much I know about football. But I am fascinated that we are watching it here on Monday morning live and it is being played Sunday evening in Miami.

We drove from the wine country to the Indian Ocean and drove along it for a long ways stopping for a photo



and then returned via the only freeway in all of Western Australia (the state makes up 1/3 of the entire country). The freeway is about 30 miles long!

Sunday night we couldn’t figure out what we wanted to eat and many places were closed so we just went to the restaurant in the hotel as Cathy just wanted a salad (I can’t imagine why after the shank) and I wasn’t hungry. I had a bowl of soup and the only way Cathy could get a salad was to order the buffet which was $49. But she enjoyed the salad portion of it. We had a bottle of the local champagne (yes, I know the legal name is sparkling wine) as we had noticed that everyone orders champagne here with their meals. It is a very popular drink and very reasonable in price compared to the US.

Today we are headed out into the country and I will report on it later. Having lived in Chicago twice, I guess I should say “Go Bears” even though right as I typed it the Indiana team tied up the game.

IT IS HOW HOT IN PERTH?

Well, it depends on who you ask, but if you ask me, it is a lot hotter here than it was in Seoul. The forecast said 107 degrees. At the hotel one guy said 41 Celsius-that is 105 degrees. Someone else told us 40 today (104) and tomorrow was when the real heat would come.

All I know, is when we were snapping this photo of this somewhat overweight old guy at noon today it felt like Phoenix in July.



It was a long way from Seoul to Perth via Singapore. When I climbed in bed in Perth it was 22 hours after leaving the hotel in Seoul.

The airport in Seoul is on an island and is about an hour drive with no traffic. At 6am there was no traffic and we were checked in quickly and soon were on the plane. We landed almost on time in Singapore and spent the next several hours in the Silver Kris Lounge just doing emails and relaxing. We walked all around the airport for a while to stretch and then boarded the Singapore Air flight to Perth which left at 740 pm. We were only on it a few minutes when I started feeling horrible. We took off and they brought us Satays as an appetizer, my favorite food of all on Singapore. I took about three bites and thought I was going to get violently sick. I told them I didn't want the meal, put on my eyeshade, covered myself with a blanket and fell dead asleep for almost 3 hours. When I woke up I felt better.

We landed in Perth at 130 am Friday and it took an hour and a half to clear Passport Control and Customs. There was a flight from Kuala Lumpur, one from Dubai, our flight and a Quanta flight from Singapore all arriving at the same time so you had about 1,000 people trying to clear customs at 2 in the morning. It was a mess. Also they entered Cathy's passport into the database and said there was an "impediment" (scary sounding word) against her and they could not let her in without going to a different person to be interviewed. It turned out not to be a big deal but a little discomforting.

We left the terminal at 3am and the guy that took us in the taxi was the nicest and friendliest guy. it turns out they are all that way here it seems. Everyone is just great.

We checked in at the Hyatt and they gave us an upgrade to an Executive Spa suite which is good since I can be in the main room typing on this without waking up Cathy in the bedroom. At 4am I closed my eyes and slept hard until 8am. The bedroom has a nice warm and comfortable feeling to it.



We got up and had breakfast at their Club and then got a ride down to Dr. Paul Woodward’s office. He is a Physical Therapist that the Hyatt had gotten an appointment with since right before we left Atlanta Cathy's doctor that operated on her wrist said she needed some therapy but we were leaving the next day and couldn't get it done.

Paul was a really casual and good guy and he got her started on some exercises and said it is healing nicely. The cost for the PT appointment was only $45 US. We walked back from there and man was it hot.

The view from the window of our room is super-it overlooks the Swan River, the main body of water that flows through Perth and empties out into the Indian Ocean about 8 miles from here.



Lunch was at a place called Benson's up the street and was delicious. We learned they have free buses called CAT buses that take people all over the city at no cost. We decided to take the Red CAT bus from beginning to end just so see the sites. It was during rush hour which may not have been good planning but it was fun to see all the workers as they got on and off the bus. It was about 430 on Friday afternoon and on every corner the bars were overflowing with people off work that were out (in that heat) drinking Pints of beer. It had a very British/Spanish feel to that part of the city's life.

They say that people in Perth are the most laid back of all the Aussies and that they definitely Work to Live rather than the American way of Living to Work in many cases. This was clear by what we saw and it was pretty neat. Cathy pointed out that at each bus stop several of the departing passengers would say Thank You or Cheers to the driver. People are just so incredibly friendly and nice here.

It was interesting because from a distance, Perth's downtown looks very modern as shown below:



Yet when you are right downtown it has a very, very different feel. All of the buildings at street level look like they were built in the 20's and 30's and sort of updated to the 50's. It reminds me of the way the buildings were when I was a little kid. Everything is spotless and well maintained but the buildings just have this sort of frontier town feel to them.

Last night we went to an Italian restaurant called Zaferano that is in the Old Swan Brewery district and sits right on the Swan River. We had a great table near the water and were able to watch all the boats going back and forth while eating.

The meal was decent. I was amazed though that on their wine list was a 2004 Dry River Pinot Noir from New Zealand. This has been named the best Pinot Noir in New Zealand for several years and some wine critics have said it is the best in the world. It is a very limited production of only about 2500 bottles a year in total and is almost impossible to get. So the fact this restaurant had some was interesting. But that is not the point. The point is that they were charging $185 per bottle yet I am on their mailing list on the other side of the world and I am able to get an allocation of 12 bottles a year for much less than half the price this restaurant was charging. Needless to say, we did not order any.

We got back from dinner about 1030 and made a couple of calls and went to bed. It is now Saturday morning (the day that is supposed to be really hot!) and we are going to probably go on a Tram tour and then do a cruise down the Swan.