Diamond Princess Beijing to Anchorage After a fantastic time in Beijing, it was time to begin the main part of our vacation. We arranged a private car through the same tour company that looked after us for the last 3 days. Not wanting to travel 3 hours in a Red Flag sedan, the size of a Mitsubishi Galant, we asked for a bigger vehicle. We both thought it would be an Audi A6, but as it turned out, it was a Mercedes mini bus. It looked strange at first, but it turned out to allow both of us much more space on the long journey to Xingang, the port city of Beijing. Making our way through the heavy Beijing traffic and hitting the freeway, we were saying to each other how quickly we would make it ... read more

We woke around 7am, to find a wet and rainy Shanghai. We walked from the hotel to the Peoples Park only 5 minutes away, and due to the weather there was hardly anyone there, disappointing considering having seen all the travel documentaries showing lots of people doing morning Tai Chi. There were people in groups of 3 or 4 just waiting around for the weather to clear and taking a morning walk. The Shanghai skyline was very bleak and felt closed in. We realised there was not much on offer, so decided to walk to the Bund, a part of ‘old Shanghai’ which is a road that faces the Huangpu River, where numerous banks and trading houses from Western Countries operated from the 1930’s to the 1950’s. The architecture was interesting, lots of old stone ... read more

How a vacation plan can change so easily. With the Volcano erupting in Iceland and the plumes of volcanic ash over Britain and European Countries, many travellers plans were in disarray or just became unstuck. Airline carriers in Australia had placed embargoes on flights to Singapore, Bangkok and Hong Kong. This meant Jeffrey and I had to hastily change departure date, flight and hotel accomodation. Not knowing what flight we would get, we rearranged to fly Qantas straight to Shanghai 25 April and stay there for 2 days and fly Air China to Beijing. We have booked to stay at the Le Royale Meridien Shanghai, from there we do self tours. Checking websites with the question Shanghai in one day? The most answer was do pick 3 place to go ... read more

Pacific Princess, Amazon Cruise Friday March 13, 2009 Today we board the Pacific Princess, the main reason for this vacation. We had arrived in Manaus on a TAM Airlines flight last night at 12.05am, and caught a cab to the Novotel Hotel in Manaus. We had a buffet breakfast, and there was a big choice of dishes on offer, one of which was Piranha soup. Paul was glad he tasted it. It had a fishy flavor but was not anything out of the ordinary. Catching a cab to the port of Manaus, porters were waiting to take our luggage via overhead pedestrian bridge for a $3 tip. Checking was easy and walked along the wharf to board the Pacific Princess. We arrived in our stateroom, 7014, and looked around and checked out our balcony, which had ... read more

Sydney Buenos Aries Monday March 9 After packing the night before, our chauffeured car arrived at 7.20am. It was a Silver Statesman, not Black as Jeffrey had requested but very nice nevertheless. There was some light rain, but the driver loaded the bags, and then we bid farewell to the dogs, and our adventure began! Yesterday, we had been contacted by a Qantas First Host, who explained what services were available to us to before our flight. We were offered curbside check-in, and given a number to call when we were 10 minutes from the terminal. Paul called the number provided and spoke to Emmanuel, a First Host. When we arrived outside the terminal, Stuart, another of the hosts, met us with a porter who took care of our bags, while we strolled to the First ... read more