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Re: Countries you visited and those you avoided when you were at sea
Nearly all my deep sea voyages were to New Zealand. I still visit once per week to my old ship mate of more than fifty years in Nelson on Skype. My old Maori girl friend in Napier hasn't aged a day since I last saw her.
Bill.
Re: Countries you visited and those you avoided when you were at sea
She may have got a bit wet of late.
Napier was part of NZ badly hit by the typhoon that rages around a few weeks ago.
Re: Countries you visited and those you avoided when you were at sea
Wouldn't it be great if all of us on this site could have one last trip together, what a blast that would be the trip to end all trips. Rgds Den
Re: Countries you visited and those you avoided when you were at sea
I only had 5 years at sea, in the 60's, and look back on those days with great fondness.
At the time I always wanted to go to two country's, Japan and Mexico. I worked in the engine room and mostly sailed out of K.G.5. London.
I could never seem to find a ship going to the far east that seemed to have British crew in the engine room so Japan never happened.
I had always done "Deep Sea" trips, and of course you would be asked if you wanted to "come back" for the next trip.
On 30th October 1967. I did a "Run Job" (H/T) on the M.V. Cienfuegos from Victoria Dock to Hull. I paid off, and had my train ticket home.
Me, being me, because I was not asked back, assumed I was not required. Some time later I was in the Pool when a lad recognised me and came over to ask me why I did not sail on the Cienfuegos from Hull. He then told me that on H/T it was up to me to ask to stay on. He went on to say that they had a great trip, The ship broke down in Mexico and they were there for eight weeks. (Just my luck).
So, I did not get to Mexico either.
Frank.
Re: Countries you visited and those you avoided when you were at sea
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Ivan Cloherty
Having lived in Pakistan and India (in 70's) it may be a case of the pot calling the kettle black.
Having visited in excess of 90 countries on every Continent during my sea and shore career when I started my own company I decided that I would not do business with any country that required an exit visa having experienced many such places when working for someone else and being subject to all kinds of blackmail, danger and jumping through hoops to get such visa. I may not have enjoyed every minute but life was never boring, but then again life was dangerous at times where you didn't need an exit visa.
Hi Ivan you are right about exit visas, I like you, will never visit/work in any country again that carries out that practice. Most of those places are in my mind the U bends of the World and need flushing. The exit visa reinforces my theory that if you make it harder to leave a country than to get in. Then it is not worth visiting in the first place.
Re: Countries you visited and those you avoided when you were at sea
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Denis O'Shea
Wouldn't it be great if all of us on this site could have one last trip together, what a blast that would be the trip to end all trips. Rgds Den
Great idea Denis, but if we relived our earlier years, how many of us would survive the trip?
Re: Countries you visited and those you avoided when you were at sea
Not many I have not been to but the one thing I do regret , never got to NZ. All time favourite was Canada east and west coasts, Vancouver or anywhere in British Columbia. Loved the run up to Prince Rupert using the Inside Passage?
Singapore & Hong Kong in the late 60's through the 70's Worst places , anywhere down the Red Sea or up the Persian Gulf.
Re: Countries you visited and those you avoided when you were at sea
My favourite places were the Americas and New Zealand. Anywhere South, or East of the med was the worst. Older blokes used to tell me that Suez was the a***hole of the world, and beyond was the toilet. I found out the hard way.
Re: Countries you visited and those you avoided when you were at sea
I've travelled almost as many as Ivan, enjoyed all except Indian, the Assh.... of the world and Delhi is ninety miles up it, I wasn't wrapped on Iran, but it was because it was more frustrating than anything else.
I spent three years living and working in Iran. I was sent there to open an industrial catering company, feeding mostly US and Brit workers on oil rigs and constructing pipelines.* I landed a huge contract with the Iranian Imperial Navy who had purchased two Italia Lines passenger ships The Rafaello*and the Michelangelo, at the time the fourth largest passenger ships in the world. to house officers and ratings at Bandar Abbas and Bushier.
I had been over in New York for a company meeting.* Flying back to Tehran on Iran Air, a young female Iranian, sitting next to me, started bad mouthing*me, the USA and the Shah. becoming very vocal,*That was a no no.* Always on planes flying to and from Iran, government agents, of SARVAC, the Iranian secret police were on board, you bad mouthed the Shah and it was jail or worse.* I called New York and told my boss I had to meet him in Rome, straight away.* All the phones in Iran were bugged. We met, I told him we had to close and I should sell the company if I could.* He wasn't happy about it, but he agreed. My employment*contract was coming to an end anyway and I was training my replacement.
**
I had to renew my resident*visa, I spoke enough Farsi to get about and do my job, but I miss understood what the Iranian clerk said in directing me to the resident visa clerk on*another floor.* I went to the wrong floor.* All the offices were empty. or so it seemed, I shouted out "Hallo" an Iranian in a senior officer's uniform came out of an office, asked me what I wanted, ushered me into his office, asked again what I wanted and why did I want it?* Really snotty.* I mentioned the name of the company and that I was the managing director and told him I needed my visa to travel down to the two ships. He started to smile, got up shook hands and almost kissed me and introduced himself, he was General (can't remember his name), and commander-in Chief of the SARVAC. and he had spent the weekend on the Michelangelo, and his suite was marvelous*" and the food was very delicious, and my wife and I danced for hours."* He got out a piece*of letterhead paper and wrote a couple of paragraphs in Farsi, gave it to me and told me that it would take care of any visas I needed.
* So in for a penny, in for a pound.* I told him I have great difficulty getting into the docks, to get aboard the vessels. Could he help me with that?* He asked me if I had a passport photo, I said yes,* He filled out a card and stuck my photo to it, stamped it with about three different*stamps, and told me that will get me into anywhere in Iran...and I might say, it got me out as the balloon went up, I got out on the last US bound (went to the head of the line too) flight as Ayatollah Khomani came in to Tehran, airport. I would suspect, if he had a crappy meal and a lousy cabin I would still be there.
He never explained*why all the offices were empty...I wonder if he shot everybody?
To put it in perspective. If that had been 1939 in Germany, I had just wandered into the office of Himmler.
I sold the company, office equipment and inventories, to a Dutch catering company that was starting up in Iran. got ninety percent of our accounts receivable, so became a hero to the company and landed a promotion in the New York, head office.
Cheers, Rodney:cool:
Re: Countries you visited and those you avoided when you were at sea
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Rodney Mills
I've travelled almost as many as Ivan, enjoyed all except Indian, the Assh.... of the world and Delhi is ninety miles up it, I wasn't wrapped on Iran, but it was because it was more frustrating than anything else.
l:
One of the smelliest places in India was Calcutta, the smell of death was everywhere and the body carts drawn by the unclean used to go around at 0500 every morning collecting dead bodies from the streets (circa 70's) down the EC of India in places like Machilipattinam it was like going back a 1000 years in time and difficult to get to, enough experiences on EC and WC India to write a book but very few would believe what was written and the Indian Embassy would probably sue me. However I was in Bombay when the beggars went on strike, not funny when you have a ship in drydock with bottom plates off and no one would go to work because they could not fullfil their karma by giving beggars a few annas, took a couple of weeks to sort out and then another two weeks for the dockyard to get into gear, then they started to flood the dock whilst we still had bottom plates off. However I never felt in danger at anytime whilst living in India or Pakistan, except at the bottom of a drydock!!.
The places I felt most danger whilst on business trips were Nigeria and Guinee Bissau, the latter place never took credit cards or travellers cheques so you had to carry large amounts of cash to settle hotel and other bills and all the locals knew this and were not shy of sticking a machette in your face and of course there were no exit visas but you still had to pay authorities at the airport before getting to the boarding gate because you were carrying too much money out of the country even if you were down to your last $100, and after leaving exit Customs queue your case was always 10kgs lighter.
Had an AK47 stuck up my nose on many occasions in various countries while on AID programmes, also been shot at, but at least you never suffered from constipation and life was never boring, do it all again, probably, I went to many places even Heineken couldn't reach!
