Leglessbird Travel Guide

Some quick thoughts...

It doesn't seem that long ago that we were all excited in planning (August 2007) for our long trip to Antarctica, South America and Paris during January and February 2008. We have since returned to Hong Kong but the excitement stays. We felt a sense of achievement to have visited all 7 continents together and at the same time we felt deeply blessed. The Antarctica cruise was about wildlife, nature and history (explorers who came before us). To call it eye-opening maybe an understatement.

Antarctica is the last of the world's seven continents where Irene and I set foot together. We didn't think of it before the trip until a Cambridge student asked me if we would have been to all 7 continents after this expedition. In order to reach Antarctica, we had to go to Ushuaia (Argentina) where our cruise began. This brought us to the 6th continent on our list - South America, which is also a fascinating continent that we will return to at some point for sure.

The Antarctica trip was simply magnificent, plenty of wildlife (penguins, seals, Whales, birds, dolphins) and very impressive natural sceneries like icebergs, big sea waves and various untouched beaches. Not only was it eye opening, it made much impact on our view of life. There were 107 passengers on board of the vessel "Lyubov Orlova" (named after a Russian actress), most of our fellow travellers were retired, everyone have already travelled extensively, as one can appreciate, Antarctica is hardly a destination for beginners. Many people told us that "it is a good idea to start travelling and see the world when you are young, don't wait till your retirement".

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When we were surrounded by the wilderness of Antarctica region, we were at the complete mercy of mother nature. Our activities were totally dictated by what the weather and sea condition permitted. At the same time, it was such a blessing to indulge ourselves in the unspoiled environment with no man-made objects whatsoever (apart from our ship). None of the distraction of our so-called normal life from the outside world, emails, mobile phone, routines, money, business, countries, stock markets, presidential election, religious, etc, none of these mattered there. What mattered was what kind of penguins we were going to see tomorrow, weather we would see a whale if we sat around on the open deck. Though we knew full well that such good time could not last long let alone forever, nonetheless, we appreciated every moment.

We also enjoyed all the lectures on board covering a wide range of topics, marine lives (krills, whales, seals), birds (albatrosses, penguins), geology and history (Explorers, Falkland Islands, South Georgia, Antarctica, Antarctica Treaty).

This was our first cruise, while we do find that this mode of travelling is convenient and has many advantages, we don't think this would be our favourite way to see the world just yet. We still like the freedom of moving around and not bound to a fixed schedule.

More later...