Written on May 13, 2022 (Day 1) :
Owing to COVID-19, one needs to get a “Travel Authorisation” in order to enter Bermuda. One needs to submit proof of vaccination and then a negative NAAT/PCR test result (not more than 4 days before arrival).
I submitted my negative test result Tue. night (May 10) immediately after I got it. But I got nothing back even up to Thur. morning (May 12), the day before my trip. I had sent email twice (May 11 and May 12) to the Bermuda authority (TAapprovals@gov.bm as well as another place online) but I got no response.
May 12 before noon, I couldn’t wait any more ! I finally called their COVID hotline (1 (441) 444-2498 using Skype) — my wait position was 88/89 at the beginning of the phone call(s). After the call was connected (after ~52 minutes or so), an officer quickly reviewed and approved my “Travel Authorisation” and sent me an email. I didn’t want to hang up until I received the email. I did. Then, it’s good !!! The entire process probably ended in about just 3 minutes or so.
At the end, I asked her whether people need to call before the “Travel Authorisation” can be approved. She said “not necessary” but just they were busy (those kind of bullshit …) …. Anyway, instead of waiting anxiously, the best way is to call and you’d get immediate approval !!!
［Really boring or interesting details:
The first time I used Skype, after I waited for 41 minutes. My call was cut off by Skype as my Skype credit was used up — I used Microsoft Rewards to gain those credits) ! Afterwards, I tried to use Microsoft Rewards to get Skype credits but somehow Microsoft Rewards requests were no longer processed immediately at the 5th time (in principle, it said 24 hours … the previous 4 times took only like a few minutes). I almost wanted to pay with my real money (credit card) but then I found Skype “subscription” trial for first month 200 minutes — I’ll cancel after this trip.
Later, I realized that they also have a Toll Free Number (1-833-570-2594) ! Stupid me. ］
Before I return to US, I need to have a negative rapid/antigent test. It’s nice that the Bermuda govt. provides this test (which is covered by $40 they charged for the Travel Authorisation). They said that it’s automatically scheduled but nobody seemed to know how it is supposed to work. I thought the flight attendants would know but it turned out that those flight attendants had never entered Bermuda themselves ! These New-York-based Delta crews have only stayed at the Bermuda airport (and then returned to New York. Even at the airport, the several airport/govt. staff didn’t really know and sometimes when they said something wrong (like Perot Post Office not being opened on Sunday), I could contradict them by pointing to their govt’s webpages. I will write more after I finally do it myself.
There was a lady at the exit who asked whether I already had a negative test — a redundant check as our Travel Authorisation had been checked by other Bermudian airport officials. I also asked her about the outbound test without getting better answers, and at the end, I asked about where the bus stop was and whether I could use US coins (quarters) to take the bus. She told me “no” that I couldn’t use US coins. This just contradicted what I had read. I then asked another lady in the information desk 50 feet away and she told me “of course, I could”.
I have prepared 20 US quarters for taking the bus because by regulation (https://www.gov.bm/bus-fares), one can’t pay by paper notes (though some bus drivers may allow). One can’t buy tokens or day passes at the airport and so using US quarters is my only option to take cheapest ground transportation.
That lady who told me that I couldn’t use US coins to pay for bus is totally ignorant ?! One wonders how this can be possible ?! And throughout the rest of the day, US coins are completely mixed with Bermudian coins (which has the Queen’s head), when I paid or when I was given the changes.
The bus from the airport don’t stop close to my apartment (that I am staying) but I know approximate where the closet stop is (from limited information of bus stops) and I showed the bus driver my map with my marking. He did tell me where to get off. It’s another 15 minutes or so (on foot) from the bus stop to my apartment. It’s slightly more difficult than I thought initially (even with Google map — one wishes GPS resolution could be better than what it’s). One of the reasons is that the road/street names are not well or abundantly marked.
But eventually, I found my apartment albeit the initial mistake. I was a bit exhausted as I needed to climb a slope of almost 100 m at about 30° (?).
Honestly speaking, the later travel experience around Hamilton today was not as “exhilarating” as the above-mentioned logistical challenges. Just like a boy scout, I have reached the several places that I have planned for myself.
All places I went today are free except the “Bermuda National Gallery” which cost $5. This Gallery is more substantial than the neighboring “Bermuda Society of Arts” in the same City Hall, which tried to sell paintings (today). But still, I don’t think I have spent much longer than 15 minutes in that Gallery 
The most interesting place that I have visited today was Fort Hamilton as one could walk around the big Fort in tunnels at different levels underground, with some feel of maze and labyrinth. It’s a bit narrow and the floor path is also rugged. Walking around for more than half an hour inside, with a little imagination of my own, I could sense a little feeling of soldiers suffering in a war … though I read that this Fort was never really used. One feature that I didn’t enjoy was that the tunnels are not well connected such that, when you walked clockwise, you’d reach a wall and had to turn back and walk counter-clockwise and eventually meet with another wall. One bonus at this site is that it offers good views of Bermuda when you stand at the top of Fort Hamilton.
Today’s flight was almost full but in all the places that I went today, I almost didn’t see other tourists. Maybe, everybody went to the beaches ?!
Apart from the beaches (I guess), Front St. along the Hamilton Harbor was the place where I saw some concentration of tourists. I guess I will keep on going there a few times.
With limited experiences so far, I don’t regard this island’s bureaucracy too highly. I guess there is a laid-back attitude or atmosphere. Many restaurants seemed to close at 5 pm (even on Friday). This has limited my choice of dinner Fortunately, supermarkets were still opened.
Written on May 14, 2022 (Day 2) :
Today’s destinations are on the eastern side of Bermuda. I could buy a few tokens ($2.75 for 3 zones and $4.50 for all zones) as it would save a little bit if I didn’t divert from my planned itinerary. But at the end, to have all kinds of flexibilities, I bought a 2-day pass $31.5) which works for both busses and ferries. The bus driver is supposed to validate my pass to mark the beginning of the first day. But no bus driver today has bothered to do so. Therefore, I could use it for more than 2 days ?!
The center of St. George, including Ordnance Island (which is really tiny) and the antique ship “Deliverance” is even smaller than I had expected.
But I have arranged myself to take a hike to Fort St. Catherine at the north-eastern cape. Though I knew it was not opened on Sat., I would like to walk around it and admire from outside. It could be as quick as 20 minutes but I made a couple mistakes even though I have been keeping asking people whenever I saw someone. By the time that I finally reached it with a lot of sweat and very little energy left, it’s roughly taken me almost 40 minutes. Though I saw a sign pointing to a straight path to Fort St. Catherine (and Tobacco Bay), I just ignored, mostly because I thought that it couldn’t be that close and straightforward — even using Google map didn’t make it clear. ( Clearly, there was a scale mismatch between my mind and the reality in Bermuda. ) After I got to the Fort at the end of the cape, as usual, I just swiftly looked around and took a couple photos of the Fort and the beach, and left. Again, travelling to me has often been the process to reach a destination, rather the destination itself.
The next destination, Blue Hole Park and Walsingham Nature Reserve, is the most adventurous activity in my Bermudian trip, as I have often seemingly created my own path by pushing through branches of trees and stepping gingerly in rugged rocks. I was mildly tripped a few times, and fighting with the tree branches has eventually led to a punched hole in my blue jeans.
Google map typically is useless in any kind of jungle and nature reserve. I followed the rough hints or instructions of <bermuda-attractions.com> and eventually I have successfully found the Blue Hole, Blue Hole #2 and Walsingham Cave. The Blue Hole was the easiest to locate whereas the Walsingham Cave was the toughest. I took a wrong path in my first attempt to find the Walsingham Cave and climbed some unwalkable pathway and cut through all kinds of thorns and tough branches. The Cave was too dark and my phone didn’t have too much power left for me to use flash to explore deep inside. I just use flash to take a photo or two for the stalactites and the deep blue water. With the help of a guide, one might spend hours and days in this park/reserve. I didn’t get myself wet by jumping cliff or swimming.
After that, with a tired body, I took another bus to go to the Bermuda Aquarium, Museum and Zoo, which turned out to be the nicest of its kind in Bermuda. The entrance fee ($10) is much worthwhile than that of the National Gallery that I visited yesterday. I was impressed by the aquarium but I was even more amazed by all the rare animals (from all over the world) that I have found in its zoo. For example, the bright colors of pink Caribbean Flemingos and Scarlet ibis immediately caught my eyes. This zoo seems to show animals that you don’t often see, rather than the usual tigers, lions or monkeys 
I went there because I had a lot of time left but I am certainly happy that I did. Even the museum there taught me a few interesting things about Bermuda such as each household needing to collect their rainwater (virtually the only source of water on the island) and paying for extra water supply if their collected rainwater is not enough.
Taking the bus around the island has also allowed me to admire the sometimes green and sometimes blue Sargasso Sea and the surrounding scenery along the narrow road. Apparently, the Bermudian busses seem to be electric (!) and they have USB power outlets (each with two outlets, one at 2.1 A and another at 1.1 A) for seemingly every seat. It was not obvious but after I googled a bit , the busses were manufactured by Xiamen Golden Dragon, a Chinese company !
Because of my personal bias, I have only noticed HSBC as the only bank in Bermuda. But after googling a bit, there are ~3 other commercial banks in Bermuda such as Butterfield — I have seen this name but just didn’t realize it was a bank
Written on May 15, 2022 (Day 3) :
Today’s plan was complicated by the fact that I needed to do a covid-19 antigen test with a negative result in order to be able to take tomorrow’s flight back to US. The good thing about Bermuda is that the (nonrefundable) $40 fee paid for Travel Authorisation includes such test. The unfortunate part is that the detail was very unclear. The Bermuda govt. website said that the test (to be done at the Perot Post Office) would be automatically scheduled when I landed. Nobody did this for me. The seemingly most knowledgeable airport staff told me just to go straight to Perot Post Office as I had the Travel Authorisation. But I listened to another airport staff and reserved for such a test myself at the bottom of their website — to be done at the Washington Mall — when I was still at the airport. I actually thought of doing so even when I was in US. If that automatic scheduling were true, I should have two reserved tests. (Or, if I didn’t schedule myself, they would make me one in Perot Post Office ?!) But in the weekend, I only received email reminder about the test I had scheduled myself. And in fact, Perot Office had the sign of “NO WALK-IN APPOINTMENT”.
Anyway, after I returned from my trips in the Royal Naval Dockyard and Horseshoe Bay, I went to do the antigen test more than one hour before the scheduled time (1:25 pm). They said that it was not a problem. The staff there probed only quite shallowly into my nose — by now I have been quite experienced myself with nasal swaps (20 tests of PCR or antigen). I wouldn’t complain because all I want is to return to US tomorrow and I want a negative result. The staff there said that the result would be sent to me in 2-4 hours.
I was pleasantly surprised that I got the email of a negative result (with a link to obtain the necessary document) at 1:05 pm ! This was actually consistent with their webpage claim: “Every effort will be made to provide the Antigen Test result via email within an hour of the test. ” 
But I don’t mind about the low expectation that the staff at Washington Mall gave me. Low expectation often makes life more bearable
This morning, I took the ferry (covered by the transportation pass) from Hamilton to Royal Naval Dockyard — western end of Bermuda and then took bus 7 to return. I stopped at Horseshoe Bay before returning to Hamilton for the covid test.
The National Museum of Bermuda (& Dolphin Quest) at the tip of the Dockyard is today’s highlight. It’s basically Bermuda’s largest fort — the dolphins (kind of bonus!) are inside a couple pools whose end has gate(s) to be opened or closed to the sea. The magnificent and often huge structures have been well reserved and there are plenty of historical displays throughout the buildings above ground and underground. The underground floors have low ceilings and narrow passages, which injected quite a bit of extra fun compared to a normal museum of normal settings. I spent an hour there but I could have doubled that one hour if I had cared to read more descriptions on the displays.
I was the second last person in a long queue to get on the originally empty no. 7 bus (as the Dockyard is the western end/terminal of that line). I heard the locals commented that today things were quite busy (like the full bus) because of the presence of two cruise ships (blue “Celebrity Summit” and white “Norwegian Pearl”) docking at the Dockyard.
By chance, I have noticed (from its lack of USB ports) that not all Bermuda busses (such as the no. 7 busses I took today) are electric. Googling a bit, it seems that so far only one third of busses in Bermuda are electric and their goal is to electrify all public transport by 2030.
I picked the most famous beach, Horseshoe Bay, to visit and take a look. It’s smaller than I thought and the alleged pink-sand didn’t look really pink to me. I have lived in Long Island (where there are many longer beaches if not also more marvelous) for almost 22 years and I honestly think that we don’t need to go to any place in the world to look for better beaches ! At the end, I only stayed for only 10 minutes during which I asked people to take some pictures of myself in the beach.
After the covid-19 test and an expensive Egg Benedict — in the well reviewed/rated Devil’s Isle Cafe — (which tasted better than that I ate in US, probably due to the fact that they used prosciutto instead of Canadian bacon), I made an impromptu decision to visit the Botanical garden as transportation pass would allow me to take busses anywhere and I had too much time left. It’s a big and somewhat hilly place. It didn’t have too much amazing flowers to impress me but it’s a tranquil place to relax a little. Most importantly, it’s here I discovered that the Bermudian authority had sent me the negative test result. At that moment, I genuinely breathed a sigh of relief as only then was I sure that I could fly back to US tomorrow. That’s the best “experience” of mine in the Botanical Garden.
Though tired, I decided to go to the Admiralty House Park close to the guest apartment that I am staying. It’s said that people sometimes jumped cliff from there. I found the jagged cliff and another small beach without too much difficulty. Nobody jumped from the cliff when I was there but it’s another fascinating place with greenish lagoon-like waters with some corals at the bottom. Bermuda has uncountable number of beautiful places like this.
Bermuda is an expensive place to visit. On one hand, I spontaneously didn’t spend too much ; on the other hand, I don’t care nor worry how much I had spent, as the amount is tiny compared to my savings and retirement accounts. The former habit helps make sure the latter is true. 
It’s not a contradiction.
Written on May 16, 2022 (Day 4, the day of returning to US) :
After saying farewell to Windsong Guest Apartments, I walked about 30 minutes until I reached a 5-star hotel (Hamilton Princess & Beach Club). The Pitts Bay Road is typical of Bermuda (outside Hamilton), narrow and mostly absence of pedestrian pavements. One has to be careful to avoid being hit by vehicles.
I “swaggered” with my backpack towards the hotel entrance and the porter there greeted me and opened the door for me. I quickly found the way to the seafront of the hotel and located a long rattan sunlounger. I took it and relaxed myself for a little while with the view of beautiful Hamilton Harbour and the soothing wind.
I have avoided my transportation pass from being validated/punched until this morning when I took the no. 10 bus to the airport. That young woman driver diligently wanted to punch my 2-day pass. It’s originally bought yo be used for May 14-15. But since nobody had punched it before then, that driver punched it for May 16-17 I certainly have gamed the system 
Half of the Bermuda airport departure area is seemingly dedicated for travels to US, and the presence of US custom and immigration desk here means that I/we wouldn’t need to deal with it in JFK airport. Compared with the awful long lines of going through the immigration/entry control in JFK, there was virtually no wait and no lines in front of US immigration desks here at Bermuda airport. Nice !
Though I don’t think the Bermudian bureaucracy is rigorous or efficient (from only 3 days of experience), it apparently still works (to some extent). About taking advantage of the system, I am not sure whether few people care or most Bermudians are just rule-obedient. I am just one of the very few who would even think of gaming the system ?! The largest industry of this small archipelago and British colony with little natural resources is banking and financial services. The second largest industry is tourism. The bus and ferry systems of Bermuda seem good and pleasant enough to me (though one would always hope for more frequent services). I have got no real experience with Bermudian’s financial services. I guess I can’t really project my transportation/tourism experience towards their financial sector. But I can’t help wondering how rigid or strict their financial services are 
More and more for me, the meaning of travelling is how I get to places A, B, …, instead of how great and fantastic those places really are themselves. The most significant or unforgettable experience of this trip is not the langoon-like waters or any scenic spots in Bermuda, but rather the experience and all the hassles of international travel during (as yet) a covid-19 pandemic era.
PS:
(1) Though I said “international”, Bermuda is very close to US both geographically — actual flight time may not be longer than 2 hours — and in people’s daily lives such as the currency (BD$1=US$1 and mixture of the two) and TV channels that I have found/watched in the last 3 days.
Coins in Bermuda are made ~the same as in US in terms of sizes and the denominations ( 1, 5, 10, 25 and 50 cents — though 50-cent coin US are now made only for collectors and Bermudian 50-cent coin has also been phased out for ~30 years ).
Owing to the nature of mixing usage of Bermudian and US coins, I have only one Bermudian coin left that I have taken home ! I show it (10 cents) here.
(2) I dined in two restaurants, Devil’s Isle Cafe and Bouchée, and paid by credit card. The gratuities included were respectively 18% and 17%.
In Devil’s Isle Cafe, the total (including 18% gratuity) was $22.72 (May 15, 2022). After they scanned my credit card, they didn’t ask me to sign and when I asked them, the (tall) Caucasian staff (cashier or manager?) just said “it’s OK”. When I asked for a (credit card) receipt, he just pointed to the original receipt (not a credit card receipt) meaning that I already got it. I didn’t insist (as I didn’t distinguish the difference between a credit card receipt and just a restaurant receipt) at that time.
After I returned to US, on May 18, I noticed in my credit card transactions listed online, they charged me $25.72, $3 more than it should. I called “Devil’s Isle Cafe” using Skype and when I got to speak with the evening manager (in the “evening” already in Bermuda), he reluctantly copied down my credit card no. and expiration date and said that he’d pass it to the day-time manager and credit $3 to me as soon as possible. I then called my bank and the bank quickly agreed to issue a credit of $3 (first appeared as a temporary credit on May 19 and then became permanent on May 20, according to their two notices).
In retrospect, the behavior of that tall — not really that tall compared to NBA players — Caucasian staff now seems a little suspicious to me for this $3 discrepancy, even though the evening manager said that it was not intentional but just a mistake. I’ve not seen Devil’s Isle Cafe crediting me back that $3. It’s possible that the restaurant and the bank had communicated and the restaurant agreed to return $3, and therefore the $3 credit (to me) has stood.
Kin's space 