To see more photos, click here. Scroll down to read Mike's posts.

 

Margaret's Notes:

 

Friday, June 10, 2016

 

We're docked at Port Klang, Malaysia, and there is nothing here to see or do.  The tours all go to Kuala Lumpur, but it's a 90-minute bus ride there.  After our experience in Penang, and having seen lots of tall unusual buildings recently, we opted to stay on board and relax.  Actually, we worked out this morning and will do some laundry before heading to the pool.

 

Hopefully we will find a cozy spot to stretch out and read.  There are hoards of families on the ship now.  Mostly Indian and Asian.  And when I say families, I mean like 4 generations.  Great-grandpa in a wheel chair and infants.  Eight to ten people at a table for meals.  The kids are having a ball -- it's like Disney for them, with all the fun stuff for them to do.  

 

We'll be at sea all day tomorrow, then back to Singapore for the start of our next leg, our final 14 days (sniff, sniff).

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Wednesday, June 8, 2016

 

Our afternoon and evening in Singapore turned out to be really fun, but at the time the stops and starts had us wondering what was in store for us.  To begin, we’d gotten a message to pick up our passports, but thought it was not meant for continuing cruisers.  At all other ports, we just needed our ship’s SeaPass card and a photo ID.  But, turns out, in Singapore we need our Passports.  So we had to make a stop at Guest Services to pick them up. 

 

Our intent was to use public transportation, which we did.  However, first we needed to get some Singapore cash.  We headed off to the nearest metra station, got lost, and finally found it.  It was a search for the single ATM machine.  The man in front of Mike put his card in, the machine kept it and shut down.  That was a close call!  We picked up some maps from the info desk and talked to a nice attendant who let us get on a train to the next station where there was another ATM.  They have a very nice, efficient and clean train system. \

 

We got off at a station near the Raffles Hotel, but then couldn’t figure out which direction it was in, even though we knew it was only a block away.  A nice lady asked us if we needed help, and then pointed to the hotel. We found the Long Bar, and the Singapore Sling tasted really really good.  We bought some souvenirs and decided to get something to eat.

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A friend had recommended a restaurant and my foggy brain got the name messed up.  Instead of going to Satay Club, we went to Satay by the Bay.  It is actually a food court in the middle of a beautiful park.  There were lots of locals there.  We ordered satay that was quite good, then ordered noodles with seafood that also was good.  That and a couple of Tiger beers (draft) made for a nice meal.  We had a problem finding a taxi, but made it back to the ship for a hot shower and much needed rest.

 

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Tuesday, June 7, 2016

 

Today was a visit to Penang, Malaysia.  We took a tour to the Temple of 10,000 Buddhas.  That doesn't mean that there are 10,000 of them, it just means that there are a LOT of them.  And there were.  Way up a mountain.  We walked up over 200 steep, irregular, winding steps and then took a cable car up even higher.  It's actually a complex of temples built between 1890 and 1930.  The sights were both beautiful and heart breaking.  Again, as in India, there is much neglect and a lot of trash laying around.  But it was an interesting trip.  After the temple, we had time to shop at a mall.  However, the mall was more like a giant five and dime.  I did find a cute top for about $7 US.  We had some time after the tour and walked around the old part of the city.  Mike spotted a food court, and I spotted cold beer there.  Perfect!, as we were both extremely hot, sweaty and tired.

 

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Monday, June 6, 2016

 

I added some photos to Cochin, will add more.  Yesterday it took all day to upload 14 of them.  WooHoo!  Today, as we are closer to Malaysia, I was able to upload lots of photos.  Check out Cochin and a few on the Life On Board page.

 

Our sea days have turned into routine.  Up around 8 a.m., light breakfast, then workout.  Shower, dance class, then lunch.  In the afternoons there usually is a lecture or reception.  If not, we'll grab our tablets and head for a comfortable chair or couch by the pool.   Maybe play cards.  Then at 7:00 is dancing, then dinner.  If there's a good show, we may go to the Theatre.

 

As I watch the people on the ship, I am taking notice of the families.  Parents with toddlers look very tired (why did they bring them?).  The teenagers, no matter what country they are from, all have the same body language.  The girls are Bored, wishing they were home with their friends, and the boys are all up at the game room in front of the big screens having a blast.  

 

Mike updated his blog, so scroll down.....

 

 

 

Thursday, June 2, 2016

 

Cochin, India is a mix of beauty and neglect and has left an everlasting effect on me.  The country is so beautiful, green and lush.  The people are so beautiful -- women in their brightly colored saris and shiny black hair, school children in crisp uniforms, and men dressed in traditional mundus.  Everyone looks clean, neat, and they carry themselves proudly as they busily walk through the streets.  The streets, however, are a stark contrast to this beauty.  There is trash piled up all along the walkways and streets and lots.  Trash everywhere.  The housing is mostly ramshackle stone or stucco huts.  The government has built modern apartments, but the people want to keep their own homes and choose to live as their ancestors.  You will see from the photos that laundry is done mostly by hand.

 

Our first day we chose to take a tour of Alleppey and the back waters on a houseboat.  It was a 2-hour bus ride, one way,  on a 20 person bus.  My stomach was in my mouth most of the time.  We drove on a 2-lane highway that drivers seemed to think had 3 lanes. We drove through small towns, past beautiful rivers and lakes, rice patties, canals and other waterways.  On arrival to to Alleppey, we boarded a motor boat that took us to our houseboat.  There are about 1500 houseboats on the

 

lakes here, and most are only available to rent.  People come from all over India to rent one for a day or two for holiday.  The photos will take you through our 4-hour glide along rivers and lakes.  The crew prepared a delicious lunch for us (again, see the photos). 

 

Today we opted for a tour of Cochin.  We were taken to churches, a synagogue, the historic area of Cochin, an area locally known as “Jew town”, and saw Vasco de Gama’s house and grave. We saw churches built by Portuguese that have survived Dutch and English occupation. We toured a royal family palace built in the 1500s.  We also toured a synagogue that was established 2,000 years ago.

Holistic medicine is big business here.  There are many holistic doctors, and people come from all over the world (according to our guide) for treatments.  Some stay for months at a time.  Many shops sell essential oils and herbs. 

 

Pepper has been (and still is) an important product of Cochin. Traders for thousands of years came to trade for pepper, which became known as black gold, because it was traded for gold.  The Portuguese eventually got tired of paying and just took over the country. The monsoons (which occur for two months twice a year) are vital to the cultivation of pepper.  Because of the taste, bees do not like them and thus won’t pollinate.  The monsoons come and fulfill that need – yes, the rain actually pollinates the pepper plants.  The monsoons also are well liked by the fishermen, as the rains cool the water and make it easier to catch fish.  The Chinese introduced a way of fishing with nets that is still used today.  The sea was a little rough today, so we did not get to see nets being thrown out, but did watch some fisherman at work. 

 

The monsoon was due to begin June 1, but we lucked out.  No rain until late this evening, when we were well underway to our next destination.

 

June 1, Wednesday

 

We're in India!  I was surprised to see the modern high-rise buildings in Cochin.  Our tour today, however, took us through the back roads and small towns to a vacation city called Alleppey.  So much like what I had imagined India to be.  I will write more later.  

 

Scroll down to read Mike's blog.

 

 

May 28, Saturday

 

Muscat is exactly what I had pictured an Arab country to be.  Desert, hills, clean, and friendly people.  Low buildings tucked in to the mountainside.  Nestled in between the sea and mountains, Muscat is a city of about 2 million people.  The primary business is oil, but also trade and tourism is growing.  Be sure to read Mike’s post.

 

We had another very entertaining tour guide.  I did not get his name, it was something like “Behran”, and he told us many stories about life in his country.  His mother is 65 years old, has never learned to read, and is one of his father’s three wives (men are allowed to have as many as four wives).  She helped pick them out when she got tired of doing all the housework herself.  The women in the village where Behran grew up meet every day to discuss important things like whose son should marry whose daughter.  When he was 25, his mother told him it was time to get married.  So he described to her the kind of woman he’d like and she set out to find her.  Once that was accomplished, a big engagement party was held and Behran had to pay a large dowry.  He still had not seen the girl.  So, he asked one of his sisters to find out when the girl would be going to the mall.  Sitting in a chair with sunglasses on and reading a newspaper, he was able to spot her and check her out without being seen.  Fortunately, he approved and wedding was planned.   As an American, I find this custom a bit odd, but as a mother I really like the idea. The total cost of the dowry, engagement party and wedding, however, cost about $50,000.  I'm not sure I like that part.

 

Another thing Behran told us is that Omani women are not allowed to cover their faces in public.  The reason for this is that a man could cover himself with women’s clothes and go into a women’s restroom.  We did not ask him about LGBT restrooms. 

 

We also learned that women can work for 18 years or to the age of 50, but men must work for 30 years or to age 60, whichever comes first.  Women retire with 80 percent salary and benefits.  They also get four months’ paid maternity leave with no limit on the number of children. 

 

School is free and mandatory now, from elementary to high school, and college is also free.

 

There was much to see in Muscat, and I’m sad that our time there was so short.

 

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May 26 and 27, Thursday and Friday

 

Dubai is the half-way point for us.  We have traveled 7,000 miles and have 7,000 more to go. The adventure continues ...

 

 Thursday we spent sightseeing and shopping. The hop-on hop-off Big Bus offered a shuttle from the ship to the Dubai Mall, and we spent some time there before hopping on the bus.  There are several routes and all were available to us as I had purchased the 2-day package.  First we toured the historic district and an old souk (shopping market), then we took the beach route.  We got back to the Mall just in time to get on the last shuttle back to the bus.

 

Exhausted and hot, we got some food, a good shower, and hit the hay.  Friday we headed back to the Mall for some more shopping.  Back at the ship by 1:00, we had to attend another safety drill, then went to a lecture about Muscat, Oman, our next port.  I am looking forward to that, as I found the busy-ness of Dubai and it's unleashed architects a bit much.  

 

This evening, we went to a show, Nik Cage, from London, and he was really good.  His presentation and voice are first rate.  Sang songs from Jersey Boys, Andrea Bocelli, Les Mis, Pavorati, and Elton John.

 

 

 

Mike's Notes:

 

Thursday, June 9

 

Our second of three non-continuous days in Singapore.  We have a short 3 day cruise to Port Klang (Kuala Lumpur) and then back to Singapore for the 3rd and final Singapore day. 

 

We got up extra early this morning (6AM) to surrender our Ship (SeaPass) cards for the 3rd leg that just finished and got logged in with new cards for the next short 4th leg.  At Singapore the ships staff has changed to 80% Asian, mostly Chinese.  The passenger mix has changed as well.  There was a substantial number of Australians and New Zealanders who left at Singapore to fly home.  We are seeing more, large Chinese and Indian family groups with small children on the ship.

 

Our day out to Singapore ended on a sour note.  I managed to lose my wallet with my ATM card, Drivers License and the joint credit card we were using.  Bummer!  Fortunately, we had planned for a blip like this and brought along (but not carried with us) alternate credit and ATM accounts to use. 

 

But before the sourness, we started our day with a taxi ride to Chinatown and spent several hours there.  The streets are made up of “Shophouses” which are colorfully painted 3 story row houses with first floor retail space.  Amongst the usual trinkets were shops with better merchandise and we bought a couple of items to bring home including a nice set of matching chopsticks.  And then the day took a turn.  Right next door to the chopstick shop was a custom tailor. 

 

Before you could say “Boo”, Margaret and I were being measured.  I had always wanted a custom suit (and certainly don’t need it now that I’ve retired) but a really good travel sport coat would come in handy.  Margaret had thought about using this trip to get a custom dress for Maureen’s wedding and that has happened.  We came back to the tailor 3-4 hours later for a rough fit and the final items will be ready for us on Sunday when we sail back into Singapore. 

 

I have a new focus for Hong Kong now that I know Singapore Rice Noodles are a dish created not in Singapore but in Hong Kong. 

 

We have a shore excursion tomorrow to Kuala Lumpur and we are wondering if we are up to spending 5 hours on a bus.  We may eat the $80 cost and just laze around the ship. 

 

BULLETIN:  And am I the luckiest guy in the world or what?  My wallet was found and delivered to the ship before we sailed.  This is a reminder to me to be more careful.  I’ve lost my wallet three times on trips and three times I have gotten it back intact.  No fourth time!

 

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Wednesday, June 8

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For a change we came into a port in the afternoon and Singapore is a good port to watch as the ship crept into the harbor.  There were ships anchored everywhere.  Instead of few container loading cranes, in Singapore there were dozens.  This is the first country that we had to retrieve our passports and take the actual passports off the ship.  Immigration scrutiny was efficient but unexpected.  Our foray off the ship was to get a Singapore Sling at Raffles and something to eat, Margaret’s post has the details.

 

From the sea, Singapore has a similar futuristic skyline to Dubai.  We had another lecture on the ship about things to see in Singapore and that was helpful to make up our list of things to visit.  It also highlighted all that we will not have time to visit during our extended but still limited time. 

 

I’m a little bummed about how badly Verizon is performing in our sojourn.  A couple of our fellow passengers gave us Verizon users pitying looks as they extolled the virtues of T-Mobile.

 

High marks for the politeness and helpfulness of the mass transit employees.

 

Tomorrow is almost a full day in Singapore but we think we may have to be back aboard in mid-afternoon rather than early evening.  Tomorrow is also the official end of this leg of the cruise and the start of a new very short leg of 3 days that loops out to Port Klang and back into Singapore.  That means a flurry of activity as people leave and new passengers board and for us as we get new ID cards and Singapore port cards twice in 3 days, painful.

 

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Monday & Tuesday, June 6 & 7

 

Tuesday was Penang Malaysia.  Penang was a British colony for many years and you can see the influence.  If you are going to climb 200 steps to a Buddhist temple at least it should be hot and humid and an early tour time.  There is a basic disconnect in the concepts of cruising and a 5:30 wake up.  We ended up doing almost 12,000 steps today.  This week was the start of Ramadan and about half of the shops we saw were closed.  But with the large percentage of non-Muslims in Penang we were not impacted.  In some of our earlier stops in Arab countries, we were told that we were lucky to have missed Ramadan as some residents take offense at tourists eating and drinking during Ramadan.

 

Monday was our 4th sea day and our normal routine except for laundry.  With 4 port days in a row coming up we made sure we had enough clean clothes.  We celebrated our foresight at a wine venue on the ship we hadn’t visited before.  We played Skip-bo there and Margaret trounced me without mercy twice.  While we were playing I noticed that there were 4 people playing Skip-bo right next to us.  As we got closer to Penang, we had a substantial increase in our internet speed which made Margaret much happier.  For those who noticed, Margaret has not had enough internet bandwidth to both upload her pictures and add captions. 

 

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Thursday to Sunday, June 2 to June 5

 

I see that I was pretty wordy on the June 1 post and I think my well ran dry for this post.  The second day in Cochin, we toured historic Cochin, shorter less scary bus rides. 

 

Today we are on the 3rd of 4 straight sea days, all pretty routine.  We are heading due east to Penang Malaysia and keep changing time zones.  We bumped our clocks ahead an hour today as we did yesterday and the day before.  It’s hard to moan about a short day when you are on ship.

 

Tomorrow we finish the 2nd full set of dance lessons and we still forget the steps but not as much.  Maybe the 3rd set of lessons as we head to China will stick with me and I can think ahead enough to do my job and telegraph the next step. 

 

One funny side note is the butter crises.  Up until we left India, individually wrapped pats of real butter were served in the ship.  After India they disappeared and a prepacked mix of butter and vegetable oil appeared.  A fair amount of complaints from diners and I noticed that at lunch a plate of unwrapped butter slices suddenly appeared as they had been cut from a large butter brick. 

 

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Wednesday, June 1  

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Today is our Houseboat tour of the back water lakes and waterways of Alleppey, a town about two hours' drive away from Cochin.  The house boat is a large barge covered in woven matting and the water tour was an enjoyable day.  There is a large number of houseboats that are rented to tourists complete with a captain, cook and engineer.  They usually have two bedrooms for overnight stays.  Always fun to glide down a water way and get fed.  The sides of the waterways are densely populated and the people on the shoreline use the canal water for everything except cooking and drinking.  People were bathing, washing clothes, cleaning dishes oblivious to us gliding by. 

 

Today was actually two events in one.  The first was the houseboat tour, of course, but the second one was the 2-hour trip to get there.  Most of the time we were on a 2 lane asphalt road that carried 3 lanes of traffic.  There were scooters, motorcycles, small 3 wheel taxis and even cars that squeezed past next to the bus.  There was a complicated dance that had all of this traffic changing lanes and the bigger the vehicle the more the other traffic gave way.  King of the road were the dump trucks.  When an oncoming dump track was in our lane we graciously gave way to avoid a head on collision and then ruthlessly bullied our way through the smaller traffic on both sides of the road.  With all this chaotic traffic maneuvering we only saw 1 traffic accident and that was a public bus that had rear-ended a logging truck.  The puzzling part was that the accident happened on a section of the road that was a divided highway and both vehicles were pointed in the wrong direction.  People dodged across traffic, bicycles, hand carts and pedestrians shared the highway.   

 

This section of India, Kerala, the extreme southwest was under colonial rule for 450 years, Portuguese, Dutch and finally English.  This area is about 20% Catholic thanks to the Portuguese.  

 

June 1st is the start of the school year for most kids and they were lined up waiting to get into the schools.  This area has a 98% literacy rate, the 2nd highest in India.  Everybody speaks at least some English. 

 

June 1st is also when everybody starts looking for the Monsoon to start.  Our ship is the last cruise ship of the season since nobody wants to be here on vacation when the rains come.  We had a few drops today but nothing serious.  The locals don’t fool around with the rain, just a few drops and they expect the worst and pack up shop. 

 

I am not bother writing details about what little we saw of India today.  I will let Margaret’s pictures do the talking.  One thing you may notice in Margaret’s pictures is one of a hammer and sickle.  The local communist party won the most recent local election here.  They and the Congress party seem to win alternating elections.  Tomorrow we go into the modern city that we see in the distance.  We expect that to contrast with what we saw today. 

 

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Monday and Tuesday, May 30 & 31

 

We have been out of touch these past two days.  Turns out the Arabian Sea does not have good internet.  We have been heading Southeast to Cochin through moderate swells and the ship has a slow pronounced roll from side to side.  A slow cradle rock, wonderful for sleeping.  Our interview with the Indian officials was trivial and we have our paperwork in order to go ashore.  The monsoon usually starts in early June and we are hoping that it holds off until we leave India. 

 

For the second and third day in a row we have been eating with other couples and have thoroughly enjoyed it.  We met couples from Ireland, UK, Brazil and New Zealand.  We had a long chat with a Canadian couple and Margaret picked up a lot of tips on minimizing costs on future cruises.  Hmmm, I wonder if more cruises are in our future. 

 

Finished two more days of dance classes, Rhumba and Salsa.  We had skipped Salsa on the first set of dance lessons but went this time and enjoyed it.  Cha-Cha is next up when we get back to sea after Cochin.  Our daughter, Kate, sent us a snide comment wanting proof that we are actually dancing and Margaret asked an onlooker to take a picture of us on the dance floor. 

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Sunday, May 29

 

And we are back in our sea day routine, workouts and dancing.  Amazing what we have forgotten from the first set of classes.  Today was the Waltz and I am less clumsy but far from smooth. 

 

We shared a table at dinner with a nice couple from Nottingham England.  Our oldest, Maureen, spent a year at the University of Nottingham when she was at University of Illinois.  The couples house has a view of the university clock tower and they take walks around the lake.  They said that the University of Nottingham is growing leaps and bounds especially with foreign students.  Supposedly Nottingham has built a campus in China that has the same clock tower.

 

Cochin India is our next port of call.  Getting into India is more of an effort than we realized.  In addition to the Visa we took care of in Chicago, there are Indian officials on the boat and tomorrow we have a face to face interview plus Arrival, Departure and Port forms that we filled out today.  Seems like a lot of official overhead for a 2-day ship stopover.

 

Saturday, May 28

 

Muscat is quite a contrast to Dubai.  It feels more traditional and slower paced. No buildings over 12 stories, most in traditional styles, color schemes limited to gray, beige, yellow, brown.  Fair amount of greenery as they use desalination for drinking water and treated waste water for plants.  Traditional forts and lookout towers are on every hill around the port.

 

The port visit was too short.  Our shore excursion included a 30-minute shopping visit to the Souk but that was not enough time for a barter session.  We toured the grand mosque (finished in 2008) that was very impressive with enormously detailed mosaics on the ceilings, inlaid teak ceilings and gold leaf everywhere.  We would like to come back some day and spend more time here.

With gas at a $1 a gallon, everybody drives -- little if any public transport.

 

Thursday, Friday May 26 & 27

 

Thursday & Friday were Dubai days.  Dubai is the finish of the leg from Barcelona and the beginning of the new leg to Singapore. 

 

When you are a newbie to a city like Dubai the Big Bus tours are a great way to spend a day getting the lay of the land.  It worked well for us in London and Barcelona as well.  Both days in Dubai we caught the last bus to the ship. 

 

Dubai is throwing up eye-catching unique skyscrapers everywhere.  Seriously, different skyscrapers.  We are used to functional designs in Chicago with a touch of flair.  In Dubai, flair wins.  Our return to the ship on Thursday was at night and, of course, each building was illuminated to showcase each building’s stylistic claim to fame.

 

Margaret and I were careful to respect the local conservative Islamic customs in dress and behavior but there were a sizable number of bare shoulders and shorts to be seen.  Sometimes we felt overdressed. 

 

We saw a Buffalo Wild Wings restaurant (opened September 2015) during our bus tour but when I called them they did not stock any Dubai BWW shirts.  Sorry boys, would have been a great gift.

 

Muscat Oman is a day’s sail away and we will do another shore excursion on Saturday