EGYPT

Hello everyone.
For the past 5 days we have been at sea – now I say sea, but really I mean seas. We have sailed out of Mumbai into The Arabian Sea (have left the Indian Ocean earlier), then we went into the Gulf of Aden. Having passed Aden we then swung a right into The Red Sea, where we sailed for a couple of days and then into Sharm el Sheikh. The weather for these five days has been perfect, glorious in fact, (what we expected for the whole cruise, but regrettably did not get). However, it has now been too hot for sunbathing for longer than an hour. There is plenty of entertainment around the ship during the day, I still go to the Arts and Crafts Class in the morning, while Geoffrey is going to the Gym for his exercise.

18th March - Sharm el Sheikh

This is situated on the southern tip of the Sinai Desert. The brochure says that the prime reason for the ship’s call there is to visit the Monastery of St. Catherine . We, however, decided not to do this as it was a three hour drive to the Monastery and a three hour drive back. It made it a very long day. Instead we decided to go to the Golden Sands of the Na’ama Bay and relax for the day. Na’ama Bay is becoming a leading tourist resort and is often referred as “the capital of the Egyptian Riviera”. We enjoyed the day relaxing and using the facilities of a deluxe hotel beach resort (Nicola please note it was the Marriott – could be a good use for your points). The trip included the return transportation, admission and use of the swimming pool and private beach. During our time here we had a one hour trip in a glass bottomed boat, which had to be accessed along a narrow 20 metre long floating walkway, needless to say Doreen did not enjoy this experience (see photo). The boat took us over the coral reef and we admired the amazing underwater world beneath us. We saw unique and wonderful corals of all shapes and sizes as well as a multitude of rainbow coloured schools of fish, which presented a panorama of unsurpassed beauty. Many of the people on this trip said that this reef was better than The Great Barrier Reef in Australia. We cannot confirm this as we were unable to see The Great Barrier Reef this year because of the weather.

The rest of the day was spent laying under a sun umbrella on the beach, RELAXING.

Tomorrow the ship transcends the Gulf of Suez and the Suez Canal.

19th March – SUEZ CANAL and CAIRO

Geoffrey and Doreen parted company for this day with Doreen staying with the ship and travelling through the canal and Geoffrey getting up at 3.00am to join the 20 hour expedition by coach to the Pyramids, Sphinx, and a visit to necropolis of Sakkara.

The Suez Canal is 89 nautical miles in length, at its narrowest point 300 metres wide. It runs from The Red Sea into the Small or Little Bitter Lake, then into the Great Bitter Lakes, where it is possible for ships to pass each other, on to Port Said. There is a relatively new bridge construction across the Suez Canal, called the Suez Canal Bridge (or the Mubarak Peace Bridge or the Japanese Peace Bridge. The bridge is 3.9k long and was funded by the Egyptians (60%) and Japanese (40%). It took us all day to travel the length of the Suez Canal, at sometimes quite boring, but at other times very interesting, this was because of the varied landscape – the desert on one side but a quite cultivated town on the other.

The trip to the Pyramids started with breakfast at 3.00am after which we boarded the ship’s tenders for the 3 mile trip to the quayside. Here we were met by armed soldiers and police, who escorted us to our eleven coaches for an exciting, if not, hair raising 2.1/2 hour drive to Cairo with the convoy weaving in and out of the rush hour traffic at high speed, whilst police were stopping all other traffic along the way. We felt like Royalty. On arriving in the centre of Cairo we had a second breakfast in a five star hotel, overlooking the Pyramids.

After breakfast we drove a mile into the desert to the Pyramids and Sphinx and provided you could ignore the thousands of other people and the persistent street traders the experience fully lived up to Geoffrey’s expectations and he spent an extremely pleasant hour and a half wandering around taking in the atmosphere of the Pyramids and the vast desert beyond. Too soon we had to rejoin the coach to drive the 40 kilometres south of Cairo to view the stepped Pyramid of Sakkara, which pre-dates the Pyramids in Cairo, by some 200 years. Although interesting they did not have the grandeur of the 148 metre high Pyramids in Cairo. We visited various tombs and artefacts in the area before returning to our hotel in Cairo for a well earned luncheon.

After lunch we visited the mandatory shopping area for some retail therapy for the ladies on board, this did however involve a visit to the Papyrus Institute, where we were introduced to the process of paper making from reeds and art discovered by the Ancient Egyptians. We then rejoined our armed escort for an even more exciting journey back to Port Said and our ship.

INDIA

10th March – COCHIN

Today we visited Cochin, the first of two cities in India. We must confess that when booking our cruise excursions, we were not looking forward to these two stops. However, both cities were full of surprises and vast contrasts between the rich and the poor, an experience that we are glad we had.

Cochin is a relatively small city in the south of India and after boarding our air-conditioned coaches???? (i.e. they left the windows open) in temperatures up to 36degrees, hot and very humid, we drove round the narrow streets of the city with the driver having his hand permanently on the horn (as is the norm in India). We passed many of the local houses – ranging from the relatively smart bungalow type houses to corrugated shacks, and everywhere you looked there was rubbish lying around. However, also everywhere you went there were women sweeping up the dust and the rubbish from in front of their houses. So how come Cochin looked such a tip.

After a tour of the town we drove to the beach area where we saw the fishermen fishing, using Chinese fishing nets. These are huge contraptions used to scoop the fish out of the sea – see photograph. Geoffrey was invited by the locals to help them lift the net out of the water.

We visited the synagogue and Dutch Palace, after which we walked along a main shopping market area, where I am afraid Doreen could not resist and kept disappearing inside shops and having to be rescued by Geoffrey from the persistent sales people. After running the gauntlet of street salesmen we went to the boatyard to board a small cruise boat for a 1.1/2hour interesting cruise around the harbour. Here we saw the local fishermen landing their catch, women preparing shrimps/prawns on the quayside, the site of the new container terminal, past the high rise financial centre before returning to the luxury of a proper air-conditioned cruise ship.

12th March – MUMBAI

By contrast Mumbai was a huge city of 24 million people. Again full of contrasts. This time we boarded a proper air-conditioned coach for our tour of the city and our first stop was the famous Taj Mahal Hotel and Gateway of India (which unfortunately was under repair and clad in scaffolding). We then drove around various landmarks again with the driver’s hand permanently on the horn as he drove amongst the thousands of yellow and black cabs. We stopped at Gandhi’s home, which is now a museum housing interesting artefacts of his life. We then visited the Dhobi Ghat where local people come to wash their clothes in open air troughs (despite the advent of modern washing machines). This was an unbelievable sight, with thousands of people washing clothes in the traditional way and laying out the clothes on roofs, on lines and anywhere they could dry them. On route to this we passed a slum area of ramshackled corrugated shacks with young children running beside the coach begging for money (a very disturbing sight).

The trip ended with a brief visit to the Prince of Wales Museum before returning to our ship.


Summary

Our brief visit has given us an insight into the life of India, a country of one billion people, growing at the rate of 20 million people per year. Despite the poverty we saw everyone we came in contact with, whether street traders, tour guides, the master of our cruise boat were all well educated and extremely polite and interesting to talk to. One thing Doreen wants to add is that she still doesn’t know whether or not she got a bargain, because everything one bought you had to barter for, and although you felt you did well you are never really sure, but it was good fun nonetheless.

PHOTOS MALAYSIA

Managed to download a few photos.

Top Left is Doreen in Butterfly Farm, Penang.

Top Right is Geoffrey and the Petrona Towers, Kuala Lumpur

Middle Left War Memorial Kuala Lumpur

Middle Right Geoffrey drinking a Singapore Sling in the Long Bar, Raffles Hotel

Bottom Doreen and Geoffrey at the Merlion, Singapore

PENANG

6th March – Penang

SORRY STILL NO PHOTOS. WE WILL TRY AGAIN AFTER MUMBAI.

As we ate breakfast we watched out the window as our ship dropped anchor offshore Georgetown, the main town of the small island of Penang. Today’s trip was to drive round the island, which is only some 40 kilometres by 20 kilometres.

The day did not start very promisingly as we had to catch the ship’s tender for a ten minute trip ashore (needless to say Doreen did not enjoy the experience, especially as the young cadet piloting the tender had four attempts to berth alongside a very wide pontoon).

However, our coach and tour guide were waiting and we took a trip around Georgetown, where he pointed out all the old colonial buildings, some of which have been converted for odd usages (see photo and spot the change). We then visited yet another Buddhist Temple (this one Thai), which houses the fourth largest reclining Buddha in the world (108 feet long). The across the road yet another temple, this one Burmese. However, both of these temples were interesting in their own right.

We then left Georgetown and took the coast road to the north of the island, where we visited our second (and best) Butterfly Farm of our holiday. Doreen loves butterflies and was in her element in here. The butterflies where all shapes and sizes, the largest being 5-6 inches wingspan and the colours were out of this world. Geoffrey had made the mistake of wearing a bright yellow shirt (and Doreen a lime green top) and soon became very popular with the butterflies.

We then drove south, down the island up over the mountain pass, along an extremely narrow, windy road, stopping at a local spice market, where we learnt about the homeopathic uses of various spices and oils. After purchasing various potions for rheumatism and back pain etc (and tiger balm), we proceeded down the mountain to a traditional Malay village, built on stilts.

After another very nice buffet Malay lunch we then were taken to the biggest shopping mall in town (Georgetown), where Doreen had seven floors of retail therapy, before she had to face the 10 minute tender journey back to our ship. Surprise, surprise I must report that Doreen did not spend any “Ringgits” except for a bottle of sliced ginger (that Valetia introduced us to in Hong Kong).

We now have a four day cruise across the Indian Ocean to Cochin and Mumbai.

KUALA LUMPUR

5th March KUALA LUMPUR

SORRY, STILL NO PHOTOS!!!!!

This morning we sailed into Port Kelang to a purpose built cruise terminal, before joining our coach for a 1.1/2hour drive into Kuala Lumpur. The weather was extremely hot and humid and we were drinking copious amounts of water throughout the day. Our first stop was the National Museum where we saw examples of Malaysian life from the remote jungle kampongs to the splendour of the Sultan’s court. From here we drove to the National Monument (see picture) dedicated to World War II soldiers situated within the Lake Gardens Park with impressive brass sculptures and one of the largest free standing sculptures in the world.

After the calm and the tranquillity of the Lake Garden Park we drove into the traffic jams in the centre of Kuala Lumpur to view the famous Petrona Twin Towers, before stopping at a five star hotel for a traditional Malay buffet luncheon (very nice).

Only too soon we rejoined the traffic jams and fought our way to the base of the KL Tower for panoramic views over the city. At this point Doreen looked up the tower and decided she would do some retail therapy around the base and let Geoff go up the tower for photos. The lift to the top took 58 seconds but the views were spectacular. See photos. For comparison the CN Tower, Toronto, is 553 metres and the KL Tower is 421 metres.

Our day concluded with a brief stop at the entrance to the Grand Palace where Doreen made friends with the guard on duty. After a brief stop at yet another local craft centre we drove back to our air-conditioned ship!!! All in all a very unexpected, interesting and enjoyable day.

Singapore

Tuesday, 4th March – Singapore

SO SORRY FOLKS, WE ARE HAVING TROUBLE WITH THE SHIP'S INTERNET CONNECTION AND JUST CANNOT DOWNLOAD PHOTOS. WE WILL SEND THEM AS SOON AS THE CONNECTION IS BETTER.

This morning we arrived in Singapore (container port) to start a hectic three days of visits to Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and Penang. The weather was raining yet again, but we joined our tour for a trip up to Mount Faber for views over a misty and overcast city. From here we visited both the Indian and China Town markets, both interesting in their own way. At lunchtime we visited the Malay Heritage Centre learning about the Malay culture in Singapore, followed by a traditional Malay lunch.

The highlight of the day was a “must do” trip to the Raffles Hotel where after a look round the hotel we adjourned to the Long Bar for a Singapore Sling (very nice) and peanuts. After this we journeyed to the Botanical Gardens where we saw some of the most beautiful hybrid orchids, some only found in Singapore. This brightened up our day that had started so miserably. (However, Geoffrey did his best to lose Doreen – we had one minute to get back to the coach, he went one way and left Doreen stranded in the middle of the orchid garden). After help from our courier Doreen was eventually found and we joined the coach ten minutes late.

Although we had a pleasant trip round Singapore we feel we just did not see it at its best. On our return trip we must take Pat or Valetia to show us the true Singapore.

BANGKOK

2nd March – BANKOK

Three days (4 nights) at sea, cruising from Hong Kong to Bangkok – hectic days of activities (Geoffrey joined the Gym Club and Doreen started and Arts and Craft course), plus others. Of these nights the dress code was two formal, one semi formal and one casual, so Doreen had fun choosing what outfits she was going to wear. The evening entertainment continued with the high standard that we have had previously, with cabaret performances by The Batchelors and a vocalist Dennis Walker and an excellent performance of Las Vegas by the Aurora Theatre Company.

Geoff received good news from Costain that the Felixstowe final account has been settled (Dave the bottle of Bollinger was very much appreciated). In our travels we have seen many major port developments, especially in Brisbane and Bangkok (including lots of small river works opportunities in Sydney harbour) - and Geoff took photos of them all!!!! Geoffrey is volunteering to market these opportunities still further if required (Dave please note).

On the 2nd March we entered Laem Chabang, a major port just south of Bangkok, where we joined our coach for a 2.1/2 hour drive into Bangkok city. The countryside was not too inspiring, but gave us an insight into the contrast between the rich and poor of Thailand. The journey was well worth it as we drove in to the centre of the city to see one of the 620 temples in Bangkok called the Wat Trimitr, which housed a 5.1/2 ton solid gold Buddha. This involved us fighting our way from the coach to the temple past hundreds of tourists and locals. Inside the temple the monks were eating (we were warned in advance that ladies are not allowed to come into contact with the monks, which was difficult as we pushed our way through the crowds). After seeing the magnificent Buddha image we then had the added problem of fighting our way back to the coach via the very, very, very persistent street traders, who were offering all sorts of souvenirs.

After a short journey in the coach we arrived in the hustle and bustle of china town to visit the Grand Palace. This Palace covers an area of 218,000 square metres and is surrounded by four walls, 1900 metres in length. In the grounds we experienced the grandeur of an ancient Siamese Court, where old Kings and Queens used to reside, with several buildings all topped by glittering spires and soaring finials. In the centre of the complex is the Emerald Buddha Temple. The buildings and decorations were absolutely breathtaking.

I would just like to add that the weather was sunny, hot – very, very, hot and humid, with temperatures of 96 degrees.

After spending two hours walking around the Grand Palace we had a very enjoyable Thai lunch in a four star hotel. We then went to the obligatory souvenir shop before our 2.1/2 hour drive back to the ship. Throughout the journey our excellent tour guide gave us some interesting information about Thailand, including the true story behind the film “The King and I”.

We are now on the high seas again with one day at sea before we have three consecutive days ashore at Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and Penang, which we will report on at a later date.