COMING HOME !!!!!!!!!

MEDITERRANIAN TO SOUTHHAMPTON AND RETURN TO NY, Posted 4/27/2008

As soon as we exited the Suez Canal and headed into the Mediterranean, we knew we were really on our way home! The European ports from Athens to Lisbon were familiar to us from previous visits. Unfortunately, the Euro is sky-high right now ($1.60 US) so we were glad that we had planned ahead and did our shopping in India and Vietnam where the dollar still goes a long way.

Our first Euro stop was Athens where we hiked up to Acropolis Hill with Ginny and Damon early in the morning before the hordes of tourist buses arrived. On the way up, we had an awesome moment as we stood on Mars Hill across from the Acropolis where Paul preached to the Athenians about the one true God amid all the temples to their other gods. (Appropriately, Captain Wells on the Queen Mary 2 read that very passage this morning in our church service.) Miraculously, we got a great picture in front of the Parthenon without anyone else in it. Tied up at the dock in Piraeus, we were amazed to find the Aegean 1 docked right beside us! This was the ship which took us on the Millennium world cruise in 1999-2000. It has been docked the past few years in Piraeus to undergo extensive refurbishment, but we did get a chance to board her and look around—a very nostalgic moment remembering all those good times with all the great people we sailed with eight years ago.

In Naples we took a ferry across the bay to enjoy a magical day on the Isle of Capri. We explored the island, took the chair lift to the peak for spectacular views, and enjoyed pizza at its Neapolitan birthplace. In Rome it was great to see a friend and fellow organist of Marilyn’s, Curt Sather. Curt moved to Florence in 2006 to join the Benedictine order at the beautiful San Miniato Al Monte Basilica and Monastery overlooking the Arno River. He and his friend, Roberto, took us on a delightful walking tour of Rome where we saw beautiful churches, architecture and art which we hadn’t seen in our previous visits. In Barcelona we walked the old Gothic Quarter and strolled up and down The Ramblas from the Christopher Columbus monument. Sailing to Lisbon, we enjoyed getting together for lunch with friends from our first world cruise, Marie-Odette Littmann and Stan Ryon. In Lisbon we retraced our steps from before, visiting the Castle, riding the quaint trolleys, and enjoying the monumental public squares. That night Cunard threw a huge celebration dinner for all of the World Cruisers at Campo Pequeno (bullfight arena), complete with silver candelabras, seven-course dinner, unending flow of wine and liquor, and even the CEO of Cunard. It was a fitting celebration to mark a great world cruise. In Southampton we transferred to the Queen Mary 2 (fortunately our 18 bags went directly from our cabin on the Victoria to our QM2 cabin). As we sailed out of the harbor with hundreds of small boats and multitudes on the shore, everyone saw the Three Queens for the last time in the same place—Queen Elizabeth 2, Queen Victoria and Queen Mary 2. The trip across the Atlantic has seen mostly rough water and gale-force winds, but this ship can really cut through the waves at high speed. And the Queen Mary 2 is always a joy to be aboard.

Tomorrow morning before sunrise, Lady Liberty will be waiting to greet us back into the USA as we enter New York Harbor. We’re almost home! We look forward to our return to all of our friends in Scottsdale and especially looking forward to seeing the Fennesseys who are picking the Gustafsons and us up in New York (along with our 25 bags)!

Last night we calculated that in the last 17 years we have spent 382 nights on ships around the world! Here’s a flashback of some of our fondest memories over the last 106 days on this World

Cruise:

New York – Best Broadway play (Jersey Boys)
Port Everglades— Best shopping for storage cabinets
Oranjestad, Aruba – Best white sand beach
Panama Canal – Best daylight transit (The Aegean I went through at night!)
Puntarenas, Costa Rica – Best zip-line adventure
Acapulco, Mexico – Best beer at 9:30 AM watching the cliff divers
Manzanillo, Mexico – Best visit to Mary Clemens’ vacation house
Los Angeles, California – Best studio tour (Universal)
Honolulu, Hawaii – Best Mai Tai with the Fennesseys at the Halekalani
Pago Pago, American Samoa – Best 65th birthday for Don at Barefoot Beach Bar
Lautoka, Fiji – Best port to cancel in the future
Auckland, New Zealand – Best port to visit friends from Pitcairn (Betty & Darlene Christian)
Napier, New Zealand – Largest crowds per capita that came out to greet us (plus an air show)
Wellington, New Zealand – Best museum visit
Melbourne, Australia – Best Australian vineyard tour
Sydney, Australia – Best sail away of the century saluting QV &QE2 with huge flotilla escort
Brisbane, Australia – Best drive in drenching rain to the Gold Coast and vineyard with Rob Thomas
Port Douglas, Australia – Absolute best snorkeling in the world on the Great Barrier Reef (gets the Gold Medal for our best day in port)
Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia – Best combination island beach with jungle hike
Hong Kong – Best city walking tour and busiest container port
Da Nang (Hoi Ahn), Vietnam – Best taxi driver and best bargains of the cruise
Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) (Phu My), Vietnam—Best danger in dodging motorcycles
Bangkok (Laem Chabang) – Best yacht club and beach house visit with Peter Feddersen and Daraluk.
Ko Samui – Best island taxi tour
Singapore – Best orchid gardens and delightful guide
Kaula Lampur (Port Kelang), Malaysia – Best twin towers and pewter factory
Penang, Malaysia – Best visit to a snake temple
Chennai (Madras) – Best temple tour tiptoeing through muddy water
Cochin, India – Best missed port (we were off the ship on an overland tour of India)
Delhi, India – Best rickshaw ride through Old Delhi
Agra, India – Best monumental experience viewing the Taj Mahal
Jaipur, India – Best elephant ride and palace hotel
Mumbai (Bombay), India – Best outdoor laundry (largest in the world)
Dubai, United Arab Emirates – Best example of how much money sheiks have to spend
Salalah, Oman – Best visit to ancient biblical lands
Safaga (Luxor/Karnak), Egypt – Best monuments to the Pharaohs’ civilization
Athens (Piraeus), Greece – Best repeat city visit
Naples, Italy – Best chair lift ride to the top of Isle de Capri
Rome (Civitavecchia), Italy – Best city walk with our friend who recently joined a Florence Monastery
Barcelona, Spain – Best wine buy (3 Euros)
Lisbon, Portugal – Best World Cruise celebration dinner in a bull ring
Southampton, England – Best view (for the last time) of the three Queens together—QV. QM2 & QE2
New York (Brooklyn) – Best sail-in to USA

Of course the thing that makes a cruise great is being with friends, old and new. So we say thank you to our friends who shared this special experience with us; “Old” friends—Barbara & Dan Christy, Jane & Dennis Fennessey, Ruthanne & Larry Gustafson, Marie-Odette & Stan Ryon, and Christine Villard; plus “new” friends Susan & Chuck Bridges, Christine & Ernie Chamberlain, John & Denice Foley, Reet & Leo Goercke, Virginia Knight & Damon Martin and Susan & Barry Wescombe. Thanks for the wonderful memories and adventures—stay in touch!

PERSIAN GULF, RED SEA, & SUEZ CANAL

Dubai, United Arab Emirates; Salahlah, Oman; Luxor, Egypt; & The Suez Canal - Posted 4/24/2008

Still full of excitement after our adventurous six days in India, we sailed from Mumbai at sunset on March 28. It was good to be back on the ship at a more relaxed pace and in comfortable surroundings. After winding down a bit, it was a full day later that we started looking at the huge world map on our cabin wall to continue plotting our around-the-world progress. We suddenly came to the sobering realization that we were in the “hottest spots” of the world where we had never really considered being! Leaving India we sailed in the Arabian Sea along the coasts of Pakistan and Iran (we saw lights on shore at night!); into the Persian Gulf to our port of Dubai, UAE, then back out through the Arabian Sea along the coast of Oman; through the Gulf of Aden with Yemen on one side and Somalia, Djibouti, and Eritrea on the other; into the Red Sea with Sudan and Egypt on the west and Saudi Arabia on the east before entering the Suez Canal between Egypt and the Sinai peninsula. Whoa!!! Needless to say, the ship’s security was on the highest level of alert, and the Captain, to put at ease the minds of those watching their maps, reassured us through a rare loudspeaker announcement. We saw a Canadian warship on patrol sailing past us one day, and an American destroyer in the Suez Canal. Very nice sights to see!

On March 31st we safely docked in the Passenger Terminal (instead of the usual container port) at Dubai, United Arab Emirates on the Persian Gulf. Everything here is on a BIG scale. Or in other words, it would make all Texans feel like they were living in Rhode Island. Dubai is completing the tallest building in the world (Burj Dubai - over 110 stories), they have created man-made resort islands in the shapes of palm trees and the world globe (visible from the space station), the tallest hotel in the world (Burj Al Arab in the shape of a sail, where a room will set you back at least $6,000 a night and afternoon tea is a mere $100 per person plus tip), and a tall INDOOR ski slope (a cool contrast to outdoor summer temperatures in excess of 130 degrees). Under construction are a 30-story condo building which will rotate a full 360 degrees each month, the longest monorail in the world, the largest theme park and on and on until the oil money runs out. Here we toured around the city in “The Big Bus,” a double-decker open-air bus from which we could hop on and off. We also visited the historical museum, did a guided walking tour and short boat ride on the river to some of the market areas (souks). Dubai has been the crossroads of east/west trade routes for over a thousand years and continues to be a bustling trading center for everything imaginable, especially gorgeous fabrics, spices, gold, jewelry and now, electronics. A fascinating place to visit for a day but can’t imagine spending all that money to stay in such a superficial place (in our opinion).

Next we sailed back into the Arabian Sea and stopped in Salalah, Oman, known as the perfume and frankincense capital of Arabia. We were excited to visit this ancient land and travel into the mountains to see the traditional Tomb of Job. We said prayers at the ruins of the legendary wall where Job is said to have prayed. It was easy to imagine ancient Biblical times from this mountaintop site overlooking desert mountain terrain sprinkled with wells and camels loping about. This area is also famous for the frankincense trade and we saw how they take the sap out of the trees to harden for subsequent aromatic burning. We purchased our frankincense and perfume plus burning pots. In addition to Job’s Tomb, we visited the ruins of an ancient cliff-top city, fortress/museum, the traditional tomb of the Virgin Mary’s father, the smelly fish market and camel-rendering (yucky) market. The Queen Victoria smelled exceptionally good when we got back on at the end of an exotic day of sightseeing.

We continued along the coast of Yemen and proceeded into the Red Sea to Safaga, the port city for Luxor, Egypt. Here we took a Cunard-organized tour inland to Luxor. It was a 16-hour day which included a bus ride of 4 hours each way. There were 65 buses in a motorcade (including 25 from the Queen Victoria) which proceeded with police blocking all of the roads coming into the highway to ensure our “safe and expedient” travel. It was an amazing sight to see this huge bus caravan with no other traffic on our road, and to see the local people waiting for us to pass by (very friendly, smiling and waving). The land was lushly agricultural, bountifully irrigated by canals from the Nile River—lots of sugar cane, even rice fields, as well as hay. Many, many donkeys pulling carts piled high with produce, reminiscent of what we saw in India. Outside Luxor In the Valley of the Kings we visited the tombs of the Pharaohs, including Ramses and Tut, all of which were awesomely impressive. The paintings and carvings on the walls literally took our breath away as we saw them in situ, as opposed to just a few panels on the wall of a museum. We weren’t allowed to take any pictures, but the magnitude of the rooms could not possibly be captured through photos or even videos.

After lunch at the Winter Palace, a beautiful historical hotel in the city of Luxor, we tried to comprehend the magnificence of the temples of Karnak and Luxor. Again, these structures were unbelievable in their size and majesty and hard to comprehend that they were constructed almost four thousand years ago. We saw sunset over the Nile River and then, once again all the tour buses in Luxor were formed into an escorted caravan for the trip back to the port. With the headlights of 65 buses winding through the remote agricultural plains, it looked like long strands of glittering jewels snaking through the total darkness. We were glad to arrive safely “home” on the Queen Victoria at 10 PM. Unfortunately, Don somehow contracted the “Mummy Tummy” (the Egyptian strain of “Delhi Belly?”) and was down for the count the next day.

On April 9th we transited the Suez Canal. We completed our transit in eleven hours, entering the Canal from the Red Sea about 5:00 AM, and exiting into the Mediterranean about 4:00 PM. This 101-mile “ditch” is truly amazing in that it was opened in 1869 and is still in operation today. Unlike the Panama Canal, the Suez Canal has no locks since there is only a minor difference in sea levels at each end. The west side has fertile fields irrigated via canals from the Nile River, while the East side is mainly desert with military camps and of war memorials commemorating the Egypt/ Israel conflicts of the 1960-1970’s (during which the canal was actually closed for 6 months). In order to pass from one side to the other, there are car ferries which run during canal traffic, as well as a large steel swing bridge which can rotate on either side to meet in the middle of the span. There are also floating pontoon platforms which can be assembled quickly to form a bridge after the daily ship traffic has cleared out. There is one permanent bridge in the entire canal which was funded by the Japanese and is called “The Peace Bridge.” This bridge was under construction during our first transit of the Suez in March, 2000, and it was wonderful to see the new graceful but imposing suspension bridge in all its glory. As we were exiting the canal we noticed a small cruise ship entering. We found out later that it was no cruise ship, but rather the private yacht of the Sultan of Oman
We are now sailing through the sometimes stormy, sometimes calm Mediterranean for the European part of our cruise. We recall from our last world cruise that we encountered our roughest seas in this part of the world, and it seems to be true this time as well. We are quickly closing in on Southampton, England where we will be transferred to the Queen Mary 2 for our transatlantic passage back to New York. Stay tuned for the final blog of our 2008 World Cruise!

INDIA PICTURES

India Picturres associated with the next blog.

INDIA

OVERLAND TOUR - Posted APRIL 7, 2008

We arrived in Madras (Chennai), India on Easter Sunday morning, March 23rd. We attended the 7:00 AM Easter service onboard the Queen Victoria before departing on our six-day, five-night overland tour of India. As something special for Easter, we actually had a minister lead the service (as opposed to the usual Anglican service led by the ship’s captain, the British Sunday-at-sea tradition). Although there has always been a Catholic priest on board to conduct daily mass for the Catholics, this is the first time the Protestants have had an ordained minister officiating at a service. Cunard brought on board the Rev. Jim Shaw, a retired Army chaplain and Lutheran minister from Georgetown, Texas, along with his wife, Jo, for about ten days surrounding Easter. They were delightful but, unfortunately, we were unable to interact with them as much as we would have liked since we were away in India for a week. We did discover, though, that their daughter and son-in-law graduated from Wheaton College, Marilyn’s alma mater.

The Queen Victoria was elaborately decorated for secular Easter with giant chocolate creations of eggs and bunnies, where we posed for a picture in the ship’s “Easter garden” before disembarking the ship. Through prior internet travel arrangements we had booked an overland tour of India, with seven other people on board, to see the Taj Mahal. But we saw a lot more than that—after a day tour of Madras, we flew to New Delhi for two nights, rode by chartered bus to Agra for a night, by bus again to the “pink city” of Jaipur for two nights, winding up with another flight to Bombay where we re-connected with the Queen Victoria on Friday, March 28.

We discovered firsthand that India is a land of huge contrasts—beautiful buildings and impressive ancient sites, but also full of poverty and unhealthy conditions which permeate everyday life. And, of course, there are lots and lots of people (1.2 billion). We think we saw them all, as people were swarming in the streets everywhere we went—along with the world’s largest population of cows. Then throw in some camels, elephants, goats and what you have is chaotic traffic and hazards everywhere. How about this statistic: India is only one-third the size of Europe, but has one-sixth of the entire world’s population! Needless to say, we look back very gratefully for the fabulous Indian adventure, but are happy to have returned to the “Mother Ship” healthy, safe and intact!

Now for the details of our trip. On Easter morning, we met our general guide, Deepak, who remained with us for the entire tour. In each city we also had local guides who imparted expert knowledge about local sites. Our first stop in Madras was the Hindu temple of Kapalishvara. To go into the temple courtyard, we had to take off our shoes and walk barefoot through really gross, filthy, muddy water (we actually got some plastic bags to tie around our feet but they were anything but waterproof)! We saw the various temple domes, elaborately adorned with a myriad of brightly painted Hindu gods, but were not allowed to enter the sanctuaries where priests were dispensing blessings to the people. Being Easter Sunday morning, we thought it especially appropriate that our next stop was the large, beautiful, white Basilica of St. Thomas where we witnessed part of their Easter service. This cathedral is famous as a Christian shrine built over the tomb of Saint Thomas, Christ’s “doubting” disciple. Thomas came to India in 52 AD and began a community of Christian believers. This is one of only three churches in the world which lay claim to being built over the remains of one of Christ’s twelve apostles, the other two being St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican, and St. James de Compostela in Spain. It was quite a sobering Easter experience to pray at the tomb of St. Thomas who actually saw the resurrected Jesus. Later we visited a museum of antiquities containing many ancient bronze statues and figurines of Hindu gods and heads of Buddha. By the way, more religions are practiced on a larger scale in India than in any other nation: Hindus (80%), Muslim (13%), Christians (2%). The remaining 5% is made up of Buddhists, Sikhs, Zoroastrians (Parsees) and Jains. Plus exactly 40 Jews in Delhi according to our guide. 2% Christian doesn’t sound like much, but 2% of 1.2 billion is 24 million Christians in India! After our first of many wonderful lunches of spicy Indian food, we boarded our plane for a 2 ½ hour flight to New Delhi (like flying from Phoenix to Chicago.)

We had the whole next day to tour both Old and New Delhi, including some very impressive 16th century palaces, city arches, towers, mosques and temples. Many of the buildings (such as the tomb of Humaya ) were on a greater scale than some European counterparts built in the same time period. Our group survived a somewhat harrowing but exhilarating ride on manually-pedaled rickshaws through the very bustling, narrow alleys of the Old Delhi markets. The small lanes with all the colorful goods for sale reminded us a bit of the Via Dolorosa in Old Jerusalem, only with MANY more people dashing and driving around our rickshaw, with thousands of telephone and electrical wires drooping down overhead like a web between the buildings . As a city, Delhi was our favorite with its charming old heritage juxtaposed with its modern, cosmopolitan center of government and commerce.

On Tuesday, we were off on a 5-hour bus ride from Delhi to Agra. The images from this ride through the rural countryside and small towns of India will forever be seared into our minds! We tried to capture as much as possible through video and photography, but many things we will just have to try to remember without the luxury of pictures as a reminder:

Snakes – Just pull up to a red light and look for a congested group of men some of whom have a covered woven basket and two-barrel bamboo flute. For a few rupees, they’ll open the basket and play their flute to entice the cobra to rise up, puff up, and look you in the eye (that is assuming you don’t scamper back on the bus first).

Bricks – Hundreds of 150-foot tall chimney towers spewing smoke above the red brick kilns where the bricks are fired. Baked bricks are everywhere—stacked in the fields, and stacked high on many (old) trucks on the road—not sure how the tires stay inflated and the trucks are even able to move.

Dried animal dung – Millions of patties burnable for fuel are made by collecting cow dung in the fields and forming them into discs about the size of a Frisbee. To do this, they put the dung into round woven baskets and then pop them out like big chocolate chip cookies (!) then leave them in the sun to dry (open-air oven) before stacking them in amazingly artsy configurations—swirls, spirals, mounds, huts!

Hay – We saw many women out in the fields cutting hay and straw by hand, gleaning (a few with babies on their backs) and gathering it into piles, or creating teepee look-alikes by stacking the straw vertically with a stylish swirl. The straw could then be loaded into wagons, often a primitive cart frame with canvas fabric to hold in the hay, pulled by a camel or tractor. Some wagons were so overloaded you couldn’t even see the wagon underneath.

Wheels, wheels, wheels! – The name of the game in India, like any third-world country, is to find wheels (ANY kind of wheels) to get you where you want to go. Some of the amazing sights we saw:
A whole family of six riding on one motorcycle, including the mother dressed in her beautiful flowing sari holding an infant;

12-15 people loaded onto a three-wheeled, partially open “tuk-tuk” - people hanging on the sides, back, plus riding squat-legged on top;

People clinging to tractors towing wagons heavily loaded with: bricks, hay, or who-knows-what-kind of bagged produce-- and of course PEOPLE riding high in the air on top of all that cargo;

Women being transported in carts pulled by tractors (or camels). They were packed in shoulder to shoulder in the wagons and as always wearing their elegant sari’s;

Bicycles loaded with everything from extra people to any number of large steel milk cans to boxes stacked at least 15 feet high on the back;

Commercial buses packed with three times as many people as they were built for—even saw some 10-year-oldish boys clinging to the outside of a bus (on the escape ladder attached to the back door) balancing a huge bag of potatoes.

Cows and water buffalo ambling through the traffic – they are calm, cool, and look well-fed—plus they have the right of way.

If you don’t have wheels, then you have to walk. We saw many women walking alongside the road carrying a wide spectrum of things on their heads or shoulders: huge tree trunks or branches at least 20 feet long (leaves and all), bundled firewood and kindling, big containers of water, huge tarps full of hay, baskets of potatoes, fruits, and other produce, and our own personal favorite—a huge basket of cow dung patties perfectly stacked in a cone shape and balanced on a woman’s head.

We finally reached Agra after a five-hour, eye-popping, white-knuckled bus ride. We think we know the rules of the road now in India: (1) the cows, camels, elephants and goats have the right of way, and (2) the drivers do whatever they have to do to avoid the other drivers, such as driving on the wrong side of a divided highway, making three or four lanes out of two (definition of lane=some white lines the British left behind but not sure what they are there for)! We finally got to see the object of this whole Indian expedition: the fabulously awesome Taj Mahal. We tried to appreciate the beauty and symmetry of it as best we could, but we also realize its magnificence can never be adequately captured in pictures or video. We mainly just have to remember the wonderful experience of being there and seeing such a perfectly symmetrical architectural monument of such exquisite beauty.

The next day we had another exciting six-hour bus ride to the “pink city” of Jaipur. We learned that it is called the pink city, not because it is built of pink marble, but because the city folk decided to paint the exterior of their buildings a pinkish/coral color in 1911 to spruce up their city for the Prince of Wales’ visit. We visited a fascinating outdoor royal observatory (one of four in India) with a giant sundial which showed the time within two seconds of accuracy hundreds of years ago. It also had various structures which showed the movement s of the earth, constellations and planets according to the seasons. Perched high above the city, we visited the Rajah’s huge 17th century Palace in style—riding into the castle atop colorfully decorated and draped elephants. Our two nights in Jaipur were spent in a very elegant hotel (a former palace) which was in complete contrast to the street conditions outside its gates. Jaipur was a pleasant city overall, but there are many buildings that really need repainting after all these many years since 1911!

Early Friday morning, we flew to Mumbai (Bombay) to re-board the Queen Victoria. We had arranged for a day tour of the city but most of our group was exhausted, and many were in either the initial, middle or late stages of suffering from “Delhi Belly.” (Fortunately, we did not get it, a fact we attribute to eating only cooked (spicy) food, and religiously taking our GSE (Grapefruit Seed Extract) tablets before every meal—a preventative we previously heard about from other travelers and something that definitely seems to work for us.) Regardless, our group did manage to hang in there for an abbreviated tour which included observing the world’s largest outdoor laundry (2,000 workers cleaning clothing and linens by beating them against the sides of the open-air stone water vats). We also visited Mani Bhavan, the home of Mahatma Gandhi, now a museum, library, and memorial. We are enjoying reading his autobiography and book of sayings which we purchased there. We were surprised to see so much majestic and impressive architecture in the city of Bombay, much of which conjures up images of London. It is one of the largest cities in the world with around 15 million people. We managed to do some frenetic last-minute shopping for Indian goods before boarding the ship and sailing for Dubai. Captain Rynd’s greeting, although we had heard it at every port, never sounded so good: “Welcome back home!”

STRAITS OF MALACCA TO INDIAN OCEAN

SINGAPORE TO MALAYSIA - Posted MARCH 30, 2008

From our days in Washington DC, we remember the planned city of Reston, Virginia with houses, schools, businesses, parks, and everything you need for a complete living environment. Well, the Republic of Singapore is such a place, except on the scale of a major city of over 4 million people. We arrived at the dock on March 18th in the “City of Lions,” where we were greeted by two dancing “lions.” Our delightful guide, Elsie, showed us her sparkling clean and progressive island-city-state with infectious enthusiasm. We saw hundreds of impressive skyscrapers, a new convention center under construction with at least 40 building cranes, Little India, Chinatown, the Orchid and Ginger Gardens (gorgeous) and floated down the river to a delicious lunch at Cable Quay. We also toured the Housing Development Authority which subsidizes housing for all citizens who want to own their own condominiums. They had a display of the housing evolution from 1950 to the present which successfully lifted Singapore citizens out of slums into modern buildings, creating a contented and productive society. We ended our second visit to Singapore like our first one in 2000--with a Singapore Sling in the Long Bar at the famous Raffles Hotel.

Proceeding north through the Straits of Malacca, we docked on March 19th at the Port of Kelang, Malaysia, and embarked upon a 2-hour van ride into Kuala Lumpur-- a surprisingly small city of 500,000 people. Malaysia, like Singapore, is cosmopolitan, open, and tolerant of all religions and cultures which coexist peacefully. We visited the Palace of the Sultan (appointed by the people’s elected representatives) and happened to be there when his motorcade drove through the gates, as well as during the changing of the guards on horseback. We then toured a war memorial park with a monument created by the same artist who did the Iwo Jima memorial in Arlington Cemetery. Kuala Lumpur is home to the Petronas Towers—the tallest twin towers in the world, each 88 stories high. The first six floors of the towers comprise a very upscale shopping galleria where we shopped and had a delicious Malaysian lunch at the chaotic food court with a few thousand other people. At the end of the day, we stopped by the Royal Selanger pewter factory, trying our skill at hand-hammering drinking cups (they did not hire us on the spot), and browsed through the inevitable gift shop full of beautiful things. Don had to settle for a picture of the giant beer stein (15 feet tall) in the courtyard since, thankfully, it wasn’t for sale (shipping costs would have been a bit outrageous).

March 20th dawned with a beautiful sunrise as we sailed into the container port of Penang Island, Malaysia. (Some of the rickshaw drivers were still snoozing)! Our wonderful guide, Marco, drove us in his van through the main town of George Town with its charming colonial-style buildings harking back to the 19th century British era. Then we were off to the Wat Chayamankalaram Temple to view the 108-foot-long reclining Buddha, one of the largest in the world. Out in the countryside, we visited a beach, the Butterfly Farm, and a local fruit stand where Marco showed us unusual local produce like jack fruit and (smelly) duren. He also explained that if you eat a whole raw nutmeg before it is dried you’ll die!! We did buy some DRIED nutmeg and nutmeg oil. After lunch at a lovely resort, we proceeded to a Snake Temple where Susan volunteered for the classic boa-snake-around-your-neck picture.

After three container ports in a row, we dubbed the Queen Victoria the “Container Queen.” But we are always glad to get back to the “mother ship” (so named after tendering out to various ports in the smaller lifeboats) where we continue to enjoy elegant dinners accompanied by harpist or string quartet music.