Diane

Today I didn’t take an official excursion during the day but purchased a two day Big Bus ticket. It’s not called a HopOn HopOff bus but they have a fixed route and you can get off/on at any stop. Since I particularity wanted to see the city and to visit Gardens by the Bay park, it worked perfectly.

I took a taxi with friends from the ship to the starting location of the Big Bus tours and after riding around on both of the bus loops, my friends left and I remained on to get off at Gardens of the Bay for a visit.

I went to the Kingfisher wetlands at Gardens by the Bay because I wanted to see Kingfishers. I did see one flying past at the speed of flight but that was it. The signs at the Kingfisher wetlands indicated I could have seen 9 species! I personally believe it’s called Kingfisher wetlands because it has statues of kingfishers not because it has lots of live kingfishers.

There are thousands and thousands of motor bikes on the roadways. The riders mostly wear helmets but have very little protective wear. I’ve seen them smoking, eating and using their cell phones while driving their motorbike. More than once I saw them wearing their jacket just on their arms. I’m guessing it’s for sun protection.

In the evening Jennifer and I went on an evening tour and to the Gardens by the Bay light and Sound show to see the super trees lit up. The show was more crowded than usual because the second show was cancelled to reduce electricity use in observance of Earth Day. We sat on the ground to watch the show. Thank goodness someone helped me up as I was pretty stiff after sitting thru the waiting for the show to start and the 15 minute show.

It’s been beastly hot and humid the last couple of days and my clothes get soaked with sweat before I’ve walked very far. I spend quite some time figuring out where I might find a breeze or an air conditioned space. Almost all of the stores are air conditioned- another reason to shop! Families go to the malls and wander around during the day as a way to stay cool since many don’t have air conditioning in their homes.

Today Jennifer and I booked a car with driver and guide so we could visit Batu Cave, the Kulala Lumpur bird park and the textile museum.

Batu Cave was on my ‘must see’ list of temples to visit on this trip and it didn’t disappoint. After walking 272 steps, you enter a giant cave with a temple inside of it. It’s amazing.

Kulala Lumpur Bird Park, KL bird park as it’s known, was also fun- they have large nets that keep the birds inside and they are flying and walking all around you during your visit. We had lunch at the Hornbill cafe and, by golly, a hornbill sat on the tree just outside while we were eating. When the nearby mosque gave the call to prayer, the hornbill joined in. I thought I recorded it but I was too enthralled to hit the right buttons.

The textile museum was great too. It would have been even better if the air conditioning worked! It showed how the fabric was made years ago-it looked very complicated. The patterns were amazing and beautiful.

Today I went on another “highlights of” tour and visited the Georgetown historic UNESCO world heritage site with it’s Chinese clan houses. We visited one of the richest clan homes and one of the poorest. Plus we visited the Chaiya Mangalaram Buddhist Temple with it’s reclining Buddha and The Penang Malay Gallery showcasing the Malay culture.

Today I visited a rubber plantation, PromThep Cape(famous sunset overlook of the Andaman Sea and elephant temple), a cashew processing plant, a Buddhist temple (Wat Chalong) and a Chinese shrine at Sapan Hin. Thailand is famous for some of it’s beaches too but I didn’t visit any of them.

The rubber plantation was along side the road and a women came out of her building/home and showed us how she cut the tree and the sap/rubber ran into a little bucket. Unexpectedly, the sap moves slower the hotter the tree is. The price of rubber has dropped from 100 bhat/unit to 30 bhat/unit so many plantations are moving to other crops or selling the land for buildings.

I wasn’t impressed with the overlook but we were there during the peak of the day and it’s supposed to be amazing at sunset but the elephant temple was pretty amazing. If you make a wish at the elephant temple and it comes true you bring an elephant figurine to the temple. There were lots and lots of elephant figurines of every size so many wishes have come true.

The cashew net is at the end of a piece of fruit the size of an apple. After the fruit is picked and the nut removed from the fruit, the nut is dried a little bit and then the outer skin/shell is removed by hand. It is a source of income for women and families. The ‘factory’ gives them a bag of nuts with their outer skin/shell which the women take home. In the evenings they remove the outer skin and when they return the skinned nuts to the factory, they are paid.

Notes on Thailand

• 7-11 stores and KFC restaurants are all over the place
• They have amazingly tangled wires on the telephone poles- many of these wires are actually internet cables rather than electrical wires
• Pictures of the king/former king are all over the place
• Thailand is proud that is has multiple religions and they live in harmony

One of the places I really wanted to see on this cruise was Phang Nga Bay and today I got to see it.

We took a hour and 45 minute bus ride to the pier were we boarded a propeller boat. We cruised the bay, had lunch at a floating Hindu village and then headed back to the ship.

Another relaxing sea day- today’s special treat was a cupcake themed high tea.

A relaxing sea day today- the special treat was brunch. Delicious spread of food and free mimosas! I didn’t do much of anything else.

Today Jennifer and I went on the excursion to Yala National Park in Sri Lanka hoping to see the Sri Lanka Leopard. It was wonderful even tho we didn’t see a leopard. We were in the park at mid-day and the leopards are usually, if at all, seen in the early morning or late afternoon. We did see many other birds and animals. Other folks on the tour said it should have been called a ‘birding tour’ because of all the birds they saw.

It was a two hour bus ride to the park and then we had a 3 hour safari and lunch before heading back to the ship.

Jennifer and I ended up in our very own safari vehicle- there were no other passengers except the man who was in the top level of the tour company that arranged the safaris. He was good at spotting animals. All the other jeeps had 5 or 6 people each. I originally went into a jeep that had 3 people expecting that there would be 5 when Jennifer and I joined but then I realized another person was joining so I left the vehicle and went to one that was empty. Jennifer and I sat in the jeep wondering and wondering if we could possibly end up being the only ones in the jeep.

One disadvantage of the jeep we had was it was noisy– every 30 seconds or so a metal piece would clang against another piece of metal very loudly. It was so loud the driver couldn’t hear us when we asked him to stop for an animal.

The other odd part of this safari is that each vehicle is allotted a certain amount of time before they must leave the park consequently the jeeps drove very fast. Once we were stopped looking at something when another jeep came up and their driver berated ours for stopping and made ours start driving again. Between the noise, rough roads and speedy travel, it was the first time ever I was glad to end a safari drive.

Today I went on an excursion to a tea and rubber plantation. It was fun. We drove about two hours to get to the plantation where we had tea and cake before seeing the rubber trees and going to the tea factory. The drive thru the villages and countryside was fascinating.

We docked at a 750 acre working port and the exit from the pier was 5 kilometers from the ship. There was a shuttle bus that took us to the entrance because there were lots of trucks carrying containers along the way. The port handles 70 million metric tons of cargo a year.

Women are paid 1000 Sri Lanken rupees(about $3.50) for each 20kg of leaves they pick. Ninety percent of the tea grown is exported and not used locally.

Random tidbits from Colombo

• In 1972 they became a republic and changed the name from Ceylon to Sri Lanka
• The population is 22 million- mainly Buddhists. But it’s a multi-ethnic and multi-religion country. It has 90+ percent literacy with free education until university and the life expectancy is 70-75 years
• Two years ago they had financial issues but they are recovering but 1 million people are below poverty.

We arrived to Colombo about noon and my excursion was in the evening. Jennifer and I wanted to find some fabric and went out to take the shuttle to town but ran into some friends and a guest speaker and decided to take a taxi together. The guest speaker was dropped off at the hotel/mall and we directed the taxi driver to the fabric store Jennifer found on google.

We didn’t find the fabric store but the taxi driver took us to a large market and said “just go down that alley and the store is right there”. We didn’t want to get out as we were worried we’d get lost and besides we did not have the necessary currency to make any purchases. We directed the taxi driver to take us back to the ship. He drove thru the market- it was fascinating. Cars and people were moving right next to each other and vendors had many, many items for sale. And we did see lots of vendors selling fabric!

They are celebrating the full moon festival today- it happens every full moon- so many of the stores were closed for the holiday. Sri Lanka has many many holidays as they celebrate the Christian holidays, the Hindu holidays, the Muslim holidays….

After we got back, we celebrated by having tea. We all wore our elephant clothing we got at the last port. I tried to find the same dress as the others but in a different color but couldn’t find one.

My evening excursion included a dance show and we got to drive by the large lotus blossom cell tower that has different colored lights. And I got to try delicious Arrack- a local drink. Arrack is an alcohol made from coconut that has been fermented. It didn’t taste like coconut but tasted similar to a margarita.