Sebang, Indonesia – January 21

mind blowing!

Hot (as usual), partly cloudy, not too sticky - 29 real feel 33

We turned our clocks back an hour last night, so I am up even earlier than I usually am and decide to go to the gym. I think it’s about 7:15 when I decide to take a quick shower and realize when I’m in there that it might actually be 6:15. Sure enough it is 6:15, but I’m wide awake and have showered, so I head to the gym.

Actually getting to the gym might not sound like that much of a feat, but while I try to visit regularly at home, vacation is just that…VACATION. However, if I’m going to be able to fit into more than a muumuu after 9 weeks of dessert and wine at every meal I’m not stupid.

Japanese bunker

Although the gym is air conditioned it is still incredibly humid – drenched doesn’t come close to describing me when I am finished – thank God for included laundry! After a fresh pressed carrot/cucumber/pineapple juice and another shower I am ready for the day!!

We aren’t scheduled to arrive in Sebang until after lunch, so we are in no rush this morning. We do however have a breakfast date with all of the other 26 Grand Voyage passengers. We meet another couple from Dallas, but because this is a sit-down rather than a cocktail type mixer we don’t meet too many others – that’s fine with me.

After breakfast is a talk on Myanmar where we will be visiting on Friday for 3 days. Myanmar is yet another country that I know very little about…really much of what I know about many countries of the world, including where they are on a map is from visiting there.

The afternoon’s tour (considering the talk we heard a couple of days ago) was wonderful. I suppose it is always about expectations, but in the end we are more than pleased and impressed. This tour is basically a tour of the island in a becak which is basically a rickshaw consisting of a motorbike with 2 seats attached for 2 relatively ‘narrow’ passengers…us. There is one guide for every 3 becaks and we get the guide (a phys ed education student) who just perches behind the driver.

very refreshing

After driving through the winding streets, seeing houses, shops and the people who live there we stop at Wey Beach on the Strait of Malacca. I’m pretty sure this is most gorgeous beach I’ve ever visited. The crystal clear water is in various shades of blue and green and the waves are substantial – substantial for what I’ve experienced. There are cows, goats and chickens roaming and I drink a freshly chopped coconut – delicious and refreshing…I’m reminded by a friendly fellow passenger to go easy as coconut tends to have ‘effects’ on the digestive system – I’m aware of this, but it is a good reminder!

Next we stop at Pantai Tapak Gajah beach, where there is the remains of a hilltop fortress the Japanese built during World War II. There’s not much besides the remnants of the concrete bunkers and gun emplacements dug into the sides of the cliff.

coconut refreshments

After a couple more stops to gaze over the incredible water we say goodbye to our guide.

This tour was surprisingly wonderful. If I could visit a tiny place like this for the next week, I’d be happy. We’ll see if my digestive system says the same thing tomorrow!!

Penang, Malaysia – January 20

giant ship about to back into us

Hot (as usual) but not too sticky

Today is our first step off of the boat in Penang, Malaysia. We are off by 9:00 am so the weather is quite lovely for the first 5 seconds!!

Considering how warm it is again, the bus we are on for the morning is like a freezer. I am NOT complaining, however…I’d say it is the coldest bus we’ve ever been on. At times I’d consider the AC WIND! Again… the last thing I’d ever do is complain about AC, but wow!

fresh tea in the jungle

spice garden tour guide

Our first stop today is to a botanical garden. This is a tranquil spot where many locals and tourists come in the morning for exercise. We take a stroll through the jungle where our guide describes different plants and flowers. For most of the time we walk along a stream of fresh water. We are told there are monkeys and finally see 2 at the very end of our visit.

canon ball tree - very cool

Next, we drive along a winding ocean-side highway on the way to our second stop fo the morning - the Tropical Spice Garden, this spot has a living collection of more than 500 species of local and introduced plants with an emphasis on tropical herbs and spices. Again this place like the botanical garden is extremely lush, I suppose everywhere here is lush! Along the way the guide shows us many plants that we are familiar with their dried form – cinnamon for example.

jungle

Once we return to the boat, we have lunch and spend a leisurely afternoon on our balcony.

Tonight is the ship’s block party – when everyone heads out into the hall outside their room with an empty wine glass. Wine and snacks are served while everyone meets their neighbors. We met our neighbors, 2 doctors from London.

Sea Day – January 19

Regent model??

My absolute favourite day on a cruise (other than perhaps meeting an Indian family at the Taj Mahal) is a sea day. We’re still not sleeping in, but anytime I wake up without an alarm is a sleep in to me. I realize this morning (actually at about 3:30 this morning) that we went a little crazy with asking for extra pillows, we ended up with 8…not necessary. After lazing around a bit we decide to check out the lecture on Thursday’s port Sabang, Malaysia. These port talks typically describe the port and the excursions available. Sabang apparently is a rarely visited place by tourists and cruise ships.

lobster for dinner

During the talk it is made abundantly clear that this is not a touristic port and that the facilities and will be basic at best – there are no certified guides, the guides will be students, teachers, retirees or housewives. There are no taxis and transportation is either private car or becak (tuk-tuk) – fine as we rarely venture out on our own when a tour is available. There is no mention of how ‘basic’ the toilet facilities will be which speaks volumes – I know how to deal with this!!

caviar appetizer

We get in a quick breakfast before another talk about the history of Malaysia and Indonesia. This is very welcome as although we’ve visited here before, I really have no clue about this area of the world.

Before dinner we go to the captain’s welcome reception for a drink and some snacks, where many of the staff introduce themselves.

Dinner is in the main dining room as it was last night. We decide against the evening show as for some reason it seems like we’ve had a hard day!

laundry day!!

Embarkation Day, Regent Seven Seas Voyager – January 18

our home for the next 49 days

look who's a pretty big deal

Ship boarding day isn’t very eventful. After a lazy morning at our Singapore hotel we take a 5 minute taxi ride to the ship. Our room isn’t quite ready so we take a long lunch. Our room is different from ones we’ve had before in that we have a much bigger balcony…will come in handy for at least the first half of our time on the boat.  

We found out that there are 26 other people on this Grand Voyage from Singapore to Tokyo. That would leave about 650 other passengers coming and going. 2 of the other 26 we found out are Rod and Betty from Edgemont – as someone said…we came a long way to become friends!

Singapore January 17

world's largest waterfall

Hot, not too sticky, partly cloudy, 30 degrees

Today is our last day in Singapore, so we decide to spend it off of Sentosa Island.

I can't get enough

I choose the one on the right

The main attraction for today is Singapore’s Gardens by the Bay – a huge complex of indoor and outdoor gardens. One of the 2 indoor gardens is the Cloud Forest. This conservatory displays plant life from tropical highlands up to 2,000 metres above sea level. As soon as we step foot in here I am in love. It is cool and moist – the moisture coming from the world’s largest indoor waterfall. The other indoor garden is a Flower Dome, which I thought I’d prefer to the Cloud Forest…wrong! The Flower Dome is lovely, but not as spectacular as the Cloud Forest.

The Gardens by the Bay is right next to the Marina Bay Sands resort. This is a huge casino, hotel, shopping complex. We considered staying here and I’m glad we didn’t. It is very busy and I am very happy with our choice of the beach resort where we are. The Marina Bay Sands has a roof-top (57^th floor) infinity pool and restaurant/lounge which is pretty mind blowing. We have a drink at the top and manage to time our visit with Singapore’s daily rain storm.

overlooking the pool

Although we took a taxi to the gardens this morning, we decide to try Singapore’s metro. I always love trying public transit…gives me a feeling of accomplishment.

Dinner tonight is at the hotel buffet where I try Japanese snails – very interesting and cool looking. I can’t quite cope with getting them out of their shells by myself, so the very helpful waitress gets the chef to do a bunch for me. They are quite dense and sweet tasting - eating these is something else that gives me a sense of accomplishment. With this meal we think we spent all of our resort credit.

Marina Bay Sands hotel

Tomorrow is our last travel day for the next 50! We predict it'll be a 10 minute taxi ride - not bad as far as travel days go.

infinity pool 57th floor

assorted shellfish including the snails

Japanese snails out of the shell

Singapore January 16

Sentosa Island Merlion

Hot, sticky, partly cloudy 31 degrees – real feel 39!!!

Finally we are sleeping a bit later…7:00 am, for some reason the monkeys thought we deserved a lie-in today, we didn’t hear them at all.

Seems like I forgot to write about what we did last night…I don’t know if it is the wine…the heat or the sleepiness, but I’m still figuring out what day it is half of the time. Anyway…we spent the evening (yesterday) in town at Vivo City…a  mall complex…a regular mall and tons of restaurants and one of Singapore's 2 cruise ship terminals. I’m not sure what I expected from the mall, but it is pretty much just like a North American mall with us being the visible minority. We wandered the mall a bit before sharing a bottle of wine and a couple of appetizers at Jamie Oliver’s restaurant – the same one we went to last year in Bristol. In general, what we’ve seen of Singapore isn’t cheap. I think it has a bunch to do with the crappy Canadian dollar, but also just the prices here. For example…a Starbuck’s latte that would cost about $5.00 at home was $7.20 here. One thing that makes us feel a bit better about the prices at the hotel, is that they are pretty much the same outside of the hotel.

We also checked out the mall grocery store. Vacation grocery stores are always on my ‘must-do’ list. This one was a bit of a disappointment. Things here are just too much the same as at home - no interesting chips to try.

The last thing we checked out before heading home was the boardwalk along the Singapore harbour. This is lined with restaurants, pubs and wine bars. We didn’t think it would be right to walk TO the wine bar without stopping AT the wine bar. We had a great spot right along the water.

nature walk

It seems that places here don’t have their own washrooms, but you are supposed to use public ones which seem to be everywhere. The thought of a public toilet doesn’t thrill me, but these washrooms are pristine – not fancy, but spotless and I feel totally safe.

Our hotel has a shuttle that drops off and picks up at the mall. We weren’t finished until after the last shuttle left, so we took the tram back – tickets for this are provided by the hotel, but no one seemed to want to look at ours.

TODAY…breakfast as usual was at the hotel followed by pool time, our daily 600 ml beer at the pool during a downpour, a bit of swimming, a visit from the peacocks and back to the room for a nap. We skipped lunch yesterday and today as we ate breakfast pretty late.

My horoscope for the coming year

Our evening activity was to checkout the Sentosa island (where we are staying) entertainment area and casino. We could have taken the tram, but decided to walk at least part of the way. Sentosa island has a nature walk through the jungle that we’ve been meaning to try. We thought this would be a good time and I suppose it was, but 10 minutes in and we were drenched. The humidity coupled with the heat and us hiking up a hill made us a bit ‘damp’ – damp is pretty much unavoidable here. Besides the heat and humidity it was a pretty awesome trail, and by trail I mean a paved path with info plaques.

The casino was exactly what we expected…you have to bring your passport, it was pretty busy, and the slots weren’t kind to us. It was fun to visit, but it would have been a bit more fun to have won!

Our cab driver who brought us from the airport told us Singapore is preparing for Chinese New Year. We saw evidence of this around the casino…my horoscope for the year suggests drinking less…I’ll try, but I’m on vacation after all!!

Singapore January 15

waiting out the storm

hot, humid and a few torrential downpours

We are up way before the alarm again this morning…if this is jet lag, I quite like it. I’m not tired in the day, can take a very solid nap, sleep at night is easy and I’m up before any alarm. One thing I’m not up before are the monkeys…wow are they loud around 4 in the morning, I still haven’t seen any, but they make themselves heard that is for sure.

The day started out quite cloudy and stayed that way. It was mostly very calm today which added to the stickiness.

view from our room

Yesterday I forgot to write about the late afternoon storm we had. It was torrential. All day it looked like it could storm and it sure did. As soon as Chris opened our balcony door it sounded like the storm was going to come right into our room. For the most part the rain came straight down so we could be out on the balcony without getting wet which I loved and it was still super warm.

pool friend

We spent most of the day lounging by the pool. We are definitely the outsiders at this hotel. We knew it held a huge appeal for families, but I had no idea we would be one of what seems to be a handful of people without children in tow. The hotel does a good job of keeping a ‘quiet’ area for adults only. I don’t need silence, but I appreciate the lack of splashing and noise at a distance. There’s also no lack of lounge chairs here. Although I have no idea how full the resort is, there are plenty of chairs to be found.

We found out yesterday that our planned tour in Korea to the Demilitarized Zone has been cancelled due to a ‘military event’ taking place that day. Who knows what that really means, but I’m disappointed to say the least. This was one tour that I was particularly looking forward to. While I’m disappointed, I’m not the least bit surprised. It seems like tours being cancelled, even ports being cancelled for one reason of another is to be expected from cruises. Our decision to book the DMZ tour meant that we wouldn’t be seeing much of Seoul so now that is what we plan to do. The DMZ is also a malaria area which we weren’t planning on malaria pills for. We are there in the winter, so we figured long pants, and bug spray would be fine…now we don’t even have to worry about that.

Travel Day – January 12/13

sake bar

Getting from Calgary to Singapore isn’t quick. From the time we left Calgary to the time we went reached Singapore about 25 hours passed. The flights were great, just looooong. Calgary to Toyko – 11.5 hours, Tokyo – 7.5 hours…sprinkled with a few hours of shut-eye.

The Tokyo airport was very interesting…I was able to take a shower which is very important to me!  The lounge in Tokyo with its shower facilities put the British Airways lounge in London to shame…calm, quiet, clean. The shower area came complete with a ‘high-tech’ toilet that I wasn’t brave enough to use. We’ll be in Tokyo for a few days at the end of the trip…I’ll go high-tech then. There was a Sake bar, automated beer pouring station and noodle bar among other things.

high tech

Thankfully the flights were on time and our luggage showed up. When we arrived at about 11:30 pm it was still about 28 degrees…ahhhhh!

Arriving at our hotel (Shangri-la Rasa Sentosa) at the end of a very long day was a delight…after a shower and a bit of unpacking we passed out.

We left Tuesday and when we arrived it was almost Thursday…what happened to Wednesday?

Asia 2016

 
Asia is where Chris and I will spend the next 9 weeks! It seems like we have been planning this for a very looooong time and it is almost unbelievable that it is here. We will be starting with some time in Singapore on our own followed by a 49 day cruise and ending with a few days in Toyko.

August 14 - Bristol to Calgary

Rain, rain, rain

Well, this is the last blog post for this vacation. We did very little today apart from packing and having lunch at the hotel. Bristol is about 150k, so we have a car transfer booked for 5 hours before the flight is scheduled to leave. The driver is about 455 minutes late, which doesn’t make me too comfortable, but we get here with plenty of time – not loads, but plenty. I was a little anxious during the car ride – but it all worked out. I even had time for one more in-airport-shower.

August 12 – Bristol, UK

 Sunny, warm, 23 degrees

Our day revolves around a visit to the Clifton Suspension Bridge. This is a bridge 90 meters above the Avon River Gorge. The walk here isn’t far about 2k, but it’s all uphill. It’s a cool walk through the university area of Bristol. The actual walk across the bridge isn’t anything spectacular, but the views are.

On the way back we find ourselves in a derelict graveyard that I think is quite spectacular. It’s overrun with foliage, so much so that some of the graves are hard to see.

Well Hung Man

To quench our thirst we stop at the Botanist – less of a pub and more of a cool outdoor and indoor space for a drink. We only have a pint as we know Jamie Oliver’s “Jamie’s Italian Kitchen” is around the corner. After the Botanist we ducked into Jamie’s for another drink and a snack.

Along the way we stumble upon Bristol's 'Well Hung Man'. Bristol is known for it's street art - especially this mural by graffiti artist Banksy.

Soon we are back at the hotel for a quick nap before dinner.

More chips were found today.

the Botanist

Clifton Suspension Bridge