Last two of four sea days to Mumbai

Sunday April 5 2009 - Wasn’t as sunny this morning, but still warm, 28 degC as we head North up the West coast of India, 600 miles to Mumbai. At 11.00am, we watched ‘The Curious Case of Benjamin Button’ it’s 2 hours and 45 minutes long, best movie I’ve seen in a while, worth missing lunch for. When the movie was finished we went out on deck as the sun was shining brightly, we watched the crew verses passengers pool volleyball, the passengers won, surprisingly since it was 4 fit 20 year olds against 4 less than fit old guys. The show after dinner featured the ‘sparkling Irish diva‘, Sinead Blanchfield, so we gave it a miss and spent the evening up on deck by the pool.


Monday April 6 2009 - 300 miles to Mumbai and it’s hot again today, I saw on CNN the forecast for Mumbai is sunny and 37 degC (99 degF). Slumdog Millionaire was on the movie house but as they were lined up six deep for ¾ of an hour before the picture was due to start, we decided to watch it on TV later in the week. Tomorrow we dock in Mumbai.

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First two of four sea days to Mumbai

Friday April 3 2009 - This morning we’re on a South Westerly course through the Bay of Bengal, the sea is calm and it’s 29 degC (85 degF) already a 08.15am. Overnight we’ve travelled 238 miles from Port Blair and Singapore is now a long way off, more than a thousand miles to our South East. I’m feeling a bit better this morning, my cold has developed into just a head cold, hopefully it’ll be gone by the time we reach Mumbai. I spent some time by the pool reading my new book, Tandia by Bryce Courtenay, ‘til it got too hot and I went down to the cabin to get Izzy before going up to our usual morning trivia competition. After dinner I played some 3 card poker with some success then caught the evening show, a double bill with Jessica Zamprogna, a singer, and Danny Storts, an alleged comedian. After the show we went up on deck and sat in the evening heat having a beer, talking to Lucy and Jim and Jim ‘til after eleven. Lucy showed us her latest invention, a knitted pouch, worn around the neck to carry a bottle of beer, hands free, we discussed other possible uses for the pouch. Lucy should be known as ‘Lucky Lucy’ she has won bingo 11 times, a few days ago she was booed as she entered the bingo lounge, so she’s now considering disguises.


Saturday April 4 2009 - We’re still heading South West, the weather is unchanged, though the ship is a little more rocky, but nothing worth bothering about, as we pass close to the Southern end of Sri Lanka before heading North up the West coast of India. I’m told we’ll be close enough to see Sri Lanka, fortunately we’re at the opposite end from the current fighting in the North. I had more early morning sun time by the pool as it has been too hot later in the day, then we watched Defiance (the movie) showing at 11.00am, it wasn’t bad. The afternoon saw us in and out of the casino, shopping and having another meeting with the purser, still no refund of the overcharge. After dinner we went up on deck and sat in a hot tub for an hour or so looking at the stars, then at distant lightning.

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Port Blair

The winnings




Last night I dreamt I was being showered with dollar bills, then when I awoke, the bed was covered with money. I’d left Izzy in the casino and fallen asleep in the cabin and when she came in 15 minutes later she had won $350 on a penny machine. She got it in small bills and threw it up in the air over the bed.


We’re enjoying great weather and calm seas and today we were in Port Blair, Andaman & Nicobar Islands, 11 degrees North of the equator so it was hot, real hot. We hired a private car dockside with a couple of other people to take us to the islands attractions which are few and not your usual tourist fare. $10 per couple for the whole day, our driver promised, it was about 11.00am and the ship sailed at 05.00pm so we had some time to spend seeing the sights. Bill and I climbed into the back seats of the six passenger Toyota, Izzy, Shell and Christine had the middle bench seat and Richard took shotgun. The scene outside the dock gates was pandemonium as hundreds of taxi and tuktuk drivers jostled to capture the few passengers who walked out, fortunately we were isolated in our non air conditioned vehicle.

The cellular jail, Port Blair




We drove through part of the commercial district to our first stop, the cellular jail, a foreboding prison built in 1896 by the British. The prison housed mainly political prisoners and has survived in relatively good condition from the solitary cells to the gallows building.

Downtown Port Blair, it's a bit bluish in colour as its viewed through the rear window of the vehicle



Next we went to the main commercial street and Izzy bought some saphron stems, but was unsuccessful in finding a suitable Punjabi suit. We next headed to the beach which was in a beautiful picturesque location but was quite narrow with rough waves stirring up the bottom.

The beach





The bar at the beach




After everyone was done swimming, we spoke to some kids on the beach and gave away what pens and candy we had in the bag then we went to over to a local bar and had a bottle of beer, opened in front of us, drunk from the bottle, as we were all scared of getting a stomach bug from the local water. On the way back to the ship, we stopped at the Marine Museum for a short time, not much to see, we piled back into the Toyota and were back at the dock about 02.30pm. Since none of us had any local money, the driver had paid our entrance fees to the jail and the museum, in addition he had paid for the beers, so we knew his fee would have increased a little. Somehow, he now figured we owed $30 per couple, which seemed like a big difference for a beer and a couple of entrance tickets, but since even $30 was a good deal for the excursion, we didn’t argue and just paid him. We had a late lunch on board and I spent some time in the pool, the water was positively hot but better than sitting in the stifling heat and humidity of the deck around.

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Sea day before Port Blair

31 degC (88 degF) and sunny, our morning was spent trying to get some answers from the purser’s desk, eventually we met with Antonio, the chief purser. He agreed we’d been overcharged by more than $8,000 and he would work to get it resolved as soon as possible, so I felt a bit relieved that at least we agreed on what the problem was, now we just need it solved. The sea is very calm as we head North West toward Port Blair, 370 miles away, I’ll spend the rest of the afternoon sleeping, it’s a formal night tonight, so I’m going to try and make it there.

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Kuala Lumpur

The blue mosque at Shar Alam



We took a bus into Kuala Lumpur early morning, as we were docked at Port Kelang, about an hour from the big city. We stopped at the blue mosque at Shar Alam, the mosque was built about 10 years ago, I was disappointed that we couldn’t get closer to it but even from a distance it was a impressive.

Royal Palace guard



Our tour continued with a visit to the Royal Palace where the current king lives, Malaysia is a democratic kingdom with a sultan for each of the nine provinces, every 5 years the sultans elect a new king from their numbers and he holds the position ‘til the next one is elected. The palace is a former private residence and has two mounted cavalrymen guarding the entrance, nice horses. Next we visited the Museum Negara with various artefacts from Malaysia’s past and a nice little orange cat. On the museum grounds you can still see a bust of King Edward the seventh, a leftover from Malaysia’s British colonial past and , of course, an impressive statue of the well known diplomat Sir Frank Swettenham.

War monument



Our next stop brought us to the National War Monument, commemorating those lost in battle, it is divided into 3 separate sections, the first world war, the second world war and the internal conflict of the 1950’s. We walked through the surrounding gardens, before moving off to our next destination, downtown KL, where we saw stopped at the former cricket grounds, site of the signing ceremony of Malaysian independence from Great Britain. Then we were off to visit the KL tower, not the Petronas Towers, but nevertheless high enough to provide a good overview of the city. I was hungry, so I was happy with our next stop, lunch at the federal Hotel, (oink oink) a buffet with a million people crowding in to get a spoonful of rice and a bit of meat. You might have guessed, I didn’t like it, but I did get my own bowl of gruel, so at least it wasn’t as bad as the restaurants in China.

After lunch, we stopped at a craft outlet, expensive but some nice stuff, then a quick photo stop for a picture of the Petronas Towers and then we were back at the ship, spending our remaining Malaysian money, 65 ringit, on bags of chips and bars of chocolate. In general, I liked KL, it had a good feel about it, we didn’t get to meet many locals but those we did meet seemed friendly.

The blog’s a bit short today as I’m not feeling too well, there’s some kind of respitory infection going round and it looks like it’s my turn. In addition, Princess has made an unauthorised charge of $8637.42 from my credit card and it’s next to impossible to see anyone capable of explaining how it’s going to be fixed. We called our credit card company and they say that even if we dispute it they can’t change it without filling in several forms.

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