Bali

Our ship was too big to dock in Bali, so we anchored in the bay and were ferried ashore in our lifeboats. I was amused to hear the ever pervasive Muzak even in these boats. Soon they will be equipped with TV and a bar, allowing passengers to gurgle
into the depths watching Oprah, cocktail in one hand, doughnut in the other.

Mentioning lifeboats reminds me of a grievous insult I suffered the other day. During life boat drill, when our group was crammed into a stuffy room, an old lady - at least 60 - offered me her chair! I attend gym hours a week, am careful with my diet, have a No 4 (in places) haircut, my young wife by
my side! Oh the shame! Must have been the champagne I'd had.

Once ashore in Bali, we took a taxi to Kuta the tourist centre of the island, and had a swim at its beautiful beach in luke-warm water. After a bit of shopping and much drinking - water - we decided we had seen enough and
headed back to the ship.

Now we are cruising east towards Darwin and are currently 6hrs ahead of GMT.

Photos.

1. Anne's Bali. Shopping! Note an offering to the gods on the pavement.
2. Stuart's Bali. The beach.
3. Our home.

Beverly.

In my FIFTY blog I should have attributed the picture of Anne and myself. It was drawn by Bev, given to us at her 21st birthday party and represents Anne welcoming me home after work. It hangs in our lounge at home. We love it. Thank you Bev .

FIFTY!

Fifty years ago we said to each other "We will!" and so we have. Our wedding program had a quote from St Paul. "Heirs together of the grace of God" and so we are. Other couples have been disjointed by adversity, but we have been driven together and have found strength in God's grace.

In his wedding speech, Anne's father boldly spoke about the lion and the lamb lying down together, much to our embarrassment. I didn't know who was meant to be whom! It's been more like two lions trying to get together...

No, I joke - I know who is the lioness.

We spent most of our anniversary day trying to communicate with the family (quite appropriate really), unfortunately without success. We hope you received a birthday message from us Annette as you enter your fiftieth year!

However we did manage a great celebratory dinner at a special restaurant ( The Tuscan Grille) at the stern, overlooking the wonderful lights of Singapore. We were supposed to have left at 6pm but there was trouble over missing passports so we left late evening.

Much love to you all, and especially to our wonderful daughters and grand-children. Thank you for your support!

G'ma & G'pa, Mum & Dad, Anne & Stuart.

Photo. Anne and Stuart.

Equator.

We are now traveling through the Indonesian Archipelago (that's another new big word for you Ana), though we catch only an occasional glimpse of an island. What we do see are minuscule fishing boats sprinkled in our path and we are continually zig-zagging to avoid them. Imagine what it must be like to see this colossus bearing down on you, not knowing which way to turn to escape being crushed.

There has not been much wild life to be seen, excepting the 1,000 or so Aussies that joined us in Singapore. We have seen shoals of flying fish that seem to be no bigger than small sardines or butterflies. They skim away across the waves, occasionally dipping their lower tail fin into the crests, wiggling furiously, leaving a serrated wake as they speed up for a further few metres.

We have been moved to a balcony cabin, closer to the stern but ten storeys up and it is amazing how quiet it is here. The seas have been so calm that, without looking outside we feel as if we are in a hotel on land. I am hoping for a good Tasman storm later on!

Another character inboard who has delighted us is called Magic Mike who leads Zumba dance sessions. I call him Black Magic as he is one of the most superb specimens of humanity I have seen. Anne is so captivated by him that she even tried a few sessions! Unfortunately I don't have a photo of her, but I did manage one of him!

Bear with me, as I have a couple more comments. One is about the direction in which water in the toilet swirls in different hemispheres. Mythology has it that it is clockwise in the northern hemisphere, but this reverses as one crosses the equator. This is hogwash, as you can easily demonstrate in your sink anytime. However there is one direction in which the flush is different. In England, toilets flush south whereas in the Antipodes they flush north. Fortunately!

We have also noticed a definite improvement in the air down south. We can now see the horizon and the sky seems to be a deeper blue. So nice to be back!

We had a crossing equator ceremony in which novices had to "kiss the fish"!

Photos.
1. The ceremony.
2. The fish.
3. The kiss.
4. Black Magic.

Thank you!

Thanks to all of you who have posted your comments -we thought it was too difficult to do so didn't encourage it and we haven't been able to access the blog properly until now that we are in the free wifi site in Singapore.

Thank you.

Singapour.

And it did. In sheets and buckets, with spectacular and magnificent lightning and thunder, ear-splitting crashes milliseconds apart, as if the heavens were being torn asunder.

We were in the middle of High Tea at Raffles, an ambition we've had for many years after reading Somerset Maugham's books on the Far East. Sir Stamford Raffles, you may remember founded modern Singapore and his hotel plays an important role in many Eastern stories.

The High Tea was excellent, complete with artillery sound effects, the likes of which I haven't heard since leaving Central Africa.

Singapore impresses and well illustrates the shift in progress from West to East. Vibrant, brash, highly intelligent and swarming with the eager young.

Our day was complicated by everyone (3,000) having to clear the ship early while it was prepared for the next leg. Imagine having to move that number out, through immigration and customs and then welcome aboard an almost brand new set of 3,000 customers, mostly Aussies to boot! Chaos!

Here are some pics...

The first three are at Raffles, the last the view from our new balcony cabin.

Bay of Bengal

We are now half way through our cruise and, although we are enjoying it, we look forward to hearing English as she is spoke - we are surrounded by Amerish, Eurish, Australish, and Chinish. We have been four nights at sea, crossing to Malaysia and so I have taken the chance to have a hair cut. For this I had to brave The Witches' Village (acupuncture, aromatherapy and facials). A young homesick lass who spoke Scottish relieved me of some hair and we chatted at length about Scotland - she had done the Loch Lomond to Fort William trek and some Munroes. At the end she, for five minutes of a No 4, witched NZ$50 from me - the most expensive and worst haircut I have ever had, or likely to have!

We have been impressed by the gritty determination shown by the many handicapped people on board. Getting around the ship is quite easy for them with wide flat areas and excellent lifts. However the excursions pose great problems, starting with the gang plank. In Petra we met a group of people in wheel chairs attempting the rocky road down to the buildings in sizzling heat. We have chatted to one man with a mobile oxygen concentrator about the size of a small vacuum cleaner, which he has to trundle around with him, a small tube in his nose. How does he fly?!

Anne here--
I have, as you have heard, spent a fair amount of time watching the ' Glass Blowers ! ' A great group of 3 very artistic young people. Yesterday we were entertained with the auctioning of 6 pieces of beautiful glass. 4 pieces went each for US$1200.00 and above and 2 for $800.00. It was a lot of fun. The last piece, no 7 was sold in aid of Breast Cancer research. That went for $1700.00 US. Very generous and wealthy folk on board this ship !!!!!! Needless to say I was just an observer encouraging the bidders to 'go higher'

I have yet to learn how to label photos so will try this way and hope they appear in the same order.
1. The main 1500 seat restaurant.
2. Anne with her many admirers.
3. Show time.
4. The main theatre.

Cochin in Kerala in India

As I came up on deck in the morning, we were cruising up the river into Cochin on the south-west coast of India. Doing a very neat one point turn this giant ship eased its way into a parking spot, nose to nose with an aircraft carrier.

We had a good look around Cochin, a city vibrantly overflowing with benevolent humanity. Although there is a great mix of cultures and religions, these people appear to accept and even rejoice in their diversity. 30% are Christian and the rest are mostly Hindu with a scattering of Muslim. There is even a handful of Jewish people (with their synagogue), a remnant of the first diaspora from Nebuchadnezzar's sacking of Jerusalem around ?600BC!

Our guide said that to have the best of all worlds one should have an Indian wife, an American salary, a German car and Chinese food. The worst? An American wife, an Indian salary, a Chinese car with German food!

We saw the iconic Kerala fishing nets which are lowered into the water on long poles, left for ten minutes and then raised, trapping the fish, and there was quite a lot of fish on sale on the banks.

We visited the waterways and delighted in the house boats, thinking what a hit they would be on the Thames!

Kerala was altogether a great experience, but now we are on our way to Malaysia across the Bay of Bengal. More anon!

Arabia. Dubai and Muscat.

The Internet problem has become a
major talking point on board - this entry may never be published as I have not been able to connect for a few days.

Dubai is even bolder and brasher than on our last visit. After exposure to the vast antiquities of Egypt and Jordan, one is led to ask, after viewing the Burj Khalifa (828 meters), will it last as long as the Pyramids. Will Dubai even be there after 100 years, or will its bubble pop before then?

We visited the Gold Souk and had a close look at a gold necklace for Anne, but when the young sales lady doubled the price after making a mistake with her calculator, we opted out!

Muscat in Oman, just around the corner through the Straits of Hormuz, was every bit as exotic as the name promises. Very Arabic with forts perched on hill tops, white marble buildings with the scent of frankincense all pervading. We visited a very beautiful mosque and saw the outside of one of the seven of the Sultan's palaces, as well as one of his massive yachts. One wonders why the plebs don't object to his ostentation, but if one pays no tax or rates, health and education are free and petrol is 39 cents a litre ( less expensive than water!) one has few complaints...

Mind you, Mrs Mountbatten lives just as ostentatiously, and we still venerate her.

Today ( Weds 14th) we are cruising south just west of the Indian Coast, (having braved Pirates Alley once again), heading for Cochin in Kerala, south west India.

The Gulf of Aden

Relax guys. We are about to exit the Gulf where pirates are said to operate, without seeing a single eye patch! The two launches I mentioned in the last post were in fact bringing us extra
Security people, we found out later.

However we are about to enter the next gulf which has an even greater threat from the country on the eastern shore, less than twenty miles away. This guy is handy with Persian projectiles, having just shot down an American drone flying in international waters near us...

And we are immersed in a very American culture on this ship. Meaning that we are surrounded by well heeled, well girthed, well aged and slow moving bodies, frequently asserting, with every new vista, and in high-heeled nasality, their ownership of the Deity, and constantly exhorting us to HaGD.

On the positive side they are very kind and unfailingly courteous so that we feel much more relaxed than in a similar crowd of Brits who tend to be much more territorial.

Tomorrow we pass through the Straits of Hormuz (I think that's the name) through which passes a large percentage of the world's oil and then we head for Dubai, of which more anon.

Love and greetings to all of you, family and friends.

The Red Sea.

Tues 6th

For the last two days we have been cruising south down the Red Sea with temperatures soaring. The management is clearly concerned about pirates - we have had another warning and have been told that from tonight the ship will be blacked out and no-one will be allowed on the top decks. Indeed at lunchtime, we suddenly slowed, our hooter blared, and there were two modern 40ft launches speeding across our bows to circle round not 1/2 kilometer from the ship. Eventually they disappeared and we were told that they were unknown vessels! So if you don't see any
more entries on the blog, look in your news for mention of another shipjack. We would be a very plump prize!

We find the food (frog legs, snails and black pudding but no tripe, yet) very good and plentiful, so much so I fear buttons will be popping before we reach Sydney!

Now we are about to squeeze this behemoth through the Strait of Bab el Mandeb and then we'll turn east around the Saudi Arabian peninsula, heading for Dubai.

Petra

Sunday 4th.

After cruising south down the Gulf of Suez, we turned around the point of Sinai then north up the Gulf of Aqaba, arriving early on Sunday morning. The day was devoted to visiting Petra, a civilization as old as the Pyramids although the buildings are not as old.

After a long bus ride and a hot dusty walk down a very narrow and deep ravine, dodging galloping
horses, we were rewarded with the classical sight of the buildings carved into the cliff walls. The narrow defile suddenly opened put into a sunny area of about two acres, on the opposite side of which was the magnificent Treasury. Walking down the wider valley we saw many buildings and sepulchers cut into the cliff walls with, finally, a large Roman amphitheatre.

There were thousands of people there, probably half of whom were from our ship.

Compared with dingy Egypt, Jordan looked relatively clean and prosperous, the people well dressed and not quite so commercially aggressive.

Suez and Luxor

Thurs 1st.
We awoke to find ourselves half way through the Canal in a convoy stretched over many miles with at least a mile between ships. At one point, in one of the lakes, I thought we had engaged a mud bank as we had stopped and mud was churning around the stern. However we were only waiting for the north bound convoy to pass...

Once into the Gulf of Suez we headed for Safaga on its western bank and moored there so that people could go on excursions the next day.

At the start of our cruise the captain told us to prepare for a terrorist attack in the Red Sea - burn your American passport, practise some British vowels and try running on water etc.. He gave us a code word he would use in the event of an attack, and on hearing this we should immediately head away from windows to the centre of the ship. Trouble is we have forgotten the code so if you see us cowering in the toilet, it's because we have heard that there are flying fish outside...

Friday 2nd.
Today we went on a 14hr, 400Ks round trip with armed security cars fore and aft of our 15 bus convoy, in searing heat, to Luxor on the Nile to visit the Valley of the Kings and the Luxor Temple. The former is a barren stoney valley in which short tunnels were dug by the Pharoahs for their burial, all except one being completely looted. It was Howard Carter who, convinced that King Tut's tomb was also there, spent over a decade shifting thousands of tons of stone to eventually find an untouched tunnel and the priceless treasures therein.

The cost for the privilege of viewing king Tut was NZ$30 .00. This child king must have been beautiful, certainly his masque is stunning and it was awesome looking down at such a revered character. The tombs were well ventilated, outside however was scorching.

The Temple at Luxor reminded me of Stonehenge in its architecture - no arches, just massive uprights with huge stone slabs on top. Of course much more sophisticated!

We had lunch at 5pm, dinner at 10 pm, and all arrived back at the ship exhausted.

Tomorrow we set off for Aquaba in Jordan to have a look at Petra.