This day started out with breakfast in the dining room where they serve most anything you might want to eat. You can get coffee, juice, hot or cold cereal, eggs, bacon, toast, muffins, pastries, omelets, eggs benedict, and more. Sharing a table with other passengers is nice because you get to meet some interesting folks from all over the world, but the service always takes longer. In the Lido upstairs it is self serve so it is much quicker to eat if you are in a hurry. Others prefer to dine in the privacy of their own cabin and will order room service.

The shore excursion team presented tour options for several upcoming ports in Indonesia. We then attended a cake-decorating contest between some of the Rotterdam singers and dancers. Two boys competed against two girls to see who could decorate the best cake with the ingredients given. They had frosting with food coloring options, chocolate sprinkles, fresh fruits, powdered sugar and chopped nuts. The girls created a beautiful cake using fresh fruits while the boys used too many competing items and it was just a bit of a mess.

We watched an afternoon movie based on a true story titled “Beyond Rangoon” with Patricia Arquette and Frances McDormand about a woman who travels to Burma in the 1980’s after the murder of her son and husband. She loses her passport at a political rally and falls in with students fighting for democracy. She ends up traveling through Burma during civil unrest and witnesses many bloody acts of repression by the dictatorship. She finally escapes to Thailand after many harrowing experiences.

Before dinner, Mark walked on the promenade deck, while Kent headed to the gym and sauna. For dinner we shared a table with the Russian classical pianist who has been performing onboard.

The evening show was a variety show featuring Chuck Curry the trumpet player and Adam Westcott the flamenco guitarist.

This morning we attended a lecture by Brian Stoddart on a town on the east coast of India near where we are sailing that was previously called Madras and is now called Chennai. Brian was making the point that small villages with a port, natural resources or a tourist attraction can grow to be a metropolis. Every city has a history and this was just one example.

We dined in the main dining room for lunch, as Mark prefers to be served rather than having to select something from the buffet in the Lido dining room. Mark had a simple salad with a chicken breast, apples, walnuts, cranberries and a vinaigrette dressing. Kent had the ravioli with eggplant and a cream sauce. As the pants begin to tighten we continue to cut back on what we eat, but everything looks so good, it is hard to resist.

In the afternoon we walked before Werner Salinger presented a lecture on Brazil, the world’s 6^th largest economy, which is currently in a recession. Kent attended the afternoon tea where cupcakes were the pastry of the day. Mark painted a lotus flower at the watercolor class.

We, along with Tom, were invited to dinner with our friends Kathy and Carol in the Canaletto restaurant where they serve Italian fare.

The evening’s entertainer was Rustem Hayroudinoff, the Russian concert pianist who performed for us a few nights earlier. Kent and Tom had quite a nice conversation with him at breakfast. He seems to be a very nice person, as well as a talented pianist.

This was a very quiet sea day with few items on the agenda to do. The morning included a presentation by David, the location guide on the upcoming port of Rangoon, Myanmar. The evening was a gala or formal dinner with a special Indian themed dress. They asked guests to wear any sari’s they may have purchased in India to dinner and had a pre-dinner fashion show in the crow’s nest to show them off. About 17 of the men in our group attended the show—only one wore a man’s Indian dress.

Alex and Dennis (from Berlin) and Tom (from London) joined us for dinner in the Dining Room. Kent continued to ask his “getting to know you” questions and all seemed willing to answer. Surf (lobster) and turf (filet mignon) was the most popular menu item.

After dinner, Portia Emare from England performed a variety of familiar tunes by artists like Whitney Houston, Barbara Streisand and Adele.

Hambantota – Mulkirigala Temple Rock

Hambantota – Reclining Buddha

Hambantota – Cave Murals

Hambantota – Mulkirigala Temple Caves

The weather was extremely warm and humid on this day. Sri Lanka has four different climate zones so it is possible to experience very different climates across Sri Lanka. The Hambantota area in located in an arid climate zone.

Sri Lanka, formerly known as Ceylon, is located to the south and east of the lower tip of India in the Indian Ocean. The island is 5 degrees north of the equator and has a population of 22 million inhabitants. Hambantota is located on the southern coast of Sri Lanka and was partially destroyed in 2004 by an Indian Ocean earthquake and a Tsunami that followed. After the earthquake and tsunami, they began to build a new port to accommodate the 36,000 ships and 4,500 oil tankers that use this route each year. The harbor opened in 2010– although they were not able to dredge the new harbor as deep as they had planned to, due to rock formations.

Hambantota has large salt flats along the coast that attract a large number of shore birds including pelicans and flamingos. The island has several national parks where wildlife–like tigers, elephants, water buffalo, leopards and elephants–can be seen.

Our destination was the Mulkirigala Temple, with its seven painted caves, located about 90 minutes from the port by bus. Our bus was older with poor air conditioning so the ride was not particularly pleasant. The temple is created out of a huge rock formation standing 676 feet tall, and dating back to 130 BC. The origin of the temple is unclear, but it is said that Buddhist monks who had achieved the state of supreme enlightenment, lit a lamp with mustard oil here so that it could last for 5,000 years, until the birth of the next Buddha. Within this rock formation there are seven large cave temples that have been painted with fine murals over the years. It is believed that the current fresco murals were painted in the 1700’s and depict the different stages of a Buddha’s life. Each cave tells a different story. In some of the paintings Portuguese and Dutch uniforms can be seen signifying the advent of the European colonization of Sri Lanka. Also found in the caves are various statues of Buddha, reclining, sitting and standing.

The caves are quite large in size and are every surface of the caves has been painted with very vibrant colors. Each of the caves has a reclining Buddha stretching the longest wall of the cave and made of clay and then painted in bright colors.

The climb to the top of the rock formation is about 550 stone steps with many of them uneven and different sizes, making the climb strenuous. The heat and humidity also added to the difficulty. We spent about two hours at the cave site before heading back to the ship via our old bus. Not long after we left the caves our bus decided that it was also hot and tired and wanted a rest. With no air conditioning working on the bus and a problem with the clutch, we stopped along a beautiful lake. The guide bought everyone fresh coconuts for the water from a roadside stand while we waited for a replacement bus. About 45 minutes passed before a beautiful new bus with great air conditioning arrived to return us to the ship. The guide was apologetic and most of the passengers understood, so all was good.

The countryside here is very beautiful with large bodies of water filled with lotus and water lilies. The fields are filled with lush green rice fields and the homes are fairly well maintained. The homes are mostly made of brick with clay tile roofs or thatched roofs made from coconut palm fronds. We came across some water buffalo roaming the streets; saw some small monkeys, large lizards and many varieties of birds.

We watched the movie titled “Steve Jobs” in the movie theater before dinner. After dinner we attended the Filipino crew show featuring about fifteen members of the crew. They did an excellent job of presenting their country’s folk dances as well as a couple of solo performances of current songs.

Mark’s Watercolors

We headed around the southern tip of India towards the country of Sri Lanka. The weather was a warm 84 degrees and partly cloudy. The warm air from the south is mixing with the cooler air from the north creating a haze in the air.

This morning we attended a lecture by Brian Stoddart on India, where he showed us many photos from the times when the British ruled India. Many British service members preferred to serve their country in India because they often lived in lavish homes and had many servants to look after their every need.

The afternoon lecture by Werner Salinger was on Australia where they have had four Prime Ministers in just two short years. Like many places in the world they are trying to find a balance between China and the United States. Many countries in the world rely on the United States to keep the world’s waterways safe but, at the same time, rely on China for exporting raw materials and importing finished goods. Many nations find this a delicate balancing act to keep both countries happy.

Kent attended an Indian tea in the dining room while Mark attended the watercolor class where he painted a baby elephant.

The Rotterdam singers and dancers put on a show titled “Dance” with a wide variety of dances like Russian folk, Paso Doble, Waltz, Jump Jive, Indian and the Fred and Ginger.

Cochin Fishing Nets

Cochin Highrises

Cochin Shoe Store

Cochin, with about 2,000,000 inhabitants, is located on the west coast of India close to the southern tip. Cochin means small harbor, which it once was. It was once the center of the Indian spice trade, trading black pepper and cardamom. Today, it is known for tourism, information technology and its port. Being close to the equator it has a very tropical climate, little change in temperature and lots of humidity. Fortunately for us the humidity was not as bad as it was yesterday in Mangalore.

We arrived in port a few minutes late and it took a few minutes longer for the local immigration officials to come onboard to process our clearance to go ashore. Local officials required that each passenger present themselves to officials to have their individual passports stamped along with a shore pass. In many countries there is no face-to-face meeting required and the ship is able to clear local immigration without any participation from passengers. Imagine 1,200 passengers, anxious to go ashore, waiting in line to see a local official. It was not a pretty sight and people were getting upset with the process, and people not following the rules that had been established by the ship to expedite this process as quickly as possible.

We took a five-hour bus tour called Panoramic Kochi where we would mostly be riding in the bus and getting an overall view of the city. The bus was superior to the one we had in Mangalore and the air conditioning worked exceptionally well. We explored the new section of town where beautiful new high-rise condominiums have been built along the river and the sea. While some of the buildings are newly constructed and beautifully designed, the surrounding areas are still in need of progress. Old dilapidated lots with trash and unkempt shops and businesses surround this new construction.

We then toured the old area of town, including the cantilevered Chinese fishing nets that represent Kochi’s sea trade. These large nets are lowered into the water for several minutes before being hoisted back out of the water in hopes of catching fish that may be swimming along and are caught up in the nets. They use a platform with a cantilever system to more easily raise and lower the fishing nets. It is believed that Chinese traders brought these huge fishing nets to India from the Court of Kublai Khan.

Also in the old town is St. Francis, the oldest European church in India, built in 1503 by Portuguese friars. Vasco da Gama was buried here in 1524, his remains later repatriated to Lisbon in 1538.

The city of Cochin is located in the state of Kerala and translates as the land of coconuts. The area is covered with coconut palm trees and everywhere we drove we saw people selling coconuts on the roadside. They produce all sorts of products out of the coconuts, including oil for cooking and beauty products. They also use a large amount of coconut milk in their cooking.

Many of the local women were wearing colorful saris or pants with a tunic dress over the top. Some of the younger men were wearing western style clothes but the older men all seemed to prefer a shirt on top and a skirt of sorts rather than trousers. The piece of fabric would be wrapped around the waist and reach to the floor but can also be folded up from the floor and tucked into the waist to create a shorter skirt look. In older times both the men and women would have only worn a lower piece of fabric and would be topless, but this went away after Christianity came to town.

Our guides told us that the people of Kerala are very progressive, well educated and have not more than two children. She said that divorce is more common and that they eat all types of food including beef, which is sacred throughout most of India.

Overall we thought that it was a pleasant city but that it did not have anything particularly noteworthy to see. We passed many temples, shops and homes but nothing stood out as special.

The entertainer on this night was a young man from England, who played flamenco music on the guitar, by the name of Adam Westcott. He was a likeable young man and was an excellent guitar player. Unfortunately his music all sounded similar and while he was playing he had no eye contact or connection with the audience. Quite a few guests left the show before he had finished.

Mangalore Kadri Manjunath Temple

Mangalore Gokarnanath Temple

Mangalore Gokarnanath Temple

Mangalore Cashew Factory

Dating back to the 14th Century, Mangalore is located on the west coast of India on the Arabian Sea and is a major port for exporting coffee and cashews. It was a Persian trading port and was “discovered” by Vasco da Gama in 1498, and the Portuguese officially took over in 1526. In the late 1700’s the East India Company took over the city, but the Sultan of Mysore won it back until the British once again prevailed. A local monarch later defeated them before winning the city back, only to have it burned down by the Arabs. Today the city is both a tourist destination and a busy commercial port and is known as a center of education. The cities population is approximately 625,000.

The weather forecast said that it would be 81 degrees out, but with the humidity it felt much warmer and you sweat like crazy. The air is not very clear but we are not sure if this is from moisture or from pollution or a combination of both.

Our shore excursion took us to Kadri Manjunath Temple dating back to the eleventh century and dedicated to the Lord Shiva. The temples are filled with many individual statues of Shiva within altars, each with a priest present, who is ready and available to offer you a small cup of water to drink, and a dish or cardamom and red dye to place on your forehead in exchange for a small token of your appreciation. Outside there is a large pool of water that resembles a lake that people use to bathe or wash themselves before entering the temple. The temple is not particularly beautiful or grand but many locals wander in and out as we visit. Signs everywhere state there photography is not allowed but our guide says that this is just for the locals and not the tourists. Very strange.

Our next stop was the Gokarnanath Temple that is a much more modern temple dedicated to Lord Shiva and built for the non-Brahmins of Mangalore who were denied entry into Brahmin Temples. Here there are several large buildings each with very elaborate altars that look a bit like something that you would find at Disneyland. There are tigers, cows, half-man, half-tiger creatures depicted in plastic molds or painted with bright colors and gold colored paint.

For a twist of religions we then visited a Christian church called St. Aloysius built in 1900 and featuring a chapel with beautiful frescoes by Italian artist Anthony Moscheni. Moscheni was a monk at the church and thought that the newly constructed church was a bit stark so he spent the next two years and five months painting every inch of the interior himself. He painted the columns to look like marble; he painted bible stories on the ceiling and walls that resemble what you might find in the Sistine Chapel in Rome. On the altar he also painted flat services to look as though they were three-dimensional statues in stone. The church is really quite beautiful and so unlike anything I have seen in India.

Mangalore is where more than half of the world’s cashews are processed so our next stop was at a cashew factory. Here we saw how the cashew nuts are dried in the sun, shelled, roasted, cleaned up and packaged for shipment. Hundreds of women are employed here earning only a few dollars a day to quickly separate the shell from the nut itself and also to remove the thin inner skin similar to what you find on a peanut. This is still done by hand and not machine.

We departed Mangalore for our next port, Cochin, India at 5:00pm. The evening’s entertainment was an internationally acclaimed Russian classical pianist by the name of Rustem Hayroudinoff.

The weather warmed to a high of 79 degrees and we continued to loose time as we head further east. We moved the clocks forward another 30 minutes to be in step with the local time in India and Sri Lanka. We also moved out of the danger area for pirates so there are no longer guards stationed on deck.

Another relaxing day at sea where we attended a lecture with our new location guide David who talked about things to explore on your own in Mangalore and Cochin, India and Hambantota, Sri Lanka.

Brian Stoddart lectured on India and the sport of Cricket while Werner Salinger lectured on the world’s largest Muslim country, Indonesia. Kent attended the Royal Dutch Tea while Mark attended the watercolor class. We then saw the movie “Suffragette” with Carey Mulligan, Anne-Marie Duff and Helena Bonham-Carter.

The evening’s entertainer was Portia Emare, a vocalist from London’s West End where she has performed in several Broadway shows. She has a beautiful voice and we enjoyed her show of familiar tunes.

Yesterday about 300 passengers disembarked the ship and a new set embarked the ship. One of the passengers who boarded the ship yesterday is a friend of ours, named Gail O’Connor, who worked with Kent in the 80’s at PG&E in San Francisco. After Gail retired she started a travel company called “Sail with Gail.” She booked us on our first cruise to the Western Caribbean in 1996, some 20 years ago. They told us that we have sailed some 6,902 nautical miles since we left Rotterdam. A nautical mile is equal to 1.15 statute miles.

We attended the shore excursion lecture on the upcoming ports in Myanmar, Singapore and Thailand. Kent had his hair cut by Boo-Boo who works in the salon onboard the ship. He now looks fabulous!

The evening’s entertainment was a show by the Rotterdam singers and dancers called “The Midnight Hour”. This was the best of the shows they have performed thus far. The songs were familiar tunes and the show was quick moving and upbeat.

Dubai Burj Al Arab Hotel

Ski Dubai

Dubai Marina

View from Burj Khalifa Tower

Dubai Camel Ride

Dubai is located on the southeast coast of the Persian Gulf and is the most populous city (2.4 million) in the United Arab Emirates. It is one of seven emirates, which make up the United Arab Emirates country. Dubai is the business hub of the Middle East. The economy once driven by limited oil reserves is driven today by tourism, aviation, real estate and financial services. Our guide told us that the UAE has about 8 million residents, of those 6 million are male, mostly foreign born. Dubai is called little India because more than half of the local population is of Indian descent.

We took a morning tour called “Dubai’s Architectural Marvels” that took us on an overview tour of the sprawling desert city of Dubai. In some ways Dubai reminds you of Las Vegas in that there are sections of the city that are stretches of high-rise towers of every shape and size in the middle of the low-rise homes in the midst of a desert. The skyline is absolutely jaw dropping by the sheer height of some of the skyscrapers. Many of the buildings are unique in shape, few are rectangular in shape and many have colored glass facades to make them shin in the sunlight.

Our first stop was at the famous Burj Al Arab hotel shaped like a sailboat and situated on a beautiful white sandy beach. They have some 220 all suite rooms from about $3,000 a night. Breakfast is not included but can be arranged for a nominal fee of about $70 a person per day. You have the choice of transportation from the airport to the hotel; you can be picked up by helicopter or Rolls Royce for an additional fee.

We then drove to the Palm Jumerah or Palm Island created from dredged sand from the ocean floor. The trunk of the palm tree has public access although the fronds are private and each have a security guard and gate for access. The trunk contains one condominium building after the next, as well as a shopping center and businesses. There is also an island ring around the palm tree islands that contains hotels. Here we stopped at the Atlantis Hotel, similar to the one in Nassau and built at a cost of $1.5-billion.

The next area we explored was the world’s largest artificial harbor called Dubai Marina. The once-desert area has been turned into a marina in a few short years and is now filled with high-rise towers of condominiums.

We drove by row after row of enormous single-family homes built by the government for the local people. If you are a local man and marry a local woman you are entitled to a government home for the rest of your life, all expenses paid. You have no mortgage, you pay no utility bills and they even give you cash to celebrate your wedding day. This is one way that they encourage locals to marry locals, rather than to marry someone from another country.

We then headed to the Mall of the Emirates where we took in the sights of Ski Dubai, the region’s only indoor ski dome offering fresh real snow all year round. This is very popular with the locals, since many have never seen real snow or been in any cold climate. Most come from a desert where the temperatures can reach more than 125 degrees in summer.

Our final stop was in the downtown district where we visited the largest shopping mall in the world as well as the tallest building in the world. The Burj Khalifa tower is 2,716 feet tall. We took a high-speed elevator on a 60 second ride to the 124^th floor where you have a spectacular panoramic view over Dubai and the surrounding desert. They say that if weighed, the total amount of concrete used in the construction of the Burj Khalifa would equal the approximate weight of 100,000 elephants. The blowing sand particles in the desert can often obscure the view from the tower but today the views were quite spectacular.

After returning to the ship for a quick late lunch we headed out on another tour titled “Arabian Nights: An Evening Safari & Camel Ride.” We headed out in a caravan of 14 Land Rovers to the sand dunes about an hour out of town. Here we took a short ride through the sand dunes to a camel farm. They raise the camels mostly for racing and milk, but also for transportation, pets and eating. The farm had several baby camels that were very cute. We then headed to a desert campsite where we rode a camel for a photo opportunity. At the camp you also had the opportunity to do sand boarding, smoking a sheesha (Arabian water pipe), tasting dates, have a henna design on your hands or feet and having a photo with a falcon. The falcon is a very revered bird here and falconry is quite a sport. They had a whirling dervish and a belly dancer perform for us before and after a barbecue dinner. The barbecue included salad, hummus and pita, rice and curry, lamb, chicken and beef, dessert and Nescafe coffee (Truly Arabic).

After returning to the ship about 9:00pm we were treated to a traditional Lebanese dance troupe, a whirling dervish and a belly dancer. The whirling dervishes have elaborate costumes with large skirts that they manipulate in a variety of ways all while spinning in one spot for some ten minutes or more. The skirts even have battery operated colored lights that they can turn on and off. The belly dancer got the upper part of her body moving in one direction, while the hips moved in another…. quite an amazing movement!!

It was an exhausting day but we were happy to have the opportunity to see a bit of Dubai and experience the local culture.