Day 20 - 02/14/2019 - Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

We arrived at Port Klang in the dark and were tied up at the dock by 6am. After breakfast we met in the showroom at 7:15 for our HAL TOUR, Best of Kuala Lumpur. However, the ship wasn't cleared until nearly 7:45am. It was then another long walk to the port exit outside the port building where our bus #2 was waiting.

It was an hour plus ride into Kuala Lumpur and our first stop was the Royal Palace where there was another organized dance of over 50 buses each containing some 40 people. And all vied for a parking spot. We had 15 minutes to take pictures of this very scenic palace with 2,000 of our new close friends. 

From there we went to the Royal Selangor pewter factory. It was fascinating to watch the manufacturing process, but a group of 20 was too large for the guide to effectively provide commentary. After leaving the factory a few minutes later we had the opportunity to photograph the Petronas twin towers which were once the tallest in the world.  

A yummy buffet lunch was served at the Big Apple restaurant in the Berjaya Hotel at Times Square before we headed over to visit Independence Square and then stroll through Chinatown and visit the Central Market (established in 1888) for last minute shopping.

We then had an hour ride back to the port where we were greeted by the sight of a large cruise ship berthed across the dock from us. It was the Genting Dream which is a fairly new cruise ship owned by a Hong Kong company and filled with Chinese Tourists. That ship's capacity is 3500 guests or about 3 times our capacity.

We promply but slowly backed out of our berth at 5pm with the assistance of a tug, rotated clockwise, and sailed out of the harbor into the open sea. Our last Lido dinner was a nice turkey, stuffed green pepper, fried mushrooms and artichokes meal and a Valentines Day heart chocolate. I partially packed and we took a break to attend the 8pm Jonathan Johnston flautist show which was excellent. We also said our goodbyes to Carol and then finished packing so we could put our luggage tonight out for transfer shoreside tomorrow morning in Singapore.

Tomorrow we don't disembark until 9:15am and will take a city tour before reaching Changi for our flight home via San Francisco. And so ends a wonderful cruise with all but the beginning and ending ports being brand new. We look forward to rejoining the ship in July in Seattle for a much longer voyage. I'll blog that voyage as well. If you want to continue following along, I'll put a link in this blog in July or if you are on Cruise Critic, the link will be there. Or you can email me. Thanks for following along.

Day 19 - 02/13/2019 - Langkawi, Malaysia

After over two weeks in SE Asia, we're back in Malaysia, this time at the Port of Langkawi which is located on Langkawi Island in the north part of Malaysia and just a few kilometers south of Thailand. The weather today was projected to be the hottest day so far on the cruise at 94°f. And it did not miss the mark.  

We docked sharply at 8am and while there was a short delay in getting the ship cleared, our group of 19 was timely in assembling in the Ocean Bar. As soon as the cleared message was given, we headed down to deck 5 to disembark. Immediately upon entering the covered gangway we encountered the heat, and it did not dissipate the rest of the day.

It was a fairly long walk to the port exit (1/8th of a mile), and our drivers for the two vans from the Langkawi Taxi Service met us. Mohammed was our driver and while he was pretty quiet, he did know some basic English. It was about a 45 minute drive north to the dock where the river tour boats were docked. Along the way we saw numerous monkeys and felt many speed bumps. There's no need for speed limit signs here! Several of the speed bumps were no more than 100 yards apart.

At the boat harbor we broke into two groups to fill two long and skinny boats with a blue vinyl roof stretched across chrome tubing. Our boat was powered by a Suzuki 140 and the other one was powered by a Suzuki 170. However, in looking around, the motor of choice seemed to be Yamaha.

After boarding the boat, our young and skinny driver backed us out of the moorage and headed us upriver along the mangroves. The river meandered a bunch, and from time to time we'd stop to observe something interesting like eagles feeding, monitor lizards swimming across the river, monkeys (these we bribed with peanuts and they didn't hesitate to enter the water to snag a peanut), and interesting rock formations such as the Crocodile Cave.  

At the Crocodile Cave we turned around and sped down river to the Sas Rimba Floating Fish Farm where we took a short break and observed numbers of fish in pens including some sting rays, grouper, and tuna. Feeding the latter two was an aggressive proposition as these fish could easily take one's finger off!

We then continued on downriver to the Bat Cave where we observed hundreds of bats hanging from the ceiling along with many stalagmites. There were also a number of monkeys here including some really cute mother baby combinations.

We continued down river and did a high speed ride across the mouth of the river and back up the river to our starting point. We were gone about 2 1/2 hours. We drove back roughly the same way as we came and were dropped off at the port gate around 1:15pm. All of this was 150 ringits per couple or about $38 US. It was still hot and it would have been a 30 plus minute walk back to the nearest civilization, so we all elected to reboard the ship for lunch.

After lunch and a little siesta in the Crow's Nest, we attended a short talk by Terry Greenberg on the Chinese Diaspora in SE Asia. Once again it was excellent! I then watched the untying of the mooring lines from the Promenade Deck and the Maasdam slipped away from the dock promptly at 5pm, rotated 180° clockwise, and sailed out of the small harbor against the backdrop of two four masted sailing vessels. The Captain announced we would need to average 19 knots to reach the port for Kuala Lumpur by 7am tomorrow.

Tonight was the Guest Chef Gala Dinner in the Pinnacle. The chef was Pearly Gee from Penang, Malaysia and the meal was quite good, but took nearly 2 1/2 hours so we missed Story Time at 9:15pm with Chris, the Expedition Leader. The 10pm Main Stage show was a variety show with Peter Mehta, the magician who did closeup magic. We were called to the stage, and his tricks were very good. Tomono Kawamura, concert pianist, played the second half and was very good!

Tomorrow we'll be in Kuala Lumpur and will be doing an all day HAL tour. With a 7am arrival, we'll need to get going pretty early!

Day 18 - 02/12/2019 - At Sea to Malaysia - Day 3

This final day at sea started a bit slow. Overnight we lost another hour which totaled 2 1/2 hours adjusted forward over the last 3 nights. We got up after 8:30am and missed the 9am coffee chat with the Naturalists. After my typical two broken eggs over easy breakfast in an uncrowded Lido I went to the Paul Hill photography session on why landscape photography is not about the land. Expedition leader followed up with his presentation on wildlife images he took around the world which was a better photography presentation. There was a noon Master Class in photography that I missed due to a conflict with lunch.

After lunch Pearly Kee, EXC guest chef did a Malaysian curry shrimp and deep fried spring rolls demonstration in the Wajang theater. But the high point of the lectures was Terry Greenberg's 2pm presentation on China in the 21st Century or Making China Great Again. It was the best lecture of the cruise and may have been the best lecture we have heard on a cruise ship. Ashok Ferrey ended the lectures for the day with his talk on how to get published.

We continued to experience relatively flat seas and warm temperatures and lots of marine traffic. That led to walking around the deck for a mile before we ate a Gala Night dinner in the Main Dining Room. Jonathan Johnston, a Irish flautist, was the evening entertainment; and he was pretty good.

Naturalist Jason Kelley was the presenter at Story Time in the Crow's Nest at 9:15pm. He had an interesting story about crossing the equator on an expedition type ship. But most bizarre, at the end of his story, he simply said thanks to the small audience and walked away without entertaining any questions as has been the custom at story time. KK wasn't there but Renau, Cruise Director, was.

Tomorrow we are on tour in Porto Malai, Malaysia.

Day 17 - 02/11/2019 - At Sea to Malaysia - Day 2

Overnight we lost another hour on the clock as we motored speedily at 18 knots east across the crowded Bay of Bengal towards the Strait of Malacca. Today was totally filled with lectures and other EXC presentations. The 9am morning coffee chat with Ashok Ferrey was a great start to the day. It was followed by Terry Greenberg's full house presentation on Chinese Admiral Zheng He's expeditions which were larger than any European version and using ships large enough to hold all of Christopher Columbus' and Vasco deGama's ships on their main decks! 

 Robert, the Staff Chief Engineer gave a terrific virtual engine room tour filmed on a GOPRO camera. Unfortunately he wouldn't take any questions. Strangely again, KK introduced him instead of our Cruise Director. After lunch Ashok presented part II of his class on writing and Kristy King presented on Sea turtles. Maria Faulkner presented what in my opinion was the weakest presentation on personal photos taken of her and her family. Then Terry Greenberg returned with another full house talk about living with headhunters in Borneo titled "Where getting ahead meant getting a head".

We enjoyed a pop up Sel de Mer dinner in the Pinnacle Grill with friends John &Carol before attending the nightly story time with Maria and John (the EXC photographers). They read long passages from their blogs about helping refugees in Macedonia and we didn't find it an effective means of communication for this venue.

We concluded our evening watching the 10pm Showroom at Sea performance by Tomono Kawamura who we saw on our 2017 Asia cruise on the Volendam.

Tomorrow's schedule will have a bit of relief and it's our final Gala Night.

Day 16 - 02/10/2019 - At Sea to Malaysia - Day 1

Overnight we lost 30 minutes as our clocks were set forward at 2am after leaving Colombo. The harsh shrill of my phone's alarm brought me out of unconsciousness to face a new day. Today is Sunday, at least that's what the rugs in the elevators told me, and I'd be leading the interdenominational service at 9am.

The service went well and I shared a sermon on the book of Philemon that I had prepared. I've been volunteering to lead these events for the past few years, and rather enjoy it.

With this first sea day there was a nonstop series of lectures and presentations. One of the EXC guides led off with a port talk about the next two ports of call in Malaysia (Porto Malai and Port Klang). The always popular 'Ask the Captain' with KK and Captain Arno Jutten was presented to a full house. It seemed strange that the cruise director didn't conduct the interview, but KK has a much more bubbly personality. The Captain was genuinely enthusiastic about sailing to these unique ports and driving the Zodiacs.

After a light lunch, in the Wajang Theater, our guest chef presented a cooking demonstration of a chicken curry dish accompanied by a yummy looking pancake item. On the Main Stage Terry Greenberg presented yet another excellent talk on the history and culture of Malaysia. Back in the Wajang theater, Terry was followed by Ashok Ferry's writing class which was well attended and quite good.

Given the number of days we've sailed on cruise ship (nearly 500), I find it interesting how aware I am to changes in vibrations on the ship. We were in the theater and I felt more vibrations than normal. This signaled to me that we were likely traveling faster than we have been. Sure enough when I checked the APP on my phone, we were cruising along at 18 knots.

It's also interesting how little things on cruise ships excite us. As I was sitting in the Crow's Nest updating this blog and watching out the window, there was suddenly a burst of excitement and a rush to the windows on the starboard side of the ship near me. It seems that a school of porpoises or dolphins had decided to come and play in the pressure wake created by the ship. These creatures not only did their more typical graceful arcing leap out of the water, but several of them came straight up out of the water before crashing back into the water tail first.

Today we've also seen many other ships sailing in our same direction as well as the opposite direction. This is the first time we've seen this much at sea activity the entire trip.

After a leisurely Lido dinner we attended Peter Mehtab's magic show. He's quite clever and the large audience appeared captivated. But the day was capped off with 9:15pm Story Time with Terry Greenberg reading a few excerpts from his book about his early years of traveling solo and on the cheap around the world. There were over 60 people there totally engaged with his stories and the following Q&A time.

Today was also Sari night and many beautiful saris were worn.

Tonight we lose another hour and tomorrow is filled with another full set of lectures. Stay tuned.

Day 15 - 02/09/2019 - Colombo, Sri Lanka

Shortly before 8am the Maasdam slipped into its berth next to the container terminal. Berthed across from us was the super yacht Vacca which I learned via google was owned by a Swiss billionaire. Behind us a large container slipped into its berth and began unloading containers.

Our little group of 10 met in the Ocean Bar and headed off the ship and met our guide and boarded our nice Toyota van. We toured throughout the city visiting an old temple, a new temple, a floating temple, a vintage Christian Reformed Church from the 1600's, The National Museum, a produce market, and a Sri Lankan buffet restaurant for lunch.

The temples were beautiful with lots of Buddha statutes and many worshippers. At the newer temple an elephant made an appearance which was a treat.  

Traffic throughout the city was the worst so far this trip. There are thousands of Tuk Tuk's (3 wheeled scooters that serve as taxis and transport vehicles). They and the compliment of motorcycles and scooters dodge in and out of traffic. Compounding the traffic are the many vehicles parked on the streets which cause narrowing of the 'lanes'. Speaking of lanes, those are merely a suggestion. There were a few traffic lights but mainly the traffic danced it's way around roundabouts. Size seemed to be the determining factor in setting the right away. In the core of the city where there are little markets, an additional impediment were the dozens of two wheeled push carts.

But all was well and we made it back to the ship by 4:30pm where we did some final shopping before reboarding. After dinner we attended the evening show twice (7 & 9pm) which was Q, the daughter of our Sri Lankan lecturer. She sang blues and soul type songs. At 22 years old she has a bright future ahead of her. There was a game show of Call My Bluff which wasn't well attended.   

We ended our evening by walking outside around the promenade deck and enjoyed a lengthy conversation with Florian, our hotel director. We've sailed with him several times, and he's very approachable and fun to talk with. He mentioned that we're delayed an hour waiting for something to be delivered (he didn't specify it). At 12 midnight we backed out of our berth, turned around and headed out to sea.

We lose a half hour tonight and now have 3 sea days ahead of us. Stay tuned.

Day 14 - 02/08/2019 - At Sea to Colombo in the Laccadive Sea

Yesterday we had the opportunity to have the Maasdam Captain be our Zodiac driver. During the ride back to the ship, he noted that HAL paid a company to use a company to use satellites to map the ocean depths in the Maldives. That indicates a high level of commitment to the safety of sailing in this area. He also said that it was important to sail in the daylight hours so that there could be visual observance of any reefs or other obstructions.

Today was our sea day to Colombo. Matthew, an EXC guide, gave a great presentation on Colombo. There was then a Mariner Medallion presentation followed by a Mariner luncheon. Following lunch, we squeezed in a cooking demonstration by Malaysian Guest Chef Pearly Kee followed by Terry Greenberg who spoke on differences between Western Nations and Asian Nations. Chris Cook gave a good presentation on underwater photography. Afterwards I spent time editing my videos of yesterday's Zodiac and snorkeling trip.

Following a light Lido dinner Jason Kelley, Naturalist, presented an excellent Evening Insight presentation on Killer Whales. A new entertainer from England, Helen Wilding, sang a wonderful variety of songs ranging from movies to classics to pop.

But the evening highlight was the return of story time at 9:15 in the Crow's Nest. It was well attended with over 30 in attendance to hear Ashok Ferrey share 3 of his travel stories which were very good.

Tomorrow we have an all day tour and Ashok's daughter is performing twice tomorrow on the Showroom at Sea stage.