I am struck by the irony that, on the eve of, arguably, the most controversial presidential election in the history of the United States that is being closely followed all over the world, we are watching the results from our suite on Nautica, in the Gulf of the Suez Canal, one of the most volatile…
Continue reading →We are off again. Check out my Journeys page to find our latest itinerary as we will be cruising back-to-back segments from Rome to Dubai and Dubai to Cape Town for two months, from October 21, 2016 to December 21, 2016. These are mostly places we have never visited and, if we don’t go now,…
Continue reading →As culturally, historically, and even visually interesting Asia is, there was a collective readiness onboard to reach the shores of Australia and relax a bit in its western familiarity. However, Darwin, named after the famous evolutionist, Charles Darwin, is still a diverse mix of Asian culture and Australian heritage and, while my geographically-challenged mind thought…
Continue reading →The famous Komodo Dragon, an endangered species of which there are only 3-5 thousand left in the wild, exists only within Komodo National Park, which covers nearly 1,000 square miles of Komodo Island and the two smaller islands of Rinca and Padar in Indonesia. The park was established in 1980 in order to protect its…
Continue reading →I always imagined landing on the shores of Bali, that I would step off the ship to be greeted by a brown-skinned, flower-adorned native handing me a Mai Tai with a tiny umbrella, as I sink my toes into the warm, fine, white sandy beach. Not. While as we cruised into port I did see…
Continue reading →Locally known as the “Cat City”, the name of the city of Kuching is arguably thought to derive from the Malay word kucing, meaning cat. It is the capital and largest city of the East Malaysian state of Sarawak and the largest city on the island of Borneo, with a population of about 600,000. With…
Continue reading →We docked at the deep port of Maura, a city in the tiny sovereign state of Brunei Darussalam on the north coast of the island of Borneo. Apart from its coastline on the South China Sea, it is completely surrounded by the Sarawak state of Malaysia and, with a total population of about 421,000, Brunei…
Continue reading →As I’ve mentioned before, this journey has been a great lesson in geography and culture, not the least of which includes the island of Borneo, which seemed like an almost imaginary place until now. It does indeed exist and on the island is the city of Kota Kinabalu, the Malaysian state capital of Sabah province,…
Continue reading →The impact of war has widely influenced Asia and I am struck by the remains of it, both physically and emotionally, at the places we have visited. As much as the South Koreans dislike the Chinese, our Filipino tour guide expressed an equally unmasked disdain for the Japanese. An hour’s ferry ride across from Manila,…
Continue reading →At Keelung, our port was within easy walking distance to the city, so we took off to explore on our own. When we stopped on a busy street corner to pull out our map and get our bearings, a very friendly man asked if he could help. This was Jeremy, originally from Keelung, but living…
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