Putrajaya and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

We’re spending quite a bit of time on mainland Malaysia this trip (we’ll get to Borneo Malaysia later). From Port Klang, you can visit Putrajaya, the administrative capital of Malaysia, and Kuala Lumpur, the regular capital of Malaysia. Rick saw Putrajaya on his own, while Betsy enjoyed a mild case of something, and then both got to see Kuala Lumpur.  (Note: Rick earlier had the honor of being the ship’s first case of the flu and was in quarantine for a day and a half and Betsy took Tamiflu. So this illness of Betsy’s was indeed minor.)

Putrajaya was built largely between 1995 and 1999 and looks clean and new. It’s one gorgeous building after another (Picture 1) and 7 lovely bridges (Picture 2). While a natural river ran through the location, it has been widened and modified to create a garden-like setting throughout the city.

Picture 3 shows the Putra Mosque and, to the right, the Prime Minister’s Offices. The main hall of the mosque (Picture 4) holds 15,000 worshipers. An additional 20,000 can worship in the courtyard. Picture 5 shows the dome of the mosque and some of the beautiful geometric Islamic architecture.

On our second day we first visited the Batu Caves. This is a series of caves that hold a Hindu temple. The day before our arrival, the Thaipusam festival (Hindu day of atonement) was held, which drew somewhere around 1 million people. When we arrived, the hundreds of vendors who had set up were taking down their stalls and there was garbage everywhere, although the clean-up process had begun.

Picture 6 shows how you get to the caves. After passing some of the vendors and the statue of Shiva, you climb 272 very steep steps to get to the entrance (Picture 7)—devotees on their knees or carrying a pole with two jugs of milk across their shoulders—then you go down some more steps and back up again to get to the main temple (Picture 8). As you climb the stairs you get to visit with the local monkeys (Picture 9). Picture 10 attests to the fact that Rick made the climb. Betsy’s knees said no—besides, she did it 17 or 18 years ago. When she did it there were no vendors, no statues and there was a simple set of concrete stairs. How times have changed.

Then we did a tour of the city. Picture 11 shows the National Monument. This commemorates the lives lost in WWI, WWII and the Communist Insurgency (1948-1960). The statue in the center commemorates that Insurgency, where communists (Chinese) tried to take over the country. Does the statue look familiar? It was designed by Felix de Weldon, who also designed the Iwo Jima statue in Washington DC.

The green area in Picture 12 is Independence Square, where significant national events occur. The building shown was the British government building used prior to independence from the Brits. The green area is actually the old cricket field from the Royal Selangor Club—the equivalent of the British Officers’ Club.

Picture 13 shows the KL Tower, the 4^th highest communications tower in the world at 1381 feet. Picture 14 is the view of the Petronas Towers from the KL Tower.

Picture 15 is a picture of the Petronas Towers from street level. The Malaysians built these between 1995 and 1999, wanting to have something that they could claim for their greatest accomplishment (biggest, tallest, fastest, etc.). Unfortunately, shortly after they were built, someone else built something taller. There goes their claim to fame.

We did a quick double take when we saw the sign in Picture 16. Our guide quickly explained that ISIS is their intelligence agency and government training center and was open long before the other ISIS was known. If only the other ISIS was that easy to find….

Finally, Betsy’s sunset picture (Picture 17).

Phuket, Thailand

We decided Phuket deserved it’s own blog entry because the Hubers did different things! Betsy went to cooking school. Rick’s not crazy about Thai food and definitely not crazy about cooking, so he opted to see the sites around Phuket City.

Cooking class was held at the Blue Elephant Restaurant and cooking school (Picture 1). It’s housed in a mansion that was built in 1903 and was used as a governor residence in the past. The restaurant/school started here, but has grown and is now found in many large European and Asian cities.  Our first job was to visit the market. Picture 2 shows just one of many sellers—this one selling dried fish and shrimp. There were dried and fresh betel nuts, chickens with head and feet, curry paste, shrimp paste and lots of very interesting fruits and vegetables.

We cooked 4 dishes. They were first demonstrated by the chef and tasted by us, then it was off to our individual cooking stations, where we created the dishes by ourselves. Picture 3 shows Betsy hard at work making her soup. While others used only part of one chili, Betsy would use 3 or 4. Thank heavens for Sinha Beer to cool things down! She’s not a bad Thai chef!!!

Finally, we all sat down and enjoyed eating the food we cooked. Picture 4 shows the 4 dishes. On the plate is a bowl of the soup: Tom Kha Kai Sai Mapraow Orn, or Coconut Milk Soup with Chicken and Young Coconut Flesh. Starting at the left side of the plate there’s Kai Phad Prik Tua Fak Yao, or Stir-fried Chicken with Red Curry & Long Beans. In the center behind the plate was her favorite: Toong Tong Keaw Waan, or Crispy Golden Bag stuffed with Green Curry Prawn and Chicken. On the right is Yum Ma-Muang Plaa Krob, or Spicy Green Mango Salad with Crispy Fish. Shall she try these with the Aycocks when she gets home??????

Rick’s Turn.

Located on Promthep Cape, a headland with stunning vistas, Picture 5 shows a site of Buddhist offerings. In this case, most offerings made are elephants and represent something wonderful that happened in their lives.

Next stop was at Big Buddha Phuket, shown in picture 6 (Note at the lower left of the picture, the actual name is “Big Buddha”!). It’s on the top of one of the mountains, providing gorgeous views from the base of the statue. Big Buddha is 75 meters tall, covered in white marble and hollow, with only structural supports, inside.

As you’ve probably noticed, these 2 stops offered great vistas and yet there are no vista pictures. It was a very hazy day and the pictures weren’t noteworthy.

Finally, I visited Chalong Temple (Picture 7), which was filled with golden Buddhas. Outside there was a large oven where worshipers placed boxes of bullets/firecrackers and made a wish for something they wanted. I watched one couple place a large box of bullets ($20/1500 bullets) In the fireplace and covered my ears. It was amazing.  This couple was  on our ship, and hoping to find a new house when they get home, so they were covering their bases.

To top off the day, I got my first decent sunset picture of the trip (Picture 8).

Maldives and Colombo, Sri Lanka

The Maldives include 1200 islands and coral atolls, none of which is over 1.82 meters above sea level. They are currently working on a plan for that day, sometime in this century, when the rising sea levels make their islands inhabitable. The current question is whether the people move throughout the world or whether they carve out a piece of land somewhere to build the “new” Maldives (where would that be????). The islands are spread over 37,500 square miles of ocean, but the land mass is only 115 square miles.

There is one international airport, which occupies its own island. Landing there you either take a commuter airplane to one of the 7 islands, which has its own airport, a seaplane to one of the other distant islands, or a boat to one of the closer islands. Picture 1 shows the port for taxis at the international airport.

So what do you do there? Dive! We were told it is a world-class dive site. Not being scuba divers, however, we chose to go down in a submarine (Picture 2) at the edge of one of the reefs. We’ve never done this before for two reasons: it seems one of those touristy things that real travelers don’t do and Betsy really doesn’t like to go under water! On the other hand, Rick’s eyesight is not good enough to enjoy snorkeling in a regular mask, so he’s never gotten the most out of their snorkeling experiences. Was it worth the expensive, which approached the cost of a custom snorkeling mask for Rick? Not really…. The reef was not in great shape and the fish can easily be seen snorkeling—no eels, no rays, no turtles, no big creatures. But we can now check off “ridden in a submarine under water” from our bucket list! Pictures 3 and 4 show some fish and coral.

Then we were off to Colombo, Sri Lanka. We were there last year and made a major excursion to visit one of the elephant camps, which are 2-3 hours from Colombo. This year we stayed in Colombo and saw some of the local sites.

We visited the Independence Plaza, which was constructed following Sri Lanka’s independence from Great Britain in 1965. It was a lovely carved stone structure, but the real interest there was a wedding that was about to start.  Pictures 5, 6, and 7 show the groom in traditional dress, the bride in white and one of the bridesmaids.

Second stop was the National Museum. The following 2 pictures are just 2 of the many fascinating things we learned. Picture 8 shows a 12^th century urinal from a Buddhist monastery—no simple sanitation system for these guys. Picture 9 shows the Caturmana  proportions for a seated Buddha statue. Not aware that such proportions were dictated, it was interesting to learn that the hairline to the floor, the right shoulder to the left foot, the left shoulder to the right foot and the foot to foot measurements must be the same.

Picture 10 shows a very large seated Buddha from the Gangaram Buddhist Temple (Picture 11). The proportions seem pretty obvious.

Also at the temple, there was the stupa shown in Picture 12. This one houses a relic from the Buddha. His body and possessions were divided into over 33,000 parts and each is stored in a structure like this. Small stupas are used to store the ashes of regular people.

While the national religion of Sri Lanka is Buddhism, there is religious freedom. We saw a few Christian churches and Picture 13 shows the Grand Mosque.

Finally, as with most large cities, the traffic is horrendous, as shown in Picture 14!

Mozambique and Mauritius

The last week has been interesting. We intended to do one blog for Mozambique and Madagascar and one for Reunion and Mauritius Islands. Caught between the cyclones as we were, we skipped Madagascar and Reunion Island and now are pairing Mozambique and Mauritius, which really don’t have much in common—weather has made strange bedfellows! BTW, the cyclone in front of us crossed the north end of Mauritius with 150 km/hr winds and was considered a “superstorm”, while the one behind us was much smaller, crossed Mozambique and headed southeast. It is still rainy and gloomy in the Indian Ocean, but we now have 4 sea days and, hopefully, the weather will be behind us.

In the south, Mozambique borders South Africa and Zimbabwe. This area is rich in wildlife and, in fact, the 3 counties have joined together to form the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park, which includes national parks in all 3 countries. Most notable of these national parks is Kruger in South Africa, which is a much-visited area of that country. We did not get into the “wilds”, instead visiting Maputo at the southern tip of the country.

To set the stage, the people in Mozambique are poor—the country often ranking in the 10 poorest countries in the world based on per capita income. (Note: Madagascar often ranks at the very bottom of the list with 1/5 the per capita income of Mozambique.) Since gaining independence from the Portuguese in 1975, the same party has been in charge of the country, which has led to much corruption and a large “have/have not” disparity. The current president, Armando Guebuza, has been elected to a second term and was being inaugurated the day after we were there.

There is a central market (Picture 1) that is in a lovely old building, but is not as bustling as we have seen in other countries.

One of the architectural oddities is the iron house shown in Picture 2. It was designed by Eiffel and then shipped in pieces to Maputo. The same sheets of iron on the exterior walls cover the interior walls too. Interestingly, we’ve only seen 2 of these iron houses by Eiffel. The other was in Luanda Angola.

Picture 3 shows the main square. That’s the Catholic Cathedral on the right and a statue of the current president on the left. The inauguration took place behind the statue on the steps of the government building.

So everything looks pretty good in Maputo, right? No—I’ve shown you the sites on the “tourist route”. Picture 4 shows what the rest looks like. Infrastructure is poor, sidewalks dangerous for walking and everything quite dirty.  Glad we visited, don’t need to go back to Maputo, although the wildlife area is tempting…..

On to Mauritius….  This island is relatively small (770 sq. mi.), with a population of 1.3 million people—one of the most densely populated countries in the world. Dutch and Portuguese explorers stopped here, but did not settle. The French claimed it in the 18^th century and the British took over as part of the spoils of the Napoleonic Wars. The island became an independent member of the British Commonwealth in 1968 and independent in 1992. Interestingly, English is the official language and public school classes are taught in English, but place names are French and classes are taught in French in the private schools. Tourists, mainly from Europe, come to Mauritius for warm weather and beautiful beaches.

As part of the British traditions, there are lovely colonial plantation houses dating from the 19^th century, like the one shown in Picture 5. These are single-storied houses with high ceilings and lots of doors to keep the air moving. Two main plantation industries developed on Mauritius: tea and sugar cane. We visited one of each. Picture 6 shows a tea bush. You’ll notice 3 brighter green, small leaves in the center of the picture. These are the leaves that get picked for the production of tea. Unfortunately, as you can see on the right, this plant was picked by machine, which means some young leaves were missed and some older leaves got mixed in with the young leaves. The best teas result when the leaves are picked by hand.

Picture 7 shows sugar cane that has been recently picked. It goes through a press, which removes the liquid from the cane, which is then made into rum. The distillery we visited produced 4 flavors (Picture 8): white, coffee, coconut and vanilla. The coconut was especially tasty and would probably be quite nice with pineapple juice over ice (low-cal Piña Colada!).

Mauritius also provides Anthuriums for export. Picture 9 shows one unfamiliar variety. This one was a foot from top to bottom, with very vibrant colors. Many varieties we had never seen—could add a half dozen more pictures!

Mauritius is also a beautiful country. On our second day there we visited some of the more famous sites, many in the rain. Picture 10 shows Trou aux Cerfs, which means Deer’s Hole. It’s the crater of a dormant volcano that last erupted 35,000 years ago. It’s 300 meters wide and 100 meters deep, with a small pond in the bottom.

Picture 11 is the beautiful Chamarel waterfall. Within the same park is the Land of Seven Colors (Picture 12). This rainbow of colors in the earth occurred when volcanic ash eroded.

We also found interesting animals. You’ll have to look carefully at Picture 13 to see the frog with his chest pumped up. He was between 3 and 4 inches long and made a tremendous racket. Impressing the girls, I guess….

Picture 14 was a difficult picture to take. This mother and baby monkey suddenly appeared on the telephone line and then they were gone! We were visiting the Buddhist sacred lake and temple. People bring food offerings and the monkeys sneak in and take the offerings.

Finally, at the Land of Seven Colors we found amazing tortoises. They appear similar to those found on the Galapagos Islands, but not quite as large. Picture 15 shows one enjoying lunch. Picture 16 shows the face “only a mother could love”!

We leave Africa now and we’re on to Asia. Africa leaves mixed emotions. It’s beautiful, exotic, and depressing. Poverty and corruption abound, resources are being depleted and the Chinese are everywhere. Everyone has gone nuts about ebola and yet no one seems to worry about the 2 million Africans that die of malaria each year. There are coups, civil wars and unbelievable cruelty. We wish we had an answer….

The Southern Coast of South Africa

We re-boarded the ship on the 4^th of January to continue our jaunt across the Indian Ocean. Since then we’ve trundled up the coast of South Africa.

Our first stop was the Addo Elephant National Park. It’s South Africa’s 3^rd largest national park, after Kruger and one near the Kalahari. This park was created in the 1930s to preserve elephants that were being killed by farmers because they trampled their crops and were very disruptive to farming. The national park is large enough to support 600 elephants and today there are 500ish. Occasional bull elephants are brought in from Kruger to enrich the gene pool.

We stopped at several watering holes and saw about 100 elephants. Picture 1 shows one cooling off by spraying herself with water. Picture 2 shows a family group approaching the watering hole.  In Picture 3, the group has arrived at the watering hole and they are cooling off. Finally, Picture 4 shows another group wallowing in the mud.

While originally created for elephants, today the park supports a wide range of African wildlife, including the “Big Five”: elephant, lion, rhino, leopard and Cape buffalo. The lions, rhino and leopards were elusive, but we did see our first Cape buffalo of the trip (Picture 5).

We also finally got some close-ups of wart hogs (Picture 6).

We also saw a large herd of zebras and enjoyed this loving pair (Picture 7).

We also spent one day exploring beaches and dunes near East London (Picture 8). We may be beach snobs, but, hands down, the most beautiful beaches in the world are in the US. Australia gets 2^nd place (although I have a feeling my Aussie friends might disagree with the 1-2 order….). The southern coast of South Africa is probably 3^rd—beautiful sandy beaches, great waves and gorgeous dunes. Caribbean: pretty, but small. Thailand: who can see the beaches with the crowds? Mediterranean: don’t waste my time. US, Australia, South Africa….

We also stopped in Durban and Betsy got off the boat, but didn’t find much interesting. Rick was quarantined for 2 days with the flu. Not the best of times….

Today we visited iSimangalio Wetland Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and took a boat through part of St. Lucia lake/estuary. It’s known for its hippos (biggest concentration in South Africa), crocodiles and bird life. Picture 9 shows a Weaver at his nest. The male weaver builds the nest and invites a female to take a look. If she likes it, they mate and she hatches her eggs in the nest. If she doesn’t like it, she rips it apart and he has to start again with her, or another, less-picky female! Don’t know if this is a happy female or a male looking for a female. 

Picture 10 is Goliath Heron, the largest heron in the world, with a wingspan of 2 meters. They often dine on baby crocodiles.

Finally, Picture 11 shows the stars of the wetlands: the hippos. They don’t mind the boats and we were able to cruise right up to this family group.

Tomorrow afternoon we’re off Mozambique and then on to the islands of the Indian Ocean—new territory!