Our last big ocean crossing ended with a spectacular sunrise over Muscat, in Oman. Thankfully, after a decent sleep, I had fully recovered from my malaise of the night before but S was suffering (and still is) with a full blown cold – the irony in succumbing to that after avoiding all of the more…
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The signs that a trip is coming to an end creep up on you. As we came back on board from Mumbai, we took the opportunity to book the coach transfer from the seaport to the airport in Dubai. This initiated conversations with fellow travellers about ‘Which flight are you on?’. And then the reminder…
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The previous night had been one of those ‘cruise things’ where you need to decide! I had been firm in resisting the sounds of cats being murdered in the cabaret lounge but Saturday night had been ‘White Night’; one special event when everyone is supposed to dress in white and attend a big party on…
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Another day, another port, and here we were arriving in Mumbai. We had yet another 6.30 alarm call for what was a seven hour trip around the city and weren’t sure what to expect, We suspected that this might be another version of Delhi. It wasn’t. Mumbai is much greener and much, much more orderly…
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Thus was our direction of travel as we awoke on Friday. 22nd November, running parallel with the coast of India some thirty miles off to our right. We’d seen very few big ships since rounding the tip of India but there were literally hundreds of small fishing boats scattered around. S was still smarting over…
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The ship was berthed in Cochin overnight and yet as other mind-bogglingly early start took us off on a long trip to the water lands of Allaphuzza. This was an hour and a half in the coach each way and we each struggled a little with the concept of our normally fiercely independent travel choices…
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We weren’t due into Cochin until about midday and although S was feeling a good bit better, luckily sadly, she didn’t feel up to 8.00am Pilates. However, she still had other areas of her self-improvement plan to work on. To my considerable astonishment, she wanted to go to the next lecture by the Concorde pilot,…
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Authors note: I have been informed by editorial management that the use of the word ‘Waddled’ in the previous edition was inaccurate, unauthorised and unwise and that it will not be used again if I don’t want to end up swimming home. Next morning was yet another early start, with the ship due to sail…
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This morning, we pulled back the curtains to see the dockside of Columbo, on the south west corner of SL. Unlike most other towns in Asia, Columbo is still very ‘low rise’, although they are working to put that right; ‘The Chinese are investing in a huge new land reclamation project…’. The Chinese were obviously…
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Sunrise saw landfall at Hambantota on South East Sri Lanka. The view from the window was curious, as we seemed to be arriving at a brand new port but devoid of ships and any sign of a city – or even a village! The harbour-side was also pretty empty, with no shipping containers to be…
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