We didn't sleep before leaving on a 5:17 AM flight to Dallas followed by a 15+ hour flight to Seoul, but we did sleep on the long leg. We stayed two nights at the Seoul Conrad hotel, which is an experience. We had an 8 hour personal tour of Seoul featuring their market and lunch (which was excellent) and their military museum. We like Seoul. It's interesting, had been there last year too but our tour then was of the DMZ et al.
The next day we boarded the Norwegian Sky for our 29 day cruise and headed to Naha, Japan, in Okinawa, which we had visited last year. The weather got quite rough and the captain said we had to divert, so we skipped it and got into Taiwan earlier than expected for two visits there, then to Hong Kong, Vietnam, Bangkok, and Singapore
We had two excursions to the countryside in Vietnam to see rice fields and have some of their beer, but no meals unfortunately. We only took excursions arranged by the ship as it's important to be back on time of course, and the ship will wait for you if your excursion is late unless you're on your own. The main Asian cities are impressive architecturally, a LOT of 30+ story apartment buildings everywhere. We had an interesting boat ride in Bangkok and two lunches but they were both in western hotels. The Thai food here is better I thought. We left Bangkok one day before the earthquake heading to Singapore.
In Singapore, the first cruise ended after 14 days, but we and about 30 others stayed on board, we did take an excursion that day. Singapore of course like HK has some British influence in places but both have grown enormously since then. By this point, the weather had become hot and humid, while in Seoul we were wearing heavy coats and gloves.
The next stop was Kuala Lumpur, which is massive, very urban, famous buildings from movies etc. Our long tour mostly was about buildings and temples more than culture. Then on to Phuket, Thailand, a noted "beach resort" of sorts. We had a long tour, but I wasn't too impressed overall, I think Catherine was more so. Then off to Sri Lanka which seemed of interest to me, but the morning we arrived, the tendering boats were bouncing on large swells and the captain said it was unsafe to board them, so we left. The ocean looked normal, but we could see from our cabin balcony the boats bouncing around.
The next four stops were in India, in order, Cochin, Mangalore, Goa, and Mumbai. The first two, to me, were not very notable, they have a major litter problem there for one thing, and I was tiring of visiting various temples by then. The roads are very rough in spots and long bus rides were tiring. We had a long tour in Goa with lunch, which Catherine liked, I actually think our Indian food here is better (!). One of the folks in the tour wondered off at some point causing quite a delay while the guide hunted him down. Goa was under Portuguese control until 1961 and that influence was still evident.
Mumbai (Bombay) is somewhat akin to NYC, a ton of traffic, larger buildings, parks and museums, we visited one of the latter which was quite interesting to us, but had limited time. And it was really hot and humid, even the locals were complaining, it was early April by then.
Now we had three days "at sea" crossing the Indian Ocean to Dubai (where we had been once before before on a cruise). Dubai of course is very different from India, and similar to the next two stops in Abu Dhabi and Doha. These three cities evidence a ton of oil money and few locals, up to 90% of the population are foreigners who are "servants" to the locals. Once rarely sees a local out and about. Doha is making obvious efforts to plant large grass fields and trees, which was nice. Now of course it was very hot in the sun.
In Doha, we took another tour off the ship for the last time and had lunch at a small local place, somewhat by accident ordering fried chicken and fruit juice, the chicken would rival anything local except Mukja (our Korean FC restaurant). There were three locals lounging next to us, I had said "Salaam alekim" as we sat near them, and it happened that one of them paid for our meal as he left and said "Welcome". I left a $20 tip for the servers, who seemed a bit confused by this rather tall foreigner. Then off to the airport for three flights to get home. The flight to Dubai was only an hour but painful as the plane had "limited" leg room, then in Dubai we had a bus ride to some other part of the airport apparently located in France. Or so it seemed. Many on the bus had been on the cruise and they started laughing saying they are busing us to Amsterdam.
The flight to AMS was 8+ hours but in economy comfort with leg room, and on KLM which is in my experience a solid carrier. We had 2+ hours there and then an 8+ hour flight on Delta to ATL. We managed some sleep and so were "OK" upon arrival when our friend picked us up, thankfully.
For such a long trip, we had no "upsets", nothing lost, some long lines at times. We made some friends on board and had some good meals especially at "Le Bistro", their French styled premium restaurant where we had some Champagne a couple times (Veuve). Our cabin was quite tolerable for nearly a month, we kind of missed it and joked about staying on board longer, but it really is great to be home, and getting some sleep. I woke up yesterday at midnight, but this morning I managed until 4 AM.
I think Mark Twain may have said travel is the enemy of prejudice, or somesuch. Most of "us" are more alike than different. We were treated well by the Asians we met. The tourists on board were about half Asian, about a quarter Canadian/European or from Australia/NZ, so an interesting mix just there. We're fortunate to be able to travel and "see things". The flying part is brutal at times, but we manage. And we signed up for two more cruises, one out of Rome to the Greek isles and the other in 2026 from NYC to Barcelona. I still have seen enough temples and churches and mosques for now.
Our aim was to experience parts of Asia, and we did, in one trip, knowing of course there is a ton more one could visit, but we have our eyes set more on Europe from here, and perhaps South America. You might wonder how one packs for a 33 day trip, and Catherine did a great job with two suitcases, we had three coming back, had to buy one. The ship does provide laundry services, we get one bag "free" and a second is $34. This is a "small" ship relatively, and about to be sold, :"only" 1930 passengers. The new ones are massive. The small ship still had numerous restaurants and cafes, even a Starbucks, and a casino, and various theaters with shows (we attended exactly zero). And bars galore, but we did not opt for the "beverage package" with unlimited drinks, it's very expensive.
If you read this far, thanks, hope it was interesting, ciao for now. On to Rome.
