Asia to Europe - Part 1

March 3, 2015 - Boarded the Holland America ship Rotterdam today for a 35 day cruise from Singapore to Rotterdam, Holland.  We were able to get an upgrade for our cabin to one of the largest suites on the boat about 3 hours before boarding the ship.  It is a cabin that is as large as an apartment with  a very large balcony and we have exclusive access to the Neptune lounge that is just for the handful of top suites and it has concierge service that will help with anything that we need.  Also arranged to have room service deliver breakfast to our cabin each morning so that we can have our meal out on the balcony.  Awesome!

Leaving Singapore.

 

March 4, 2015 - Kuala Lumpar, Malaysia - Port Klang is the port that we were at and had to take a bus 1 1/2 hours to town.

 

King's Palace.

 

 

Views of town and the memorial for Malayasian soldiers that died during the wars.

 

 

Petronas towers. They were the tallest buildings in the world at the time that they were built.

 

March 5, 2015 - Porto, Malay, Malaysia - Very hot here. we decided to go out and explore on our own today.  Got on a small boat with a few other passengers to do a tour on the water (a lot cooler on the water).  Went to Pregnant Maiden Island, an eagle feeding sight and a small beach area.

 

 

March 6 - 8, 2015 - Colombo, Sri Lanka - Very hot here.  Short walk leads to sweat.  Older town that is very busy and has tons of taxis and tuk tuks.  Not much of historical or geographical interest.

 

Cocktail time on the balcony.

 

 

 

March 11-12, 2015 - At sea.

 

March 13-14, 2015 - Mumbai, India - Also known as Bombay.  The name was changed about 20 years ago, but the residents do not care which name you refer to.  They want to encourage tourism and are very friendly.  This town has the world's richest people and the poorest.  Traffic is insane.  There are more than 20 million residents in this town and it looks like all of them are driving at the same time.  Visited several local markets that were quite interesting, especially the spice market.

 

 

 

Spice market.  These large bags of peppers are various degrees of hot and are graded.  They sell them for $1.00 per kilogram (2.2 pounds).

 

Cooking hot peppers brought tears to the eyes of everyone nearby.

 

Crushing peppers with machines that have no safety guards.

 

This is one of the delivery guys that deliver lunches from the worker's home to his/her office daily and then return them home afterwards.  This is done for 400,000 workers daily with a giant network of delivery guys that has no computers or even paperwork.  They have an error rate of 1 out of every 4 million!  It costs the worker about $14.00 per month.

 

 

March 15 - 17, 2015 - At sea.

 

March 18, 2015 - Salah, Oman - Very dry desert climate.  The country has oil wealth and as such is very modern and progressive.  Many new projects and buildings going up. All very clean and friendly.  Beautiful beaches roads and lots of sunshine.

 

 

The burial place of Job from the bible stories.

 

 

March 19 - 22, 2015 - At sea.

 

March 23, 2015 - Al'Aqaba, Jordan - Went for a 2 hour bus ride from the port to the city of Petra, Jordan also Known as the "Rose red city".  It is a city that was carved into the mountains centuries ago and the original inhabitants are unknown as there is no record of them, yet their rock carving skills are remarkable.  Had to walk through a canyon about a mile before we could enter the city and the sight is unbelievable.

 

 

 



 

 



 

 



 

 

 



 

 

 

 

This will end part one of this blog as I am running out of allowable space.  Go to part 2 to continue through the Suez canal and on to Europe.