Cruisin’ down the Straits of Malacca

Happy Chinese New Year!  Gong xi fa cai!

We’re back!  And our cruise was wonderful!!!  The food was wonderful (I didn’t have a bit of rice on the boat!!!), the people were wonderful, and the world around here is beyond beautiful.  We started off last Friday with a trip to John’s office Chinese New Year Party.  We got observe the lion dance and participate in Lou Hei–a traditional Chinese New Year dish that involves mixing lots of ingredients with chopsticks then using the chopsticks to lift the mixture as high out of the bowl as you can.  The higher you lift/throw the mixture, the more prosperous you will be in the new year.  So, of course, it was a contest to see who could throw it the highest.  We did this again on again on the cruise ship–hopefully, we’ll be doubly properous during the Year of the Ox!  After this we watched the lion dance through the office.  The lion is a traditional Chinese costume with two acrobats underneath–one is the body, the other is the head.  The longer the lion’s body, the more propserity the lion will ensure for your home/office.  The lion roamed through all of the office hallways to bless it with propserity for the new year.  After these festivities–we were off for the cruise!!!!

We took a Royal Caribbean Cruise from Singapore and headed to Port Kelang, Malaysia and Phuket, Thailand before coming back to lovely Singapore.  We took off from Singapore on Friday evening and enjoyed a delicious steak dinner (you can’t get large quanities of meat here unless you go to expensive, western restaurants, so this was a treat!) and then went to their traditional opening show (Furman people who went on our Spring Break Cruise–you know what I’m talking about!).  Then–off to bed–it had been a long day.

We woke up the next morning in Malaysia.  That’s the great thing about cruises–you go to sleep in one country and wake up in another!  Port Kelang is Kuala Lumpur (KL)’s ocean port about 45 kilmeters from the city.  We went to KL a couple of months ago and were a little hesitant to pay the US$70 cab fare to get there and back–especially when there was so much to do on and around the ship!  We asked our friend Roxana (she worked at the pizza stand on the ship) what we should do in Port Kelang.  She told us of hug coconut shakes at the local hawker centre, so off the ship we went to get the cocunut shake.  Check out how big this thing is–and for only US$2!  *The pictures are at the end in a gallery…for some reason, that’s how I had to do it for this entry…

Then, we got back on the ship and headed out to Thailand.  Crusing through the Straits of Malacca is nothing like cruising in the Caribbean.  The Straits of Malacca is the busiest sea route in the world, so, instead of seeing nothing but ocean, we saw hundreds of ships.  Cargo ships, fishing ships, even oil tankers all along the route.  And, we also saw hundreds of small Malaysian desert islands all that look like they’re straight out of “Robinson Crusoe.”  Other than the oil tankers, it looked like paradise.

The next day, we arrived in Phuket, Thailand and the most beautiful beach either of us has ever seen.  We landed on a beach called “Patong Beach,” the self-proclaimed Las Vegas of Phuket, but even the cheap neon hotels couldn’t ruin how beautiful this beach was.  It was breath-taking.  After going ashore, we were hastled by at least ten different cab drivers (none of whom drove licensed cabs, by the way…watch out for that) offering to show us “honeymooners…haha” around for 800 Thai Baht (around US$20) for the day.  Anywhere we go, people assume we’re honeymooners.  I guess that’s a good thing:)  After politely declining, we began to explore the beach with our camera.  What we saw was amazing–hotels and tourists on the beach, but just upstream, people living in poverty, sleeping in hammocks suspended above the water and in houses on stilts.  We even saw a woman with a fire on the beach, trying to cook something we assume.  We saw a fisherman wading in the water with his net trying to get something to eat for the day.  All of this within mere meters of the beach bars.  Amazing.

John and I then set off to explore the community of Patong Beach.  After grabbing a refreshing strawberry smoothie at a thatch roof “Aussie Beach Bar” we took to the streets.  We were walking along, declining Thai massages (there are about a dozen young girls sitting at the front of every massage parlor trying to get patrons–I don’t think they were trying to get ME to go in;), when we looked up and noticed the mass of powerlines.  Take a look at this picture–it’s crazy!

We then went to a market where we found some beautiful Thai silk and a painting on a piece of Mulberry paper.  This market was airconditioned–my kind of place in the South Pacific!  Then, the highlight of our trip….

…we had dinner with Mr. Pete Grivetti!  Yes, Pete who hasn’t been back to the States in more than a year and a half.  He hasn’t changed a bit–it was so great to see him!!!  We went to a fabulous dinner (after a Thai waitress offered to lay across the road to stop traffic so we could come into her restaurant) and had some traditional Thai cuisine.  I had my Pad Thai (much better than Thaicoon–I promise!), John and a green curry (spicy, but good), and Pete had some other kind of spicy rice dish, the name of which I forgot.  We caught up for a while then wandered back to our ship because we had to set sail!  We had far too little time with Pete, but it was so good to see him:)

Our day in Phuket was also Chinese New Years Eve so we arrived back onto the ship to a big party.  We had another big dinner (I don’t think either of us have been that full in a long time) and then went to the ships main area for the big balloon drop!  It was midnight, the balloons dropped, and all of a sudden, it sounds like gunshots all around us.  Apparently, in Chinese culture, when balloons drop at midnight, it’s good luck to pop them–all of them you can get your hands on.  So, imagine if you can, it’s midnight, a few hundred Chinese people are diving all over the center atrium of the ship to grab ballons and trying to pop them.  John and I are cracking up in the corner.  It was a pretty great sight:)

Our last day was a day at sea, full of food, an art auction (we learned a lot!), and some time reading by the pool.  It was a very relaxing way to spend the Chinese New Year.  The next morning, sadly, we returned to a rainy Singapore.  Tuesday was also a Public Holiday (the CNY celebration lasts for two weeks!), so most everything was closed.  It was a very different sight in such a bustling city.

The Cruise was amazing although not the same without our Cruise Director (Sharkey) and the crew from our last cruise.  We miss you guys so much.

More adventures to come soon!!!