Friday January 16, We docked about 8 am in Penang, Malaysia.  We had an early tour that went through historic Georgetown then we visited a spice garden and a butterfly farm.  Georgetown still has many historic buildings from the British colonial era and the remainining ones are protected and must retain their original exteriors even if they are used for a commercial enterprise.  There is a lot of foreign investment and a large number of retirees.  There were a lot of large resort hotels, including a Hard Rock Hotel, and we were told that the evenings were very lively in the resort areas.  On our return from our tour we were surprised to find a huge ship, the Celebrity Millenium docked right behind our little ship.  We were told that it has about 2,100 passengers.  Our before dinner entertainment was the crew talent show "Krew Kapers", this is always entertaining and the crew members are so proud to show off their talents.

Sailing into the dock in Penang

Historic colonial building that happens to be a KFC restaurant

"Spectacled" monkey

There were thousands of colorful butterflies in the "Butterfly Garden"

Tom acquired a friend

Huge Celebrity ship

Several of the crew performed dances from their native countries

The closing of the "Krew Kapers' show

It was a gorgeous day when we arrived in Langkawi, Malasia.  It is a strong Muslim country but Lanfkawi Island is very welcoming to foreigners since it is a resort area.  The tour buses were very colorful, both inside and out! We took a cable car from sea level to about 2500 feet.  Supposedly the 43% slope is the highest in the world.  We also visited a rice padi and adjoining museum.  In the evening we had a special dinner for the Grand Cruise passengers. 

The tour buses arriving to pick up tour guests

The inside of our bus reminded us of a Vegas Casino!

Headed to the top of the mountain

The view coming down

We arrived about one hour late in Phuket, Thailand after passing by some of the beautiful beach resorts.  Phuket was hit hard by the 2004 tsunami but has recovered nicely.  There is lot of traffic consisting of cars and huge numbers of motorcycles and scooters.  Our tour for the day included a Buddhist Temple, a cashew factory and a high end jewelry store. The highlight was an elephant ride.  Tom named our elephant Hilary as she had to stop several times because she was so full of crap.  When we arrived back at the ship a large number of crew and officers flanked the red carpet walkway where they gave us cool towels and a drink while the band played.  It was a nice welcome "home".

One of the beautiful resorts in Phuket

There were huge tangles of electric lines along the streets

Two baby elephants

Half an hour on an elephant can make you seasick!

One of the smaller buildings at the Temple

Our red carpet welcome home

We are finally out of the African part of the Indian Ocean, the fire hoses are stored, the blinds are open at night, and the security is back to normal.
Monday night we took two crew members to dinner in the main restaurant, "Compass Rose".  We had won this opportunity at an auction that benefits the crew welfare fund. Both Rambo and Jo had been on the Mariner when we did the "Circle South America" cruise in 2012.  We also had a short cocktail party with 16  passengers on board that had also been with us on the South America cruise.
We have had several incidents that have caused the rumors to fly around the ship.  One is that two couples were put off the ship in Colombo, Sri Lanka, one supposedly for hitting another passenger in an argument over a seat in the theater, and another for hitting another passenger in an altercation in the laundry room.  (We remember the laundry room wars!  It sure is nice to have free laundry service now!). We also learned that a passenger had a heart attack and died on Monday night.  The ship personnel is very tight lipped, however, the passengers manage to get little bits and pieces but  we are not always sure of the facts.

Our "Circle South America" reunion cocktail party

Crew member Jo and Rambo with Tom

Our special dinner with crew members Jo and Rambo along with friends Donna and Roland

Sunday we docked very early in Colombo Sri Lanka as some tours left as early as 6:30 am.  Our city tour was not until 8:45 so we were able to have leisurely breakfast. We were quite impressed with the city as we had not had high expectations.  The economy seems to be growing with a lot of new construction, renovation of historic buildings and other development.  Their presidential election was a few days ago and the new president took the oath of office on Saturday.  This election was entirely peaceful which had not always been the case in the past. The other big news is that although only 7 percent of the country is Christian, the Pope is visiting Colombo on Tuesday.  We were told that they expect about one million people to attend, with many from surrounding countries.  The preparations for the event were under way in a park type area next to the ocean where they were setting up "corrals" (?) and large covered areas.  There were hundreds of police officers in the area and it appeared that they had been brought in by bus from other parts of the country.
Our tour included an impressive Buddhist Temple, a Hindu Temple, the National Museum, and tea at a luxury hotel.  We were told by our tour guide that all the religions seem to get along and he joked that they liked to celebrate all the holidays as it gave them lots of days off! We did see quite a few remaining Christmas decorations.

Entrance to the Hindu Temple

Historic building where the new President took his oath on Saturday

Large billboard announcing the Papal visit

Site of visit with "corrals" in background and a few of the thousands of police brought in for event

Beautiful vintage cars in courtyard of Buddhist Temple

Huge statue inside temple

Mounted elephant that had paraded in festivals for 45 years

Our Friday was another sea day spent doing our usual reading, games, lectures and a movie.  Our dinner was at the captain's table with the captain and general manager and four other guests.  It was an enjoyable evening although different than in the past as none of the officers are allowed to drink any alcohol.  Both the captain and general manager are Italian so they are used to having wine with dinner.  They told us that they are now subjected to random surprise testing.
The highlight of Saturday (another sea day) was the "country fair" where the different departments on the ship set up carnival type game booths.  The passengers can win raffle tickets for various prize drawings.  The crew enjoys this as much as the passengers.
Saturday evening entertainment was the "Cirque" type show put on by the entertainment staff.  They did a remarkable job considering we were having a "bouncy" ride at the time.

Entertainment staff were in the pool and if you touched them with the "whale" you won a ticket

Housekeeping staff had two passengers racing to place straws in bottles and then removing them

Bar staff was a football game complete with cheer leaders

Male bar staff cheer leader!

Officers conducted camel race where you had to wind the string on a bar while seated backwards in chair

The Maldives are made up of 1192 islands, mostly coral atolls, only 200 of the islands are inhabited.  The economy is mostly tourism and fishing.  The city of Male' is the business center with the high end resorts on other islands, even the international airport is on another island.  We anchored in the late afternoon and many people had afternoon tours but we decided to stay on the ship and plan on going ashore in the morning. During the evening we had the "Gala BBQ" on the pool deck with entertainment. It was quite a spread that included suckling pig, lobster, sushi and everything else you can imagine.
The country  is Sunni Muslim and Friday is their holy day so most things were closed but we did see the fish market and the produce market.  It seemed like motorcycles and scooters outnumbered the cars about 100 to 1.  The city is mostly built on reclaimed land and the buildings are jammed together but it was surprisingly clean.  We did a quick walk around for about one hour then went back to the ship as it was getting quite warm.  In these hot, humid climates it is always a relief to get back to the air conditioning on the ship.

The airport runway starts right on the ocean

City of Male'

Pool deck is decorated for the Gala BBQ

Fancy bread sculptures

There were lots of ice sculptures as well as carved fruits and vegetables

There about one hundred fishing boats tied up in the harbor with our ship visible in the background

Fish are displayed in tiled bins in the fish market

Thousands of motorcycles and scooters line every space at the curb

There were about a dozen Maldives Coast Guard ships of different sizes in the port