Thursday, March 19, 2026    Komodo Island, Indonesia

I didn’t get off on Komodo because it would have been about the fourth time and how many Komodo dragons can you see?  They all look alike.

Except maybe for the one’s Dee saw making little dragons.  You find that on her Facebook page. DeesDragonPorn

Joanne picked the village tour and saw some very different things – the village itself:

And the children, enjoying the pens some cruisers are clever enough to carry for them.

I spent the rest of the day logging and blogging and working on Bali tours.  We have a DV tour tomorrow, but Dee and Anne will be going to Made’s house for a cooking lesson and a look at how a real Indonesian family lives.  Made was once a Dining Room steward of ours non the Amsterdam.

Our table in the Dining Room was very busy tonight as the news of Dee’s dragon porn spread and everyone and his steward stopped by to see.  Dee is a great wildlife photographer and monumentally lucky.  She took the slow lane on the dragon tour, following the crowd by just enough to see the effect all the visitors had on the dragons, foreplay and all. The Grand Voyage Band, 3 Canadians and a Chilean, gave us an excellent Pink Floyd tribute.

Friday, March 20, 2026    Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia

I love our Distinctive Voyages excursion days, but sometimes I wish they wouldn’t land on ports where I already have something wonderful to do.  Dee and I had been waiting years to go to Made’s house for a cooking lesson, a great lunch, and to see how real Indonesians, that we happened to know, lived.  Dee and Ann decided to skip the DV Excursion and do exactly that, as who knew when we would have an overnight on Bali again.  Made lives a couple of hours from the port, and you wouldn’t want to miss the ship.  Instead of Joanne and Helen, they took George and Jan Sranko.  George is a naturalist and gives very good talks on board.  They were delighted and had a stunning day, by all accounts.

Joanne and I went out, with a friend of Made’s, for a short tour in the morning with Ben Sack, the artist on board, and his mom, Kathy.  When we had to return to the ship to take the DV tour out around noon, they kept that car, went to see the monkeys, had dinner, etc., etc.

Our DV tour turned out to be one of the best ever.  We, too, got into a family compound to see how Balinese families live.  Our guide explained it in the bus along the way.  Most Indonesians are Muslim, but the island of Bali is about 90% Hindu, which explains all the altars, and the style of them.  We stopped in the stone carvers’ town to see how they made the carvings and ran into an offering procession.  These lovely ladies were even willing to pose with some of us.  Here they are alone:

Balinese people live in small houses in big compounds.  When a girl marries, she moves out of her family compound and into her husband’s family compound.  With any luck, she and her husband acquire a little house therein, so she doesn’t have to live under the same roof as her mother-in-law, but that happens, too.  Within the compound, there is commerce, like dyeing, weaving, carving, carpentry, etc. There is also a central temple area, where we were first received:

Then we were walked around, seeing many private homes, tasting the liquor one family made, etc.  Eventually, we found ourselves walked through the family’s rice paddy to a purpose-built event space, because tourism is now a family business.  We met the family oxen and could have worked the paddy a bit, but no one was ready for that.  We were happy to eat and drink and watch the very excellent cultural show they put on, complete with monkey dance and fire eater. We mostly slept on the bus back to the ship, arriving about 9:30PM.  We go a lot of compliments on this excursion and we caught the tail end of the cultural show on stage.

Joanne did a much better job of Bali than I did.  If you want to see it go to her Facebook page: JoanneonBali

Saturday, March 21, 2026   Bali, Indonesia

I don’t think it was the Indonesian food, because everyone else was fine, but I had a bad night after all that fun, and spent most of the second Bali day resting.  It’s a good thing they had a pop-up market opposite the terminal, because that was about as far as I could manage to go. I did get three dresses, a pair of pants and a couple of tops.  I’ll be donating one of the dresses, which looks terrible on me, and the pair of pants, which shrank, but two dresses and two tops are big hits, and the most expensive item was $15, so I am fine.

I was well enough for dinner and the show on the World Stage.  It was Liam Cooper, who plays the piano and sings Billy Joel and Elton John stuff, and he was pretty good. 

Sunday, March 22, 2026    At Sea

A number of our Distinctive Voyagers stopped by the desk to thank us for the great excursion in Bali.

It was a formal night.   We had Gloria, the Purser again, with her husband, Pops, the Provisioner.  Captain Rens is leaving us in Singapore and his wife had just boarded in Bali.  You have to hand it to them, they danced every dance.

Monday, March 23, 2026  At Sea

The Indonesian crew show always gets me.  They performed their version of the Kecak, or Monkey dance:

We had people getting off in Singapore, so they got a farewell letter, and I had a newsletter to prepare to be delivered on the second day in Singapore.  Jocelyn Ng, the modern violinist was on stage and I like her a lot.

Tuesday, March 24, 2026   Singapore

I stayed on board and worked most of the day.  I have been here so often and as recently as December.  I worked on lots of things: regular travel agent follow-ups, newsletters, birthday cards, electronic ones for friends, and and paper ones for Distinctive Voyagers on board.  There’s always plenty to do.  Joanne was out and about in Singapore.  She went all over the place like:

Which I get, but what I didn’t believe she did was go to the airport. I had to admit, it was pretty cool:

Singapore is a city made right.  If only the rest of the world would learn.  JoanneinSingapore has more pictures of Joanne’s mad tear around Singapore.

Our captain for the rest of the voyage is Frank Van der Hoven.  I have sailed with him before.  He is excellent, but not nearly as much fun as Rens.  Few are.  I went out around 5pm and took the ship’s shuttle to Marina Centre, which is right near The Mandarin Hotel.  All I wanted was to do a little shopping for necessaria and eat some good local food.  If I had spoken to the Eckerts first, I could have been eating with them at The Mandarin, where they were staying. But I’m not that smart, so I just ate in the Mall.  I had some good stuff, though, from a dumpling shop and a pancake place.  The servers were delightful in both outlets.  They weren’t busy. 

Dee and Anne glamped out at the new Zoo, co-located with the bird park.  They had a wonderful experience, in part because it wasn’t busy either.  There were only six people doing the overnight, so they got to tour the zoo at night in a golf cart, rather than a train, and they actually had breakfast with the animals the next morning.  It’ll fill up. 

Wednesday, March 25, 2026       Singapore

I didn’t go out at all the second day in Singapore.  How blasé can I be getting.  There was planning work to do for Hong Kong and I’m still trying to catch up with my logging and blogging. I did get a Newsletter out, which follows.  Sunny Chen was on stage with one of the best magic shows I have even seen.

Thursday, March 26, 2026    At Sea

A few people came by the desk for some HK handouts.  The disadvantaged segments problem is starting to resolve and the people are seeing their DV excursions on their phones in the Navigator App.  That’s great.  It’s not finished but we are getting there.  I got a bunch of work done, we had dinner and saw another good production show.

Friday, March 27, 2027      Phu My, Vietnam

I did a little work in the morning, then Lenora Walkes, who had got on in Singapore, and I took the shuttle from Phuoc An Port into Phu My itself, while everyone else went into Saigon, which I usually do.  I’ll be doing it again next time, too, because Phu My was a bust.  It was monumentally sad.  COVID wreaked havoc all over the world and really hit this little place hard.  The shuttle took us to the King Mall.  It looked like it had been built maybe a few years before COVID, emptied out during the pandemic, and never really came back.  The ground floor supermarket, with a clothing section for locals, had a few things we needed, and the prices were sure right.  Then we ventured into the neighboring streets to find smaller shops, but most of those were closed, too.  Lenora was looking for a hat and ended up with three of them because she didn’t have change for $5US, and that was the price – 3 hats for $5.  They were pretty nice hats, too, cotton, with good wide brims.  Lenora won’t get sunburned now.

Matthew Croake was on the World Stage.

Saturday, March 28, 2026           At Sea

One of my people came by the desk for a suggestion on what to do in HK on day one, with a wife who can’t walk very far.  I suggested Cheung Chau, because it’s just two ferries to take.  There’s plenty of walking to get from the ship to the Star Ferry, mind you, but it’s a great ride and the ferries to the outlying islands are the closest thing, when you get to the HK side.  Cheung Chau is wonderful because there are no cars on it, so it’s relatively unspoiled and you can get super fresh seafood from the seaside restaurants, right near the ferry.

I logged and blogged the day away, until it was time for Wells Wescott’s 89^th birthday party.  It was a more subdued event this year because Wells was not on board.  In past years, it has been dinner for 14 in the Pinnacle, often with the Captain.  This year it was our table in the Dining Room, with Josh, the Port Lecturer, and Anne Maree, the Art Teacher..  Anne and Dee had been in touch with Wells and he’s hanging in there and glad we were celebrating his 89^th.  Panjang Amurnia.  Flanking Dee and Anne, are our wonderful Dining Room Stewards, Alice and Amin.

Emer Barry was on the World stage and she held her own against “A World of Music” going on simultaneously in every bar on the ship. 

Sunday, March 29, 2026             DaNang, port for Hue, Vietnam

I treated myself to Eggs Benedict in the Lido, yum.  Then I made for the shuttle bus but got turned around by reports that there was a long walk and a very busy street to cross to get to the market.  It turned out it was a good thing I chickened out, because I had left my dong and credit cards back on the ship, in my safe. So I had a lovely day working from a deck chair on the shady side of Deck 3.  I had a dragonfly for company for an hour or so but could never get a picture.  By the time I’d have the phone ready to shoot, someone would walk by and scare him away.

 It was a very nice sailaway and it was Jan Sranko’s birthday at Table 43.  Wells’ birthday flowers got to bloom for Jan, too. It was another lovely, lively night.  Matthew Croake was on stage again, and we missed him again, what with all the celebration going on at the table.

Monday, March 30, 2026            Halong Bay, Vietnam

I don’t report everything we do.  Some of it isn’t fun and is confidential.  Today was one of those days.  It ended on a nice note, though.  We had Emer Barry for dinner, which made Dee and Helen particularly happy.  We love her and have been following her career.

Tuesday, March 31, 2026

One of our people is going to the races and I am delighted.  I love helping this one.  She takes serious notes. She is really going to do it.  This will be the first time in 15 years of my recommending it.

Emer Barry was on stage and we were mesmerized.