Durban, South Africa

(I thought this might get your attention!)

Our excursion in Durban was excellent, both for our knowledgeable guides and for the destination, Phezulu Crocodile and Snake Park in nearby Bothas Hill.  There, we were guided through an impressive collection of natural habitat enclosures that dozens of Nile crocodiles call home…young ones, old ones, well behaved ones, and trouble-makers!

After the crocs there were the snakes, each in its secure glass compartment.  There were many, even several venomous ones.  An impressive collection even if I did expect to have scary dreams that night.

To calm our nerves, we were then led to a terrace for tea and scones, but the major attraction there was the view.   The Valley of 1000 Hills is a maze of valleys and hills formed over millions of years of river erosion.  We took photos, but none of them did that magnificent vista justice.

Next came a dance program performed by members of a local Zulu tribe.  It told the story of that culture’s courtship and marriage rituals, customs still held to this day.  Before a man can receive his beloved’s hand in marriage, he must present her family with cows, as many as eleven of them!  The future bride also has obligations to her groom’s family before she can be accepted by them.  The dance was colorful and incredibly energetic!

(Note the 1000 Hills in the back ground…and that the male dancer’s feet are well above the ground.)

I have to say that this was one of our most authentic days; we just loved it (in spite of the snakes!)

Richards Bay, South Africa

As ports go, there have so far been two types: those with a terminal building and those without.  Where there is a terminal, we leave the ship and walk through the terminal (usually lined with vendors’ stalls) and then proceed outside, passing by native dancers and musicians there to welcome us.  In the absence of a terminal, our excursion busses are just parked portside, but there are often vendors and musicians as well.  In either case, the port is stacked high with shipping containers, thousands of them, with associated cranes and awaiting trucks.  Cruise ships are clearly a side line, with containers being the main event.

Richards Bay, however, introduced us to a third variation:

Coal!  Tons and tons of coal filling the entire portside.  We had been warned about this and asked to keep our balcony doors closed, as coal dust hangs in the air, filling every available nook and cranny with fine powder.  (We were also provided with masks, which we gratefully used.)  

But some things can pretty much be counted on:

East London, South Africa

As I have been writing these few lines, we have been making our approach to the port of East London.  What a shocker!  No welcoming native dancers, no vendors, and no containers although the port is clearly marked to stage row after row of them.

The port had taken on a totally different vibe, however, by the time we returned from our excursion:

Most of the crew were lined up, red umbrellas held high, cheering us in with rock music being played in the background to energize the scene.  Remarkably enough, our restaurant manager, Antonio, had a bullhorn and announced each passenger: “Ladies and Gentlemen, Mrs Clark and Mr Hettinger,” after which we felt obliged to demonstrate our best dance moves as we made our way down the tunnel.  Totally unanticipated!  Great fun!

Maputo, Mozambique

Maputo has a train station of which it is rightly proud.  It was built in the early 1900s.  Today, it mainly serves to bring workers into the city in the morning and then home again in the evening.  Inside the station is a very impressive museum that chronicles the history of this historic transportation hub.

Our tour took us to see several government buildings in city center as well as a nearby botanical garden which, according to our guide, hosts as many as 50 weddings a day!

Our following stops were at the local produce market and also a craft market.

I bought a batik panel which will someday be the center of an African-themed wall hanging.

Zanzibar, Tanzania

If you have been following our itinerary, you know that we were to have had an overnight stay in Zanzibar, but it was canceled because Madagascar would not allow ships to dock if they had been to Zanzibar within the previous ten days. We were sorry to miss this port of call, but we respect Madagascar’s right to protect the health of its population.

Next stop: Maputo, Mozambique.

Update the following morning:

When we looked out at 5:40am, this was our view of the Mozambique Channel.  We are positively floating!

Nosy Be, Madagascar

As before, I will start off with a pronunciation lesson.  Nosy Be (“Noisy Bay”) is an island off Madagascar’s northwestern coast, also known as “The Perfume Island” owing to the abundance of the ylang-ylang flower.  Handpicked in the early morning when their fragrance is most intense, they enter a distillation process, similar to grappa.  The first oils to be collected are used in luxury perfumes.  Our guide mentioned Chanel No. 5.  The oils that follow go into the making of soaps or aromatherapy products.  We stopped and harvested a few flowers, and I can attest to their intoxicating fragrance!

From there, we proceeded to a launch area where we boarded dugout canoes for a paddle to Lokobe National Forest.

Once at Lokobe, we set out on a “forest walk,” that was really a jungle walk, in search of its indigenous fauna.  To wit:

Lemurs

Chameleons

Really scary lizards

And tiny frogs with brown backs and blue-spotted bellies.

At the end of the walk, the folks of the small village offered us an excellent seafood lunch and even sang to us.  One especially enchanting song was, “Old McDonald had a farm,” only on his farm he had a lemur, or he had a chameleon, etc.  It was precious.

I will add that our local guides all speak English, French, Italian, and German.  Madagascar is well organized to receive international visitors.

Mombasa, Kenya

Although there were bright spots in our visit to Mombasa, what struck me most was the reality of living in a city of  1,495,000 people, whose per capita annual income (in equivalent US dollars) is $3,922.  As we approached the city at about 7:00am, we saw this ferry boat from our balcony.

Such a crush of people on (or waiting to get on) that ferry, and hardly a soul in the first-class cabin upstairs.  Think of the collective effort for so many people to get to that place so early in the morning.  They needed to get where they were going and were willing, day after day, to make that effort.

Later in the day, we set out in 6-passenger four-by-four vehicles en route to Tsavo National Park, about a three-hour drive.  We soon understood why our original plan of traveling by motor coach had to be scrapped: we never would have arrived!  Traffic was absolutely gridlocked.  In the smaller vehicle, our aggressive driver was able to create his own lane, squeezing between the big vans and container trucks,  driving on sidewalks and even using a lane with oncoming traffic.  Those drivers were obviously accustomed to such maneuvers and made room for us.  It was a white-knuckle experience!

Along that three-hour route, we saw how people live…most in corrugated steel lean-tos without electricity, water, or basic sanitation.  Many people walk long distances with yellow plastic tanks to get water from a water cooperative or other trusted source.  Clean water in Mombasa is scarce.  But it was the sheer number of people that left an impression.  We’ll also remember all the children who waved up at us in our Jeep, smiling and blowing us kisses.  We smiled and blew kisses back.

At Tsavo, we set out on safari.  While the sightings were few and often quite far away, Vann was able to get some good photos.

                    Oryx

       This elephant appears red because he’s been bathing in the red-sand mud to cool off

       A pow-wow on the Savanna

Another day, we took a ride on an Arabian Dhou for a sightseeing cruise along Tudor Creek.  A fine lunch of grilled seafood was included, capped off with a Kenyan coffee.  Excellent musicians entertained us.

I’ll leave you with a photo of a flowering shrub I saw growing near Tudor Creek.  I think there is an app that will identify flowers.  Please let me know if you find it.

Seychelles

Followers of this blog sometimes ask me to recommend destinations for their future travel, and I always steer them toward Seychelles.  It’s a long way from home, but if you’re a beach lover you might want to have a look.

Beaches like these surround almost the entire island.  You’re never more than a flip-flop’s throw from Paradise!

There are no high rises to block the view.

And happy locals welcomed us with native song and dance. 

We’ll remember 🇸🇨!

Male’, Maldives

We tendered ashore and arrived at the dock just in time to see dinner being delivered: two tubs like this…filled with yellowfin tuna, fresh from the local fish market

Storms were in the forecast, and the sky looked unfriendly, so I cancelled my excursion to a beach resort.  Big mistake!  The weather started improving as soon as the coach left the pier, and the day got sunnier and warmer.  In our walk around Mahe’, we did discover this manmade beach in town.

As is often the case, our days don’t always unfold as we had expected but, after three months, we haven’t had a bad day yet.

Colombo, Sri Lanka

 Where Penang offered transportation by trishaw, Colombo had tuktuks (“TOOK-tooks”), which are roomier and motorized, but negotiating city traffic in one was still a great adventure.  One of our stops was at an outdoor fruit and vegetable market, where vendors were preparing for the day ahead.

Our driver stopped so Vann could photograph the market, and I discovered this shy but curious cutie in the tuktuk next to ours.

We visited impressive mosques and colorful temples.

And by night, Colombo’s Lotus Tower put on a dazzling display, the colors in the lotus alternating from  pink to green to red.

Phuket, Thailand

We learned that there are two correct ways to pronounce “Phuket:” you can say POO-ket, or poo-KET, but  never FOO.  Will try to remember that.

These colorful longtail boats were anchored next to our arrival pier. Their motors appeared to be retrofitted automobile engines.  Very clever, these Thai boat captains!

George Town (Penang) Malaysia

We docked overnight for a two-day stay in Penang.  Here are the highlights:

George Town, the capital of the state of Penang, has been designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, shaped by centuries of intermingling between various cultures and religions.  It is also known for the quality and variety of its culinary scene.  Nothing to do but hire a local guide to show us the best of it all.  

To tell you the truth, the many mosques and temples we’ve visited are all starting to look alike, so I’ll show you what makes George Town unique: its street art.  Cities with centuries-old architecture are not always able to maintain historical buildings to their original grandeur.  But those buildings still tell the story of the city’s history, and they deserve to be seen.  So the clever citizens of George Town came up with a solution: they hired an artist to paint interactive murals on some of the walls.  That has served not only to recognize the structures’ significance but also to attract tourists.  To wit:

There are lots of these around the city.  If you lived in George Town, you would never be at a loss trying to entertain your houseguests!

And then there is the food!  I can’t always name what we were eating, but it was all delicious.

The blue color in the rice is thanks to the butterfly pea flower.  The flowers are steeped in hot water to extract their color, then used to color the rice.  Durians were another unknown food, a fruit famous for having a foul smell!  We tried one that had been battered and fried, and it tasted like the richest-ever caramel.  

Another great adventure was our ride in a trishaw, a three-wheeled cart propelled by a bicycle driver.

I will say this about that: These vehicles were designed to transport people whose backsides take up less room than our own.  But off we went with our skillful driver who maneuvered us through multiple lanes of busy traffic on narrow city roads and returned us safely to our ship.  Hence the broad smiles:

Kuala Lumpur

Just a short distance up the archipelago from Singapore lies Kuala Lumpur, and the difference is startling.  1.76 million people and two million cars.  The government subsidizes gasoline, so there is no motivation  for enhancing public transportation.  The dilapidated buildings reminded us of our visit to Cuba, where people maintain their individual apartments, but nobody maintains the structure.  

And then there is city center:

There is obviously great wealth in Kuala Lumpur, but not everyone got a piece of the pie.