A Day in the Maldives April 9, 2023 Happy Easter Everyone! We spent Saturday—Holy Saturday actually—in the Maldives at the Cinnamon Dhonveli Resort in Kanuharaa. Tourism is a very important part of the Maldives economy. The  Cinnamon Dhonveli Resort where we went is a rather tony upscale affair. The physical location is gorgeous; the establishment […]

Sri Lanka April 6, 2023 We spent a short day in Colombo, Sri Lanka on the way to the Maldives. Colombo is the capital. Among other things we visited the National Museum, the Samudra Hotel and the Gangaramaya Temple. We saw native dancers at the port and believe it or not, several snake charmers.  Formerly […]

April 4, 2023 We visited diverse areas of Thailand over the course of several days. The visits included time spent in an outdoor museum that replicates part of Bangkok called the Ancient City; a training camp for monkeys where they learn to collect coconuts for processing, a giant Buddha and the island of Phuket. What […]

Penang, Malaysia April 1, 2023 During a visit to Penang, Malaysia we spent some time in the city of Georgetown, the capital. Georgetown is a city established about 150 years ago by British colonizers. It is home to many different ethnicities including Chinese, Indian, Arabian, Burmese and Malay people as well as expats from Eurasia, […]

Singapore, March 2023 We have just spent two days in Singapore, one of our favorite cities.  What a mix of ethnicities, religions, cultures and history can be found here.   Folks from China, India and Western countries are everywhere, alongside folks originally from the Malay peninsula.    Singapore is a vibrant and young city, clean […]

Five Days in Vietnam March 24, 2023 “Brits drive on the left side of the street; Americans on the right. Vietnamese drive on all sides—and the sidewalks.”   —Tour Guide Vietnam is a study in barely controlled chaos. The comment from our tour guide about driving is essentially accurate. There are motorcycles everywhere and they […]

March 17, 2023 (AKA Patrick’s Day) We sailed into the port city of Keelung Taiwan on March 14 bypassing a scheduled port-of-call a day earlier because of bad weather. After Keelung we sailed into the port city of Kaohsiung.  Keelung, the second largest port in Taiwan, has a population of about 360,000; Kaohsiung with a […]

March 13, 2023 We are sailing toward Taiwan looking to dock in our second scheduled Taiwanese port because we missed the first one (Hualian) due to bad weather. Really bad. We sailed through the night through waves as high as 14 feet, so we got knocked about quite a bit. We’ll see what tomorrow brings.  […]

March 10, 2023 We sailed into the Philippines on March 7, 2023 and then spent a few days touring around the country, traveling to 2 islands in the archipelago. The first was Palawan where among other things we visited a Philippine Penal Farm where minimum security prisoners put on a show for us. Kind of […]