Around the World. Week 17 Wrap Up

This week we visited two new countries, both exceeded expectations! We also had quite a few days at sea, so I lost track of time and am posting this week's update a day late. Whoops!

Schedule

• Day 113 / April 29: Phuket, Thailand

• Day 114 / April 30: Phuket, Thailand

• Day 115 / May 1: At Sea

• Day 116 / May 2: At Sea

• Day 117 / May 3: Colombo, Sri Lanka

• Day 118 / May 4: At Sea

• Day 119 / May 5: At Sea

Day 113 / April 29: Phuket, Thailand

Arriving in Phuket in the afternoon meant that I had all morning to do absolutely nothing. Kidding, I was behind on all my journaling and creating the Segment 7 recap video, so I found a quiet hiding place to catch up. (Side note: I learned that with the change of itinerary, we actually lost a segment, so it’s Segment 7 of 10 instead of 7 of 11. Same overall number of days though).

We anchored today, which for an overnight stay ended up making things a bit interesting with having to take a tender from the cruise ship to shore. I’ll explain more about that as this story goes on though.

Some of these excursions have a lot of logistics involved. Today, we left the ship on a ferry boat, where we were split into vans that took us to another pier, where we got onto a catamaran that took us to another island. Here we had dinner and snorkeled before getting back on the catamaran to watch the sunset from the boat and then back to the pier back to the van back to the ferry back to the ship. Fun story though, our van driver got lost coming back to the ferry, but since I drop a pin in Google Maps every time we get to shore in case I need it and I was riding shotgun, we didn’t get too far out of the way before he course corrected. Just a couple U-turns and having to try to explain where to go when he didn’t speak English and I didn’t speak Thai. But we made it back to the pier to catch the next ferry. However, there seemed to be something out of sequence because we ended up waiting for over an hour for the next boat to come get us, meaning we didn’t get back to the cruise ship until after 9pm. Most of the time, this is not a major issue, but the excursion for the next day had a meeting time of 6am. As soon as we got checked in, I headed straight for bed.

But I got ahead of my story, so let’s return to the fun part of the day - the Beach and the Sunset!

On the catamaran, we cruised much smoother than what we experienced in Tahiti where we bounced all over the waves, getting soaked and tossed about. This ride, we were treated to soft drinks, snacks, and sunshine! When we got to the beach, we disembarked onto this floating dock, which had plastic steps held together with these round couplers at each intersection, resulting in a strong surface to walk across the water. While it was strong, it was in no way easy to transverse on. The whole structure mimicked the wave motion and wobbled side to side with each step. It was a true test of balance, but not necessarily grace.

Once on shore, they guided us to the dining area for a traditional Thai meal, served family style. It included chicken, rice, shrimp, soup, and much more. I ate a bit quick because we only had an hour at this stop and I really wanted to go snorkeling. After I tried most of the offerings, I headed down to the water.

In Thailand, it was hot and humid. In the water in Thailand, it was hot and humid. There was no relief once in the sea, but there were TONS OF FISHES! Very near shore even. The little yellow and black striped ones were curious creatures, bumping into the camera lens and not fleeing in my presence.  The depth of water was just over a foot and there was some coral clusters, making it a bit difficult to navigate while also trying to observe and record the fish. However, because it’s salt water, it’s easier to float on the surface.

When it was time to go, we had to cross the wobbling bobbling floating dock back to the catamaran. For some reason, it seemed easier going back than coming in. Maybe whatever they put in the pretty Blue Andaman drink counter acted the rocking and rolling.

Now we were in a race against time to get to the sunset point, Promthep Cape. This spot is one of Phuket’s most iconic viewpoints with its dramatic, panoramic views over the Andaman Sea. Not only were the shores and cliffs lined with people waiting to see the sun set, there were also many motorized paragliders soaring over the area and kayakers bobbing in the water. At one point, the catamaran captain continued to honk the horn, warning some of the nearby kayakers, but they were not paying attention, so the captain had to expertly navigate around them, but it was a little close for comfort. They did, however, see the boat once it was right next to them.

The sunset was beautiful, creating all the colors of the rainbow as it neared the horizon, not only in the sky around the sun, but in the reflections in the clouds on the other side of the bay as well. The moon didn’t want to be left out of the party, so it was shining brightly in almost its full phase as it crested above the tree tops.

As we cruised back to the pier, the sky show wasn’t over and we were treated to bursts of lightning, flashing up in the fluffy clouds.

Once at the pier, we loaded back into the vans to drive to the other pier to catch the ferry to the ship. And we’re back to where my story began. Lost.

Day 114 / April 30: Phuket, Thailand

Oceania has a streamlined process for gathering excursion groups and dismissing them to the tenders. This normally works very well as long as the shuttles are running smoothly. They give us a numbered ticket to coordinate with our tour group and dismiss each group in numerical order. Today however, the tenders were not running smoothly, repeating a bit of similar issues as we experienced the night prior. This resulted in us sitting in the theater for about an hour, waiting to board the tender. Oh well, eventually we got moving and loaded on to the bus. The logistics of this excursion were a bit crazy like the day prior - taking a boat from the ship to the shore to a bus to another pier to get on a shuttle truck to a boat to take us to another bay to get on to canoes to explore caves to get back on the boat to take us to another bay to get back on the canoes to explore the rocks to get back on the boat to take us to a beach to swim and get back on the boat to take us back to the pier to the shuttle trucks to get back to the bus to take us back to the original pier to get on the ferry to get back to the ship! But this time, we didn’t get lost! Also, contrary to public opinion (or as was posted on Facebook by another passenger), we actually got to the ferry dock ahead of the last tender time, but were held up awaiting another tour group to return so we could all take the same ferry back to the ship.

Again, I got ahead of the fun part of the story - this excursion was my favorite to date!

This area of the world has been one of the places I was looking forward to the most with the dramatic rock formations jetting out of the sea. It did not disappoint! Added to the feeling of being such a minute speck in the atmosphere was that we were in the canoes at the very base of these behemoth giants, looking vertically and not being able to see the top. Another feature that I didn’t expect was the eroded undersides that created fang-like points, biting at the water.

Being in the canoes also gave us the chance to explore into the volcano’s caves. When I read the reviews beforehand, they talked about having to lay flat to get under some of the sections. However, because of the full moon and the effect it has on the tides, the canoe itself couldn’t even get through, so we stayed in the larger caverns near the mouth. Here we saw colonies of bats! As the guides shined their flashlights on the cave walls, we saw them clinging to the ceilings and some flitting about, startled by the light. In one section, although we couldn’t access it, we saw a bright neon green glow emitting from under the water. Our guide explained this was due to the sun reflecting from another entrance to the cave.

Once back into the sunlight, we transferred from the canoes back to the boat to move to another area near the “James Bond Island” that was featured in the 1974 film The Man with the Golden Gun. Here, our guide rowed around more of the mountainous rocks and into another cave. No bats in this one though. Again, the distance we were able to venture was limited due to the high tides, so we headed back to the boat.

From there, the crew served a fabulous lunch on the boat while we traveled to a private beach area. After we anchored, the guide said we had a few options to get to shore. We could take the canoes, get in a smaller boat, or jump in and swim. Only a few of us took the last option, but in we went! Similar to the day prior, the water was very warm and very salty. Unlike the day prior, there were not so many fishes, so I did not snorkel. They did offer us the chance to try our hands at paddling the canoes, so I took one for a quick spin.

Since the all-aboard time today was at 3pm, we didn’t get to stick around to watch the sunset, so we headed back to the ship in reverse logistical order - swim back to the boat, boat to the pier to shuttle trucks to the bus to the other pier to the ferry to the cruise ship.

The evening concluded with the Captain’s Welcome party, Jacques, and bed.

Day 115 / May 1: At Sea

Sea day! Man, we hadn’t had one of these in a while and it was welcomed!

Naturally, I was awake and at Baristas way too early, but we had yet another time change, so who knows what time it really was. I spent the morning editing all the photos from the past two days and created the Phuket recap video. It took a few hours to complete this task because there was just so much content captured. Eventually, I was able to narrow it all down to summarize in just a minute and a half.

The rest of the day included napping, helping another passenger with her iMovie project, solo dinner, and capped with a Harmonica Show. While it seems like I didn’t do much today, it felt like a really busy sea day.

Day 116 / May 2: At Sea

Starting the day in Baristas again, I continued to try to catch up in journalling. Although, I was still running a few days behind and finally caught up before getting off for the day in Sri Lanka.

The morning concluded with Beef Stir-Fry and Wine! Yep, I took another culinary class. This one focused on Polynesian cuisine, so we also had coconut rice and Polynesian Bananas Foster crepes. I really enjoyed the meal and could easily replicate it at home. I think I’ve actually made something similar before, but this one included cubed grilled pineapple in the stir-fry, which added more layers of complexity.

Following the class, I took my normal food coma nap that lasted basically the rest of the day. Napping was intermixed with mindless scrolling on social media and playing games on my phone. I’ve been playing the same game called Royal Match for so long, I’ve maxed out the levels (about 13,600 at this point) and have to continually wait for them to post an update for more levels. The other game I play that requires very little brain power is called Nuts and Bolts where you have to sort the colored nuts into their own bolts. Yep, sometimes you just need downtime, even on vacation.

The only reason I didn’t just go get a pizza and stay hibernating in my room is because we had already agreed to have dinner with other Bloggers on the ship. So after a quick refresh, I headed out for what I expected to be a typical evening, but it somehow concluded with Karaoke and an impromptu magic show in Horizons.

Day 117 / May 3: Colombo, Sri Lanka

To start, I’ll explain the process Oceania uses for excursions. At the start of each segment, we all get a packet in our rooms with the tickets for the activities that we signed up for. Included in the packet is more up to date information about the excursions, such as bus ride durations or any restrictions the tour operators impose. This is important to review because sometimes you learn that you might have to ride the bus for a few hours to partake in an hour activity just to ride the bus all the way back to the ship. If you want to make any changes, you have to go to the Destinations Services desk to see if there is availability in any of the other excursions that interest you. If you are reading this and considering booking future excursions, you may want to do a bit of homework to figure out the travel time and compare it to the overall excursion duration to give you an estimate of this. Anyway, this is how I ended up going on a Photography Tour in Colombo instead of going to an Elephant Orphanage.

The tour kicked off in the Pettah Market area where we walked around to different produce stands and street vendors. Our guide explained some of the different vegetables and meats that are usually consumed for their families. He took us to one of the shops that sells clothing to explain the colors and typical dress for their culture. We passed by two different temples, but didn’t go in. One was the Jami Ul-Alfar Mosque and the other was Sammangodu Sri Kathiravelayutha Swami Temple. The first is known for the red and white stripes while the second is known for the colorful statues adorning the facade. Both are very beautiful in their unique ways.

One other stop we made in this area was to try a Golden Coconut water. The difference between it and the regular brown / green coconut, other than the color, is the water is sweeter and has more antioxidants. We were also served these warm from a street vendor whereas when we had the regular ones, they were served chilled. I will admit that I was expecting a refreshing drink after walking around in the heat and humidity, but the water was still very flavorful and worth trying.

Back on the bus, we drove over to Vihara Maha Devi Park, which used to be named Victoria Park after Queen Victoria from when the British ruled the area. After independence time, the Sri Lankans decided they wanted to rename the park after their own heritage. They also erected a large, golden Buddha statue in place of the original Queen Victorian statue. Here we learned that in reverence to Buddha you are not to turn your back to take selfies or photos and you are not supposed to sit on the wall in front of the statue. There may have been some other things, but those were the two I remembered.

Across the street from the park is the Colombo Town Hall, which was modeled after the US Capitol Building, with the large domed roof. It is used as their primary government building, housing the Mayor of Colombo. We were told the President of the Maldives was in town for an event, so there was extra police presence in the area and they were beginning to set up tents and ropes for the following day.

Eventually, we made our way to an awaiting line of tuk tuks, that would take us further into the city center where the destinations were a bit more spread out. Each tuk tuk held two passengers plus the driver and are motorized three-wheel vehicles. Before I came on this excursion, I assumed they were the peddled. Apparently those are called Rickshaw bikes. I do learn quite a bit on this trip.

We got in lucky number 13 for the adventure with our driver, Ishmail.

The first brief stop - Colombo Racecourse, which used to be for horse races, but is now used for rugby matches.

The next stop - Independence Square, which is a large structure, designed by the first Sri Lankan Prime Minister, to showcase the story of Buddha and the countries Independence efforts. The columns and engravings were very detailed, representing the care this country has in its history.

The next stop - Replica of Aukana Buddha Statue, which is also known as the Standing Buddha.

We drove by a few more temples and historical sights on the way to Galle Face Beach, where they gave us local Ginger Beer. It was a nice change in beverage, but did have a bit of a spicy kick to it!

Exhausted, but back onboard, I headed to the theater to watch a local dance group perform traditional Sri Lankan song and dance. The troupe performed many drum solos and showcased colorful costumes, including ones that represented a peacock, which holds deep cultural significance in Sri Lanka.

Most nights I would have gone back to my room to crash into bed, but since we were gaining a whole half hour of time and beginning four (4) straight sea days, I convinced my sleepy self to head to Horizons to check out the Motown music session and then closed the evening at Martini’s with David at the piano. Then I promptly fell asleep once back in my cabin.

Day 118 / May 4: At Sea

Oh boy, with that extra half hour of time, I managed to sleep until 6am. Up to Barista’s I went to catch up on journaling from Sri Lanka and editing photos from the day prior.

I’m also still considering what life looks like after this year of travel, so I had the opportunity to talk to the General Manager on board about some potential options if I were to want to continue to travel, but more as someone who works on the ship in some capacity instead of as a guest. We had a good chat and there are some realistic options that I’ll continue to explore further.

Next, a few ladies on the ship had recommended, and provided a copy of, the book The Women. It’s a story about the women who served as nurses during the Vietnam war, focusing on both their life during the war and after returning home. I had planned to read this book over the four (4) sea days between Sri Lanka and the Seychelles, but instead, I read it entirely today. It’s one of those stories that you wanted to get to the happy ending, constantly hoping that it would end well for the main characters as they battled through loss, heartbreak, and PTSD. In case you want to read it, I won’t give away any further spoilers, but I do recommend having some tissues on hand throughout the whole reading.

For a pre-dinner show, the Entertainment team hosted another round of Music Trivia Gameshow, where contestants from the audience go head to head with various rounds of Music Knowledge showdown. It’s a great production and a lot of fun to watch. Given that most of the music they play was recorded a decade or so before I was born, I don’t volunteer to participate, but it does look fun!

For dinner, a few of us were invited to dine with the Food & Beverage Director, Carlos, and the HR Director, Matthew, at Toscana. I had the opportunity to do this a few months ago and was happy to be invited back! These dinners create a relaxed environment to get to know the Officers and to ask questions about life on the ship.

Day 119 / May 5: At Sea

Such a lazy morning to get up and going, but eventually, I made it up to “my office” in Baristas. Today’s objective was to create a new resume. After my discussion with the General Manager, I decided to keep the conversation going by seeing what opportunities could be available by becoming an Enrichment Speaker on the ships and in order to do this, I had to generate a CV with focus on my travel and speaking background.

The rest of the afternoon continued to be lazy, filled with reading until the Pre-Dinner show where Tim Abel showcased his amazing piano skills. I can’t recall the song title, but it was one that you could barely keep up with where his fingers were on the keys and I’m pretty sure he used his elbow at one point!

From there, I headed to a cocktail and dinner party for another passenger’s birthday. Those are always fun because you get to catch up with friends that you might not normally see around the decks.

Ending the night at the Blue Horizon party, which is still my favorite of the events on board. There are always a lot more people than other nights up on the dance floor and having a great time!

Tomorrow we are at 2/3 of our trip completed, which is still very crazy to consider! But here’s to the start of Week 18!