After my completely sleepless night, the last thing I wanted to do was go anywhere. At the same time, it seemed like a royal waste to come all the way to Phuket and not even go ashore.

So I had a nice leisurely breakfast aboard the cruise (ah, seriously people, this is the life!!!) and then decided to be brave and venture out onto Phuket.

We had stoped on the west coast of Phuket and as such on Patong Beach which is the main touristy place in Phuket. The reason as I found out later when going through the place was the nightlife - the place is full of fantastic looking very chic nightclubs. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

We got off the ship like the previous day on a smaller ship. Except that on this day, we stopped at the end of a looooong gangway like thingie (perhaps not so fortunate people were made to walk off this place by scary looking one-eyed pirates in bygone eras?).

The long walk led us straight onto the beach.

At this point (leaving my bias for Goa aside for just a minute) let me say that Phuket beach is one of the world’s most picturesq beaches. It will just take your breadth away. I got tons of photos this entire trip (Singapore included) but none could compare with the ones taken at Phuket. Simply beautiful.

And here are some more of the ship, as seen from the shore:

Back to reality: Patong was one of the worst affected areas of Phuket by the 26 Dec, 2004 tsunami. There were signs all over the beach as we walked showing how far the tsunami had struck & leading to evacuation routes for the future.

We enjoyed our time at Patong Beach & even managed to get a little shopping done:

By this time I was pretty pooped & wanted to head back to shore. Mum too seconded that notion as we had to take care of some other stuff. We unwisely however let ourselves get talked into by a well meaning fellow cruise passenger who wanted to go into the main Phuket city.

We had no idea that the darn Phuket city was more than an hour away (by taxi) from Patong beach nor did the horrible taxi driver tell us - we in fact had told him we wanted to be back at the ship in one hour’s time & this horrible man was taking us on this leisure trip (driving at a measely 30 kpm on empty roads). Finally we had to tell him to stop, turn the cab around (without even having reached the city!) and go back to the ship. It was honestly a terrible ordeal.

On a more positive note though, you could say we saw a lot of the place by car. And my, does Thailand have a lot of Massage places

We reached back & I got my absolute favorite picture of the whole trip:

Time to board the ship now, before it takes off without us. Unfortunately the timings of the cruise does not allow one to enjoy the nightlife at Phuket - which I really suggest one checks out, by the looks of the clubs (have no idea of the people though).

Back on the ship I headed straight off to work. When that was over I was so pooped that I went straight to my cabin & crashed. I had planned to see a show called the “Tropicalia” which everyone later told me was fabulous but unfortunately was so tired I couldn’t make it.

In the night got all dressed up for the fancy “Captain’s Gala Ball”. It’s an entry by reservation thing only & we all were assigned table places etc. First up though was cocktails (in my case, mocktails) in the main level.

We also were introduced to our crew (only top level mgmt), all one more gorgeous than the other. Sigh.

In between, mum & I sneaked out onto the deck to watch the sun go down. An amazing sight I promise you! These pics do not do it justice. Serenity at it’s best (thank you God for this trip!).

We went back to the cocktail party, I truly enjoyed myself - had some very intelligent & fun friends aboard the cruise with us! From there to the “Bella Vista” for the sit-down dinner.

As I said, it was a very fancy affair & a several course meal - the cutlery kinda made me feel like Leonardo on the Titanic, tons of forks & knives & glasses, each for their specific use. There was a fantastic display during our meal, when all the chefs came out (more than 20 of them I think) with special bomb like cakes with firecrakers lit on them… the room lights had been purposely dimmed at this point & they were dancing & balancing the stuff on one high hand, all very good to look at.

Enjoyed my dinner (& the company!) but took care not to overdo it after the excesses of the previous day.

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Woke up early the next morning & was busy in my meeting until about 11.30am. After that had a leisurely lunch before heading to shore at Penang, Malaysia where we had docked.

The ship stops way out in the ocean & to get to shore, we had to take another smaller boat (Pic 1).
I was naturally very excited about going to shore! We were greeted at the shore with large banners “Salamat Datang” which means “Welcome To” in Malay.

The view of the cruise ship from the shore was fabulous - it truly is a wonderful ship! Also there was this other really amazing match-box toy looking like really beautiful ship decked.

Incidentally, fyi, Penang is an island located in the Straits of Malacca (along which our ship was cruising). We were in the capital of Penang, a place called George Town.

We spent our morning in this place which is “largely made of nineteenth-century Straits Chinese shophouses, with Indian and Malay quarters. Anglo-Indian colonial buildings are also to be found amongst elaborate Chinese and Indian temples and Indian-Muslim mosques.”

We also took a nice walk down Beach Street as well as take a bus ride through the city viewing the various sites.

After taking in so much of the sites, we decided to head straight to KOMTAR which “has long been a symbol of Penang island. The Penang state government offices are located here within the 60 over floors”.

Of course, our reason for going was simple - it also holds the place’s largest shopping center
The pic below shows the main gov. bldg in the background (the tall round one) & the shopping mall in the foreground.

Some one told me to “shop till you drop” before I left & trust me, this day we did! Floor after floor after floor of pure delight. My mum’s heaven!

On our way back to the ship (they were very strict about reporting time) we were quite zonked but nevertheless enjoyed the sites on the way, like this amazing Church Pier I saw (pic 2). After that it was “Salamat Jalan” (Jalan means “Bye Bye”!!) to Malaysia!

Our ship had by this point already turned around, ready to move further down the Straits onto Thailand, our next stop. Even my matchbox toy ship had moved, now gloriously in the water.

One would imagine the day over at this point, but no, we’re happy sailors! After freshning up a bit, we decided to roam the ship a little more.

Here’s some of the onboard entertainment on the cruise:

• Galaxy of the Stars
• The Lido (showroom)
• The Picture House (Cinema)
• Out of Africa (Karaoke)
• Oasis (Games)
• The Mahjong Room
• Celebrity Disco

A nice thing about the ship is that there are lots of people all over, dressed up in fancy dress (lots of different things, daily) & quite happy to pose with you. Here’s a picture my mum took of me, she said “My angel with an angel”. Awwwwww mum, really

Every night before bedtime, the next day’s itenarary is given to you in your cabin. After checking out the itenerary, we decided to go see the Spanish Line Dancing in the Lido.

To our utter surprise, it was not a show to be seen, rather a dance class of sorts, where they took all those who came & taught us a full spanish dance!!! So tired as we were, there we were dancing, 1-2-3-pose, 4-5-6-pose, great fun!!

Totally “worked out”, we decided to hit the Parthenon Pool for a spot of dinner. They were having live music & a special BBQ at the poolside and I gorged down lots of Mussels & shell fish… This was a BIG mistake & I paid for in the hours that followed. But we shall come to that.

I was quite ready to crash at this point but there was the special musical show happening at the Lido which I was dying to see. It was totally worth it, the singing, dancing, lights & sounds were fabulous. We saw special items from Cats, Star Wars, Lady Marmalade, Joseph & his Technicolored Dreamcoat among others.

Before the show had ended, my stomach already was hurting like hell. The shell fish were taking their toll. I literally ran out of the Lido when the show was over & into my loo. The night that followed was terrible. I didn’t sleep a wink, between a breathing problem I was having & my stomach I pretty much paid the price for my excesses of the day.

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Got up nice & early and got ready for Holy Mass at the Church of St. Bernadette (isn’t it amazing the way everything related to Singapore has it’s own website?!)

The Mass was rather long (over an hour) and I was a tad dissapointed to see some women scantily clad at Church (did not see this the following Sunday at another Church) … see how the ones with logs try to pick specs from other peoples eyes!

There was a lovely choir though led by an animated conductor & the readings were read by Singaporeans (I’m assuming) with American accents. There were also lots of people from varied backgrounds - whites, Chinese, Malays, Indians (tons of Tamilians all over Singapore), Filipinos… so it was really in a sense a type of heavenly gathering - all men under a common roof worshipping God.

Immediately after Mass rushed home & then to the Harbour Front to get onto the most magnificant SuperStar Virgo!

Didn’t board immediately but once done, headed for lunch at the ‘Mediterranean Buffet and Terrace’, which had a fabulous view of the sea as we sailed of & was one of many restaurants on ship:

• Samurai (Japanese)
• (Mediterranean) Buffet and Terrace
• Blue Lagoon (Asian)
• Palazzo (Italian)
• Taj Mahal (Indian)
• The Pavilion Room (Chinese)
• Bella Vista (International)
• Noble House (Chinese)

Ate some delicious salmon, among other things (I didn’t know it at the time, but I was to eat till I could eat no more the whole cruise; the food was that good!)

I had actually joined the cruise since I had a meeting on board but will not elaborate. Started by around 5pm & finished for the day by around 7pm.

After those two hours hard work was ready for the special Party thrown for our group at the Parthenon Pool complete with live band! Besides the music, enjoyed the delicious prawns, turkey, squid among others. Also ate tons of dessert (naturally!) & ended with some apple pie (one of my favorites!) for good measure

Below: the Taverna, which overlooks the Parthenon Pool deck (below):

One would imagine that all this be enough entertainment for one day, but no! No one rests aboard the amazing SS Virgo it’s non-stop entertainment … and before you wonder … I do not get paid to do their PR!

Headed over to the world class theatre ‘The Lido’ to watch a fabulous show ‘The Kingdom of Kung Fu’. The sound, lighting & the amazing performances kept us at the edge of our seats. It really was a fabulous show.

Finally went back to our cabin & fell asleep while listening to the ever funny monologues of Jay Leno. My first day ever sailing, and a great day, by any standards.

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Got up nice & late and went for a long glorious swim (yup, in my new bikini).

After the swim got ready to go to the Singapore Zoo at Mandai.

To quote from the website (link above):

The Singapore Zoo is a model of the `open zoo’ concept.
The animals are kept in spacious, landscaped enclosures, separated from the visitors by dry or wet moats. The moats are concealed with vegetation or dropped below the line of vision.
In the case of dangerous animals such as leopards and jaguars which can climb very well, moat barriers are not used.
Instead, these animals are housed in beautifully landscaped glass-fronted enclosures.
Oppressive cages which typify old zoos, are absent.
The end result is a feeling of openness.

Here’s a Map of the Zoo, which was HUGE!

As I quoted above, the birds & animals are all around you & it’s really like taking a walk into the jungle rather than a zoo except that everything was really well organised and marked out. We started our journey into the wild through some very well done up wooden trails. In fact, the entire zoo has little trails all over, bridges & other pretty things. Even the signs pointing out to different parts of the zoo have animal faces on them (see second last pic below). Found out they even have weddings (!!!!) at the zoo (see last pic) which we personally witnessed.

Here we are just at the start of the zoo & along with some beautiful birds. The second last pic below is of a peacock, just walking about in front of us all. There were a few peahens around too & it must have been mating season, because he did open his feathers & dazzle us all. The last pic are of some beautiful pink flamingoes!

We saw lots of different types of monkeys. Most of them were just around, so close that they could touch you if they wanted… The guy in the second pic reminded us of our little Tiffy back home

Here’s the Spectacular White Tiger. There are only few left in the world, out of which, three gorgeous specimens are in this zoo.

We also saw a show called ‘Elephants of Asia’ in an open air amphitheatre. It was all about the Elephants of Myanmar & how they help their ‘mahouts’ in logging.

We tried to see if any of our footprints matched Konali the elephants, but somehow they didn’t:

Had lunch at KFC’s which was ‘finger lickin’ good’ Bird Flu somehow wasn’t a worry in Singapore (like it is in India) so people are pretty cool about eating chicken all over.

After lunch resumed our journey & saw incredible animals like the triple horned rhinos, cheetas, zebras & meer kats (who were very much on sentry duty!) and the very amazing Polar Bears, to name but a few

We even saw the king of the jungle who did his thing just as we were approaching. It was all very natural & not part of any show, which made it all the more exciting to see. He stood on the edge of a high rock & growled really loudly, head thrown back and all, several times & then sat down royally back on his rocky throne:

When we came to the side later on, we realised what all the fuss was about…. several lionesses (behind glass) were on the other side. If you look at the far end of the pic below, you’ll see the king. In the foreground are all the lionesses.

Yes boy, you impressed the ladies alright.

We also saw some tons of snakes, including the great Anaconda:

Here are some other random shots of us all at the zoo:

UNdoubtedly though, had the most fun milking the cows

All in all, a very tiring day - walked, walked & walked some more. But it was very well worth it. Saw tons more animals, reptiles & birds than I could possibly put up here. Digital cameras allow you to get trigger happy & we must have taken 100s of pics only at the zoo! Came home tired, ate dinner & called it a night.

Got up really late (as I pretty much ended up doing on all days, never mind, this was a holiday!).

Decided to have an early lunch (rather than a late breakfast). Had a Korean meal at the Tiong Bharu Plaza Food Court.

The food was lovely & I enjoyed the whole concept of eating at a food court & being able to chose on of so many different types of cuisines available.

Went off to the HarbourFront to go check out the SSVirgo which had just come in.

My first view of the ship literally took my breadth away!!! It was all I could do to not jump up & down yelling OMG. It was to be my first time ever on a ship - & trust me - the SS Virgo is a fab fab cruise ship. It’s the biggest & best of all the StarCruise ships - the Aries which also was docked looked like a toy boat next to it!

We went aboard the ship admist high security - each time you board or leave, it’s as good as leaving/entering the country & one has to go through immigration, luggage checks etc just like at an airport.

After we were done with the ship (actually they were done with us, they needed us to leave so that they could sail off again on a one day thingie).

Got back & shopped some more. I bought my swimsuit finally - it was a bikini really (here’s a pic I took in the changing room, lol). It was a lot more expy than the ones at Mustufa but a lot better too. Note to the wise: Sing is really expensive esp. if you convert our lovely Indian rupee!

Was quite zonked by this stage, so headed home for a bit of rest before dinner. Dinner was at Marina South, a “2-in-1 BBQ Buffet” at an amazing place called ‘Chong Pang’. A veteran expert on fish - I can honestly say I was Floored by the amazing fish available in Singapore & we ate like greedy pigs.

All the food we took (fish / meat) were either cooked or semi-cooked & each table had a stove & pot of it’s own to BBQ the fish/meat to whatever degree one liked. That was fun in itself but the real treat was in the eating.

Was completely stuffed after dinner but we still decided to drop the kids home & go experience the Singapore night life a little.

First stop was a really retro Jazz Club in Boat Quay.

After spending some time there (& witnessing the incident, lol) we went to another club. The crowd at the Jazz Club seemed classy but the second club seemed highly sidey. Both places were filled with phirangs - except the second had every phirang feeling up an Asian girl (or the other way around). There were even girls pole dancing! I was quite surprised at the openess of it all till I was informed that the girls were not hookers - just employed by the club to make the phirangs spend more money buying drinks. ooookkk?!

There was a really really amazing live band that came on later though (the reason why my cousins go there apparently ) and they really made the trip worthwhile.

Stayed till shut down time. Of course we couldn’t sleep at all so all came home & had a night cap & long discussions on earlier discussed women until we dozed off.

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Though we had initially planned to leave on the 25th (the cruise was scheduled to start 26th) we preponed our trip to the 23rd.

Went to Singapore via the cape of good hope (read as : NEVER take the flight I travelled on). Air India: Mumbai-Hyderabad-Chennai-Singapore. And not only that, but a bloomin’ 1 hour stop at Hyderabad & a 5 hour transit & flight change at Chennai ::help::

Pics below of the Chennai Transit Lounge, Ana International Airport, which was surprisingly nice:

It wasn’t all bad though. The AI crew were very helpful & the flight to Singapore was empty (geez, I wonder why?) so we had plenty of room to move about etc. One nice young handsome flight attendant even came, sat & chatted with me for a long time (taste of things to come? I hope so )

My first view of Singapore was in the night - my first time to Singapore & I was thrilled to see the tons of ships on the water & everything prettily lit up as we descended to Changi International Airport.

Took a cab to my cousin’s place. A side note here on the cabs in Singapore. Firstly, they’re all airconditioned - which is a great relief considering Singapore is a lot hotter than Mumbai & equally humid.

Secondly, we found all the cab drivers not only extremely polite, but also so helpful. Once they knew we were tourists almost all of them would tell us places to go, things to do etc. Apparently the Sing gov. teaches them to promote tourism this way. And they all also have a Tv screen (probably about 5 inches) on the dashboard showing off the different hot spots of Singapore - again probably for the tourists.

Reached my cousin’s place & had dinner & then promptly decided to go around the city & see the sites by night. I was kinda tired after our long hours travelling but everyone else started ribbing me about being old (I was the youngest) so went along. Was a good thing I did because my spirit immediately perked up.

Saw a lot of stuff, but couldn’t take any good pics as the car was too fast & they’re not allowed to stop for no reason on the roads. Still, I figured I had ample time in the days to come to take proper pics, so didn’t mind too much.

Here’s a not so clear pic of the Esplanade by night:

After seeing much (almost all I think!) of the main city, we drove to Mustufa Center - a 24 hour Mall in Serangoon.

Mustufa, incidentally was crowded (we reached at 1am)… it seemed like everyone shops in the night (groceries etc!). I checked out a couple of swimsuits but couldn’t find anything I liked. Among other things, bought a fab. pair of shoes - that I made good use of on the rest of the trip. They were as comfy as wearing socks & looked great!

Came home finally & crashed (quite literally) off. A reaaaaaally long day, but a really good start too!

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A few days cruising the Straits of Malacca, aboard the SuperStar Virgo!

Covering Singapore, Penang (Malaysia), Phuket (Thailand).