A Day in Singapore

 February 5

We arrived in Singapore in the afternoon of February 4 with rain showers threatening. We had an excursion to the Night Safari, essentially a zoo where most of the animals are active at night - which in this part of the world is most of them. 

We had already done our packing as we would be leaving the ship in the morning and needed to have our bags out by 10 p.m., and had arranged with our butler to put them in the hall for us while we were out, but when the threatened rain turned into a heavy downpour we were glad we had not gone out into the city in the afternoon.

Ultimately we did cancel the safari as we discovered the amount of walking after the trolley tour was extensive, and after the last couple of days of tours Larry's right leg was bothering him enough that the walking would be uncomfortable. So we stayed on board on the last night, and managed to very easily get into Pacific Rim for dinner.

Arrival in Singapore - these buildings are new since our
last visit

An apartment complex! Look at that
bridge between the towers. 

The pool deck at night. No those aren't UFOs!
We were docked at the cruise pier beside Sentosa Island
and there is a cable car running from downtown to
the island that goes right over the ship. These are two cars with circles of LED
lights on the outside

It was grey and rainy in the morning when we left the ship at 9 a.m. Our transfer van got us to the Fullerton Hotel by 9:30, and we were sure there would be no rooms ready at that time. Rather than chance a shower without our umbrella available, we stayed in the large and comfortable lobby for a couple of hours and had lunch. Our room was ready for us before we finished it.

Finally getting a chance to have Nasi Goreng, an
Indonesian staple.

Larry opted for Fish and Chips ---- we seem to have
had quite a bit of fish and chips on this trip.

After lunch and a quick trip up to our room with our bags, we headed out for a walk around the area. It was still overcast, but there were no heavy showers expected.

The main entrance of our hotel, decked out
for Chinese New Year. This is one of the
historical buildings of Singapore

'Chinatown' along the Singapore River. 

The famous view of Marina Bay with the Marina Bay Sands
Hotel and the Art Science Museum

As we walked around the bay area, we came upon this Lego depiction of the Fullerton Hotel, created to celebrate the Fullerton Building's 90th birthday. It took a team 198 hours and 478,500 bricks to build it.

Our room was the second from the right 
below the red roof

Our walk in the Chinatown restaurant area.
Too bad we weren't hungry - there were all
sorts of small restaurants, and most weren't 
even Chinese.

Here's one I would have tried. Can't get much
fresher than this.

We didn't want a large dinner, so we ate in the hotel restaurant. I had to start off with the iconic Singapore Sling, and the Fullerton makes theirs with a little twist.

After dinner we went for a walk along the river beside the hotel.

The public walkway beside the hotel

The bridges are all lit up at night, and some of 
the buildings have laser light shows projected
on them

The view from our balcony

We were off to the airport at 7 a.m. for our 10:00 flight to Vancouver. Of course it dawned a beautiful clear day. Check in was a breeze - they do security at the gate for international flights at Changi Airport - and we had some breakfast in the Singapore Airlines Business Class Lounge. This airport has a reputation for being one of the world's best, and we discovered a couple of reasons why:

There is a multitude of things to see and do just in the airport. These garden oases are interesting to see and calming to walk through, and probably also provide some natural air cleaning. The blue sky is projected on the ceiling.

We had another long flight, 13 1/2 hours, ahead of us to Vancouver, and hoped we would be able to sleep for a few of them to start resetting our body clocks. It was easy to do since the crew darkened the windows in our 787 and turned off the lights not long after lunch service, but it was far from restful.

After a flight delay in Vancouver we finally got home, just in time for the largest snowfall of the winter. Even though it is cold and snowed all weekend as I finished writing the blog, we are glad to be home. We had a great time and saw lots of new places. The Indian Pacific journey was a highlight and whetted our appetite for some other interesting train trips.

The final post for this trip will be of my small pen and wash sketchbook that covers the whole trip. I was able to sketch on the train, in buses and even in the shopping mall in Kuala Lumpur, and had some very nice comments from fellow guests, and our butler, who caught a glimpse.

Kuala Lumpur, Pride of Malaysia

 February 4

We had a whirlwind tour of Kuala Lumpur, even though it took a whole day. Port Klang, which is the commercial as well as the cruise port, is about 45 minutes away from the city itself, and there's lots of building going on between the two along the highway.

Our first stop in the city was at the Blue Mosque, a much easier name to remember than Sultan Salahuddin Abdul Aziz Shah Mosque. We were not able to go inside, but we had been in a large mosque in Istanbul last year and are familiar with the interior decor. This mosque holds as many as 12,500 worshippers and is the second largest in southeast Asia. All of the stained glass windows are tinted blue, so the interior also has a bluish tinge, which is another reason for the name.

The bulk of the population here is Islamic, with Buddhism being the second most practiced religion. This is due to the historically Chinese presence in this area.

Next up was the National Museum where we were given a ridiculously short amount of time to view the four galleries depicting different eras of the area's history. We chose to spend our time in the Malay gallery where we learned about the culture of the indigenous population going back to the time of the Jade Road. The museum has artefacts dating back as far as 1000 AD.

Entrance to the museum

In order to reach Malaysia, we had to sail through the Strait of Malacca, historically a very busy and important trade route dating back to around 2000 BC. This formed the 'Jade Road', part of the Spice Route that ran through the southeast Asian island nations to India, Turkey and into Europe. Judging by the maritime traffic, it has not lost any of its relevance, as we saw a phenomenal number of ships during our passage as we passed Singapore to reach Kuala Lumpur.

Model of a traditional outrigger boat.

Pottery showing the Islamic influence. Islam
was brough to this area around the 7th Century

Shadow Puppets, which were a form of entertainment used
to tell historical and religious stories. The puppets
are made from tightly strung and painted hides

This was the figurehead on the prow of a boat
belonging to Malay royalty over 100 years ago

After our brief but very interesting visit to the museum, we were taken to the Royal Palace. Malaysia is comprised of 13 states and 3 federal territories and is a constitutional monarchy. There are still hereditary rulers of 9 of the states, and the King of Malaysia, who has no unilateral powers, is elected once every 5 years by these rulers from among themselves. Otherwise the county has a 2 level parliamentary system with representatives elected by the population.

We were arriving just in time for the changing of the guard

The gate to the royal palace

The palace way back there. The king was
actually in residence

One of the guards. Note she is a Muslim
woman

As we drove around I noticed some very interesting architecture in the skyscrapers around the city. Here are a few photos:

Our next stop was at The Concorde Hotel for lunch. All of the various tours came here so it was rotating occupancy of the buffet and tables. The spread was excellent, with satays, spring rolls and fried chicken all having a place.

My plate from the buffet

With a large Chinese presence and long history, Chinese New Year celebrations were happening everywhere. The hotel lobby was decorated beautifully, and even had a display of the calendar with horoscopes for 2025 for each sign of the Chinese zodiac.

My 2025 horoscope

Larry's horoscope

Lunch was delicious, but we weren't done quite yet. We were only a couple of minutes away from a particularly good viewpoint for the Petronas Towers, the iconic symbol of Kuala Lumpur. The towers were built by the national oil company as office towers, but also to put KL on the world map. They were obviously quite successful. Tickets for the viewing area on the bridge between the towers sell out quickly.

Our guide took this one for us

We still had a couple of stops - see what I mean about whirlwind? - before returning to the ship. Our first one was at the National Monument and Cenotaph. Remembrance Day observances still happen at the Cenotaph, but the Warrior Day observations that used to happen at the National Monument have been moved elsewhere. Warrior Day is observed to remember the 11,000 people who died in the Malayan Emergency,  the fight for independence from Britain. At some point after it was erected, the government, which is very much Islamic, decided that having a monument in human form is against Islam doctrine, and Warrior Day is celebrated at a new monument in Putrajaya, the administrative capital of Malaysia.

The Cenotaph

The National Monument

Our final stop was at the Central Market. Whatever you might think it should look like, it was just a shopping mall of sorts. We don't buy souvenirs and had no reason to wander around for an hour and a half. With guidance from our guide, we headed to the food court on the upper level, got some interestingly flavoured ice tea and sat down. I had packed my small sketchbook and paints into my purse, so I spent the time catching up on my artwork.

We finally got to board the bus to head back to Port Klang and arrived right on the requested return time. It had been a long day, but interesting, and we now know what we might want to see if we are on a cruise in this area in the future.

 

On Board Regent Explorer

 Feb 2 - on the way to Kuala Lumpur

Regent Explorer is designed very much the same as Splendor and Grandeur, and we have been on both of these ships. Or rather, the others are designed much like Explorer, as she is the first of this class/design of ship. The main difference is that Explorer has a lot - and I mean a LOT - of dark wood paneling in the public areas. It is still very nice to look at and beautifully decorated, but somehow it doesn't make us feel like we're on vacation. I guess that's the way to put it.

Splendor and Grandeur are decorated with very bright neutral colours, especially in the Atrium, the Coffee Connection and the Observation Lounge, so the light shining in through the windows is reflected and the areas are bright and welcoming. On Explorer the paneling seems to absorb the light, so there is not as much natural sunlight getting in. It isn't an obvious thing, but it does seem to have affected our enjoyment of the cruise overall. I wasn't even inspired to go around the ship to take photos as I usually do. I have one of the Observation Lounge which I'll share here.

In comparison, this is the Observation Lounge
on Grandeur. More light and a reflective ceiling
makes a huge difference

That being said, the weather didn't help much, either. We did have some rain every day, even on sea days, and when it wasn't raining it was quite hot and humid most of the time. Finding a pool lounge in the shade - and you want to be in the shade in this part of the world - was almost impossible, so we spent more time inside on this trip. Our balcony was often impossible to use because of the wind direction or the rain.

Never mind all of that. You can't do anything about the weather. We expected the rainy season, and we got it. The only difference from previous cruises is that we are here a month or 6 weeks earlier, closer to the middle of the rainy season than the end. Something to file away for future reference.

On our sea day to Kuala Lumpur, we crossed the Equator at around 6:00 a.m., so that means that King Neptune paid the ship a visit to make sure everyone who had not done this before paid his or her 'fee'.  An Equator Crossing Ritual was held for all those Pollywogs to jump the waves and kiss the fish.

King Neptune (actually Cruise
Director David) and his entourage

The balloons are the 'waves' and in the back
corner is the table with the fish

There were apparently lots of Pollywogs waiting
to become Shellbacks on this voyage

The line went all the way down
the pool deck

The line was so long that we didn't even wait to see the end of it and watch King Neptune's departure. We haven't counted yet, but we've probably crossed the Equator on ships at least a dozen times - but then we probably had at least 4 crossings in a week in the Galapagos.

The entertainment on this cruise was very good. The guest entertainers were for the most part from Australia or New Zealand, and they were all fantastic. We had a couple of singers, a comedian, an Australian singer named Patrick McMahon whom we had seen on Crystal in 2018, and a couple who did juggling and acrobatics. They were amazing; they even did their first show in less than ideal sea  conditions.

Here's a quick photo of Cameo Rascale. He's on the unicycle in the back, and they're about to start juggling those pins she's holding. The young man and his family were finalists in Australia's Got Talent in 2009 after already having performed on cruise ships for a couple of years. Now he and wife are carrying the act on and doing a fantastic job.

There are also production shows with a cast of singers and dancers along with the Signature Orchestra of 8 musicians. The shows were well choregraphed and the singers' voices were very good, but the sound levels weren't always optimal, so it could take away from the show a bit. Considering this cruise was the debut for the cast - they had rehearsed on land but not had an audience or the movement of a ship at sea - they did extremely well.

Next up - our final port stop of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.