Today we are in Puerto Princesa, Palawan, Phillipines. The people are so poor but utterly charming. We hired a Tuk-Tuk ( 3 wheel motorised scooter for the morning – £5.00 !). Delightful driver, Christopher, took us on a tour including a butterfly farm and a seafood lunch on a restaurant on stilts above the sea shore mangroves — brilliant.

Yesterday we were in Kota Kinabalu in Sabah – our last port of call on the beautiful island of Borneo. This is the land of the Orangutangs.

Of mosques and mosquitoes !

Here in Brunei it’s a Moslem country with loads of impressive mosques. The mangrove swamps are full of mosquitoes.

Visited Kuching, capital of Sarawak, a province of Malaysia on the north-west of the island of Borneo.  We went to a rain forest – so it rained. We saw orangutangs  in the trees swinging above our heads.

Next stop is Brunei.

With the New Zealand cousins in Singapore today. Went to the Zoo this morning. Briliant. Photo L to R: Carol, Francis, Freddy, Georgy, Grace (I don’t know what the tortoise is called). There were orangutangs and monkeys literally flying from branch to branch above our heads.

We are now back at their apartment. Going for a chilli crab supper at 5.30 with the children before returning to the ship. We sail at 7.30 pm for Kuching. (Brigette is in Hong Kong for a couple of days, so we won’t be seeing her.)

Malacca today.  A very interesting city, occupied by Dutch, Portuguese, British and (briefly) Japanese.  We caught it on the last day of Chinese New Year celebrations — Kung Hei Fat Choy !

Just entered the northern end of the Straights of Malacca. Sumatra on the starboard side, Thailand on the port side. Sea is mirror calm, blue skies, 28c (sorry folks!). We have been watching dolphins and flying fish.

Flat Calm Seas

Yesterday we were in Port  Blair, Andaman Islands. Beautiful islands but the town was a bit of a dump. The only interesting bit was the depressing “Cellular Jail”, a bit of British Colonial history we’d rather forget – the ill treatment of Indian political prisoners between 1906  and 1940s. The jail could accommodate over 600 inmates. See photos below, also some amusing, and not so amusing signs.

Rangoon (now Yangon) was fascinating today.  We came up the Irawaddy river to tie up short of the city.  We were taken in on buses. The city is an amazing mix of old (religious) old (colonial) and modern .  The most interesting bit was the Buddhist temples. I hope you enjoy the photos. Next stop is on Tuesday – Port Blair in the Andaman Islands.

We had a wonderful day at the Pinnawala elephant orphanage which I visited in 1985. A lot has changed and it’s become very commercialised. I will let some photos do the talking.

As we have 3 days at sea now I may not make another posting until we reach Yangon, Myanmar (formerly Rangoon, Burma)