http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/Kevin-and-Susan/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from Kevin and Susan en-us Sun, 26 May 2013 02:38:12 +0000 Sun, 26 May 2013 02:38:12 +0000 Of all the countries we visit Israel is the most interesting perplexing and amazing. The fact of Israel being at the confluence of the major religions of the world the enormous documented history of this disputed bit of land the sheer beauty and diversity of the countryside and the ongoing and seemingly unresolvable PalestinianIsraeli conflict is enough to confound and intrigue a traveler to http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/Israel/Jerusalem-District/Jerusalem/blog-787299.html After three days of sailing up the Red Sea we arrived in Aqaba Jordan. The city was filled with half a million tourists celebrating a local holiday. It was a good day to head out of town to the desert. Yazeed was our Jordanian guide. He is a Muslim who was educated in Britain and is married to a Spanish Catholic woman and has some very interesting ideas about the Middle East. He calls the Arab Sp http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/Jordan/South/Wadi-Rum/blog-786062.html After all the glitz of the United Arab Emirates it is such a contrast to arrive in the sleepy Sultanate of Oman. This fairytale kingdom is ruled by Sultan Qaboos bin Said who has done a good job of preserving the unique essence of the country while slowly moving it into the 21stCentury. Oman was a closed country until the mid1990s. Now education is encouraged and Oman has one of the few Arabian f http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/Oman/Muscat/Muttrah/blog-785828.html Once we left India we cruised into the High Risk Area for Piracy which includes the Arabian Sea the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea. Our first day at sea included a mandatory safety drill in which we were informed of all the procedures and precautions being implemented on board our ship. These included lights out on the outer decks closing of all shades and curtains boarding of an Israeli security http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/United-Arab-Emirates/Abu-Dhabi/blog-784344.html We cruised past the famous Chinese fishing nets and arrived in Kochi in Kerala India. We like this southwestern area of India as it is laced with waterways and mangroves and very multicultural. For centuries Kochi has been a vital stop along the international shipping routes. Also known as the Malabar Coast the locals say that Kerala is God39s own country because of its natural beauty and http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/India/Kerala/Kochi-/blog-783383.html For years our visits to Sri Lanka were always an iffy proposition due to the civil war which plagued this country for the last several decades. The beautiful island is now enjoying relative peace and prosperity.Our first port of call was Trincomalee. Everywhere you travel in Sri Lanka you see remnants of the colonial times. The British Dutch and Portuguese have left their marks with religion the http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Sri-Lanka/Western-Province/Colombo/blog-781836.html This part of the cruise seemed like a blur. After moving to our new cabin and unpacking we met up with our newly boarding guests. This is a very port intensive cruise starting with our call in Sihanoukville. Cambodia is light years away from neighboring Thailand or Singapore especially in terms of tourist infrastructure. The terrible destruction which occurred during the Killing Fields era is s http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Cambodia/South/Sihanoukville/blog-780608.html Upon leaving Beijing we are returning to the same ports we went to in the past month Shanghai Hong Kong HaLong Bay Saigon and Bangkok. This is a good thing because returning to familiar places is great for exploring on your own. We search out interesting neighborhoods or unique local attractions. We enjoy learning to use the public transit trying out native cuisine and seeing how the resident http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Thailand/Central-Thailand/Bangkok/blog-779666.html We seem to manage to hit the hot spots wherever we travel. Like the morning we cruised into Inchon Korea. Dennis Rodmans friend Kim Jong Un mentioned that he was going to attack South Korea and for good measure maybe the United States also. Our tour guide told us that we were very brave to be visiting at this time of heightened tensions between the two Koreas. It all seemed pretty calm to me http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/South-Korea/Incheon/blog-778765.html We always look forward to visiting Japan because this is where we met. To enter the country there are lots of immigrations procedures. Every passenger had to have a facetoface meeting with officials have our picture taken then our temperature taken then fingerprinted our passport inspected and then our picture taken again. Another unusual thing was that every official had a white mask coveri http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Hiroshima/Miyajima/blog-776353.html The Battle of Okinawa was one of the bloodiest and fiercest fought campaigns of WWII. The tremendous loss of Allied personnel local civilians and Japanese troops led to President Trumans decision to use nuclear weapons instead of attempting a land invasion of mainland Japan. About one third of all Okinawan civilians perished either in bomb attacks suicides or being sealed alive in caves where http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Shanghai/blog-775882.html We cruised into Huang Pu one smoggy morning. This is the port city for Canton which is now called Guangzhou. It is a huge industrial port and Huang Pu is all business. The Academy Awards were going to be broadcast on the ship that morning so we decided to stay on board to watch them instead of taking a tour into Canton. As it turned out the signal wasnt very goodmaybe we were being jammed by http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Taiwan/Keelung/blog-774889.html We docked in Chan May which is the port for DaNang. This is our old stomping grounds as Kevin was stationed here during the war and I flew into DaNang airbase for five years during that time. DaNang wasn39t much of a town then it was just a big military base. Now it is the third largest city in VietNam. Our young guide knew everything about the war. Phong could name the type of reconnaissance http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Vietnam/Red-River-Delta/Hanoi/blog-772896.html We like to zip around Singapore on the Metro. The subway is the most efficient way to explore what is sometimes called the world39s largest shopping mall. Since it was Chinese New Year the mall was mostly closed. Singapore changes by the minute in its race to modernize. We went to Chinatown and Little India and then headed back to the ship for an early evening departure.As we cruised into the http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/blog-772396.html We had beautiful weather as we cruised up the Timor Sea to Indonesia. I had forgotten the idyllic setting that is the home of the Komodo Dragons. A calm bay dotted with islands and surrounded by steep verdant mountains. The Voyager was going to be at anchor off Komodo Island for just three hours. The tour staff did a terrific job of getting 400 passengers tendered ashore toured around the island http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Indonesia/Bali/Candi-Dasa/blog-770845.html Boarding the Voyager was a breeze and we were soon whisked to our cabin. Our luggage was there waiting for us even the supplies that were shipped from Seattle by Cruise Specialists. After some quick unpacking and attending the emergency drill it was time to hightail it to the aft deck for our sail out of the beautiful Sydney Harbor. We pulled away from the pier right at sunset on a sultry evening http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Australia/Queensland/Brisbane/Moreton-Bay/blog-769224.html We continued our northern exploration of New South Wales and took some lovely drives along the edge of the continent. Which reminds me we heard that Australia is the only island that is a continent and the only continent that is a country. As a result of its isolated position in the world it is filled with exotic flora and fauna. We started seeing road signs showing kangaroo and koala crossings. http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Australia/New-South-Wales/Coffs-Harbour/blog-768174.html We seem to have the fortunesometimes good and sometimes badto happen upon extreme weather situations in our travels. This is true for us at the moment in Australia. We just experienced the warmest day ever recorded in this country. There are also a record number of bush fires especially in New South Wales which is the state where Sydney is located. The fire danger is listed as catastrophic http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Australia/New-South-Wales/Lake-Macquarie/blog-766338.html We decided to ring in the New Year in high style so on January 1st we boarded a United 747 for the 7500 mile flight across the Pacific Ocean to Sydney Australia. This would be the first leg of our circumnavigation of planet earth by airplane and ship. Usually we board our ship in the United States and travel around the world at sea level. This year we39ll still be doing a 360 degree circle of http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Australia/New-South-Wales/Sydney/blog-765096.html After a lovely sea day cruising past Cuba we arrived in Grand Cayman. We were just about to go off the ship and do a little snorkeling when the skies opened up and it rained buckets. We waited for quite a while and then it got too close to the Rivieras departure time so we just enjoyed the day on the ship. We have been to Cayman a number of times and have always gone swimming with the manta ra http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Honduras/Bay-Islands/Roatan/blog-762739.html