Posts for March, 2026

Again today we arrived in port at dawn, this time the port of Phuket in Thailand. The similarity to yesterday continued after docking as todays excursion was also to an area named Phang Nga Bay, which is also renowned for its limestone pinnacles standing in the ocean and often surrounded by mangrove forests. This bay is also the home of James Bond Island which was featured in the movie The Man With The Golden Gun. The local name of the island in question is Khao Phing Kan

There was no organized excursion today as the ship was scheduled to depart the port of Phuket at noon, so I stayed on board all morning and used it as an opportunity to "get organized". Nina however, went ashore to do some shopping at a small local shopping area and to do her daily walk in the port area rather than be constrained to the very small walking track on the ship.

We are on our way to Sri Lanka and will be at sea for the next few days. The noteable feature of todays travel was the very calm and glassy sea. Reminded Nina and I of a water skiing morning at Lake Macquarie. The second noteable event of the day was at dinner. Our table gave us a view east over the stern of the ship with a fine view of the moon and the lunar eclipse that started around sun set.

Today we are still traveling west towards Sri Lanka. A bit more activity today as Nina decided to get a pedicure. We finally took some photos of the calm and glassy sea. After dinner tonight we noticed another lunar phenominon a Red or Blood Moon. Some research suggests this effect occurs near a lunar eclipse and is the result of the sun's light being scattered by the Earths atmosphere.

We arrived in Colombo this morning and docked in the midst of the very busy container and general cargo port. There was a sign implying that we were in a Cruise ship port but it was really only a token effort. The other aspect of the port that we noticed immediately was the worn nature of a lot of the port infrastructure and many of the docked ships.

Towards the end of todays bus ride Nina saw the road sign shown in the first photo below, and decided that it was a very good single image summary of our perception of Sri Lanka. The country seems to be a mix of the old and the new and this is shown very well in the range of vehicles from late model electric cars to animal drawn carts.

We docked in Kotchi this morning just after dawn so got a good view of the port area during the docking operation. It was clear that the passenger terminal was an after thought in what is a very large and busy cargo port. Like Colombo yesterday the air was thick with dust or polution and visibility was restricted.

Again we docked this morning just after dawn so got a good view of the port area of Mangalore. and again it seemed clear that the passenger terminal was an after thought as it was in an area that seemed primarily provided for loading fertallizer and coal. On first imporession it seemed that the air of Mangalore was even more poluted by smog and dust that Kotchi. This imression was re-enforced during tour.