Indian Ocean 5 June 2013

Hello to all.  It is Wednesday afternoon and I thought I should put pen to paper.  Ship life continues.  We had a good day in Kuala Lumpur, had a full day tour, set off on our bus at just before 8.00 and then delivered back to the ship by about5.15 we were due to sail at 5.00 but all the tours were late back.  Our tour guide Lei Chen (my spelling) was a very lovely lady gave us lots of info.  We did go to all sorts of places and I liked KL more than I did Singapore I guess you would need to be in a place longer to form an opinion but the overview I liked KL better.  It is an extremely busy place, and it was the King’s birthday so it was a public holiday. There were very long Qs to get into everything but that is part and parcel of any holiday these days.  We did see the new King’s palace only from the outside, one can go in even meet him but as it was a holiday we were unable to do this. He was first elected King in 1970 when he was 42 and they have a reign of 5 years and he has been re-elected in 2011 and he is now 85.  Just a bit of useless info.  The following day we docked in Lang Kawi we did not do much, I had the beginnings of a cough so decided not to get any worse which I have not.  We have been doing the usual things each day, I have been attending lots of the classes the two gym instructors are lovely girls and do great classes.  Sam has been walking the deck.  Today we had an anti pirate security drill, these are dangerous waters and there is security on watch at all times with all their measures in place, our Captain tells us these drills have to be carried out in the interests of our safety, in 2011 there were 78 acts of piracy some successful most not, he said it is much better this year only 4 so far this year and none successful.  I had read an article in the Good-Weekend a few years ago about these waters and our own as well, very scary stuff really. 

 We have met all sorts of people, I met a lovely lady at the abs workshop this morning and she told me about a good book she is reading so I will download that, thank you Candice for making sure my Kindle has 3G, so one night her and her husband and Sam and myself will go to the steakhouse.  I think this would be an interesting study for someone with the background to perhaps conduct interviews with a percentage of the passengers every three weeks or so just to get their thoughts, their coping mechanisms (dealing with 104 days at sea) the whole thing really.  Sam does not really care how they are coping he is just going with the flow. 

 Our choir is sounding not too bad, we have our first performance tomorrow in the Princess Theatre at 4.00 and then our next one is at Anzac Cove, we have to learn our music for that.  We go to practice at 12.00 each day. Keeps one out of mischief.

 I will sign off, hope all is well    Love Sabine and Sam   XXX