Malaysia - Our First Cruise Experience

The most restful part of a holiday for me is definitely the break from planning every meal ;). And what better place to do that than on a cruise.. where food is so plentiful you really need to be careful to not overeat and gain a few pounds. After wanting to try one for ages, and thanks to mom-in-law who was also keen to go on one, I finally zeroed in on one by Star Cruises to Malaysia that fit our schedules and dates. So in the 2nd week of July, to Penang and Port Klang for 4D/3N we went :).

First impressions on Day 1: Seeing the huge ship docked before we got on it was a revelation, all the photos you see in the brochure and online can't really do it justice. I realized it's pretty much a floating hotel, and this feeling persisted and was justified throughout our 4 days on board. Even finding our rooms took some time, especially on the first day as we learnt to negotiate the decks and passages, and though the rooms/cabins felt a bit small at first, we quickly realized that the view looking out at the ocean makes up for it :). I took many photos and videos trying to capture the beauty of looking out at the open seas, but will not torture you with too many of them ;)..

The cosy room

Colors of the ocean

Activities on board: There are quite a few shows and other activities that you can take part in, such as a free magic show (this was a bit more sophisticated than our usual birthday party fare ;)) and many planned activities for kids, including paid ones. We didn't make use of too many on board as we were on shore for half a day at both destinations.

Basketball court on board

First Day Explorations.. How high can we go?

Food on board: On this cruise, there were 3-4 restaurants that were free of charge i.e. inclusive in the fare. As the majority of passengers turned out to be Indian, there was no dearth of familiar cuisine, but we also tried out the european/continental fare for a couple of meals and found it of a good standard.

On the highest deck - Deck 12

Natural hair styling - on Deck 12 :)

Shore excursions: As we had only about 6-7 hours at both destinations, we decided to make use of the planned tours rather than try to negotiate the taxi system, as we wanted to make sure of getting back in time. While time management was definitely to our advantage, it did feel a bit rushed at some points. The end learning was that a cruise may not be the best way to explore a new place, it can only give you a "feel" of the city :). The rest mostly in pics below..

• Penang on Day 2: The tour covered a few points, but the most memorable was the peak of Penang Hill, that we reached by traveling on the Funicular Rail. Lovely views all around made me want to plan a longer and more relaxed trip in the future :). We also had a great tour guide, who gave us a lot of interesting info about the history of the area.

View from Penang Hill

At a Ginger garden on top of the hill

Penang night lights just before boarding the ship

• Port Klang/Kuala Lumpur on Day 3: Since the journey to KL city takes a bit more than an hour, the tour only consisted of the KL Tower (the world's 7th highest at 421m), where we headed to the top and clicked the customary view photos, followed by a mall situated at the base of the KLCC Twin Towers.

At Independence Square

My best click of the view

And of the Twin Towers as seen from KL Tower -
though it looked as though the KL Tower was higher, this is because it is
situated on a hill that adds to the height (info from our tour guide)

The Petronas Twin Towers, just before we set off back to the ship 

Day 4: Just a relaxed last half day on board, with time for a few more meals ;), and we were safely back in Singapore by 2 pm.

Note: Though we were a bit worried about sea-sickness, due to varying experiences with motion sickness for me and the kids, it turned out to not be a concern at all! I was probably the most affected, with a bit of vertigo every time I saw the open water, but it was easy to adjust to, and nobody else even mentioned the movement at all :).

A Royal Holiday.. and a blog milestone :)

Just as I was about to publish this blog, I noticed that the blog has passed 100K views!!!!  Yayayayayayay and thank you all :)

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This holiday's been in the making for a couple of years now. In 2013, I started browsing Club Mahindra resorts in Rajasthan with an idea of going there but suddenly noticed the one at Dubai and ended up just like that booking that instead :P. (Link to that holiday) That resort was definitely a good find, and I have been recommending it to anyone who has a Club M membership.

One week was the time we had for this holiday, so I decided to stick with 2 out of the 3 Club M resorts in the state. Jaisalmer is the toughest to get to as it's 300 km away from the nearest airport at Jodhpur, but there was no way I was leaving it out. For someone who studied in the state (at Pilani) for 4 years, I had seen woefully little of it, and the vision of untouched sands had always been a dream. Since a lot of road travel was involved, we decided to go with a fixed car and driver for the entire trip, from getting picked up at Jodhpur airport to getting dropped back there at the end of the week. We were lucky to get an enthusiastic Rajasthani local from Udaipur as our driver - he helped set our daily itinerary and also told us lot of local tales along the drive.

Day 1: After a long day of travel (morning flight, afternoon another 300 km by car), we arrived on Saturday(10th night) at Jaisalmer.

Morning view of our resort

Day 2: Though the fort was one of the main attractions, our driver suggested we leave it for the next day while covering everything else on our first proper day of sightseeing in the city. We started with a nice boat ride on the man-made Gadisar lake - there was quite a lot of water in the lake with a lot of fish (the catfish variety) being fed at places. The fish here thrive due to fishing not being allowed.

Boating on Gadisar Lake

Next stop was the Patwaon ki Haveli, which is a well maintained abode-turned-museum. It contained a lot of intricate carving work in wood and the golden stone of the region, and also some rooms set up in the style of the time.

The lovely intricate work in the typical "golden" stone of Jaisalmer

The Living Room of the Haveli

One of the stories our driver Devendra told us was about a "legend" of the area - the abandoned village of Kuldhara. Though TripAdvisor reviews had warned me that this was more hype than anything else, I thought it was worth it to get carried away by the enthusiasm of the moment so decided to check it out anyway. The story goes that the entire place consisting of 5000 families from many villages in the area just upped and left in one night, all to protect a 10-11 year old girl, the "daughter" of the village from being carried off by an invading ruler. 

At Kuldhara Village

The abandoned homes of Kuldhara

Our day wasn't over yet, it was only about 3:30 pm when we left Kuldhara and off we headed to our Desert Safari. I was hoping to avoid the camel ride (for both our sakes) but somehow it was meant to be and it was on camel-back that we reached the beautiful sands to view the sunset. We got back to the desert camp for a cultural show and dinner before heading back to the resort.

Our beautiful beast of burden

Trying to capture the sunset

Just couldn't get enough of it!

Nearly done

Day 3: We had some warnings from our driver that the Golden Fort was not the cleanest as it was a "living" or lived-in fort. Even then, we were a bit surprised by the condition inside, especially in narrow spaces where the pigeon droppings overwhelmed our olfactory senses. With all that in the background, it is still difficult to not be impressed by the history and architecture all around. The history and spirit of Rajasthan really lies in its forts, as we were just beginning to discover.

Starting our tour of the fort

The "lived-in" look - notice the clotheslines

View of the city from a high point of the fort

I can see that this is beginning to get not just long, but also very photo heavy. So I'll stop here, and put the remaining stories/pics in Part 2 :). Thanks for reading!