We boarded the Ambssador cruise ship Ambience in Singapore on its inaugural world tour, and we were just doing one 25 night leg of the trip.
Joining a ship half way through a world tour has proven to be an interesting insight into the human psyche – the cliques have already formed, favourite quiz tables and theatre seats identified, Queen and King bees have amassed their audiences, interest groups have developed waiting lists, destination experiences nearly fully booked up and heirarchies have been forged – and then in come the “interlopers” causing ripples to run through the various groups dynamics.
There is no “free dining” times on Ambassador so we elected to try the 6pm sitting on a table for 6 and we were very lucky with our wonderful dining companions Sue, Liz, Peter and Denise and subsequently had some very entertaining times with them.
Our first port of call was Penang , which we’ve visited a few times, so we just had a wander around Georgetown and enjoyed the wall art and the colours and smells of the spices in Little India,
then onto Phuket – ww were moored miles away so had to take a taxi to old town for an explore of the Wats, old streets (reminiscent of Melacca) and enjoyed a Singha beer and mango, sticky rice (yum). Then had a crazy tuk tuk taxi back to the ship! That nights entertainment was the Lady Boys of Phuket – an excellent show that the locals put on for us.
Next stop – Sri Lanka and its crazy capitol – Colombo, where we took a tuk tuk trip around and visited a stunning temple, complete with donations from Rolex watches to an old Rolls Royce car! Again, we had an excellent show from Sri Lankan locals that evening before we sailed away. It was lovely to see the Litus Tower all lit up.
Male in the Maldives was next – not at all what you see in the tourist brochures – for that you need to get out to the atolls and big resorts – we just did a submarine dive but sadly, although lots of fishes, the Reef looks in a bad state.
Then onto Mahe, Seychelles, which was much more our style with lots of lush green hills. We did a tour of the botanical gardens to see the famous Coco-de-mer double coconut and the giant tortoises
and then a quick trip around the north of the island – very beautiful.
Then it was 2 days in Mombassa where the ship was met by local tribes dancing and drumming (they certainly have plenty of energy!) Sadly, Andy wasn’t too well, so we just visited Fort Jesus on the second day, which was very interesting, but it was extremely hot and humid! The port put on a shuttle bus to a hotel in town, which was safer for visitors.
Durban came next, not sure what we were expecting, but we enjoyed it here – took a walk to the Golden Mile beach and a bus tour out to the botanical gardens where we saw pelicans in the trees, weaver bird nests and some ducklings,Â
Victoria market, whale bone pier (not real whale bone)
and past the stunning Moses Mabhida stadium with its graceful arch – the Arch of Triumph
Then finally to Cape Town and our ungainly entrance to the port (we collided with a cargo ship when high winds took the ship away from the tugs)!!
We were glad to get off – 25 nights is way too long for us, but it got us to where we wanted to be, we visited places we have not seen before and made some new friends along the way.