There was a cluster of people about 50 feet out into the water, up to their waists. I waxed out - on a surfboard, they had a caviar and champagne station.

The view from our beach chairs.

Today we sailed into a little Thai island, Ko Kood, and just had a “get away from it all” kinda day. Tenders from the ship to shore. There was a BBQ setup, lots of water sports.

_

mmmmm, Beef Wellington.

More Sanctuary of Truth.

We went to the Sanctuary of Truth today, an all wooden building with overt influences of both Buddhism and Hinduism. There are no nails, every bit of the building and decoration is wood, fitted together with various kind of joints.

Merry Christmas everybody! It’s Tuesday morning about 8:00am and we’ve docked at Laem Chabang, the port for Bangkok. As we’ve spent time in Bangkok previously, we’ll do a shore excursion well south this time. Stay tuned.

A little radio-silent right up front, only because our first two days are sea days, before we reach our first port, Laem Chabang & North Pattaya in Thailand, tomorrow morning. Christmas morning! So anyway, no destination pix or stories yet, but life on board is, of course, wonderful. Five different dining venues to choose from, 2 lectures (at least) every day by guest speakers with great stories to tell and insights to deliver. And last night I wished out loud “maybe we could have a good ol’ South China Sea monsoon”......and right now the rain is horizontal & the wind is whipping! Perhaps good to have it while we’re sailing & not visiting ports.

.....it’s nearly midnight in Singapore (God knows what that is everywhere else) but we’ve just done the sail away. We had a wonderful dinner onboard, we’re settled in, and happy birthday to ME! (I couldn’t have asked for a better way to celebrate, than to sail out of Singapore in search of adventure!). Stay tuned!

Ok, it’s nearly 11:00pm on Friday here, but our body clocks still seem to think it’s 5:00am Thursday. I think that’s it. Something like that. Anyway, helped along by a nice Singapore hotel, a wonderful dinner of 4 different kinds of grilled beef from Australia & Japan, and a nice bar with a “living wall” behind it.

Ok, after 2 flights & about 19 ½ hours, we’re checked in, in Singapore. It’s nearly 2:30 AM so time for a little zzzzzzzzzzz

Halfway there.....a 2 hour layover in Tokyo. Stay tuned.

On the way to Singapore.  We’ll explore a bit for 2 days,  then we'll board our ship & do a number of stops - the Thai coast, Ko Kood, Cambodia, Vietnam, and disembark in Hong Kong.  In the middle of the cruise, we’ll be off the ship for a 3-day-2-night comprehensive UNESCO-sponsored visit to Siem Reap, the gateway to Angkor Wat in Cambodia, a major bucket list item for me.   Then, since we would fly back home from Hong Kong through Tokyo anyway, I decided that we'd stay a bit in Japan - we’ll do just over a week in Tokyo, Hakone, & Kyoto.  Lots of sushi, tempura, and high-speed trains!

aaaaaand...............we’re home.

Rather than take a car or cab back to the Shanghai airport, we opted to do the bullet train. Completely different experience - when we arrived In Shanghai, the car took about an hour, maybe a little less, to get us from the airport into town. Today, going the other direction, the train took precisely 7 minutes.

  

Lots of walking on this one.