Philippines to Taiwan to Kuala Lumpur - March 8-10

After our time in Manila, we spent a day at sea on our way to Kaohsiung, Taiwan.  I used  the day to relax and catch up on the blog.  I spent the morning in the Horizons Bar/Lounge located on the 10th floor with views over the bow. I enjoyed the great view while working on the blog and then spent the afternoon on our balcony reading my book. 

Just before dinner, we listened to the String Quartet (Chris gave them a "B"). We enjoyed the SE Asia market dinner in the casual restaurant on the ship.

On the morning of the 9th we docked in Kaohsiung, Taiwan which we had visited in 2018.  We had arranged for an early departure from the ship and transportation to the airport.  We had to leave the ship at noon so had an 9 hour layover at the airport until our flight at 10:40 PM.

We had a 4.5 hour flight on Air Asia (an economy airline) in seats with almost no legroom.  But, we made it safely back to Kuala Lumpur and landed about 4 AM and met our ride to the hotel.  We got a few hours of sleep, had breakfast around 9 AM and went  for a walk to change some money and find a Starbucks Malaysia coffee mug for me.  Back to 90 degree humid weather again.  Luckily the Starbucks was located in a high-end (every designer you can imagine) air-conditioned mall.  It was the air-conditioning that excited us!

It is Friday, so the Muslim holy day.  As we returned to the hotel we passed all the men heading to the mosque with their prayer rugs. Chris recorded the call to prayer and other street scenes.

From Chris: Oddly juxtaposed around our KL Hotel Stripe neighborhood are blocks of traditional Indian sidewalk stores, one high-end indoor mall (with local Starbucks and machine gun-toting security guard), a popular traditional mosque (and today/Friday is their holy day) with sidewalk beggars, and an old but very elegant hotel with large traditional drum in its lobby (including a guest drummer trying to add new rhythm to the broadcast prayers outside). Outside temp 90F with 90% humidity.

View from the bar

Before dinner tonight we went up to the bar on the roof of our hotel.  It was amazing!  There is an infinity pool and the views are spectacular.

Rooftop bar and infinity pool




Tomorrow we fly to Lahad Datu and we will begin our rainforest adventure.

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