By Bob Van Leer

(SINGAPORE, Tuesday, March 21, 2000) - Betty and I arrived in Singapore today after a more than 8000 mile trip from Gold Beach. Singapore is a small, highly developed parliamentary democracy located in southeast Asia.

   This is a tiny country, only about 20x25 miles in size, but has a population of 3.86 million. The population is mostly Chinese (77%) with the balance Malays and Indians. It has been a separate country only since 1965. Before that it was part of Malaysia.

By Bob Van Leer

(SINGAPORE,Wednesday, March 22, 2000) - After a tour of the city this morning we boarded our cruise ship, Legend of the Seas, a Royal Caribbean International vessel.

   Betty and I have been on this ship before. Several years ago we cruised through the Caribbean and through the Panama Canal on this vessel, winding up in Acapulco, Mexico. This time we are traveling with my sister and brother-in-law, Bud and June Pallardy of St. Louis, Mo.

By Bob Van Leer

(SINGAPORE, Thursday, March 23, 2000) - This is our last day in Singapore and we took a tour of the Jurong Bird Park on the western end of the island. Our guide said there are 5000 birds in 350 species in the park.

(PORT KLANG, MALAYSIA, Friday, March 24, 2000) - This small country has the two tallest buildings in the world, the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur.

   We arrived at port this morning, 216 nautical miles from Singapore. Betty and I took a tour of a rubber plantation, winding up in Kuala Lumpur, the capital of the Malaysian Federation.

By Bob Van Leer

(PENANG, MALAYSIA, Saturday, March 25, 2000) - Penang is an island off the north coast of the Malay peninsula and connected to the mainland by a bridge.

   Our cruise ship, Legend of the Seas, arrived here this morning but did not have dock space so we anchored offshore and passengers were taken in to shore by motor launches called "lighters".

By Bob Van Leer

(PHUKET, THAILAND, Sunday, March 26, 2000) - Today we took a grand tour of this island just off Thailand's southwest coast on the Andaman Sea.

   Our ship anchored here this morning after a short run from Penang, Malaysia. Again we have to be taken to shore by lighters as there is no space for our large ship.

By Bob Van Leer

  (AT SEA, BAY OF BENGAL, Tuesday, March 28, 2000) - Yesterday we had the captain's Welcome Aboard party, delayed several days because of busy port schedules. Capt. Thomas Wildung is a native of Sweden, son of a sea captain, and has spent all his life at sea. He looks the part.

  He gave a short rundown on the ship, Legend of the Seas. It is just five years old. Betty and I and my sister and brother-in-law, Bud and Jane Pallardy, took a cruise on this ship in 1996 when it was almost new. That time we sailed through the Caribbean and the Panama Canal, disembarking at Acapulco, Mexico.

By Bob Van Leer

(COCHIN, INDIA, Thursday, March 30, 2000) - We docked in this southern Indian city this morning. Cochin is a city of two million located on the Arabian Sea in the state of Kerala.

   We did not see much of the city itself. Betty and I took a tour that drove us around the area on a bus ride and then by passenger boat through some of the many waterways of the area. Cochin has the reputation of being the Venice of India because of all the canals. Some of the land we could see from the canals was visibly below sea level.

By Bob Van Leer

(GOA, INDIA, Saturday, April 1, 2000) - Our cruise ship, Legend of the Seas, docked in Goa, India this morning and Betty and I hired a cab to take us on a tour around the area. Goa was a Portuguese colony for 450 years, after being captured in 1510. 

   Its southwest coast of India has much Christian background. Portuguese explorer Vasco de Gama was the discoverer of the sea route to India from Europe and died there in 1524.

   But much earlier, the Apostle Thomas ("doubting Thomas") arrived in 52 A.D. The remains of St. Francis Xavier are on display in a church in Old Goa.

By Bob Van Leer

(DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES, Tuesday, April 4, 2000) - We spent a good part of today in a four wheel drive vehicle charging up and down the sand dunes, some nearly vertical.

   Betty and I signed up for a tour called "Safari in the Desert" and left on it as soon as our cruise ship docked at Dubai's Port Rashid, named after a former emir. We were delayed in docking this morning because of pea soup fog which quickly dissipated when the desert sun hit it.

By Bob Van Leer

(DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES, Wednesday, April 5, 2000) - Betty and I took a taxi downtown to look over the city today. There is a thriving commercial center selling everything from silk cloth to cutting-edge electronics. The stores are not large, but there a lot of them and they are jammed with merchandise. Betty found one that specialized in fancy buttons and was able to add dozens to her collection.

By Bob Van Leer

(MUSCAT, OMAN, Thursday, April 6, 2000) - This is the land of the Queen of Sheba and Sinbad the Sailor. At first look it is a country of bleak, rugged mountains and valley floors growing little but thorny, scrubby bushes.

   But that is not all there is to the country. Betty and I took a long tour of the countryside on a tour called "Wadi Bashing". Wadi is a term for canyons and the bottoms of some of them have live streams even in this land of very little rainfall. In some of the oasis areas there is farming of palm trees, bananas and mangos, but overall only 3% of the country is arable.

By Bob Van Leer

(SALALAH, OMAN, Saturday, April 8, 2000) - We docked in this port city this morning after a day at sea in our journey from Muscat.

   Betty and I went into the city from the port to look around and do some shopping. Oman has only been open to tourists for seven years and is not as developed for the trade as some other countries.

By Bob Van Leer

(AT SEA, RED SEA, Monday, April 10, 2000) - Our ship, Legend of the Seas, is sailing northeast n the Red Sea between Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

   Yesterday we left the Arabian Sea, going into the Gulf of Aden. Just after midnight we made almost a square right turn through the narrow Strait of Mandeb and entered the Red Sea. This is the second of three days at sea between Salalah, Oman and Aqaba, Jordan.

By Bob Van Leer

  (AQABA, JORDAN, Wednesday, April 12, 2000) - Betty and I went for a 4x4 drive today through Wadi Rum, a spectacular landscape of towering, rugged crags and pink sand valley floors.

  This is Lawrence of Arabia country. Lawrence spent much of his time in Wadi Rum organizing the Arab Bedouins for the successful assault on Aqaba, then occupied by the Turks, in World War I. Much of the movie, "Lawrence of Arabia", was made in Wadi Rum. Betty and I took a camel ride in the same area that Lawrence and his Bedouins lived. There are still some Bedouins in the area but our guide said the government is making efforts to resettle the Bedouins in villages instead of drifting across the desert tending their herds of goats and sheep and living in tents.

  He said the purpose is to improve the Bedouins' standard of living and allow their children to go to school. He said, "Some reject it, but it is only a matter of time".

By Bob Van Leer

(SUEZ CANAL, EGYPT, Friday, April 14, 2000) - Today we are transiting the Suez canal, the strategic waterway connecting the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean which was opened in 1869.

   The canal is 105 miles long and shortens the distance from London to Bombay, India, by more than 5000 miles compared to going around Africa.

By Bob Van Leer

  (ASHDOD, ISRAEL, Sunday, April 16, 2000) - Betty and I spent the day touring Masada and the Dead Sea in the Jordan Valley in southern Israel today.

  Ashdod is the main port for Israel (63% of the country's shipping) and hums with activity.
We arrived here this morning after a short trip from Port Said, Egypt. Israel is a small country, about the size of New Jersey, and our guide said the population is now 6.5 million of which 4.2 million are Jews and 1.5 million Arabs.

  Israel is the largest recipient of foreign aid from the U. S., about $3 billion per year. Egypt is second at $2 billion.

By Bob Van Leer

  (HAIFA, ISRAEL, Monday, April 17, 2000) - Israel is about 270 miles north and south and the climate ranges from desert in the south to green forests and hills in the north.

  From Haifa Betty and I took a tour of the Galilee and Golan Heights in northern Israel. The Galilee is rolling green hills with agriculture in the valleys. This is spring here and wildflowers are blooming. There are many storks around on their migration north to Europe for the summer. In the distance we could see snow-capped Mt. Hermon where Israel, Lebanon and Syria join.

  We crossed the Jordan River at the north edge of the Sea of Galilee and then headed up the Golan Heights. This a fault scarp similar to those in Eastern Oregon up to 2000 feet high and is relatively flat on top. Until 1967 this was Syrian territory but was taken by Israel during the year's war.

By Bob Van Leer

  (OFF LIMMOUSIL, CYPRUS, Tuesday, April 18, 2000) - This morning we had an unscheduled visit to Cyprus because of a "medical emergency" of one of the passengers.
The passenger was taken ashore by a small boat.
The captain said the time taken by this diversion will not allow us to go to Istanbul and we will be going to Kusadasi, Turkey, instead tonight.

By Bob Van Leer

(KUSADASI, TURKEY, Wednesday, April 19, 2000) - Our plans for this evening were to be at a dinner in Istanbul, Turkey, called the "Ottoman Sultan's Festival", but because of the change in ports due to the medical emergency of a passenger, we are in Kusadasi instead.

By Bob Van Leer

(AT SEA, GREEK ISLANDS, Thursday April 20, 2000) - Since we did not go east to Istanbul, Turkey, we have more than enough time to go from Kasadasi to Pireus. The captain decided on a slow tour of the Greek Islands. Greece has more than 2000 islands in the Aegean Sea between Greece and Turkey.

By Bob Van Leer

(GOLD BEACH, April 23, 2000) - It was not to be that easy. We arrived home a day late after weather problems closed JFK Airport in New York for a few hours. Our flight back to the U.S.A. On Olympic Airlines started off well and continues so across the Atlantic Ocean, The route went south of Iceland and Greenland into Canada. As we approached Maine from the north, our plane was diverted to Boston because of "very bad weather" in New York.