Goa, India 8Apr14

This was our third visit to Goa.

We have done other touristic things

 includes visiting Portuguese colonial style

Catholic churches and 

one of beautiful beach Bogmalo before.

We hired a taxi for 5 hours and 

asked him show us more beaches around here 

which is renowned for.

A big black cow on a beach.

We must be in India! ^^

 Really nice young taxi driver has driven us around 5 beaches and they are all nice.

 One last nice surprise from our driver was going up to a church on a hill 

where we can have a 360 degree beautiful view of Goa

The church on top of the hill only opens once a year, according to our driver.

It was so quiet that we saw half dozen monkeys running off the trees and ran away from us.

Indian culture show on board 6Apr14

There was a cocktail party under the Indian theme on pool deck 

when we returned from Alappuzha backwaters tour.

 Executive chef on board Graeme Cockburn 

and one of our favourite waitress Silvia

 Sophie is one of two Asst. Cruise director.

Gorgeous light blue Sari!

Jan the cruise director on right and her two assistants Heather and Sophie

 Serving staff at the restaurant Colonade on deck 8

 Colonade where I usually have our breakfast and lunch.

There must be a lot of people who choose to dine here 

especially for a themed night like tonight.

Indian food is always popular!

 Nicely set table in Colonade restaurant

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There was a culture show by a local Indian dance group on pool deck 

after dinner which drew so many number of passengers.

Kochi, India 6Apr14

Kochi(Cochin), state of Kerala is famous for it's backwaters and house boat.

It has nickname of Venice of India.

We took a ship's tour with 2 hour bus drive to Alappuzha 

where we transfer to this unique house boat.

Not every boat looks the same

 There were only 8 of us on each house boat so 

we had plenty of space to move around the boat 

for photo shoot

 There were hundreds of house boats on backwaters

 Locals carry on their daily lives on water 

like bathing, washing clothes, swimming...

 This cruise around the area gave me a peaceful and even spiritually calm feeling

 Happy locals on ferry

 On the way back to Kochi, we stopped at Marari beach resort hotel for buffet lunch

 Marari beach resort

 Indian lunch was good enough but not hot enough. 

At least, for me.

Guess these are cooked for tourists who 

are not so tolerant to chilli and spices.

Our tour guide later confirmed with his shy grin 

that my guess was right.

Chinese fish net

Colombo, Sri Lanka 4Apr14

We had nice time on our last visit few years ago here in Colombo 

includes lovely lunch buffet in famous Galle Face Hotel.

Unfortunately, the hotel is under 

major renovation and closed this time.

We hired a taxi for 4 hours and let the driver 

guide us around the city.

We ended up doing almost exactly the same things 

we did last time but it was pleasant day.

  at the pier where the ship docked

 a Buddhist temple

 big Buddha statue on a street

 Uh! Korean soup TV drama is here, too?

 Independence monument building

 a Hindu Temple

snake charmers in front of the temple

 Parliament building