Kuala Lampur
29 March 2026
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. We arrived just before dawn. The ocean port is a 90-minute drive from the city. After 2 minutes on the bus from the port to the city, I was pretty sure there was a mistake, and we were back in Bitung, Indonesia, the city I said was too third-world for me. Slums everywhere. To be fair, since they’re within a few miles of the equator, they don’t have to worry about cold weather, but basically they live in card houses.
That all changed when we finally got to Kuala Lumpur, a city almost as clean, modern, and magnificent as Singapore. The Cunard bus dropped us off at the huge mall at the base of the Petronas Towers (see captions on the photos I’ll add to see about the towers).
Seeing the towers was my only goal for Kuala Lumpur, but we also took a Grab (Uber) to the National Museum of Malaysia and enjoyed a quick walk-trough, though we found their air conditioning lacking. Since Singapore and Kuala Lumpur are only a few miles north of the equator, there are no seasons. The temperature is always the same: 95F/35C. They have their monsoon season of heavy rains, but it’s always hot and humid. My theory is that since they are acclimated to living in this hot, humid place, it doesn’t take much air conditioning to make them feel cold!
That’s pretty much our day: 90 minutes on the bus going and coming back to the ship, wandering a huge modern mall, staring at skyscrapers, and the highlight, which was not the museum we toured, but the 20 minute drive to get to the museum. We saw a wonderful, diverse city well worth a longer visit than we had time for.
Now we are 6 days at sea, skipping India but sailing the Indian Ocean to the island of Mauritius, just east of central Africa. I’m uploading a video of my favorite place on the ship. Not the most beautiful, that’s the library, but my favorite: The Commodore Club. It’s a lounge on Deck 9, the full width of the ship with a view over the bow of where we’re headed, a nice bar, and a piano with great pianists playing peaceful music all the time.
Below is a link to an article about the stone slab graves at Campbell Cemetery in Randolph County, in a place called Arkansas:
https://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/entries/campbell-cemetery-8025/
Monday afternoon we watched the tip of Sumatra as we passed by. We won’t see land again until we wake up docked in Port Louis, Mauritius Island, in 6 days. There are a few islands and atolls in the Indian Ocean, like the Maldives, but we won’t pass close enough to see them.
My MarineTraffic app shows zero cruise ships between us an Mauritius. We have been in cruise ship heaven, from New Zealand and Australia, through the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaya, etc. For the last few weeks we’ve seen ships daily with names like Carnival, Royal Caribbean, Norwegian, Princess, Celebrity, Holland America Line, Seabourn, and Disney. But these cruise ships rarely roam far from land, where there are safe harbors nearby where they can hide should storms arise. Queen Mary 2, as I’ve said before, doesn’t care about storms.
Almost every place we’ve been were once possessions of the Englishmen, from the United States to New Zealand, Australia, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Singapore, all places where the English language is common. In all those but the US, they drive on the left.
I’m surprised we are bypassing India, the jewel in the crown of the British Empire, once its most valuable possession. I’d guess it’s either a political or financial decision. Cheaper to stop in Bitung and Mauritius than India. Oh well, I shouldn’t complain!
