M, S, and I cruised into 2025 on a 17-day Mauritius to Singapore cruise on Norwegian Cruise Line. Our ports of call included Port Louis, Mauritius; Pointe des Galets, Réunion (French territory); Antsiranana, Madagascar; Port Victoria, Seychelles; Malé, Maldives; Phuket, Thailand; Penang, Malaysia; Port Klang, Malaysia; and Singapore. We covered a lot of ocean and had plenty of days at sea, too, which were great for disconnecting from the outside world, practicing my 2024 resolution of mindfulness, and getting my 2025 resolutions to write every day and embrace the joy of missing out (JOMO) off to a strong start.
17 days is by far the longest we've ever cruised at once, but time passed so much more quickly with S in tow. Our kiddo is still too young for us to drop him off at the onboard kids' club, so our days are naturally divided into his wake windows, nap time, and sleep time (when we get to go down the hall for a dinner date thanks to babycam technology). M and I are quite opposite cruise personalities: he prefers to stay on the ship as much as possible and do the same things he knows he'll like, while I want to get off the ship and explore every port. I took full advantage of the opportunity to have outdoor adventures. The air quality was excellent, and I saw some stunning natural phenomena my pictures don't do full justice.
It was really unique celebrating the holidays including Christmas and New Year's Day on a cruise ship. Norwegian Cruise Line did a great job making the holidays feel special, with gingerbread villages, a Santa, a New Year's Party, interdenominational church and Hannukah volunteer-led religious services, a Holiday Spectacular performance, and more. I had so much fun twisting balloons into candy canes with S and introducing him to Santa's elves around the ship. We also sang a lot of Christmas songs (his favorites are Silent Night, Jingle Bells, and Santa Claus Is Coming to Town), and he saw the Grinch for the first time (both on repeat on various TVs around the ship and at least one passenger dressed as the Grinch on Christmas Day).
In this post, I'll just cover some of my personal highlights. We loved Mauritius and flew in from Dubai a few days before the cruise started. We made it more of a family beach vacation to recover from the stress of air travel, and before we knew it our couple of days were up and it was time to board. I can't say we had the smoothest onboarding process, with a long wait outside in a hot and humid tent with a toddler I would not recommend, but thankfully once we got on the ship we quickly found our room and were able to get S's sleep set-up in place. When we travel, we use an inflatable toddler mattress under a blackout tent called the Slumberpod, into which we slide a white noise machine and a babycam that sends a notification to our phones when it detects movement or sound. This has changed our travel game.
I felt like I could've spent a week at least in Réunion since the nature was so stunning and the climates so diverse given differences in elevation. I booked an excursion to visit Piton de la Fournaise Volcano and I did not regret it. The drive was absolutely gorgeous and our knowledgeable tour guide explained to us on the way there and back the island's important history. A few tidbits that stuck with me included the cruelty of some of the French slavers who had lived on the island, one of whom was a woman so notorious for her evil treatment of the people she enslaved that the islanders said after she died and confessed her sins to the devil, he was so shocked at her monstrous acts that the volcano erupted. I also learned about a church on the island that's become a pilgrimage site after one eruption that destroyed several houses in the same village miraculously split into two streams just before pouring inside the church and never damaged the building. The tour guide also shared with us some songs exemplifying Sega music, which originated among enslaved people and is typically sung in the island's Creole.
Despite being one of the most active volcanos in the world, Piton de la Fournaise was inactive when I was there. There were a myriad of hiking trails in and around the vast volcano itself. We saw families and friends camping and having picnics in the area, which I thought was quite brave given the enormous amount of flying insects we experienced at the top. If I had had more time, I would've done a proper hike but with the limited time I had I took a brisk stroll down one of the hiking paths and turned back in time to make it to the tour bus. It was a beautiful view, with wildflowers dotting the volcanic rock formations and volcanic ash filling the valleys.
In Madgascar, I reserved a spot on another nature excursion, this time to the famous red tsingy. The tsingys are laterite (i.e. reddish clay) sandstone formations shaped by wind and water erosion. The view of the blue sky above, red tsingy below, and greenery around the edges was breathtaking. I learned that "tsingy" usually refers to a specific limestone formation and in that sense the red tsingys are not real tsingys at all since they are made of sandstone.
Although they didn't put it this way on my tour, I read later that the red tsingys are the result of massive anthropogenic environmental degradation, specifically slash-and-burn agricultural practices. It's a sad origin story, but thankfully I learned tourism fees now contribute to sustainability efforts.
We were also lucky enough to spot a chameleon in the wild. Our tour guide explained that in his culture, chameleons are considered to carry the souls of departed ancestors and those who harm them will be punished with bad luck. Different villages and different parts of Madagascar have different understandings of the chameleon, with some believing they are evil.
In Port Victoria in the Seychelles and Malé in the Maldives we threw out my usual method of a detailed plan and just explored the port town together as a family. The highlight was the National Botanical Garden in the Seychelles, which was beautiful and within walking distance of the ship. We saw the double coconut (the world's largest seed) and plenty of giant tortoises.
S insisted on calling the giant tortoises "big big big BIG turtles" despite us explaining the difference between turtles, tortoises, and terrapins: a nuance I'm sure he'll appreciate someday but that day is not today. In the Maldives, we walked around the capital of Malé, something we didn't have time to do on our last trip to the country.
In Penang, Malaysia we did a self-guided walking tour of the local Georgetown area that included a lot of Chinese heritage sites and an awesome historic jetty where people still live and operate shops today. When we reached Port Klang, Malaysia the following day I booked a private car to take us around for the day.
We visited the stunning Hindu temple inside Batu Caves, had local food and the best milk I've ever tasted fresh from their own dairy cows at nearby Farm Cafe, and then explored Kuala Lumpur City Centre a bit with a stop in the Petrosains Discovery Centre, a family-friendly science museum. I don't know who got more of a kick out of Petrosains: M or S! They had plenty of simulations and science experiments for adults and educational play options for all ages of kids.
In Phuket, Thailand, we took a casual family walk around to explore the port area of town, ate lunch at a restaurant with a view (where I had the best pad thai of my life), and then I booked a massage at Moontree Elemental Spa. It was such a divine and relaxing day!
Our last stop on this trip was Singapore. We only had one day to enjoy the city, but M immediately fell in love (which should come as no surprise to anyone who knows M and knows Singapore). He marvelled, "Even the street food vendors take tap-to-pay credit cards!" "See how everyone waits their turn to use the crosswalk?" "It's city convenience for me and greenery for you all in one."
We went multiple times to the excellent Lau Pa Sat Hawker Centre, which had so many varieties of food I feel like I could go there every day for a month and still barely scratch the surface of what they had to offer. We had some delicious pork and chicken with nasi lemak, a Malaysian-style coconut and pandan rice, wonderful srping rolls and summer rolls from a Vietnamese shop, and some of the best ice cream I've ever had in my life from a place called Creme & Cone. My yogurt lavender and dark chocolate flavors were phenomenal, and S loved sharing them with me.
My favorite stop in Singapore (which you can probably tell by the disproportionate photos in this post of it) was the Gardens by the Bay. Even though I'm not much of a gardener, I love being around plants and especially flowers. I love their variety, their scents, and their opportunity to teach us about the natural world. So as soon as I heard of Gardens by the Bay I put it on our list as a must-see while we were in Singapore. We experienced the Floral Fantasy, Flower Dome, and Cloud Forest before ending our night with the Skytree light show.
Floral Fantasy was an artistic flower exhibit whose themes change depending on the seasons. I was blown away when I learned that none of the enormous, beautiful displays we saw used any fake flowers but they were all real. The current showing happened to be an official collaboration with Disney, and S even recognized a few of the characters like Mickey Mouse and Winnie the Pooh.
Next came the Flower Dome, which was exactly what it sounds like: an enormous greenhouse-style dome with gardens upon gardens of flowers. They were winding down the Christmas-specific decorations while we were there, but to my surprise and delight they had an impressionist painting-inspired temporary exhibit I was able to explore.
My mom is an excellent gardener and the Flower Dome reminded me so much of her, from the luscious clusters of hydrangeas to the replicas of some of her favorite impressionist paintings from Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Mary Cassatt, and others. They did some brilliant things with the art exhibit where they created spaces to sit and observe the works in motion, collaborated with contemporary flower artists inspired by impressionism, included Singaporean art and culture, and even incorporated the sense of smell into the experience.
The Cloud Forest was the most scientifically informative stop of our visit, where I learned that there is actually a type of forest called a cloud forest and it wasn't just a catchy name for that particular attraction. We saw so many rare plants and learned about the different levels of a cloud forest and what we're most likely to find there. Many of those plants I've never seen before in the wild or in an exhibit, and it always fills me with awe to think about how diverse our planet is.
Once we were done walking around, we watched a Skytree light show where large artifical trees showed off a programmed light display to a performance highlighting Asian culture. I was so surprised and touched to hear "Arirang", the classic Korean folk song, among the melodies. I'm glad I got to share that special memory with M and S.
Although our time in each stop was short, our whole trip was quite long and by the end we were ready to go home, sleep in our own bed, and get more of a routine going. I feel so lucky to be able to travel with my family. Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanzaa, and Happy New Year to all the readers out there! I hope your 2025 is off to a peaceful start.
No comments:
Post a Comment