Wednesday 11 March, 2026 We don’t usually create diary entries for our sea days, as one day pretty much merges into the next. However there are a few things worthy of a mention today. Firstly, this morning at 7.40, we passed the Queen Mary 2 off the northeast coast of…

Darwin is the capital and largest city of the Northern Territory with a population of approximately 140,000. Perched right at the top of Australia, Darwin is 1648 miles from Perth, 1768 miles from Brisbane and 2324 miles from Melbourne. It has a tropical climate with a wet season and a…

Bali is an island in Indonesia situated just 2 miles east of Java. It is approximately 95 miles wide and 70 miles from north to South, with a land area of approximately 2158 square miles. Its mountainous interior rises to over 9000 feet and it has several active volcanoes. Rice…

Hong Kong is a special administrative region of China and is situated on its south east coast. It consists of Hong Kong Island, Kowloon and the new territories and is home to some 7.5 million people, with a total land area of 430 square miles. Hong Kong is the fourth…

In this most iconic of cities we decided to remain independent and avoid the often frustrating, but sometimes necessary organised tours and go it alone. Needless to say the first thing that happened after disembarking the ship was that we were herded onto the wrong bus and wasted a frustrating…

Today we set off bright and early for our open-top bus tour starting off at the Marina Bay Hotel shopping mall again, as this is where the ship’s shuttle bus drops us off. As we were too early for the bus tour and it was already 33° at 9:30 am,…

Singapore is an island country in Southeast Asia. It comprises one principal island plus 64 satellite islands. The country’s land mass is only 287 sq miles but it has a population of a whopping 6 million and has the highest GDP per capita in the world. It is one of…

Kuala Lumpur is the capital of Malaysia, a Muslim country of 34 million people and with a land mass of 127,724 square miles. Kuala Lumpur itself covers an area of 94 square miles and has a population of 2.1 million, although greater Kuala Lumpur comprises a population of nearly 9,000,000….

Sri Lanka is located off the south east coast of India and has a population of 22 million. The majority of the population is Sinhalese and 70% of the population follows the Buddhist religion. The country’s land area is 25,960 square miles. Sri Lanka is categorised as a developing nation,…

The Republic of the Maldives is an islamic archipelago country located in the northern Indian Ocean, approximately 470 miles southwest of India. It is the smallest country in Asia with a total land area of 115 sq miles and a population of 315,000. The highest natural point of the whole…