Tenth Port – Kuala Lumpur

2 September – port of Xiamen, China and 6 September, Qingdao, China

Updating this blog entry with photos!  

Our tenth port of call was Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.  It’s a big city, lots of modern skyscrapers, a lot like Dubai.  

We explored the markets and ate some Malaysian food off of banana leaves:

Back on board the ship, we rounded the tip of the Malay Peninsula, glimpsing Singapore in the distance – big city, lots of modern skyscrapers, a lot like KL… at least from afar.

As we passed east of Vietnam, the ship was engulfed by many dozens of large seabirds – gulls apparently – with blue beaks.  They swooped across the bow and occasionally dove down to the water’s surface, sometimes plunging into the water to snag a flying fish.  These birds were without timidity around humans – never has a wild bird flown so closely to our heads.  A fascinating scene.  The deck (and Henry’s glasses and t-shirt) were splattered with their leavings.  

We stopped for less than a day in Xiamen, China, but were not allowed to disembark as the BRICS summit is taking place in this city, and the authorities are very sensitive about security.  BRICS includes representatives from Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (hence the name) who are meeting on common trade issues.  

A couple more sunsets:

In just a few more days, we will disembark the Vela for good in Qingdao, China.  Our time on board this ship seems to have passed too quickly, but we are also looking forward to some adventure in China.  We proceed to Shenyang, where we will meet up with Zeng, a colleague of Henry’s who worked with him over several years in the blueberry fields near Wuhan.  From there, we plan to explore parts of Manchuria and Inner Mongolia.

We will report back once we are on terra firma again!  We hope all of our friends and family in South Texas and surroundings were able to make it through Hurricane Harvey without incident and are safe and dry.