Its Tuesday 28th March and we are sitting in a little cafe in Phuket Thailand. We were last here in 1994 when we eloped to Thailand and spent 4 crazy weeks trying to get married. Crazy as we were misinformed about the paperwork required before we left Australia and hence spent hours in local official offices trying to sort it out. Due to the devastating tsunami back in 2004 we were expecting changes so were pleasantly surprised to see some familiar sights – the hotel we stayed in, the mini mart where we would buy our afternoon magnums or local Thai Singha beer. We have spent 3 amazing days getting here – cruising up the Malacca straits at a very sedate 12 knots per hour. Our ship – the P and O Arcadia is amazing. We were unaware that it was an adults only liner and have vbeen very much appreciating the lack of kids. There are nine (9)! bars and seven food outlets – all of which we are looking forward to discovering. Each night we get a chocolate each on our bed and we are finding it extremely easy travelling. Our one drawback perhaps is our lack of smart clothes. The ship is absolutely choc full of Brits all of whom have much smarter wardrobes than us. Last night was black tie night – we spent it hidden in our cabin.
One interesting but disconcerting discovery was relayed via a talk we attended yesterday and a letter later delivered to our room. We are about to cross the Indian ocean on our way to Sri Lanka and later the United Arab Emirates. This whole areas is apparently a very high risk zone for piracy. We have been given instructions regarding keeping our curtains closed at night, what to do in case of an attack and even have a Royal British naval officer on board.
Our clocks went back an hour this morning and will go back another hour tomorrow – this means that we are now four hours behind Australia. We know that there is a cyclone bearing down on Queensland but find it hard to get any real facts about it. We have just polished off some amazing Thai food and beer and will shortly head back (via tender) to our cosy balcony cabin. Next stop – Colombo Sri Lanka.