20231113 AAAA Trip - Sea day crossing the equator

2023 Alaska, Asia, Australia, Arabian Peninsula Trip 
Day 58/105 - South China Sea, passing the equator

I meant to check before breakfast but forgot.  So, after breakfast, at around 9 a.m. UTC+7, on Monday, November 13, we were 0°46'26.7"S and 106°43'51.4"E, meaning we were now south of the equator. That explains the fairly large bump we all felt a little earlier as the ship bounces a little crossing over the fairly thick equator line. (I'm lying about all that - just checking to see who is reading)

Overall, this marks our fourth equator crossing on a ship, all on Viking. We are disappointed that they are not doing any equator-crossing event like they did on the last two sailings.  They didn't do a special event on the second crossing on the world cruise, since we all had already crossed the equator on that sailing. Oh well, we'll just have to make do with Baggo and trivia.

It was another USA versus the world day at Baggo.  The USA held onto a slim margin unit in the second round where surprise cards came into play and one of our players picked the "reset your score to zero" card.  Cruise Director, Graham, ramped up the points in round three to give the US a fighting chance.  We took advantage and recovered from forfeiting all our points to regain the lead and the win.  As always, everything was good-natured and it got the guests all interacting with each other in the spirit of fun competition.

For trivia today, Assistant Cruise Director and Trivia Master, Harry, served up beer - beer trivia.  He showed us bottles of beer and we had to come up with the country of origin. He provided multiple choices for some and no choice for others.

From left to right, top to bottom:

• Guinness
• Ireland
• Corona
• Mexico
• Kingfisher (Sri Lanka, India, Maldives)
• We guessed Maldives - it is India ❌
• Tsing Tao
• China
• Castle Lager (Kenya, South Africa, Namibia)
• South Africa
• Beck's
• Germany
• Stella Artois
• Belgium
• Budweiser
• USA
• Peroni
• Italy
• Tsykie (Lithuania, Poland, Czech Republic)
• Poland
• Aguila (Colombia, Venezuala, Chile)
• We guessed Venezuela - it is Colombia ❌
• Heineken
• Netherlands
• Foster's
• Australia
• Speight's (Canada, Gibraltar, New Zealand)
• New Zealand
• Red Horse (Thailand, Cambodia, Philippines)
• Philippines (Harry is so predictable)

One team got all 15 correct and ran away with the competition.

That inspired me, so at lunch, at the recommendation of bar waiter, Li, I tried a beer from Viet Nam - 333.

I think this is the first beer I've had on the ship during this voyage.  I've had a couple with lunch or dinner on excursions, but none on the ship.  It was light and went well with my burger at lunch.

Arlona went walking this afternoon as I continued to nurse my knee.  At the recommendation of other passengers, we did pick up a tube of Voltaren cream in Thailand. It seems to be getting slightly better, but overuse brings the ache.

Our next several days will be spent in Indonesia.  We had to fill out individual Customs declaration forms for Jakarta, Semarang, and Surabaya on Java, but not Benoa.  Immigration is a strange beast.  We have two days in Jakarta, one in Semarang, one in Surabaya, two in Bali (Benoa), one in Lombok, and one in Komodo before our next sea day.  The Bali days also mark the end of this leg and the beginning of the final leg of this cruise portion of our trip.

Phone update:

The port agent in Laem Chabang, Thailand retrieved Arlona's phone and will be forwarding it to the port agent in Darwin, Australia.  We should receive it on Thursday, November 23 - ironically, Thanksgiving.  In addition, our neighbor, Dave, activated the new phone for us today.  Our friends, Sue & Trish will pick it up this morning (US East Coast time) and pack it for their arrival onboard Orion in Bali.  The plan has come together. Over a period of five days, Arlona will get her new phone, and then her old phone to be able to transfer data.

We watched the Jakarta port talk and then enjoyed beverages in the Explorers' Bar as the sun set.

We headed off to the World Café for dinner for the third or fourth "Taste of Asia" night of this journey.  I needed to make a brief pit stop on the way.  When I came out, Arlona was chatting with a gentleman. He pointed out that The Restaurant was featuring lobster tail on tonight's menu. We amended our plans and headed to The Restaurant – only our second visit of this voyage.  We enjoyed a lovely dinner with a very large lobster tail.  I augmented it with braised short ribs for a modified version of surf and turf.  

Unfortunately, on my third-to-last bite, a drop of drawn butter dripped off a string of lobster and found its way to my shirt, creating a prominent stain.  Knowing that these things can ruin a shirt, our evening turned into laundry night with a quick load into the washer.  That’s an OK thing because it is extremely hot in this part of the world, and we are definitely sweating up our clothes daily.

Tonight, we departed the South China Sea and entered the Java Sea. Tomorrow, we start our two-day visit to Jakarta, Java, Indonesia.