March 11th – Phuket

Most visitors come to Phuket for sun and fun on its glorious beaches; and so, the fact that this is actually a fairly historic place with a fair amount of culture tends to get forgotten. Our mission today was to explore the forgotten historical and cultural side of the capital, Phuket Town.

Unfortunately, to get into to town, you have to run the gauntlet of the rapacious taxi drivers who have managed to stop any ships running shuttle buses here. Instead, they aggressively try to overcharge you for the smallest journey, and would rather walk away from a deal at a decent price if they can't get you to pay an inflated rate.

After working our way through about 10 drivers, we got someone to agree to take us there and back for $20, which I knew was over the top, but in this kind of heat you can only argue so much. So, we finally got a lift into town, and started to explore. We headed first for the town's food market, which turned out to be one of the smelliest that I've come across in a long time, but it had a good array of exotic fruit and veg on offer, and lots of different curry pastes by the bucketload.

We then explored the historic streets of the old town, where the architecture of the rows of 2-storey shophouses was very similar to the historic architecture you find in Penang and Singapore – not surprising, when you think about the trading links between these towns in the 19th century, and given that the population of all three towns back then was predominantly Chinese.

Back then, there must have been some serious money to be made (mostly from the island's lucrative tin mining industry) judging by Phuket Town's array of grand mansions that have survived in varying states of repair, dotted in amongst the shophouses and the modern developments.

By now, it was seriously hot and steamy, so we sought some air-conditioned respite in one of the larger malls in town, before heading back to the Old Town for lunch. We ploughed our way through large amounts of delicious Thai food – the spicy green curry almost causing as much perspiration as the extreme heat outside.

After a bit more wandering through the historic streets, visiting quirky little boutiques and souvenir shops, we could take the heat no longer, and rendezvous-ed with our waiting driver for the return drive to the ship. Considering the huge amount of tourists on the island, there were surprisingly few in cultured Phuket Town itself – I guess that's their loss, and our gain.

March 10th – Penang

If it's Sunday, it must be Penang – after 7 days of non-stop touring in hot and humid weather, I'm really looking forward to a sea day in a couple of days time. However, the interesting sights are keeping me going, and colourful Penang is a great place to explore.

I joined a tour which showed us different sides of this cosmopolitan little island. Although this Malay island was colonised by the British, the dominant cultural force here has always been Chinese, so we started with a trishaw ride around the streets (thankfully pretty quiet because it was a Sunday), before ending up at the fascinating Peranakan Mansion Museum.

As soon as the British took over Penang, they imported Chinese to do much of the hard work; and, many of those commercially minded Chinese began to do as well as their colonial masters – particularly those who got involved in the lucrative opium trade. The Peranakan Mansion belonged to one of those Chinese drug dealers, who clearly had plenty of money to spend on decorating his palatial mansion in a striking fusion of eastern and western styles – much of the design was dictated by feng shui, yet many of the modern features (like ironwork imported from Glasgow) were European.

We next went to the Penang Butterfly Park, which was full of these colourful and delicate creatures fluttering by. To be honest, I'm not particularly into butterflies, but the whole thing was very well done.

After the obligatory Penang retail opportunity at a Batik factory, we stopped in for lunch at the Shangri-La, which had the best buffet I've been to in a while – a wonderful showcase for the different culinary influences on the island over the last 200 years – Chinese, Indian, Malay and European.

It was now so incredibly hot, and I was now so incredibly full that I could scarcely move, however we had a couple more visits to make – stopping first at the Thai and Burmese temples, which enable me to fulfil my usual daily quota of reclining buddhas and golden stupas.

Just as we were on the point of flagging, we had possibly the best stop of the lot – a visit to the Khoo Kongsi Chinese Clan House. This was the historic meeting house and community hall of one of Penang's major families – the Khoos. Considering that they'd all originated from a fairly insignificant village in China, 12 generations ago, the family has clearly been very successful, and the ornate clan house was a showpiece for this. Inside its delicately-carved pavilion, the achievements of the various clan members were proudly shown off, and provided an informal history of the city of Penang along the way.

The great thing about Penang, is that it packs in so much history and so many different cultures into a fairly compact city – a place that seems almost designed for whistle-stop tours.

March 9th – Kuala Lumpur

The start of this cruise is a busy one – 4 port days all in a row, which for me, means a fairly tiring combination of sightseeing during the day and lecturing in the evening. However, the sights more than make up for the mental exhaustion.

Today I took the hour or so long drive to KL to visit its gardens and bird park. On the drive in, everyone was impressed with the modern infrastructure of the city – fast-moving highways (it helped that it was a Saturday), neat apartment blocks, and towering skyscrapers in the city centre. Malaysia is clearly competing hard to catch up with its flashy little brother, Singapore.

We stopped in at the National Monument – a monument to all those who died in "The Emergency" in the 1950s, as Malaya descended into chaos as British rule came to an end and a Communist insurrection raged. The striking statue was designed by the same sculptor that produced the Iwo Jima Monument in Washington, and the artistic style was very similar.

Then we went to the National Gardens, which were full of colour although exhausting to explore on a sweltering day; before we ventured to the National Bird Park which boasted that it was "the largest free flight aviary in the world". It was certainly very large, and had a huge collection of squawking peacocks, colourful parrots, pink flamingos, and countless other exotic birdlife.

By now we were overheating, so it was great to cool down over a delicious buffet lunch at the Intercontinental, and then to enjoy more air-conditioning in the huge mall below the iconic Petronas Towers.

KL's a wonderful showpiece for modern Malaysia – whether the rest of this largely rural country can catch up with too is the big question.

March 8th – Self-Indulgence in Singapore

After the overload of new sights to soak up in Burma, Singapore is a fairly familiar place to us, so we stuck to two of the country's major activities – shopping and eating. After trawling round the malls on Orchard Street, we went to a classy restaurant where our local friend, James, had booked a table and had organised peking duck.

To start with, we had the best Dim Sum that I've ever tasted, followed by the most tender Peking Duck I've ever had too.

After all the culture I've seen over the last few days in Burma, it was nice to get back to the more self-indulgent pleasures in life.

March 7th – Rangoon/Yangon

We'd driven through Rangoon three times at night time, so it was interesting to finally see what the city was really like. It doesn't have quite the same chaotic atmosphere or vertical skyline of many of the other South East Asian capitals, but the traffic jams weren't too far behind those of Saigon or Bangkok.

We headed across town to the Chauk Htat Gyi Pagoda to see its huge reclining Buddha. On the way, we got glimpses of the enormous Shwedigan Pagoda, which dominates the skyline, and also saw lines of Buddhist monks traipsing along the street going for their free monk-feeding sessions.

Once we made it to the Pagoda, we were confronted with the third largest reclining Buddha in the world – 33 metres long, with a contented 3-metre wide smile to cheer us up. The temple was the usual mixture of devout worship and just general relaxed wandering and chatting by the locals – again, the atmosphere here was not one you'd expect to find of people living under an oppressive military dictatorship.

Next, we went to see Rangoon life that didn't all revolve around religion, so we headed for the lively Scott's Market – Rangoon's biggest market. You could tell that Rangoon was fairly new to the tourist trail, because here, there weren't the lines of knock-offs you find elsewhere in the region, and the traders weren't at all pushy in trying to entice you to their stall. You could negotiate for a price, but they were very happy for you to walk away if you couldn't come to an agreement.

I also crossed the road and headed to the food market, which was a locals-only affair – there didn't seem to be the extremes of poverty that you can find in places like Thailand and India, nor were mobile phones particularly prevalent either.

After the market, on the way to lunch, we drove around the old colonial centre of Rangoon – this must have been a fairly grand place once, and I'm sure it will be again if capitalism can take a hold of these big colonial set-pieces.

All too soon, our Burmese odyssey was coming to an end. It was an intriguing place where we were just scratching the surface. I still don't know how much the Military Government intrudes into everyday life here – our guide (rather sensibly) was far too guarded to give too much away. What we did learn, was just how religious these people are, and what fabulous sights there are to be seen here.

I can't wait to get back to Burma for three more days on next year's world cruise.

March 6th – Bagan Village Life

We had scheduled a much-needed morning of relaxation in our luxury villas, but for reasons best known to myself, I decided to do a trek into the temple-dotted plain beyond our hotel. Everywhere in the distance, you could see the peaks of a temple ahead of you, so I chose one and headed to it. There weren't really paths through the sandy countryside covered with thorn bushes and scrappy trees, so I just followed my nose on a winding route where I was least likely to get snagged on prickles.

Within 100 metres, it felt like I was in the middle of nowhere, nothing was moving out there on an intensely hot morning, and there were no sounds apart from the buzzing of flies around my ears, and the occasional shrieking crow. I stumbled along, crossing dried up river beds, and began to imagine the news reports of stupid English tourist lost in the desert for days – maybe I should have brought more than one bottle of water with me?

Eventually I reached my destination, although there were so many temples in the distance, I couldn't be sure that it was definitely the one I'd decided on – even though it was totally deserted and semi-ruined, it still had a well tended Buddha inside. It made you wonder, who was the person who decided to build this particular temple almost 1,000 years ago, and why? I guess we'll never know.

In the heat haze, I could just make out the Bagan Tower in the distance – thank god for this architectural monstrosity to guide me back! Eventually, I staggered back to hotel, and, like any great explorer would do, I cooled off in the huge infinity pool that I had just to myself.

Then it was time to meet up with the group again, and we headed to the enormous Archaeological Museum – they must have spent a lot of money on the museum, and even if it didn't have a lot of stunning exhibits inside, it did a good job of putting the temples into the context of the people who actually built them.

After another delicious Burmese lunch, we headed to a remote village that was really off the tourist trail – the roads were just dusty paths and the houses were all made out of wood. There was electricity, but every house had to collect its water from a central tap – little girls walked down the road with 2 huge pails of water hanging at each end of a stick (I'd have struggled to lift them).

On talking to a couple of villagers, our guide found out that we were very lucky – there was a coming-of-age ceremony going on, where a number of little boys were going to become novice monks for the first time. So, we headed to a marquee that had been put up, where a line of worried-looking boys fidgeted nervously while a few monks prepared the ceremony – the locals didn't mind us being there in an atmosphere that was partly like a First Communion, partly bar mitzvah, partly fiesta. One by one, the boys had to kneel down in front of a monk to have his head expertly dry shaved, while his proud parents caught the hair in a towel. As this was a bit of a production line, the monk only shaved about a third of the head, leaving the boy looking quite forlorn before someone else finished off his skinhead cut.

Then, the now-delighted and much-relieved boys were presented with their monk robes by the monk, and they were now invited to sit on a pedestal above the level of their parents and the ordinary villagers. It was a fascinating ceremony to watch, and an intriguing glimpse into how Buddhism has such a central role in everyday Burmese life.

Next, it was time to go to the airport to fly to Yangon, with all the usual sitting around that you expect with air travel. On arrival, we were whisked off to a lovely French restaurant (when in Burma, of course, you eat French Cuisine), where we ate in the garden and enjoyed the warm evening.

March 5th – Stupa-fied By Bagan

It was a painful start to the day to get up at 3.30am for our early morning flight to Bagan. Scarcely awake as we drove through the quiet streets of Yangon, those dazzling sights we saw yesterday evening felt like a wonderful dream.

We were flying to Bagan, which had been the Burma's most important city in the 11th-13th centuries, to see its incredible collection of temples and stupas. What makes Bagan so amazing is that there's nothing left of the city of 200,000 people that once stood here, apart from its array of over 3,000 brick-built temples dotted around a wide, sun-scorched dusty plain. With little in the way of vegetation, other than a few scrappy trees, these 1,000-year old temples silhouetted against the horizon, were ghostly reminders of a once-great (and obviously madly religious) civilisation.

As you drive across the plain you really can't believe how many temples there are dotted around the countryside – you're left with the questions of why so many temples were built, and why there isn't anything else here but temples? It all came about because the powerful Bagan King was converted to Theravada Buddhism, and so was desperate to show everyone how devoted to this new brand of Buddhism he was. Once he started to build temples, all his courtiers wanted to show him how devout they were too, so they built smaller ones. And then, all his successors over the following couple of centuries began a competition of who could top the architectural splendours of their predecessors. This was ostentatious religious devotion gone mad – you wonder what proportion of the kingdom's wealth went into these stupa-fying vanity projects. No wonder perhaps, that it all crumbled away to nothing.

All other buildings in the ancient city (including the royal palace) were built out of wood, and so were eventually destroyed or decayed away when the city fell from grace in the 14th century after being attacked by the Mongol hordes, and so just these brick temples are all that's left of the Bagan civilisation. Most of the temples and stupas had fallen into fairly bad disrepair by the time independence came around in 1948, and curiously enough, it's been the military dictatorship who's spent the most money on repairing them. Most dictatorships tend to ban religions, but Burma's has been actively promoting it – you wonder if Burma's brand of Buddhism, which promotes acceptance of your individual lot, is seen as a way to keep the people compliant?

We first went to the Shwezigon Pagoda, which was almost as dazzling as Yangon's Shwedigon Pagoda – an enormous golden stupa, again surrounded by so many Buddhas that you thought that you'd ended up in Buddhaland. Even after 4 hours sleep, this was enough to put a spring in our (barefoot) steps.

We then visited 2 other large temples out on the dusty plain – each one would have originally been covered in ornately-carved stucco, which has decayed over the years, leaving just the distinctive red-bricks. The people we met along the way were invariably smiling and welcoming, while the vendors were normally happy to take no for an answer, and didn't hassle us – now that tourism is taking off, it will be interesting to see if it stays that way.

For lunch, we headed to a fairly incongruous addition to Bagan's evocative skyline, a 10-storey viewing tower that at least gave us spectacular views over the temple-strewn Bagan plain, and across to the Irrawady River in the distance. The building wasn't pretty, but the panorama in front of us as we ate at the top of the tower was amazing.

At last, it was time for a brief rest, and we checked in to our hotel at the bottom of the tower, the Aureum Palace Hotel, whose enormous guest villas and infinity pool with a backdrop of temples lived up to its palatial name, even if the electricity supply was a little intermittent.

Just when I was beginning to luxuriate in these gorgeous surroundings, it was time to hit the road again, as we went on a visit to a lacquer-ware workshop, and then took an evocative horse and carriage ride along the bumpy dirt tracks through little villages and past yet more temples, before we ended up at the pyramidal-shaped Dhammayangyi Temple – another huge complex that was a monument to one king's attempts to outdo everyone else's architectural efforts.

As the sun went down on another unbelievable day, we went up that ugly tower again to get the best view of Bagan's famous sunset. As the sky turned pink, the dark silhouettes of the temples looked more mysterious than ever. What a day!