March 25th – Volcanic Adventures in Reunion

We may be sailing across the Indian Ocean towards Africa, but today we arrived at a little piece of Europe, or at least a little piece of the European Union, as we called in at the volcanic island of Reunion. The island has been French ever since they settled it in the 17th century; and, even though the majority of its population are the descendants of the African slaves brought over by the French to work on the island's sugar plantations, the place very much has a feeling of France.

The first world infrastructure, the food, the language, and the beaches easily makes you think that you could be in the South of France; but, what makes Reunion very different from mainland France, is its spectacular volcanic scenery – lush green peaks, barren craters, and boiling lava fields that could easily be a double for Hawaii.

I joined the ship's tour to explore the volcanic centre of the island, passing from the tropical coastline, up into alpine scenery that reminded me of Switzerland, passing spectacular sheer-sided gorges like something out Jurassic Park, into bleak black sand fields that looked like a lunar landscape – it's the range and variety of landscapes on offer here that's the most remarkable thing about Reunion. In fact, the landscapes were much more beautiful than most people had expected (even though they'd already seen a fascinating lecture on the island from the ship's Destination Lecturer).

As we climbed from the hot coast into the rarefied atmosphere of the mountains, it was strange to think that we were feeling the first cool, non-tropical air for the first time since we'd been in the South of New Zealand, two months ago.

Finally we arrived at the breathtakingly massive crater of the Piton de la Fournaise, the Peak of the Furnace, a windswept, elemental place which left you in awe of the power of nature. This is one of the most active volcanoes in the world, which was slightly worrying, but fortunately, the lava flows always move southwards, in the opposite direction to our approach.

On our way down from the Peak, we called in at a wonderful rustic mountain restaurant, where we ate some delicious French food, of course, washed down by some tasty French wine. Then, we headed down to the island's capital, the chic town of St Denis, which had all the grand architecture and shopping streets that you'd expect of a busy French provincial town.

This was such a lovely day on a fabulous island that will surely become as popular as its near neighbour, Mauritius, once more people have heard of it – it's not often that you get to experience elements of Africa, the Cote d'Azur, the Alps, the Moon and Hawaii all in one day.

March 24th – Reaching Dry Land in Mauritius

After 4 days at sea from the Maldives, and 3 of them trying to skirt around a pirate danger zone (without incident thankfully), we finally arrived at the holiday island of Mauritius, where we joined a tour that promised to give us a "Glimpse of Mauritius".

The tour took us to the lush Botanical Gardens (apparently the third oldest in the world) which were a good showpiece for the fertility of this tropical island. Aside from all sorts of tropical trees and flowers from around the world, the best bit was the water lily pond, with huge great water lilies looking like giant stepping stones across the pond.

Then we went into the interior of the island to discover Mauritius's history as a sugar island at the "Aventure du Sucre" Museum. Up until the last couple of decades, sugar has always been the dominant factor in shaping the island's economy and society. The French had introduced African slaves to work on their plantations, and then when the British took over and abolished slavery, they brought over Indian indentured workers to work on the plantations – as a result, about 45% of the population are black/"creole", while about 45% are Indian.

After the museum (which was a lot more interesting than you might expect a museum about sugar to be), we then headed for the old fortress, Fort Adelaide, which sits above the capital Port Louis. From this excellent vantage point, we could appreciate how much the capital has grown, and how developed it's got, as IT and banking have taken over from sugar as the mainstays of the economy.

It may not be all about sugar these days, but life is still sweet on Mauritius.

March 19th – Another Day in Paradise in The Maldives

Cruising to the Maldives offers two contrasting travel experiences – you can either have the stereotypical paradise island experience of sugar white sand, turquoise seas and amazing coral gardens; or you can visit the concrete jungle that is the capital Male, one of the most densely populated cities in the world, with 100,000 people crammed into its one square mile.

Having spent plenty of time in Male before, we sensibly went for the stereotypical island paradise option, by taking the boat trip out to the idyllic Kuda Island. So, in 45 minutes we were transported from the claustrophobic high rises of Male, to an absolutely picture perfect desert island. We claimed our spot under the shade of the swaying palms, and launched ourselves into the warm water with our snorkels to see what we could discover.

As soon as our heads were underwater, there were so many beautiful fish on display, in all shapes and sizes, and all the shades of an artist's palette, decorated in vibrant spots, stripes and smudges of colour. Just after we got to where the reef dropped off, I spotted a couple of large sting rays glide by into the depths, but they were my only encounter with anything menacing-looking.

After taking in the underwater sights, there wasn't much else to see on an island that you could walk around in 7 minutes flat – but, that was the point, we were here to relax. So, that's exactly what we did, until it was time to go for another snorkel, and then time to get the boat back.

If paradise is half as nice as the Maldives..........

March 17th – Exploring Kerala’s Backwaters

Today it was an early start to take the 2-hour drive south of Cochin to get to Alleppey where we were taking a boat trip on Kerala's famous backwaters. Even though it was a Sunday, the driver was in a constant battle with the traffic, overtaking cars on the wrong side of the road, honking his horn constantly, and being overtaken as he was overtaking – 3 cars going the same way side-by-side on a single carriageway road, with a car in the not too far distance coming towards us.

Somehow we got to the backwaters in one piece, and immediately we were transported to an utterly different world, where peace and tranquillity reigned. We climbed onto our luxurious houseboat, and began our glide down these beautifully quiet waters. As we chugged along serenely, the peace was only broken by bird calls, or the noise of people washing their clothes in the water, heartily slapping down the soapy clothes onto a rock and bashing the dirt out of it.

Of course, there were quite a few other houseboats sailing along too, but most of what we saw were ordinary people in canoes, the odd ferry boat passing us by, or families walking to church along the bankside. It seemed an utterly idyllic place to live, although there were very few amenities here – people washed themselves and their clothes in the waters, and with no roads, they had to take to canoes to get about.

It was all so utterly tranquil that people took it in turns to fall asleep, as they relaxed on their easy chairs and took in the sights. I think that three or four days of this would make for the most relaxing holiday in the world.

After a couple of hours of the most chilled out sailing I've ever done, we headed to one of Kerala's beach resorts for lunch. Kerala's not as famous as Goa for its beaches, but this one was pretty beautiful, even if it was way too hot to sit out on the burning sands. Instead, we sheltered in the shade and had our choice of delicious curries and local specialities – delicious.

Our ride back to the ship was marginally less manic than the ride back, and it was time to chill down my core temperature in the air-conditioning, before heading out again for the evening. From the ship, we walked to the upscale Taj Malabar hotel on the tip of Willingdon Island, for a sundowner. With the sun setting over the sea, the evening views were beautiful, the beer was cool and refreshing, and the hungry mosquitoes had a feast on our blood – there is always a price to pay for paradise.

In spite of the bites, we decided to stay for a curry, which was one of the best I've ever had - over the course of the past 2 weeks, I've had at least one curry either on board or ashore every single day, so I'm becoming quite an expert.

Incredible India has lived up to its title yet again – can't wait to come back this time next year.

March 16th – Cochin Curry

As we didn't get into Cochin till 4pm, we didn't have too much time to explore today, so we made the focus of our day, finding a good, authentic curry in Fort Cochin. Getting off the ship, we had to ignore the crowd of taxi drivers and tuk tuk drivers who surrounded us and tried to drag us into their overpriced taxis. We ignored their offers and headed to the ferry station where the price to get over to Fort was 2 rupees (about 1 cent US), as opposed to the $5-$10 prices we were being quoted. Not only was it so incredibly cheaper, but it was also quicker and a much more atmospheric way to travel, sailing across the tranquil waters of Cochin's harbour.

Once we got there, it was obvious that something was going on in town – an art exhibition called the Kochi Biennale was going on in various buildings in Fort Kochi. As we only had an hour before it was due to finish, we went to the main exhibition in the abandoned Aspinwall's warehouses just before you get into town. I'd always walked past these once-grand but now-crumbling set of buildings wondering what was inside, so it was interesting to walk around its complex of huge warehouses.

Rather than containing the spices and rice that once would have been shipped out of here, they were now home to some fairly weird and wacky installations that would have rivalled any of the bizarre stuff that we've seen in the Venice Biennale. To be honest, I had very little understanding of the artistic ideas being put across, but it went to show that the Indian art scene is every bit as advanced and bordering on pretentious as anything we have in the West. Maybe I'm just a philistine, but a lot of this stuff seemed like a case of the Emperor's New Clothes.

Anyway, for an hour it was interesting to do something a little different here in Cochin, and then we wandered into the Fort area to take our obligatory shots of the famous Chinese fishing nets – they looked particularly photogenic as the sun set behind them. Our next stop was Tracy's favourite Cochin shop, the imaginatively-named Shop 'n Save, where she bought a year's supply of ayurvedic lotions and potions. I doubt that the friendly shopkeeper has ever sold as much cosmetics in one go, so he treated us like royalty.

After calling home in an internet cafe where I got eaten alive by mosquitos (just my left knee has 9 bites on it), we headed to a restaurant we've eaten at before, called Dal Roti. As we approached, the long queue of customers waiting outside was a good and a bad sign – it meant a wait of about half an hour, but it did mean that the place was good enough to attract plenty of customers (and plenty of locals) who thought that it was worth the wait.

As ever, the food was delicious (and pretty cheap), and the only reason that it didn't score higher marks on my Chicken Jalfrezis of the World Index, was that I couldn't wash it down with a beer – not that many restaurants in Cochin actually serve alcohol.

By now, it was too late to get the ferry, so we had to begrudgingly spend $5 on a taxi back to the port.

March 15th – Meeting Sri Lanka’s Elephants

From Colombo, today we were taking the ship's tour to visit the elephant sanctuary at Pinnawela. This wasn't just any old coach trip; instead Silversea had hired our own private train to take us there – so, we were taken to Colombo's busy Fort Railway Station, and boarded our own private elephant express.

As we shook, rattled and rolled our way past Colombo's sprawling suburbs and into the open countryside, it was a very relaxing way to get out of the city. Once at our destination, we then had a short coach ride to the elephant sanctuary. Unfortunately for us, it was some kind of school holiday, where all the schools take their children out on day trips, and it appeared that most of the country's schools had taken them to Pinnawela. The approach to the Sanctuary was choked with schoolkids in their neat white uniforms, although it must be said that they were all very well behaved – if this were Britain, the volume levels would have been about 10 times higher.

Actually, it appeared that most of the children were on their way out, so by the time that we got down to the river where the elephants were bathing, the crowds had thinned out appreciably. Because, in the water right in front of us, were about 40 elephants bathing, playing, lumbering and wrestling away in a compelling display of elephantine antics.

It was the kind of thing that you could stand and watch for hours, as the younger elephants attempted to playfully wrestle each other off the rocks, like sumo wrestlers in elephant suits. They got up to the kind of antics that you'd see human children do in any playground around the world – all competing to be king of their particular castle.

Most of the elephants carried on plunging themselves into the water totally oblivious to the crowds of us watching them, but a few of them obviously thought that they could get some food from us, so would snake their trunks up over the ledge to see what they could sniff out. It was a strange experience to pat the elephant's rough trunk, and try to avoid his snotty nostrils trying to curl up our legs to give us a good investigation – the little children next to us shrieked with an equal mix of delight and fear every time the trunk got close to them.

After a delicious curry lunch overlooking the river, we headed over to the area where the elephants are fed. Here, we watched the juveniles glug down litres of milk, and saw a couple of tiny orphaned babies looking super cute with their thick black hair sticking straight up like they'd just got out of bed.

All too soon, our entrancing elephant encounter was over, and it was time to head back to the train for Colombo. What a great experience to be so close to these incredible and intelligent beasts.

March 12th – A Warm Welcome in Sabang

Sabang is not a place that people visit very often. There's a number of reasons for this:
1. It's the most northernmost part of Indonesia, sitting on the little island of Pulau Weh, just off the tip of Sumatra – this makes it a fairly out-of-the-way spot.
2. Pulau Weh sits in the province of Aceh, which is most famous (or infamous) for its long and bloody rebellion against the Indonesian government, which only finished in 2005.
3. In 2009, Aceh instituted a very strict interpretation of Sharia Law here, which is hardly something to attract the tourists.

So, on the face of it, with little in the way of must-see sights or attractions, Sabang wasn't a very promising stop on this world cruise. However, what turned the port into an unexpected delight, were its warm and wonderfully friendly people.

As we sailed into the harbour, we could see a big marquee had been set up – it wasn't for us, it was for the hundreds of locals who'd turned up to welcome us in. As the ship edged its way towards its berth, you could see people streaming to the harbour to greet us, while dance groups on the pier put on energetic shows for us. On a steaming hot day, it was lovely to be so warmly welcomed.

Once we got off the ship, we were treated like film stars, people rushing up to us wanting to have their photos taken with us. Normally it's us wanting to take pictures of the locals, here it was the other way round – there was such a refreshing innocence to their curiosity in us and in their overwhelming, smiling friendliness. I've never been photographed so much before, and I've never felt so tall – the people were almost all fairly tiny.

There really isn't much to see in Sabang, but it was enjoyable to walk along the waterfront, past shops catering only for the local market and constantly have people come up to us and say hello. The chief architectural points in town were its mosques, but even though this is a place living under Sharia Law, it didn't appear to have an oppressive atmosphere in the slightest.

We saw a few relics from the Dutch colonial times – from the times when this was one of the world's most important coal stations. Supposedly, before the Second World War, Sabang was a more important (or at least as important) port than Singapore – hard to believe when you see its lack of development and sleepy atmosphere today.

Sometimes it's good to come to out-of-the-way places, and to meet people who aren't jaded with tourism in the slightest, even if that means there isn't much in the way of a tourist infrastructure. In Phuket the day before, you got the impression that many of the people you met just saw you as a big walking dollar $ign – here in Sabang, they were truly glad to see us.