In the classic novel, “The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy”, protagonist Arthur Dent learns that his friend Ford Prefect is actually an alien, on assignment as a writer for an intergalactic travel guide. Arthur eagerly looks up the entry for Earth to see what Ford has written for the rest of the universe to know about Earth. He finds just two words: “Mostly harmless.”

Perhaps George Town had an impossible task to impress us, as we’d come from Singapore - one of the most incredible cities in the world - and that astonishingly amazing culinary experience with our friends in Klang… but if I were to write a travel guide for George Town, I could sum it up in two words as well: “decidedly meh”.

We had been here before, on the Marco Polo cruise. You can read what we thought of that here: https://www.jimwinslett.com/george-town but that was a better tour, even though it rained the whole day. Reason: a few of the things we saw then were unavailable to us this time due to road closures.

The only “better” part this time was someone had touched up that painting with the kids on the bicycle, so it looked better than last time.

Honestly, that was one of only two interesting things we saw all day. The road closure meant that the more interesting parts of the tour on our previous trip here were unavailable, so no botanical gardens, no monkeys stealing fruit, and a few smaller temples were also missed. The other interesting thing we did see this time was a combo Buddhist/ Taoist temple on a hill.

We were more than happy to arrive back at the ship, especially after our guide played for us a recording of him singing “Sweet Caroline” - and when I tell you that it was cringe-worthy, that’s an understatement. I took a video on my phone looking back at the busload of folks who were right in that demographic to sing along… and seriously, when have you heard “Sweet Caroline” when the audience DIDN’T sing along???… but there was almost no participation. Only faces of people who looked to be in pain. Sad.

A quick lunch back on the ship - pork/pineapple skewers, shredded carrot, fruit salad, and some kind of cold Indian rice salad that was absolutely delicious. I would’ve gone back for second and thirds of that, except we’re going to Manfredi’s tonight and I didn’t want to spoil my dinner.

Back to the room and we looked up the menu at The Restaurant on the TV in our cabin- nothing really of interest. So I made a reservation at Manfredi’s. Pretty much all cruise lines have ‘specialty restaurants’ in addition to the main dining options. Usually, you book those and then pay for your dinner and drinks, even though you’ve already paid for the cruise.

Viking doesn’t do that. The two specialty restaurants on board are included. All you need to do is book them, which is super-easy right from the TV in your cabin. So we went to Manfredi’s for dinner! We’ve always enjoyed it in the past and tonight was no different. I started off with a tuna carpaccio, adding to the list of carpaccios I’ve tried (the others so far: Kudu, Zebra, Beef, Lamb, & Octopus). Rob had a nice fettuccini dish.

Followed that with some calamari and then had spaghetti carbonara - Rob had Dover sole. Both were good. Finished the meal off with steak tartare and espresso martinis. Rob got a tiramisu as well.

After dinner, we headed to the large theatre at the front of the ship for a concert by Adam Johnson, a rather flamboyant and incredibly talented pianist.

He started out with some classical stuff: Carmen, Für Elise, Sabre Dance, Hornpipe, then moved on to show tunes and ended with two “didn’t see that coming” numbers… the first being Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” done as a classical piece (and that works far better than you think it would) and Jean-Michel Jarre’s “Fourth Rendezvous”. Before playing the latter, he apologized for not having any lasers. I might’ve been the only one in the theatre who got the joke.

“Fourth Rendezvous” was a track from Jarre’s “Rendez-vous” album, which was written for Houston’s Sesquicentennial celebration (150 yrs birthday). During the concert, the entire downtown skyline of Houston was used as the concert backdrop, with projected images on the buildings, fireworks, and laser effects. It looked like this:

…and that’s it for today!

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