INDIAN OCEAN CRUISE 2025

I (Mike) gave talks on the World Cruise of the Zuiderdam in early 2025. We boarded the ship in Darwin, Australia and disembarked in Durban, South Africa about 28 days later. I gave 14 different talks on the sea days. There were several other speakers as well. This was the first time I had returned to the bulk of the Indian Ocean since my time flying over the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal during the 1979 Summer Monsoon Experiment.

This is not a comprehensive description of the ports we visited. Just our personal activities related to observing natural history subjects.

Below are some photos from our various ports of call between Darwin and Durban. The cruise route is shown below:

Given the short time for most ports, I wouldn’t really recommend anyone taking this cruise segment. We didn’t even get off the ship in Phuket, Thailand – which is a major destination for European tourists. There were very few pelagic birds along much of this route, and few porpoises or whales. And more oceanic trash than we had seen on other cruises. Plus the sky was hazy from south Asian smoke from dry season burning.

A short summary of each place we visited is found below.

Komodo

This island is obviously known for its Komodo Dragons, a species of lizard in the genus Varanus. There are other Varanus species that get nearly as large as the Komodo Dragon, and are much more widespread. Although regulations constantly change, one could not go ashore on Komodo unless you had a formal tour booked, hence we went with a tour offered by the ship. This amounted to a 2 hr walk through the forest to see the Dragons. Unfortunately, but probably for safety reasons, there was a leader and a guide at the end of our group – so you couldn’t really take extra time along the trail for much photography. Smaller Dragons were along the shore and around the tourist shops, through which you had to walk on the return to the dock.

Be sure to click on the images in the galleries below. You can then see larger images and step through each image with the arrow keys on the right or left side. Also, nearly all images have text explaining them at the bottom.

Bali

Our stop in Denpasar on the island of Bali was nothing like we had hoped for. There were no natural attractions within a reasonable distance of where the ship docked, and the mangrove nature center we sought out was closed (and had been for several years at least). We visited a Hindu temple where we saw a snake and a few other things. The photos explain better what we saw.

Here are a (very) few nature-related photos. The moths were on the ship, the snake was at the Hindu Temple we visited.

Singapore

Singapore was the one port where we could have easily spent several more days, since there was much to see and there is an excellent metro to get around . But even the metro and bus network doesn’t get you to the “nature” places without real walking or taking a taxi. So we took a taxi (Uber also available) to a distant nature park, with the intent of seeing other places on our return. It turned out we really didn’t have time for more than the one place we visited.

Singapore had the best facilities for the nature parks (and probably pretty much anything else) we tried to visit on our cruise . But it is just large enough to make getting around somewhat time consuming – though the roads were excellent and the traffic not excessive.

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

We visited a Botanic Garden which was OK, and only half the distance to Kuala Lumpur. It was still quite a way, mostly on a freeway. It had some mostly natural forest areas where we saw some reptiles and such. We were docked at the huge industrial port with endless container cranes.

Langkawi, Malaysia

We almost didn’t go anywhere. When we got off the ship the only taxi’s available wanted us to do a standard tour – visiting all the standard places. We wanted to go up the highest hill on the island to see the vegetation and possibly other life. I had seen that there was a paved road to the top, but the drivers gave us various excuses not to go there. Finally, as we walked away from the parking lot one driver came by and said he would take us where we wanted to go. It turned out he was a good choice.

Colombo, Sri Lanka

Colombo wasn’t as bad as we expected – we took a taxi to a restored marsh/lake that was a former gravel pit. But it was relatively natural-ish, with lots of birds and other animals. The taxi ride there gave us a flavor for a country like India… that Rosario hasn’t been to.

Male, Maldives

We tendered off the ship to the small port at the main town of Male, and didn’t go very far. There was a small city park with tall trees that had a few interesting birds and fruit bats hanging out. Also a somewhat interesting small market. But it was hot, humid, and we didn’t feel like going very far. And of course the island is only about 1 mile across, so you couldn’t go far if you wanted. Most tourists land at the airport and then immediately take a small seaplane to one of the 100+ resort islands. One resort per island. It looks awful on Google Earth – the amount of manipulation of the original atolls to satisfy tourism demands. Our course, the local workers don’t live in the resorts – see the photo of the large high rise apartments below.

Victoria, Seychelles

We didn’t have enough time in the Seychelles, in part because of the ship’s port schedule and in part because it rained and made it inconvenient to walk around. Taxi’s were expensive ($10 for less than 1 mile to the Botanic Garden) as were other items, so we spent some time seeing the botanic garden – that also had lots of the giant Aldabra tortoises. But it wasn’t feasible to get to any natural landscapes or trails higher on the hills.

Port Louis, Mauritius

We only took a shuttle bus to a mall close to the port, since we didn’t have an excursion and the excursions being offered didn’t look like they would get to natural areas (that are quite limited on Mauritius). What was interesting is how the tourism sector exploits the “Dodo”, which Mauritius is known for. At least the extinction of the Dodo in the 1600’s. Dodo dolls, puppets, drawings, T-shirts… Getting lots of mileage now on an extinction that no one should be proud of. But of course, the Dodo wasn’t the only large oceanic bird to go extinct at the hands of humans.

La Possession, Reunion

We took a long excursion on Reunion to see the active volcanic crater, Piton de la Fournaise at about 7000 ft elevation. As expected (by me at least) it was cloudy and we only had glimpses of part of the volcanic features. Rosario did see two endemic birds up there (the only two endemics) on Reunion. And the short time we had with native vegetation was interesting – most tropical islands are heavily disturbed by humans and cultivation closer to the coasts and at lower elevations. Reunion, like Hawaii, has its most natural landscapes high up.

Richards Bay, South Africa

We didn’t get off the ship in Richards Bay. Some people took long excursions to safari parks of various flavors, but since we were leaving the ship the next day and going to the mother-of-all safari parks – Kruger, we stayed aboard. It was a major coal exporting port – one of the largest in the world and coal trucks and ship loading was constant. It was the only port where the pilot to guide us into port came aboard via helicopter. Not sure why, but apparently that is the routine at this port.

iPhone photos from the ports

Below are iPhone photos from the various ports of call. They really should be merged into the previous photos, but I haven’t done this yet. They have more people-photos and give a better flavor of the places we visited.

Komodo

Bali

Singapore

Port Klang

Langkawi, Malaysia

Langkawi is a tourist island off the west coast of Malaysia. We rented a taxi for 4 hours to visit a mountain top (2800 ft elevation) and try to see some natural sites.