Day 6 and at sea as we sail from Thailand up to Vietnam. This morning we went on a 2.5 hour tour of the working parts of the ship. Stops included the kitchen, loading bay, engine room, staff messes and bars, laundry and finally the bridge. The engine room was pretty tedious with all the blokes trying to outdo each other with their questions. The most interesting fact I picked up there is that they dry out all the Pooh, and then use it as fuel for the incinerator. Luckily we didn’t go there. The bit I found most interesting was the laundry. Great systems in place.
We’re gradually working out the best places to hang around in the ship. One important discovery is where to go to get offered the very nice NZ sav blanc as opposed to their alternative which is a pretty terrible US offering. It’s so bad that Val refused it in the casino and sent the poor guy to the other end of the boat to retrieve a bottle of NZ for us. We’re heading back there this afternoon so will be interesting to see if he remembers us. Last night we enjoyed a couple of glasses at our lounge whilst being entertained by a table of Americans disagreeing robustly on Trump. One woman was saying she no longer speaks to her best friend because they disagree on him so much. What a waste.
Yesterday we took a trip to Pattaya, about an hour from the port. This is a big beach side resort town- think gold coast on steroids. Lots of massage parlours, bars and pot shops. ( and single blokes wandering around). Our first stop was at a private museum The Santuary of Truth.
This is a completely wooden construction with no nails used. It is still being worked on and apparently will continue on indefinitely. The inside is filled with thousands of individual carvings depicting an eastern philosophy regarding 7 stages of knowledge. Very Buddhist, as was our tour guide – in an interesting way. The second stop was at some floating markets which turned out to be some pretty tacky souvenir stalls built on and around a big dam. Here Val bought a $10 tee shirt and we tried out the local desert specialty – sticky rice mango. Superb
Bit of excitement as we were reboarding the ship with a large monkey running along a ledge on the side of the ship before jumping down onto the gang plank where Val, myself and 50 other people were standing. After running half way along the handrail he decided to abandon ship and leapt off. Turns out he had been on the boat for a couple of hours with the crew spending the afternoon trying to evict him.
Tomorrow a big day. We dock at Phu My which is the port for Saigon. We’re not going into Saigon, but rather heading on a 3 hour ( traffic permitting) bus trip out to the Mekong delta.
Round about 