The dining area

Tuesday 28 October 2014

We didn’t meet up today, but I’m sure we will later. This ship is so big and has so many passengers, around 2,300 I’m told, that you could meet once and never meet again.

The day started quietly and we resumed our discussion about what the time is. The ship says it’s one hour behind Perth time. That’s very strange, because we’re well east of Perth by at least an hour, so the clocks should be ahead. The time lines must bend around Thailand or something.

Man Overboard! It wasn’t a drill.

Then after lunch, at 1.54pm (my camera tells me so) came a PA announcement, “This is the bridge. Man overboard, man overboard.” All very calm, and it wasn’t an exercise. Wow.

The ship immediately began to slow and turn to starboard, my side. An orange life ring was thrown overboard (above) and it started trailing copious amounts of orange smoke. You don’t turn a 155,000 tonne ship around easily. I reckon it took more than 3Km and 20 mins to go around 180 deg. Soon we were pointing in the opposite direction and could see a large island about 10Km away, at least. There were around a dozen Vietnamese fishing boats in the area too, but none of them made any moves.

Then there was a shout and I suddenly saw three figures floating in the water. But they were wearing plastic wings, like water wings, and appeared to be enjoying themselves. There were no frantic waves for help. They appeared to be just lying back, kilometres from any land. Crazy.

Vietnamese crazies?

The ship was slowed to barely moving and at 2.17pm a large orange jet-boat launch was lowered over the side, roaring off astern. It moved out of sight and about 2.30pm the bridge announced that the three people had been transferred to a Vietnamese fishing boat for return to the shore.

The swimmers were taken by this launch to a nearby fishing boat to be taken ashore. It cost the ship more than an hour, doing a full circle, slowing to a stop, then accelerating again. It must have cost tens of thousands of dollars in time and fuel.

What the hell were they playing at? It would have cost this ship an hour’s time, at least, and probably tens of thousands of dollars in fuel and time costs to rescue these idiots. We were already running two hours late from Bangkok, so now we’re at water-ski speed to make up time.

It made for an interesting diversion and I’ve got at least five minutes worth of video clips to prove it.

Now for some rays.

Later: my GPS showed us travelling at 41Km/h, compared with 31Km/h earlier so we really have speeded up.

We knocked off most of Jan’s bottle of cabernet sauvignon last night. Very nice, too.

We also watched Pavarotti under the stars around the pool, then attempted to watch a movie on the ship’s TV in the cabin. I say attempted. We got an hour into quite a good movie (The Time Traveller, by coincidence) and it stopped. We attempted many times to restart it but to no avail. So much for that. It’s an inadequate server that can’t keep up with the demand for bits, I think.

Monday 27 October – Laem Chabang, the port for Bangkok:

We’re confused by the time here in the Gulf of Thailand. The ship said to set our clocks back by 1 hour, when we thought it should be forward. I’m certain now that the ship is back one hour. Although my watch and phone are showing 18:20 Perth time, local time is 17:20. Sunset is still to come. Strange, though, that although we’re east of Singapore (therefore ahead in time) we set the clocks back to one hour before Perth time. Why? Maybe we’re actually west of Singapore? I’m confused.

Bad night last night. I don’t snore due to my CPAP machine, but I might have to sleep out on the balcony from now on! It would be possible, there are recliner lounges there and the temperature is beautiful. Soft breezes from the ship’s movement. We’ll see.

We’re tied up at the wharf at Laem Chabang, about 80Km south east of Bangkok and a 2hr bus trip each way. I can’t face that, and since I need to keep my feet up, and being so tired, I stayed “home”. I’ve been to Bangkok and I didn’t want to pay US$169 for four hours on a bus and only three hours in the city. It was a very good decision staying on the ship as I found later with other tours. I got another 3hrs sleep and feel better.

It’s interesting being here. There’s lots of crane and container truck action. At about 4pm it was time for the daily thunderstorm, and what a beauty it was. Dark clouds, thunder and lightning and steady, drenching rain for about half an hour. Nice.

Jan went in to Bangkok today and isn’t back yet at 18:30. The ship leaves at 19:00 local time, so there’s another 90 mins yet. Confusing time.

They say it’s a small world. Well I can tell you it’s getting smaller all the time. We’ve just held the Northam Senior High School 50^th Reunion, right? Who should I run into this afternoon on Deck 5 but Lindsay DelaHaunty, one of the former NSHS students who was at the reunion. He’s one of our former classmates. On this ship! I was amazed. We’ll meet up later.

Leaving Laem Chabang.

This vast swimming pool area is under a sliding roof and is air conditioned. Amazing.

Sunday 26 October:  Up at 7am. Jan went and did 50 minutes of hard, vigorous walking around the Promenade deck and came back sweating and panting. I did one circuit mid morning. That’s about 0,5Km, not bad for me. Jan’s determined to push me to go further each day. It’s a good idea in theory …

There’s a big group of walkers among the passengers, nearly all elderly people. It’s good to see. I’m not elderly, of course. But all of them walk faster than me. I cannot walk as fast as even elderly people.

I shot some vision of a couple of Thai fishing boats coming at full speed for the ship’s wake. I assume they’re looking for fish in the turbulence, which stretches for many kilometres back over the horizon in a dead straight line.

There’s a bigger mixture of old and young on this ship compared with the Arcadia in March. Not many young people, but some, including one incredibly shapely woman in a bikini. It was enough to stir the juices. Wow. Later I saw another even more beautiful body. This is a bit better than the March cruise.

I’d been struck by the similarities to the Arcadia, of the P&O line. Dammit – Princess Cruises is a subsidiary of P&O. I’d vowed I wouldn’t travel P&O again because of their restrictive dress code policy and a cabin fridge which is not a fridge, but the same things apply on this ship! Damn. I do have long trousers and shoes and socks, but I hate to wear them. Getting my socks on is a difficult process.

Lunch, and the restaurant was crowded. We could only get a table around 70m from the servery by a winding path. Good exercise I suppose, and it was quiet where we were.

The food is good, much better than the Arcadia. That was stodge. This is freshly cooked, and nicely presented. I was much happier eating in the main dining area this time.

Balls in the air.

Nothing happened. End.

No, we explored the ship to try to find our way around this multistory building, full of curving passageways and surprising doorways. It was also so we could find our way back to the cabin.

It was a lazy day of sleeping, sitting on the balcony watching the fishing boats go by, reading a bit, but being distracted all the time.

We found a lounge and restaurant area that served nice food, coffee and alcoholic drinks, so that was it for dinner. I was finally persuaded to buy a coffee card which gives 15 coffees for $29, so the cost is quite reasonable. I’m always wary of the catches in these card schemes. The food is already paid for, of course. (Now, after the cruise has ended, I only used 7 of the 15 coffees, so I ended up paying $4 each for them anyway. That’s the catch.)

OK, I’ve been writing a diary for the past three weeks but being unable to post as I go, I’m having to start at the beginning. There’s a lot! Sorry if I bore you but this is my diary and “book” and souvenir and record of trip and everything rolled into one. It’s for me as much as you, but I hope you enjoy.

Friday 24 October 2014

Hooboy, I am so tired! I’m writing this in the cabin on the ship at the Singapore ship terminal at 7.30pm, almost too tired to stand. Getting to the ship has been two long, tough days. Thursday was all day packing, then trying to grab a bit of sleep before the taxi at 2am (a limo taxi, actually). Our Singapore Airlines flight was at 0630 so we had to be there at about 0400. Ugh. From then on it was through the building site that is Perth airport. What a mess! What a mess!! An embarrassing, ugly, dysfunctional, uncomfortable, shit hole of an airport. The total contrast with Changi is too depressing.

At last, after going up to the departure area, then having to negotiate those awful stairs back down to the boarding tunnel, we were on the Singapore Airlines A330 and off at 0625, about 5 mins early. We later discovered the plane was probably only half full, and we had two seats in a row of four. Jan was able to shift across so that I had a tray table free between us.

The in-seat LCD entertainment was amazingly comprehensive, with a choice of over 100 movies, but so maddening. Every time a captain’s voice announcement came on, at the end the sound track would revert to Japanese. Crazy. It seemed the only way to restore English was to stop the movie, use Mode to go to the language selector, select English, which was selected anyway, then try to pick up where you were in the movie. So frustrating that I gave up in the end. I was watching Railway Man with Colin Firth and Nicole Kidman. It looked good enough to try to pick up later.

One interesting thing on the flight was, about 30 mins out, BANG – just as if we’d hit something, or as if the wheels had thudded down or similar. Just once, and nothing was said by the crew, so it must have been a small isolated pocket of air turbulence. I’ve never heard it before and it was a little frightening.

So we reached Singapore airport and got a Mercedes taxi to the passenger terminal. As we drove in we could see the ship at the wharf from the stern, a monstrous floating tower building. Looking at the diagram, it’s around 16 to 20 stories above the waterline. It’s a floating office building.

We entered the shipping terminal and I hadn’t thought it would be difficult. But from then on it was queues! And form filling. It took us at least an hour to negotiate the passenger terminal formalities. endlessly moving down and around the webbing barriers. My back muscles were killing me. Shuffle shuffle. Wait. Shuffle. I was so tired of it. Then some other barrier would appear, with more papers to be shown.

Finally we reached the Princess Cruises counter among the thousands of passengers and were given our plastic card allowing us to board. But they took our passport away from us. I don’t like that.

Then it was another long, slow shuffle up the steel and glass ramp to the ship, showing our pass over and over, shuffling through, being shepherded, until finally we reached cabin 429 on deck 12. Whump. I nearly collapsed. This is a holiday??

That was about 2.30pm. At last we could relax for a while, then go for a beer and some dinner and at about 7.15pm the ship ever so slowly, almost imperceptibly, glided out from the wharf, turned 180deg in the harbour and we were off.

You’d never know it was moving. Even out in the straits, there’s no rocking or swaying at all. That’s stabilisers.

So we glided past many lit up ships, with a vast coastline of lights out to the south. That must have been the industrial island off Singapore. Then by 8.30pm I was becoming monsyllabic and dull because I was so tired. I collapsed onto the bed and slept like a log until 7am.

Beijing. The Chairman’s chair.

Sunday 16 November 2014 – in Hanoi

At last I can post again. No internet on the ship for 17 days (unless you paid their exorbitant rate – $0.79 per minute!). Then Word Press was blocked in China so I couldn’t access this blog. Very frustrating. But now this hotel’s wi-fi internet works perfectly and is fast, faster than I’ve got at home. It’s great.

Our hotel in Beijing was absolutely brilliant. I’d rate it probably the best, friendliest, and best designed hotel I’ve ever stayed at. I’ll give them a 100% review on Trip Advisor. It’s called the Shi Cha Hai Shadow Art Performance Hotel and that’s exactly what it is.It’s a newly architect designed hotel in the Shi Cha Hai hutong, an old narrow street of private dwellings, schools, military somethings, little shops and tiny restaurants. People and kids everywhere, the antithesis of yer Plazas and Raddissons and glass, marble and chrome monstrosities. That’s why I chose it and my friend was as delighted as I was.

The shadow art performance is what it says. Each Tuesday and Thursday at 8pm they put on a Chinese version of the wayang kulit puppet show behind a screen, with text of the dialogue electronically projected onto the screen. It lasted about half an hour, then you could go behind the screen and see how it was done. Some kids had a great time with the puppets.

An example of their service – I accidentally rolled onto my glasses on the bed and broke the frame. Emergency, I have no spare. The guy at the desk said to leave them with him, he would cycle to a repairer and bring them back. So at 6.30pm he brought them back to the room, fixed almost better than new, an undetectable fix. When I said “How much?”, he said “No charge, sir”. How about that for service?

But overall we hated China. Dirty, unfriendly (not always), too crowded (not surprisingly), and a bit rude. I admit I’m a bit plump but I was getting finger pointing and comments between blokes on the street. Just rude. And the spitting. Disgusting. Cigarette smoke everywhere.

The weather was brilliant for our whole five days, coinciding with the APEC summit. Clear blue skies every day. A bit cool at around 12 – 14C, I’d guess, but not bad. The Wall was freezing, though. I’d estimate 2 – 4C at the village and my friend said it was probably near zero or below up there. There was a fair breeze blowing. I saw the wall from the village but I couldn’t go up, and my friend said even he was struggling to get up the steps and deal with the cold. Been there, seen it, it’s enough for me.

But when we left yesterday, Saturday, it was as if a switch had been flicked and the haze and smog was so bad that we could hardly see the planes on the tarmac.Obviously the order had gone out, “OK boys, you can start up your factories and smoke belchers again, APEC’s over.

The crazy thing is we could not get any good food in China. We got peasant food at tiny restaurants nearby, I mean pork balls in noodle broth and another noodle dish with just a tomato mushroom sauce. Crap. It cost us Y26 for the two bowls so at $5 including a 500ml beer. I suppose we can’t complain, But I can complain about the cigarette smoke. We were practically gasping to get out.

Only once did I have a nice crepe folded over full of egg and veges and spices. That was good. That restaurant was weird. There were small stalls at street level with all different things on offer. You had to pay Y100 up front to get a plastic card, then you chose your dishes and the vendor swiped your card. At the end, you reclaim the balance. But you had to carry your tray up some steep steps to be able to sit at tables. That’s hard for me, but a waiter did help by carrying my tray part way.

This has been a strenuous trip and I’m feeling the strain. I’m getting weaker and weaker, I assume from the diabetes and maybe the leukemia. Yesterday I nearly fell in the airport toilet. I was leaning way forward on my arms and I almost couldn’t push myself upright again. I couldn’t find my balance for 30 secs or more. That was scary. I’m losing all the strength in my thighs. I have trouble standing up from a sitting position. Stairs are very hard. But I’ll push on. It’ll be OK.

Boy I’m looking forward to Bali..In retrospect I’ve been a bit too ambitious – five weeks travelling is a lot. And spending five weeks sharing hotel rooms with a friend I’ve never travelled with is ambitious, shall we say. We get along very well but my friend is a fit walker and I’m really slowing him down. We haven’t had a cross word, though.

This hotel in Hanoi is beautiful! It’s the Oriental Central Hotel, and boy, is it central. The streets outside are absolutely thronged with people, cars, motor bikes, rickshaws, push carts, everything, and all the vehicles’ horns are blaring. To get a meal we just walk along the street a few doors or cross to a blocked off street of shops and bars and restaurants. It’s only 50 – 100m  away. The view out the window is just a mass, a maze, a jungle of roof tops of every shape and height and size. I’ve never seen anything like it. We’re on the seventh floor. They build tall here, no space between building, just stacked upwards.

We’ve had an embarrassing blunder. I booked a “Junior Suite” with windows, assuming from the web site that it was twin beds. But when we arrived it’s a big double bed. Uh oh. No way. The hotel was fully booked last night so my friend slept on a folding bed they provided. It was OK, we both slept very well. But I’ve asked for a separate room anyway due to certain “night noises” that are seriously keeping me awake, so today we’ll split up. Unfortunately the other room is windowless but it’s no problem. I think my friend will use that and just come here when he wants windows!

I’ll post this now and do some more pages asap. Standby. (Wow, I nearly lost all this writing just now. I accidentally closed the browser and I thought it wasn’t saved, but after several minutes I found I could recover it. When I’ve written so much, the thought of losing it is almost panic.)

2am Friday morning, just waiting for taxi to airport. Packing has been laborious! So many things to take, so many things that are essential. The big 500g tub of Dermeze – hate to pack it, but I need it. Maybe I’ll ditch it at some stage.

I’ve got all my insulin pens (15 of them) enclosed in a freezer pack inside an insulated bag. Can’t allow them to warm up – if they do, they’re only good for a week. I need five weeks’ worth. Likewise Byetta – only one pen, but it’s in its own freezer pack. If that gets hot it’ll be rendered useless. It’s a worry.

Getting a limo to the airport. He’s guaranteed to be on time. A bit more expensive $110 but he says he’ll turn up. Taxi companies may not.

Gotta go.

Tamanrasse, Algeria. I just like this shot.

The list of great Australian prime ministers:

Labor –

1. Gough Whitlam
2. John Curtin
3. Paul Keating
4. Bob Hawke
5. Ben Chifley
6. Bill Hayden would have been
7. Julia Gillard

Liberal –

There are none!! Everyone will say Bob Menzies. Longevity does not make for greatness. He did nothing except create the Liberal Party, and presided over an insular, complacent, arts stifling, male dominated, Royalty obsequious, England boot-licking, boring country. This is widely acknowledged, it’s not just my opinion.

Menzies and Harold Holt lied to the Australian people about the reasons for Australia’s entry into the war in Vietnam. Lied! The damage to our troops and the awful effects on the Vietnamese people are a disgrace to his memory.

McMahon was a stupid, slow thinking incompetent fool.

Gorton was a nice bloke but weak and perpetuated the insular Australia. He did nothing except try to work his charm on women.

Billy Snedden was another low competence, complacent joke.

Howard was and is a liar, a blatant racist, a monarchist boot-licker, the man who broke Australia’s heart over the republic. The outrage over his lies about refugees jumping into the water in the SIEV X affair will live in infamy.

Abbot is a low intelligence but rat cunning, lazy, climate change denying, lying (“no new taxes, no surprises”), obsequious monarchist (“Sir” Pete Cosgrove, how embarrassing!). There’s no way he will ever be on any list of greatness.

So all in all, all the talent, all the intellect, all the greatness, all the competence, all the visionaries, all the great leaders come via the Labor Party. Always have, always will.

Want my opinion? Just ask.

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At this time, this nasty Liberal government is running a Royal Commission with “Union Corruption” in its title. Nothing like pre-judging the outcome! They’ve just extended the time allowed by another 12 months, and done it very quickly. They haven’t found enough dirt, so they’re going to allow another year to ensure that they find dirt, by any means they can.

At the same time, in today’s news, Australia is being described as a “paradise for tax evasion”. White collar crime is rife! Almost all the country’s wealthiest people pay almost no tax! And this government has cut the funding to the Australian Crime Commission (ACC) to ensure that this wealthy, tax evading, corrupt oligarchic elite continues on its merry way. All big friends of the Liberal Party. Just where’s the corruption??

The attempt to pin charges on Kevin Rudd and Peter Garrett over the home insulation scheme deaths in 2009/10 — who employed untrained incompetent youths to install that metallised insulation? Greedy businessmen who saw a chance to make big, quick money, that’s who. Not Rudd or Garrett! Why should the ministers be blamed for the deaths when it was the employers who caused them.

Insider trading; failure to pay wages or adhere to award conditions; tax avoidance and the crime of tax evasion; breaches of Health and Safety laws; employment of illegals; endemic drug (cocaine) use and importation; extortion by supermarket chains; intimidation of small businesses; driving small competitors out of business — all crimes of the management class. Yet this government concentrates on trying to pin corruption charges on unionists! I spit!

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A cabin on the cruise ship. There will be T for Twin beds! We’ve been advised of our cabin number and the agent says we’ve been upgraded to a bigger cabin. Nice.

Three days to go. That’s a T word. Today I was at the shops thinking about a shopping list — Toilet paper; Tissues; Travel items i.e.Toiletries; check out a neat laptop, the T100; check prices on a neat camera, the Panasonic TZ60. An easy to remember list of Ts.

I got the first three items, but passed on the last two. The ASUS Transformer T100 is a very good idea – it’s a Windows laptop (Win8) with touch screen and full keyboard, but the 10″ screen detaches from the keyboard and acts as a tablet that I could take up on deck and use to read and write, using touch. At $499 with a full copy of Windows 8.1 installed, it’s well priced. T for Tempting. I’ve got the Samsung Galaxy tablet but the initial enthusiasm has worn off.There’s plenty I can do on a Windows laptop that the tablet can’t. Like video editing and making slide shows using Proshow producer.

Nothing like making a major decision on what to take so close to the trip.

The Panasonic TZ60 is a very slim all in one compact camera, usual specs, but with built-in GPS recording. That is, every shot has its GPS coordinates embedded for later use. But at $499 also, I don’t need it. No to that one.

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We’ve received an Emergency Notice from Princess Cruises. No-one who’s been to the west African Ebola states will be allowed to board, anywhere in the world. Fair enough.

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To the doctor again today to look at left leg. It’s not too bad, no skin breaks, but it looks bad and is very tender to touch in some places. Cellulitis. My skin is so thin that the interstitial fluid forces its way up to form lumps and can break through. The only answers are (i) massive doses of antiobotic, like up to 8 grams a day; (ii) pressure stocking or bandaging; and (iii) frequent massaging with Dermeze moisturising gel. That’s good stuff – messy, but it works. As a bonus, you get very soft hands.

My list of medications for the trip is long! I’ll be a walking pharmacy. I’ve realised that although I could stay on in Bali if I wanted to at the end, I will have run out of my meds. One in particular, Byetta injection. You can buy meds in Bali over the counter with no prescriptions but you can’t be sure they are genuine, and they cost about A$50 each.

I think I’m dreaming. I think I’ll be ready to head home after 5 weeks.

Crumbs, Air Asia offers a flight from Bali to Perth one way for $85. The catch is, it leaves DPS at 0630. The next flight at 1030 is $185. I’m a tightwad when it comes to flights and hotels, so I’ll consider the early flight. Hmmm.

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I’m working on the big computer again now. I found the problem with the hard drive — by bad luck, I chose a drive that was not formatted and the install disk didn’t recognise it. So then it was a new install of Win7, then install the backup software, then use that to recover the entire C: partition from my backup drive. All this took around two hours.

The result is that I’m back to the state it was in around ten days ago. I lost some things, but nothing I can’t recover. The lesson I’ve learnt is backup, backup, backup, every night! It can happen to you.

Bali 2010 – won’t be long until I’m back there.

Eight days to go to the cruise! Just collecting all the documents together, eTickets, boarding passes, luggage labels, hotel bookings, flights from Beijing to Hanoi and Hanoi to Bali, etc etc. My mate Jan gets nervous if he can’t see everything done. That’s OK, so do I, but it’ll be alright in the end is my motto.

I had a good comment about packing: lay the suitcase contents out on the bed, then take half the clothes and twice the money. <g>

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We all seem to be feeling post reunion blues, a flat feeling that it’s all over and a need to keep meeting. That’s fine with me. I think we all need some company. I do.

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I bought a new phone two weeks ago (HTC Desire unlocked for $138) but after 24 hrs just about threw it against the wall and went back to the old one. Too soft when it rang, couldn’t hear it, couldn’t seem to change ring tone, too hard to use generally, I was going to take it back and ask for a refund.

But funny, I tried it again yesterday and it seems to make sense now. Found the ring tones, found the volume, found the alarm function, found the messaging. All OK now. Nice 8Mp camera. I think it’s a keeper. Funny, that.

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Still working off the laptop. The main computer is dead as a dodo. New HDD, new install of Windows, another attempt to recover from backup. Tedious