Currently we are on the Diamond Princess heading East out of Singapore Harbour. Can you believe we have been sailing now for almost 3 hours and haven’t reached the mouth of the harbour. We often feel amazed that we have sometimes over 40 ships waiting offshore at Newcastle to get into the harbour. That’s nothing as there are hundreds of ships moored in the harbour here at Singapore. It is such a beautiful country and city.

We blog predominantly for our own memories as it’s difficult to recall what you did 3 days ago on holidays while travelling to so many diverse destinations. Matching up the text with pictures and video clips is often the challenge. Sometime they don’t both go together, so often if you have read an entry go back and see if we have added pics or video’s. It takes longer to add the pics and videos so often they come after as at times I have to splice small segments of videos together to make one clip.

Bangkok was an amazing place with such a diverse experience of both poverty and wealth existing side by side. From Mercedes, BMW’s and condo’s wroth millions to people living in houses along canals filled with catfish and debris on piers that you’d be too frightened to sleep for fear of them breaking and you ending up in the canal. The Thai people are lovely and very spiritual being mostly Buddhist and very culture conscious having a lot of revere for their King (who is now 85 old and in a hospital/nursing home.

The life of these people is amazing as they work much longer hours than we do, from sun up to sun down and beyond. It was amazing to see the sheer volume of street vendors but similarly amazing to see the patronage given to these vendors by the Thai people. No only at lunch and dinner time but at breakfast, they were lined up at times which I found curious. Asking a Thai about this I was informed that Thai people eat out often. Some because they live such hectic lives working such long hours and others because they live in units that don’t have kitchens and are not allowed to cook in their units, so the eat street food all the time. We’re informed that often children eat in the car on the way to school with food provided by street vendors.

We found the taxis and tuc tuc’s in Bangkok to be very difficult to utilise. Taxis are so reluctant to turn the meter on for westerners always wanting to barter a price. This is OK when you have some idea the distance and what is a reasonable fare but very difficult for the new tourist to this country when you don’t know when you’re really being scammed. Saying to make sure the cabbie turns the meter on is useless – they won’t do it and will even refuse to take you if you don’t agree to a price with them, which is much more than they would get with a meter on. The Tuc Tuc’s insist on taking you somewhere you don’t want to go, so they are in the main not a viable form of transport. Mostly they want to take you somewhere they get a kickback before taking you to your destination, so not a good option if you want to get back to your hotel or to a restaurant in any reasonable time frame.

The food in Thailand is sooooooooooo good. I don’t know if we could come at the street food as the lack of refrigeration is a concern and the time the food sits there is a worry. To this end a number of French tourists boarded the vessel in Laem Chabang, Thailand and bought the Noro virus on board so heightened sanitization procedures ar currently in effect, The pens they use when you sign for buying a cocktail are placed in antiseptic after each persons use. The crew take it very seriously and we agree with their protocols fully. However, having been to a Thai cooking school and seen and cooked some amazing dishes been to really cheap restaurants where quality and hygiene have been great it is easy to see how these people have such energy and fortitude. People in their 70’s and 80’s are seen still working pushing barrows around the streets. I really loved Bangkok. The hotel we stayed at Novotel, Siam Square was first class. With nearby foot massages, affordable restaurants and a happy hour between 5pm and 7pm where all food, spirits and finger food are provided and all the Songkran (Thai New Year =Sa Wa ,de pe Mai)festivities right outside the hotel was just awesome.

Getting blogs updated on the boat is difficult. Although we have some 500 minutes Internet Time it is about as fast as the old 56kBps dial up we had years ago. It takes about 20 minutes just to check and reply to emails, let alone uploading data. So to this end we are more likely to upload text rather than pics or video, which we will do when we get the opportunity at Internet Café or Starbucks/McDonalds where we can get a shore connection rather than a satellite connection on the ship.

We currently heading north to Phu My in Vietnam in the South China Sea.

Aboard the Diamond Princess there are many attractions and things to do. One of the popular demonstrations is the Fruit Carving:

Enjoy.