In bed and asleep at 9pm, slept through to 4am, another hour snoozing until 5. Not good for acclimatising my body clock to local time (although it may work ok for Singapore) but lovely to get some proper sleep at last.

Sadly the Lido didn’t open for breakfast until 7am (unlike the 6am earlier in the week) but eventually I got fed. More scrambled egg.

The big treat of the morning wasn’t passing through attractive steep sided islands. It was the Captain ordering the forward bulkhead doors to be opened, allowing us onto the bow. Half the photographs I’ve taken during my first week on holiday have been taken in 90 minutes this morning.

It’s a sea day today so my plans were simple: Go to the briefing on the next two ports (Da Nang and Nha Trang), go to the History of Time and Timepieces (which will probably try to sell me a $15k watch, but should also be fun and interesting, and may hopefully finally help me understand a tourbillon) and nip straight from that to a history of Vietnam (as my current understanding is based entirely on war films, which are obviously historically accurate but do stray illegally into Cambodia from time to time. But that’s classified.)

After dinner I’m overdue going to one of the live piano performances, so I may take my book to Schumann’s Piano Quintet in E Flat Major, Opus 44. Unfortunately that’s on at the same time as Vietnamese Coffee Culture. But I’ll experience Vietnamese Coffee Culture in Vietnam, not on a boat sailing past it. Then to close the evening there’s an hour with a famous US comedian (that I’ve never heard of).

Such is life on board. It’s hard going, I might even have to make time for some lunch.

And so, at 9am, I was in a theatre to listen to wisdom regarding Da Nang. By then I’d already clocked 3km on foot. Not much compared to the 9km the day before but all I’d done was have breakfast and stand in the sunshine looking at small bits of land go past.

Interestingly the Captain’s decision to stay in port overnight was a very rare and unusual choice, made purely so that we could enjoy Halong Bay in the sunshine as it had been so overcast and wet the night before. The travel guide has been working these ports for a decade and never seen a ship’s Captain do that before.

Some of the wisdom received: Look to hire a driver for a full day, not for the individual journey. Expect to pay $15/hour subject to negotiation skills. Do not pay them until you’re back at the port, write down the agreed rate and get the driver to sign it.

Da Nang is apparently one of the worse ports for finding a driver. In the port itself they collude and charge 3-4 times a sensible price.

There is however a complimentary shuttle bus into the city of Da Nang. Apparently Da Nang was the first landing points for US troops and is now a resort that’s a good base for 4-5 days of exploring the local area. I’m likely to be there for 4-5 hours..

There’s a museum of Cham Culture, built by the French, but apparently it’s basically statues carved between the 5th and 15th century. There’s a pagoda. There’s a Ho Chi Minh museum, which has just taught me something new: Ho Chi Minh is a person, and the city (which I had heard of) is named after thing. The cathedral and temple look like interesting buildings, I might need to hunt those down. It does look like I’ll need to acquire a map, and also take a hat and water.

Hue is a 5 hour round trip, so I’ll skip that. The MArble Mountains are 5 miles south or so, Hoi An around 20 miles and My Son also a recommended spot to visit. Hoi An would be tempting to me except that it’s intentionally touristy. While I’m sure it’s charming and the old buildings a revealing insight into Vietnam’s history I think I’d prefer the relative honesty of Da Nang.

Nha Trang is another resort, and one used by the US as one during the war. Again, there’s a shuttle bus, and interestingly few things to go and see that it wouldn’t cover. Nha Trang is a tender port but in addition to the shuttle bus right where the tender docks there’s a National Oceanographic Museum of Vietnam. That does look worth a visit.

There’s also a bollocks big cable car over to a massive amusement park. I think I’ll take the shuttle bus to downtown then visit the museum before boarding the ship again. That’s probably going to be a longer port visit than Halong Bay and Da Nang.

I need to provide feedback on this guy. He’s the most useful resource on the ship.

Checking in for my remaining cruises is something I was told I could do via their website – it’s available through the satellite connection even if you’re refusing to pay $30/day for ‘net access. Having seen how painfully slow it is I’m even more determined not to pay. It’s like trying to access Youtube via a 28k modem.

Even sillier I don’t yet have a cabin number for the next cruise so even if I printed the luggage labels they’re blank. At least I could get that far through the process; the website’s stopped responding entirely for the other two. Then again the website is incredibly badly designed and written even when using my home connection, so I’m not sure I can blame the satellite entirely. Still.. 9 minutes for the homepage to load.

The history of time was poor. The presenter read from his laptop in a flat monotone, had limited and poor material and then tried to sell us a second hand Rolex for $16k. Nobody bought it but after it was handed around the audience I didn’t see it returned either.

It also put me off going to the history of Vietnam. I can’t handle broken English two talks in a row.

Dinner was nice. Another trip to the main dining room, another shared table. A couple from New Zealand, a lady who is probably from Scotland but lives in Australia and an American from Cleveland. They all went for the shrimp to start but I tried the Chilled Lumbia, rice paper wrapped pulled pork with.. stuff. It’s regional, or something.

Main was Beef Wellington, which came with mash, carrots and green beans. Maybe carrots and green beans travel well?

Dinner finished just in time to head to the venue with the Piano playing. The pianist wasn’t alone, he had a full string quartet with him, including the striking young lady I’d been admiring in the Lido the evening before. She sat down, spread her legs and thrust a large wooden instrument between them, but she plays the cello too.

Sadly their performance was horribly marred by the room full of people that insisted on clapping at every pause. I left them, found a safe corner in the main room and fell asleep. Someone woke me a moment before the comedy performance began, trying to get past to a seat. Ten minutes later I walked out, not in the mood to put up with a comedian that had poor patter, low wit, no rapport with the audience and the comic timing and charisma of a slug hiding under lettuce on your plate. To be fair he did make me half smile at one point but I could see why “pilot with CBC” was his claim to fame: I’d have rejected the pilot too.

Back in the room another arbitrary towel on my bed. Turns out they’re just to show off Asep’s towel folding skills. My apologies, I should have photographed yesterday’s ray.

According to the BBC World News, after reaching his century Joe Root was ‘caught LBW’. That’s the quality of news reporting with which I’m having to contend here.

Another two days’ worth of laundry then in bed to watch a film. Up early tomorrow for Da Nang!