Last night’s film was interesting. I’ll have to watch again and this time stay awake through it. My body seems to be on East coast of Australia time and not Vietnamese. Hopefully I wont shift body clock just as I shift location.

Up at 5am, a 5.30 breakfast (scrambled egg, sausage, bacon) and a quick peek out on deck at Da Nang.

More accurately, the container port outside Da Nang. It’s a good job there’s a shuttle bus, the town is some way off in the distance. Nice bridge though.

I didn’t have my camera so couldn’t capture the little fishing boats leaving the harbour, a big stretched net held out in front of them, threatening to tilt them forward into the sea. It looks designed to be lowered into the water like a scoop, then raised back up full of wriggling fish and oil covered plastic.

The hills around Da Nang are attractively bedecked with cloud but at grand level there’s another thick bank. so we get to play the game this cruise has demanded: Early morning mist or smog. We’ll only find out after lunch, whether it’s still there or not.

Quite a short visit, the boat docks at 7am and we’re gone again at 5.30pm. The shuttle bus service is less generous, running from 8am to 4.30. I’m ok with that, not planning to travel much on shore so a few hours will suffice. I’m still trying to work out whether to test the local food or not but the answer inevitably requires a menu in English.

In the event I skipped food. Mainy because before it was time to eat I was heading back to the ship. I like Da Nang, it’s a busy town with a large container port and sizeable naval base but it’s not a tourist destination and I’d already sat in a cafe with another Vietnamese condensed milk coffee and watched the locals pass by.

The locals were lovely too, smiling a greeting, getting on with their lives. A small girl, maybe 4-5 years old, horrified her mother by looking up at me, waving and saying, “Hiya!”

Obviously I horrified her mother further by looking down, waving and saying, “Hiya!” before carrying on down the street.

I did see the catholic cathedral. It’s rather small and despite being pink is pretty crap. Much nicer are the bridges, a wide river splits the town and numerous bridges of various designs cross it at regular intervals. I liked the one we went over:

Returning to the ship I had a surprise as we entered the docks. The crew were lined up on the lifeboat deck, their lifejackets on. It was only a drill but when I reached my room the lock was filled with a yellow notice.

I should provide feedback. I didn’t evacuate, I just popped into town for a coffee. I guess that was good enough.

The next test was the emergency generator. This would’ve been fine except that the lifts are all disabled during the test and my knees didn’t fancy the six floors of stairs to get back off the ship. I wanted to see if I can hunt down the oceanographic museum and find out how to spell it. Annoyingly during the brief period in which I had ‘net access on my phone I forgot to check the location, or even update my map for the port area. It now has Da Nang downtown cached but that’s not much use across the river and up the headland.

In the event I opted against random exploration in the baking sun, no pedestrian access to the area I needed to be in, no guarantee I could find the museum or indeed interpret the Vietnamese for museum to realise I’d found it. Instead a walk around part of the docs, photographs of fishing boats, enough sunshine for the day.

Back in my room I found out my tablet doesn’t have an SD Card reader and I didn’t bring a USB-C cable with me. So I can’t back up my photographs, easily, yet. 346 so far on my main camera, probably a third of them of fishing boats passing the ship here in the harbour. I took a risk and told my camera to copy the photos from one SD card to another, hoped I had them the right way around. I now have 792 photographs, including duplicates.

Finding coffee after lunch went terribly wrong. I got to the Lido ok, even managed to fill my insulated mug, turn and face the back of the ship, ready to return to my cabin. Sadly I had half the Lido in the way. Dodging an old lady with a walker I neatly ducked inside a crew member, slid past a dithering couple and found myself square on to the desert counter.

This has been an occasional post dinner haunt but not a lunch time temptation. Until today.

Coffee and a slice of lemon meringue pie (and a fork) is a full load to carry back to your room. I could have made it. I nearly did make it. I got so far that I’d almost turned away from the desert counter when the fateful words reached me.

“Ice cream, sir?”

Coffee, lemon meringue pie and a crispy ice cream cone with strawberry ice cream is officially too much to carry back to a room, let alone retrieve a key card to open it. Somehow I managed. That’s another 10km I need to walk off 🙁

Finished watching last night’s film. Proud Mary, in which an assassin befriends a 12 year old and protects them from violence. The story was different to Leon but still managed to mostly remind me just how much better that film is.

The onboard weather forecast is promising thunderstorms on Monday – when we’re in teensy titchy boats crossing the sea to reach shore. Awesome! I really hope that happens, it’ll be fantastic 🙂

Just after 3pm I went down to the main dining room to check out the afternoon tea. This turned out to be a choice of tea or coffee so I allowed myself to be led to a table and sat with my book. It’s a good job I took it, unlike the evening meals in the dining room there was no attempt to mix and match guests. I’d arrived alone and so I must clearly want tea on my own.

I had coffee.

A good afternoon tea must of course include small sandwiches, with the crusts removed. Indeed, this is the only occasion on which so childish a preparation could be even considered for an adult yet manages nonetheless to be compulsory for a proper tea. Hmm, writing that previous sentence suggests Jane Austen (whose works I am working my way through on this voyage) is influencing my writing style. That may not be a good thing. But back to the sandwiches, a good selection was offered, although lamentably lacking somewhat in the sandwich department: beef on toast, something fishy on something bready, more canape than sandwich.

Small cakes or small slices of large cakes are the next element of a good afternoon tea. A gloved waiter arrived at the table. a broad tray balanced neatly in front of him, a fine selection of small cakes. I generously allowed him to use his silver tongs to place a small Bakewell tart in front of me. It was perhaps too crisp at the base and too soft in the middle but for an American kitchen it was passable.

The final element of afternoon tea, and indeed the primary one should you be seeking a cream tea is a good scone. While eating the Bakewell tart another waiter appeared, a single plate on his tray piled dangerously high with miniature scones. He had jam and what may have been butter or cream (the butter on this ship is a tepid whitish colour instead of a rich warm yellow – and tastes just as bland). I declined, a scone has to be more than two mouthfuls. With a proper scone the first mouthful must scatter crumbs across the table, the person eating it and any nearby companions and the second mouthful must force a wistful realisation that the rest of the scone must be eaten because it tastes so good, despite the mess and the fact that the first two mouthfuls have left you quite full.

So although the basic elements were provided as an afternoon tea it’s rather a disappointment. Maybe this is how Americans perceive afternoon tea, failing to fully comprehend the nuance and delights inherent to the form. Hmm, I should macro that sentence with a placeholder where it currently reads ‘afternoon tea’.

If I sound cynical and acerbic it’s because I’m relaxed and in good humour, possibly due to the I had lemon meringue pie.

Also immensely tired. After a quiet dinner (Wiener schnitzel, no photograph) I returned to my room and fell asleep, waking up exhausted at midnight. Only 7km walked today so that wasn’t it – maybe the lack of sleep for the past week has caught up. Bedtime methinks.