{"id":278,"date":"2018-11-19T23:23:25","date_gmt":"2018-11-19T23:23:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/travel.stua.rts.co.tt\/wp\/?p=278"},"modified":"2018-11-28T04:46:05","modified_gmt":"2018-11-28T04:46:05","slug":"the-trang","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/travel.stua.rts.co.tt\/wp\/2018\/11\/19\/the-trang\/","title":{"rendered":"The Trang"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dawn brought a very pretty sight once I’d emerged from my cabin. I woke in darkness, but that’s because I don’t have a window, the sun already visible by the time I reached the deck. Waking up at 5am is because of the constant noise that occurs then. Looks like it’s not another passenger working their lavatory, it’s something deep in the bowels of the ship, almost like a boiler firing up. Maybe it’s a misfunctioning bakery oven, and it’ll catch fire again.<\/p>\n

The sea in the bay is impressively flat, no signs of the promised storm. The forecasts suggested there may be some rain today so I took my camera up and got some photographs before breakfast. Rather happy with one of them, if it works out.<\/p>\n

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For an hour I listened to people being called to tenders, so they could leave the ship. I’d decided to skip the early tranche this time, reach the shore after things started to open for the moment, see if I can spend the 800k in local currency I have on me. I suspect I’ll end up taking some back home, which is just darn bad planning.<\/p>\n

At least Cambodia has the US dollar as an official currency.<\/p>\n

A 40 minute wait for the tender to the boat, a 20 minute trip across the bay, 40 minutes waiting for a shuttle bus into town. I gave up, walked off the dock myself.
\n\"\"<\/a>
\nI found the Oceanographic Museum. Felt glad I didn’t go looking for it in Da Nang, because it’s 40 yards from the port gates here. 40k to get in, so less than two quid. Lots of fish and other forms of sealife, a big humpback whale skeleton and the real star exhibit: Their oceanographic maritime specimen archive. I has photographs. It’s awesome.
\n\"\"<\/a>
\nFollowing that I tried walking through the local port town. It’s a shitty little place and today it’s full of mud. I mean, literally. Looks like the tropical storm we just missed caused serious mudslides through the whole village, every street full of locals with shovels trying to clean the streets, the main road being dug out by heavy plant.<\/p>\n

I walked up a stream that doubled as the main path up through parts of the village. Small houses, 2-3 rooms each, open to the street, small children staring at me or saying hello. One precocious brat went, “Hiya, look at me! My name is..” but by then I’d moved on. The local old men were looking annoyed enough at my presence without stopping to talk to six year old girls. The young men didn’t care, they looked up from mending their mopeds and greeted me, a brief acknowledgement then went back to work. The women would greet me too, but sit there watching me pass before returning to their washing, cooking or digging through mud.<\/p>\n

A couple of dead ends then a small dog yapped at me. I didn’t have room to pass it so paused, wondering if I should risk it or not. An old man attracted by the barking appeared and told me using sign language I wasn’t welcome there. I smiled, said “Ok” and strolled back down the hill.<\/p>\n

Now sat in a cafe in which I’ve just posted the past few days’ travelogue update – but the wifi just dropped. Not sure if they’ve cut it off but I’ve finished my coffee anyway, time to head back to the ship. I’ll post this update from another country \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

There were local shops but they catered to the needs of the locals. Foodstuffs, beer, only a couple with tourist tat. Sat in the cafe a lady tried to sell me an ornate fan. They look good and I know a few dancers that would love one but I’m avoiding buying things that need carrying for another ten weeks. Most of the shops I couldn’t even enter though, they were still being cleaned out from the mudslide. One lady sat washing mud off bottles of water, her stock obviously caught and damaged. <\/p>\n

Back on board, eventually, vast consumption of warm water that’s safe to drink. The water tinkling down the hillside in the village looked very enticing but people (including me) were walking in it.<\/p>\n

To reach the dock I’d had to wade through mud though, so risked the ire of A&A by washing my shoes in the sink. I think I left it clean. I left my shoes in the shower, which may confuse them if they invade this afternoon.<\/p>\n

Lunch had to happen as they have the rum & raisin ice cream out. A little less of it now. Ice cream melts fast in the afternoon sun here but it was worthwhile, a chance to watch the shadows of the clouds moving across the bay. The sea is green under the sun but blue beneath the clouds, a constantly changing mottled pattern that I’ve almost certainly failed to capture.
\n\"\"<\/a>
\nTwo ports in a row now with limited ‘net access. At least I’ve finally found out the cricket result. Also sadly found out that a cat died, but not sure which one. A neighbour emailed me asking if I’d seen theirs, then mentioned that one’s been seen in the road but gave a description that could loosely fit theirs but would better match two other cats living nearby. One of them mine.<\/p>\n

Perhaps undiplomatically my email response pointed out that I haven’t seen any cats for 4-5 days, but may have been fed one. It’s true though, I haven’t seen a cat since Kowloon, and even there only in a pet shop.<\/p>\n

The good news is that cat cam will now be back online so I’ll see if I can check it from Cambodia.<\/p>\n

I was spotted leaving my room to go to dinner so on my return I found a towel animal sufficiently ornate that two towels were used.
\n\"\"<\/a>
\nDinner itself was in the Lido tonight, a table to myself and my book, no chattering idiots to contend with. They’d decked out the place rather nicely, an Oriental theme, the food options ranging from Chinese to Vietnamese to Thai. I opted for the Hoisin lamb stir fry with egg fried rice.
\n\"\"<\/a>
\nThe lamb wasn’t the best cut but it all tasted good and it was nice just strolling past the multiple counters seeing all the options. I did skip the substantial range of ‘Local Tropical Fruits’ although that did explain why three old ladies had walked past me with something weird and red on their plates.<\/p>\n

Returning from dinner I shared a lift with the only member of the crew that’s been anything less than lovely to me. The lady in question told me off a few days ago when I responded to the tannoy announcing that my tender was ready. “There’s a queue,” she told me, then when I raised my eyebrow followed up, “You need to join the queue.”<\/p>\n

I maybe caught her by surprise by responding with, “I’ve been waiting for longer than the people in the queue.” It was true, tenders are assigned by numbered bits of paper and the people ahead of me had caught the earlier tender. So nobody at all had been waiting as long as me for that tender, and the 45 minute wait had annoyed me.<\/p>\n

She’d either forgotten or forgiven me, exchanging pleasantries in the lift. She had a small bag with her, a rolled napkin with cutlery peeking out of it, probably a takeaway. I suspect it’s nicer to eat away from the passengers, enjoy her meal undisturbed. I left her to it.<\/p>\n

I’d noticed while out today that my camera bag is in danger of dying. The stitching on the handle is coming loose, and if that goes the whole strap will die. After a futile few minutes with my sewing kit I’ve made inquiries regarding either an onboard tailor that might effect running repairs or, failing that, the loan of a proper leather needle. Worse case I have a normal needle, paracord and duck tape but it’d be nice to have it more discreetly repaired by a professional. Even more comical option is to treat the camera bag as a nicely padded bag liner for my dance bag and just carry that around for the rest of the holiday. It’s nice to have options, even if most of them are a bit crap.<\/p>\n

Sadly my inquiries had remained unanswered long into the evening, so I’ll have to gamble with it tomorrow. I just wont put everything back into it, just the essentials.<\/p>\n

The evening has gone well. A film then along to the main stage for a mix of shows. The first was the awful comedian from the other night but I wanted to see the person that followed him so I stuck with it tonight. He was only on for 20 minutes, during which literally half the audience got up and left. Pretty direct feedback.
\n\"\"<\/a>
\nHe was followed by a pretty woman in a very sparkly dress. She was apparently born in Canada, raised in Ethiopa and lives now in England. I’d guess from her accent that she’s been there a while too. We weren’t there though to hear her delightful accent (and after 8 days surrounded by Americans, Australians, New Zealanders and various nationalities that also don’t have English as their first language I can now understand why the English accent is deemed so attractive). We were there to watch her play the piano.<\/p>\n

She’s good, and she wasn’t using sheet music for any of the 8-9 pieces she played for us. They just weren’t ones I greatly admired, and live piano only seems to work for me if I’m close enough (and the right angle) to see the fingers manipulate the keys. I wasn’t. So it was interesting but maybe not my thing.<\/p>\n

There was a half hour gap after that, during which I stayed in my seat and read my book. Almost all of the 40 or so people watching Naomi (the pianist) left and a dozen people that looked like off-duty crew members arrived. The next show was the latest event I’ve seen in the schedule throughout the entire cruise, but that’ll have been so that crew members could get to watch it.<\/p>\n

They’d want to because crew members were performing in it. Not the professional entertainers that were on the ship purely to put on shows and performances, but three girls from Guest Services, a couple of bar staff, three guys from Food Services and a member of the fire fighting team. Their show was billed as ‘Our Filipino crew share songs and dances from their homeland’. 30% of the crew are from the Philipines and their show consisted of a couple of songs and the sort of dances you’d see if you went to a local village and they put on a traditional dance for you. It was in other words crap.<\/p>\n

The music was terrible, the dancing basic, the singing passable. I didn’t care. They were all clearly having a lot of fun, it was high energy, they’d obviously practiced a lot. The dancing was choreographed and they did all stay in sync with each other, so I’ve seen worse (and at actual dance competitions too).<\/p>\n

It was nice to see the crew having fun. I guess when you’re away from home for 9 months you need a hobby and they’ve turned their amateur performance group into a show that a dozen passengers sat through. Indeed, they held the audience better than the ‘professional’ comedian.<\/p>\n

Heading back to my cabin I stopped for a drink (the only clean free water source on ship is the Lido) and took it onto the aft deck. Lights all around the ship at a distance, but the coast is only on one side. By breakfast that wont be the case, I think we’re heading up a river to dock. For the first time all cruise I saw the basketball court in use. It’s on the roof of the highest enclosed deck on the ship so I couldn’t see the whole court but it looked like two full teams playing for the win. At midnight. So this is when the crew come out to play.<\/p>\n

It’s the first time all cruise that I’ve been enlivened by life on board, forced to smile, see other people actually living and not just existing. Too many old people around. But that’s the trade-off for a cruise with interesting ports in interesting countries. Last day in Vietnam tomorrow, we’ll be spending 14 hours docked at Phu My (pronounced Foo Mee) and most of the passengers will be heading to Saigon. Me, I’m planning to translate tonight’s late night into a late breakfast and a leisurely stroll off the ship in mid morning or so. I do though doubt that I’ll spend the 750k I still have on me; my local post office is going to be confused by the time I get back and try converting everything back into sterling.<\/p>\n

I was still walking when my phone registered midnight, but since I’m tracking by the calendar day (which gets messy when switching timezone – New Year’s Eve could break things) 8km walked today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dawn brought a very pretty sight once I’d emerged from my cabin. I woke in darkness, but that’s because I don’t have a window, the sun already visible by the time I reached the deck. Waking up at 5am is because of the constant noise that occurs then. Looks like it’s not another passenger working […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-eighty-eight"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/travel.stua.rts.co.tt\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/travel.stua.rts.co.tt\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/travel.stua.rts.co.tt\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/travel.stua.rts.co.tt\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/travel.stua.rts.co.tt\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=278"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/travel.stua.rts.co.tt\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":331,"href":"https:\/\/travel.stua.rts.co.tt\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278\/revisions\/331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/travel.stua.rts.co.tt\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/travel.stua.rts.co.tt\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/travel.stua.rts.co.tt\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}