Osaka

 

This is Saturday 1st April in Osaka. My laptop still shows this day as 31st March as it is based still on London time. But I had opened my entry at 7am on April 1st. As this difference in time records continues throughout the cruise it will eventually leave my laptop  out by one whole day. By the time  we reach Sothampton again I will have gained a whole day to my life. Fogg unknowingly experienced the same when he arrived in Liverpool as day early after his circumnavigation. I can take it, but my laptop will need readjustment. 

We had docked at Osaka port at 6am. The port and the ship were dominated by a giant ferris wheel and a large cargo terminal called the Tempozan Market Place. Again, we had to wait for clearance from the Osaka Port Authorities and again the inspectors spent a long time in the Medical Centre before they gave us clearance. In the meantime we had all been waiting for the news in the Neptune Theatre. When Sammie's assistant Tom announced at 10am over the ship's speaker that clearance had been issued and asked all those planning to leave the ship to gather in the Theatre, we all burst out laughing as we had waited there for nearly 2 hours. The coaches were parked on the quayside immediately adjoining the vessel's gangway. We were able to clamber on board without any interference from the Immigration Department.

The guide told us that we did not need to wear our masks on the coach. She explained that the worst of the covid pandemic had passed in Japan. However many people still wore face coverings, not because of covid, but as protection against hay fever, particularly at this time of the year. 

My first impression of Osaka as we started our tour was that this was a city of high bridges and flyovers with expressways laid out on toop of other expressways, sometimes upto three layers over the streets at ground level. The guide had proudly declared that Osaka was the City of Water or the city of 1000 bridges, but I would have settled for the city of 300 flyovers. Osaka has around 2.4 million inhabitants which makes it the third largest city in Japan and it is an important commercial hub and includes key commercial properties of national significance, such as the Mint and Stock Exchange, as well as the national headquarters of Sharp and Panasonic. However even these expressways are dwarfed by the modern office nad residential high rises which more than meet the challenge of sustaining such a heavy road infrastructure. Even though it was Saturday and so many office workers would have stayed home, the sense of claustrophobic intensity remains. Today was also the beginning of the new fiscal year in Japan so some of the offices were still open. Although the traffic was heavy there was none of he drama or street noises of India. Albina in particular drew attention to the cleanliness of the streets and the good condition of the roads.

Osaka is also the site of many cultural centres and administrative buildings built in the early 20th century in the European style, and then rebuilt after the destruction of World War Two. I noted the National Museum of Art, the Osaka City Museum of Fine Arts, City Hall, the Osaka Museum of History and the National Theatre. The guide explained that when it came to art and culture in their museums the Japanese preferred to see Western Artis, both classical and modern. If they wanted to admire their own art they would prefer seeing it inside their natural structures, such as their temples or shrines or in the architecture and decoration of their modern buildings.  

We stopped at a monstrosity of a building called the Umeeda Sky Centre, built in 1993, which is over 140 metres high. We were invited to view Osaka from the top. The building consists of two seperate high rise offices with 43 floors surmounted by a round structure with the viewing platform on two levels, indoor and outdoor. To reach that 43rd floor we had to go up an escalator to the fourth floor, and then catch an elevator with windows looking out at the surrounding city. From the top of the elevator, we had to go up several more floors in a narrow round escalator thrown diagonally from the 43rd floor  of one building and reaching up to the top of the other building. I noticed that there was a similar descending escalator reaching diagonally back down to the 43rd floor and the two pass each other in the same way as the one way escalators in Charles de Gaulle Airport. There were two levels at the top, one inside the uilding and outdoors in the fresh air. From either floor the views of the city and surrounding hills were indeed breathtaking, especially the sight of the main Yodo River and the many bridges across it. We could see at least three other rivers passing through the city. Inside the lower indoor viewing platform were some 30 large pictures of iconic buildings,both spiritual and secular, with similar pretentions of reaching out to the stars. These included the astronomical observatory in Jaipur, St Basil's in Moscow, St Peters in Rome, the Eiffel Tower and Macchu Picchu and so unashamedly ranked this building with its famus peers around the world. We were all impressed. after descending we could also pay our usual respect to the art of japanese gardening by strolling through an adjoining model Japanes garden, with waterfalls and the usual picturesque humped pedestrian bridges that are a necessary part of any garden landscape in Japan. The Sky Centre adjoined Osaka Main Station, which, according to our guide, is supposed to be a great underground shopping centre, but all I could see from the coach was railway tricks and a construction site. 

We drove around the city while the guide explained what we were passing, but as we did not stop, we were unable to photograph anything properly, and sometimes even to recognize what building or park was being announced by our guide. She listed buildings of note but little remained in our mind. We did not stop at Minami, a very trendy set of streets which I would certainly have enjoyed spemding an hour strolling through the crowds in the streets, and which adjoins the area with kabuki theatres and geisha dancers. Although we passed the large reconstruction of historic Osaka Castle, surrounded by high walls and a moat lined with cherry blossom and ginko trees, we could not even stop to take proper photographs, which was indeed a great disappointment. At the end of the tour at the port, we had a feeling that somehow the city had passed us by. I  sensed that Osaka was a confident brash city which saw itself not as a privicial centre but as a world city. It claimed to have the largest Harry Potter themed park in the world, the highest building in Japan standing at 3000 metres, the oldest Buddhist temple in Japan and the highest castle. When we returned to the port area the guide also claimed that the Kaiyukan Acquarium was the largest in the world.

Enough that when we did reach the port I was very frustrated by a 4.5 hour excursion where we had only one stop. Instead of stopping at various highlights in the tour, she showed us photographs from the front of the coach of manga cafes and food courts we could have visited. The tour ended at 2pm and there were still four hours left to take an individual trip to Minami or the castle, but each time it would have been risky as we did not know really know how to move around town.

However one genuine option was to stay in the harbour area in the Tempozan Market Place. Albina bought a few knicknacks. After that we bought tickets to see the famed Acquarium which was nearby. There was a 70 minute wait to get inside the acquarium so we bought the tickets and then used up the waiting time by going on a ride on the big ferris wheel which had actuallly been overlooking the Borealis. Peeking in from our gondola we could actually look down into our pool on Borealis as the roof to the poolside had been taken off. There were also further wonderful views of the city.

The Kaiyukan Acquarium lived up to its name. A lift took  us to the top of an eight storey building looking from the outside like a bright red and blue triangle. Then Albina and I slowly worked our way down past a series of living tableaux in the form of acquariums, some massive, and some quite small. We began the downward tour with scenes involving a mixture of land and water, starting with otters playing in a stream in a beautiful wooden glade. This was followed by penguins in the Antartic, dolphins and sea lions, and gradually moveing to purely acquatic tanks containing all kinds of fish and marine animals, sections of a coral reef, sting rays, spider crabs, turtles and jellyfish, as well as a whale shark and some ocean sun fish. 

The aquarium brochure says that it houses 30,000 marine animals in all. The largest tank, which covered fish from the Pacific Ocean, was 9 metres high and stretched through 5 floors. We took lots of pictures and often kept losing each other in the dark. After all the frustrations with the excursion our visit to the port market, the ferris wheel and the acquarium, more than made up for that.        

The Borealis was docked close by alongside the quay as we returned to it worn out but contented. As night drew in the ferris wheel above us lighted up with a kaleidoscope of changing colours. We sat in the pool side of our ship looking up at this massive structure and its rotating gondolas, seemingly returning the gaze we had given it earlier from on high.

Albina wanted to have a full makeover before we got to Mexico. So she booked a whole series of treatments for Friday week. After that we had dinner in the buffet restaurant and Albina retired to bed.  

I went up for my regular evening quiz but my team mates did not show, worn out apparently be thir trip to Kyoto, which was along 2 hour riide from Osaka. I was joined by a Norwegian couple but our joint result was pretty dreadful.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

Kanmon Straits

 Although I was too tired to write the previous day and thought to have an early night, I decided to stay up at least until 2 in the mornimg. This was because the Captain had announced just before midnight that we would be sailing along the Kanmon Straits between the Japanese islands of Kyushu and Honshu. In so doing we would be passing the city of Shimonoseki and a road bridge between the two islands at that point.

Sure enough at around 1pm we passed under that bridge which was so well lighted up that I could photograph it in the dark. It certainly looked impressive. Albina had watched the lights of Shimonoseki from our balcony and was convinced that some of the residences at the sides of the channels were deliberately flashing their lights at us. After all, our ship was now a TV celebrity in the eyes of Southern Japan because of its pioneering visit. 

At 7.30am, after a shower, I walked forward to the Observation Deck at the end of my corridor. However although both sides of the straits were still visible the channel was much wider now and each shore was obviously several miles away. A couple peering at passing objects with their binoculars had pinned their sight earlier on a black object visible in the water. On closer inspection this turned out to be a submarine with 2 people standing in the tower, they said. I wonder whose submarine that was?

Breakfast alone again, so this time I had a porridge and eggs benedict in the posh Borealis Restaurant. They even serve you a glass of white wine with your breakfast, whether you want it or not. I listened to a description this morning of the Hawaii excursions in a talk given by the Destination Desk. I noticed that Albina only had a tour organized for Honolulu. She had nothing organized for the islands of Maui and the hawaii Big Island. I got back to the cabin. Albina had slept most of the night which was very good news. But she was still sleeping now, which is not such good news. She put off any description of her next excursions for later. What about lunch today? Also later. Can I bring down any fruit crumble with custard please? Oh, OK then. 

At 3pm she got up, all perky and ready to move, She ate the berry crumble and custard and followed it up with the watermelon and apricots I had brought her down from breakfast yesterday. Now we are getting somewhere.

In the meantime Captain Pineda had announced that we were now leaving the island of Shikoku on the port side. So we are coming out onto the Pacific and will approach the three Japanese destinations from that side, starting with Osaka tomorrow morning.

Instead of dinner we decided to have our own tea ceremony, but not quite Japanese style. I prepared the tea and Albina served up the canapes presented each day by Fred Olsen Cruise Line kitchens. These canapes, always six in number, are served up every day and each with a different flavour. The kitchen staff who lovingly prepare them deliver them roughly around 4pm every day to every cabin in the top two corridors, and describe the contents with lip smacking details. It is obviously a work of great pride to them and I have to listen every day with great patience is they give me a detailed description of each one. By the time Albina asks "What did he say?" I will have forgotten. I am obviously a culinary philistine.

I had missed the talk on Stalin's library, a bizarre subject covered by Soviet historian Geoff Roberts. However, I did attend a classical concert for piano and Spanish guitar, where there was some sublime harmony. I had contacted the Guest Services and asked them to print out my lecture on Phileas Fogg, as it will be easier to edit anything if needed.

Tonight was formal night again but with Albina spending the whole day in her cabin, there was no point my upsetting her again by putting on my dinner jacket. I went for the halfway house, I put on a smart jacket with black edged trimmings and a tie. I thought I look good and so did Albina. I attended a very lively concert by pianist and vocalist Elias Hendricks, a classical singer who loves sole and pop music. He claims that there is still a lot of sole music disguised as pop, and listed Rihanna, as one camouflaged sole singer. He gave some excellent renditions of pop music delivered with a sole arrangement.

Time for the evening quiz, and again we only got 13 out of 15. No cigar.   

Kokura Castle

 Borealis arrived at 8am at Hakata Center Pier linked to the city of Fukuoka on the southern Japanese island of Kyushu. We crossed into the port area past a long and low breakwater and found ourselves facing an industrial port with high silos, though I am not sure what the contents of them are. The Japanese health authorities arrived with a number of boats that surrounded our ship, while their representative came to see whether we were complying with their quarantine and social distancing requirements. All those due to go on excursions sat in their face masks in the Neptune Theatre. Waiting, As time passed by we kept getting reports that the port authority inspectors were spending time in the ship's medical centre. Finally at 10am we received news of the all clear.

The significance of what had happened only hit us when we left the ship. Initially we made our way to the gangway at Deck A, below Deck One, where we had to face a camera for a temperature check. Albina was so small that I literally had to lift her so that her face was aligned with the electronic reader, much to the amuselment of the passengers behind me. We disembarked and walked past our staff photographer to the immigration centre. A first line of officers in dark blue uniforms took our passport photocopies, stuck the copy of a landing permit at the back and handed it back to us. Then in a second hall we individually presented our passport photocopiesa gain, which they scanned thoroughly and then took an imprint from our index fingers. Next we approached a third line of officers where we handed in our customs declarations and again had photos of our photocopies taken. By now we could hear a steady banging of drums. As we finally emerged outside the terminal building we passed three costumed drummers on our right and a sea of local photographers on our left. They called out to us as if we were celebrities emerging from a cinema opening night. There must have been at least ten of them. When I turned towards the drummers and gave them a double thumps up to acknowledge the greetings the cameras concentrated on me for a second, clicking away. 

We walked past them towards the numbered coaches in the courtyard behind them. Our staff were overseeing us getting in the right coaches for our different tours, accomapnied by the local guides. Albina and I were one of the first in our coach and got a seat near the front. We asked the guide what all the fuss was about with the photographers. It transpired that we were the first cruise ship to dock at the Hakata terminal since the pandemic. We are pioneers! News about our arrival was being recorded by local TV stations. Tarnished somewhat by our unexpected celebrity self-importance we left the port area for Hakata station.

 A short coach trip brought us to the nearest train station in Fukuoka, which is still called Hakata, like our pier. Apparently, Hakata was the old tradional name for this medieval settlement, while Fukuoka was a new administrative name for a growing industrial city of 1 million inhabitants. The city is somewhat schizophrenic about how it is called between its traditional and its administrative name. I supose it may be a bit like Brent being the new administrative name for a London Borough that combines the traditional names of Wembley and Willesden. In any case Fukuoka is the name for anything new like the airport or local industry, and Hakata is the name for more traditional entities like the port, the railway station and the Hakata Tokotsu Ramen soup. Also Fukuoaka is a relatively young city with a higher new demographic than other cities in Japan, which have an older shrinking population. 

Of course Hakata station may once have been more traditional but now it is one of those with access to the Shikansen, the bullet train, which sneaks across the country at 300 kilometres and hour, like a runaway electric spark that sizzles and energizes the whole country. The line from Hakata Station links up with the main island of Japan by a tunnel. The station lobby was very busy with plenty of shops and coffee bars. Incidentally I should add, from my previous experience with Japan, that every name in an official building and every street name, has an English equivalent to the traditional Japanese name. So you have no excuse to get lost. Once the tickets had been organized, we went up the escalator and lined up on the platform where our guide told us that our carriage would stop. In fact the carriage number was marked out on the platform. Obviously for reasons of safety. the platform is separated from the train tracks by a barrier and only a small gap is left opposite where the doors to each carriage would stop as each carriage only had doors at each end and none in the middle. We were told that, because the shikansen must stick to its timetable, and an annoucement of a late service comes even if the train is just one minute late, it is vital not to miss getting into the door on time. 

When the train arrived for us it had leapt in suddenly like a silent large lizard surprising its prey. Even though it was slowing down its speed, it could still drag you along in its wake. In fact what happened was that the train was shorter than our guide had expected. It shot forward to the further end of the platform. We all, whether with walking sticks or not, had to run forward to catch the carriage door in time before it closed automatically in accordance with its finely tuned tometable. In a moment of near panic the 48 members of our tour scrambled to fit into the single door in time. Luckily we all just made it with our guide getting in last. 

Inside, the carriage had a sleek appearance with a central aisle and three seats on each side. The city suburbs and the countryside swept past us in total silence. There was no shuddering or jolting as the train plunged forward to its destination. You could have poured water into a glass without spilling a drop. However we were all a little tense as we had been warned by the guide to be ready to exit the carriage as soon as our next station, Kokura, was announced, so as to be ready to leap out in time before the automatic door closed. At a given signal we all got up at least 2 minuted before the train stopped. We performed the exit exercise with flying colours as we mustered together on the platform. Such was our shikansen adventure. If you blinked you could have missed it. In all we had covered 70 kilometres in 18 minutes.

From the station a coach whisked us off to Kokura Castle. The surrounding town was called Kitakyushu. The castle was originally a sixteenth centrury wooden structure, with a high keep of five storeys originally built mainly for defence and surrounded by high battlements and a moat, which could flood the surrounding countryside if the castle was attacked. Although the history of the castle is so militaristic, to modern eyes these castles look like some white dream of sliced layer cake, with their quaint tiled roofs and wooden gables, styled to comply with a standard Kurosawa film. Kokura is typical of that description, except that the keep had been destroyed by fire in the early nineteenth centry and only restored long after the Second World War. Kokura had been the seat of first one noble family, the Hosukawa, and later by another, the Ogasawara, and the lords, or daimyos, had been instrumental in ensuring prosperity to the  region. The castle grounds included a shinto shrine, a garden and a picnic area surrounded by trees weighed down with the most exquisite blue and pink cherry blossom. This was in fact a perfectly timed visit as this week fitted into that regular slot each year that allows the cherry to blossom. This period lasts barely more than one week. After that it is gone for a year. Once again, as with the shikansen, but on a different time scale, if you blink too long, it will have gone. For the Japanese the short cherry blossom season is a time for national celebration and contemplation, as each renewal of the blossom means that winter is finally over, and a new year begins full of fresh promise.  

 

As we entered Kokura we came across a steep but short staircase of about ten steps, but with a staircase lift chair thoughtfully provided. On the first floor was a long colourful display of daily life in a mediaval Japanese village as it was preparing to help its lord to construct the new castle. Probably not voluntarily. Albina filmed the whole cavalcade on her phone. There was also a useful film in Japanese, but with English subtitles to describe why and how the castle was built and expected to resist attack, and giving a short history of the building and its restoration.  

                                        

There were also wax images of samurai sitting crosslegged in their traditional dress. Albina, like many of the other passenhers, posed for a photo just sitting amongst them. You could also pose by a palanquin, or facing a leaping swordsman waving his sword at you, or sit with a painted umbrella in a grove of false cherry blossom trees. 

There was also a dramatic painting of a prowling tiger. At the top of the castle is an empty room on the fifth floor that now serves as an observation platform to view the city and the surrounding countryside and distant mountains. Everywhere the wooden steps from floor to floor are very steep. However hidden away discreetly on the first floor was a modern lift that could whisk you off to all the floors. We noticed  visitors stopping the lift en route to the top to catch the lift going up, after complaining that they had been unaware of the lift and had worn themselves out using the stairs.

We drove off to dinner in a restaurant and many of us inwardly groaned when we heard that dinner would only be served in lunch boxes. However lunch boxes in Japan is a world apart, the latest word in elegance and haute cuisine. We sat at round tables at around ten people per table in an elegant dining room with 10 chandeliers. Our table included Ranald and Sharon, who were also on our tour bus, as well as Albina. Waiting for us was a traditional bamboo bento box, containing a single portion of a balanced Japanese meal in four little compartments. These included some plain rice, some breaded pork, tasting almost like spam but more delicate, two pieces of fish, and assorted vegetable and fruit side dishes. Even though much of the food had a taste with which we were unfamiliar, our table generally enjoyed this culinary experiment. We were less keen on the savoury egg and noodles pudding, but happy with the sweetmeats and jasmine tea that followed. 

The hotel was obviously a luxurious five star establishment, so posh that it even had warmed toilet seats. It also had the most beautiful garden, with an elegantly shaped pond populated with koy, little curved bridges, steppong stones across the pond, and plenty of beautiful small green trees and shrubs, that looked like they had sprung to life out of a coloured Japanese picture book. Thoughtlessly, following in the footsteps of Sharon, I had stepped out on the stepping stones across the pond. I found after the third step that each stone was not quite equidistanced from its predecessor, that the stones were wet and slippery, and that not all the stone services were flat. Pride prevented me from turning back so I gingerly stepped forward with my heart in my mouth. I have a poor sense of balance and I could feel myself swaying with each step, especially over the longer gaps. As I almost reached the far side in safety I was suddenly aware that Sharon, who had crossed earlier, was taking a picture of me. Luckily, the last two steps were easier, but I was glad Albina did not see me make that attempt, as she would have soon given me short shrift. 

                                

Back on the coach now we headed back again to the parking slot below Kokura Castle. We visited the wooden 500 year old Yasaka Shrine built by the Hosokawa lord who first raised the keep. First we entered through a metal torii gate, followed by a wooden one. Entering throgh a torii gate is a form of purification as we cross over from the material world into the spiritual world linking us to heaven. It reminded me of a Harry Potter story where entering through an open door frame indicated death, a tradition Rowling must have picked up from ancient Eastern rites. We followed down an avenue of trees towards a courtyard with an attractive wooden stall. Here one could intensify the purification by bowing twice, letting water pour on first your left hand, then your right hand, then your mouth, and finally your left hand again. After that were supposed to be ready to attend the shrine. 

The shrine was guarded by two fierce dogs, one with mouth open and the other closed, to encapture all knoweldge thst lies between the first and last letter of the Japanese alphabet. At the shrine itself the Shinto tradition allowed us to throw in some coins and ring one of the bells to make the gods aware of our presence and our wish to ask for good fortune. This shrine was dedicated to the god of marriage to whom this shrine was dedicated. You then bow twice, clap your hands twice and make a wish, for good health, for a good partner, or merely to pass exams. What I wished for was to complete the cruise with both of us retaining our health and our sanity. Albina also made a wish but did not say what it was. Ritual is everything in Japan. Even if you don't believe in an after life, or in reincarnation, the fact that you have undergone this ritual, you feel all the better for it.  

We were then invited to a traditional tea ceremony. It took place in a wooden structure adjoing the shrine. It was an invitation to us foreigners who had come to this island to learn the Japanese way of life. We were split into two so that we had some twenty of us sitting in the hut attending the ceremony. It was very much an intimate chamber affair. Four ladies in traditional kimonos performed the ceremony offering us a cloying sweet cake to deaden the impact of the bitterness of the powdered green tea. After that the tea is served to us in a decorated porcelain bowel, which you are supposed to turn around drink twice and then slurp it up with obvious satisfaction. Actually the green tea we were served was not that bitter, but it was certainly strong. One of my lady passengers near to me kept asking what else had they added to the tea to make it so strong. "Nothing," the ladies replied, "It is just green tea." "But it is so strong," the passenger objected. Well, that is the real deal. Your insipid English green tea cannot be compared to it. We thanked them for the green tea and they thanked us for accepting their hospitality. With more intense bows and expressions of gratitude we extricated ourselves from the rea room and allowed the other half of our group access to the charming ceremony. 

Adjoining the shrine was another one of these beautifully shaped Japanese gardens with steep steps leading down to a pool with the obligatory koy, and the obligatory humped bridge. After taking some photos of each other in the garden, we willed ourselves past the souvenir shop and the little hot food stalls, towards the coach. On the way I passed a young couple in traditional Japanese dress being photographed. They were probably on their way to the shrine to obtain a blessing. 

We returned to Fukuoka. As we were returning by coach it took us 1 hour and ten minutes to get to the port, whereas the outwatd journey only took 18 minutes. But the journey back confirmed the high quality of the roads, the sensibe level of driving (not one car used a horn), the good quality of the housing in the residential blocks, where, unlike in Hong Kong, the air conditioning unit was discreetly hidden behind their balconies. Not forgetting the overall cleanliness of everything we approached. All in all this part of Asia is generally cleaner than its European counterparts.  

In the terminal there was a quick and efficient check on our photocopied passports with their attached landing cards, and then we were back on the boat. Exhausted mentally as well as physically after a fulfilling day.

Along the Ryukyu Islands

 Wake up to a calm sea, a die down of the wind and still a low temeperature. Obviously Sammie had failed to book an improvement on that score.

We are continuing northwards with the Japanese Ryukyu Islands to our east. Tonight we should reach the Hugashi Suido Strait between Tsushima Island and Kyushu, the big southern island of Japan. Tsushima Island was the site of Japan’s great victory over the Russian Baltic (yes, Baltic!) fleet in 1905, which ended the Russian-Japanese war and led to the first constitutional reforms in Tsarist Russia. We are all counting on a similar Ukrainian victory to lead to a more constitutional regime in Russia after Putin. However, dream on. It ain’t gonna happen. Not with China guaranteeing Russia’s survival.

That morning I attended a talk on the Empire of the Sun where the speaker Geoff Roberts explained how and why Japan started that disastrous war which led to firebombing of Tokyo and Hiroshima, after 8 bloody years of conflict. He listed the role of autarky, militarism, anti-Communism and a form of imperialism, justified in their eyes by the fact that they were destroying and replacing European imperialism. Their aim, after being bogged down in a war in China, was to set up an economically self-sufficient area in Southeast Asia covering Indochina, Philippines, Burma and the Dutch East Indies. The attack on Pearl Harbor was an attempt to prevent the United States from interfering in this expansion. In the end, although the Japanese were initially militarily successful, it proved a massive miscalculation of course.

After the lecture, at which I did not fall asleep for once, I went along to the Ocean Bar and watched family teams compete in the Indoor Kurling competition. There were around 30 people participating. It was a simple adaptation of an outdoor Highland game to be played in the comfort of a room on a luxury cruise ship. One of those taking part was Helen, one of the many activities she gets involved in. I have to admire how the different activities in the ship, no matter how trivial, manage to keep passengers occupied on those long uneventful sea days that stretch way into the future.

I went for a bracing walk on the open upper deck. The sun had come out but the wind had not yet died down. Eventually I moved into the Observatory to get out of the wind. There I watched the Dance Class practice some new moves to waltz music. It was a great way for couples to maintain their romance by refreshing their dance moves together. It was something I would have loved to do with Albina but regrettably her physical infirmities make that impossible now. I could only observe these couples, largely in their fifties and sixties, with a certain amount of envy. I watched them shuffle around the dance floor at various levels of ability, but all managing to cement their relationships closer. Some ladies had come here without any partner, and I could see them imitating the moves to the music at the periphery, hoping perhaps that their partners, currently enjoying themselves elsewhere on the ship, could be taught these moves directly by them sometime later. I wished them luck.

The bracing walk in the open had tired me out. After we had lunched together, we both dozed off in our cabins.

I got a note from Sammie provisionally fixing my lecture date for April 14^th. That will be after the Hawaii excursions, when we will be sailing across the eastern Pacific. That suits me well.

As we had a high tea again Albina and I skipped dinner for the third time. Only three of us for the general quiz tonight in the Morning Light Bar, as Helen and Tony did not make it. The questions seemed easier than usual. So much so that we ended up with 15 out of 15. Apparently, there were four teams in our situation. We were asked a tie breaker question. When were cards, pom poms and drums added to the majorettes’ regular equipment? We guessed it was the 40s. Our four teams were asked to have one person stand up. Ranald did for us. First, the quizmaster asked all those who put down before 1920s to sit down, One team rep sat down. Next, he asked all those with an answer from the 1950s onwards to sit down. That left only Ranald standing and someone in the Sports Bar whom I could not see. The quizmaster ran over to us and to the other team to check our written answer. Then after a bit of a dramatic pause and som  e unnecessary verbiage he announced that the right answer was the 1930s. We had lost. But certainly nothing to be ashamed of.

Covid restrictions return

 

This morning the sea was calmer. There were none of the jolts and bumps we felt durung the night. No sight of land on either side, altough I did espy lights on the Chinese side when I woke in the middle of the night. No sign of any vessels either, whether commercial or military.

 I noticed that a number of cabins in our corridor had received their tickets for the Japan excursions. As we had not received anything I thought I ought to check this out with Destination Services. When I got there, I came across a short queue and a rather loud and complaining passenger trying to get his refund for not taking part in the Singapore by night tour. We all listened with embarrassed silence as the guest rattled on about not being treated with respect and demanding to know why the refund promised him the day before had not yet materialized on his account. “I’m speaking,” he shouted like a real arsehole as the clerk, as the poor man was politely trying to offer him an explanation. “I am the customer, you’re the staff” the irate man continued, “I want this sorted now while I am standing here.”. The clerk, who I suspect was Filipino, tried to point out that the account would be amended as the entry had been made, but difficulties with the internet still prevented that from being translated into a change in the account. Every third word he said was an apology, but he eventually convinced the boor that the account would probably be corrected the same day. We were all quietly muttering to each other in the queue, but in the end the man behind me let rip, “Come on man, there’s a queue here, get on with it,” and when the difficult passenger actually left, we all let out a polite but still audible cheer. When I got to the clerk, he told me that the tickets would definitely be with me as soon as the maid had done the room. I thanked him for his patience and politeness. The incident was remarkable in that it was so rare that the usual relations between passenger and crew had unilaterally broken down.

I went for a walk around the promenade deck still faced with a cold strong wind. Others too were buttoning up and marching around the ship. Some casually happy to exchange a quick greeting and some with an intensity etched on their faces that brooked no chance for anyone to interrupt their daily ritual. Each time I walk around I come across a group on the starboard deck near the prow whom I call the day watch, as they stand their braced against the cold, talking to each other and making sweeping movements with their binoculars as they observe the horizon with great intensity. “What are you looking for/” I asked one of them today, “birds or ships?”. “Whatever we can find.” He replied. I guess most of the time they find nothing. Here in the East China Sea a freighter or tanker appears about once an hour. On the far horizon “Happy hunting”, I thought. I returned briefly to the cabin. Albina was still dozing in the bed, having been up all night. Also, our Japan tickets had now  . arrived.

I came to the library for my meeting with Sammie, the Entertainments Manager. At close quarters she is as charming and as charismatic as she appears in public. She appeared more business like in her glasses, as mostly she does not wear them on stage. I confirmed to her that my lecture is ready now and takes me about 35 minutes to read aloud. Even with some interruptions and technical delays during the presentation I should be able to fit it all in within the required 45 minutes. She had not yet found a slot for me but said she should be able to do it before we reach San Francisco. She said that as soon as she had allocated me on her timetable I will be able to contact Tom, her right hand man, and he would assist me with the technical details to do with my pictures. I am especially keen to have my two world maps showing our route and Fogg’s route around the world together on the screen, with one on top of the other. I also mentioned to her the very positive article about Fred Olsen cruises being popular with their loyal clients which appeared yesterday in the Daily Telegraph. Last thing, I praised her organizing skills and asked her jokingly if she could arrange for some warmer weather. “I shall put it on my next agenda,” she grinned as she answered.

On my way back to my cabin I ran into a couple I know, probably returning from the poolside. She was dressed in a rainproof jacket, and he wore a T shirt and had wrapped a towel around his midriff. “Been swimming?” I asked tentatively. “Far too cold for that,” she replied. But they had been in the jacuzzi and did not want to face the low temperature as they avoided emerging quickly. “Anyway,” she said. “I’m dressed for the winter, and he’s dressed for the summer,” she added.

At his daily midday bulletin which he read over the tannoy, Captain Rommel Pineda delivered a shocker. That evening we are entering Japanese territorial waters. In accordance with the Japan International Cruise Committee guidelines, everyone on board, crew and passenger alike, must wear a face mask and respect social distancing on the ship while it is in Japanese territorial waters, starting with 6pm tonight. That will be very socially awkward, after not wearing a mask compulsorily for nearly 2 years. Does that mean o more shows in the theatre? Will there be social distancing in the View buffet restaurant? Sammie had not given me any hint about this. It would be very difficult for her to reorganize everything. Hopefully our 10pm General Knowledge Quiz schedule will not need to be changed.

Albina and I went for lunch at 1pm. The buffet restaurant was so cold she put on a woollen jacket, something she might wear in London for late autumn. Then I tried to get to the Indoor Shuffleboard contest in the Morning Light Lounge at 2pm, but, unfortunately, I arrived too late to be registered. I had been busy trying to find a TV channel for her to watch. There were around twenty contestants and each item consisted of a couple. Even though I wasn’t playing I watched the play off from the side-lines. I joined Albina again for high tea where Albina stuffed herself with banana pancakes with maple syrup and I enjoyed some rolls of pulled pork and a couple of scones with the usual trimmings. That may sound like overindulgence, but our undeclared aim was to avoid dinner at a later hour. It seemed to be the healthier option.

After 6pm we were also obliged to wear facemasks in every public part of the ship. It was dispiriting at first, especially as it was to last until the final excursion to Tokyo six days from now. I sensed that most passengers were wandering around downcast like muzzled dogs. It was a reminder of the bad old days from which we had all now psychologically recovered. However, we understand that if we did not impress the Japanese health authorities coming aboard the day after tomorrow at Hakata, we could be refused entry to Japan altogether.

The perfect antidote to this gloom was the Artist Paintbox show put on in the theatre by the redoubtable Borealis Theatre Company. Again, it was not just the choreography and the athleticism, not just the vocals and the astonishing costumes of which all ten performers had to change their clothes about 7 or 8 times. It was also the sound and light show and the depiction of some twenty songs in rapid succession depicting different colours. Every song had a colour key to it with appropriate lighting and costumes to match:  Mr Blue Sky, Black is Black, Pink Limousine, Nights of White Satin, Yellow Submarine, Whiter Shade of Pale, Show Your True Colours, to name but a few. It was exhilarating to watch and to listen, and it cheered the masked audience no end.

Back to the cabin and Albina showed me new instructions delivered to us on Japan, this time on how to complete the individual landing cards and customs declarations. The immigration section of the Borealis had done most of the hard work. Funny thing is that everyone on the ship has to complete it, including those not leaving the ship. That even includes that handful under quarantine in their cabins. I know of only one passenger who is ill and I ignore the rumour mill concerning the total number. Albina and I completed and signed the key documents, and I submitted the landing cards to Guest Services on my way to the Quiz Night at the Morning Light Lounge.

As for quiz night itself we scored a miserable 7 out of 15. Perhaps because Ranald had not joined us. Must remember to put my watch forward again before I go to sleep..

Into the Taiwan Strait

 Borealis Monday 27^th March 2023 Monday

I got up this morning still unable to process my photos or to enter my Hong Kong blog on the internet.  The weather is cold and there isa considerable swell so you can feel the ship roll as you move across it to breakfast. Albina said it had been even more choppy during the night while she stood on the balcony. I was not aware as I was fast asleep.

I had a more filling breakfast than usual and then attended a lecture. The subject was the China-Hong Kong Nexus. I am sure it was very informative. I particularly remember the chart the speaker showed depicting the enormous Chinese diaspora around the world in the late XIXth century, but not much else. It was the sound of clapping as he ended his talk that woke me up. I felt like I had been drugged. I went downstairs to Group Services to complain about the poor internet access and then changed £70 into yen. Unfortunately, they did not have any smaller denominations than 1000 yen.

As there was a film in the Auditorium at 12.45, I suggested to Albina that she can get up and have lunch at 12. Then I went for a leisurely walk around the ship on Deck 3 in the hope that the cold and the strong wind would come as a friend and wake me up. Hardly. I treated the wind as an alien force that needed to be avoided and returned to the comfort of the internal temperature after just two laps. The seas were heaving mw and the waves were 3 metres high. Each time we took on board made us swerve and wobble like drunks.

We had lunch together at last and then watched the film, Downton Abbey, a real tsunami of sentimentality and nostalgia, with intermittent scenes of a film being recorded in the Abbey and a trip to a villa in Southern France, inherited by the grandmother after an “innocent” fling with a French aristocrat. There were tears to be shed and, by God, we shed them. Luckily, I had brought a small packet of Kleenex.

After the film we made our way to the photographic shop and picked up some snaps of ourselves made by the official photographer of the cruise in Singapore, Vietnam and Hong Kong.

We enjoyed a high tea, which is normally Albina’s favourite meal in the day. Then backed to our cabin for me to finish preparing the 31 photos are needed for the lecture. I thought of a title too. Borealis in the Footsteps of Phileas Fogg. We watched a murder mystery on the telly and this time we both ended up without a dinner, as time had run out and were not so hungry.

Out quiz team was there in full, and we stormed through to 13 out of 15. A respectable losers’ score, we thought. We did not know that cynophobia was a fear of dogs and that a collective name for frogs was army. To our amazement the usual know-alls in the other teams got even less than us. We had won! We were presented with our second bottle of champagne, and we posed for a group photograph. I think one rule that we set for ourselves is paying off. If you are making a reasoned guess, stick with it and don’t second guess. Avoid any crossing out on your sheet. It is working for us.

This evening we sailed into the Straits of Taiwan. Somewhere in the dark Borealis will be fumbling its way past the watchful spy cameras of the Chinese military and the American Seventh Fleet. Let us hope no one mistakenly takes a pot-shot at us with one of their laser beams, let alone one of their missiles. Am obviously getting jumpy.

Hong Kong

 

Waking up to an overcast sky. So a long vessel near the horizon.Thought it was a warship. After checking with my binoculars I found that it was an exceptionally long Cosco container ship. I must be getting jumpy.

 Hong Kong is a rich and lively city but with very sad suburbs full of anonymous high rises. Yet the landscape is spectacular and the way that residential blocks are left perched on sheer mountain slopes is quite dazzling. As the Borealis made its way to the harbour in Kowloon we were faced by a forbidding regiment of such miserable looking residential 30 storey high rises on Hong Kong Island, which appeared to be giving us a negative vibe.

We docked somewhat later than had been announced and we had foreseen a complicated process through Hong Kong immigration. After all, we had had to submit to a covid test and photograph the result, as well as complete a landing form in advance, and we expected similar treatment to what we had undergone in Singapore. To our surprise we entered the cargo terminal and were simply waived through without any fuss. We were able to reach our coaches without being stopped by a single official. We had been urged to keep a photocopy of our passports but even these proved unnecessary. So far so good. 

We drove first past those dismal suburbs and through several tunnels including the 1.8 kilometre long Cross Harbour Tunnel and climbed through a zig zag of steep mountain road to reach the top of the highest point in Hong Kong, Victoria Peak. We noticed that the high rises seemed to be accompanying us as we climbed, though often with a somewhat more affluent appearance the higher we went. Some 40% of Hong Kong’s 7.5 million inhabitants live in the more mundane communal skyscrapers, piled on top of each other, with no access to gardens or even parks in the inner suburbs, and displaying their air-conditioning motors and their washing to their immediate neighbours at the same high level a few hundred metres further on.  I understand that their rent is around US$250 per month, which does not sound too expensive. Depends what their income is of course. Those on the higher escarpments, just as those near the trendier city centres, are living in private more expensive residential blocks. Yet even as we climb to the top, thinking that despite the low rain clouds we would be able to find an isolated viewing platform at the peak, we were surprised wen we got there, that this “isolation” was shared with two retail galleries, a Madame Tussauds waxworks museum and a funicular railway station at the top as well. Our coach stopped there for 45 minutes for us to take in the view and the shops with their outrageous prices. 

                        

The view itself was breath-taking from whichever side of the peak you looked out from. It covered the main urbanized area in the valley below, including the green turf at the plush and historic Jockey Club, Victoria Harbour and the channel beyond, Kowloon itself and even a chunk of the China mainland. The sight of the dense housing was broken up by the greenery of those sections of the mountain that had not yet been developed. Somehow this level of development at such a high level leaves me thinking how much more exploitation can the soil and rock of this mountain take in the face of some future extreme typhoon. After all, the climate is deteriorating, the latest UN climate report expected under present trends for the world temperature to be 2% higher than in the nineteenth century. I have seen similar modern high rises hugging mountain slopes in Monte Carlo, and I would not live there for all the tea in China.

Then we moved back down through the high hills towards sea level and stopped at the Repulse Bay Beach for a comfort break. I spotted one of those high private residential blocks overlooking the beach with a large space cut into the lower part of the building like a space for a door. I had heard that due to Chinese superstition architects often build some of the more prepossessing buildings with this kind of gap to allay suspicion that the evil spirit, or dragon, resting in the hills behind the building will still be able to draw water from the Bay through this huge aperture.

We drove back through two tunnels to return to Kowloon by coach and were able to obtain fleeting glances of Nathan Road and The Peninsula Hotel, which is Hong Kong’s answer to the Raffles Hotel. Next, the coach drive way out to the viewing platform for the 2 mile long Tsing Ma Bridge, a beautifully designed suspension bridge, the second biggest in South East Asia, which links road and rail from Hong Kong to its new airport. We stopped for a comfort break as well. I have to say that Albina and I were very impressed with the toilet facilities, which were pristine clean and had automatic sensor flushing. Certainly, in terms of overall hygiene and lack of litter in the streets Hong Kong ranks very highly indeed.

The coach returned to the city centre and parked next to East Tsim Sha Tsui metro station on Chatham Road in Kowloon. Passengers were invited to leave the coach if they still wanted to explore Hong Kong further, or they could stay on the coach and return to the Borealis on the Kai Tak terminal in Kowloon Bay. Shuttle buses were to arrive at the same sport every half hour between 3pm and 8pm. Albina chose to return. I chose to stay in Hong Kong a little longer to explore the Victoria Harbour area and Nathan Road.

One of the positive oddities of Hong Kong is that so many of the traditional streets still retain their English names. Considering how intensely effective the Chinese Communist government has been in suppressing democracy and freedom of the press in Hong Kong and in challenging aspects of British culture and European values in the former colony, it is not surprising that Hong Kong’s reputation as an international financial centre has suffered. In the last year Hong Kong has slipped from 13^th to 23^rd place on the Global Power City Index, a very dramatic and significant fall. It seems strange therefore that with all these changes, the key road to Victoria Peak remains Stubbs Road and that Kowloon is criss-crossed with roads still named Salisbury, Nathan, Jordan, Chatham, Cameron and Kimberley. Even street names such as Peking and Hankow remain on the maps even though the former anglicized version of those cities’ names have long since been changed in mainland China. In any case, for Europeans like us, it is convenient.

Walking up and down Nathan Road is a delight, as you share the vibrant sounds and smells of China’s young as they mix and share the streets with tourists. Our guide had said it had  some 6000 shops, obviously an exaggeration, but he could have been referring to the surrounding district. I was puzzled by how many young Chinese I saw wandering the streets wheeling suitcases. They did not look like someone looking for a hotel as they seemed to sight-seeing and taking photos, while encumbered with their metal suitcases. A puzzle. Nathan Street is marked by smart clothes shops and jewellers, amidst the banks, galleries and hotels. Most of the food shops are off the street in side roads (still with British names). 

                            

I walked down to the southern end of Nathan Road, took a picture of the posh Peninsula Hotel, and crossed the five lanes of Salisbury Road to walk along Victoria Harbour. There was a superb view of the esplanade on the Hong Kong Island opposite dominated by the highest building of all, the highly visible Central Plaza tower, seemingly adorned with perpendicular organ pipes. Meanwhile, on my side of the harbour I was able to wander round the outside of the Hong Kong Space Museum with its large white egg-like dome, the Hong Kong Museum of Art and the Cultural Centre, as well entering the large beautifully decorated K11 Arcade which is the size of a large department Store.

I then returned to Nathan Road and walked northwards past the stores, hotels, and jewellers. I stepped into a couple of the side roads and tried my luck by eating lunch at a tiny Chinese restaurant where I ordered a fish in a Ramen-style soup bowl full of the most fiery spicy soup imaginable. I was determined to make a go of it all the same and I picked at the fish and the accompanying rice and steamed green vegetable with my chopsticks. The sweat was pouring off my face and I had to keep blowing my nose with a paper tissue, using the plain rice to deaden the effect of the soup, until in the end half the bowel was empty and all the fish it contained, and the accompanying vegetables had been eaten. This little meal set me back 43 Hong Kong dollars, which must be around £7.

Enriched with that experience I returned to Nathan Road and walked past an elegant white mosque endowed with four minarets. Apparently, it was the Kowloon Mosque and Islamic Centre, the largest in Hong Kong. Adjoining the mosque were some carefully decorated steps, quite steep in fact, shaped to appear to be the backdrop to a picture of a garden. 

At the top of the stairs was Kowloon Park. The park was an unexpected and unplanned joy. Like other parks in the East, it was divided into separate compartments which included a Chinese garden, an aviary that I had no time to visit, a number of beautiful ponds centred around tall fountains, a sculpture garden and a collection of bizarrely placed hedges at waist height which purported to be a labyrinth. Hardly a challenge when compared to Hampton Court. There was a playground for children, an ornamental pond with some golden koy, and, most memorable of all, a small lake full of flamingos. That would be a flamboyance of flamingos, as I remember according to the answer given at one of the quiz sessions, and which we got wrong at the time. I took plenty of photos, but the flamingos were an unalloyed delight, and quite made my heart sing.

I made my way back to Chatham Road to catch the shuttlebus for 5pm and felt that I had had a very fulfilling journey around the city.

Unfortunately, when I got back to the boat, I was disappointed to see that there was still no clear internet signal. Consequently, I had to complete the text of my blog covering Hong Kong on Word programme and hope to transfer it to my blog programme early tomorrow. For that same reason I could not send a quick Facebook report on Hong Kong, as I was not able to download my Hong Kong photos. Nor was I able to make a transfer payment to reduce my credit card bill. All very very frustrating. In the meantime, I finally had confirmation of my Council Tax for the year 2023/2024 and will now have to arrange the finance to pay it. Also, the ship’s Guest Services were unable to change back my 300 HK dollars into sterling. Best thing will be to change into yen when we reach Hakata in Japan in four days’ time.

A couple of days ago Alicja Donimirska had sent me a copy of the first newsletter from her as Chair of the Federation of Poles in Gt Britain. I circulated it on her behalf to the international Polonia organizations. They responded very promptly by circulating the bulletin to all their member organizations around the world.

Only 12 out of 15 in the quiz today. Just not good enough.

 

Along the Chinese coast

                                     Borealis 25.03.2023

The day began badly before it had even begun. I woke up in the night and felt moisture welling up in my nose. By touch I realised I was bleeding again. Keeping my head up I rushed into our bathroom and sought for some ten minutes trying to take control of it. Each time I tried to clear up the mess the bleeding began again. Eventually I steered my way back to bed with my head up trusting that it had stopped. Unfortunately, when I got up in the morning, I found that there was blood on my sheet and on two of my pillows. The new maid, Atitaya, who joined us in Singapore, managed to change our sheets without too much fuss over the blood.

I fetched a breakfast for Albina and went to the Neptune Theatre at a set time to take a covid test under the strict direction of the vessel’s medical team. This was a requirement for visiting Hong Kong next day. Luckily our readings were all negative. We were asked to take a picture of the cassette with our name on it and keep that in case we were asked by Hong Kong immigration authorities.

At lunch time the Captain announced that we were passing the large Chinese island of Hainan on the port side and the disputed Paracel Islands on the starboard side. Neither was visible. Of course, the Captain said nothing about the islands being “disputed”. No need to alarm the passengers.

I attended a lecture that afternoon on the 24 different excursions available in Japan. That is roughly six excursions for the four ports of Hakata,  Osaka, Nagoya and Yokohama.

It was formal night but also the Masquerade Ball today. Dinner at the Borealis Restaurant in my dinner jacket (on my own), and a General Knowledge Quiz but with only 9 correct answers out of 15. I attended the Masquesrade Ball for about half an hour, even though I was maskless. Some of the ladies' masks were truly spectacular with black feathers, or garish colours They had obviously brought them with their luggage and saved them up for this one event. I thought I might convert a typical covid mask, cut out the eyes and wear one, but then again it could upset some of the right on formalists. So I joined those on the dance floor and eventually succumbed to bed. 

Vietnamese Interlude

 

It was a beautiful sunny day with temperature at 28C. We are in the bay facing Nha Trang. Vietnamese tenders have started coming to the ship and are lifted into position by the metal arms which are normally reserved for our lifeboats. From the ship we can see beautiful long beeches, and a number of attractive buildings of distinct French colonial architecture, above them is a giant ferris wheel. There are also modern plush beach hotels. Further forward we can see a city a modern city of white high rises. I imagine a lot of our passengers will simply head to the beach, while others go on cultural tours. Albina and I have put ourselves down for the rickshaw event, partly for Albina’s sake, as it is the one with the lowest amount of walking. 

 

Just before we reached the Neptune Theatre for our meeting, I suddenly developed an awkward nose bleed. I fled to the nearest loo and pressed paper towels with cold water to control it. By the time I emerged the whole group had gone downstairs to be ferried to the coast. We made our way down and submitted our landing application sheets to be stamped by Vietnamese Immigration who were actually on the vessel in their olive-green uniforms. We were not given our passports. These were still being swapped between the Borealis immigration staff and the Vietnamese.

 

Borealis started to ferry passengers to the jetty at Nha Trang with its own lifeboats. These are covered carriers each capable of taking 150 passengers.  Once you are at sea level, away from our cabin on Deck 6, you suddenly see how choppy the waters really are. The lifeboats were floating up and down like yoyos. I have to say that watching the slow progress as some 7 boats were slowly being loaded, with 2 boats at a time, made me despair. So many frail passengers had to be literally lifted individually into these boats and nobody was able to get on without some assistance from the crew. All in all, it took nearly half an hour to load one boat. If the ship, God forbid, were ever to founder we would be left with only several half manned lifeboats bobbing along the water as the Borealis went under.

 

Again, for Albina’s sake, we chose the tour that required least walking. We took the coach to one of the town squares and each of us was seated jn an individual cycle powered rickshaw. If was an enjoyable and original way of being introduced to a city of half a million which boasts a sizeable market and a beach. We did not get on to the beach, but it looked pristine and white, and not too busy. Nha Trang is a spa town with a seaside, a sort of Vietnamese Brighton, but with sand rather than pebbles on its beach, and no piers jutting into the sea. However, it had a similar atmosphere of being largely an amusement park, mainly for Vietnamese visitors, with plenty of modern hotels dotted along the esplanade with its palm trees, and good quality beach shops. We drove around in these rickshaws for nearly an hour passing through elegant and wide tree lined avenues, around public squares with socialist realist statues and passing the occasional Buddhist temple or Catholic Church. Every major building and most toad junctions displayed the red national flag of the country.There were not many cars and the main method of transport apart from our fleet of rickshaws, was motorbikes. There were only occasional traffic lights, which our rickshaw drivers patently ignored, while at busy junctions or on roundabouts we all criss-crossed each other with gay abandon, avoiding collisions purely by the quick reaction of all the road users, and by a generous use of the horn. Perhaps not as loudly and endless as in India, but certainly in sharp contrast to the quiet sedate road traffic in Singapore. We crossed the mouth of the River Kai and stopped just on the other side of the bridge. It had been both an exhilarating and a quite comfortable experience. Here the coaches picked us up. We were driven to the Dam Market to do some shopping.

Personally, I would have preferred visiting the eighth century Po Nagar Towers. Vietnam is another ancient civilization peeking through into the modern world under Communist rule. The Towers were part of an ancient Hindu agrarian civilization called the Champa Kingdom. They believed in the existence of a Mother of the World, responsible for the earth, the trees and for rice, and she taught people how to cultivate the land. A very practical soft mother earth kind of belief. We caught a glimpse of the towers when crossing the Kai Bridge, but not near enough to even get a picture. However, I cannot complain as we had been shown what was on the schedule for our tour.

We returned to the ship following another prolonged transit from jetty to ship with our bouncing lifeboats. As some of the older frailer passengers were simply picked up by the crew and plonked unceremoniously into the boat, a hearty cheer rose up from those already in the boat. The whole operation of getting into the boat, transiting a mile or so to the ship, and then disembarking must have taken one hour. And we were one of seven such boats. However, it was all endured by the passengers in good humour.  Bolearis departed as the dark of the evening drew in. The whole coastline came out in lights and the giant ferris wheel winked at us by displaying a very colourful light show which dominated the coast.

 

I spent most of my free time trying to research for the lecture on Phileas Fogg that I may have to give later on in the cruise. The problem with this research is that with an infrequent interlink link I can count on getting the information only intermittently.

I took a break for dinner, this time with Albina, and made for an early night. We had to put our watches forward again by one hour.