Port Report - Sihanoukville, Cambodia

Port ship actually docks at: Sihanoukville and tendered ashore
Attraction/Town you are aiming to visit: Sihanoukville
Distance from Port: within 3 miles - you could probably walk from the port.
Mode of transport we used: Minibus via ship's tour
English spoken by locals: Some
Ships tour necessary? No - but we were feeling lazy and took one
Hassle from merchants and taxi drivers: some on the beaches

It it's heyday Sihanoukville was once a happening seaside resort visited by the jet set, and it is very proud to have hosted Jackie Kennedy on her tour of Cambodia. However, those days were short lived as war tore the country and its people to shreds. It suffered further at the hands of the Khmer Rouge, and is only now starting to recover from that violent era.

I have to admit I was nervous about Cambodia. I'd been warned about the poverty making the likelihood of theft high - I can't say I'd blame them. I couldn't imagine what it would be like to be scraping together a living, yet see wealthy people, by comparison, strolling around in my village.

The people here have suffered physically, economically and emotionally. I felt that guilt that I get sometimes when I consider how lucky I've been in my life compared to the harsh conditions other humans have had to deal with. I'm sorry I can't fix it. It's easier to be an ostrich and bury your head in the sand, but doesn't that then make you an accomplice of sorts? These questions haunt me a lot - especially when I travel and see first-hand that I have lived a five star life. Why me? I often wonder, closely followed with gratitude for what I have.

Perhaps if I'm honest, I felt that a ship's tour would be the best way to experience the place from a distance. That buffer, which I usually despise in other ports, would be of use in this case.

As I glanced through the ships literature about the tours, I noticed that they had posted up a new tour that hadn't been offered before - a canoeing tour. It looked perfect and even My Husband, who is not keen on water sports, liked the look of it.

We didn't take the big camera onshore - it might get wet or worse, stolen. We just used the cameras on our smart phones and even then tried not to be to flashy with them, not to mention we kept them sealed in baggies while in the canoe for obvious reasons, so our photos do not represent just how great this trip turned out to be.

Our guide collected us and right form the start he met us with sincerity and warmth. Nothing was too much trouble. His English was perfect, and it was clear that he was genuinely taking pleasure in explaining his homeland to us. It was great. He knew all about the plant life we passed and showed us how the palm fronds were woven to construct the huts.

After taking in the peace and tranquility of the river from the canoes, we beached on a sand bank and went to a coconut farm where we each got a coconut to drink. When all the milk was finished, he produced a fearsome machete and cleaved each coconut so we could scrape out the coconut meat - delicious! The baby chicks were happy to help finish off what we couldn't.

Our guide showed us cashews growing on the trees too - something I've never seen before.

The tour cost only $40. We figured this was because it was new. There was only ten of us and the small group was nice. We also had two of the ship's crew with us. Other cruise folk had been telling us they had signed up for tours to see local houses, local schools, go to wats (temples), beaches etc. We were only expecting to do the canoeing. When out guide told us he would take us next to visit a local family, then a school and finish off with a bit of time on the beach we were thrilled.

The family we visited lived in a traditional wooden house on stilts. The area beneath it was used for storage or to hang out it since it provided shade. Inside the house was mostly the sleeping area.

The kitchen was in a separate shed out the back. Traditionally they cooked over a wood fire using a stove like this, but you can see they also had a gas stove too - progress, I guess.

The bathroom was in yet another separate shed - very clean, though it was a squat toilet - something I think I could get used too if my thigh muscles held up!
 
Next up was the school.There were about 4 classrooms, each opening directly into the yard. School had two sessions, a morning and an afternoon session. Kids either went to one or the other and so no need for a canteen as they were home for lunch.

No ipads or interactive whiteboards here, though to be fair, I had none of that when I went to primary school and look how well I turned out!

The kids were cute - Especially since I wasn't the teacher this time!

All along the guide discretely let us know that tips were not mandatory but that anything given would be greatly appreciated. At no stage did we feel we were being pressed for money.

The guide dropped us off for a half hour at the beach - plenty of time for those of us who wanted a swim. The water was like a luke-warm bath. It was a salty but happy group that drove back to the port. 

We said our goodbyes and felt like we were leaving a friend, our guide was that  good. I tried to look up that tour again - it was so good and such great value for money, but strangely I cannot find it on the Princess site nor any other site - a magic tour perhaps!

Byddi Lee

Port Report - Ho Chi Minh City (Phu My), Vietnam

Port ship actually docks at: Phu My,Vietnam
Attraction/Town you are aiming to visit: Ho Chi Min City (Củ Chi Tunnels)
Distance from Port: 40 miles - 1.5 hrs by car (60 miles - 2.5 hrs by bus)
Mode of transport we used: Bus via ship's tour to Củ Chi Tunnels
English spoken by locals: Our tour guide was fluent and very easy to understand.
Ships tour necessary? Yes. The ship docks at the Phu My port and taxis are not allowed in. You would have a long, hot, unpleasant walk (2-3 miles) to the entrance of the port, and we were told there would not be taxis waiting there. You can arrange a tour privately, (e.g. before you leave home) but the tour needs details of your passport to gain access to the port to collect you. It seemed easier, in this case, to get a tour, and they had one which really interested us too.
Hassle from merchants and taxi drivers: None, as were on a ships tour and didn't really come in contact with any.

It wasn't until we were on the ship and underway that we realized that the ship wouldn't be pulling up at the dock in Ho Chi Min City. We only had our own ignorance to blame. Ho Chi Min City is in-land - the ship couldn't sail that far upriver. It did however sail quite far upriver to a port called Phu My, a working port, with lots of security. This was one occasion when taking a ship's cruise was practically unavoidable and made a lot of sense.

Because we were on a ship's cruise, we had a much earlier start to our day than if we'd been under our own steam. I'm usually happy about this because I can rise early and get to it - it's My Husband who is the slug in the morning.

This particular morning Robin William's voice saying, "Good morning, Vietnam!" haunted my thoughts as I watched the sunrise in a molten orb over the river while we ate breakfast. Photo quality is diminished by the reflection on the glass, but we don't have many sunrise photos, as compared to sunset photos, because of the whole being asleep thing!

We chose to take the trip to the Củ Chi Tunnels. People might be surprised to learn that one of my favorite movies of all time is Platoon. Not that I'm a Vietnam War buff, or a war monger of any sort, but there was something, besides Charlie Sheen, that captured my attention in that movie. In fact, Charlie's character is quite abhorred by the war, as am I.

When I saw the tour to the tunnels in the brochure, I decided to explore that side of history despite the viscerally unpleasant nature of it.

The Củ Chi Tunnels were dug by the Viet Cong and interconnect with networks that extend for tens of thousands of miles, covering huge swaths of the country. To read more about the Vietnam-American War and the integral role these tunnels played click here.

To get to the tunnels, we had to take a 2.5 hr bus trip which drove through the verdant Vietnamese countryside. It was great to just sit back and have the driver do all the work while I absorbed all the sights with my eyes and my camera.

Some of the dwellings, though primitive, provided great photo opportunities.

This looked like it was straight out of a movie.

The lush green fields and tranquil setting contrasted with the chaos of Ho Chi Min City, which we hit during the morning rush hour!

So many things in this one photo - the hedge shaped to spell out a place name (I presume!) The speed limit - Not sure if it's 80 miles per hour, which seems very fast, or  80 kilometers per hour which seems rather slow for a motorway. Mopeds are only allowed in two of the five lanes (thank goodness). Then there's the unfinished construction in the right of the photo that stretches in line with the road - a public transport rail link? More motorway? Either way - can you imagine this with road works!

There are six million mopeds in Ho Chi Min City, and all of them were on the road that morning!

It's totally fine to be loaded down with pineapples and chat on your phone as you try to cross the stream of traffic! And pineapples are heavy...

 And if the road is too slow, just scoot up onto the sidewalk!

 Just be careful - the pedestrians are working hard.

 This shot gives a great juxtaposition of the old and the new in the city.

 The French colonial influence was still apparent.

The French taxed the width of a building and so the buildings are very narrow, even today. Below you can see five neighboring buildings.

Temples popped up everywhere.

 I think this one was taken in a nearby town, but while we are looking at temples...

I highly recommend this ship's tour if you are ever on this cruise. If you are visiting Vietnam independently, do consider visiting the Củ Chi Tunnels yourself.

What struck me most was how ingenious the tunnels were, and how they enabled so many people to survive when they would have otherwise been napalmed out of existence (though many were.) The tunnels, practically impossible to see from the outside, had ventilation holes that were cleverly disguised on the surface - in this case as a termite hill.

They were dug with very basic tools and the earth scattered, sometimes in newly blasted craters from recent bombs, or incorporated into the soil during farming.

The entry points could be in the floors of the homes. Here it has been excavated out for us to see more clearly and for us to access easily.

The tunnels were about 3 feet high.

At this field entry point it was impossible to imagine how you would fit into it - the foot in the top right corner might help provide scale.

The guide explained that the trick was in bending your knees!

He demonstrated how you could disappear in a matter of seconds... Here is a series of picture I took of him as he entered the tunnels.

You wouldn't even know he was there!

Even if you were the enemy and you found the tunnels, well the fun only starts there ...

The tunnels were protected by a host of different traps all designed to mangle and kill you horribly! They were all on display here.

These charred bamboo spears were super sharp and coated with feces. Even if you managed to hoist your punctured body off them, the bacterial infection was sure to finish you off. Remember - all this while underground in 3 foot high tunnels - the stuff of nightmares!

Yet, I couldn't help but admire these fearsome soldiers.

The Tunnels were not just for the soldiers fighting against the Americans and their South Vietnamese allies. In many of the villages, these tunnels were the only bolthole for the villagers when the bombs dropped, in much the same way as the people of the London Blitz had their cellars and shelters and the Mid Western Americans have their basements during tornado season.

It must have been terrifying cowering down there and wondering what, if anything, would be left of you village when it was all over. The guide's stories were hard to listen too and a part of me wished I'd not gone, but thus is the reality of war - it is never pretty! It hurts humanity whether they have a face, a name, a creed, a side or not. Without exception...

Back at the ship we watched a sand-mining operation vacuum silt from the river bed and pile it on barges.

The barge looked like it would sink at any minute!

But something makes me think it won't - after seeing those tunnels earlier I kind of think that many things are possible if you have the will to make it so...

If only we could just be as inventive and ingenious about creating peace on our planet - wouldn't that be wonderful?

Byddi Lee

Port Report - Nha Trang, Vietnam

Port ship actually docks at: Cau Da Port pier - ships tender transfer
Attraction/Town you are aiming to visit: Nha Trang
Distance from Port: 10 min by car
Mode of transport we used: The town put on a free shuttle bus, so we used that.
English spoken by locals: The younger generation mostly
Ships tour necessary? No
Hassle from merchants and taxi drivers: Quite high hassle factor. You need to be quite assertive with your, "No thank you, I don't want to buy that."

Nha Trang is a seaside town with a beach flanking it's east side. The coastline is beautiful, though the air is hazy with humidity and probably some pollution. The murky water in the foreground did not lure me in for a swim.

You can just about see our ship anchored off-shore in this shot.

A tender is a little boat that takes you from the ship to the shore when the port is not deep enough to accommodate your ship. If the weather is bad, they sometimes have to cancel the visit ashore as it would be too dangerous to move between the boats in rough water. Fortunately, we were able to go ashore even though it had been quite stormy the previous day.

As soon as we got ashore, My Husband and I went for a cup of coffee at a local cafe. I was not prepared for Vietnamese coffee - very strong and loaded with sugar. It beat me. I could not force it down. While we were there we saw the ice being delivered and made a mental note not to have any ice in our drinks that day!

We took the free shuttle into the center of Nha Trang. I was amazed at the amount of traffic, especially the number of people on mopeds, buzzing around like a swarm of busy bees.

It was a Sunday, so many of the museums were closed. We'd been unlucky with the way the days had fallen both in Brunei and now here, but there were plenty of other things to see and marvel at - like how in the heck does the electrician sort this out?

This was just a small jumble of wires - we saw worse.

Fortunately, there are pretty good google maps for Vietnam. We'd downloaded them at home, so that gave us a good way to navigate.We decided that it was a fairly short walk to go see the Chua Long So'n temple that promised us a hilltop view of the city.

Yes, the walk was short, but crossing the roads with its crazy traffic was really the challenge! All shapes and sizes of vehicles flashed past us. We watched a local woman (you can see her in the video below if you peer carefully - she's off in the distance - sorry but we were kind of pinned!) stride confidently across the road maintaining a constant speed. This had been mentioned in the Port Lectures we'd watched on our room's TV. The idea is that you walk at a constant speed when there is a break in the cars and bigger vehicles, and the mopeds would navigate around you!

Eventually, we plucked up the courage to try it ourselves - it was either that or go back to the ship! It did work. There was one heart-stopping moment when a moped driver (with passenger) decided to change lanes abruptly and him and I found ourselves eyeball to eyeball. He braked and I sprinted. The bike behind him nearly ran into him, but by that stage I was safely on dry land the sidewalk again!

We didn't even attempt to cross here, but were tickled by the music from the nearby shop that provided a really apt sound track!

We bravely crossed that one by shadowing a woman who was walking with her little girl!

The Temple was very beautiful.

There was a giant reclining Buddha stretched out 50 feet long.

In some parts, it was even quiet and quite serene, but most of it was bustling with tourists and crawling with people trying to con those tourists!

Another Buddha sat up high on the hill.

From up here you could look over the town of Nha Trang. Not the prettiest Asian city I've ever been in, and the trash was piled up all over the place. A pity, but perhaps with time, tourism and financial support, priorities will change and the littering problem will be tackled.

The insides of the buildings were gorgeous!

It was interesting to note that this symbol in the ceiling -  Called the svastika in Sanskrit, is an ancient symbol of auspiciousness in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, despite it's negative associations in Western culture.

When it come to unwitting tourists getting ripped off, don't think you are safe just because you are in a holy place of worship. Around every corner  people were trying to selling cheap trinkets for more than they were worth. Others may have seemed friendly, but really were trying to squeeze a few dollars out of the tourist.

We fell foul of this ourselves. In fairness to My Husband, it was mostly my fault.

We'd gotten separated, and when I caught up with him he seemed to me to be chatting to an old man in Cantonese. Nice, I thought, we've got a buddy. The old man spotted me and pointed to the pergola near us and beckoned for me to follow him up the steps.

My Husband tried to stop me, but I was charmed by the pergola which housed a large bell.

The old man opened a gate and brought us up to the giant, beautifully carved, bell. He patted the wooden bench below it indicating I should sit down inside the bell for, "Good lucky for family." I don't believe in that sort of stuff, but I though it would be a cute photo.

You can see him patting the bench telling My Husband to sit down too. He did. He didn't want to be rude to the old man or to me (bless his kind heart.)

We giggled inside the bell as the old man knocked it three times and mumbled what we presumed were prayers.

When we got out of the bell and tried to leave the old man and a young woman who had appeared from nowhere, blocked our way and demanded we pay them 200 Vietnamese Dong! Well, it was only US$10, but that's a lot of money in Vietnam, and I was annoyed at being pinned down for this. There wasn't anyone else around. What could an old man and a young woman do to us? But we didn't want any unpleasantness - especially just for US$10 but, dammit, it was the principle of the matter - I'd happily give ten times that to a deserving cause at the drop of a hat, but to be conned grrrrr... We gave it anyway - feeling very stupid!

And the picture - well at least my bum doesn't look big in it, right?

After that we visited the Catholic Cathedral - playing it safe I suppose, and since it was a Sunday, a prayer was in order. The church was nice but then again I'm from Armagh, Ireland - a place that has not just one, but two beautiful old Cathedrals, so I'm a bit of a Cathedral snob!

We made our way back to the restaurant to wait for our shuttle bus and take advantage of the free WiFi. The melon juices looked too good to pass up. I'd taken two big gulps of mine before I registered that it had ice in it!

It was circular with a hole in the middle - machine made. We reckoned we'd be okay and live to see another sunset... we did!

Byddi Lee