23.02.2016 Bangkok and Pattaya, Thailand
Landed in Bangkok early in the morning and drove down to Laem Chabang port where Aidabella was tied up. H got me from the passenger terminal and I had a quick guided tour of the ship and a nap. As Aidabella was sailing that evening I had to get off again and I drove south to Pattaya to get a hotel. The hotel was OK but much of Pattaya is a sleazy mess and holds no attractions for a man of my discerning tastes. The beach next to the hotel had large immobile creatures, possibly Russian matriarchs, stranded on it and looking like they were waiting to be dragged off to a landfill site.
24.02-01.03.2016 Bangkok, Thailand
So off to explore the fleshpots of Bangkok. The ladyboys are a bit worrisome but the food is good and there are some amazing temples and palaces up the Chao Praya river. As per Plan C for the India visa, I visited the Indian Embassy in Bangkok. They declined to give me a tourist visa on the grounds that I was not officially resident in Thailand. At this point I decided to implement Plan D which is that India will have to get by without my tourist dollar and I will just stay on the ship in the Indian ports.
02.03.2016 Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Flight from Bangkok to Ho Chi Minh City. The Vietnamese won’t rent you a car if you don’t have a local driving license so you have to get a driver as well. To be fair, it’s probably safer this way as the roads are a nightmare. Most traffic is motorcycles and there are millions of them. Any one stretch of road will have several thousand motorbikes in view and all tooting and jostling for space. It was dark when I got to my apartment in District 1, Saigon. I went for walk through the noisy streets in search of food then back to the apartment, listened to roaring motorbikes and barking dogs and waited for my driver to show up again the next morning.
03.03.2016 Phu My, Vung Tau, Ho Chi Minh City
Drove to Phu My port on the Saigon river to meet up with H at Aidabella. We went for a drive down to Vung Tau at the mouth of the Saigon river and had a sweaty climb up to a giant Jesus statue a la Rio de J. and then an excellent lunch at a seaside restaurant. Dropped H off in Phu My and I went back to HCMC. Had an explore of the city by night and a drink on the roof terrace of the Rex Hotel. The Rex Hotel was an officer hangout during the “War of American Aggression”. HCMC seems fairly capitalist to me and it makes you wonder what that war was really all about and who actually won in the end.
04.03.2016 HCMC, Vietnam to Bangkok and Pattaya, Thailand
Checked out the Reunification Palace, the War Remnants Museum and the Jade Emperor Pagoda then had some noodles in a market with some Americans who had been working in South Korea and then back to the airport and a flight back to Bangkok and staying at the same hotel in Pattaya.
05.03.2016 Pattaya, Thailand
Bought some cheap folding bikes in a department store.
06.03.2016 Bangkok, Thailand
Picked up H for “One Night in Bangkok”. Stayed in the Peninsular Hotel in outrageous luxury with a great view over the city.
07.03.2016 Laem Chabang to Ko Samui, Thailand
In the morning we took a long-tail boat ride through the canals and then returned to Laem Chabang where I stepped aboard the Aidabella as a new long-term passenger.
09.03.2016 Ko Samui, Thailand
Sunburnt myself snorkelling off Ko Samui. It was a long boat ride and the water visibility was not the best.
12.03.2016 Singapore
A couple of days at sea then arrived at Singapore. In the morning I took the cable car to Sentosa Island to look at the huge S.E.A. Aquarium and was joined later by H. In the afternoon we took to a taxi to Raffles Hotel and had the usual overpriced Singapore Slings. For leaving Singapore that evening H booked a spa suite on the ship with a private jacuzzi, sauna, waterbed and balcony overlooking the harbour. Cool stuff. Wine and sushi was included. For Germans standing on a balcony when leaving harbour and who are not wearing a uniform then wearing nothing is the next best thing. Few English travellers will appreciate that there are actually parts of the deck on German cruise ships that are set aside for sunning your important little places.
13.03.2016 Port Klang, Malaysia
Arrived at Port Klang near Kuala Lumpur. I set out to explore Port Klang by bicycle. I’d not even left the cruise terminal grounds when the front wheel dropped through a stupidly designed grating over a storm drain throwing me over the handlebars and leaving a smear of blood and skin on to the road. I carried on for a while but realized that I had underestimated the distance and heat so I went back and got a taxi. On my last trip to Klang in 2008 I heard rumours of a Chinese fishing village called Pulau Ketam on some offshore mangrove islands so I set off to have a look. The village, or perhaps even small town, was about 30 minutes away by fast boat and was entirely on stilts over the mud. Restaurants sell local crab and shellfish. There were some Malay tourists about but nobody who looked European except me.
14.03.2016 Georgetown, Penang, Malaysia
Arrived in Georgetown, Penang. I set off to explore parts I had not seen before. Took a look at Fort Cornwallis which was not so special and walked on to our usual hangout, the Eastern & Oriental Hotel, to cool down in the A/C. Met up with H for lunch who arrived by cycle rickshaw. Germans are not as embarrassed as the British by these symbols of oppressive imperialism. After lunch I went shopping for some long pants but struggled to find the right length until some shop assistant told me they can make alterations in 10 minutes and they actually did! Why doesn’t M&S do that?
15-17.03.2016 Bay of Bengal
At sea heading for Colombo, Sri Lanka. Some, normally very white, fellow passengers have taken on a dark leathery brown colour. I hide in the shade. When I can find some.
18.03.2016 Colombo, Sri Lanka, Tour de Colombo
Arrived in Sri Lanka. We got the folding bikes out and hit the streets of Colombo. It was unbelievably hot and humid. There were no other bicycles to be seen anywhere and we were of huge interest to the natives with many of them waving and cheering with big grins. I assume good naturedly. It was not a very photogenic experience. The first building the Memsahib wanted a photo of was forbidden by a teenage-looking policeman. It was some kind of government building. We then cycled along the seafront next to a famous stretch of dusty mown grass called Galle Face. Then on to find a mythical floating market on a lake. We took some wrong turnings, passing bus and train stations and markets with an insane racket of Sinhalese, Tamil and gratuitous tooting coming from countless loudspeakers and tuk-tuk horns. We eventually found the market but disappointingly it was not floating at all but sitting on some industrial-looking concrete stilts and had some very uninteresting shops.
In need of refreshment we pedalled back to the upmarket Galle Face Hotel and got a table in the pool bar and had a number of rehydrating beers for me and some fruit-based drinks for the Memsahib. We also had lunch which included some very nice deep-fried shrimps the size of small lobsters although none of it was particularly Sri Lankan cuisine. I could have done with a curry but we were too early for the lunch buffet. H had duties on board in the afternoon so we sweated our way back to the ship.
Another departure from a port ensconced in the Wellness Suite with waterbed, Jacuzzi, sauna, balcony, sushi, sashimi and prosecco.
19.03.2016 At Sea, Germans at play
A day at sea heading towards Cochin, India. I know it’s a cliché but Germans and sun loungers are a bad combination. I’ve not managed to prove it yet but I think many get up before first light to stake their claim using beach towels. Some have even brought big clothes pegs to fix the towels in place for the avoidance of doubt. Most beds are also usually unoccupied as dem deutschen Volke slither between sun, shade and bar during the day dropping territorial towels where ever they go.
Saw a very good show with the Memsahib called “Bellagio” in the boat theatre in the evening. It seemed to be about the Venice Carnivale with some aerial circus acrobatics.
20-22.03.2016 Cochin, India, Visa? That will do nicely
Arrived in Cochin, India but no exploring ashore for me as I have no visa. The Memsahib went exploring in a tuk-tuk on her mariner’s papers. She claims to have even driven the thing when the police were not looking.
23-24.03.2016 Mormugao, Goa, India, Colourful Sunrise
A day at sea and then we arrived in Mormugao, Goa but I still couldn’t get off the ship and it was especially annoying as it was the Holi Festival of Colours here where people throw coloured powders at each other in a very photogenic way.
An Indian Navy submarine, one of 14 apparently, parked up next to us sneaked away to sea later in the morning. Mean-looking and probably has some nasty torpedoes but a diesel-electric thing and not really Red October.
The Memsahib went ashore in the afternoon on one of our folding bikes towards the town of Vasco da Gama but only got a little bit coloured as the Holi thing is usually just in the morning. The stuff is really hard to wash off it seems.
We departed from the port just before sunset with red kites circling overhead. The light and the suddenly bearable temperature made even the floating dry docks and rusty ancient passenger ships tied up there look nice. The two-for-one Tequila Sunrises helped.
25.03.2016 Mumbai, India, Closed Gate
Stuck on the boat. Indian Navy ships all around in the harbour including four submarines and an aircraft carrier. There were a couple of fast patrol boats around as well presumably to intercept any slightly less fast terrorists. The Memsahib went ashore on a tourist trip with a group of officers led by some Indian crew. She reported seeing no street crowds spontaneously erupt into Bollywood dance scenes. I could just about see the top of the Gateway to India if I stood on a chair.
26-27.03.2016 At Sea, Easter Weekending
I found myself helping to write an Easter church service for the crew. Me. This was because of my knowledge of thine King James English. It’s not a heresy against the teachings of the atheist confession to do such things and I didn’t laugh at the improbable stuff. The service was excellently delivered by Jesus himself. Actually a Jesus doppelganger and very pleasant fellow called Dr. Thomas Draxler who normally does some kind of self-defence class onboard.
28.03.2016 Salalah, Oman, Oasis Clubbing
Off the ship at last. Salalah has not changed too much in seven years. In the morning I got a taxi into town and had a look at some tatty souks and a museum which had some good stuff about the history of Omani boat building and the frankincense trade and had acres of ruins of a 12th century trading port called Zafar. The intrepid traveller Marco Polo visited the place in 1285. It is not known if Mr Polo got ripped off by the local taxi drivers as well or not. He will not have arrived by cruise ship.
I returned to the ship to get the Memsahib so we could eat some local food. The high taxi costs and the less than spectacular restaurant offerings in Salalah encouraged us to take the bikes instead and go for a swim at a nearby beach and then on to the Oasis Club. The Oasis Club is up a hill just outside the port. The intrepid travellers, Martyn, Tim and Steve, visited the Oasis Club in 2009 and it is still much the same. It is about the only place in Oman where you can buy booze legally. We had dinner there on the terrace overlooking the beach and then cycled back downhill to the port in the dark.
29.03.-01.04.2016 At Sea, Parrot Watch
We sailed out of Salalah late at night and turned into the Transit Corridor around midday and formed up in a convoy of about five boats, judging from the AIS app on my phone. The anti-piracy measures remained unused as they were in 2009. Except we didn’t have any anti-piracy measures in 2009 and no convoy either come to think of it. Fortunately the pirates were too busy at the time clambering onto the Maersk Alabama and bothering Tom Hanks.
Along the way we had a visit from the German frigate “Bayern” which fired off flares as it passed to entertain our passengers. Apparently their Captain knows our Captain. The “Bayern” is leading the anti-piracy patrols just now in the Gulf of Aden.
There was no stopping in Aden for us as it is a bit nasty there and we whistled passed it at 20 knots then did a handbrake turn through the Bab Al Mandab and straight up the middle of the Red Sea. There is a lot to be said for coast hopping up the Red Sea but not in this kind of boat.
Just had to queue up with 2,000 other passengers for a Suez Canal Tourist Permit. I was just getting ready to hand over some Marlboro when I realised there was something not quite right with the officials. It turned out to be an elaborate April Fool prank. Hah hah.
In my ethnographic studies of the Germans I have found a new variant of the “territorial towel”. At meal times you can sit down at a completely empty table but 10 minutes later people will appear claiming that this was their place all along and now they want it back. Then they wait looking grumpy until you get the message. It is very effective and I’m sure a larger scale version worked very well with Poland.
02.-03.04.2016 Jordan, Aqaba, Rum and Coke
Arrived in Aqaba and after some delays getting off the ship we picked up a 4WD and headed off to Wadi Rum village about an hour’s drive out of town. The scenery would have been spectacular but it was dark when we got there. Wadi Rum village is a scruffy place in the middle of nowhere and not a place you would want to spend the night in a car so it was a relief when Mohamed turned up in a truck and announced that his no-name brother would lead us into the desert to the Bedouin camp. It was all quite spooky but I kept an eye on the GPS to make sure were not heading towards another kind of camp, say in Syria. The trip was off-road and around some mountains and we would never have found our way through without Mohamed’s brother. We arrived quite late and caught just the tail end of some music and dancing around the campfire and we were shown into a tent for some food. I had some roast lamb and rice which was good. I thought we might have been too late for food which was a concern as there was clearly no possibility of pizza delivery. Our sleeping tent had a double bed in it so it was not too uncomfortable apart from the lack of en-suite facilities. The desert night was cool almost cold and we sat outside for a while in some kind of Bedouin sheepskin dressing gowns and looked at the night sky. I can report that there are considerably more stars over Wadi Rum than most places.
The next day we breakfasted and oohed and aahed at the mountains and sand around us. Then we discovered that our previously arranged camel trek out of Wadi Rum village had been cancelled on us but fortunately we managed to arrange two more camels with the camp guy. Our guide went ahead in his truck and led us back into the wadi. Far away in the distance in the sand were three specks that, on getting closer, turned out to be two camels and their owner. Our guide said he would take our 4WD on to the village and park it there and we could get it later. It was another spooky moment and I don’t think either of us thought we would ever see it again. We trekked with the camels through the wadi in Lawrence-of-Arabia style and got very sore bums. The camel walks with a pacing gait. That is they move their legs on alternating sides. Some say this is to stop their feet bumping into each other because they have long legs and short bodies. Personally, I think they are perfectly capable of moving like any other creature but they just do it to give camel riders a hard time. Our 4WD was in the village after all and we drove around the desert for a while and then back to Aqaba. We had quick look at Aqaba Fort of Lawrence fame but it was still in pretty bad shape from the time we British had shelled it in 1916. Then on to the Mövenpick Hotel for a nice lunch at their beach restaurant.
04.-05.04.2016 Suez Canal, Belly Dancing in Egypt
Overnight we left the Gulf of Aqaba and turned right into the Gulf of Suez. We passed several offshore oil fields which I have a slightly paternalistic feeling towards as my first ever job as a geologist, way back in 1975, was working on the BP/Deminex exploration rig that made one of the discoveries.
While we were passing Ras Gharib, the supply base I flew my first helicopter out of, I was struck down with a bellyache, almost certainly caused by a surfeit of lampreys and happy hour cocktails. I didn’t get to see the view as I was in the ship’s hospital hooked up to a drip and with the portholes shut to keep out pirates. This wasn’t intensive care and just an overly dramatic and Teutonic way to give me some paracetamol and antibiotics. All is well now.
The Suez Canal was its usual fly-blown dusty self. We didn’t stop in Port Suez, Al Ismailiya or Port Said and popped out into the Mediterranean with open portholes. Contrary to popular belief, Giuseppe Verdi’s opera ‘Aida’ which premiered in Cairo in 1871, was not written to celebrate the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869. Even so, I’m going to use it anyway as a cool link between the canal and the name of our cruise ship.
06.04.2016 Haifa, Israel, Dawn to Dusk
We arrived at Haifa early in the morning and made contact with cousin Dawn and Adam from Manchester who with amazing coincidence happened to be there as well doing some painting and decorating in an apartment they own in the city. They must have been busy with the brushes as they were a little decorated with white paint themselves. We went to a beach restaurant for lunch and had a drive around and then we gave them the grand tour of our ship.
07.-08.04.2016 Limassol, Cyprus, No Taramasalata
The Memsahib was busy so I took the bike into Limassol for a quick look around by myself. Food is the best thing in Cyprus for me but when you are on a temporary diet which includes no fats, proteins, carbohydrates or alcohol then eating out is more than frustrating. The town centre was swarming with Germans. No surprise. The town is quite nice. Small but with some old stuff here and there. It’s a bit too well supplied with tourist tat shops for my taste but even so the shopping streets are worth a stroll. I went to look at Lemesos Castle for an hour or so. According to the leaflet, it seems to have been built and pulled down repeatedly like a giant Lego set by the Byzantines, Venetians, Genoese, Mamelukes and Ottomans. I also wandered over to the new Limassol Marina which looks good and may be worth considering for a longer stay. There are some good chandlers around the marina as well.
More observations about Germans at play. About half the people on this boat look like they are part of an Olympic running team from somewhere. When they are not pounding the exercise equipment or racing around on bikes ashore they are contorting themselves into provocative positions in exercise classes. The other half, on the other hand, waddle between sun-lounger and bar and crush each other against the doors waiting for the restaurants to open. I originally thought of myself as being somewhere in-between the two groups but realistically I might be coming down on the waddler side these days.
09.04.2016 Antalya, Turkey, Turkish Delights
Arrived in Antalya in the early hours and the Memsahib and I took a taxi to collect Papa Roland, mein Schwiegervater, from his hotel. Roland is joining us for the last leg to Venice mainly so that my otherwise empty cabin is used. The ship made me get an e-visa for Turkey for $20 but it seems like it was completely wasted as nobody wanted to see it and in any case my passport stayed onboard.
11.04.2016 Piraeus and Athens, Greece, Lost Marbles
A day at sea across the Aegean and arrived at Piraeus. I got an open-top tourist bus into Athens and went to the Acropolis Museum. All the trees in the streets were full of oranges. The museum is nicely done. There is a lot of bleating in the information materials about Lord Elgin stealing their Marbles and giving them to the British Museum. This is a tricky one as unstolen they would have been wrecked by now with the polluted air of Athens. Hauling away bits of foreign places was in any case standard practice two or three hundred years ago. Berlin has its share of archaeological loot as well and would we expect to have Venice return the stuff it swiped from Constantinople? Having said that, I think the Greeks would look after them now if they got them back. Just as long as they don’t try to stick the originals back on that permanent building site called the Parthenon. I’ve visited the Acropolis more times than I’ve visited the British Museum so what does that say?
12.04.2016 Katakolon and Olympia, Greece, Non-Olympic Games
There were three cruise ships in port. Say around 7,000 passengers and all of them descended on a tiny Katakolon like a plague of locusts. I gave the bus trip to Olympia a miss this time. It seems like there is nothing much left to see of the once splendid original Olympic Village and there would have been too many people as well. Instead, Roland and I took a kitsch tourist train to a winery for samples and then back in Katakolon we did some more sampling of gyros and ouzo in a street restaurant. The weather was perfect.
13.04.2016 Corfu, Greece, Magnetic Correction
A return to Corfu but this time there is no anchoring out of the wind and pootling in with the dinghy. Roland and I got a tour bus to go into town from the port and we checked out a restaurant for a later lunch. Some strange attraction draws Roland to shops selling fridge magnets but it stops when he has one in his pocket. We also stocked up on candied kumquats and kumquat liqueur as well. No idea why. They are horribly sweet.
The Memsahib got a taxi from the ship and joined us for lunch. The place called ‘En Plo’ at Faleraki, which we knew from years ago, has the best view in town of the Old Fortress and the Albanian coast. The restaurant is hard to find and you need to go down an uninviting ramp and through a tunnel to get to it but it keeps the riffraff away. I wandered over the Old Fortress for a while in the afternoon. The biggest and ugliest buildings are old Victorian barracks from the time us British were in charge of Corfu but at least we didn’t blow up some of the 15th century Venetian buildings like the Germans did during the war. I must find out why we left.
14.04.2016 Bari, Italy, Skipper on the Bridge
Bari is a strange town which has oddly very few places to eat. We took a look at the Norman Swabian castle and some old churches but ended up back on the ship for lunch. I was invited onto the bridge of the ship for departure which was an experience. You could fit three Graptolite’s on to the huge bridge of the Aidabella but most of the kit is the same as you have on a small boat. I still think using a bow thruster is cheating but I am toying with the idea of getting one now.
The Memsahib got a bottle of 2006 Grand Vintage Rose Moet & Chandon to open after midnight at the start of my 60th Birthday. Strange to think that the grapes were actually growing while my 50th Birthday on the Hamble River was underway.
15.04.2016 Dubrovnik, Croatia, Go to Jail. Do not collect…
The day started out well enough. We looked out of the cabin window from the bed as we docked in Dubrovnik. A little later a Security Officer I’d never seen before came to the cabin and asked me to follow him. I found myself, for the first time in my life, thrown into a prison cell, or the brig as they call them on ships. I sat staring at the unbreakable toilet and washbasin and sat on the hard bench for ages and then the Chief Security Officer, Michael, came to get me and took me to a room full of security cameras, including one looking into the cell. In the room were the Captain, the Staff Captain, Chief Engineer, Memsahib and Father-in-Law all beside themselves with German-style hilarity. There was a 60th Birthday cake for me so all was forgiven. Breakfast was in one of the ship’s fancier restaurants away from the ordinary Menschen.
We got a taxi into the old part of Dubrovnik and walked around the city walls and then had a nice lunch overlooking the harbour from the Arsenal. We had a little glass-bottom boat trip around the bay but the fish were tiny and the rocks slimy. We went back to the ship and the Captain and officers held a surprise party for me with champagne, food and a Canadian singer called Cassidy. I was more than a little surprised and very honoured. Departure was viewed from the Wellness Suite. We were both so tired that we fell asleep on the waterbed.
17.04.2016 Venice, Italy, The Skipper Pipes the Captain Aboard
The 16th was a day at sea and we arrived early in the morning in the Venice Lagoon on the 17th. It was our usual view of St Marks but from a bit higher up. There was no Prosecco or loud opera from the cockpit and nobody upset the gondoliers by pretending to sail up the Grand Canal. Cruise ships are not so good for that kind of thing! There were lots of other cruise ships in the harbour that had mysteriously been drawn to this spot for the spawning of passengers. One of the world’s great natural spectacles, apparently.
I took Roland across the lagoon by vaporetto and by bus to the marina where we collected a dusty car. I drove back to the ship and later took Pedro the Captain to look at his motorbike stored in a place I found for some of the officers in Jesolo. We stopped at the marina again and I showed Pedro the engine room and bridge on Graptolite. None of the restaurants aboard were open at the time.
18.-19.04.2016 On the Road, Venice to Berlin
Roland and I set off northwards through northern Italy and the Brenner Pass to Austria and then in to Germany. Miserable wet, snowy weather over the Brenner Pass brought an end, weather-wise, to the trip.
We stopped for the night in a place that Richter’s always stop in on the way back from Italy. This was the Gasthof Obermeier in Allershausen. They only had one room left so I had to share with Roland. An old man wandering about the room in his underpants and farting is not the best of roommates but Roland didn’t complain. We stopped at a butchers before we left in the morning, a place also owned by an Obermeier, as are most businesses in town. This was to stock up on Leberkäse. Leberkäse is like Spam but not in a tin. The name means “liver-cheese” but it contains no liver and no cheese. Go figure.
20.04.2016 Schulzendorf, Germany, Back Home
A time for getting medical check-ups and inspections for me. Majorca next Monday. Shutting down this blog until then.