Well, we're up a river today, one of the hundreds of Vietnamese rivers with foreign-sounding names we cannot pronounce. This river or its tributaries might go as far as Ho Chi Minh (formerly Saigon) but only the smaller vessels and cruise ships can sail there. The Zuiderdam is way too large, so we docked at an international cruise port near Phu My. You might ask what's in Phu My? We can verify there is absolutely nothing for tourists except the place to take bus tours elsewhere. Today we are docked in a different spot and although there are buildings, it is totally industrial. This dock seems to be a storage area for gigantic metal cylinders that are wired in the center core and made to connect to each other. Their purpose is a mystery to all of us. However, we will investigate later.
Since we do not plan on going into Ho Chi Minh or anywhere else, we figured it was a good time to attend to another directive sent to us this morning. This letter gave instructions on Singapore arrival cards we will need in two days from now. They are free and we do not need tourist visas there. So we went online and filled out their required information for each of us. Some of the questions were fuzzy, such as what ship are we on. Zuiderdam was not in their data base. So the correct answer was "others". Once completed and accepted, it was recommended to download the form on our cell phone. Of course, we do not have a cell phone, so what now?
A further request was to fill out Sri Lanks electronic arrival cards. Before we left home, we applied for the free Sri Lanka visas and were granted them. No print outs were required with these. However, just to be sure, one of us went down to the front desk to ask for help with the Singapore cards. And besides, we needed to buy some Singapore money….might as well kill three birds with one stone.
Expecting to find only a few guests in line due to the tours that went off, it was surprising to see a line that had formed down the hallway. Many others had trouble figuring out the questions and answers with their cell phones. Normally, we do all of this on paper forms and turn them in. Now it is all online. I helped a nice but upset lady behind me figure out what to answer on the fuzzy questions. Even her city of residence was not there, just like ours was not.
Finally my turn to get help, I was told to email our Singapore approved applications to the website of the Front Desk. We had to request printed cards to be sent to our room. So far, it is 10pm and no cards have been delivered. Surprised? No. The money buying was easy, as was breaking large bills into 20's, 10's, and 5's. We like the ship's cash because it is new, clean and not torn. Many countries will not accept old or worn currency.
Back in our room, we tried to complete the Sri Lanka electronic arrival card, but we were a day too soon. We will be there on March 28th and have plenty of time to figure it out.
So much for the big job of the day, we headed off of the ship by 10am to temperatures near mid-90's and high humidity. Good thing there was a breeze going on. Intending only to check out their souvenir tables, we talked to some folks who had ridden the shuttle bus to the port gate. They never got off of the bus and rode it back to the dock. They said nothing was there. We had to find out ourselves, so we got on the next shuttle and rode the one minute ride to the gate. All that was there were maybe a dozen taxi drivers offering us cheap tours. No thanks….been there done that three times. We did see some happy crew members coming back with large bags of KFC, so there was civilization somewhere. Taxi drivers mentioned a mall, but frankly, that was the last place we wanted to go.
So outside the security checkpoint, there was a wide road with nice walkways under tall shade trees for quite a way. The tide was up in the river and along the walkway were tidal basins on the riverbank where we spotted some birds. There were mostly egrets, pigeons and more swifts. Not much else, except lots of road trash. We ended up walking an hour or more taking pictures of the factories and industrial buildings. Other than the big rig drivers, we saw few local people. Occasionally some motorbikes passed by, but that was about it. At one end of the walkway, we watched as one of those huge cylinders was being trucked into the dock area. We did ask a few fellows what these were, but no one spoke English. We ended up bussing back with many crew members who had gone "snack" shopping. For us, it was Coca Cola time since we had not thought to bring water off with us.
It turned out our timing was bad. It was close to noontime and some of the tour buses were coming back. We did check out the souvenir tables with t-shirts, caps, magnets, little kid toys, purses, handbags, and wooden lacquer items. They also sold some Vietnamese clothing and flip-flops, as well as designer watches – all knock-offs. No sense to even attempt bargaining (which they expect) with so many people shopping there. Better to come back later, if at all. We never did go back.
We cooled off with those sodas and spent some time on our veranda watching the river traffic. There were all sizes of boats and ships, but nothing like what we saw in Da Nang. Checking out a website, we did see that the Celebrity Solstice and another ship were also docked in the river. The Solstice is quite large and had to be docked closer to the river's entrance. We would see it later on our way out to sea.
So where did some of the guests go today? The best of Ho Chi Minh was 8 ½ hours for $150, and a tour to see the Cu Chi tunnels for 10 hours was $140. Both of these excursions included lunch. Also a lunch, there was a taste of Vietnam in partnership with Food and Wine for 7 hours and $140. Shorter tours were Vung Tau for 4 hours at $60 or Ba Ria for 3 ½ hours for $50. A transfer only to Ho Chi Minh was also $60 for 8 ½ hours on your own. Comparatively speaking, today's excursions were the most affordable so far in our opinion.
All aboard was 5:30pm, and we all had to turn in our landing cards to a box at the front desk. Before 6pm, Captain Friso carefully turned the ship around and headed back down the river. We stayed on the veranda the whole time enjoying the scenic cruising. The sun went down and the lights came on, which really made everything look so much nicer, even if it was all industrial. Numerous container ships were operating through the night, which is smart since it is much cooler. And like we said, we passed by the Celebrity Solstice just as she was ready to leave as well. With up to 3400 passengers, this ship is much larger than the Zuiderdam. Captain Friso did toot the horn as we sailed by. It was dinner time by the time we passed by Vung Tau, the city on the seaside. It was lit up like a Christmas tree.
Dinner time was celebrating the end of another segment with the parade of the cooks and waiters. Why tonight, we do not know, since tomorrow is a day at sea. No one goes home until Saturday we believe. We ordered the spicy chicken/peanut sauce dipped appetizer with one salad and one chicken noodle soup. It's still spaghetti soup and we gave up trying to get the noodles. Entrees were the veal tenderloin – one with rice and one with a baked potato. We skipped the parsnip puree which is really of swipe on the plate. We passed on dessert, which really upsets our waiter. He loves to bring a complete dinner, but it can be way too much at times.
Showtime featured instrumentalist Dennis Lau, a pianist and violinist. People were filing out of the dining room early, so we are not sure how many of them make it to the later show. Since some of the tours left at 6:15am, we doubt many folks will go to the show tonight.
We knew that the clocks had to go ahead one hour tonight, but our waiters forgot to tell us, and there was no card left on the bed like they usually leave it. The front desk folks verified that yes, the clocks went forward tonight. We don't like that, but at least we have a sea day to relax before Singapore.
Bill & Mary Ann
