Saigon or Ho Chi Min City
After breakfast we caught the tour bus and took a 2 hour road trip to Saigon ,and what a vibrant,exciting place this is..Streets full of hawkers trying their best to sell cheap tourist artifacts.The markets were amazingly full of anything!!Shoes,shirts,shorts ,figurines of all description,masks which I have bought to add to my home collection.I ccouldnt resist buying a large Vietnamese pointed hat .Going around the very tiny aisles in the market was very funny with young women wanting to rub my belly !! Christmas is still very evident here and the decorations around the streets is truly amazing.We visited the very French orientated Post Office and still has the look an aura of the early 1800,s Next I visited the HUGE Catholic church and a service was in full flow (NO lightening bolts were aimed at me throughout this session!) As we left at night time the town seemed to attract lots more people and the tiny motor bikes were out in force ! All the street Xmas decorations were illuminated and vendors were now selling all shapes and sizes of electrical wares For my daughter Jayne…as we travelled back to the ship street lights went out as the did in Beijing.Because we arrived back late we were treated to a very large Ship BBQ .Our tired boozing group is now reduced to SIX,nevertheless we still managed Happy Hour ( I think at this point the smoggy pollution is getting on my chest .BUT Annie is on top of that shoving more Pills into me!!) session finished at 12.30am
Happy New Year
January 31 is the Chinese New Year and will be The Year of the Horse
Late breakfast and then into the Ships library to catch up on my blog and transfer photo’s from our cameras to this device.New Years Eve and what a day !! Happy Hour (when our gang of twelve turns up for our nightly gathering ) has been changed from to10pm just for tonight to 4 to 5pm BUT being smart we ordered around 50 bottles in the earlier session and held them over till later) We caught an Australian Comedian in the first show the highlight being when all the NYE balloons overhead had accidentally been released ! then onto our nightly session with the Piano Man and onto The Crows Nest for New Year Celebrations and what a great night it was ,the place was ALIVE and we are lucky to have fallen into a great group of people.The night ended for us at 3am ! HAPPY NEW YEAR
Cambodia
Arriving in Cambodia we disembarked and took the shuttle bus to Sihanoukville and as we entered the square still on the bus we were surrounded by street sellers running along with the bus!!We ventured into the market and what a hive of activity! Beggars were sat in the aisles in the crowded place All sorts of wares were on selling including live fish/crabs/yabbi,s/shrimps something that looked like worms,Clothing,jewellery.you name it and it could be bought.Sihanoukville is very dirty and smelly methinks the cleanest places are the rubbish bins IF they can be found !! After lunch we sat in the library while I updated blog material and Annie is reading her Ebooks.The night time show was a DULCIMER Player (allright if you like that stuff for an hour ,we did,nt ) Glenn the pianist was in great form as usual and we finished the night with friends in the Crows Nest
Watch me play Didgeridoo
Geoffs Life After Work ! 