cruise

Post-Cruise Stop-over in Bangkok, Thailand after the Southeast Asia Ballroom Dance Cruise

"One night in Bangkok and the world's your oyster" - well, ok, not quite. With apologies to Tim Rice, I have been humming and singing that song intermittently whenever our stop-over in the city Bangkok came up in conversation. I couldn't believe that those lines went over everyone's head - no one had heard the song. Maybe it was my off -key singing voice.

 I had a two-night stay in Bangkok planned for after the South-East Asia cruise and was looking forward to seeing what I remembered of the city from my previous visits as a medical consultant.

Sunday, November 22nd, Bangkok 

The Diamond Princess arrived in the port of Laem Chabang, Thailand  around 7 am. It is a good hour's drive from there to the city.

Helene, Jean, Raoul and I met in the Savoy Restaurant where we waited to be allowed to disembark. Amazingly the promised transport arranged by our hotel actually arrived and drove us to the Citadines Hotel,one of a chain of small suite business hotels in the city.

Our rooms, which we had booked through Orbitz, were quite reasonable - about 79 USD a night but we were about  three-quarters of an hour away from the prime hotel locations on the banks of the Chao Phraya river. On my last two-week working visit to Bangkok I stayed at the Sheraton where I had a gorgeous view of the river.

This time our hotel was just off one of the main streets running through the city, called Sukhumvit. It is described as a "sprawling artery which runs through Central Bangkok. Between Soi 1 and Soi 33 is the visitor region as there are hotels ranging from low priced to luxury 5 star, along the road and in adjoining streets.Judging by the shops and restaurants nearby to our hotel area, Sukhumvit 11, it looked like a Little India area.

My room had a kitchenette area. The furnishing was simple but clean. The only flaw as I discovered later the next morning was that the shower obstinately refused to bring forth any warm water at all. So I shivered through a quick wash and rinse and gave up on the idea of washing my hair hoping that the next shower would be warmer.     

After we had dropped off our bags,washed up and sorted out the tour arrangements for the evening  - we were going on a river boat dinner cruise - we set off  to explore the area.

At a bank a couple of blocks away the others changed some US dollars for baht. I had already got some in Vancouver so did not need to worry about that.
 

Thursday November 19th: At Dinner in the Savoy Dining Room

Missing a picture of Bernie - if anyone has additional photos to post please email them to me.

Thursday November 19, The second to last day of just cruising at sea and the third formal night for dinner

We were quite tired after the long bus rides yesterday and the humid weather did not help. We decided to go the breakfast in the room route before heading up to the Wheelhouse lounge for 9 am.

Greg was doing a hustle workshop first. Then instead of the planned West Coast Swing class by Brian, they decided that Greg would review some of the things he had taught, and on the next sea day, Brian would do the WCS class and review his lessons with us.

I was quite pleased that Greg reviewed that chacha pattern - I think I got the swivel parts - although I did not always feel the lead into that step but the "da da", swivel, swivel timing had me confused and it is a really cool move. Anyway by the end of the review I think I had the timing right on it. Now I need to have a chance to put it into practice.

Also when Carrie does it she really gets down low for that sexy swivel and it looks great - I don't think I can get down that low - need to do more lunges and squats in the gym when I get back, instead of whining about my quads when Cale makes me work on those moves.

November 17 to 19, 2009 -  Nha Trang and Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam)

Unlike Hong Kong which I had visited on several occasions, where I found that most people could speak some English and many were fluent, Vietnam was an unknown for me. I had never visited the country before and did not feel comfortable trying to get around by myself. As well the ship was to dock quite a distance from the places we were to visit.

So Joan, Bernie, Raoul and I had all signed up for a tour in Nha Trang. Later Jeane and Carol decided to take the same tour.

The ship anchored off shore from Nha Trang, a small town in the south centre region of Vietnam, with fishing as its primary industry. The warm waters and white sand beaches also make Nha Trang a favorite holiday destination.

Tuesday November 17, Nha Trang

Our group met at 7 am in the Princess Theatre as the tour was scheduled to start 7:30 and we had to tender ashore. Our "sampler" excursion itinerary included the Ponagar Cham Tower, the Buddhist Shrine at Long Son Pagoda and a visit to see how Vietnamese silk picture embroidery is made.

Nha Trang was originally the centre of the Kingdom of Champa that ruled the area from the 2nd century to the 15 century AD. They were defeated by the Ly Dynasty who founded the independent state of Vietnam. The south, central and northern areas of Vietnam are now one country with a population of over 83 million people, and governed from Hanoi in the north.

After we tendered ashore we got onto buses for the short drive to Nha Trang. We stopped off to see the Long Son Pagoda with its massive white statue of Buddha. We were inundated by hordes of people selling everything from postcards to fans and prints. It was actually quite uncomfortable as they get in your face, begging you to buy stuff. I actually ended up buying some really attractive prints.

I find it fascinating that though Buddhism is supposed to be a non-theistic spiritualism, Buddha has almost it seems been elevated to a god and places  seem to vie to see who can have the largest Buddha statue. Something seems a bit odd with this picture. Not my photo of course!

Next we stopped at a beach restaurant called something like Nha Haru Bia Tua Louisiana which translated into Louisiana Brewhouse!

This was a refreshment stop where we were presented with coconut milk in a coconut shell. For me it was sour and astringent and I just had a few sips.

There was lots of  time for us to walk along the beach and we enjoyed the fresh sea air. Raoul got to demonstrate his skill as dance partner.

Then we piled back into the buses for the drive to Ponagar where we were to visit the Cham Tower.

The bus let us off on the far side of a bridge over the Cai River Estuary which we walked across in single file. This gave us an opportunity to look down on the fishing boats in the bay before we followed our guide up to the Towers.

The ship docks in the port of Shanghai but the distance from the pier to the city may vary from a half to a one hour drive depending on the size of the ship and where it has to dock. The Diamond Princess is a big cruise ship and has to dock quite far out. The city spans the Huangpu river, a tributary of the Yangtze River.

As a quick refresher about the origins of the city I read the information provided through the website. Here is a quick summary - Before the First Opium War of 1840-42 Shanghai was a small walled city of about 300,000 inhabitants but according to the Treaty of Nanking that ended the war, Western merchants were granted the right to lease land and trade on the West bank of the Hangpu. This built the city into one of the major trading centers in the East and over time the city divided into the International Settlement, dominated by Britain, the French Concession, the Chinese city and the Chinese suburb of Zhabei north of the main part of the city. The merchants built the Bund, an area with a large stone river walk along the central water front, with big elegant buildings, banks, consulates and trading houses lining the river. I have this great memory of strolling along the waterfront but apparently the walkway is being reconstructed and is closed at the present time, so I could not see it again..

After dinner on our first night of sailing, tired though everyone was, we were determined not to miss even one evening of dancing so we headed off to the Wheelhouse Lounge to dance for an hour or so and then we had an early night. Dancing would start in earnest the next day with the first of our dance workshops in the morning, and then a full evening of dance in the evening.


Saturday, November 7 - Of Foxtrot, rhumba and dance parties

Dance-wise this first full day at sea kicked off, so to speak, with two dance workshops. We met at 9 am in the Wheelhouse lounge where all our workshops will take place. The floor is slightly larger than the one on the Pacific Princess and alright for a group lesson with a small group.

In this group there are no beginners. In fact all the women are quite good dancers and the age range I suspect is much narrower than on previous cruises I have been on. So in our group we have 9 fit, active, dance-crazy women guests, Bernie, Carol (who is not yet on board),Helene, Kim, Joan, Jean, Linda, Marcie and me, one couple, Julia and Harry, and the hosts, Brian, Craig, Greg and Raoul.

I have noticed that sometimes when there are couples in the group the men dont dance with any of the other women while the wives dance with the hosts, which alters the one-to-three ratio but Julia and Harry are just great. They are a delightful couple, fit right in to the group and Harry cheerfully dances with all of us. Unusually, in this small group, four of the 16, me, Helene, Julia and Harry, are Canadians. We joked that we were almost ready for a Canadian takeover.  

Anyway I digress from the workshops. Greg ran the first hour teaching an foxtrot sequence. Everyone picked it up really quickly. Then Brian took the second hour to introduce a rhumba sequence that gave us an opportunity to work on cuban hip motion, rhumba walks and spiral turns. Both workshops went  really well. In this small group it was easy for people to rotate in and out and we all had a turn to practice.

We all love our dance hosts. They have really strong leads, are a pleasure to talk to and are like energizer bunnies - they just keep going, dance after dance. I guess it makes their job easier when they have dancers that they don't have to drag around the floor. In fact of the group, I think I have probably been dancing for the least amount of time, and because most of my training has been in the International Standard and Latin, I have only  learned the basics of some of the dances in the past few months- since May in fact - so I think I am doing pretty well considering.

But because these guys are so easy to follow I can usually do most of the patterns they try and the rhythms are pretty simple so I feel quite comfortable now with dances like the hustle and night club 2 step and I am definitely finding it easier to follow more complicated moves. Just gotta remember to count "don't hop, two, three," for the syncopated hustle and it feels much smoother and easier. I am still not mad about salsa- need to go to some salsa dances back in Vancouver to get better at it and I still have to get my Argentine Tango lessons with Carlos back on track. But first I have to be back in Vancouver long enough to get back into my regular dance and fitness routine.

Although I find I am having a lot of fun doing these American style social dances, I guess realistically it is mainly because of the chance to dance with so many excellent partners. I still love the discipline and formality - if that's the right word to describe it - of the International style. I hope to be able to do my gold level routines in Standard and Latin sometime next year but although I really love my dance lessons,  without a regular dance partner I just dont get the opportunity to practice - or just to dance for enjoyment.

The first thing on my mind on my return to Vancouver from the South Pacific Dance Cruise: Hawaii to Polynesia was getting my visa to visit China. Beijing is where I will embark on the Diamond Princess for 16 dance- filled nights and days while cruising from  China to Thailand.  And I only had two weeks to get ready.

"Another dance cruise?"  you may ask - "you are almost turning this into a profession".  And rather than blush and confess that I am now a confirmed dance cruise addict, I will loftily refer you to the explanation for this new tendency towards globetrotting on moving dance floors. It can all simply  be blamed on last year's New Year resolution to develop  spontaneity.  Well that is my story and I am sticking to it for the rest of the year.

But back to the visa. I had my passport photo ready and my plan was to go Monday morning to the Chinese consulate visa application office and apply. I figured that would give me a few days lee-way if it took longer than I expected.


My friend Susan told me "you have to go early"  but I figured if it opened at 9 I would let the lineups dissipate and get there a lttle later. So Monday morning I took my time and strolled into the Visa office just after 10. The place was absolutely jam packed with people, occupying every seat on the rows of benches and also lining up outside. I asked the man at the desk where one gets a number and he just laughed at me.

"We've given out all the numbers for the day"  he says.

So I asked him what time do you have to be there to get a number. "Well" he says,"when I get there at 7 in the morning there is already a line-up. Ok so Susan was right- why did I doubt her?

Two Days in Traveler's Paradise: French Polynesia

Our South Pacific Cruise is rapidly coming to an end  and this is the part that most of us had been waiting for; visiting the beautiful islands of French Polynesia that sit like exquisite jewels in the warm blue and green waters of the Pacific Ocean.

The islands we will visit on this cruise are Bora Bora and Moorea, and then the  Pacific Princess will dock at Papeete in Tahiti.  With a 7:30 am flight  next morning I won't see Tahiti so I really wanted to get a  flavour of the other two islands.

Bora Bora and Moorea are part of the Society Islands , an archipelago originally named for the British Royal Society by Captain Cook. There are two groups, the Windward Islands, in which Tahiti and Moorea are included, and the Leeward Islands in which Bora Bora lies. They have been a French colony since 1880.

Because of the time constraints, what these cruise visits do is  just give you enough of a taste of each destination so that you can decide to where you would like to return for further experiences.  Having grown up in Cape Town where  I used to love to swim in the warm waters of the southern Indian Ocean, I was eager to dip my toes into the waters of the South Pacific. So Bora Bora and Moorea - here I come. 

Wednesday October 7  Samba at Sea and Bora Bora

We were originally scheduled to arrive  at  the island of  Bora Bora at  8 am  and  depart at 5 pm for Moorea, but  adverse currents and choppy seas over the preceeding  five days had  forced a reduced cruising speed and that meant we would not arrive in Bora Bora until around noon. 

This caused some concern among those who had booked early morning excursions, and lots of scrambling on the part of the staff to reschedule everything. I had not booked an excursion so it did not bother me. I was more concerned with the fact that I had rashly  signed up to do a  Samba routine in the talent show at 10:30 am and we had not really rehearsed anything.

I woke as usual around 6 am and by 6:30 was sipping coffee and eating a banana  nut muffin and yogurt in "my office" on the aft deck outside the Pacific Buffet. We had arranged for Jorge to come and help Richard and I choreograph a short samba routine - really simple stuff but energetic enough to look like we were doing something good. I had my I-Pod with some great samba music and we put together three mini-routines that we thought would be fun.

We went through several variations and by the end of our brief practice i already felt I had had my workout for the day. I went back to the cabin to recharge my I-POd and get changed.  Ruby and Jorge decided to put together a tango routine. Cool - so as it turned out of the 6 "acts" 2 were from the Dancers at Sea group.

There is something strangely liberating about being among a mass of strangers who don't know your name, and whom you will never likely encounter again. I think I can almost understand why some people can make absolute idiots of themselves on those reality TV shows without  it seeming to bother them.  So although I was a bit anxious at first, when it came to actually getting out on the floor with all these strangers watching, I sort of forgot about them and just focused on not falling over when the ship rocked, and having fun.

I even made a joke about not having any Brazilian blood so that this would be a "Canadian samba."  Since what I actually meant  was that there wouldn't be any of the "frenziedly  shake your chest" action  that seem to be the most favoured celebrity moves in the Dancing with the Stars samba routines, I should probably have qualifed it further by saying this would be an "age-appropriate Canadian samba" but I don't think fast with a microphone held in front of me.

Anyway we got through the routine and Wendy videoed it on my small digital camera. Having viewed it, i don't think I will post it.  Too many things to work on before I will be comfortable having anyone see a video of me dancing!. Having said that, the husband of one of the other performers said he had videoed our dances and said he would mail us a copy. Hopefully he wouldn't post them anywhere without asking first. Oooohhh...

Friday October 2 - the first of 5 days  at sea,  and the Formal Night dinner
 
We departed from Hilo shortly after 4:30 pm on Thursday afternoon  and set course in a southerly direction across the Pacific Ocean towards Christmas Island. The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of all the oceans and covers two-thirds of the earth's surface. Compared to the distance between our various ports in Hawaii, an average of 100 nautical miles apart, the distance to Christmas Island from Hilo is 1088  nautical miles so it was no wonder that when we awoke early as usual and went up on deck, there was only the ocean to see all around us.

Wendy had scheduled 2 dance workshops each of the 5 days we were to be at sea. Originally planned for  9 am, the Cruise staff moved them earlier to 8:30 so that the next activities in the Pacific Lounge could start on time at 10:30.

 Since both Wendy and I are  early risers, we were up on deck having coffee and a light breakfast by 7 am.  It was quite lovely out on the aft deck behind the Pacific Buffet. Fresh air,  a V sign of bubbles trailing behind us and the vast Pacific Ocean all around.

The Pacific Ocean was named by Ferdinand Magellan, the 16th century Portuguese explorer whose fatal voyage (he was killed during fighting in the Philippines) nevertheless provided the proof that one could circumnavigate the globe  without sailing off the edge and that  therefore that the world was round and not a disc.

Pacifc means peaceful although that is difficult to believe when you are trying to do a Bolero and the ship rolls you down when you are supposed to go up!

When you think of the conditions under which Magellan sailed, and even as recently as when my great-grandparents immigrated by  ship to South Africa and Scotland, it is absolutely amazing  to think of what we take for granted these days.  Forgetting about air travel - which to my great grand-parents would have seemed as bizarre as a time-travel machine seems to us today, we can be out  "in the middle of nowhere" and yet  expect hot showers, clean laundry, gourmet food - and what to me is quite mind blowing - wireless internet access as good as at home - though at many times the price.

The fact that I can talk to my children on Skype from the middle of the Pacific Ocean, and it seems as if they are in the room next door - impressive - thanks to satellites, wireless routers,  and the exponential increases in processing and data storage capacity that have occurred over the past couple of decades

So when I caught myself grumbling that wireless internet access was costing me 40 cents a minutes, 35 c if I had been smart and bought 500 minutes up front instead of 250, I reminded myself instead to say a silent thank you to the thousands of scientists and engineers who made internet access from a ship  "in the middle of nowhere"  possible with minimal effort on my part. Anyway, on deck in a fresh breeze, I used up some of my precious internet time to check emails.What a great office.

By 8:30 we were up in the Pacific Ballroom, Wendy had her I-Pod connected to the sound system and we were ready to go. Of the two couples in our group, both women loved to dance and their partners were there because they loved their women! So the range of dance abilities went from rank beginner to quite experienced.  In order not to lose the beginners - and we all wanted to encourage Bob and Charlie to get as excited about dance as they claimed to be about golf! -the workshops were very basic. We essentially just did the box step in both the foxtrot and the rumba. I didn't mind though as it was additional exercise, although I thought a bit wistfully back to the West Coast Ballroom Dance Cruise rumba and chacha workshops where we learned some quite complex doublespin moves to practice on the dance floor.

 South Pacific Ballroom Dance Cruise 2009: Part I

The opportunity to join Wendy and the Dancers at Sea on a South Pacific Cruise from Honolulu to Tahiti came up unexpectedly while I was on the Labor Weekend Getaway Dance Cruise. A test of my developing capacity for spontaneity - something I have really been working hard to achieve - I needed to decide on the spot whether to take up an unexpected vacancy that had arisen - the only problem  was that the cruise was scheduled to start a mere two weeks after I returned to Vancouver from New York (New York, New York 2009).

 I checked my calendar to see if there was anything that could not be rescheduled, decided not to check my budget and my bank balance, and just go for it.  So  after  just enough time back in the city to see a couple of  plays, do my laundry and  tidy my apartment, I was packed and ready for another great vacation dancing at sea.