First night on the Amalotus cruise

Our first night on the Amalotus cruise included a big welcome dinner that we are to dress up for, so we did.
A wonderful banquet it turned out to be too, we all enjoyed a wonderful meal with delicious cocktails and good company.
After the beautiful meal we meet the big Tour Manager Hong who gives us a breifing of what we shall be doing over the next few days, he shows us slides of various things along the way. Then he tells us to relax and enjoy a traditional folkloric performance from Vietnam dancers and musicians all dressed in beautiful costumes . It is very good too there was a monkey dancing around among the lady dancers wearing a fancy pottery mask carrying a sharp looking dagger.
 We all linger to watch and some are kind of dragged up to give it a go doing some of the dances.... fortunately not me or Erle!
Was a lovely evening a good start to our Mekong cruse. But quite a late one, for us, plus plenty of wine and cocktails, we shall sleep well tonight.

Our Mekong River Cruise begins.

Today our big river cruise up the Mekong River will start on the 'Amalotus' We have all been looking forward to this, but before we leave for the ship we get to enjoy another big breakfast and then we have one of our freedom of choice activities, for today Erle and I have chosen a nice simple walk around Saigon with a guide who knows the city. At least we shan't get lost!

Quite a few of us have chosen this guided walk, first stop is the Central  Post Office a huge building, with little shops and stalls inside of it, very handy we all have a good look at the wares. I am wishing we had our post cards all written out  ready to send home, but no they are still waiting for us to get a few spare moments, but we enjoyed having a look in this vast Post Office.



Next stop in right across the road the Catholic Notre Dame Cathedral, another amazingly huge building, built by the French as was the PO, in a French style, Church is open and we have a good look inside, its nice and cool inside too.

We see lots of street sellers setting up their wares and small shops that look interesting. Orange ducks hang waiting customers in many cabinets, wonder what they taste like?

To get to the buildings we have to cross streets that are very busy with traffic so it is a great chance to practice our crossing roads in Vietnam  act., like sticky rice we stay together and walk at a slowish measured pace and let the traffic all go around us. It is scarer y but it works.

We are shown the tallest building with a helipad built into the side of it, very modern. No sign of any helicopters today.

We were meant to see the Opera House but we took too long in our wandering so its back to hotel get our suitcases down ready to leave on the buses, 4 of them now, our group has grown from 46 people to 115 a huge number, not going to be able to get to know many of that big crowd, besides they have all been travelling together around China also with APT so they know each other well just as our group does.
Off on the bus and it doesnt take long to get to the 'Amalotus' docked right beside the road, we board and find we have a lovely cabin on the dining deck, we have a nice balcony but it is so hot outside that maybe we shall not is outside for long. This cabin is a lot larger than on the previous ship.
As I am going past the reception I hear Virginia making a booking for a foot massage, so I stop and ask if I can have the next appointment. Such a great idea and I really enjoyed it. My poor sore aching feet relaxed and came alive again. Money well spent, and I have no idea how much cause I didn't bother to ask!
We have to have the manditory Safety drill, so we all had to don our life jackets and race up to the top deck, where we have a safety talk then  return to our cabins take off the jackets and it lunch time our first on board and its a lovely 4 course meal! The food is very nice and tasty, there is a very nice cold fruit flavoured soup that I really enjoyed, never tasted anything quite like it before.

We look out out balcony and see a small long boat with several people preparing masses of food while sheltering under the wharf out of the rain, we were intrigued, they didn't eat it just prepared the vegies and cooked it and then left, so we imagine they must be some of the street sellers, surprising where the food is actually cooked!

Cu Chi Tunnels from the Vietnamese War.

We don't have to be up particularly early today but still we wake and get up for our lovely breakfast of which we squirreled a few bananas and pastry's for lunch. Afterwards we are free for a short while, Erle ventured out on to the street and bought himself a nice Polo shirt for a couple of dollars, a good buy he needed some new shirts.
I then joined him on a wander around some of the streets  looking for the big market we had been told was close at hand, however we never did find it, asking directions from people who can't speak your language is not all that easy and doesnt work too well.. I did get some fridge magnets I wanted but not much else., returned to Hotel and nibbled our meagre rations,  Then we went down and got on the bus to Cu Chi Tunnels. We had the choice of going to the big Australian War Memorial and laying a wreath, but as we are not Auzzies and plenty of Kiwi soldiers fought and died, without a wreath to lay for them we chose to visit the Tunnels where the Viet Cong lived and fought against our men.
As we drove towards the tunnels I couldn't help thinking about the men both Auzzie and Kiwi who forght side by side and struggled through the very wet area of paddy fields and Rubber tree plantations, it couldn't have been easy or comfortable in this extreme heat; 40 degrees and 100% humidity, and it must of been difficult spotting who was for them and who was against. A deadly war.

There are tanks and coppers parked outside around the walk to the Tunnels.
The forest is sparse and quite young trees, because the Americans sprayed everything with Agent Orange to defoliate all the tress and it killed them, they are slowly regenerating. Within the forest there are some small groups of statues, tableau's, of dressed Viet Cong and nurses and wounded people  and animals. As well as many different tunnels some are able to be crawled down and some not. I chose not to actually go down into the earth,as I am a bit claustrophobic so I just pretended to have been down there, 

Erle crawled through and some were pretty tight, others opened up into rooms. Way back then there were virtually cities under ground where hundreds of whole families lived for long periods of time in the dark airless cells and tunnels deep within the earth. There were 3 levels of tunnels some ran for miles!

The entry to these tunnels was so tiny just about 12 inches square, we though no man could get in or out of the tiny opening, but a Vietnamese man came running through and jumped down the tiny hole and pulled the lid over the top of his head and the hole just vanished as it was covered with leaves and rubbish off the forest floor. Then just a quickly he leapt back out and ran back into the forest.
Entrances have been much enlarged to allow our much larger fatter bodies to get into the tunnels at all.

We were also shown man-traps that were specially dug and built to kill and injure our men, and did indeed do just that, these were nasty torture chambers that would impale a man many times extremely painfully. There were many varieties of them.

We actually stopped for a meal on way back, the only time it really rained on us, great big heavy rain drops as is the case in the WET season in Vietnam. The meal was not particularly memorable in fact many of us felt we picked up a tummy bug here. I was ok but others were not.

We disembark Au Co

Today we have to disembark from the Au Co Cruise ship and end the lovely cruise around Ha Long Bay, I am so sad to be leaving, I could have so easiely have spent our whole time drifting around this beautiful Bay and all its small mountains, just soaking in the peace and beauty. I am also sad because Winnifred and Dorothy have not returned and will not be going on to Saigon with us and maybe not even continuing at all with us.
We all enjoyed a Tea ceremony on the deck before departing, I really like the ginger tea and plan to continue drinking it when I get home. Its very good for settling upset tummies.


Also it is the final day with our 2 lovely tour Guides Quang and Lilli, we have all got quite close to them as they shared their lives with us on bus trips, APT travel company certainly has employed some very good

people who work hard organizing everything and keeping us safe and happy. We shall all miss them.
We take the long bus ride back to Hanoi to the airport, where we had lunch with the two guides before catching the plane to Saigon, it was equally sad parting for the young guides, they had tears in their eyes as they farewelled us and wished us well. Quang quickly gave me his email address so I shall write to him when I get back home.
We arrive in Saigon and are settled into the  lovely Sheraton Saigon Hotel, very comfortable and luxurious as the Hanoi hotel had been.
We are just in time for a really extravagant dinner buffet, quite the best I have ever seen, We all had our fill and more!
There was a quick Group meeting to meet up with a further 60 who are joining our party of 46, its going to be crowded, we shall now require 4 buses to get around.

Some of the lovely yummy food we enjoyed in Vietnam and Cambodia.

The food in Vietnam far exceeded our expectations, it was light and fresh with a lot of salads and soupy noodles for starters but the main courses were beautifully artisticly

decorated and tasted as good as they looked, lots of Prawns and fish were served but no steak at any time, small amounts of beef that we had were probably buffalo but who cares it tasted good.

Ofcause there were many more great dishes but I forgot to photograph them!


Each night on the Amalotus ship the food was set out for us to decide what we would like to chose for meal, a great idea.

Another perfect day on Halong Bay

Next morning we were up early, so I could have another go at Tai Chi with the Dragon Master, it is a nice start for the day specially in such beautiful surroundings. Then it was time for another leisurely breakfast on board ship before we got ready for the excursion of the morning to a floating village where ladies will row us around one of the mountains.

 But Dorothy is really not well, Winnifred told us she had coughed all night and was very breathless, eventually Dorothy staggered down to sit in the sun but couldn't eat. Our guides were most concerned about her. They said there were no Doctors any where near so they must take her back to Hanoi, a long way to have to go to be looked at. Winnifred said she would go with her freind and so had to rush and pack up for both of them, all gear had to go with them.

All the rest of us had to pile into the two tenders and go off to the floating village, leaving our 2 freinds behind, they looked very dejected and sad and Dorothy looked very ill.
Quang took them both back as far as he could in the ships tender.It is hoped they may catch up with us when we go to Saigon, if Dorothy is fit to travel.

Our morning being rowed around by an elderly lady was very nice we went with Christine and her Mother Pauline two very nice ladies. It was so beautiful and we just soaked up the serenity as we slowly went under a big mountain that had eroded away and around another jutting mountain and back to the Floating village again, lovely in the morning sun, though in fact it was very hot and humid and we all had to borrow big straw conical hats to keep the sun off us.




Back to the ship for lunch and how sad it felt to not have our 2 mates with us, I am going to miss them a lot.








The afternoon entertainment of sorts is not something we intend to attempt, it is to enter a secret cave and climb up 700 steps to the top and them come down a different  set of 700 steps! There are lovely stalagmites and stalactites all in various pretty colours and nice coolness. Doesn't sound like us at all.

So we passed the time reading up on the deck with a cool drink at hand, just relaxing and enjoying this lovely cruise, til the hot and bothered step climbers all returned exhausted and ready for a swim in the deep ocean around the ship.

I don't think I have ever swam off the side of a ship (actually the tender tied to the ship) in deep water before, I knew I could because of my natural buoyancy it is almost imposable for me to sink, I just float to the surface and virtually lie on top of the water. It is a talent I have always had, very useful it is too.




 Everybody else donned a life jacket in case they had any difficulties but I did not and was completely at ease in the water for a long time swimming and chatting to everyone as they all tried to float like I can, not many people can, they needed their life jackets.






After diiner on board ship we waited for the sunset and took a photo before we retired

to bed early and started packing as we leave this ship in the morning.
Going to be hard to leave as I have really loved this cruise, except for losing the 2 freinds we had made. I could easily spend the entire time just drifting around this lovely place

Beautiful Ha Long Bay Cruising.

As the adverts say; awake surrounded by the beauty of the Ha Long Bay - and we certainly did, it was so surreal so peaceful and serene and beautiful.

There is a Dragon Master  lady Tai Chi up on the top deck taking classes, I had never seen Tai Chi before so I was not very good at it, but I enjoyed the stretching and movement so early in the morning at about &am! before I went down and joined Erle for an extended breakfast. 

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Today we are to go visit a fishing village, we are meant to mountain bike to it, the guides say I don't think so to us, so we just roamed around on shore then took the tender boat back to the ship when we were ready, a little Vietnamese girl had been assigned to us to keep us safe! She was sweet and anxious to improve her English so she chatted to us all the way. She took our photo, in fact many of them! We were able to relax for an hour or so! before lunch.

After lunch we are to go to a beach for an afternoons swimming. Nearly everyone came along, several heavy drinking Auzzie men took a chilly bin full of beer cans and they threw them around while they were swam. Never seen that done before, they had great fun though., so did we but without the refreshment.
After dinner on board Au Co we were able to just laze and enjoy a couple of the free drinks as we watched the evening slowly close and night slowly arrived, we spent a good while chatting with our new pals, Dorothy was not feeling at all well and stayed in her cabin for the evening. 
There was Squid fishing for the men when it was dark enough, not that much squid was caught, in fact I think only about 2 landed on the deck.