2024 – Queen Mary 2 Grand World– Part 3 –Sydney to Singapore..3.3 Hong Kong to Saigon

Back at sea, on March 15, everyone is raving about the wonderful party the ship put on at the Rosewood for World Cruise passengers.  The praise could not have been higher. I was sorry they didn’t serve a Chinese banquet, but completely understood how hard it would have been, with most of the guests never having had one before. Never mind, what they did serve them blew their socks off, and they do wear pretty expensive socks. They are, after all, cruising the world on the QM2. One guest went so far as to ask me if the Rosewood would share the recipe for the beef. It was that tender and tasty. Was it wagu? They couldn’t believe how good it was.   I wrote, said wonderful things and never got an answer back.  Guess they’re not sharing. 

I had some of my own TA work to do before office hour, went there and heard wonderful things about Hong Kong from a lot of people.  One of them went to Graham Street Market and loved it.  I had never heard of it, but after Internet investigation, I recognized it as the place I went to buy fresh fish to cook, when I lived in the Victoria Apartments.  It was almost directly above me.  I still remember the day I bought my fish live, had it gutted, paid for it and started down the hill.  It scared me half to death when it started flapping around in the bag about five minutes later.  I ran it back up the hill, only to be embarrassed when the fish monger took it out of the bag and showed me it was quite empty.  Their nerves twitch for up to twenty minutes. 

I dealt with a couple of my people.  Then came a very nice man who appeared to be flirting, and he was, but not for himself.  He wanted me to have dinner some night with him, his wife, and his childhood friend, who was travelling alone.  This sounded wonderful, until he told me about his friend’s dementia.  Not going there again, might do the dinner, just to help them out.  It won’t happen for a while as we are going into a very port-intensive period. 

There was a cocktail party for WC passengers in the Queen’s room to say goodbye to Captain Aseem Hashmi, who was leaving us in Singapore.  We all liked him a lot.  I went with one of my people, because her husband wasn’t feeling well, and she introduced me to my new friend, Pina.  A few hors d’oeuvres were enough for supper, after all the eating I had done in Hong Kong.

Tha next day, March 16, we docked in Chan May port for Hue, Vietnam. I woke up around three, and had trouble getting back to sleep.  It was very foggy out and the ship was sounding its fog horns at about two minute intervals.  I was glad I hadn’t booked an excursion because I had already done the ones that interested me.  I just wanted to get some sleep.  A 7:45am, still yet to dock, because of the pea soup fog, the Hotel Manager came on the PA, waking me up again, to tell us about the delay in docking and reminding us that we had to get off to have our passports stamped at the pier, if we wanted to get off at either of the other two ports, where there would be no customs officers to do it.  Duly noted.

We docked about 8:30am and it was still very foggy.  I rolled over and slept some more.  Then I got up and worked on my log and blog.  It was still very foggy at noon.  I went down and found the customs officer on the ship, near the gangway.  I also found out that there was street food on the pier, and planned to be back there at three.  It was foggier at 1:30PM than it had been at noon, when you could see a bit of a mountain in the distance.  I kept working.  At 3:00pm, the sun peeked through and I could see the mountain again.  I went out as far as the pier, bought a couple of scarves, and found the pop-up restaurant.  It was brilliant.  The squid were alive in tanks.  Feast your eyes on this ten-dollar feast:

There was not a single passenger in the place.  They would be afraid of getting sick.  There has been a lot of gastro-intestinal illness going around the ship, but it doesn’t come from squid so fresh that it was alive when you ordered it, and served piping hot, right out of the wok.  The crew have no trouble understanding it.  Best of all for them, this place had Balut.  Now, even I draw the line at Balut.  It’s a Philippine delicacy, though, also eaten in Cambodia and Vietnam.  Wiipedia says: “A balut is a fertilized bird egg (usually a duck) which is incubated for a period of 14 to 21 days, depending on the local culture, and then steamed. The contents are eaten directly from the shell. Balut that is incubated for longer periods have a well-developed embryo and the features of the duckling are recognizable. The partially developed embryo bones are soft enough to chew and swallow as a whole.” You see what I mean?  But check the look on he crew member’s face, while you are checking my fast disappearing plate:

As is my habit, I eat everyone’s meat or seafood, and nobody’s vegetables.  This is my idea of a clean plate:

I missed sailaway in my zeal to get the last Blog out.  I wasn’t hungry for dinner, so I just grabbed a couple of desserts from the trough and called it a night. 

It was a bit of a sad awakening on St Paddy’s Day, when I found out I have a client in the hospital, having just had a serious emergency operation.  They were to fly out on a Club Med Holiday in three days.  Luckily, they have good insurance, but that’s never fun for any of us. 

One of my people came to my desk to tell me how much fun they had had in Hong Kong and how happy he was with Elvon’s tailor.  He has two suits and three shirts coming to him by DHL.  They had gone on a private excursion in Hue and wanted to recommend “Les Jardins de la Carambole” in Hue.  I googled it and found out it was the restaurant we (DV) used in 2018 on Oceania.

His wife had taken her new power chair into Hong Kong and used it in the J.W.Marriott and all over Pacific Place.  She loves it.  They ate in the Marriott’s best Chinese restaurant and got a good local tour guide from the Concierge.  He wanted to thank me very much for my good advice.  I love to hear that.  Most people don’t take my advice and don’t know what they are missing.  These two will be having dinner with me in Singapore.  Good.

I needed a car and driver for Saigon, booked ahead, because one shouldn’t be out there catching a taxi, with a wheelchair bound person.  Four of us were going out for lunch in Saigon at a restaurant Daniele and Jean recommended very highly.  They had also recommended a driver, but he had never answered me, and, when queried, Daniele now couldn’t find him either.  So I googled for a bit and finally punched the country code for Viet Nam into my phone.  Up came Luat, our DV tour guide in VietNam in 2019 on Seabourn.  I sent hm a text.

Another of my people stopped by and we listened to the Captain’s noon shpiel together, as we often do.  He explained why there was no hot water in the showers this morning.  It was ship-wide, and had not been much fun.  She gave me a good trick for the next time that happens  You just crank the heat in the room all the way up and leave the bathroom door open.  Then the cold shower is just another day at the beach. 

I continued on with the car and driver project for Saigon, gathering resources from the Internet, while waiting for Luat to answer.  Presently he did and promised to help me find a car and driver.  No guarantees how much English said person would have, but we would get around. 

I had dinner with my new friend, Pina, who was born in India but has lived in the states most of her life.  We would make good travel buddies.  Since we had an early dinner, we caught the early show of “Strings Alive”, a guitar and a violin, leaping all over the stage, like a couple of kids, and they weren’t.  But that killed time before the Irish Dance performance in the Queen’s Room.  It was SRO when we got there and there were more women standing than men, while seated it was about even.  The age of chivalry is long past, apparently.  The dance performance was worth standing for, although I have no idea why they couldn’t have put it on the main stage, in a theatre that seats more than a thousand.

I was out of there in a hurry when the line dancing started.

On March 18, 2024, we anchord off Na Trang, Vietnam. I had picked a short tour, called “Street Food”. It was basically lunch, strung out over a number of places.  I was happy to see one of my people in the group waiting to be called to board the tender, and we hooked up for the day.  It was her first tender ride, ever, so she was glad of an experienced friend.  She did fine.  On the bus ride into town, our tour guide shared that the country sending them the largest number of tourists now is Korea.  She didn’t say North or South, but number two is Russia and number three, China.  The communists are traveling in droves, apparently.  I suggest you all get out there and help bring our numbers back up.

One of the best reasons to visit Vietnam is the food.  They have done a wonderful job of combining their French, Chinese and indigenous cuisines into gastronomical delights.  The ship’s shore excursion department’s idea of street food isn’t mine, but it’s probably safer and incites less panic.  All of our stops were actual established restaurants, rather than carts or stalls.  The first one taught me to appreciate Thang Nam and I’ll now be finding it on Ste Catherine Street:

This was my sampler:

And I ate every morsel of every one of them.  They were all delicious.  Next, we stopped at an even bigger restaurant and had oysters and beer.

My friend wasn’t into raw oysters, so I had another three.  And we were both happy with the beer.  The next place served us Do-It-Yourself spring rolls, which would probably have been better if they had done them for us, but they were OK.  And the last place was the worst.  All we got was a beer in a very nondescript bar, right next to a gorgeous restaurant on the beach which was mostly empty.  They needed to charge us more and put us in there to end on a high. 

Back on the ship, my Australian friend Chris, whom I had met in Cairns at the boat club, waiting for the tender, had rented a motorcycle for $8 and treated himself to some real street food, for almost no money at all.  Chris is about 65 and has been riding motorcycles for 50 years.  He was also a Navy pilot, so doubtless has nerves of steel. 

Then I had a Pizza at the Chef’s Table, chatting to Aussies, Norma and Mario and went to bed.

Back at sea on March 19, Luat came through with the car and van prices and, since you could only put 3 in the car, and we were 4, I went for the van and hoped to get a couple more to bring the price down.  But, just in case, everyone agreed to $92.50 for the day’s transportation to Saigon.  In the World Cruise lounge at tea, I ran into a couple, who were delighted to join us and so now, it’s $65 each.  Nice.

I google translated the places we wanted to go and printed it.  They were Notre Dame Cathedral, The Old Post Office, Ban Thanh Market, and The Deck.  I ate in the dining room at a share table, which I had not done in a while, and went to “The Vallies”, a Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons tribute group.  They were very good. 

The next day, March 20, we docked in Phu My port for Ho Chi Minh City – Saigon.  We all met up at the gangway and Mr Ha was a hundred feet away with his van.  We had paid an extra $100 for this, in our price, and it was well worth it.  Jeanne had to have it, and the rest of us were grateful when we saw how far it was to the port entrance.  The driver made one pit stop on the way in to Saigon, but it was so early in the game that none of us got out.  He did grab himself some lunch, though, to be sure he ate.  We loved Mr Ha.  He was a good kind man, but he did not understand us at all.  Poor Luat was called again and again to translate, and he did it cheerfully, though I know he was leading a tour of his own.  I’ll be calling him a lot sooner the next time and have him in the car with us.

Notre Dame Cathedral was covered in scaffolding and no one wanted to get off for the Post Office, so we were in the market by noon.  Even so, we only had one hour to shop.  Peggy found what she wanted right away, but the rest of her browsing was cut short by trying to sit down on a piece of luggage, and having it roll away, leaving her to land on her tush.  There are worse ways to land, but she was shaken and grateful when three little shop ladies fanned her while the rest of us went off to shop. 

It was very, very hot in there.  I would make a purchase, check on Peggy, make another purchase, check on her again.  The little fanning ladies stuck with it. Before my last purchase, she got up and moved to our appointed waiting spot.  They offered a little plastic stool.  She accepted and it was no better than the piece of luggage.  She hit the floor again.  This time Mr Ha had arrived and I managed to convey to him that he should put her in the air conditioned van, while the clock ran out and the rest of us assembled.  I made a quick purchase, and waited for the others, who were there quickly.  Our wheechair bound lady had been having the time of her life in that market.  She is one spunky lady.

Off we went to The Deck and it did not disappoint. This was my first order:

The things in the copper tumbler are soft shell crab and it was amazing.  Just about everyone else ordered them once they saw me with it.  Here’s our exceptionally happy group:

That’s Jeanne in the middle.  She weighs about 65 pounds but she’s pretty lively.  She actually came to sailaway, had a cigarillo and a gin and tonic, and asked me to email her travel agent for a quote on next year’s HAL world, on the Zuiderdam. 

I had two beers and a chocolate pear cake for dinner. 

Just before we were to leave the van, Peggy made a little speech. She wanted to tell us how this day had changed her. She had grown up in the ’60-70s in the USA, where the Vietnamese were the hated enemy. After meeting them up close in the market, and seeing how kind they were, she realized how very wrong we can be. That’s what travel will do.