More from Thailand

TravelWhine – March 2

FEBRUARY 28/29:  After boarding our ship we had dinner with two other couples with whom we had a pre-arranged tour for the next day.  A four-course dinner and an excellent Malbec put me to an early sleep but also an early rise.   I decided at 5:00a.m. to spend  a little time on the walking/jogging track.  Now, you ask, who is up-and-about at 5:00 a.m.?  First there are a large number of crewmen busily scrubbing every railing, deckchair, and inch of deck with soap and water.  Then there are a surprising number of guests, albeit only old men, drinking coffee.

For our final day in Bangkok our tour took us first to the world’s largest wholesale flower market which was quite stunning.  However, we eventually walked through an equally large vegetable market and I must say that being in the midst of that many vegetables put me in near panic mode.  Next we toured the King’s Palace and a number of temples, seeing the Emerald Buddha and the Reclining Buddha.  This was followed up by a high speed long tail boat tour up-and down the canal system.  Houses of various qualities are built on stilts along the canals which are very busy with boats, young boys swimming, and some strange-looking lizards that are 5 or 6 feet long.

Perhaps the highlight of the above tour was Betty’s near faux pas while leaving one of the temples.  Not paying particular attention to where she was walking  nearly caused a collision with a monk.  From out of nowhere our 90 lb. female guide football tackled Betty so that a bump with the monk would not occur.  In Thailand there is no greater calamity than for a woman to touch a monk.  Perhaps if Bishop Lahey had had someone as protective as our tour guide things would have worked out better.  In any event we got back to the ship in time for a second delivery of stuff from the tailors and then to meet up at happy hour with a pre-arranged group of guests (from internet connections) for the beautiful sail down the River Chao Phraya.

MARCH 1:  Our ship anchored off Koh Sumui (Coconut Island) and we tendered with sixteen others for a tour arranged by Pierre somebody of Ottawa (internet connection).  We tendered ashore and were met on the pier by two 4 x 4 pickups.  Seven of us got in the back and two volunteers were strapped into seats bolted to roof of the pickup cab.  We drove that way some distance to an elephant farm where we elephant trekked through a bit of the jungle.  Then back to the pickups for a hair-raising drive part way up a mountain.  When we reached the end of the road we continued on foot to a beautiful 80 meter waterfall.  Then we took another quick trek to a Buddhist sculpture garden hidden in the jungle.

After lunch the group divided into swimmers (Betty) and snorkelers (Ron).  The swimmers were taken by boat to a white sand beach on an uninhabited island.  The snorkelers took a different boat to an off shore reef.  Of course there is no pleasing everyone and one couple (from New York, where else?) who  were in the swimmers group, refused to go to the uninhabited island because there were no lounge chairs on the beach.  They sulked all the way back to the ship.

We got back on board in time for another quick swim in the pool before dressing for dinner where we enjoyed eating with a group of Democrats whose views were quite different from our Republican dinner mates of the previous evening.  We pushed ourselves away from the table in time for a well-done production of Broadway excerpts in the concert hall.

MARCH 2:  Today will be spent on board as we sail Thailand Bay on our way to Singapore.  Our only scheduled event is to lunch with a group arranged by Chuck somebody.  We are going to discuss our plans to rent a junk for a day on Hue Long Bay in Vietnam.  Betty is going to take in a cooking class and I shall perhaps attend a lecture or two.