Our next stop was Singapore. We spent a day (or two or three) here as part of a cruise in 2016. On our first visit, one of the ship’s azipods broke which kept us in port for a couple of extra days until it was determined that it could not be fixed and so we would go at half speed to Hong Kong, missing most of the rest of our scheduled port stops.

Singapore is a very neat and tidy city, but it is a big city, and we no longer enjoy spending our time in big cities. We arrived at 6 pm in the evening and would be there until 6 pm the following evening. Singapore immigration would only process 50 people every 15 minutes, so everyone that was getting off the ship had a lengthy wait. We decided to stay on board and enjoy the ship minus the crowds. A few famous sites were visible from the ship, so I took a few photos.

The one port I was looking forward to visiting was Nha Trang, Vietnam. Not that there is anything that is unique about the city, but it was the only port that we had not previously visited. Though it was not listed as a tender port on the cruise itinerary, we were told by our butler that the ship always tenders there. No problem, we do have that nice concierge service so would be able to walk off the ship and get a taxi into town if it were too far to walk. We watched the navigation channel and got to about 10 km away from port. Then, the distances started to increase, rather than decrease. I found our cabin steward out in the hall and asked if we had missed any announcements regarding visiting Nha Trang. He said that he had not heard any, so he called his boss. His boss had not heard anything either, so he called his boss. Since we had hit a storm the previous day, which was a sea day, and the water was too choppy, we would not be calling at the port of Nha Trang. Tendering would be too dangerous. Darn! Double darn! Another sea day on a rocky ship. First world problems, right?

The next day we were scheduled to dock at Phu My, a port about an hour and a half away from Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City). We were just there in October and had no desire to be stuck in traffic to revisit a city we were thoroughly familiar with, so we had another quiet day relaxing on the ship. I am not complaining at all – we have perfected “the art of doing nothing” – a phrase a friend in Chiang Mai taught me which describes retirement quite well. The sailaway in Phu My was quite beautiful.

We had one final sea day before docking in Laem Chabang, a port located about an hour and a half out of Bangkok. We had previously decided to spend a few days in Pattaya for a completely different slice of Thai life. And it was completely “different” from what we are used to! What a way to spend Christmas!