East is east and west is west or is it?
Although it is undoubtedly a convenience to disembark with minimal formalities the excursions on Vietnam have been unsatisfying. To be fair a shuttle bus is laid on and you can do your own thing – a phrase not generally applied to cruise life. I also suspect that never forgetting this is still a communist one-party state that there is insistence that their local guides are used. The guides have good English but their diction is so poor as to render them incomprehensible. They have difficulty with the hard consonants so “wild life” comes out as “why lie”.
We stopped at Nha Trang which is essentially a resort with a wide beach. In not too long it may well become a popular tourist destination and certainly hotels are springing up. There is not a lot to see so we were taken to an old temple, a clay pot factory which was monumentally boring, a typical Vietnamese house and a restaurant by a river. This reminded me of that famous Russian roulette scene in Apocalypse Now which in turn made me think that we have had no references at all to what they call the American war. The Vietnamese lost 3 million lives and, to be fair, there was a tour to the Chu Chu tunnels which the resourceful Vietcong built to sustain their guerilla warfare.
It was humid and hot so we were all grateful to return. Our beaming ever-cheerful guide insisted on singing us a Vietnamese song which sounded like a atonal flat Masonic dirge followed by “We lish you a melly Clistma” which did little to lift the mood.
In the afternoon I attended the enrichment lecture. The lecturer is an ex-diplomat and he is informative but controversial which makes him thought-provoking. It was called “The Rise of China” and he felt sure that sooner rather later China’s economy would overtake that of the USA and be the dominant one in the world.
One of the reasons for this is that the Chinese did not so much see this as desirable as historically inevitable. The lecturer explained that despite what we are taught in schools about the benefits of European colonialism the previous empires of the East were light years ahead. It was the Far East that offered spice and India cotton on the trade routes. It was the Far East that provided the three vital inventions – the compass, printing press and gunpowder. He argued that because Europe was perpetually at war militarily they were more advanced and later came the scientific revolution. So China was returning to what it was.
He did say that the country had the disadvantages of one party monolithic state and of food but they were now making scientific and technological strides by putting a space ship on the dark side of the moon and shortly sending one to Mars. To support his argument that once economic power is established cultural dominance follows, he referred to Thailand which has virtually no Christians but where the western Christian Xmas tree is ubiquitous as it is throughout the Far East. His hypothesis is that in time we may well all be celebrating globally Chinese New Year.
The boat set sail along the coastline to the north and the seas soon became very rough. My cabin was listing from side to side and those walking to the lecture looked like drunks as they suddenly lurched one way then the other. Even to cross the cabin to the desk was hazardous so I rested on my bed. I was not surprised that when I met Robert charged with the welfare of single travelers for the drink with solos we were the only two in the lounge. I initially complained about the New Year’s Eve dinner arrangements.
Robert invited me to his New Year’s Eve dinner and this was confirmed by the all powerful maitre’d Sergio so when I withdrew from an earlier invitation from a cruise entertainment director I was told this was not my final decision to make but Sergio’s. I considered this typical that regimentation comes first and client preference second. I also made it clear at higher level that if I am forced to have dinner with a collection of people I don’t know on an overrated night my preference would be to have dinner alone in cabin.
After this unpromising start to our conversation, as Robert did not wish to be involved, we opened up with revealing disclosures in both our lives. I was interested to know how he finished up as dancer on a cruise. When his marriage hit difficulties his wife and he had enrolled on a dance course to bring then closer. This did not happen, she did not even complete the course, but Robert – an architect by profession – discovered he had some facility as a dancer. He enrolled in an agency who advised that his profile would suit a cruise and he soon found work on Cunard. Now he is much sought for his ballroom capabilities and quiet charm. This led to a National Rust theme of how you spend the last phase of your active life. I in turn made revelations which I would normally not make to any other than a close friend. It was by far the most interesting conversation I have had all cruise. Ironically whilst I have sat through 4 courses and dull conversation he drank nothing and I just consumed 2 soda waters and a club sandwich.
