by Bob Sparrow
First, let me give a snappy, albeit tardy, salute and a “Thank you for your service” to all those VETERANS out there – who are mostly not given enough credit for their willingness to put the ultimate sacrifice on the line for our country. It was a most interesting blog that Suzanne wrote last week about our grandfather’s time in the Army during WWI and WWII. If you missed it, it’s definitely worth going back to read.
My next blog will come to you, assuming there will be adequate connectivity and sobriety, from the South China Sea. Linda and I will leave L.A. on Saturday, Nov 23rd, change planes in the Philippines and ultimately arrive at one of the world’s most beautiful airports on Monday afternoon, Nov 25 in Singapore. Yes, we will entirely miss Sunday! We will shake off the jetlag and spend three days exploring Singapore, hopefully seeing things like the Gardens by the Bay, Flower Dome & Cloud Forest, and the Marina Bay Sands Hotel. All the while enjoying some amazing and very different, possibly spicy, food.
Then we will be boarding the Celebrity ship, Solstice on Thanksgiving Eve. Thanksgiving Day will be ‘at sea’, but because we’ll be on the other side of the International Date Line, it will still be Wednesday back here, so perhaps I’ll let you know how this years’ turkey tastes a day before you get to taste it.
Our first cruise stop will be at the small Thailand island of Koh Samui – Yeah, I’ve never heard of it either, but it’s known for its stunning beaches, its iconic Big Buddha, the colorful Wat Plai Laem temple (what ever that is), as well as some interestingly and probably spicy food. We then head into Bangkok, where we spend two days and have set up tours to see the Grand Palace, Wat Pho, the world’s largest reclining Buddha, not to be confused with the world’s largest ball of twine, which is in Kansas, just west of Manhattan. Never mind, I guess you wouldn’t confuse those two. Meanwhile, back in Bangkok, we’ll probably have some more spicy food and get back on the ship for another ‘day at sea’.
We will be traveling north to Vietnam. Our first port of call there is Ho Chi Mihn City, or as many of us
remember it, Saigon, and we certainly didn’t want to Miss Saigon. We have a tour for exploring the Cu Chi Tunnels, well, I have a tour to explore the tunnels, Linda gets a bit claustrophobic so, given her interest in opera, she may be visiting the Saigon Opera House; it’s probably best that I’m missing that as I’m ‘opera-phobic’! Back on the boat and heading north to Nha Trang. Hold it! We just received word that due to port construction issues, we will not be visiting Nha Trang, so we get another ‘day at sea’ before stopping in Danang and Hue (pronounced ‘whay’). We have one more Vietnam stop in Hanoi, where we will spend two days, and have set up tours to visit the ‘Hanoi Hilton’, where captured U.S. soldiers we held as prisoners of war. We have also scheduled a tour of the military museum there. We have heard that it is a bit bias in their presentation of the war, but, as they say, winners get to write the history. So we’ll try not to act like ugly Americans and just eat some spicy food, and get back on the boat.
We have another ‘day at sea’! OK, we will now have had four days ‘at sea’ and we should have explored every nook and cranny of this boat, which essentially means we’ve been in every bar and by now they’re probably out of pina coladas! Now that I think about it, we could probably visit the gym, although web will have no idea where it might be.
Our final port of call is Hong Kong, where we originally had only about a day and a half before leaving for home, but we added another day to see more of the ‘Pearl of the Orient’, and have set up daytime and nighttime tours of this magnificent city.
Then a short 12.5 hour flight home in the back of the bus.