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I searched everywhere in Bangkok for a Panama Hat, I envisioned wearing one when we boarded the cruise to Australia. It just seemed to be appropriate to make the change from backpack travel to classic travel. But unfortunately I couldn't find one. So it was bareheaded when I boarded the ship.
The ship was the size of a whole town. It holds 2600 passengers and 1200 crew, all in all about the size of Lynda's home town of Whitianga. It also came with numerous nice looking bars which we worried would be tempting our very limited budget.
The plan was to take the ship to Australia, but it would not be going direct, no in fact it would kind of meander around south east asia before getting us to our destination. In fact it would be taking us to all those places we had already been! Where we would arrive at a port, we would be there early in the morning and leave that evening. So all our nights would be at sea.
The first port of call was Koh Samui. We had been here briefly before, on a long and convulated travel route from Koh Tao to
Krabi. When we were here last the island was severly flooded, and in pretty dire straights. However this time the weather was much more congenial. We just wandered around the villages nearest the pier, enjoyed the good weather and did some more shopping.
Then off to sea again and this time Singapore. As we would be on this cruise during Christmas, we hunted around for a present for each other. I had (as usual) slightly more pressure as Lynda's 30th birthday would also be on board, and I did not have much money to spend. I ended up buying her present from the blackmarket (fortunately the perfume I got her was actually the real thing!).
Next step Vietnam. We arrived at a port town near Saigon on christmas day. And as we had also been to Saigon already and we didnt fancy a three hour drive over Vietnamese roads, we just hung out at the town closest to the port. The transfer bus deposited us behind closed gates at a local hotel. The sight outside the gates was actually quite intimidating. It seemed that some of the most persistent touts in the country had gathered waiting to descend
on the ship's passengers. Throw a few pickpockets in there and feed them some half geriatric americans tourists and it had deteriated into a seething mob. Even after spending over four months in Asia, it was quite intimidating pushing our way through the horde of people. But after we had managed to get a few blocks away, only the most persistent touts still followed. We had a stroke of luck in this town, while there was not much at all around we found a lovely cafe that sold cold beer and had a wireless internet connection. This let us make some calls to family and wish them a great christmas.
We had a day at sea before our next port in Borneo, so we crossed the South China sea. It was fairly rough, the placing of convenient sick bags around the ship by the staff alerted us to the fact hat it may get a bit bumpy, and yes it was. Waves were crashing over the 9th floor balconies, nothing dangerous, but very impressive. While we were feeling fine and managed to nail into all our courses at dinner, there was a noticible dip in diners that night.
Arriving in Borneo, we pulled into Kota Kinabalu, where we were just a few short weeks ago. Again as we had already done our best to explore this small city, this time we just headed to a cafe and went for a nice stroll. We did stop at a shop to buy some beers (and milo) to take back on the ship. I had bought some wine in Vietnam and it was actually frightfully bad (in all fairness I expected this, I had a fairly good idea that the 1992 Bordeaux I bought for $2 may not have been the real thing). Still beers seemed a fairly safe option, and they seemed to be free from tax, so why not?
After Borneo we had three days at sea on the way through the Indonesian archipeligo on the way to Australia. Fortunately the weather was good and we had no unseemly swells. We had a mini birthday party on the 29th, just Lynda and I and a nice bottle of Champagne. (NB: I bought the champagne on the ship, so I knew it was real).
We had another significant milestone in our trip, we for the first time, crossed
back into the southern hemisphere. This was very exciting after spending so long on the road trying to find our way home.
We arrived in Darwin on New Years day, after having a late night at the New Years party. Most people seemed to have a great time during the party, but we did notice a couple of oldies asleep in their chairs at midnight (bless the poor buggers).
Darwin was interesting, we had never been here before, and were keen to look around. The rainy day quickly dried up under the burning sun and soon we were hunting out shade. We headed to Crocodylus Park to check out some of the monster 'salties' they get in these waters. And yes they were big and certainly made sure we were not going to (ever) go swimming in the sea near Darwn (not that we were really considering it).
From Darwin we headed along the top of Australia and around cape york. We had taken on a local pilot and he navigated us through the great barrier reef and into waters that sometimes were as shallow as 20 metres beneath the keel. It seemed that the weather in Austalia
this summer has been fairly dodgy, but our trip down the coast was very lucky. A day after we left Darwin, it got hit by a large cyclone, and as we headed down the coast, we were just behind another cyclone. It was fine for us, we had nice weather, the calm after the storm if you wish. But everynow and again we would see footage on Australian TV of flooding and ruined buildings and houses.
Our next stop in OZ was Cairns (pronounced Cans apparently). This was a nice town, but also one that has large 'Salties' and deadly 'Jellys'. Again we were not in a rush to jump into the water. In fact it did strike us as moderately crazy to live in a place with such nice warm weather, but where you can't actually get into the water and enjoy it. Like many Queensland towns, they had a free man-made 'lagoon' on the waterfront if you fancied a swim, but this didnt seem quite the same as jumping in the sea.
Another stop down the coast was Airlie Beach, the gateway to the Whitsunday islands. This was nice little place also coming complete with its
own man-made lagoon for anyone needing a dip.
And then we hit a major city. Brisbane. Neither of us had been here before, so we headed into town and had a good nosy. We also took the opportunity to have a coffee with Lynda's aunt. We enjoyed exploring the town, but we were a bit rushed to do it justice, but that was OK as we were planning to head back here in a week or so anyway.
Our cruise into Sydney harbour was nice, we were up before dawn to watch us pull into Circular Quay, across from the Opera House. Suddenly our moment of glitz and class was over, we had to pack our smelly rucksacks again and walk off the ship in Sydney.
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