En route to Phuket

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<strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Tuesday 3^rd April 2012:

Today has been a day of surprises: one nice one and one not so nice. The not so nice surprise was this morning’s lecture. It was given by Martin Bell, war correspondent and recent MP and, to be blunt, it was rubbish. He must have a book of weird poems coming out because his talk seemed to be a series of poor excuses for reading out his poems. He was supposed to be talking about his time as an independent MP and the MPs’ expenses scandal but he didn’t manage to address either topic very well and his poems barely raised more than a ripple from his audience. As we walked along the corridors afterwards it became clear that we were not alone in our disappointment.

Lunch was spent with just one fellow passenger who’s on his own because his mother-in-law died this week so his wife has left the ship to arrange and attend a funeral. She asked him to carry on and hopes to fly back to re-join the ship in Dubai. He’s a really nice chap and we had a lovely lunch discussing our various experiences in the countries in this corner of the globe. There are widespread themes developing now that are common to just about everyone you talk to: the communist countries are vigilant with their tour guides to ensure we all get the party political manifest on the coach, the impact of the Japanese behaviour in the second world war is still being felt and a long way from being forgiven, Vietnam is the dirtiest country and the Chinese have the worst table manners of the lot! What do you mean ‘sweeping generalisations’?!!

Following our afternoon dip in the pool we went to the pictures to see <em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Artist. If you haven’t seen it yet we would heartily recommend it. It is charming with adorable characters – including the cutest dog – some wonderful music and a well told story. We both cried – which won’t surprise anyone who knows what I’m like - and the absence of speech for the vast majority of the film was handled in some very clever ways. It definitely deserved its Oscars.

Tonight is formal night so it’s posh frocks for dinner. And then an early night because we dock in Phuket at 7.00 am tomorrow and that’s the same time we have to meet ready for our tour ashore. We’re off to the other side of Phuket to go on a boat trip round James Bond Island and then to - another - fishing village built on stilts. The blurb for our tour reads very well and I have a feeling we’ll need both camera batteries tomorrow.

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