Round The World and other travels
A frequent flyer's collection of trip diaries
This is: Vietnam 2010
Private beach party
It
should perhaps have come as no great surprise that I had a night of
on-off sleep, given that my bed consisted of a thin mattress placed
on solid wood. I decided to get up at 0710 and went about the
slightly tricky process of carrying out my usual morning routine in
the tightly confined space of the cabin. Breakfast was at 0800, so
maybe I wasn't so early after all. It started in a manner that was
typically oriental, but strange to Western tastes, with a large bowl
of chicken noodle soup. This was absolutely delicious and I think I
was the only one of the eight guests who scoffed every last drop of
the exceptionally generous serving. Things then took a more
conventional turn as far as the passengers were concerned, with eggs
and toast to follow.
With breakfast out of the way, we cruised the
short distance to a local floating fishing village, where we landed
- if that's the right word - using the
tender. We had a quick look at some tanks of farmed fish and then
took part in a kind of tea ceremony with the village leader,
followed by a round of the local 'fire water' for men only. Without
meaning any disrespect, the brew was not at all to my taste and the head man looked as though he'd been
through the ceremony with several tour groups already!
Next, we broke up into smaller groups and were taken out in bamboo
boats by hard-working local women.
Back on board the Prince II, we sailed the short distance to a deserted beach that had been chosen as the location for our barbeque lunch. Once again, we were landed by tender. Some of the group went kayaking while the crew set everything up and the rest of us relaxed on the sands, either in or out of the sun. When it came time for the food to be served, it turned out to be a hugely enjoyable experience. I had expected no less, as I still had positive memories of a similar experience in Australia's Great Barrier Reef back in 1993. There is something truly wonderful about good food freshly cooked on the barbeque in an idyllic and secluded setting, and this lunch duly took its place among the greatest highlights of the trip as a whole.
When it was all over and we were safely returned
to our mother ship, I decided to take a short nap in the cabin as we
once again set sail, this time with the junk's sails actually raised
for a while. When it came to cocktail hour, I learned that Bruce and
I had managed to exhaust the ship's supply of gin.
Even worse, there was no back-up bottle.
Oh well, time to improvise!
After nightfall, we once again had a superb multi-course dinner, complemented by some absolutely amazing food carvings prepared by the galley team. The chef was persuaded to come up on deck and we gave him a round of applause and a big thank-you, as so many of the day's happy memories revolved around his sterling work.