Iluvcruising2

What was your best port?

We love Singapore. Ok, I'm biased. We are Singaporeans.

Hong Kong is a must-go too.

The rest are also good to see. How often do you get to go to such exotic countries?

Thank you for taking the time and trouble to put together a very informative and enjoyable review.

 

We hope to do this trip or something similar in 2014. I just wish RCCL would get their act together and finally put out their schedule so we can plan.

 

Thanks again.

Ron.

Glad you are enjoying it so far.

Plenty more pictures to come, assuming I can keep up the momentum!

Love the review!

Thanks for all the info!

 

We are staying at the Mandarin in Singapore.

They have a car service to pick us up but it seems very expensive.

We thought we would take a taxi if possible.

 

Sharon

Please don't bother with the car service. Plenty of taxis available on cruise day.

Make sure you get the full name and address of your hotel in Singapore though. These days there are so many Mandarins- Mandarin Oriental, Marina Mandarin etc. Locals get confused. I heard taxi drivers also get confused.

Announcements were always in English first, sometimes followed by mandarin.

Cruise compass delivered to stateroom was English. Other language versions were available at Guest relations.

However I noticed the stack of cruise compasses to be delivered to staterooms were printed in Chinese, for the next sailing.

Very interesting pictures. I'm looking forward to seeing more.

 

I'm surprised at how many of your fellow passengers appear to be white people. I would have expected more Asians on a cruise through southeast Asia. I see that the Cruise Compasses were in English. What about the announcements? And was the food "typical" cruise food, or were there more local dishes available? (Or, both?)

This particular cruise had a substantial number of white people. I recall 500ish Australians and also a large number from European countries and also more than 100 from America.

Singaporeans formed the majority, almost 1,000 of us.

I will post pictures of the cruise food soon.

Ok, I'll call it a night for now. It's 2230 local time, and I'm off to bed.

If there is demand, I shall continue the picture review.

Please feel free to leave me your comments on what I have posted so far.

Cheers & have a good night (or good day). :)

Thanks so much! I am enjoying the picture review!

 

Since we will be ending our cruise in Singapore, will it be easy enough to get a taxi from the port to our hotel?

 

Thanks!

Sharon

Shouldn't be a problem at all. Which hotel would you be staying at?

Next stop was a laquer-ware factory cum store. Nice stuff but rather pricey, I must say.

Some short video clips -

Next stop was some temple. We spent like 15 minutes there. Nothing much to see. (well, I guess from a Singaporean perspective, we have many similar temples locally)

KFC in the background.

Ok, this will be my last pic from the War Remnants Museum.

This is wonderfull! so enjoying all the great pictures.

 

Thank you!!:)

Thanks. Glad you liked it.

I did find the name of the museum rather strange at first - War Remnants. Later I found out it used to be War Crimes. I suppose they just had to change the word Crimes to Remants after relations with USA were normalized.

However, inside the museum, it was still all about war crimes.

If you are not familiar with Agent Orange, please read -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_Orange

The pictures were extremely disturbing. If you intend to bring kids to the museum, please prepare them properly.

Who thought of this Agent Orange idea anyway? It's quite crazy, like seriously.

Wouldn't it be nice to have a collection of these at home? Maybe not.

These look mean, really mean.

Somebody forgot to clean up the 'junk'.

Our next stop was the War Remnants museum. Prior to 1993, this was the War Crimes Museum. Whose crimes? Allegedly Uncle Sam's.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Remnants_Museum_%28Ho_Chi_Minh_City%29

Not for the faint-hearted, I must say. Lots and lots of very graphic war pictures. War is cruel, no doubt about that. I realised that I didn't take any photos of those graphic pictures. Too sad for me. So the photos here are of all the American war material on display.

I was told that the chopper on the right is a Chinook.

Ammunition. Not sure if they can still be used!

Ok, some Vietnamese propaganda here.

I found this mildly amusing. No doubt that Uncle Ho's victory over Uncle Sam shook the world. Then again, fast forward 35 years, one wonders what the fight was all about.

I did ask our guide whether the Vietnamese people hated the American people. His answer was quite a categorical no. He had no qualms with the American people but they hated the American Government of that day.

The basement of the Palace contained many rooms from which the President monitored the war effort. There was also a bunker.

In their rush to get out of Vietnam, I think the Americans left behind lots of equipment. Now, they serve as fine exhibits.

These looks like signal equipment.

Wonder why they needed so many typewriters. They certainly weren't typing love letters to the VietCong.

What's an American Vietnam-era helicopter doing on the rooftop?

Apparently the South Vietnamese used American choppers for his tours. Nice way to beat the traffic.

This is the view of the Palace garden and main gate from the roof.

There were many rooms in the 4-storey palace.

We spent about 45 minutes in the palace.

Rule number 1 - when in Vietnam, don't mess with Uncle Ho.

Don't mess with me, baby.

It turns out that these tanks were the same models as those that broke through the main gate and side gate on 30th April 1975.

This was a Chinese-made T-59 tank.

These guys were the tank crew that stormed through the main gate (I think). I think they are Vietnamese legends.

Looking at these pictures, it was clear that Vietnam was the classic proxy war during the Cold War era. VietCong used Soviet/Chinese tanks, flew Soviet/Chinese planes, used Soviet/Chinese weapons etc.

First stop - Reunification Palace. (or Independence Palace)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reunification_Palace

This palace used to house the South Vietnamese President until South Vietnam fell to the VietCong.

It was a bright and sunny morning.

Now, what were those tanks doing in the Palace grounds? Not one, but two! A puzzle indeed. Needless to say, my boy was thrilled that there were tanks! This palace wasn't going to be a boring place any more for a 7 year old........

View from behind the driver.

Our guide pointed us to the Coke building.

Read this - http://www.nytimes.com/1994/02/07/business/new-vietnam-combat-coke-vs-pepsi.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm

The guide told us that very shortly after Bill Clinton normalized ties with Vietnam, Coca-Cola came to Vietnam! But up till today, McDonalds has yet to enter Vietnam. Wonder why. We saw KFC though.

This was our private van that came with an English speaking guide and driver. If you do the research, you'll find that the private tours in Ho Chih Min aren't cheap, but I would still strongly recommend going private.

Ship organized tours were really expensive - US$99 per pax. I had 6 persons in my party and we got this van (looked almost brand new, Mercedes) for USD$430.

The ride from container port to city center is really far. The van could go much faster than the 40-seater coaches.

On the way to city.

Day 3 - front page of Cruise Compass.

We arrived at Ho Chi Minh (Phy My) on schedule. We had so sail up some river to get to the container port. You could see the swamps nearby! Quite a sight indeed.

You could almost jump off the ship to swim there.

I wonder who is living in those swamps........

The problem was that the container port was 2+ hours away from city center! Cruise Director said that 1,700 cruise passengers were following the ship tour. We were on a private tour - much better!