Yesterday evening, after we had embarked in Hong Kong, our ship, Celebrity Solstice, put out to sea, surrounded by a damp fog. Now it's nice out and we're on our way to Ha Long Bay and Hanoi. Tomorrow.
 |
 |
Celebrity Solstice, is an older slightly shabbier sister to the Celebrity Equinox, that we sailed on last year, so we know our way around - everything in the same place. Our 'stateroom' and even the dinner menu was familiar.
This is our fourth ocean-going cruise, if you don't count travelling by ship to Singapore as younger adults, long before Wendy and I met. Actually, Wendy didn't make it that far, as her ship caught fire, and she completed her trip to London by air.
We'd been on River river cruises, on the Nile and the Volga, but they were quite a different experience. We'd also observed cruise ships arriving in places were were staying - guided groups suddenly being marched around town or country for half a day then off they would go, back to their ship, while we sat among the bemused locals, making humorous observations.
So, we are in no illusion that this is the way to 'see' a city or a country. That needs to be done by travelling by land in the country, preferably by bus or car, through villages farmland and the light-industrial outskirts of each city. Going to local shops for food. Staying in accommodation that one has booked oneself and so on. In other words: interacting with people going about their lives.
On a cruise, one is landed at a port, often far away from the major city shown on the itinerary, which often involves ship-organised transportation, potentially to be herded from site to site as a tour group.
As we all know from home, wherever that is, these groups are avoided by the actual residents, except for those who make their living from delivering services or some fabricated 'experience' to tourists.
On this occasion we were visiting places that we have been to before. So, for a more in-depth discussion I commend my earlier, on-the-ground, travel diaries, linked below as relevant.