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Marella Discovery Itinerary Change. Colours of the Far East (Merged threads).

blossomleh
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ekco

ekco

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Definitely, I would have done the whole cruise just with Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand.  Just a side issue, we were horrified at the amount of plastic rubbish bobbing about in the sea around Malaysia and when we did the beach trip in Vietnam the strong tide there had washed mile upon mile of plastic, including bottles, cartons and straws, onto the beach as well as the usual fishing nets.  On the beach at Koh Samui I had to drag a large tangled mess from the sea and a jagged broken bottle sticking up out of the sand on the water line.  Sad to see.

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brian1

brian1

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2 hours ago, ekco said:

Definitely, I would have done the whole cruise just with Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand.  Just a side issue, we were horrified at the amount of plastic rubbish bobbing about in the sea around Malaysia and when we did the beach trip in Vietnam the strong tide there had washed mile upon mile of plastic, including bottles, cartons and straws, onto the beach as well as the usual fishing nets.  On the beach at Koh Samui I had to drag a large tangled mess from the sea and a jagged broken bottle sticking up out of the sand on the water line.  Sad to see.

Malaysia has just refused the UK's plastic for processing.Hopefully they'll sort out their own back yard.I doubt it though.

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ekco

ekco

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That Extinction Rebellion lot want to go over there and lecture them.  I hung over the rail for an hour leaving ports in Malaysia and lost count of the plastic bottles bobbing by the ship, not to mention small pieces of plastic and even large crates.  One of the guides in Langkawi told us that locals just dump their rubbish outside and when the monsoons comes it just washes away into the sea.  There was an awful lot of rubbish around, especially next to roadside cafes, which surprised us as we thought Malaysia was very strict.

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brian1

brian1

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8 hours ago, ekco said:

That Extinction Rebellion lot want to go over there and lecture them.  I hung over the rail for an hour leaving ports in Malaysia and lost count of the plastic bottles bobbing by the ship, not to mention small pieces of plastic and even large crates.  One of the guides in Langkawi told us that locals just dump their rubbish outside and when the monsoons comes it just washes away into the sea.  There was an awful lot of rubbish around, especially next to roadside cafes, which surprised us as we thought Malaysia was very strict.

They probably are in the "posh" bits.India is building a high brick wall around the slums for Donalds visit.That will cure the problem ,lol.

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ekco

ekco

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Walls do seem to be a recurring feature.😁  All quiet from the ship, all this fuss about the cruise ship in Japan when we were allowed to walk right through Manchester airport and disperse without any temperature checks. Unbelievable.

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Southendweather

Southendweather

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Okay, Cambodia we have had to miss. The Malaysian authorities stipulated that any ship that dock in Cambodia will be refused entry to Malaysia for 14 days. We believe one of the ships that was being denied access to many ports because it had been to some of the 'hot' virus locations, docked at Sihanoukville, Cambodia. We totally understand the Captains decision. £25 compensation each, plus we won't get charged the £23 visa fee.

 

So from Thailand, a day at sea then arrive at Vietnam about 12 noon, stay over night and then a full day. Malacca is back on the itinerary, so things really we have got off lightly with everything else going on.

 

Keith (Southend)

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Southendweather

Southendweather

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20 hours ago, rickg8 said:

I'm on board now. The announcement was that Malaysia has banned all cruise ships that have visited Cambodia in the last 14 days. So obviously better to lose Sihanoukville than 5 Malaysian ports.

Ah ha, just spotted this...

 

Lovely weather today on the ship isn't it

 

Keith (Southend)

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ekco

ekco

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It’s not lovely weather here that’s for sure.  Howling wind AGAIN.  We have kept away from people as much as we could do, we are fine having taken face masks and used First Defence nasal spray while near crowds but were sat in between two rows of people coughing the whole way home.  An enormous jumbo jet sent to bring just over 30 people home last night, where are the other 40?

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Bertie Doe

Bertie Doe

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1 hour ago, Southendweather said:

Ah ha, just spotted this...

 

Lovely weather today on the ship isn't it

 

Keith (Southend)

 

Ref Sihanoukville. We were on Discovery on 23/03/2019. I took just one photo of the harbour and stayed on board - nuff said 🙂

 

The next port Phu My for Ho Chi on 25th March, was a different kettle of fish. I did Vung Tau Views and Theresa did CU Chi Tunnels and Mekong Delta trip - great fun, loadsa pics. Regards Paul.

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ekco

ekco

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We did the Vung Tau beach day and wish that we had cancelled as they cut out the temple and Christ the Redeemer stops due to “negative feedback” as they put it.  After lunch, and tiring of the sunbeds due to being blasted by the wind and sand, we walked across the road bridge and spotted Christ the Redeemer in the distance. Our coach didn’t go back that way but we did get the opportunity to see it lit up in the dark as we sailed away past the resort outbound,  it is the very last headland before the open sea.  Binoculars are helpful.

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Bertie Doe

Bertie Doe

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3 hours ago, ekco said:

We did the Vung Tau beach day and wish that we had cancelled as they cut out the temple and Christ the Redeemer stops due to “negative feedback” as they put it.  After lunch, and tiring of the sunbeds due to being blasted by the wind and sand, we walked across the road bridge and spotted Christ the Redeemer in the distance.

 

I visited 2 temples on the Vung Tau trip, one was Dinh Than Thang Tam dedicated to the whales. Can't remember the name of the other one.

 

The coach stopped close to the statue, the guide said "it takes about 30 minutes to climb up to it." There were no takers LOL.  We did 'the real thing' about 10 weeks ago, when the Costa Fascinosa stopped at Rio. No climbing involved, unless you count the cable cars up to the statue, via Sugarloaf  :)

SAM_0141 (2).JPG

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ekco

ekco

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Yes, you can change up to 24 hours before.  Not sure if it’s the same one as we were there most of the day.  It’s basically a patch of sand by the side of a restaurant with a pool just above the beach.  Lunch was nice but I got bored after an hour as I can’t lie on a sunbed for long, we arrived about 10.30 and left about 2.30.  I don’t know why but I thought it was attached to a hotel with extra facilities, it isn’t.  After lunch a wind got up and blasted us with sand.  On leaving that evening we could see the bright lights of the actual Vung Tau resort and that looked a better option for a trip as the beach we were at was on the other side of the hill that Christ the Redeemer was on.  Depends if you like sunbeds really, we had them on our balcony and that was enough.  We did regret not cancelling when we had the opportunity.  My big tip would be to get small amounts of the local currency of countries you want to visit, we didn’t and found difficulties especially in Thailand where we had to find money change kiosks.  Even changing 30 US dollars we needed our passport details, photocopy is ok.

 

Talking of temple steps we did the Hindu temple one with hundreds of steps.  Ouch!

Actually coming down was more difficult as the locals think nothing of leaving banana skins on the steps.

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