Ahhhh Bali, what a beautiful place to be with friends. It was our first beach port in a while. A bunch of us decided to head to the Ramacandidasa Resort and Spa about 15 minutes away. It was perfect, it had a pool, the beach, a restaurant and it was a perfect sunny day. We got some color and a few drinks by the pool to start the day. I took it upon myself to go check out the menu. After a few hours we ordered a fantastic Indonesian lunch and shared it family style. As we sat by the pool we ate and ate and ate. Not to shabby.

Chicken Curry

Lamb, Beef and Chicken Skewers with Peanut Sauce

Vegetable Pizza

Sweet and Sour Chicken

After lunch, a few of us went to the beach. The water was perfect. You could see all the way to the bottom. Then back to the pool for a little more tanning before heading back to the ship. Then someone mentioned a message on the beach. I jumped up and got a 15 minutes extremities message before we left the resort. There was no more room on the beach so I was brought to a room in the resort with soothing music and all kinds of oils. When I was done my hair was all over the place from all the oil and I could hardly walk form the relaxation. I did make my why back to the ship. I really didn’t want to leave. We were all saying how we would love to sit by the pool and watch our ship sail away. Bali was great. To bad we were there for only one day.

The ship organized a tour for the crew to go and see an ancient temple in Borobudur, Indonesia. It was truly amazing. It is super old and has all kinds of carvings all around this temple. It was a rainy day but it held up until we were done with the temple. Then it started to rain hard. We needed to grab some cover and the best way to grab some cover is to go eat some lunch.

The tour included a buffet lunch with a lot of Indonesian food. I pigged out and got a little bit of everything, leaving nothing behind. Shrimp, Rice, noodles, beef, chicken, chips, fruits, soup, and vegitables. I hit every food group in this meal. It was all really good. No need to go back for seconds, firsts was enough for me. It was getting late and we need to take the 2 hour ride back to the ship.

Apparently all the tours from the ship were there and somehow we ended up with a police escort back to the ship. We were flying through villages to get back on time. The locals all were standing outside watching this police escort zip on by. They must have been thinking, “who the hell are they.” However, even with a police escort it was not fast enough. We ended up about an hour and a half late to the ship. I missed my first two workshops on the ship. I think most of the people from the ship were with us trying to get back to the ship anyway. Good times!

In Pattaya Thailand we spent the night at the Discovery hotel. That night was wild, I saw some things I have never seen before. For more on that, check out Pattaya nightlife. In the morning, I woke up early because we really wanted to ride Elephants for the day. The hotel room came with a free breakfast buffet. There were some American traditions at the buffet but a lot of typical Thai food for breakfast. Yes, I admit I wanted to have some eggs and toast for breakfast and try to keep it simple, but I could not help it. I had to have the thai food for breakfast. Here is a quick view of the Thai breakfast.

My favorite meal I have had so far in South East Asia is from a place called Dac San Hoi An, in Hoi An Vietnam. Hoi An is small little shopping town with a lot of places to eat. Very authentic restaurants all over and great deals for shopping. We hired a taxi for the day and set off to Hoi An for a day of shopping and eating. We didn’t have much time for either because Hoi An is about 40 minutes from the ship. After doing some shopping we came to Dac San Hoi An. There was a prefix menu and no one in the restaurant. That sometimes tells you about the place when there is not one in the restaurant at lunch time. We decided to stay and that was the best idea of the day. The prefix menu had English on it which helped but we were still not sure what everything was. We ended up with 2 prefix orders, both basically the same with 1 slight change.

- White Rose (Rice paper and shrimp)
- Fried Wonton
- Rice pancake folded in half (Rice paper, shrimp, and bean sprouts)
- Vegetable Spring Roll
- Cau Lau (Noodles and pork)

Everything was DELICOUS and large portioned as well as Very Very greasy, but so good. Luckily my friend was not so hungry so I kind of had 2 orders of almost everything. The Rice pancake folded in half was so good. I think I could have one everyday until the day I die. It’s very greasy so that probably would not take to long. That was the closes thing to a home cooked meal I have had in a long time. The food just kept on coming and that is the way I like it.

White Rose

Fried Wonton

Rice pancake folded in half

Vegetable Spring Roll

Cau Lau

Vietnam is known for it’s cheap eats but we decided to go to a resort where it is not so cheap. During the day we hiked into the marble mountains. They are quit amazing to look at. They just jet out from the ground from out of nowhere. They are not your typical looking mountains. Oh yeah, and they are marble. There are marble shops all around the mountains with some beautiful stuff. When you hike up the mountains there are caves you can go into and find temples. One of the caves was bombed in WWII and left big holes at the top of the cave where light shines as beams into the cave. It’s really cool and beautiful. After climbing thought the caves and reaching the top we came down to our cabby who was waiting for us, and he took us to the Furama Resort on China Beach. We ran out to the big waves and had some fun in the water. The restaurant was in the resort that over looked there beautiful pool and the beach. We got a few drinks and some lunch there. Unfortunately, it was a very Americanized menu. The food was good but I was looking forward to something authentic. The highlight of the day was seeing the marble mountains and hiking through the caves. For more pictures of Da Nang click here.

Burger

Fish Sandwich

Steak and Cheese

The Crew