Seeing more of Asia has been on my bucket list for some time, so I finally make it happen on a cruise in Southeast Asia, ticking off Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia.<\/p>\n
Landing in Hong Kong during the Lunar New Year, I\u2019m keen to see some of this energetic city before boarding the luxury small ship, Seabourn Encore, the following day. I jump in an Uber and head to Temple Street Night Market, an assault of colour and chaos, with fake designer garb and all manner of food from lobster balls to Chinese dumplings, everywhere you look.<\/p>\n
Seabourn Encore, the 600-guest ship of the solo voyage. Photo \/ Michel Verdure<\/p>\n
Tourists and locals alike crowd around the street food stalls, swaying lanterns jostle with festive decorations, and the scent of sticky sweet Peking duck permeates the air. It\u2019s certainly the wake-up call I need as I battle through my jet-lagged fug.<\/p>\n
Onboard the 600-guest ship, I make friends, including other solo travellers and a sporty new-to-cruise couple, Ben and Sarah, from the UK. One afternoon I discover that an Instagram story I posted has been spotted by a fellow solo traveller also on board \u2013 turns out that Pam is also the affable British captain\u2019s wife.<\/p>\n
Making friends comes easy once you’re onboard. Photo \/ Unsplash<\/p>\n
Then there\u2019s Marilyn, a vivacious lady who has completed 1000 cruise nights, many sailing solo. She strikes up a conversation shortly after I take a seat in the intimate Sushi restaurant one evening. We get on like a house on fire, and a few nights later we\u2019re meeting at the bar of Solis restaurant \u2013 Marilyn is clutching a bottle of Mo\u00ebt, despite the fact that the drinks are free-flowing on the ship.<\/p>\n
\u201cMiss Marilyn\u201d is known by every crew member who arrives at our table, and over a spread of regional Mediterranean dishes including Croatian shrimp, sea bass baked in a sea salt crust, and panzanella prepared at the table, I hear how she considers Seabourn to be her second home, and that many of the crew are close friends.<\/p>\n
The extravagant pool deck on the Seabourn Encore. Photo \/ Supplied<\/p>\n
She goes on to reveal some of her fascinating cruise stories, including when the ship she was sailing on rescued the occupants of a small boat that had run into trouble, and the time the captain threw a surprise birthday drinks reception for her now deceased mother.<\/p>\n
If you don\u2019t make friends organically, you\u2019ll almost certainly bond with other guests at Seabourn\u2019s \u201cCaviar in the Surf\u201d event in idyllic Ko Kood \u2013\u202fa decadent tropical island takeover where the drinks are constant, and the food is plentiful. It\u2019s the polar opposite to my first and last beach experience in Thailand, which involved imbibing unknown beverages out of a bucket at a full moon party.<\/p>\n
A Zodiac raft speeds towards the waist-deep crowd in the ocean, who whoop loudly when the executive chef jumps into the water brandishing the prized caviar, which the fully uniformed crew place on blinis before distributing to the eager onlookers \u2013 there\u2019s no better accompaniment to the champagne we\u2019re sipping in the midday sun.<\/p>\n
But this is just the amuse bouche, if you will, as everyone then heads back to the sand to sip fresh coconut from the shell, bliss out with a massage or kick back to live chill-out music, before indulging in an incredible barbecue lunch.<\/p>\n
In Hoi An, Ben, Sarah and I sign up for a 7km cycle ride, pedalling past paddy fields and water buffalo, and navigating the traffic on chaotic roundabouts. In southern Cambodia\u2019s coastal port city Sihanoukville, we hike and boat tour through Ream National Park, shaded by the mangrove forests and monsoon trees which are said to protect themselves from fire. It\u2019s a hot and sticky day, but the reward is sweet when we reach a deserted beach with bleached white sand and swaying palm trees.<\/p>\n
Far too quickly the time comes around to disembark, and it becomes clear why more and more independent travellers such as Marilyn are choosing to cruise. I\u2019m sad to leave such a sociable ship, but happy to have met people who have unknowingly contributed to one of the most memorable voyages I\u2019ve ever taken.<\/p>\n
The writer travelled courtesy of Seabourn Cruise Line.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Seeing more of Asia has been on my bucket list for some time, so I finally make it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":567805,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[279538,44096,34384,2300,58422,10003,2950,2037,55275,2026,279539,156,1445,89092,221,78,1362,111,139,69,5270,64578,17093,59353,29101,274,41182,96878,1965],"class_list":["post-567804","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-600guest","tag-aboard","tag-alone","tag-asia","tag-barnes","tag-companionship","tag-confidence","tag-cruise","tag-cruising","tag-discovery","tag-ensues","tag-entertainment","tag-friends","tag-hops","tag-how","tag-in","tag-made","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-one","tag-rebecca","tag-ship","tag-solo","tag-southeast","tag-travel","tag-traveller","tag-voyage","tag-writer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567804","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=567804"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567804\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/567805"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=567804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=567804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=567804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}