Two days after the class road trip, it was time to start packing again, but this time for the four days three nights Thai cruise trip aboard SuperStar Libra from Penang.
It was my first time on a cruise, plus the fact that Elya was sending “””encouraging””” tweets about the Titanic storyline right before I boarded, naturally I was quite nervous. I’d never stayed somewhere that wasn’t on land for more than 24 hours. And you’re surrounded by a vast spread of ocean, limiting your available radius of motion, which when you think about it, can be pretty terrifying.
Morbidity aside, the itinerary for the events and activities on the cruise itself was literally so packed that it didn’t really leave you much time to think about your being trapped in a boat for about 96 hours.
I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make it sound so terrifying and all, but those were my exact thoughts before boarding the cruise. Things turned out differently though after boarding because there were so many things to see and so many things to do and so many people you can talk to (the cruise staff are especially nice, one of the best highlights of this entire trip is the entire cruise staff because they are just so nice and friendly and I feel like this shouldn’t be a new thing to me, this should be practised among Malaysians as well but noooooo) and I was pretty much fascinated about everything, even the sight of the ship cruising along the ocean.
We were joined on the trip by Uncle Lim and his family, Uncle Leng and his family and Uncle Din and his family.
The first night was spent at the topmost open-air deck just chilling with a Filipino band performing covers at the deck below. Fresh out of the road trip, I returned to my antisocial self and spent the entire time rereading Insurgent.
The next day we stopped at Krabi at around 10 in the morning.
There wasn’t really much at Krabi except touristy shops by the beach so that’s where we went and I got myself a straw hat [laughs] and had lunch at Burger King [laughs again].
Returning to the cruise in the evening, we had a gala dinner which isn’t as formal as it sounds, do not not be fooled, children.
We anchored at Phuket at around 1PM the next afternoon.
This time, the Phuket trip was slightly more interesting and eventful than the one at Krabi. We didn’t do any beach activities, because it was packed with Caucasians, so we just went to outlets and local attractions and finally, Jung Ceylon, a huge mall near Patong Beach. Our tour guide described the Tsunami disaster that wiped out about 500 people at Phuket island in detail, so that was a pretty depressing moment.
That night was the last night on the cruise so there was a Farewell Party on the top deck and we were the only ones “dancing” to 90s music; it was a good night.
(It was also the night that I finished Allegiant back in my cabin at 3AM and didn’t know what to do because everyone was asleep and I had no Internet nor service it was one of the worst nights of my life)
We were scheduled to embark from the ship at 12noon the next day, so after breakfast, we waited at the lounge for our turn to exit. Despite the fact that being surrounded by endless water scared me, it was nice feeling kind of regal and important in such a high society place for four days.
We picked up Ann-Marie at Aeon BM after leaving the cruise to commence my Three Days of Awesome with her.
Fin.
michelle teoh 