To answer a couple of questions:
from Kathy:
So, I've never seen all this hazmatting before. Are they concerned about outbreak of swine flu (H1N1) on board the ship? Or do they feel fairly certain it's just other things?
Talking to the nurse onboard, they’re not any more concerned about Swine Flu than any other infectious disease, though she laughed when she told us she’d already had passengers in telling her they were sure they had Swine Flu. There has been a respiratory infection going round the ship but I’m told it’s just the everyday cold virus. The hazmat team has been in place for a while and is the standard response for any reported intestinal bug, I guess since Norwalk Virus became such a big issue on all the cruise ships
from Marilyn:
hi Ian- not sure if you remember me, I sent you the contact for the tour company in HCMC. What happened to Vietnam..it looks as though you cut short your trip there?
Vietnam is a long story, we had originally planned to spend a day or two there and our docking area was in the South of HCMC in VungTau. I did use one of your recommendations for transfer from port to airport but for various reasons our schedule worked out that we couldn’t easily accommodate time in Vietnam and we decided to just have a quick city tour and fly out to Cambodia, the same day we arrived, by then docking area had changed to HCMC itself. I’m saving Vietnam for a longer visit as there’s many places, North and South I’d like to visit that’ll require longer than a day or two.
