WhatsApp will keep us together - and Smile

It's sad to lose our home, but it's devastating to lose our family.

The few times now​ that we've been together with ship friends since our eviction have been so wonderful. It gets me teary eyed all over again. I love these people. I loved living with them. Effortless camaraderie. These meetups were made possible because we're all on the Odyssey WhatsApp community. We've made a new WhatsApp group for those of us in Chiang Mai!

Surrounded by Friends

On the ship we always had someone around to talk to, to dance with, to sing and perform with. Always people with ideas of things to do places to see. Lonely? Bored? Never!

An impromptu dinner tonight for the people who happen to be in Chiang Mai was a love fest. Bonnie just got to town today. After getting off the ship, she found a storage locker in Bangkok and stored some luggage there so she could continue traveling.

She came to my birthday dinner at Beerista in Chiang Mai and I was so happy to see her. She is a recent, short term Odyssean, but she made an impression on me in our line dancing group. We talked tonight about future plans. She's interested in traveling by RV in the USA - how about she pick up our camper van in Florida and drive it across to California. Then (if we ever go back) we could get it in California and drive it back. Interesting idea.

"So, Bonnie, do I have your contact info? We need to stay in touch."
"Sure, we're both in Whatsapp in the Odyssey community and line-dancing groups." Right!

Connected with WhatsApp

WhatsApp is how the entire ship had been communicating since the very beginning.

We have a Whatsapp community for Odyssey residents and many, many groups for every imaginable purpose: excursions, singing, line dancing, Trading Post, Technology chat, Visa and Passport info, and on and on and on. Some mornings we would wake up to 200+ new messages! It was a blessing and a curse. We could spend hours wading thru all those messages to find ones meaningful to us, and if you want to re-read something you saw there - good luck finding it!

BUT - what a godsend it was for connecting us all. The primary community has over 500 members. Need to arrange a dinner or an excursion with a group of friends? We're all on WhatsApp! Need some superglue? Just post your desire on the Trading Post group and someone will respond and tell you how you can borrow their superglue! That usually happened within minutes!

And then there's simple communicating. Check out this recent thread about our sad situation. "Smile though you're heart is breaking" 

I Love These Guys!

A WhatsApp message thread from Nov 8:

Hear the song, Smile: sung by Nat King Cole

"Remember to Smile, because Life is Better When you Smile"  Captain Val

At home in Chiang Mai Thailand

As I've mentioned in here before, we have a friend, Christine, who lives in Chiang Mai. We've had these plans to visit her since long before the ship's troubles began. Now we're staying longer. 

What a treat to see a friendly face to pick us up at the airport. Christine was waiting for us on the other side of the airport security. She arranged our ride from the airport to the apartment we rented just 15 minutes away. 

After we settled our luggage in the room, we took a short walk for a bit of pizza and some wine. It was fun catching up and hearing about her life here in Chiang Mai. 

The next morning we had plans to meet ship friends Ric and Ellie for breakfast - also just a short walk from our apartment. It's an American style restaurant known for its Reuben sandwiches! I had corned beef hash and eggs, Ric had good ole southern biscuits and gravy! 

Ric and Ellie left to continue touring in Thailand; their next stop is Chiang Rai. We will see them again because we made plans months ago to go to Egypt for the solar eclipse in July 2027. We will keep those plans even though it won't be from the ship now. We went back to the apartment to settle in. We stopped by an ATM to get the 30,000 Thai Baht (about $900) to pay our landlord for the month of November. We also stopped at a 7-11 that is just across the street, to pick up some water and snacks. 

Monday evening we planned to meet up with other ship friends for dinner. What a lovely place they chose-Jai Loy rooftop cafe. Clare and Bill say they are settled in Chiang Mai for a while. They got an extended visa and, I think, a 6 month lease on an apartment. Kathryn and Frank are here for another week before heading back to the states.

Here a Geek, There a Geek 😎

Tuesday's agenda was a highlight. We were invited to a meeting of the Chiang Mai Geeks weekly meeting. We've been watching from afar by joining their group on Line - like Whatsapp. They are a group of expat technology enthusiasts who meet and socialize and learn together. Christine introduced us to them a few years ago and we've been following them ever since. I've been especially intrigued with the leader - a man named Chris Smith, aka Shamblesguru. Check out his YouTube channel. It was such a treat to get together in person. He is the author of the book: The Chang Mai Book. He was born in the UK but has been living in Chiang Mai for over 35 years.

Look closely at what's being projected 🤣

Chris came to pick us up and drive us to the Ghymkana golf club where they have lunch and then use a meeting room to get together and talk tech. I expect we'll make CMGeeks a regular Tuesday thing while we're here. During the meeting we also got invited to be helpers at a smartphone workshop on Thursday, and an A I. Goddess meeting in Monday. 

Was Chiang Mai meant for us or what?!

See our current photo album here.

Subscribe to get our tech tips and travel tales delivered to your email

The rest of the story:

• When the News is Heavy, Kindness Shines: Thank You, Cambodia!
• One Day at a Time, Living out of Suitcases
• The Morning After Eviction: Facing Life Off the Ship
• We Had to Leave the Ship

Small Country with a Big Heart - Cambodian Ministry of Tourism

We are in the eye of a hurricane of disaster news. But in the middle of that there is a wonderful feel-good story that needs to be told. See Ministry of Tourism article

Cambodians step in to help. 

Mr. Bora from the Cambodian Tourism Department. He helped us all so much.

The ministry got word of our plight and jumped in to action, trying to figure out what we needed. How they could help. They arranged tours to keep us entertained, they held dinners and cocktail hours. The best part for us, is that they arranged transportation to Phnom Penh. No charge!  

One bus was exclusively for our luggage.

Many of us needed a way to get to the Techo airport, which is nearly a four-hour drive from Sihanoukville. They arranged several shuttles over several days. We took the one on Sunday, Nov 1. There was a host/guide on the bus with us he introduced himself with a sign showing us his name written in 2 ways: arabic letters and Cambodian. 

This prompted a short lesson on the Cambodian (Khmer) alphabet. I can't imagine what going to school here must be like! 😮 There are 33 consonants, 24 dependent vowels, and various diacritics. He also told us that each letter can be placed top, bottom, side, of another letter to mean different things. Wha?!? I thought - what must a typing keyboard look like in Khmer. I asked to see one:

By the way - he told us we could call him "David" 🤣

Prayer Hands

Another lesson David taught us during our ride was about the gesture for greeting and gratitude. Everyone here puts their hands together in a prayer gesture and gives a little bow. We do the same in return. It's very simple and sweet. What I didn't know is that there are levels to it. The higher the level the greater the respect. Now I know - when they put their hands near their chin instead of their chest, they're telling me I'm old 🤣

I asked Gemini to give me a sketch of the different levels and their meanings. Apparently the prayer hands gesture is call "Sampeah"

The bus dropped people off at the airport, then offered to take us on to our hotel! We slept well and when we went to check out in the morning, we found more representatives from the ministry there to greet us and they took us to the airport. 

And, their helpfulness didn't even end at dropping us off at the airport! The two ladies grabbed a suitcase and led us into the giant airport to our check-in desk. 

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

One day at a time

We've been staying at a very nice hotel in Sihanoukville, Cambodia for the last 4 nights after getting kicked off our ship home on Tuesday. We first booked 2 nights here, then 2 more because we weren't capable of taking the next step. We were too exhausted and depressed. We keep checking our Whatsapp groups to see what other people are doing. It's great to be able to stay connected that way.

The hotel offered quite the breakfast buffet included with our room and we would meet up with several other ship-friends who were also staying here. 

Who knew!? I kinda like soup for breakfast.

We finally had a good night's sleep and are ready to move on now. The Cambodian Ministry of Tourism took note of our plight and has arranged buses to take groups of us to the Phnom Penh airport over 3 hours away. We are very grateful for any time we get to be with our friends and continue the camaraderie we developed on the ship. That is what we will miss the most. I've become so accustomed to the easy, daily interactions of living the communal lifestyle. (See past blog post: 

• Oh fun Odyssey - where everyone knows your name)

Yesterday was spent making travel arrangements. Web searches, phone calls, double checking all the times to make sure I was doing it right. Then I remembered we needed the Thailand arrival card - on to another website to apply for that. I so hate all that work. Living on the Odyssey there were none of these logistics. We just slept in our own beds and woke up to a new destination. No tickets to buy, no packing to do. Lots of friends to share the experience. 

Life goes on. One day at a time. 

We've spent a fair amount of time on interviews. More Jim than me. Here is a short snippet:

​

Day 2 after eviction

After a good night's sleep at our hotel I woke up and looked at where the clock should be. It wasn't there. Oh yeah - we're not in our cabin on the ship, I realize and I feel so sad. 

I SO LOVED living on that ship! I remember when we hung that clock on the wall, using one hook, and noticed that the clock would sway a little back and forth as the ship rocked on the sea. Jim and I laughed over that for several weeks before it just became normal. 

We got up and went down to the complimentary breakfast at our hotel to find more than a dozen other displaced shipmates also having breakfast. There was conversation and laughter. It was almost like when we were back at the buffet on the ship. God! I'm going to miss that.

This Sucks!

In re-reading my post from yesterday, I'm thinking that it is too upbeat. I wrote it mostly in response to so many messages of concern - I wanted to assure everyone that we are OK, and we are. But that doesn't mean that this is OK. After we got the message on Monday morning that we had to be off the ship on Monday afternoon, we went into work mode. What do we absolutely need to continue our lives? and how do we pack it in our available suitcases? We got that done and made it to our hotel, went to the bar and then crashed. One thing we decided we needed is our Geeks on Tour sign. We've taken our photo with it in many places all around the world but I don't think we've taken one on the ship! So here you are.

The Geeks are leaving the ship.

Goodbye

The next day we went back to the ship to look around our cabin and see what else we wanted. That's when I lost it. I haven't cried that hard since my dog died 13 years ago. We said our goodbyes to so many people. 

Saying a teary Goodbye to Christian, our wonderful room steward

Grabbing a few last things and saying goodbye to our ship, our home. Leaving Penny (the pelican) to watch over it and hope we can return someday.

see short video here.

Press Coverage

After we got back to the hotel and rested up a bit - we took a swim in the beautiful infinity pool. Then we got ready to go to the Independence Hotel to meet up with other ship-friends for dinner. As soon as we get to the front door, we see Paul and Lynne talking to a reporter. We asked them later if that was arranged and they said no, the reporter was just there, stopped them, and started asking questions. 

We went inside and found our table, enjoying catching up with our friends. 

Then came the reporters. This is just so weird. It feels like we've been in a natural disaster by the interest that is shown. People tell us that they've seen Jim on the TV. We haven't seen it - I'm wondering if you can see his pink mustache 🤣He died it for Breast Cancer awareness month. It's almost worn off now. Here is a search that shows lots of news articles and videos.

Answering your Questions

Rather than reinvent the wheel, I refer you to Randy Cassingham's blog post where he goes into great detail about all the facts.