The next port of call was Xiamen in the Fujian province of China. Xiamen was a city we’d not heard anything about prior to booking the cruise and, indeed, didn’t really find out a whole lot about in the lead-up to it either. Arriving fairly early in the morning but still having trouble sleeping in because our body clocks weren’t adjusting very well to the initial long flight eastwards that had rapidly lost us hours followed by the cruising generally westwards that was now triggering time changes overnight and slowly gaining us hours, we had plenty of time to kill as we cruised towards the port. We had another wander around the ship, taking more photos, enjoying the warmth of the sunshine.

It wasn’t at all surprising to see the main swimming pool devoid of any people braving its frigid temperatures especially once we started to move from the open sea, passing Zhangzhou harbour on the port side and starting to follow the curve of Xiamen island clockwise. This had the effect of funnelling a pretty nippy north wind down the length of the ship which you’ll be able to hear in the video at the end of this post.

The daily Radio Taiso exercises were being shown on the movie screen out on the deck and there were – as usual – people joining in. We made a point to join in on sea days only so contented ourselves with simply observing for a while as Diamond Princess got closer to the Chinese city.

We decided to stay out on deck so that we could see any interesting elements on either the mainland or island rather than limiting ourselves to just what was visible from our balcony and we’re glad we did because there was some very odd-looking architecture on the port side, the Haicang district.

A pair of matching buildings were the most prominent sign of large construction as we cruised past the Xiagang residential district on our starboard side. When we’d been looking at maps of the city prior to our cruise this had been one area of interest on account of some interesting-sounding museums, historical and religious buildings, and even bars in close proximity. No tours or excursions went anywhere near here, though, and it was sufficiently far away and our time in the port was sufficiently limited that we weren’t quite confident enough we could get to it, do it justice, and get back to the ship. Were we to return and have more time in Xiamen this is part of the city that would definitely deserve more of a look around.

One of the most well-known attractions of Xiamen (apparently it’s one of the top attractions in China) is Gulangyu Island, a place with no cars or bikes permitted. Several excursions hit this island but we didn’t feel they offered very good value for money once we’d checked to see how much it cost to just take the ferry across on your own. While the ferry seemed cheap and while we’re always keen to take boat trips to places even when we’re cruising, though, we also didn’t think there was quite enough on the island to warrant a short stop for ourselves. Again, it’s one of those places that looks like it would be good to spend a large chunk of a day on simply because of the difficulty in getting around the place to find all the spots of interest.

After Gulangyu we then carried on through the deeper water of the channel between the island of Dayu on the port side and a smaller island on the starboard where a pylon spanning the channel between the island of Xiamen and the Chinese mainland and a lighthouse were situated.

From there it was a slow but steady approach to Xiamen’s international cruise terminal taking us closer to the bulk of the modern buildings of the city’s Dongdu district.

As Diamond Princess came alongside in Xiamen we spotted reflections of another cruise ship docked ahead of us, one with a yellow funnel. We never did work out which ship it was.

The video below (temporarily removed) covers some of the approach to Xiamen on Diamond Princess and gives you a feel for just how windy it got along that final channel towards the cruise terminal.

In the next post we’ll cover what we saw in Xiamen itself and our thoughts on the city as a cruise ship destination in general as well as what impact it had specifically for this Princess Cruises itinerary.

We’d visited China before back in 2008, at that time hitting Beijing and Shanghai and visiting lots of the historical places of interest. While we’d stayed in Beijing for three days that was mostly as a hotel base and we’d not explored any of the city itself outside its major tourist attractions. In Shanghai we’d visited one of the old water towns on the outskirts of the vast metropolis. The excursions we could find for Xiamen were also non-city-based, hitting the island of Gulangyu or ancient areas or parks, and because we weren’t massively interested in what was on offer and because we’d never really visited a modern Chinese city before we decided that we would do our own thing for a change and check out modern as opposed to ancient culture.

Pulling up a map of Xiamen before the cruise and looking at where the ship would be and how far things that piqued our interest were we reckoned we could do what we wanted on foot. With the benefit of hindsight this was a mistake. To start with, it was a lot warmer than we’d been anticipating so our walking pace was significantly lower than we’d allowed. On top of that when you look at a map you get a feel for distances as the crow flies or as traffic moves but pedestrian routes are sometimes a little more convoluted to navigate especially when you’re somewhere you don’t know. The end result was that our plan to head down to Xiagang, check out some places there, then head back very soon changed to “Let’s just see how far south we can get before X time and then turn around.” We could have gained ourselves some time and possibly stuck to our original plan if we’d taken the free shuttle bus laid on by Princess Cruises that would have taken us halfway to where we wanted to go but, fools that we were, we walked it anyway.

Chinese immigration as we got off the ship was super-easy; a quick flick through to check the visa, glance at the photo, glance at me, stamp the document, and then through. Dear Japan: this is how to do immigration.

We turned right as we came out of the terminal and started heading due southwards soon after.

While we knew we just wanted to hug the shoreline and head south there was a brief moment only about five minutes into our walk off the ship when I pulled my phone out to look at the map quickly as it wasn’t clear which of two roads to head down would be the most direct route. We were standing beside a small bit of parkland in front of some tall buildings and a man was jogging around. He immediately turned and ran to us.

“Hi there! Are you lost? Can I help?” he asked in perfect English. We then spent five minutes talking to him about the city, about the ship (he was fascinated by the ship as he’d never been on a cruise), and about his work (he was actually Taiwanese, had studied in London, and was working in Xiamen). He gave us some advice about places to head to, looked doubtful that we’d make it to Xiagang (he was very right there), and all-in-all that’s the sort of casual, helpful, local experience we love to have when we’re travelling. We thanked him and carried on.

The road we followed took us over an area where water came into the island to form a large lake. The curving, white overpasses of roads were covered with vines that made us think of those post-apocalyptic movie scenes where nature starts to retake control of the land from a devastated population. We found it very attractive.

This then took us to a waterfront path that curved around the side of a large park that our jogger friend told us was one of his favourite places to run around. Looking across the water we could see the Dongyucun area of Xiamen and looking back the way we’d come brought our travelling home, Diamond Princess, back into view at the terminal.

This waterfront path was very popular with Xiamen locals and with families with young children in particular on account of its proximity to the water and a number of sandy play areas. Subsequently, in order not to create any unnecessary trouble I kept photography to a minimum around here. The Bay Park in Xiamen is a lovely spot with occasional interesting pieces of artwork and worth a wander around to get away from the city if you’re staying in the area. Be careful of kite-flyers as this was a popular spot for them too and we just ducked out of the way as one plummeted to the ground and the trailing rope went taut in front of our faces (the flyer waved a worried apology and we laughed it off).

Our gentle amble in the increasing heat along Xiamen’s pretty waterfront area just to the north of the tip of Gulangyu island continued and we passed areas where fishing vessels operated from as well as the island-based location of a pylon connected to one we’d passed beside on our cruise into the city earlier in the day. The clear blue skies and tall, new, gleaming architecture of Xiamen’s city skyline continued to draw the attention of my camera too as the straight lines, reflections, and repetitive patterns of these buildings are very appealing to me.

The area we were walking along now was the picturesque part of the Lujiang residential area. There was a ferry terminal here with a service to Gulangyu but from what we’d read online before this was only for local people and tourists needed a longer ferry from closer to the cruise terminal. Whether that’s accurate or not or whether that remains to be true at some point in the future I obviously can’t say for sure but it’s worth checking out if you’re considering looking at a map of Xiamen and aiming for this as your way to get across to the island. A set of odd sculptures attracted a lot of attention from many people with cameras – myself included – and we spotted what we guess was a school or university group filming and photographing for some reason too.

It was around this part of Xiamen that the free shuttle bus from Princess was dropping off and picking up people. We checked the time and our pace of walking and the fact we’d used up all the water we’d brought with us by this point; rather than carry on we decided we’d head inland a bit to check out the more commercial areas and to see if we could find a shop to get more liquid inside us. As luck would have it we spotted what looked like a much older section of the city with buildings only a couple of storeys high, lots of shops, lots of colour, lots of character. That was the direction we headed.

As we wandered the roads mostly devoid of traffic between bright signs, umbrellas, awnings, and lines stretched across with drying clothes we then spotted a narrower section, busier in terms of pedestrians, where market stalls lined the streets. Food stalls were common with lots of choice of shellfish and vegetables, and there were an abundance of smells as we strolled through. Probably the oddest sight was a bag of live starlings (or similar) by one woman sat in a chair next to a stall of household bits and pieces. Were they for food? Were they for pets? Who knows!? We ended up stopping at one place and buying some odd items that were intended to come back as souvenirs. Sadly, only a few survived the trip.

We emerged from the narrow streets, market, and older buildings back into a more modern area of the city and very soon had spent more money in a few convenience stores, stocking up with water, snacks, and lots of odd-looking sweets. We were on a casual look-out for some white jade, something similar to a piece my wife had liked the look of on our first visit to China in 2008 but which we’d not really had the money to afford at the time. Checking out a large department store we found a place specialising in jade inside and there were some very nice pieces there indeed but the only white jade we found had a yellow gold clasp and chain (my wife really wanted white) and was too big; large enough to trigger a gulp reaction in us once we did the conversion of the price tag in our heads. Maybe some other time.

We started tracking roughly northwards now knowing we could take our time and get back to the ship with an hour to spare before we were due aboard. This took us under some more of the foliage-covered overpasses and between the towering blocks of stone and glass that I always find so photogenic.

The walking and heat was tiring us out a bit so when we reached a place where we had to decide whether to carry on towards the ship or to take a bit of a detour and head in the opposite direction to see what Bailuzhou Park had to offer it took us a split second to choose the more direct route. Looking at the map it didn’t seem like it should take us too long to visit the park in the middle of the lake but we’d already been caught out by the deceptive distances in Xiamen so it was probably the right call. We kept the lake on our right-hand side but carried on in the approximate direction of the cruise terminal.

We’d already walked past Bay Park on the walk southwards earlier in the day so as we came alongside its opposite side on our return trip to the ship we crossed the road and walked through it this time around. It was a very attractive, tranquil park with a mix of wide, concrete areas and grassy, tree-lined sections with meandering paths through it.

Emerging from the park we found ourselves in familiar territory having walked the same roads several hours earlier.

We made our way back to the cruise terminal with only a small delay as what was described as the entrance was ringed off by security for some reason who ushered us away without any indication of where we should go instead. We eventually hunted down one of the exits instead and found a way back in through the snaking lines of people coming and going using the distant view of staff in Princess Cruises uniforms as our direction guide.

We missed out on our original plan of places to visit mainly because we skipped using the free shuttle bus, thinking we’d be able to walk at a faster pace than we managed. We regret that but cannot regret that we saw some things as a result that we possibly would have not seen otherwise and we wouldn’t have had that pleasant encounter with the helpful jogger. Every decision leads to positive and negative results. Xiamen is more spread out than perhaps a look at the map might lead you to think so that’s something to bear in mind if you’re visiting for a short period of time such as during a cruise ship stop but it’s certainly a place we wouldn’t mind visiting again and for longer and with a more definite plan of how to get around and check out its sights.

The next post will cover our departure from the city before Diamond Princess would head southwards towards Vietnam.

The heat of the day and spread-out nature of the Chinese city had really surprised us so we were glad to be back on the ship with about an hour before the scheduled departure and checking the Princess Patter we saw that afternoon tea was still available so decided the chance of some sandwiches, rolls, and cakes with a cup of tea or two would be a nice change from what we’d normally do (burger or pizza and a beer, as you’d possibly guessed). Afternoon tea is served in the International Dining Room on the ship and is free of charge.

We then returned to our room so that we could watch the sailaway. Princess do have sailaway parties on the top deck with the resident band usually but even though they’re a bit more relaxed and not as embarrassingly jingoistic as the ones you get on P&O, for example, they’re still not really our sort of thing. Our balcony gave us a good view of the international cruise port in Xiamen.

And we waited. And waited. And waited a bit more. A couple of coaches that had been out on excursions were late getting back due to traffic problems. The good thing about going on a ship-organised tour as opposed to doing things yourself is that the ship will wait for you in those circumstances.

We waited long enough that the moon started to make an appearance behind one of the nearby buildings.

And then without really realising it the ship was edging away from the port, making its 180 degree turn once we were sufficiently far enough way from the dock, and starting its slow run out towards the sea. With Diamond Princess now facing southwards our balcony on the starboard side of the ship gave us a pleasant view of the sunset over the Chinese mainland and spread of Xiamen there.

We passed between the pylons connecting the island of Xiamen to the mainland again.

As the sun finally vanished in the murk of the horizon we glanced back to see something we hadn’t expected: a Xiamen light show. We knew Hong Kong put on a light show as we’d seen it before (Hong Kong Harbour Light Show) and were expecting to see some of it again on this cruise but hadn’t realised Xiamen had its own version. While the buildings may not have had the grand scale of Hong Kong and there seemed to be less in the way of coordination in the lights we could see, they were, nevertheless, arguably far more impressive than Hong Kong. Some buildings had stylised, color-changing waves; others Chinese writing; others had pirate ships animated in the lighting. If you’re ever in Xiamen after the sun goes down then it looks like the light show along the waterfront of the city is something that should be seen.

All-too-soon we left the attractive lights of Xiamen behind and passed some of the industrialised areas that marked the boundary of the city before hitting the sea and starting the run south towards Vietnam.

For us, then, the evening followed pretty much the standard pattern: showered, changed, off for a pre-dinner drink or two, then dinner itself followed by a quick nose around the various lounges to see what was going on before heading up to Skywalkers nightclub to people-watch, drink some more, and dance as much as our tired bodies would allow us.