my father must have a medical condition. There can be no other way to explain his utterly phenomenal snoring. The last time I went on a cruise with him, the boat pharmacy sold super high tech ear plugs, with several settings, that automatically adjusted to your ear size. However, over the course of the past year, those earplugs and I went our separate ways, and I assumed they would be easy to replace once I got aboard another cruise ship. Alas, this was not to be. I am now kicking myself for not at least getting some of the Boots’ generic cheap yellow earplugs in Heathrow before I left. They at least are wearable and do the job. But instead I waited until I got to Asia before buying this essential travel item…and by then it was too late. I have now invested in several pairs, but none of them are too my satisfaction. Chinese people must simply have different shaped ear canals, as improbable as I admit that seems. All the pairs appear to be too big, and they get very uncomfortable as the hours pass. So I fall asleep quite easily with them in, but around 3am every morning, I wake up either because my ears are so sore the pain wakes me up, or because they have ejected the plugs on their own, and the sounds coming from the other side of the cabin have become overpowering. There appears to be no solution to this dilemma. I tried to sleep with my ipod on, listening to something soothingly generic like café del mar, which works on airplanes and in the evening, but at 3am fails to put me back to sleep. So I get up and walk around the boat. This boat is much smaller than the other cruises, as well as being older and not as well maintained. Apparently it was used for some soap opera in the early 70s, and they seem determined to preserve its, um, retro charm. My father and I concluded that it looks has all the esthetic appeal of a Soviet intourist hotel in the late 80s, although the food is marginally better as they at least serve curry. In the day time, this peculiar interior design seems acceptable as the passengers are pretty much all from the same era as the ship. There is a bridge club, where every afternoon people gather around for extremely intense and competitive matches. The first day at sea, I stopped to stare, not understanding what was going on. My father then described the peculiar game as being “for hip 20 somethings.” He paused and looked around “or at least so I thought in graduate school” he added and paused “but it looks like the same people are still playing it…” I then explained that I neither play bridge nor know anyone my age acquainted with its seemingly archaic rules. Such people and notions of entertainment fit the setting in daylight hours, but at 3am when I get tired of trying to sleep, the boat seems more surreal. I wander around the ship alone, and the empty rooms seem spooky with their 70s loveboat interior design. We are now in the south china sea, so the air on deck is warmer and more humid than the horrid air-conditioning in the room, but with the breeze of the sea, I still wander around in my hoodie. Sometimes I fall asleep on the lounge chairs on deck. Other times I stare into the blackness beyond the railing. Sometimes I see the lights of a passing ship, but rarely close enough to figure out if they are freight or passenger vessels. But most of the time, the only thing I can see is the shiny oil-like blackness of the water below. Around 6am, the ships crew start appearing and going about their activities, washing the deck and painting the railings for the millionth time. They always look at me strangely, probably wondering why the only passenger under 65 prefers to sleep on a lounge chair than in a supposedly luxury cabin. But then they have not heard my father snore.