I have, for many years, had this romantic notion of taking a cruise around South East Asia. My parents traveled much - I think that my father visited 62 countries in his life - and they often cruised, and one of their favorites was in SEA (about 20 years ago). This was likely the seed of my desire, but over the years since, it grew into a larger thing. With the passing of my father this last year (in fact, it will be one year to the day 9/29/13), and my mother the year before, we came into some money that "lubricated the possibilities" for our Asian Cruise. And so, we decided that this was a good time to do it, and I jumped into preparations and off we went.
I looked at a number of different cruise options, but wanted something that had a good variety of destinations that I hadn't previously been to, and that was somewhere in the 10 to 21 days long. Upon looking at options, I selected a 14 day cruise on Princess that visited the following destinations.
We flew out of LA, and did the Park and Fly thing (which worked out ok - other than the hotel itself was little more than a bed). We flew into Hong Kong, but only had a few hours in the airport, then into Singapore for two days of touring prior to disembarking on the cruise.
Singapore:
Singapore is a beautiful, multicultural city/country/state. It is a remarkable place in that it has almost no natural resource, but by being a finance hub, manages to by a wealthy and very structured place. It is notorious for all of its laws - some of which seem draconian, but which make for a very clean, and safe feeling place.
There are a number of different cultural heritages openly shared in Singapore - Islamic traditions, a few blocks from Hindu Temples, mixed with Buddhist, Christian and other religious traditions.
In a Hindu Temple, we were fed a bean curd drink, and enjoyed the bright images and curious lore.
Our hotel had a Breakfast Buffet which was generally our largest meal of the day. It spanned the world in it's offerings - classical Miso, Dim Sum, mixed with good croissants, porridge, waffles, local fruits, what appeared to be Gack, and other "interesting" options.
On of the tourist highlights of a trip to Singapore is the Flyer wheel which rotates over the course of a half hour, giving sites to the whole area.
We then boarded the cruise ship, and sailed for two days to our first port - Phu My, Vietnam.
In Vietnam, cars are highly taxed, and thus, most people get about by scooters. They use these not only in hauling people (we say a family of 5 on one), but also delivery of every sort of thing - even a long load carried between two scooters.
One way that parents will ensure that their land isn't sold after their death is they will be buried on the land. Apparently land with someone elses family remains on it doesn't sell.
The Mekong Delta with ships tied together, converted into a make-shift fish farm.
Bee raising for honey and propolis
Delilah hawking her wares of local fruits - bread fruit, durian, leeche, dragon and others.
A river boat ride through the wildes
And a nice lunch at a decidedly touristy restaurant. As you might notice from our table mates, almost everyone on the cruise was significantly older than we. It turns out that living in a retirement home in Australia is actually more expensive in some cases than taking a cruise, so a full 90% of the people on the cruise were geriatric Aussies... Our general impression was that Aussies like to tell their stories a lot more than they like to listen to other peoples, which makes some jumpy conversations when multiple Ausies are involved :)
Kampong Saom, Cambodia
Cambodia was an interesting mix of beauty and ugliness, of potential and shortfall. The market there highlighted but the availability of local goods, and also the speed at which humanity is depleting this worlds resources. The smells of rotting fish, mixed with diesel engines, contrasting with the fresh fruit and Hello Kitty Backpacks... As a country, their collective soul is still recovering from Pol Pot and his atrocities, the killing of all of the people that helped to bring industry to Cambodia. So now, they are fits and starts of recovery. They try to invite the tourist economy, but much of the country is littered, mined or largely inaccessible unless you are willing to rent a motorcycle...
We visited a temple which was also an orphanage - we didn't know about the latter until we were accosted by a dozen children whom had been programmed with a scope of the English language of "One Dolla". Again, the contrast of the beauty of the place and the groping for a way out of their situation.
We also visited a school that definitely had elements of "Come and see the needy children as part of your tour". Since tourist donations are their main source of revenue I can understand - apparently even primary school isn't paid for by the government in many area, and in others, is only through 6th grade.
A tourist trappen where they sold us expensive, mediocre "touristified" versions of local food from a 5 Star Resort where they were showcasing the culture.
Monkeys along the road.
Laem Chabang/Bangkok Thailand
I've been to Bangkok before, and enjoyed it. This trip, as all of the shore excursions, were only day trips, so only offered the shallowest samples of the culture. Still, it's beautiful to see the wonderful sights of Thailand again, even if briefly.
These Buddha figures are "adopted" by families, whom will make a pilgrimage each year to maintain it, re-cover it in gold leaf and otherwise adorn it. There are almost two thousand of these figures on the temple grounds.
A giant reclining Buddha - with mother of pearl enlayed feet.
Again, one wish would have been that we could have had less "touristified" food, so sanitized by the approved resort/hotel, that it lacked the local flavor which we came to experience. The approved shopping venue was similarly sanitized, in a place where only tourists shop - but the one day excursion was carefully orchestrated such. The down side of cruising.
Ko Samui, Thailand
For generations, Elephants have been used for farming of wood from jungles where even treaded tractors can't get to. When the logging laws in Thailand changed a decade or so ago to preserve more of the wood there, all of a sudden there were several thousand Elephants that were unemployed. So, some smart folks figured out that people would be willing to pay to ride them, and their second carrier as eco-tourist attraction was born.
A rubber tree plantation where they harvest and process natural rubber from tree sap.
Elephant show
Delilah helping to make Papaya Salad.
The guest star of the show was the Coconut Harvesting monkeys which are trained to climb trees, and twist the coconuts until they fall. Turns out that about 80% of the worlds coconut milk comes from Thailand, and is almost exclusively harvested by monkeys (according to the Thai tour guide that is :) )
Us on the Elephant
With the elephants all living in smaller areas for tourist adventures, there is now a large market for elephant grass which they eat by the ton...
Benoa, Bali, Indonesia
Barbara and my Favorite was Bali. Delilah's favorite was Vietnam.
Bali was beautiful. The people of Bali have an appreciation of beauty, and so almost everything there emphesizes beauty in it's form. People don't have a lot of money, or physical possessions, but they have a high quality of life - good food, close community, functional shelter. The stuff that matters they have. Most houses have a simple refrigerator, often a small TV and satellite dish (since they are equitorial, they are both closer to, and have a lower grazing angle to the satellites - so their dish antennas look like toys, at about a foot across, and are painted in pastel colors). I will return to Bali. I could stay a month or many.
Dancers on arrival
The only tour that included a map (which one would think would be such a basic piece of tourist information)
Even the construction was beautiful - scaffolding of bamboo, power lines draped from trees.
The tour that we took was "Rural Bali" and included a meal with a family, which was lovely. Fresh fruit wrapped in sweet rice, coconut, real coffee. Delicious, and most of it was from their yard.
A functioning rice paddi
A lovely temple
And a view of the volcano and surrounding area from lunch...
Fremantle, Australia
The ship disembarked in Fremantle. Unfortunately, along the way, a number of people came down with some sort of bug on the ship. There were a number of days that the captain had to make statements, and had to have the buffet's set up so that you couldn't serve your self - couldn't touch the spoons, for sharing germs. A number of people got sick. There were rumors that several people died (heck, with a median age of 70+, that's natural attrition...) We didn't get the stomach thing, but we got a thing that just sucked the life out of you. For me, it went to my chest. For the girls, they FELT sick, but never "got" sick (tummy wise). So by the time we got to Fremantle, we just didn't have a lot of energy. We did a little sight seeing by bus the first day, and then went to a wildlife park with Kanga's and other local wildlife the second day. Our overall impression was - it's quite a bit like San Diego, Eucalyptus everywhere, similar weather, but the streets roll up about 7PM. NOTHING to do at night, not even bars are open that we could find. No desire to return to west Australia.
So the last day, after the animal park exhausted us, we found a cabi to take us back. We told him the story of our impending flight to Hong Kong and then LAX and then home (a total of about 30 hours) and he took pitty on us, and took us to an apothecary friend of his to load Delilah and us up with some meds for the flight, then took us to the airport. Taxi fee was about $150... Things were DANG expensive there...
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