FAR EAST – PART 1

Twenty-four hours is a long time to spend in the air!  That’s how long it took us to get half-way around the world, from Orlando to Singapore.  The longer of two legs, a seventeen-hour marathon from San Francisco, was our longest flight ever.  Jet-lagged, we rode the train from Changi Airport to downtown, crammed sardine-can style into a throng of commuters.  Since our room wasn’t ready, we killed a few hours lounging in a nearby park before having lunch in Chinatown.  Our hotel turned out to be a bit of a disappointment but the bed was most welcome when we finally got horizontal again.

Next morning saw us up bright and early, ready to explore the nearby area on foot.  Raffles Hotel, the Singapore Flyer, the Excelsior Theatre, the Marina Bay Sands Hotel, the Parliament Building: all of them brought back memories of the two short days we’d spent in this incredible city-state in 2015.  After a short metro ride, we were once again in the gentle arms of Holland America aboard the good ship MS Volendam.  A sister ship of the Rotterdam, familiar to us from two previous cruises, the Volendam is rather dated but has a certain charm nonetheless.

After spending a day at sea, we arrived at our first port of call, Nathon on the island of Koh Samui, on February 16.  After running a gauntlet of very aggressive taxi drivers, we negotiated a fare for a three-hour visit to a waterfall and safari park: $45 US, about half what we would have paid in the Caribbean countries we’d visited in the fall.  The hike to the waterfall and the visit to the safari park turned out to be worthwhile.  The elephant show was the best we’ve seen and we’d never seen a monkey trained to pick coconuts!  What will they think of next?

Our next stop was Laem Chabang, the gateway port to Bangkok.  There being no other choice, we took the Holland America shuttle into the city.  It turned out to be a boring two and one-half hour drive on an elevated highway past endless, non-descript commercial and industrial areas.  We could have been in any developed country, anywhere in the world.  Finally off the friggin’ bus, we marched through a busy mall, along a busier walkway, and into a frantic crowd of passengers crowding onto the Skytrain, ever conscious of the short time we had to see the attractions we’d been told not to miss: the Royal Palace and the Buddhist temple complex of Wat Arun.  Our guide on the bus had given only the barest of directions on how to get where we wanted to go.  “And be back at 5:30 or we’ll leave without you”.  No tip for her!

Bangkok is a city of 15 million people.  I’m from a village of about 400.  The Skytrain took us to the edge of the Chao Phraya River where we boarded a boat for the ride to the Royal Palace.  Pushing, shoving, heat, traffic, horns.  Christ!  What am I doing here.  To enter the Palace, I had to put on jeans to cover up my legs!  It’s a beautiful Palace - of that there’s no doubt - but the crush of people took away from what could have been a far more enjoyable experience.

From there we took a short ferry ride across the river to visit Wat Arum, a far quieter place as it turned out.  A fine temple complex, but tiny compared to the massive Shwedagon Pagoda we’d seen in Yangon, Myanmar, two years before.  Back in the centre of the city, we found a Starbucks.  And a welcome refuge it was!  Long story short, we didn’t have enough time to see the city properly.  The highlight for us was the fast, cheap and efficient river boat service.  Would I go back?  Not likely; too many people!

And then it happened again!  Elva came into the room with a look on her face I’d seen before…  “You met someone from the Island, didn’t you?”, I said.  And so she had.  Ian Carter lives in downtown Charlottetown, about a ten-minute walk from us.  A couple of days later, Ian met a woman from Souris.  Incredible!  On our first cruise in 2013, we met Cheryl Stead and John Cox from Charlottetown and, two years ago, Donna and Dave Crocker from Alberton.

Two days later, we anchored in Sihanoukville, Cambodia, gateway port to the capital city of Phnom Penh.  A shuttle took us the short distance into the city and parked across the street from the central market.  I’ve learned that there are two main indicators of the state of development of a country: the amount of garbage strewn around and the quality of the public transportation system.  Things weren’t looking good on either account.  And there were beggars everywhere, mothers with babes in arms, orphans and amputees  - genuinely destitute people - all looking for a handout.

Cambodia is a poor and poorly-governed country; third-world really.  Its recent history includes the terrible genocide of the 1970s when as many as 2 million people were murdered by the Khmer Rouge under brutal dictator Pol Pot.  If you haven’t seen the movie The Killing Fields, it’s a revelation.  And Angelina Jolie recently released First They Killed My Father, also set in the same period.

Elva and I wandered through the market for a half-hour or so, shadowed by a determined tuk-tuk driver we just couldn’t shake.  Then we made our way back to where our guide was and asked him to help us find a driver to take us to the places we wanted to visit.  “How much you want to spend?”, he asked me.  “About $30 for three hours”, I answered.  “And it has to be a driver who speaks English”, said Elva.  Though most in the crowd around us refused, a hand shot up eventually and we were escorted to Saron’s “car-tuk-tuk”, an ancient converted Daewoo.

Saron turned out to be an excellent guide, very fluent in English and very willing to talk about the country’s many struggles.  Through his example and based on what we saw as we drove through the city, we learned that entrepreneurship may be the only way for Cambodians to survive.  The country’s economy is growing rapidly, but crime and corruption are rampant.  One can only hope that Sihanoukville’s beaches will one day bring prosperity to the beautiful people we met there.

 
Our next port of call was Phu My, gateway to Ho Chi Min City, the former Saigon.  Once again, we took the Holland America shuttle into the city centre, a ninety-minute drive through verdant countryside, including this scene which illustrates the vivid contrast between old and new.

We’d been told to be careful of the traffic, pickpockets, dishonest taxi drivers, and various other scammers who prey on tourists.  We found nothing of the sort.  The city, home to 11 million and the country’s biggest, is frenetic but friendly, and we had no trouble getting around on foot.  Motorcycles are everywhere and crossing the street can be an adventure, but we saw everything we’d hoped to see: the Reunification Palace, the Post Office, Notre Dame Cathedral, and the vast Ben Thanh Market.  The French influence is evident in the way the city centre is laid out: classic architecture, wide boulevards, and a sense of space that reminded us of Paris.

Yes, there are reminders of the War, but the young people prefer to look ahead rather than dwell in the past.  Yet, as I looked out at the old Huey parked on the roof of the Reunification Palace, I couldn’t help but think of the images of the American pullout in 1975 and of the movies that followed: Robin Williams’ Good Morning Vietnam!, The Deer Hunter, Platoon, and so many others that chronicled that terrible conflict.

Vietnam is a densely-populated country of over 90 million, barely half the size of Alberta.  It’s one of only five one-party socialist countries in the world, the others being North Korea, China, Laos and Cuba.  Given the scale of development in Ho Chi Min City, and especially the seaside resort cities of Nha Trang, Da Nang and Halong Bay, you’d never guess it was a Communist country.  Capitalism is alive and well here and the Vietnamese are doing quite well, thank you; much better than their neighbours in Cambodia and Laos.

Our day in Nha Trang was spent walking along the seaside boulevard, visiting the Po Nagar Cham towers, a complex of temples dating back to the eighth century, and walking the streets where the real people live and work, a few blocks back from the hotel strip.  Money is pouring in from South Korea, Japan, and China to build high end hotels, resorts, and condos.

Next stop was Da Nang, the last stopover for American soldiers heading stateside following a tour of duty during the Vietnam War.  They knew it as ‘China Beach’.  We spent our day there in the nearby city of Hoi An, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  A small section of the city has been preserved and features a variety of craftspeople and artisans.  We watched marble carvers, silk weavers, lantern-makers, tailors, shoe and boot makers, artists, carvers, and many others.  The market was a treat for the senses.  And how can one not be impressed by a place with public wifi everywhere and women that hawk and spit every bit as good as the men!

Our last stop in Vietnam was Halong Bay, another UNESCO World Heritage Site featuring nearly 2,000 limestone islands jutting out of the emerald waters.  We took a cruise on a converted fishing junk.  Since words cannot describe the beauty of the place, even on a cloudy day, I’ll let the photos speak for themselves.

Along the way, we stopped to visit Thien Cung Cave.  While the stalactite and stalagmite formations were amazing, being pushed and jostled by hundreds of selfie-stick-wielding Chinese spoiled the experience.  It brought back unpleasant memories of being herded through the Sistine Chapel.

The first leg of our Far East cruise ended in Hong Kong, a city of over 7 million people jammed into an area of just 1,000 square kilometres, less than one-fifth the size of Prince Edward Island and one of the most densely-populated places on earth.  We’ll stop here again at the end of the cruise and will post photos in a later blog.