Where in the World Are We?

We are traveling through Southeast Asia at a speedy clip. It is almost 7:30 AM on March 27 and we are heading down the winding Saigon River toward the South China Sea. We have been in Saigon or Ho Chi Minh City for 5 days. Actually the ship has been docked there, but we flew to Siem Reap, Cambodia and spent 2 days there. Before Vietnam we were in Thailand. And the day after tomorrow we will be in Hong Kong which will be closely followed by Japan. All of this is to say that I doubt that I will catch up on the blog until the Pacific crossing.

We have found delicious food everywhere. The level of commerce is quite remarkable, particularly in Vietnam which is a communist country with a free market system. Saigon is booming and very friendly. There have been many opportunities to revisit the war at the War Remnants Museum and the Cu Chi Tunnels. It is really quite stunning to visit this country that was so prominently in the news and in our living rooms almost 40 years ago. I did not realize how much it is embedded in our national psyche. Yesterday I went on a trip to the Mekong Delta while Reggie and Jackson explored the Cu Chi Tunnels. In the Delta, we toured along narrow jungle creeks in a small san pan, paddled by a woman on the bow and a man at the stern. I could almost picture US Marines patrolling these creeks with all of their battle gear, just as we saw on the news so long ago.

Thailand is a jewel of a country. ….beautiful gold leaf temples and tropical beaches. I had a massage under the palm trees at a beach one day. It was heavenly.

Cambodia is truly amazing especially considering the deadly Pol Pot regime which was so recently in power. They call it their civil war and during that time, 3 million Cambodians were exterminated. The country is so small and the population is very young now. We did not visit the killing fields in Phnom Penh, but we did go to the fabulous ancient temples of Angkor Wat and to Tonle Sap Lake where we toured among the floating villages.

Stay tuned.....

One Day in My Life at Sea

March 12, 2009

A friend asked me to describe a typical day at sea quite some time ago. The class schedule is divided into A days and B days and while at sea most days are class days or in my case work days. When we are in port there are no classes except for scheduled class field trips. In port, we can take SAS trips or use it as our free time and travel anywhere except leave the host country. While we are at sea it is not uncommon to have our clocks forwarded an hour and indeed by the time we make our way around the world we will have lost 24 hours. I never realized how very precious one hour is and I believe all of my shipmates would agree.

My intention was to get up early every day and exercise but just like home, my intention rarely matches my actions when it comes to going to the gym. A reasonable alternative has been to get up at 7 and walk the outside decks which beats going to the gym any day, even if the gym looks out over the ocean. My preference is to walk on the bow but it is often closed due to high winds and so the back deck serves the purpose. Many others are up at that hour either running or walking or working out in the gym.

We have a French press and so I make our coffee in our room. I usually skip breakfast to check email or work on my blog and then go to Global studies at 9:15. It is compulsory for all voyagers and it is the only class that meets every class day. It has been very informative and covers a range of topics. When we were approaching Spain, we heard a lecture on the 5 most famous Spanish painters. Today as we approach Thailand, a resident from UVA, who joined us in India talked about the HIV/AIDS pandemic in South East Asia and the sex workers of Thailand. Since our theme is human migrations we have been hearing about every aspect of this subject over the course of the voyage.

After Global Studies I go to work. Right now I am working in the Campus Store which is the easier part of my job. At the beginning of the voyage I managed and sold textbooks. Soon it will be time to inventory them and pack them up for return to the UVA bookstore. I work until Noon and then rendezvous with Reggie and Jackson for lunch. Jackson has spent the morning in a study hall, along with a large group of dependent children. Study hall meets in the deck 5 dining room and he is supposed to be keeping up with his curriculum from Colorado. He and I spend some time each day reviewing his studies and looking ahead to the next assignments. A student tutors him in pre Algebra on B days and he does science with his grandfather on A days. In addition he keeps a journal.

As often as we can we eat lunch on the fantail looking out over the ship’s turquoise wake. It is usually rather hot but we can find a place in the shade. We have grown quite fond of the waiters, many of whom are from the Philippines. They are an upbeat bunch and like to joke around with Jackson. After lunch I go back to our cabin for another quick round with email or other computer activities and then back to work at 1:30. I work with Yvonne and Nick who are members of the crew. Nick is from Holland. He is 18 and speaks 5 languages. Yvonne is from Jamaica. We also have several work study students. I am usually done by 3 and return to our cabin where I spend a lot of time on the Internet, planning our trips. If we have not signed up for Semester at Sea trips, than it is up to us to organize our own trips. I have become the ad hoc travel agent.

Sometime after 5PM, Reggie shows up and we go to the lounge for a cocktail or a glass of wine. We can visit with our neighbors and watch the ocean for the infrequent bird, fish or mammal appearance. There are so many interesting people on board and I am enjoying the characters and the conversations. We have fishermen from Alaska, a woman who grew up in Rhodesia and people who lived through Apartheid. We have poets, musicians and scientists and people who are very amusing. Many have travelled extensively and can provide lots of useful information.

In addition to Jackson and ourselves, we have a shipboard family. At the beginning of the voyage, students had the opportunity to sign up if they wanted to be adopted by some adult for the voyage. They had more people sign up than ever before. Consequently we have five adopted students and two additional young ladies who adopted us. It has been a really nice way to get to know some students and they are genuinely appreciative of our efforts. We have them to our cabin or meet them for dinner.

We usually make our way to the Garden Lounge for dinner around 7PM, meeting up with Jackson who has been enjoying his own free time. Very often we have the good fortune of being entertained by a gorgeous sunset while dining on the fan tail. Since we are usually heading east or some close approximation, the sun is setting over our wake. This makes for some memorable moments.

Our evenings are spent in various ways. If we are close to a port, we attend cultural preport or logistical preport which are required. Sometimes there are additional presentations by interport lecturers which are informative and worthwhile. It is always great to have a little extra time to read or work on the computer. The lounge reopens at 9PM and we often drop by for more socializing before hitting the hay. Usually by 10, I am in bed reading.

It is not a bad life at all. In fact I am sure I have gotten spoiled. All of us agree however that we do not have enough time to get everything done and it is one of the abiding mysteries of this shipboard life. I do not have to drive anywhere and nor do I have to cook, clean or shop and yet time is in short supply. Many of our days at sea are only 23 hours long and I do find myself interrupting my activities frequently to walk out on deck and look at passing ships, islands or birds. At night it is to look at the moon and stars which are even more spectacular at sea. Like many of my fellow voyagers, I love the time at sea and it may be the best part of the trip.

Stay tuned for Thailand and another day in paradise……..

This is Mats, the Staff Captain. He is standing on the flying bridge, keeping an eye on our docking at Laem Chabang in Thailand. He is basically second in command. If you ask him what his role is on the ship, he says he does anything the Captain does not want to do. Mats is from Sweden.

Strait of Malacca

From the Crow’s Nest -

We are passing though the Strait of Malacca, a 500-mile long channel running SE/NW between the Indonesian island of Sumatra and the Asian mainland region defined by the Malay peninsula. At its narrowest point, the strait is only 1.5 miles wide, so ship traffic can become very congested. The strait serves as the principal shipping channel between the Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean. Over 50,000 vessels traverse the strait each year, carrying one-quarter of global trade. Oil from the Persian Gulf states moves eastward to the oil-hungry economies of China, Japan, and South Korea. In turn, their goods move westward to India, Africa, the Middle East, and Europe. The strait is not only narrow, it is also shallow. In places the depth is only 25 meters (82 feet) and large supertankers must avoid it by going south around Sumatra and finding deeper routes through the Indonesian archipelago. The size limit for vessels able to pass through the Strait of Malacca is called the “Malaccamax”; any ship larger than the MalaccaMax must find an alternative path. The Strait of Malacca was notorious for piracy, and to some extent still is, but a crackdown by the Malaysian, Indonesian, and Singapore navies beginning in 2004 has made the strait a much safer channel than it was.

Reg Garrett

Bunkering in Singapore. Photo of Singapore from our anchorage. It is very smoggy and you have to look hard to see the city skyline in the distance. The vessel is the refueling ship that is tied up to the MV Explorer.

India the Indescribable

March 9, 2009

This entry is a composite of photos and description from Reg and Georgia.

India was HOT, humid, VERY dirty, unsanitary, colorful, fascinating, mystical, and depressingly overpopulated and impoverished. The traffic was stunningly crowded with vehicles of every description. City traffic is mayhem - pedestrians; bicyclists; families of five on a motor scooter; even larger families in three-wheeled tuk-tuks; a gaggle of people stacked atop a motorbike, at least one toting the obligatory goat, to list merely those conveyances with less than 4 wheels. What passes for expressways here have pedestrian crossings at regular intervals, all occupied by a minimum of two pedestrians. None of the pedestrian crossings are honored by the cows that wander wherever a cow might be going, a mystery in itself. We hired a car and driver to tour around southeastern India for several days. He drove these roads at high speed, with professional abandon, and frighteningly exhilarating confrontations with oncoming trucks, buses, tuk-tuks, goats, and cattle. He yielded only to the cattle. To harm a cow is a grave offense if you are a Hindu. Scaring the bejesus out of western passengers may be part of some devious religious conversion scheme he was pursuing; Georgia called out loudly to many gods, known and unknown, as we careened down the highways and byways. Whether her exhortations means that she's now a noviate in one of the many religions practiced here remains inscrutable. I do think she's given up vehicular traffic as a form of penance.

An additional note from Georgia- The horn is used as a form of eco location in India. You do not drive without one and it appears that there is very critical information transferred by the type of honk…none of which I am capable of translating. Applicable images would be threading the needle or a game of chicken or the football terminology used when an offensive player is running with the ball and he is trying to squeak through the hole in the defense. It would not be possible for a non-Indian to rent a car and drive themselves around.

Here is a view from my position in the center back seat watching our driver find a hole in the traffic in front of us. That is Ganesh on the dashboard, the god of wisdom and travel. Maybe it was his presence that kept us safe. The bus by the way may be in the lane for oncoming traffic. There were not hard and fast rules regarding traffic lanes.

We arrived in India at about 0800 on Thursday, March 5, docking in Chennai, the fourth largest city in India. Chennai used to be called Madras; it is in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, and the main language spoken here is Tamil. Chennai has over 8 million people. India itself has over 1.1 billion people speaking 16 different languages and living in an area only one-third the size of the U.S., so the first thing you notice is all the people. People are everywhere – on the streets, on the sidewalks, riding bicycles, riding in pedal-bike rickshaws, riding motorbikes, riding in auto rickshaws, which are three-wheeled motor scooters called tuk-tuks, cars, trucks, and buses – there are lots of buses. The most interesting transportation and the cheapest is the tuk-tuk – the yellow vehicles here:

We decided to try the tuk tuk Indian style. Before I got out to take the photo, I had been sitting on Reggie's lap for our raucus ride around Pondicherry.

We went on a tour of the area south of Chennai, going first to Kanchipuram, a Hindu holy city noted for all of its Hindu temples. Hindu temples tend to be very colorful, decorated with images of the many Hindu deities. Here is a photo of the Mylapore temple in Chennai:


From Kanchipuram, we drove towards the southeast Indian coast, stopping first in Vendanthalgal bird sanctuary, where we saw lots of painted storks and other birds. Painted storks come to Vendanthalgal in the winter to nest and then in the spring they migrate north, flying over the Himalayan mountains, the highest mountains in the world, to China. We met some Indian schoolchildren who were on a field trip to Vendanthalgal. They wear school uniforms; each school has a different-colored uniform. The girls were laughing at the boys, and the boys were laughing at us because they seldom see people from the U.S. in Vendanthalgal. Here is a photo of them:

The boys thought themselves quite funny because they pointed to the girls and said "The stupids"....a universal boy thing.

From Vendanthalgal we drove to Pondicherry, a seaside city. Pondicherry was the place where the French East India Company had their colonial outpost in India 200 years ago. There are still many people speaking French in Pondicherry; it did not become part of India until 1954. We visited another Hindu temple there. It was a temple dedicated to the Hindu god Ganesh. Ganesh is the god of knowledge and travel, so I was interested in seeing a temple for Ganesh. Ganesh has the body of a human and the head of an elephant. When he wants to travel, he rides on a rat.

The temple had an elephant that would bless you if you gave it a coin. You just stand before the elephant and when he sticks out his trunk, you drop a coin in it, and then he taps you on the head to bless you.

Jackson is being blessed by the temple elephant.

Pondicherry also had a botanical garden, with monkeys running around. Here is a picture of Jackson in the foreground and a rhesus monkey in the background:
Rhesus monkeys are used as experimental animals in U.S. research laboratories because they are so similar to humans. We also saw ‘flying foxes’ in the botanical garden. “Flying foxes” are the largest bats in India; they have a wingspan of over 3 feet. Fortunately, they are fruit-eating bats, not vampire bats!




The black things dangling among the branches are fruit bats.


Although the people in India are very, very poor, the country is rich in cultural heritage. Three major religions began here in India – Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, and there are also many Muslims here. St. Thomas, one of the 12 Apostles, came 2,000 years ago as a missionary to India and was martyred here. He is buried in Chennai. Over 16 different languages are spoken in India.

Everywhere you look you see color, intense color, exuberant colors that look like they radiate from the inside out. The people like brightly colored clothes, and the women wear saris of beautiful silk. It is not uncommon to see women working on construction sites in their saris. Houses might be painted in multiple colors and they might have straw roofs. Color is so revered in India, they even have a festival of the colors called Holi. During this festival they throw colored powders on each other.

Inspite of the festivals, the colors and the endlessly fascinating culture, India is extremely poor and we saw evidence of devastating and debilitating poverty everywhere we went. The government considers anyone earning more than 50 rupees a day(one dollar) above the poverty line. And yet for the most part, the poor people press on finding the most efficient methods of survival available. For many of them it is sorting through trash for recyclables, selling handicrafts or simply stealing. We found joy, smiling faces, and laughter in the midst of desperate circumstances. Most Indians were friendly and curious towards us and of course asked about Obama and America. More than anything India was a humbling and at the same time enigmatic experience.

Today we are anchored and bunkering off of Singapore in the Philip Channel. We are surrounded by lush green islands, anchored ships and can see lots of oil refineries off in the distance. Singapore is the wealthiest city-state in the world and with 4.5 million people.

More photos of India below.














Some students from the University of Pondicherry. One of them studies Biochemistry. We met them in the Botanical Gardens.


Colored beads at the market.



Georgia buying a dress for Bella in the market place.









Boy selling tomatoes at the market. His father really wanted me to take his photo.

A Day of Rest Followed by a Day of Competition

February 27-28, 2009

We spent only one day in paradise. Mauritius is part of a chain of small volcanic islands known as the Mascarene Archipelago, which lies about 600 miles east of Madagascar. The island of Reunion is part of the same island chain. The now extinct flightless Dodo Bird was indigenous to Mauritius. The Dutch, French and then the English ruled this small island at various points in its history. It gained its independence in 1968. Mauritius has maintained its French character and French is commonly spoken there as well as Creole and English. Slaves from Africa were brought to the island to work the sugar cane fields. Later the British brought indentured laborers from India. Today Mauritius is considered a melting pot of many cultures and they are proud of the fact that they mostly get along with each other. It has a working democracy and a high literacy rate for both men and women.

We were allowed off the ship but only for a day while we refueled in Port Louis. We took a scheduled trip to an area south of Port Louis, known as Black River. There one hundred of us voyagers boarded 4 huge catamarans and sailed off shore to snorkel on the reef and generally to lay about in the sun soaking up this tropical wonder. Reggie even got to take the helm for awhile. After motoring around to look at the spinner dolphin and anchoring to snorkel, the catamarans were rafted together. To the sounds of reggae and the local sega beat, our crew served us drinks and grilled fish and chicken for lunch. After lunch we had another lovely swim in the 80+ degree blue lagoon. Then they raised the mainsail and the jib and we took off for a brief sail before returning to the marina and the bus ride back to the ship. None of us wanted to leave.

We left Port Louis about 8PM that evening with our sun tans and wonderful memories of our day in paradise. The next day out in the Indian Ocean we had the Sea Olympics. Just like resident halls in dormitories back home, the students are divided up into seas such as The Arabian Sea or the Baltic Sea…there are 8 of them. In the Sea Olympics they compete against each other. Even the faculty, staff, life long learners and family members had our own sea called the Odd-i-sea. The competition included things like volley ball, tug of war and some weird things like mash potato sculpturing. It was loud and chaotic and very, very hot. The ocean was flat and glassy that day.

The sea that won will get to disembark first when we get to Ft. Lauderdale in May. I was part of a relay race that included passing an orange from chin to chin and water from cup to cup. I opted for the water as it seemed like something I could actually do. The Odd-i-Sea was really no match against the youthful student seas. Everybody had fun and we ended the day with a barbeque on the Pool Deck….always a popular alternative to the usual fare. Five days after that we arrived in Chennai, India.

Note: I have added a photo to the previously posted entry just below this one.

Skimming Over Glass

Lat 4 degrees, 32 minutes N; Long 80 degrees 15.5 E; Course 42 degrees; Time 21:24
Temperature of air & sea- mid 80’s

This evening at 5:30, we had our second wine & cheese party in our cabin. We are working our way through the faculty and their spouses/partners and so had about 14 guests. Once again the hotel services catered and we had a mixture of hot and cold canapés, spring rolls and small quiches. It is so easy to entertain when you don’t have to shop and prepare. All I had to do was straighten up which took all of 2 minutes because our cabin is so small. The most difficult part is finding Stefan in his office. He is the officer in charge of the dining facilities.

The temperature was very comfortable and so we moved the party onto the deck. The ocean is again like glass tonight…very slick, no wind and it almost looks as if there is a fine layer of oil on the surface of the water. I cannot even begin to describe the reflected colors that occur when there is no wind. During the party someone noticed some very small fish frolicking off the side of the ship, very near our deck. They looked like dolphin but they were so small. They were dwarf spinner dolphin and behaved just like our Atlantic dolphin….just a miniature version. There were also fishermen in small boats. We are very, very far from land, off shore from Sri Lanka. Of course our first thought when we saw them was pirates. Still I was surprised at how small their boats were.

Some Indian students came on board in South Africa and they are our interport students. Tonight they gave a cultural preport presentation. We learned about the festivals and the Hindu wedding ceremony. We found out where to shop in Chennai and what and where to eat. They demonstrated how to wrap a sari and how to draw a decoration on the floor using rice flour. I think I am going to love India. I already love the food and I am enchanted by all the brilliant colors, flowers and interesting celebrations. They have a Festival of Colors in which they throw colors on each other. I am not sure what form the colors take but it sounds pretty enchanting.

Tonight is another dark night on the ship. But unlike last night there is not a cloud in the sky. We will go out for star gazing on Deck 8. In fact I can hear the students out there as I write. The lights are out.

Running Dark

It is now 2230 and bedtime. The captain turned the lights out on the outside of the ship so that stargazers might get a better glimpse of the night sky. We went out and climbed up to Deck 8, just above the bow. There was a sprinking of students out there chatting about this and that. We could see the new moon on the port side reflecting on the ocean surface and lightening somewhere out in the distance in the direction that we are heading. The sky was not completely clear but still the stars were quite bright. We saw Orion and the Milky Way. We can now say that we have seen the Southern Cross. The air was quite humid and we have been travelling through a band of moisture laden clouds that circle the earth near the Equator. It rained hard yesterday. Sometime tomorrow we will cross the Equator and say good bye to the Southern Hemisphere.

It was thrilling being out there in the dark flying over the ocean at 20 knots.

Further Notes on Africa

Currently our position is Latititude 1 degree, 31 minutes South; Longitude 74 degrees 37 minutes East; Speed 21 knots; Time 20:55- Somewhere in the Indian Ocean

Every day we are at sea, we have Global Studies which is specifically geared to the relevant countries and regions of the world. Since we travelled around the continent of Africa and visited 3 of its countries, we had the opportunity to learn a lot about this beleaguered great continent. Much was said about “the scramble for Africa” which is the story about colonialism and imperialism and the exploitation of the continent. The Portuguese, Spanish, German, French, Dutch and English played roles at various times during the last 4 or 5 centuries. Initially the Portuguese were just looking for a trading route to Asia and established outposts to resupply passing ships. Over the course of time, colonies were established which changed hands frequently as a result of neglect or wars such as the Anglo-Boer War of 1902. Gold and diamonds were discovered and the scramble ensued. Ivory tusks from the elephant were a prized commodity. And of course slaves were required to provide the labor to extract all of these riches as well as to build the New World.

In the 20th century many African nations gained independence from their European ruling countries. When the colonial governments were dismantled very little infrastructure was left. Africa was left fragmented and torn by warring factions and tribes. Most of the wealth that had been extracted was taken off shore and was not used to improve the local conditions. The newly independent nations wrote their constitutions which were based on the democratic model and there was much hope that they would meet with success in the modern world and that the people could find freedom from poverty and inhumanity.

Sadly this has not been the case in most of the countries on the African Continent. The incidence of HIV/AIDS is astoundingly high and in some places in South Africa as high as 50% and in Namibia the incidence is 21%. Illiteracy, especially among girls is very high and in South Africa unemployment runs between 18-40% depending on the region. And of course the population of Africa is growing at a rate that is not sustainable in terms of food production. Meanwhile the natural resources of the continent continue to be exploited by large international consortia, such as DeBeers, with very little of the money staying in the country of origin where it could be used to create infrastructure or to fund education.

In the many lectures we have heard about Africa, it was repeated more than once that the best hope for the continent lies in education of its people and especially of its young girls. It was said that if you educate a girl you educate an entire family. Education of the girls will impact population growth and the spread of AIDS. It will allow families to become self-sustaining and will promote economic activity thereby creating revenues to improve infra structure and education.

Supporting activities which support education for African girls is an excellent use of dollars which have been set aside for charity because this addresses the critical underlying factor. I have googled charities involved in this work and my efforts have yielded the following charities which have as at least one of their goals….the education of young African girls. They are Camfed http://us.camfed.org/ and Global Partners http://www.gpfd.org/. I have not taken the time to figure out how they are rated and so leave that to your investigative skills. Both of these look like organizations worthy of further investigation.

The photo above is of a girls choir in Namibia who greeted us upon our arrival. They are all orphans of the HIV/AIDS epidemic.