Sunday, January 25 Entry

It’s been a wonderful week and we probably haven’t gained more than 15 pounds. The food is delicious and ubiquitous. I guess all cruises are like this but the plethora of options is mind-boggling. Probably boring to any reader though. Suffice it to say that just in case there isn’t enough in the sitdown dining room available at each meal or the buffet which is open all day, or in one of the two very formal dining rooms which those traveling peasant class can avail themselves of twice during the cruise, room service is available 24/7 as well.

Cruise life is the same the world over but the people are different. Our friends a week later are Jeff and Ned Lehrian from Erie with whom we will be sharing the guides inViet Nam that Cindy has arranged. Two German couples, one of whom is the invited diamond jewelry featured artist and lecturer. We went with them to the only five star hotel in Sihanoukeville and sat on the lovely beach. A British couple we met as they were searching for the location of high tea and then were seated with us at dinner. An American couple from Long Island. Yesterday afternoon we made earrings with a group of ten from CA and CO who were amongst the youngsters and lots of fun.

Tuesday and Wednesday, January 20 and 21 - Inauguration Day in Bangkok

It took the cruise people until the night before to finally arrange transportation from the port to Bangkok. Available, of course were the one day trip for $59 and the overnight trip for $700 per person (well, yeah, there was also the two day, $1500 trip that was flying to Phnom Penh) but finally another bus was laid on to return those of us who bought the one day trip back with the two day people, if you follow me.

A two hour bus ride past what appeared to be rice paddies (I saw shallow water) and palm trees lands us at a brand new shopping mall (what else) called Center World in the middle of the city. A short but rather lengthy cab ride lands us at the Dream Hotel, recommended by Jeremy and previously booked by Cindy and within ten minutes Jeremy and Max are there to accompany us around and acquaint us with our third big Asian city. This is Max’s home town - as well as Jeremy’s adopted one since this is where they will live after foreign service life. It’s hot (predicted 104 today but I don’t think it was quite that hot) and crowded and incredibly polluted but we set off to learn the subway system. Max and Jeremy drop us at the Jim Thompson House. Google the name and you can learn more. Jim Thompson is an American who fell in love with Thailand, built himself an authentic Thai style house in the middle of Bangkok on one of the canals, and revived the Thai silk industry, transforming it from cottage industry into one of the leading in the world. He disappeared mysteriously and the case has still never been solved. Rumors abound, the leading one being that he was a CIA agent..... Well, what else?

Jeremy left to return to KL (in DC, federal employees were given inauguration day off but not around the world) to go back to work but Max stayed. We rode down to the river where one can see the river taxis plying their way loaded with rush hour passengers and see all the magnificent hotels. Max had to leave to join her mother for dinner and this is the last we are to see of either of them until.... She is decidedly bigger than when we left her only a few days before. She’ll be moving to Bangkok in two weeks, given an apartment for three months courtesy of the US gov’t and give birth in a first class Thai hospital. It is this way for all foreign service births: you either go back to the states or to a city with high level medical services. Jeremy will commute until the last two weeks and stay with her for four. It’s great because she will be near her family and friends.

Cindy and I spotted the private water taxi for the Oriental Mandarin Hotel and decided to jump on board. The hotel is often ranked as the most elegant in the world - although Dubai may have surpassed it by now. Barb Haggerty and I had been here (been not stayed) nine years ago after our Nepal trek so it was nostalgic to be back. We then raced the whole len gth of the sky train to meet two of my A100 classmates and their spouses for dinner. Jeremy and Catherine Beck had had twins the first week we were all in the FS and are loving living in style in Bangkok with the two boys, and three year old Madeleine, while another is on the way so she and Max will undoubtedly be trading birthing stories and friendship. Lora Lund and her husband Eric who is now also an FS officer were also there. A lovely dinner in an outdoor but reasonably cool Thai restaurant literally across the (very big and chaotic) street from Jeremy and Catherine’s apartment. Who knows when all our paths will cross again?

While we had been told that there was probably a party to watch the inauguration happeningin some expat Irish bar, we were so wiped out by the heat and the headache that I’d started the day with that we just went back to the Dream to watch. This is the one time that I wished I could have been in Washington with all my friends who will work in this new administration or at home with the new friends who helped elect our man but it was exciting anyway. Every paper in every Asian city we’ve been to is filled with pictures of our new President and the excitement among the cab drivers and people on the street is palpable. It’s so wonderful to be part of and witness to such hope-filled and positive event. It’s been so novel for me to have my cynicism lifted for almost six months now. If the man and his administration is able to do very little about the crisis which the last man and his administration wrought, he will nevertheless have brought us a sense of honesty and possibility. While our country is celebrating the inauguration of an African-American, I am also celebrating the return of respect for people of intellect, education, and integrity as leaders.

Wednesday morning, a tour guide connected with the ship’s transportation (but not one of the marketed packages) picked us up with an airconditioned van and driver and escorted us to the giant Buddhist temple which houses the giant golden reclining Buddha and the Imperial Palace and the most revered emerald (really jade) Buddha. Words cannot capture the elegance and beauty of either of these spectacular enclaves filled with temples bedecked with jewels and ceramics built by successive Thai emporers but you should google each of the Buddhas I mention above for a taste of what we saw.

Thursday, January 22 Sihanoukville, Cambodia

The Cambodian experience was entirely different. This country has been thoroughly devastated, most recently by the Khmer Rouge which managed to murder two million people during four years of terror during the seventies. Only just beginning to recover, as evidenced by the collection of containers waiting to be loaded onto ships. No ships in sight, though. Just our lonely cruise ship looking at a very commercial, filthy, and poor landscape.

Cindy and I skipped the local market filled with deisel fumes, maimed beggars dragging themselves through the filth, live chickens tied together by their feet, naked children, and horrible smells. I’m sorry to be so squeamish and feel guilty making the observation that third world poverty looks the same everywhere whether it’s Bolivia and Peru, Nepal, or now Cambodia. The hotel where we enjoyed the beach and a lovely outdoor restaurant are an oasis in the middle of all this poverty and garbage. I was reminded of a Caribbean island with all the wealthy tourists and the natives trying to scratch out a living selling trinkets (probably made in China) to them.

Saturday, January 24 Saigon

It is our privelege to see Saigon preparing for the biggest celebration of the year, the Lunar New Year. The entire main street has been swept of its crazy motorbike population and blocks and blocks of flower arrangements, bridges, ponds, rice paddies, and bulls in various incarnations brought in. It being Saturday, the people were turned out, children decked out in their brand new finery and proud parents snapping their photos.

Our guide, Vy, was with us for the day and she was great. We toured the forgettable Reunification Palace which was the home for a few years of the second American puppet president, Thieu. Seventies archecture, some lovely meeting rooms which are still used today. We’re not sure why it is among the largest tourist attractions.

Next stop was the Viet Nam War Remnants Museum - I’m not making this name up. Rooms and rooms full of photographs eliciting the type of response that one has to the Holocaust Museums of Washington or Jerusalem or Dachau. Shame at the hubris of our country to have wrought such devastation upon a country and to have been lied to by our leaders. Surely, as the world said after WWII, nothing like this could ever happen again; certainly never at our own hands. And yet here we are forty years later with blood on our hands again, thousands of needlessly dead American kids to say nothing of a devastated Iraq and tens of thousands of dead there. Lied to again by our leaders. My cynicism returns again.

I am soothed when I read that Obama has issued executive orders demanding transparency in his own administration, slowing at least the revolving door between K Street and PA Avenue, and recalled the criminal Bush limitations on funding for family planning. Someone has at last been listening.

We spent an hour walking among the people getting ready to celebrate the New Year. The forcast was for a mere 87 degrees and there was a blessed overcast to the day so it was fun. Vy found us a nice French/Vietnamese restaurant and Jeff, Neddie, Cindy, and I enjoyed the respite before touring China Town. China Town is the same the world over, I suppose, but in this one I saw my first pigs snouts for sale, among the other crazy things. Cindy and I are sporting new $5 watches as well.

Monday, Friday, and now Sunday are days at sea and they are languid and lazy. I’ll probably take the water color class again and just lie around. We are experiencing monsoon quality winds, it is very rough, and it was almost impossible to sleep. Fortunately, we aren’t sea sick. I’m sitting in the library which sounds crazy given the sunny weather outside but the wind is so fierce that its hard to be out. A few minutes ago a table with a large and lovely Chinese vase went toppling over and the ship truly does sound like it is groaning.

The rest of the trip will be in Viet Nam until we pull into Hong Kong next Thursday or Friday. It promises to be fascinating.