Ancient Temples, Exotic
Images in Southeast Asia
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There are moments in travel that are filled with irony. So it was on a steamy night last July, when we and scores of other Americans partied on the aft deck of a former Soviet spy ship docked in Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh City while a combo played cha-cha and tango music. On the far river bank, huge, brightly lit billboards hawked AST and Compaq computers, while on the dock side, a three-story coral-and-pink villa served as a shrine to the Vietnamese revolutionary whose name was used in Americans' antiwar chants a generation ago.
What would Ho have said?
The question came to mind as we sat at our deck table on our cruise ship, the Marco Polo. Around us was the frenetic activity on the streets and waterways of Ho Chi Minh City, a metropolis of 5 million formerly known as Saigon, a city American GIs fought for, died for and lost during the Vietnam War. Americans have been visiting the land of their former enemy in small numbers for some time, but on this trip, we and the other 500 or so Americans on board Orient Lines' Marco Polo were among the first to visit after President Clinton had formally recognized the Communist government of the Republic of Vietnam.
Our visit to Ho Chi Minh City was a two-day port call, one of many exotic locales we visited during the Marco Polo's "Oriental Odyssey" itinerary, a two-week cruise and tour from Singapore to Bangkok that exposed us to a colorful and often chaotic region of the world that is becoming more popular with cruise passengers. Leaving from Singapore, we cruised to Java, Bali, Borneo and Vietnam, ending in Bangkok.
Orient Lines is a one-ship line, known for its off-the-beaten-path itineraries and excellent land tours. The Marco Polo is the former Aleksandr Pushkin, a 30-year-old vessel built in East Germany as a cruise ship, though there were whispers that its real mission was spying. It was auctioned off to Orient Lines four years ago and, after a $75 million renovation and a renaming, set sail again, carrying 850 passengers in 425 cabins to ports in Southeast Asia, the South Pacific and Antarctica.
We chose the Marco Polo mainly because of its unusual itinerary. The Oriental Odyssey was a "cruise/tour," meaning that pre- and post-cruise land stays are included in the fare.
Our journey began in Singapore, the island metropolis at the southern tip of Malaysia. During our two-day stay, we visited the major attractions and toured the ethnic neighborhoods of the city -- and, not so incidentally, overcame the jet lag caused by 27 hours of air travel from Washington.
Then we boarded the ship and set sail for the Java Sea. Our first port of call was Semarang, on the eastern end of the Indonesian island of Java. There we boarded a bus to visit Borobudur, a stadium-sized stone temple said to be the largest Buddhist monument in the world. The monument, built in the 8th or 9th century, is a terraced mass of dark gray anesite stone that rises 101 feet. Each terrace is decorated with countless friezes, statues and carvings that depict the journey from bodily desires to perfection in life. Unfortunately, many of the carvings have been damaged by vandals or worn and eroded by weather and pollution.
Back on board, we enjoyed a day of sea travel and began to familiarize ourselves with the ship's routine. Among the passengers were about 100 Orthodox Jews, a group that had come to visit Jewish heritage sites in Southeast Asia. Traveling with them was Nathan Katz, a professor of Indology at Florida International University, and Rabbi Marvin Tokayer, who served as rabbi of the Jewish community in Japan for many years. The group also had its own kosher chef.
As we traveled between islands, Katz and Tokayer delivered lectures on the Jewish heritage in the region, which is more extensive that we would have guessed. Their talks added another level of discovery to our island tours, where the focus was often on ancient religious sites.
Another on-board lecturer was William Stubbs, a retired Foreign Service official who served in many Southeast Asian countries. He delivered several fascinating talks on the history, culture and present-day politics of the region.
But life aboard ship wasn't all lectures. Another special activity was "Fitness Seminar at Sea," with daily seminars on exercise, diet and fitness. They served as a counterbalance to the endless temptations of the ship's many caloric offerings.
And if the lecturers and fitness seminars were not enough to hold our interest, the daily schedule on the ship included informative briefings by shore excursion director Ornulf Johannessen on the upcoming ports of call, as well as the usual shipboard amenities of table tennis, shuffleboard, bridge, dance classes, a casino, bingo, a tea and in-room movies. On some nights in port, local dancers and musicians came on board to entertain us.
Our second Indonesian island stop was Bali, a verdant paradise whose interior villages are home to numerous wood carvers and other artisans. We spent the first day touring the artisan villages, with a stop at a temple for a Barong Dance performance, a colorful staging of a mythical battle between good and evil. On our second day in Bali, we hired a car and driver with another couple from the ship and ventured into the mountains to visit Pura Besakih, Bali's "Mother Temple." We reached it after a half-mile walk uphill, a tiring test in the high heat and humidity of the Bali interior.
The stone, multilevel temple, believed to be about 1,000 years old, is now a complex of some 200 temples and shrines, each a gathering place for the lengthy list of deities worshiped by the Balinese. As at Borobudur, the stones are eroded, stained by lichen and smoke pollution and aged by the weather. The temple is a mammoth gray presence, its top spire almost touching the low-hung clouds that gathered around the mountain top.
The island of Sulawesi was our last stop in Indonesia. The town of Ujung Pandang is a commercial center, known for its colorful port with wooden inter-island sailing boats known as Bugis. The Bugi sailors are famous as pirates (hence the name "bogeyman"), but during our visit the cargo they were unloading appeared to be mostly huge sacks of rice and cardboard boxes containing woks, not plunder from other ships. We also stopped by Fort Rotterdam, the center of authority here when the Dutch ruled these islands. The fort is now home to the fine La Galigo Museum, which displays artifacts and costumes from the island's many cultures.
After Sulawesi, we sailed from the Java Sea to first the Celebes Sea and then the Sulu Sea, crossing the equator while we made our way to the northwestern tip of the island of Borneo. Our port of call there was Kota Kinabalu, a city destroyed during World War II. Kota Kinabalu, the capital of the Malaysian province of Sabah, is a thriving banking and commercial port. During our short stay there, we took an hour-long ride on the last passenger train in Borneo, an experience that sounds better than it was. The train left from the downtown station and headed about 20 miles southwest to a small village. Much of the scenery we passed was like what you'd see on a commuter train in America -- if the landscape here included water buffaloes wallowing in mud holes. In the village, we browsed through the stalls of a market that sold everything from fruit to rubber sandals, then reboarded our bus for the ride to the port.
Before our return, though, our guide decided that we should see a part of Sabah that is not on the regular tourist stops. He directed the driver to one of Sabah's water villages, a community of houses built on pilings over the tidal waters. "People who build here," our guide explained, "don't have to pay taxes. They can save money by living here." The houses ranged from simple shacks to more elaborate homes with porches with flowers and even trees. All the buildings seemed to have electricity and water, but no plumbing.
We arrived at low tide, which exposed the grim, evil-looking muddy flats below the homes. Junk, garbage and other items, thrown or dropped off the walkways, littered the muddy surface. Our glimpse of the water village was extremely interesting, if only because most guided tours are so sanitized that the stops usually include only what the local officials want you to see.
After Borneo, we sailed northwest into the South China Sea, bound for the mouth of the Saigon River and Vietnam. The river is a serpentine waterway, with banks lined by thick jungle. The Marco Polo slowly made its way up river, a 4 1/2-hour journey to Ho Chi Minh City that took us past numerous small boat communities, with each vessel serving as home and workplace for a family.
The Saigon River serves as a main thoroughfare for the low-rise metropolis of Ho Chi Minh City, the former capital of South Vietnam. After lunch, we left the ship and began to explore, stopping first at the Historical Museum of Vietnam, which displays artifacts and artwork from primitive times to the 20th century. (In one sign of change in Vietnam, just opposite the museum is a new Toyota dealership -- one of five in the city, we were told. Another sign of change is that American tourists no longer have to make a mandatory stop at the Museum of American War Crimes.)
Our next stop was the bustling, crowded market in the city's Chinese district. On the way, our guide gave us some advice on dealing with the traffic. "There are 2 million motorbikes in Saigon," he said, using the old colonial name for the city. "Pedestrians have no rights. If you must cross a street, wait for a break in the traffic. Then begin walking with a steady stride. Don't stop! You will be hit. If you walk steadily, the motorbikes will go around you."
Traffic was, indeed, a mess. There are few stop lights, and those seem to be obeyed whimsically. The bikes and occasional cars and buses constantly battle for space, with the rule being that the bigger you are, the more you get your way.
The Chinese market was no less crowded. Narrow aisles led to shops -- some as tiny as two feet wide -- selling everything from toys and trinkets to 27 different kinds of rice. The rice store was intriguing: white, red and even green grains were displayed in huge barrels. Next to them women sat sifting the grains for weevils.
Outside a Chinese temple we visited, we were besieged by hawkers selling live sparrows. For a dollar, we were told, we could buy a sparrow and free it, for freeing a captive bird would please God. Inside the temple, we could also make our own personal appeal to the deity: The monks of the temple would write a prayer for a small fee, then attach it to a huge, ropelike spiral of incense. The incense would be ignited and hung from the rafters, where it would smolder for five weeks, our guide told us.
Simply put, Vietnam was overwhelming. The frenzy of traffic, the clash of cultures and the heat sent us reeling to the serenity of the rooftop terrace of the Rex Hotel. There, over soothing drinks, we met up with other passengers from the ship. One, a retired U.S. military officer, had spent the day exploring the Vietcong tunnels north of the city. During the war, he had helped direct B-52 air strikes against the tunnels. His visit, he said, had been sobering. "No wonder we couldn't destroy the tunnels," he mused. "They were far more elaborate than we ever dreamed. We had no chance, none at all."
By night, Saigon was even more daunting. The traffic on Nguyen Hue and Le Loi boulevards, a commercial crossroads, was a nonstop blur. The streets were crowded with people and vendors, more even than during the daytime. Still, we were determined to eat dinner in town. It had to be a quick meal, for the port closed at 10, and then we would be unable to return to ship.
We and six other passengers braved the traffic, remembering our guide's words. His advice worked, but panic set in sooner or later for all of us and we were soon running, dodging bikes and cars.
Our destination was Vietnam House, a chic dining spot located in a four-story French colonial town house. The decor was elegant, the food delicious, prepared in classic Vietnamese style. Our dinners of fish, crabs and shrimp were memorable.
After dinner came another test: the walk back to the bus stop at the Rex Hotel. The streets were dark and deserted, and two of us were approached by young children. As one young girl fanned out postcards, we felt tiny hands pulling at our fanny packs and pockets. We swung our arms to knock the pickpockets away. They fled, but we had had enough. We hailed a cab and took the quick way back to the port.
But even the cab ride was an adventure. The driver, unsure which port gate would be open, decided the best way to find it was to drive along the port wall, a route that took him headlong into the oncoming traffic. The oncoming drivers, having probably seen everything in the way of traffic, merely swerved around him, and we reached the ship safely.
The next day, wary of the streets of Saigon, we walked to the pink-and-coral villa just outside the port. The building was the Ho Chi Minh Museum, a shrine to the leader of the revolution, whose displays of memorabilia, artifacts, photos, letters and paintings drew few Vietnamese during our visit. The advantages of capitalism are not lost on the museum. One side of the outdoor terrace has several vendors' stands selling such items as postcards, opium pipes, slippers and jewelry.
But one display case held items that were startling. For a few dollars, one could purchase Zippo lighters bearing American names and slogans, and dog tags, the metal identification tags used by GIs. The shop's attendants couldn't -- or wouldn't -- answer our questions about the dog tags: Where did they come from? Were they real, or replicas? The memory of them remains unsettling, one that still grates as we recall this journey.
It was time to leave Vietnam. We sailed down the Saigon River and into the Gulf of Thailand, bound for Bangkok, where we left the ship to spend three days.
Our Oriental Odyssey aboard the Marco Polo lived up to all our expectations. We learned about the culture, history and religion of many peoples. And while we never stayed long enough to delve into any one place in depth, we did learn enough to want to go back for more.
For more information about Marco Polo's itineraries and fares, contact a travel agent.