Borobudur with Robert and Dennis

Borobudur

Borobudur

Semarang is located on the north shore of the island of Java and home to 2 million residents while another 4 million reside in the region. First inhabited by the Chinese in the 15^th century, Java has played host to many occupants due to its strategic position along major trade routes. In the 18^th century Semarang became a part of the Dutch East India Company.

Our tour took us to the Borobudur Temple located 56 miles south from Semarang. Even with the help of a police escort the travel time is about two-hours each way. We stopped in route at the Eva Café House for coffee and a snack of cashews, a sweet and a mini banana about four-inches in length. When we arrived at the temple we enjoyed a beautiful Javanese buffet lunch in the garden under a canopy. During lunch the skies opened up and it poured rain for an hour or so. Luckily it had mostly stopped by the time we began our walk up to the temple.

The Buddhist Kings of the Sailenra Dynasty, around the year 800, built the Borobudur Temple, possibly to enhance the image of Buddhism when Hinduism was growing in strength across the Indonesian archipelago. It is believed that it took more than 100 years to build the temple. It is the largest Buddhist Temple in the world, built with over two million stones. Shortly after its completion, the temple may have been abandoned when the Hindu Majapahit Empire overthrew the Sailenra Dynasty in 850. It lay buried in volcanic ash and vegetation for more than 1,000 years until Sir Stamford Raffles discovered it in 1814. Over the next century the temple was cleared and the process of restoring it began. Additional restorations were done between 1907 and 1911 and again from 1975 to 1982.

The temple is built on ten terraces, each level symbolizing a different stage of enlightenment or Nirvana and is covered in some of the finest examples of Buddhist reliefs in the world. At the top is the great stupa, surrounded by 72 smaller stupas and statues. From the top platform you are able to see the lush green landscape around. Our guide took us around the temple to explain some of the reliefs, carved into the stone, reflecting the teachings of Buddha. There were many school children at the temple who wanted to have their photo taken with us. I guess that it is unusual for them to see tourists—like us.

After exploring the temple, we were taken a short drive to see a demonstration of a Wayang shadow puppet show. The puppets were stick puppets traditionally made from the leather of a water buffalo. These traditional puppet shows may include hundreds of puppet characters and the performance may last for eight hours or more. A man telling an old epic story from India manipulated the puppets. As he tells the story he is accompanied by live music and a female singer who sings songs related to the female characters in the story. At this same stop they have a very large gift shop filled with traditional Javanese handicrafts. The crafts included many types of silver jewelry, silver figurines, woodcarving and some puppets.

The countryside is extremely lush, green and beautiful with rolling hills, rice paddies and terraces. The main roads are filled with many homes and shops selling everything from bananas and jackfruit to auto parts and gasoline. Most of these properties face directly on the street with little or no sidewalks and the streets are filled with motorcycles, cars, trucks and busses.

It rained on our return to the ship and there was much lightening in the dark skies. The streets in the port area were flooded from the heavy rains but we arrived back safely to the ship after a nine hour excursion.

The evening entertainment was a couple of young Japanese women who had graduated from the London academy of music. They played the violin and called themselves the String Idols. They were excellent musicians, however one of them had such a heavy accent you could hardly understand her English.

Jakarta

Jakarta National History Museum

Jakarta Puppet Museum

Indonesia is an archipelago with some 17,508 islands located northwest of Australia, south of the Philippines and Malaysia. The archipelago is between the Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean. They have 256 million people (87% who are Muslim), who speak 700 different languages and inhabit 6,000 of the islands. They have over 50,000 miles of coastline. Indonesia is the 4^th most populous country in the world and is the 3^rd most populous democracy in the world. The country has only had its independence since 1949.

Tanjung Priok is a very busy port near the town of Jakarta, handling more than 50% of Indonesia’s shipping traffic. Jakarta has a population of over 11,000,000 people. The minimum wage is only about $280 per month; they pay $2 to $5 per month for healthcare and most practice the Islam religion.

Many of the ship’s crew members are from the island of Java, so about 1,000 family guests were onboard the ship today to visit for a short time with their loved ones. A band, dancing girls and two large puppets greeted us as we disembarked the ship today.

Our tour took us from the port to the center of Jakarta where we visited the Taman Fatahillah Square and the Museum Wayang or puppet museum. The square was the heart of the colonial administration in the 18^th century and underwent a restoration in the 1970’s. A fountain in the middle of the square once served as the main water supply for colonial capital of Jakarta. The puppet museum is located in an old church building dating back to 1640 and now houses thousands of puppets from all over Indonesia. The puppets range from very small and simple stick puppets to extremely large three-dimensional puppets made of paper Mache and fabric. Many of the puppets were used to tell stories in puppet shows and depict a wide range of puppets from the exotic to the down-right ugly faced puppet.

Our next stop was the National Monument Monas representing the Indonesian people’s determination to find freedom. This 450 foot tall marble obelisk is topped with a flame coated in 77 pounds of gold. Surrounding the obelisk is a large public park where people often come to protest things they think are unfair or in need of attention. Across the street is the beautifully landscaped home of the president of Indonesia.

We then visited the National History Museum where we saw exhibits in the life and times of Indonesia over the millennia. They have human skulls on display from the Java man, pottery, bronzes, stone statuary, housing models, textiles, furnishings, jewelry and so much more. We did not have time to visit the entire museum but what we did visit was very well presented. The museum has a collection of more than 140,000 objects in their collection so it is someplace to spend more time on any future visits.

We then visited a very large government department store with a basement, ground floor plus five additional floors filled with merchandise. The fourth floor was all batik fabrics and clothing, while the fifth floor was filled with local handicrafts from all over the country.

The city of Jakarta appears to be very poor and mostly unpolished. We saw many slums around town, people urinating in the streets, dirty waterways, rundown buildings in need of repair and trash. On the other hand there was a lot of construction going on, so maybe things are improving.

It was a short day in port as the ship sailed at 4:00pm for Semarang, Indonesia. The night’s entertainment was a comedian by the name of Tom Sutton.

King Neptune Ceremony

The ship is fully booked for this segment, and it is abundantly clear when you try to get something to eat or find a poolside chair. Every available space seems to be filled with people. Hopefully, in a few days when the new guests are more familiar with the ship and where to find things, it will settle down. At the same time, we are missing some of our traveling friends who disembarked the ship in Singapore.

We enjoyed a new guest speaker by the name of Barry Dryer who spoke on the Java man and the early settlers of Indonesia. They now believe there were more than one species of human-like people living on the planet at the same time. Homo Sapiens who were our ancestors may have shared the planet with people who were not much taller than three feet. Early man may have had facial features with a very extended jawbone and that over time these have changed due to our change in diet.

We crossed the Equator this afternoon and therefore we had to subject crewmembers to the judgment of the Sea King and Queen. Crewmembers who are new onboard the ship were led to the king by other crewmembers dressed as pirates. They had to kneel down to the King, kiss a large fish and then be covered in slimy goo by other crewmembers, all while the guests took pictures. Legend has it that this will provide us safe passage over the equator.

We also had another new lecturer by the name of Dr. Valerie Mock who spoke with us about Zheng He, Ibn Batutah, Tenjiku Tobubei and other early explorers in the Indonesian waters. Her expertise is in commodities and so she will be speaking about the spice trade, as well as other products, that shaped the world to what it is today.

The evening’s entertainment was the show called Variations by the Rotterdam singers and dancers. We had seen the show early in this voyage but enjoyed it again.

Singapore Skyline

Marina Sands Hotel

Singapore Skyline from Flyer

Another day riding the Hop-On, Hop-Off bus took us to the Singapore Flyer Ferris Wheel. The ride takes you on a thirty-minute ride rotating just once around the wheel. From the glass enclosed, air-conditioned capsule that we shared with just five other guests; we saw the panoramic sights of the city. The city is extremely modern, very clean and includes some beautiful architecture. They have maintained many of the small historic buildings around town but continue to reclaim land along the shore, increasing the land mass significantly. Construction sites are seen all over the city where they are improving public transportation and building new housing and office towers. The prices are incredibly high as well. They say that a lovely new two-bedroom condominium, in a nice neighborhood, may set you about $6,000,000. Many of the locals live in older apartment buildings, built by the government and are allowed to buy the apartments with a 99-year lease for about $250,000.

The afternoon brought us rain shortly after we returned to the ship for a late lunch. We attended the required lifeboat safety drill at 4:15pm before we sailed at 5:00pm.

The evening’s entertainment was a magician by the name of Peter Mehtab. He was very entertaining and his magic was good as well.

About 530 guests disembarked the ship today and about 600 new passengers embarked the ship for the next segment through the islands of Indonesia. This segment will be a round trip journey from Singapore and they say that there will be a fair amount of Australian’s onboard.

Singapore, with 5.7 million inhabitants, is an island country and the smallest country in Southeast Asia (approximately 3.5 times the size of Washington DC). It is located on the southern tip of the Malaysian Peninsula. Singapore was the site of several ancient port cities and a possession of several empires in its history before the United Kingdom colonized it in 1819. In 1867 Singapore was put under the direct control of the British crown and consolidated into one administrative unit. The Japanese occupied it during World War II before a merger established it as part of the Malaysian Federation in 1963. By 1965 Singapore was ousted from the federation and Singapore acquired its independence. Having few natural resources, it was socio-politically volatile and economically undeveloped. Foreign investment and rapid government-led industrialization grew an economy that relies on exports of electronics and manufacturing, primarily crude oil refining. Singapore has the second busiest port in the world… second only to Shanghai. They load and unload 90,000 containers of cargo daily from ships in the port. It has the highest standard of living in Asia and 83% of the population lives in housing built by the government. More than half use the efficient public transportation system daily maintaining low pollution levels. Those who chose to own their own vehicles pay a sales tax of more than 100%. In addition to that they are required to have a vehicle license that is only available by auction and may set you back some $40,000. The license is only good for ten years at which time you will need to purchase a new license if you intend to drive your own vehicle. Driving on streets downtown may require multiple tolls, which are automatically charged to your account and vary in price by the time of day and the volume of cars on the road.

We have been to Singapore in the past so we decided to purchase a two-day pass on the local Hop On – Hop Off bus. In Singapore the busses run on four main routes around town, each taking about one-hour to make a loop. The closest stop for us was in China Town so we took the underground metro two-stops to reach China Town. The subway fare was approximately $1.80 (Singapore dollars) each way.

Once on the open-air double-decker bus, we were able to transit the city to see the waterfront, including: the Singapore Flyer (Ferris wheel), Little India neighborhood, Arab quarter neighborhood, Orchard Street—where all of the high end shopping is located–and more. We stopped for a delicious lunch of Singapore noodles at the Suntec Shopping Center before continuing our journey. By late afternoon we had melted in the hot and humid weather and returned to the air-conditioned ship for dinner.

Singapore Architecture

At dinner we sat with two new couples who had just boarded the ship–one from Australia and the other from the Seattle area. The entertainment for the evening was a movie in the main showroom title Rogue Trader with Ewan McGregor. Having had a long day we passed on the movie.

Our clocks were turned forward yet another hour as we travel farther east. This morning location guide, David, gave some history and practical information for our stop in Singapore tomorrow. Guest speaker Brian Stoddart gave his final lecture on Singapore and wrapped up his last six weeks of lectures on the people of the world. We are looking forward to some new speakers in the next segment.

We had lunch in the dining room with Lorraine from England whom we have shared many meals and some shore excursions with. Lorraine is traveling alone and is a retired facial surgeon and is always a lot of fun.

The afternoon included Werner Salinger’s final lecture on globalization. Mark attended the watercolor class and Kent went to the gym and sauna. The evening’s entertainment was a show called Magic Rush, featuring Roman and Svetlana. They are world grand champion dancers who presented a show including dance and magic. We had seen them on a previous cruise.

Phuket Cashew Shop

Phuket – Wat Chalong Temple

Phuket – Cashew Fruit

The weather is increasing in heat and humidity and it was evident as soon as we stepped outside this morning. By 8:30am the air was warm and thick with humidity. It is summer in Thailand—until May, when the rainy season begins, and lasts until October. It is no wonder the vegetation here is lush and green.

Thailand is about twice the size of Wyoming and located on the Andaman Sea, southeast of Myanmar. Laos and Cambodia are on the east and Malaysia on the south. Established in the mid 14^th century, the Unified Thai Kingdom, known as Siam until 1939 is the only southeast Asian country never to have been colonized by a European power. The population of 68 million enjoys a tropical climate and a strong economy. In addition to tourism, they export electronics, auto parts, processed foods, fish products, computers, jewelry, precious stones, iron and steel.

Phuket with a population of 600,000, is the largest of 33 islands in Thailand and is located on the west coast in the Andaman Sea. The island is 30 miles long and 13 miles wide with 60% of the island covered in rubber and palm oil plantations. It once derived its wealth from rubber and tin but today it relies heavily on tourism. In 2004 an Indian Ocean earthquake created a tsunami devastating many of the beaches and tourism suffered. Today things have recovered and tourism is booming once again.

We were on a tour titled “Panoramic Phuket” that took us on a panoramic bus tour to see some of the finest sights of Phuket including the beautiful beaches, villages, temples and mosques. Our first stop on the tour was to the island’s most famous temple, Wat Chalong, dedicated to two revered monks. The temple is known for its gold leaf covered statue of Luang Pho Chaem. At the beginning of the 20^th century when Chinese invaders invaded Phuket for its valuable tin mines, Luang Pho cared for the injured at great personal risk. The temple is located on a very large parcel with several other very ornate and brightly colored temples. One temple houses a relic of Buddah.

We then drove along the west coast of the island to view the white sand beaches of Surin, Kamala, Patong and Karon. The beaches are busy with tourists who flock here from all over the world. The surrounding streets are filled with hotels, shops and restaurants that welcome the visitors to the island. After being in India, Sri Lanka and Myanmar we can’t help but notice how clean and well maintained the streets are. The only thing that reminds me of a poorer country is the huge number of telephone and electrical wires cluttering the streets.

We stop at a local cashew plantation showroom where they show us how they process the cashews and enjoy a small glass of cashew juice drink. The cashew nut grows outside of the cashew tree fruit and yet we never hear about the beautiful red fruit of the cashew. The fruit is slightly smaller than a pear and the nut or seed grows out of the bottom of the fruit. Our guide also tells us how most of the coconuts on the island are now picked by monkeys who are trained when they are just two years old to pick 700 to 1,000 coconuts per day. Because a monkey can jump from tree to tree the process is much quicker than what a human can do and one monkey can pick the fruit for about 10 years.

The English spoken by the locals is not as good here as in some parts of the world but our guide explains that English is only taught for one hour a day in the local schools.

We then headed to the old town of Phuket where we could admire the Sino-Portuguese style architecture. Most of the buildings are two or three stories with a store front on the ground floor and living quarters above.

We returned to the ship about 2:00pm where there was an outdoor market set up and you could buy clothing, handicrafts, jewelry and food items like fresh coconuts.

Phuket – Old Town

The evening’s entertainer was a man by the name of Phillip Browne who has starred in 9 West End shows in London. He sang a variety of songs by people like Nat King Cole, Paul Robeson, Elton John and Lionel Richie.

Happy Valentines Day! We continue to lose time on a regular basis as we move further east. Early this morning our clocks moved forward 30 minutes so that we would be inline with local time in Thailand. Local time is now 15 hours earlier than it is in San Diego. Our location guide David presented practical information for our next port of call in Phuket, Thailand tomorrow.

The afternoon included a lecture by Werner Salinger on Patagonia and Antarctica and how climate change is affecting these areas. An Indonesian afternoon tea was enjoyed in the dining room to celebrate with a friend, Michael, for his 70th birthday. We shared dinner with a very sweet gay couple from Germany (Thomas) and the Netherlands (Martin). They live on a dyke an hour north of Amsterdam and are now retired and fill their time with travel, gardening and looking after their rental property and homes in Germany and the Netherlands. After dinner we stopped by the showroom at sea to listen to the BB King’s All Stars Band as they performed songs at a sweetheart ball in honor of Valentines Day.

Thanlyin Village

Thanlyin Market

Thanlyin Village Monastery Dog

Thanlyin Village

Thanlyin Village Pony Cart

Our third day in Rangoon found us in a local village called Thanlyin with about 45,000 inhabitants and located about 30-minutes from the ship. This village was the base for the Portuguese adventurer and trader Philip de Brito during the 17^th century. We visited the local market that is open daily and you can find most anything you would need for your daily life. Most locals do not have refrigeration so prefer to shop daily for food, as well as dine and socialize at the market. Small stalls were filled with every food item imaginable and many were unrecognizable to us. The locals shop for the best produce, eggs, meat, fish, oils, grains, flowers and more at the best price. Everything is negotiable. Women and children put a paste on their faces to protect them from the sun.

Our next stop was at the nearly 200 year old Bon Pyan Monastery where only five monks currently reside. The monastery is located in a 200 year old, three story wooden house in poor condition. On the grounds there are many stray dogs and cats that do not look in very good condition but they seem to exist all over town. One such dog was sprawled out on his back resting while a skinny little chicken hopped up on him and began pecking fleas off of the dog. The dog did not seem to mind so it must be a regular occurrence.

From the monastery we took a short walk around the village to check out the local homes and people. Many of the locals would come out of their homes to say hello and see who these strange looking people were, but everyone was very nice.

We then took a trishaw, a local mode of transportation used in the village to get from the market to home, etc. These trishaws typically will carry two of the small statured locals but we each had our own peddler to take us around the neighborhood. After our trishaw ride, we boarded a pony cart for a little ride around town. These pony carts are small wooded carts something like a covered wagon with two large wooden wheels being pulled by a small horse or pony. The carts are only large enough for two of us to ride on together. The locals seemed to get a laugh out of all these carts going down the streets with these visitors.

The afternoon was spent relaxing after a few long days of exploring Rangoon. We were happy to have had the chance to visit and see how the local people are living.

This evening we were invited by our friend Tom to join him in the Canaletto restaurant along with one of the onboard photographers named Max Hurn, whom we have become friendly with. Max is 22 years old from England and had lived some time on the Isle of Whyte. This is his first contract with the ship and he hopes to continue to travel for some time.

The entertainment was a repeat show by the Rotterdam singers and dancers called “A La Mode.”

WW II Cemetery

Shwemawdaw Pagoda

Another busy day with a tour titled “Bago: The Ancient Mon Capital.” We headed out early to the city of Bago with a population of 200,000, located about a two-hour drive from the ship. Along the way we stopped at a huge World War II cemetery containing the graves of some 27,000 allied soldiers who died in the Burma and Assam campaigns. The cemetery is beautifully maintained with lush green grass, planted flowers between each headstone and several stone monuments.

Bago is located on the eastern bank of the Bago River in lower Myanmar and was founded in the year 825 by the Mons, who migrated from China. King Binya U established his palace in Bago in the 14^th century, and it became the ancient capital city of the Mon Kingdom in the 15^th century, when it was known as Pegu.

Our first stop was at the Kyakhatwaing Monastery, the largest monastery in Lower Myanmar and one of the three largest in the country. This is a teaching monastery where some 500 monks live and study Buddhism. Students can receive a diploma after three years of studying if they can pass a final exam. We learned that the monks rise early in the morning for breakfast and prayer before heading out in the community where locals give them food for the day. Lunch is served to the monks prior to noon at which time they are not allowed to eat any solid foods for the remainder of the day. They spend most of their days meditating and studying scriptures and living according to Buddhist law. These laws include not doing anything that would harm you or others, no alcohol, no inappropriate sex, etc.

A local Burmese lunch was enjoyed at a local restaurant including, pork, chicken, white rice, assorted vegetables, spring rolls and fresh fruits for dessert.

The 1,000-year-old Shwemawdaw Pagoda was out next stop. This is a famous pagoda throughout Myanmar because it is said that hair relics of Buddha are enshrined here. The pagoda is taller than the Shwedagon Pagoda in Rangoon but it is not nearly as beautiful and the surrounding shrines are not as ornate or unique. The Pagoda is a stupa style, meaning that it is a solid mass and you are not able to go into the stupa like you would a temple. The structure is made of stone, brick and earth before being plastered over. Some are then whitewashed while others are covered in gold leaf or gold plated tiles. The gold leaf does not last longer than four or five years before it needs replacing. This particular temple is currently surrounded by scaffolding and is in the process of being refurbished.

We then went to the Hinthakone Pagoda, located on the highest point of the city. They were having some type of ceremony here where loud music was being played and a man dressed as a woman was dancing for the crowd. The pagoda itself was very simple and not so impressive after the places we had seen yesterday in Rangoon.

Next we drove to the Shwethalyaung Reclining Buddha. This Buddha is considered a masterpiece of perfection in symmetry, measuring 180-foot long, 52-foot high and resting on a five-foot tall plinth. This was a spectacular reclining Buddha; a bit subtler than some we have seen. Some are very feminine looking with very red lips and eye shadow, almost more like a woman than a man. From here we walked a short distance into a typical Mon village to view how the local people live. The homes are mostly simple wood structures, but you find the odd brick and stucco home with windows nestled among the rest every now and again. Still others are living in what we would not even consider a home. They are lucky to have enough bamboo, lumber or something to keep the rain out. Everyone bathes outside in the yard using a bowl to pour water over his or her head. We stopped at a local weaving shop to see weaving and a cigar rolling demonstration. When I say weaving shop I am referring to a space located under a simple wooden home that resembles a crawl space with a dirt floor. Here they have six weaving looms creating textiles to be made into local garments.

On the return trip to the ship we stopped at a 15^th century Kyaikpun Pagoda that features four gigantic Buddha images sitting against a massive stone pillar. It was dark by the time we returned back to the ship and everyone was tired.

After a shower and dinner in the dining room we were treated to a local music and dance performance. The local group performed several traditional dances and then they presented a young woman who did a type of circus act using rings, balancing on a stack of glass bottles all the while bouncing a soccer-like ball on one foot. The finale of the show was a life size elephant made of brightly decorated fabric with fancy embroidery. Inside the elephant were two young men who manipulated the elephant to stand on his hind legs, dance and bow. It was very unique and entertaining.