Sydney to Hong Kong, part 3 and 4 - Cruise Line Fans: Cruise Reviews and Chat From Real Cruisers

joramrose · 07-11-2006, 11:08 PM

ramblin rose 3

SUNDAY AT SEA, NORTH OF AUSTRALIA - After more than a week of sailing the coastal wares around the continent Down Under, we bad farewell, as the travelogue narrator says, to the land of the kangaroo and the koala, the eucalyptus trees and the jumping crocodiles.
As a first visit to Australia, it was somewhat spotty. I never really really got away from the coast, and I was on land in only three places -- Sydney, Brisbane and Darwin. Hardly enough to say I "know" Australia, but enough to get a fairly good idea of its geography, at least along its exterior.
Australia is big, much bigger than the projection maps we studied in grade school would indicate. It is hundreds and hundreds of miles from north to south, and even more hundreds wide, from east to west. Just to the south of Sydney, in the southernmost part of the continent, in and around Melbourne, this summer has been hot. Hot and dry, like Oklahoma can be. Bush fires have been raging. Farmers have slaughtered their lambs and their cows because the range is all dried up and cannot feed them.
In Darwin, on the other hand, in the "Top End," it is now the rainy season. Everything is lush and green. Water stands in the fields. Rivers are bankfull. For the three days we were rounding the northeast corner of the roughly rectangular-shaped country, skies were overcast and rain splashed on the decks, sending all the sunbathers scurrying for cover.
I missed the opportunity to see the Southern skies, pick out strange constellations. The first few nights on the ship I was catching up on my sleep; the last several nights the stars have hidden under a cloud cover. No matter. Tonight I shall go out on deck and still catch a glimpse of half the southern sky.
Yesterday (Saturday) we crossed the Equator. King Neptune made an appearance on the uppermost deck, which was raked by wind so strong he had trouble holding on to his beard and hat with one hand, his trident with the other. Passengers stood six deep against the rail, cameras aimed at him. The moment the crowd began to dissipate, the wind knocked the rest of us about and we hastened inside. No traditional ceremony, but later in our cabin we each received fancy certificates acknowledging our crossing.
The Equator, as we learned in school, is an imaginary line. We could not tell when we reached it. In fact, ship scuttlebutt insisted we had crossed the line actually three hours before, but Old Neptune had scheduled his appearance in the ship's bulletin at 12:15 p.m., and that is when he had to show up.
So much for navigational accuracy in behalf of passengers.

So what are my impressions of Australia?
Friendly, above all. Aussies have been getting on and off the ship in droves at every stop. They far outnumber us on ship. I have played bridge with them, I have eaten with them, and I have chatted with them in the lounges. They are so very very friendly that I shall always remember Australia as a hospitable land.
They talk funny. They bid funny at the bridge table. They eat funny, manipulating their knives and forks as their British cousins and other Europeans do. They call the elevator the "lift," and the slot machines in the casino "the pokies." They don't open their mouths wide when they talk, and they clip short their vowel sounds. They drink lots of tea, hot tea.
Every last one of them has been somewhere in America, usually to New York or California, and most don't know where Oklahoma is.
Yet they are lovely people, and I have made many friends among them. They don't know a stranger, and they will tell you the most intimate details of their family life in the first five minutes of acquaintance.
And they are very confused. They cannot understand how America has become a proponent of war. They suggest, oh so politely, that we are a little arrogant about our place in the world?

Most interesting have been the flora and fauna of Australia. In the cities there are palm trees -- I think they are planted, not native since I did not see them in the "bush." The term "bush" pertains to uncultivated land covered in scrubby trees, second growth, and lots of vine and bushes. It can go up in flames like a forest fire. One tour guide explained that a gas given off by the hundreds of varieties of eucalyptus trees ignites readily. In fact, this natural gas can explode. It makes bush fires hard to put out, and they may rage for days.
As we drove inland about 60 miles to the Adelaide River near Darwin, we saw a lot of "bush," and a lot of fairly new mango orchards. These little trees are about the only productive plant that can be sown around there. Darwin is not a very big community, although it is capital of the Northern Territory, or "Top End." This territory is pretty big, straddling the demarcation between two of Australia's four time zones. So they split the difference, and there is half an hour difference here from Brisbane time, for instance.
The Adelaide River is long, wide and muddy, so muddy you cannot see an inch below the surface. The tides rise and fall four times daily. It is bordered by lush trees and vines, and inhabited by huge saltwater crocodiles. I mean, huge ones, some 24-25 feet long. These crocs were the star attraction for the day. We got off the coach and into a riverboat with reinforced glass windows. On the boat roof, young men tied strings on long rods and dangled pig's heads into the water to entice the crocs. When one slithered through the water to snap at the bait, the boys would jerk up their poles. And the crocs would leap high out of the water after it. They were billed as the "jumping crocodiles," and jump they did, to the delight of the passengers. I got several great pictures of their huge jaws opening up to swallow the pork, from a vantage point not three feet away. Of course, there was this glass between them and me.
OK, so it is a tourist trap, but a great show, and fun.

Martha had an adventure of her own. While I was snorkeling over the reef and thrilling to the crocs. she went rock-sighting. To the most famous rock of all, I guess, that humongous monolith in the Australian Outback, Ayers Rock. She and several others left the ship for three days and flew to the site of the rock. She had always wanted to see it, she said, and she is glad she went. I would like to have seen it also, but you can't do everything, and you have to make choices.
Both of us have been well pleased over our Australian adventures.
Tomorrow we stop in Borneo for the day, docking at a place called Kota Kinabalu, which I have never heard of before. I am going to take a train trip through the jungle to a native village. Don't know what I will see there, but I'll tell you all about it later.

joramrose · 07-11-2006, 11:10 PM

ramblin rose 4

AT SEA, THREADING THROUGH THE ISLANDS OF INDONESIA--
Sabah, a state in the nation of Malaysia on the island of Borneo, is not what you think it would be.
Our first glimpse as our ship pulled into the wide harbor ringed with low mountains was of modernistic high rises, a contemporary industrial port. Not an Englishman in impeccably pressed white shorts and a pith helmet; not a jabbering jungle monkey; not a bedraggled freighter captain that looked like Robert Mitchum or John Wayne; not a painted head hunter -- not a one of these in sight.
We skimmed across the blue water (I still cannot think of a better descriptive word than incredible) in the ship's tender, then loaded into modern air-conditioned buses for a trip into town. The city centre (spelled this way because it was once a British colony) boasts more of these brilliantly white high rises, crowded modern shopping malls, signs written in both English and Malaysian with some Chinese characters for good measure and an ubiquitous McDonald's. Yep, you can satisfy your Big Mac attack anywhere in the world.
Not until we got past Kota Kinabalu, the financial capital of Sabah, did we begin to find traces of the old traditional Malaysia. And even then you had to stretch your imagination. The rural area we traveled had been reclaimed from the sea, and it was filled with modern apartment buildings on one side, quaint little houses on stilts (an early Malaysia version of high-rise?) on the other. Our guide, a vivacious Hindu lady, told us they were built up that way to keep the varmints out -- like snakes and other jungle critters. I thought it was to get the houses above high tide, and those who built along the coast may have had that in mind. But some of them were far from the shore, up on hillsides, and I don't think the tide gets that far.
The beautiful sandy beaches and the fabulous resort hotels face the China Sea.
From fancy hotel right down to lowliest hovel, all buildings are surrounded by flowers of the tropical variety -- bougainvillea, hibiscus, poinciana, flowering ferns and palms. It is summer all year long here, and the blooms are lush.
It is also hot, miserably hot and humid.
We were on our way to Bringgit Cultural Park, located on a lovely inlet of the sea. There three petite Malaysian maidens and three fierce-looking Malaysian warriors danced for us, barefooted, in the traditional steps of their people, while native drummers kept up a thumping rhythm.
The costumes were bright and colorful. The first set was traditional of the farmers who live along the coast; the second of the fisherman who went out to sea and the third of the headhunters who reigned in the jungle. Borneo boasts the largest rain forest in the Pacific area, and headhunters thrived even into the last century.
They demonstrated how to use those long blowguns that shot poisoned darts at their prey with deadly accuracy. Then they called for volunteers to try their hand at blowing.
And I did it! I did it! One fierce warrior helped me hold the bamboo gun up, it was so heavy, but I aimed at a balloon in the nearby tree, and I hit it. I actually hit it and broke the bloom. The dancing girls formed a circle around me and danced the dance for the successful hunter.
Then they laid these huge bamboo poles on the ground in the shape of a big plus sign and clapped them together. The other dancers hopped in and out between the poles as the pace stepped up faster, faster. They were agile and graceful -- they had to be. Two of those poles, although light bamboo, could snap an ankle. A young warrior came around and asked me if I wanted to try that, too, but I shook my cane at him. No way.
I may be a blowhard, but I am not a high stepper.
Little Malaysian boys demonstrated the national pastime, played with a ball bigger than a softball but not as big as a soccer ball. They stand in a circle and pass it to one another, not using their hands, but kicking it or heading it exactly as soccer players do. Score is kept by counting the number of kicks before the ball goes out of bounds.
We left the park for the railroad station to board what was billed as the last train in Malaysia. It was so old I kept expecting Jesse James and his gang to rush up the aisles gathering watches and travellers' checks. The ride reminded me somewhat of that excursion train that runs from Mohawk Park in Tulsa up to Collinsville for a Saturday night barbecue.
We clickety-clacked down a bumpy track through rural areas marked with lush vegetation -- giant ferns, palm fronds that grow from the ground, mangrove swamps, tall grasses like those ornamental clumps people plant in the corner of their gardens, all kinds of trees with strange leaves of every shade of green as well as white, silver and yellow.
Occasionally we came through a village of houses sitting on stilts. Each had a bright blue tank of water on a small platform, and the same color bright blue privy in the yard. They both looked like they were made from some kind of plastic. I am not sure how they always tell them apart.
More than half of the population of Malaysia is Moslem. Each village had its domed and spired mosque. Little children walking home from school wore traditional head dresses - the girls white cotton veils that covered their heads and most of their faces; the boys a funny little black topknot of a hat. All were in uniform, and they would wave at the train as we waddled by.
We saw several buffalo on which perched birds, picking at the lice or fleas that infested their furry hides. We saw some cows, and a billy goat. And we saw an awful lot of trash and debris cluttering the ditches and the roadsides. Americans are not alone in desecrating the landscape.
In all, the interior of Malaysia reminded me a lot of the Bahama Islands. The same tropical flowers; the same pastel paint on their small homes. The same general scruffiness of the overgrown fields. The same heat, and the same glimpses of that incredible water of the sea and sand not far away.

Back on the Queen, I got myself around two huge glasses of ice cold tea, scribbled a couple of postcards to my kids and washed the heat off my face. Dinner tonight was a Malaysia menu. I had an appetizer called kerabu, which was shredded carrots, cilantro, hot peppers and baby shrimp in some kind of marinade. And a soup of roasted pepper and yellow squash. And then a wok dish called penang keuw teow, which was made of more shredded vegetables, peppers and mixed seafood. All were absolutely delicious.
I think I would like to come back to Kota Kinabalu, stay in one of those posh hotels by the blue blue sea and live like a queen. With one of those handsome native boys wielding a colorful fan (of bamboo, naturally) to keep the heat and the varmints away.
Oklahoma is a long way off.