ASIA-PACIFIC ISSUE; On a Luxury Liner to India
By DAVID MARGOLICK
Published: December 2, 2001
IN downtown Panaji, near Marmagoa, the port of Goa, one of the main streets was under construction. One couldn't help but think that it always was. A few men sat on the ground, breaking up pieces of pavement with small mallets, then placing them into piles. Women in saris, their movements mechanical, picked up the chunks, placed them in the containers atop their heads, walked listlessly down the street and then dumped them into another pile only a few feet away. All around, drivers and pedestrians and shop owners conducted business as usual, buying or selling film or clothes or cashews. The millenniums were clashing, as they so often do, on a single Indian street.
I wanted to photograph that road crew, but I could not. Who was I to do so? In an hour or two, I'd be back aboard the Silver Cloud, docked only a few miles down the road. Back to having Bulgari soap in my bathtub, unlimited booze at the bar and at least three different places to eat whatever and however much I wanted.
To India on a luxury liner: some trips can be oxymorons. Goa was the penultimate port on our 12-day journey last May, which had begun in Singapore and had already taken us to Kuala Lumpur and Panang, Malaysia; Phuket, Thailand; and Cochin, India. That night, we would head north to Bombay and debark for good.
The ever-changing view from my private veranda was one of several unanticipated pleasures I discovered as I became accustomed to my cabin, a comfortable and efficient space on the fifth deck with a double bed, couch and desk (and personalized stationery). Another was, quite simply, unpacking. I could actually put away my suitcases, hang up my tuxedo (dinners were occasionally formal), stick my socks in a drawer.
My fellow passengers were largely older -- or at least older than I, at 49. (The ship can carry up to 296 passengers.) Most of the guests were in their late 50's and up; there were enough upper ups for the fitness center to offer special sessions for people who'd had hip and knee replacements. As for nationality, the cohort was three-quarters American and the rest assorted Canadians, Australians, Mexicans and Europeans. At times it seemed half my shipmates were doctors and their spouses from South Florida. The crew of 210 was more polyglot. The waiters were Croatian, the maître d'hôtel Italian, the chef French, the sommelier German.
The cruise offered land tours at every port of call, all with local guides; some lasted all day, some half, and all were à la carte, ranging from $25 to $68 each. For most of my travel career, I had spurned such tours; they seemed like cop-outs, perfect for passive, obedient sorts who wanted their adventures prescreened. And now I'd be one of them.
Our first stop was Kuala Lumpur; because we arrived late, our tour there was truncated. But it was long enough to grasp an apparent truism of cruise tour culture: our guides, while always good-natured, seem to think we wanted only bland food, bland statistics and bland sights. Riding around in our bus, I thought I was back in Mr. Bennett's sixth-grade geography class: we heard about the life spans of palm and rubber trees, the Malaysian educational system and work hours and retirement policies. The itinerary included the Sultan Salahuddin Abdul Aziz Mosque, a few miles from downtown, one of the world's largest and said to have the tallest minaret; the national war memorial, whose chief -- or maybe only -- point of interest is that its designer also did the Iwo Jima Memorial near Washington; the King's Palace; and the National Museum. But time was running out, and we got to see the Petronas Twin Towers, the world's tallest buildings, only by staging a near revolt on the bus.
My fellow travelers were well-heeled -- not surprising, given that quarters can cost as much as $1,000 a night. Two of my shipmates, traveling together with their wives, had been ushers at Marc Rich's wedding to Denise; also on board was the retired Procter & Gamble executive who'd actually christened the company's new fangled potato chips Pringles, after a name he'd picked out of the Cincinnati phone book. There were two official ''gentlemen hosts,'' whose job it was to talk to and dance with the ''single ladies.'' A few elderly women were traveling by themselves, but most passengers came in couples. For a single person, just about the only romantic possibilities lurked on the lower decks, where the crew was housed. But passengers and staff were kept rigorously separated.
Our next stop was Penang, Malaysia's oldest British settlement. It was here that Capt. Francis Light alighted in 1786 and set up yet another Georgetown. The remnants of the British presence are everywhere: in the Penang Museum, which tells the story of the British era here, in the old Anglican church, in the public gardens, where the years have placed a mossy Asian patina on the old English monuments. We rode around the sleepy town in rickshaws -- a great way to see a place once you get over the guilt of feeling like a pasha, even though, of course, the local people use them. ''You get good gas mileage on these,'' a hearty Texan in our group drawled as he was pedaled around.