Favorites with a Month to Go

I was thinking about some of the best things that have happened these first few months, so I decided to make a list of favorites and least favorites, mostly for me as I look back on this in the future.

Favorite Food – Well, this one is impossible to answer. Everything we ate in Vietnam and Japan was perfect, but Myanmar, India, and China were not far behind. If it has noodles and a broth, I seem to love it. Ostrich is amazing too - my favorite meat! I ate oryx (below), warthog, springbok, ostrich, zebra, eland and a couple other mammals that aren't coming to mind just during our visit to South Africa and Namibia. It was all tasty!

Favorite Place to Stay – Surprisingly, the ship. It’s our home and it feels like returning to family every time we get back to port. If I had to pick another, I would say our eastern-style Buddhist monastery accommodations in Japan with rice paper walls and a kerosene heater. 

Favorite Dumb Thing I’ve Done – Anytime you cross a road in Saigon, you will feel like it’s the dumbest and craziest thing you’ve ever done. I can’t explain just how insane this place is. Please, just go visit. And try the snake wine – another dumb thing I’ve done (see earlier post). Karen at an egg steeped in horse urine, so I think that probably is tops for both of us.

Saigon normalcy. At night, it's a million teenagers cruising on motorbikes, and everyone seems to smile all of the time.

Oddest thing – Men crapping out in the open in India. In every field. In every park. Along every road. There are 1.3 billion people in India, and over half practice open defecation. We never saw the women doing it, so they must be more discrete. 

Just a little waterside pooping in India.

Favorite Unexpected Thing – Big Macs on the Great Wall. Porters lugged in over 150 Big Macs and Coke several miles so that we could have a hot lunch on our hike. Think what you will of the Big Mac, but it was one of the tastiest things I’ve ever eaten on a hike. Just sayin’.

Absolute Least Favorite Thing – It’s hard to come up with anything, but pretty much every bathroom I went in during our stay in China would rank among the worst things I’ve ever experienced. I don’t gag easily, but that was heavy duty gag material.

Favorite Story – One of our students from India, Anish, has the best story of the trip in my opinion. When he was in Vietnam, a monkey jumped on his shoulder and tried to steal his sunglasses. While he was wrestling them back, another monkey pickpocketed his wallet and ran up a tree with it. The monkey started tossing dong (Vietnamese cash) into the forest below, but would not drop the wallet, which had his ship ID and more importantly his debit card.  Then, the monkey started chewing on his debit card. Anish’s group was supposed to leave, but Anish refused to go until he got the wallet back. So one of the guides found an apple and tossed it up to the monkey, who needed both hands to catch it. I guess the monkey decided the apple was more tasty than the wallet and debit card so he dropped both to catch the apple.

Monkeys. Cheeky buggers.

Least Favorite Semester at Sea Story – This is actually true, but happened way back in the 1980’s. A student smuggled a monkey on the ship (no, I don’t have any idea why, except that these are college students you know). Several days after leaving port, the crew found out, but it’s illegal to bring wild animals to new countries. So, they couldn’t bring it to the next port, and they couldn’t bring it back to the previous port (since it was smuggled on, there was no way to prove which country it came from), so the ship actually had no choice but to throw the monkey overboard. A pretty horrible story I think and hopefully it will at least make people think more about not doing potentially stupid things.

Favorite Drink – The beer in Asia is pretty light, but good. We’ve had good beer in every country so far, but we found a German restaurant in Singapore with some dark beer that was far and away my favorite. Of the Asian beers, I think it would be Tiger or Saigon, which remind me more of Corona than crappy Budweiser or Coors and any swill with “Lite” in the name.  The best drink we’ve had though is some Sake in Japan. It was the same stuff Obama drank during his last visit apparently, and it was very good. I never cared much for sake before this trip, but we had some really great chilled stuff (I still don’t care for it warmed).

Our go-to beer in SE Asia. Most of the beers here are lagers, which are nice in the heat. And they go great with noodles, which I am always in search of. That's Karen's bear Theo. I will do a whole post about Theo and his buddies soon.

Favorite Country to Visit – the Semester at Sea veterans say that we should never pick a favorite country, or even try compare them. That’s great to say, but for me impossible. Singapore and Hong Kong are the places I liked the least (basically just big cities that I didn't find compelling on any level), and now that I’ve hiked the Great Wall in such an isolated place and in such perfect conditions I can’t see traveling to China on my own dime over a new destination.  Japan, Vietnam, India, Namibia, South Africa, Mauritius and Myanmar are all places I would return to again in a second.  If you pressed me though, I have to admit that the two places I keep comparing everything to are Namibia and Vietnam. Beautiful land and beautiful people. In Vietnam, the craziness of the markets and streets, THE FOOD, and the prices (we paid more for one Tiger Beer in Singapore than we did for both of our meals (which included a dessert AND a Tiger Beer EACH) made it a place I would return to in a second if I could. Namibia is one of the most physically beautiful and different counties you can visit. Japan, South Africa and Myanmar are also places I would recommend to anyone anytime, and come in very close to the first two. Japan and South Africa are the two I would recommend if you are unsure or a little inexperienced in the foreign travel department. I don't think you could go to either place and not absolutely love it.

Favorite Big City: We've been to Tokyo, Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore, Delhi, and Cape Town. The winner is Cape Town. It may very well be my favorite city in the world (I love San Francisco too, but I think I like Cape Town even a little better because of the amazing weather). Tokyo comes in a solid second. Delhi is the most different and the one you sure won't forget!

Favorite aspect of ship life – meals on the Garden Lounge deck. This is where we eat most meals. Always outside. Always at the back of the ship. Always watching the sun rise at breakfast at set at dinner. Always with old friends (folks we’ve known for 2 whole months) and new friends as well (believe it or not, we are still meeting new people every day – we are not sure how that happens).  A close second is sleeping at sea. I love being rocked to sleep every night, except the few times when we have rocked so hard that we almost rolled out of bed.

Favorite Experience – this is REALLY tough.  I have loved absolutely everything we’ve done. Some top things are spending the day eating and catching up with my college friend Hisao and his family in Tokyo, seeing Mt. Fuji on our way to Hiroshima, the way I responded to seeing the Taj Mahal, pretty much everything I did in Vietnam (from beaches to university and orphanage visits to snorkeling to croc fishing to monkey and motorbike watching to walking through the markets – yeah, I love Vietnam don’t I?!!). But I think the top three are riding bikes in Myanmar (past elephants and rice paddies and eating weird great food), our Great Wall hike (15 miles of glorious beauty without a tourist in sight (with perfect weather to boot)) and our Namibian safari! I was so inspired by our safari that I think my next trip will be to Kruger National Park in South Africa, followed by a drive to the Okavango delta in Botswana. Can't wait!

Taj Mahal - this photo was also taken by our staff photographer Evan Meyer - see more of his good work at emeyerphotoart.com

Favorite Things about being a Professor on Semester at Sea – Yep, my students. Living with hundreds of 20 year olds can get a bit trying at times (how many times can they say “like” in one sentence, and how can they act like my parents one minute (they really do look out for us!) and a 3 year old the next (“Why???” Whenever some are told that they can’t have things exactly the way they want it) but the fact is that I’ve seen some of the most mature, thoughtful, hopeful, and respectful behavior from the VAST majority of the students that it’s easy to forget about a few isolated instances where their behavior is less than impressive.  They join us at dinner and talk our ears off. They high-five and fist bump us in the hallway. They look out for us. They treat us so well. I hear some folks my age lament that this generation “will have to take care of us someday”.  Honestly, be thankful. Most of these kids will do great things with their futures.

You really can go back in time, at least in spirit. The energy given off by 650 20-somethings will make you feel young (but tired). This picture was taken by our staff photographer Evan Meyer - check out his photos at emeyerphotoart.com

Very Best Thing about Semester at Sea – Yeah this will sound cheesy, but it’s true. The best thing is sharing this with Karen. The pleasure of any experience seems to increase ten-fold when you can share it with someone you care about. I don’t know if all humans feel that way, but this one does.

Yep, she's the very best thing about my experience going around the world. We've shared it all, including lots of good home made food, such as this in India. We are able to go on some unusual programs as part of our voyage, including going to some woman's home where she did a cooking demonstration for us. We had a nice meal, and she gave us a little cookbook of her recipes.