CRUISE CONNECTION ... by STELLA

Stella & Paul in their tent Kangshung (East face of Everest) Trek, Tibet

Just how much water is enough? 

There are certain places where I find having lots of water is advantageous. My preferred interaction with water is hiking along a steep mountain pass, sucking up that life giving fluid through my Camelback as I gaze upon mile and miles of incredible high altitude vistas. Second to that is the small metal bowl of hot “washing water” delivered to my tent by sherpas as I marvel at the first rays of light to hit the Himalayan peaks. Why, then, have I cruised twice with Roger and Diana? The answer is simply water. Water is what the barista uses every morning to make the latte I share with Diana. The cruise ship floats on water and on those decks, I enjoy walks with friends, snacks poolside, a foo-foo drink at the bar, extravagant spa splurges and all the hot water I want. Truthfully though, I don’t go just for the endless hot water, although after a record 23 days of not bathing or washing my hair, hot water does, on occasion, enter my dreams.

For those of you that don’t know me, I too am one of those retired government employees receiving an exorbitant pension for what many considered a “piece of cake” job . Fortunately, for 24 years, I had a blast earning that exorbitant pension. Just don’t tell anyone that for most of those 24 years I spent almost every holiday and many evenings and weekends working at special events, shoveling dog poop when staff didn’t show up for shifts, making virgin margaritas for Irvine Seniors and facilitating excursions to introduce Irvinites to the bizarre concept of camping and exploring the natural areas of Southern California.

That love of nature and its challenges draw my husband Paul and me to push reasonable limits a bit when we travel. As I write, we are traveling across the USA in our 21ft travel trailer, exploring not only the well known and famous sites, but also the remote and obscure treasures of this wonderful country. We’re in Texas and there seems to be plenty of water here. The collision of an arctic front and the atmospheric push from a giant storm on the East Coast created torrents of water and a fair share of thunder and lightning prompting me to remark “excuse me Texas, that’s enough water for now, thank you very much.”

I push the envelope by cruising because by day 3 or 4 I’m ready to jump ship. A mega-ship to you is almost prison-like to me. Every surface, except my beloved water, is human-made. But, and I mean a really big but (just like my butt that almost entombed me in a cave in New Zealand by getting stuck), if I don’t cruise, I can’t vacation with Diana. I can’t get her to join me on our 500 mile Cycle Oregon bike ride or trek with me in the Andes or Himalayas and it’s not because she doesn’t enjoy the outdoors. The deal breaker is porta-potties or lack of proper facilities. She won’t use them! Geez, here we are talking about water again. So in order to “vacation” with Diana and Roger (and by the way, can one “vacation” from retirement?), we cruise. This is where I find having lots of water advantageous. Our trip on the Davis’ Mediterranean cruise was part of a mini-grand tour of Europe. We flew in a few weeks early from Bangkok, traveled through France, met the group in Barcelona and then headed to Slovenia and Switzerland. For me, the two weeks on the cruise ship was truly a vacation. And hey, my hair was clean!

And that my friends, brings us to more water and the wonders of the Asia to Alaska cruise. Bangkok is where this journey begins. We’ve traveled to Bangkok several times and each time we discover something new or more accurately, Bangkok delivers more than expected. Our last visit was in the Fall of 2011 during the flood of the century. We spent most of our time on or balancing above water. Bangkok is a logical stopover prior to entering any of the Himalayan gateway cities, so that’s why Paul and I are intimately acquainted with the city. Most of the tiny Himalayan airlines fly out of Suvarnabhumi Airport.

We like two hotels there and one, the Novotel Suvarnbhumi, is adjacent to the airport with easy access to the city centre, excellent rooms and service, an outstanding spa and yummy food. If you book directly through Agoda (right now there were several $132 USD deluxe rooms available) your rooms are less than half price and quite reasonable for Bangkok. For all that you may have been told, Bangkok is not a cheap city. Certainly, the fabulous morning floating market, night market and street vendors provide an opportunity for bargaining, but you won’t getting anything real or cheap there except Rolex watches :-) I bought one for $6USD and my tuk-tuk driver said I paid $2 too much! It lasted through three floods, one month in the Himalaya, Cambodia, Thailand and is still running. Unfortunately, the directions were written on a postage stamp piece of paper which I promptly lost, so now my Rolex is permanently on Tibetan time.

Be prepared for heat and humidity and lots of water in Bangkok. The Chao Phraya river taxi is an incredibly easy and fun way to see some of the sites. You’ll meet locals commuting to or from work and along the way there are several little food courts, simple structures filled with fantastic tidbits of local delicacies you must experience. My favorite time to ride is dusk, savoring an unidentified piece of grilled food product wrapped in greens, drenched in incredible sauce and watching the sun as it sets along the banks of the Chao Phraya with Wat Arun silhouetted against a blazing red sky.

If you have a little extra time, I highly recommend jumping on a plane for a visit to Cambodia’s Angkor Wat, but that’s another blog post. Well actually, I must mention, for Roger’s sake, Cambodia is amazingly inexpensive. Nice hotel room with breakfast, $20USD per night. Enough said until next time.

So now I’m once again thinking, just how much water is enough? A month’s worth? 16 days? Well, even if it’s only six ounces in a cup of coffee and those you love and enjoy are around you, then, it is enough, at least for me.