Know Before You Go

I am a great believer in doing research before a trip. I mean both finding the best place to stay and what to do the places you’ll visit and reading up on the history of the places and things you’ll see. I think that knowing as much as you can about a place really helps you appreciate it when you’re there. Knowing the history of a country and its people can help you begin to understand them. And when you’re visiting an ancient site that today is mostly in ruins, knowing its history is the difference between looking at another boring pile of stones and being awed that you are standing in the remains of the Temple of Zeus, one of the Seven Wonders of The World. So, I always try to read books about the places our trips will take us in the months before we go. Our next trip will be to some very interesting places, with long and complex histories. So for what it’s worth, I thought I would share my reading list for this trip. [I say “reading”, but these days I’m mostly listening to audiobook versions of books. I like the fact that I can move around and get other things done, like doing the dishes or folding the laundry, while immersed in a book. Most of these books are available in audiobook form, and I think most of them are also available in Kindle format].

Holiday Trip 2016 Reading List

 

Keepers of the Golden Shore: A History of the United Arab Emirates
Michael Quentin Morton   March 15, 2016

This book wasn’t easy to find.  Almost all histories of the Middle East focus on Saudi Arabia and the Saud family, and/or start with the coming of oil in the early 20th Century. This book explores the history of the East Coast of the Arabian Penisula from the earliest known human settlements up to today.  The pre-petroleum history is just as fascinating as the later times.  Oil was the third boom time for the Emirates.  In the distant past they were one of the only routes for spices and incense to reach Europe.  That fell off once the Europeans learned to sail around Africa to the east and get them for themselves.  The second boom came from pearls.  The waters of the Gulf are a perfect location for pearl oysters, and all the Emirates used to have pearling fleets thousands of boats strong.  At one time the majority of the world’s pearls came from the Gulf.  But that ended when the Japanese developed cultured pearls, which are not only cheaper but also of a more consistent quality than natural pearls.  And now they are dealing with the incredible transformative power of the massive amount of money the oil has brought them.  Opinions are divided on the direction the countries should take in the future.

Taj Mahal: Passion and Genius at the Heart of the Moghul Empire
Diana Preston   February 5, 2008

Everybody knows that the Taj Mahal was built by a Moghul emperor as a tomb for his beloved wife.  But the story of the Moghul dynasty reads like an ancient reality TV show; and knowing a bit of the background of Shah Jahan helps understand the passion that led him to build what many believe to be the most beautiful building in the world.

In God’s Path: The Arab Conquests and the Creation of an Islamic Empire
Robert G. Hoyland   November 3, 2014

There is a tendency for some histories of the Arab conquests to simplify both the speed and the difficulties of the founding of the Islamic Empire.  Of course, as with all histories, the full story is very much more complex and interesting.  This author has drawn as much as possible from sources outside the traditional Muslim scholars to present a more objective view of the conquests.  He also sets them in a wider world view, such as the fact that the Arabs’ progress was greatly helped by the ongoing battles between the two major powers in the area at the time, the Byzantine Empire and the Persian Empire.

A Brief History of Indonesia: Sultans, Spices, and Tsunamis: The Incredible Story of Southeast Asia’s Largest Nation
Tim Hannigan   August 18, 2015

Indonesia doesn’t get much of the world’s attention unless there’s unrest or a natural disaster; but its history is long and complicated.  This book traces that history from the earliest evidence of human settlement in “The Archipelago”, through the days of the fabled “Spice Islands”, occupation by the Portuguese, Dutch, and English, the hardships of WWII, up to the current struggle to form a democratic society that works for all the residents of Indonesia’s hundreds of islands.  This was one book where I can truly say I did not know much of the history going in.

Round About The Earth
Joyce E. Chaplin Feb 11, 2013

Since we are finally going to do a full circumnavigation in one trip, I thought it would be fun to read about the many people who have done it before.  The author traces the progress of round the word travel from the days when it was so arduous and dangerous that most who tried it didn’t survive, to the glory days of the great ocean liners taking many months to carry guests around the planet in extreme luxury.  It was an interesting read, with many tales of bravery and adventure.

That’s what I’ve been reading the past several weeks.  If you check out any of these books, please let me know what you think of them.

 

Counting Down

One month now until we head out for our next trip. There are still many things to do; but this is an awkward period before any trip. While there are lots of things that need doing, it’s too early to do many of them. For example, we will take our suits we’ll need for the cruise to be cleaned and pressed. But a month is a bit too early to do that. I have begun gathering things that I’ll need to take; but it’s far too early to start actually packing yet. So, much of this time is just spent waiting. This year we do have other things to distract us. Thanksgiving is coming up. And since we are leaving in mid-December, we decided that we would just about have time to have a Holiday open house party. It’s been several years since we’ve had one. The preparations for that have kept us occupied. Van has been handling things like having the carpets cleaned, while I’ve been cooking and baking and putting everything in the freezer. This party won’t be as big as ones from years past. I’m just not able to do as much as I once could. But it should be fun, nonetheless. And after it we’ll have about a week and a half to get ready to travel. That ought to be plenty.

A Bit Much

I’m always amazed at how much the “high end” cruise lines spend on amenities; things which are nice, but not really necessary. A case in point; yesterday we got our Documentation Packages. I’ll grant it’s impressive. And it certainly looks costly.

First, there’s a cloth cover enclosing the kit:

Inside that is a faux leather portfolio:

It holds a number of things:

A brochure with our check-in documents and information about the cruise:

A set of luggage tags to put on at the dock, so the crew knows which cabin to take your bags to:

And a pair of leather luggage tags for each of us, embossed with PLATINUM so everybody will know our status::

And a photo of the ship on the inside:

All of this is quite nice, and quite impressive. But it’s also mostly not necessary. About the only thing we really needed was the set of paper tags with our cabin number on them so that our bags are routed correctly. All of the information in the brochure we already have revived in electronic form. There really isn’t any sort of “ticket”. When we check in we will just hand them our passports and they will look us up. The only difference between these luggage tags and the ones we already have is that these say “PLATINUM” as opposed to “GOLD” and “SILVER”; and the photo of the Encore on the inside.

I can’t imagine how much they spent on all this, and they sent these to 300-some couples taking the cruise. It’s a nice gesture; but I’m not sure I’m all that impressed.

Passage to India

I can breathe again. We now have our Indian visas.

This turned out to be a vital piece of our preparations. In most cases, if you are on a cruise and haven’t bothered to get a visa for a country that requires one, you can get one there. Or you can choose to just stay on the ship. In the case of India we were told that we couldn’t even just stay on the ship. If we didn’t have a valid visa to cover the time we will be in Indian waters, we couldn’t even board the ship at the beginning of the cruise. The whole trip would have to be canceled.

Even this might not have been a major problem, since most countries these days let you obtain an electronic visa online before you leave home. India does indeed have an online visa application program. But it’s only available if you are arriving at one of the major airports. Since we are arriving and departing by sea, that wasn’t an option for us. So, we had to get an old-fashioned paper visa.

That turned out to be the most complicated, drawn-out, and expensive visa process I’ve ever experienced. The application form is available to download; but that was the only easy part. The application is pages long and in two parts. They want information going all the way back to your grandparents. They want to know if anyone in your family is from or has ever been a citizen of Pakistan or Bangladesh. They want to know every country you have ever visited. (List over 70 countries in a 3” long space…sure. Thanks). Because we had heard how particular they can be, we decided it was prudent to go through a commercial visa service. We used the company that Seabourn has an account with. I guess it was helpful having someone who knows just what the Consulate expects making sure the forms were filled in correctly. But there were still a number of back-and-forth emails before everything was right. Then there were the photographs. The Consulate also requires a passport style photo, which must have been taken within the last 3 months. The visa service has the capability to accept digital photos uploaded to them which they crop and print out to accompany the forms. We thought we were following the instructions; face shot, plain white background, no shadows, no eyeglasses or hats, etc. But the first three photos we sent were rejected. The white background wasn’t white enough, there was a slight shadow behind the head, and so forth. So, we gave up and paid for photos from a passport photo place and sent those in. Then the visa service submitted everything and we waited. And waited.

It took a couple of weeks before we finally heard anything. In the end we finally did get our Indian visas. However for some unknown reason, Van’s is for 10 years and mine is only for 1 year. No explanation offered. So if I want to go back to India I’m going to have to go through this all over again. I’ll have to think long and hard about that. It’s almost as though they don’t want people coming and spending lots of money in their country. I hope the visit turns out to be worth the hassle.

Closing The Circle

Although we have done a lot of traveling over the years, we have yet to go all the way around the world. Right now there’s a gap from roughly 41° to 104° that we haven’t covered. It’s a swath that includes Arabia, India and much of Asia. This year we are going to fill in that gap.

Our Holiday cruise this year will be from Dubai to Bali aboard Seabourn’s newest ship, the Encore. We will visit several ports in the UAE, then sail over to India, and then east through the “Spice Islands” and the Strait of Malacca to Indonesia. None of these are countries we have seen before, and we’re quite excited about visiting so many new places and finally doing a complete circumnavigation.

Holidays At Sea

This year our Holiday cruise is going to take us farther afield than usual, to more exotic lands than we have visited before. We are going to sail on Seabourn’s brand-new ship, the Encore, for part of her maiden voyage.

We’ll board in Dubai and sail to Bali. This will be our first time visiting Arabia, India, or Southeast Asia, all places I have long wanted to see.

We will start by flying to London. There we are going to make a brief stopover for a few days. From there we’ll fly to Dubai. It’s our first time there, so we have planned to spend several days exploring. It will definitely be one of the more exotic places we’ve gone. Once we board the ship we’ll sail west to Abu Dhabi and Sir Bani Yas Island, before heading east to Muscat, Oman.

Next we have several days at sea as we sail over to the west coast of India. The ship will call at Mumbai, Mangalore, and Cochin. But we will take an off-ship excursion in which we will fly from Mumbai to Jaipur, travel to Agra by coach to see the Taj Mahal, and then coach to Delhi to fly back to rejoin the ship. We’ll be off the ship for a total of 3 nights. When we get back on the ship we’ll have 4 days at sea before we get to Malaysia.

We’ll spend 12 days sailing through Indonesia, with stops in Malaysia, Singapore, Java, and ending in Bali. I have imagined visiting the fabled “Spice Islands” since I was young. We have a number of excursions planned, including a stop at Komodo Island, home of the Komodo dragon. From Bali we will fly back to Singapore. We wanted to fly home from there, because United has just started offering a direct Singapore-San Francisco non-stop flight. And what’s more, it’s on a brand-new 787, our first time flying on one. Since the best flight required us to fly on a Sunday, instead of a night or two, we are going to stay for 5 days.

This is our Holiday cruise for this year, and as Seabourn usually plans it, the holidays fall on days at sea. Christmas will be our first sea day out of Oman, and New Year’s Eve at the end of our first sea day out of India. This gives us all day to get ourselves ready for the big festive dinners, rather than having to rush to get dressed up after a day of touring. The holiday dinners are always multi-course extravaganzas. It’s one of the few occasions when we dress up.

It should be a good trip and quite an adventure. I can hardly wait.

Welcome

I’m starting this blog as a space to share more about my travels than I can in a brief Facebook post.  Here I’ll be able to write longer, more detailed posts and share more pictures.  I also hope to be able to share more of my impressions and feelings of the places I visit.  I hope you enjoy my offerings.