The ports of call looked as though they were set up for a photo shoot in the
cruise brochure. We acted like the tourists we were, flaneurs,
lounging or strolling about as onlookers, not on the boulevards of Paris but on
guided tours, with little opportunity or desire to actually experience the
lives we observed. This was sanitary sightseeing: food, water, accommodations
and sights were all clean and neat. We were no longer expatriates or travelers.
In
Java we climbed the temple of
Borobudur,
watched ox races and released baby turtles to the sea. In
Kuala Lumpur
we stood in a Chinese temple watching the paper Mercedes and houses burn during
an incense laden funeral. We relaxed in rickshaws in Penang on the way to a
restaurant filled with banks of orchids flourishing in the tropical damp. A
stop in
Phuket offered the opportunity to ride an elephant. In the
Maldives we snorkeled with myriads of brightly colored little fishes before
helping the chef select larger fish for dinner at the market. We took in the
sights of Cochin with its canals and nearly empty Jew Town before atding a
service in a Hindu temple in Mangalore where the priests rang bells, clashed
cymbals and beat drums in deafening sounds to call their gods. The seething
carpet of humanity in
Mumbai appeared beyond the Gate of India erected
by the British in the days when empires were thought to last forever.
Judith
Works (to be continued)
