our very talented crew...

There are nearly 200 crew aboard the MV Explorer. There are electricians, plumbers, carpenters, people who work in the engine room and around the decks, waiters in the dining rooms, cooks, receptionists, bookkeepers, people who do our laundry, room stewards, the officers -- I'm sure I'm forgetting someone, but we really don't have to lift a finger to look after ourselves because these folks do everything for us. I'm not sure how I will make the adjustment when we get back home. We have come to know many of them over the last several weeks, especially Linda who looks after our cabin, and the guys in the dining room (and they are all guys). Tonight we were treated to a talent show that the crew put together and it was a great time!

I took a bunch of photos and video and am going to try to put some of it up, though it is late now so will not try it tonight. Some of our crew are really very talented performers and it was wonderful to see this side of them and to get to know them better outside their uniforms -- singers and songwriters, dancers, comedians, jugglers and on and on. I was impressed most by the themes of learning, seeing the world, and change of self that were part of their performances, and their obvious understanding of the mission of Semester at Sea and their own roles in making this the best possible experience for students and the rest of us. Indeed they come from all over the world themselves (34 countries!), and many of them have left families behind because they are better able to provide for them by leaving their own countries for the work they do on this ship.

Current location at 0055 ship time:
Latitude: 8 degrees 37.4' N
Longitude: 103 degrees 51.4' E
Course: 141 degrees

on the way to vietnam...

We left Thailand about 2 hours ago and are now moving toward Vietnam. We should be there in two days, which does not leave a lot of time for two full days of classes and all the pre-port sessions for Ho Chi Minh City http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ho_Chi_Minh_City. Academics we have talked with in the last few days are feeling like John is -- there is not much time left to cover everything in classes and get ready for exams. Hard to believe it is already that time. John started putting his finals together today and others have started as well. Students are still working on assignments and papers and it sounds like they aren't thinking about exams yet. They also have a number of port activities they are trying to manage, since they have a few for each of their classes that they must work in.

We have the usual movies displaying on the tv for the next port. I just finished watching "Heaven & Earth" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107096/, a 1993 Oliver Stone film starring Tommy Lee Jones and Hiep Thi Le. It was very well done and is based on the true story "When Heaven and Earth Changed Places" written by Le Ly Hayslip and Jay Wurts http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_Heaven_and_Earth_Changed_Places, and the sequel "Child of War, Woman of Peace" by Le Ly Hayslip and her son James Hayslip http://www.amazon.com/Child-War-Woman-Peace-Hayslip/dp/0385471475.

Our current location at 2215 ship time:
Latitude: 12 degrees 43.7' N
Longitude: 100 degrees 43.8' E
Course: 175 degrees

elephants!

Today we boarded a bus at the ship around 1:00pm and went to the Pattaya Elephant Village http://www.elephant-village-pattaya.com/index.html. There we learned about Asian elephants http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_Elephant. Clouds and light rain kept the upper 90's heat that we have been experiencing at bay and it was quite pleasant. Elephant keeper Phairat Chaiyakham and his staff look after 32 former working elephants who are no longer able to work and who cannot be released because their habitat is rapidly disappearing. Elephants require so much food that many of them are now finding their way into the cities in order to look for something to eat. They can wander into markets and create chaos. Elephant Village shelters these animals and allows close interaction with groups like ours in order to help pay the cost of feeding them.

We were introduced to many of the elephants and fed them bananas, then some of our group bathed with them as you can see in the photo. We were treated to demonstrations of the type of logging work they have done and how they were trained. One of them had worked in a circus, but at about 25 years of age now has cataracts and is retired. Elephants live to be 80 years of age or more and usually die because they no longer have teeth and cannot eat the thousands of pounds of food they need daily to survive. In this sanctuary there are 29 females and 3 males and there are attempts to breed them, with limited success.

We each had the opportunity to ride the elephants with the masters. I did ride one and enjoyed the experience very much. We had several children from the ship in our group and it was great fun to watch them with these magical creatures!

John and I had spent some time in Pattaya on Monday. It is an interesting area with beautiful beaches. There are definitely remnants of the days when the city served as an R&R destination for American troops serving in Asia, although much of that has been cleaned up to make this a more attractive tourist destination. One cannot find the ancient buildings and artifacts that make Bangkok so appealing, but the crowds and traffic of Bangkok are not there either.

in laem chabang...

Current location...
Latitude: 13 degrees 3.3' N
Longitude: 100 degrees 54.2' E

We arrived at 8:00 this morning to the cleanest and most orderly port we have seen so far! The port at Laem Chabang is not even 20 years old, and since it is so far from Bangkok it has much clearer air than many of the ports we have experienced. John and I watched a container ship being simultaneously unloaded and loaded today -- something we have been unable to view until now. It was fascinating.

We did not have the usual diplomatic briefing today since it was Sunday and the port is so far from the US Embassy. Immigration did arrive and it was about 11:00am when the ship cleared and we were allowed to disembark. The people who had trips today went off first, for the two hour bus ride to the airport and flights to Phuket in the south and Luang Prabang in Laos. Since John and I didn't have anything scheduled we had a slow morning and left the ship around 1:00pm. We got a cab and went to a mall not far from the port. There was not much there, and what was there was very western, so not much of note to share, except that we did give in to our urge to visit the first Starbucks we have seen since leaving the Bahamas!

We are planning a trip tomorrow to Pattaya http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pattaya which is about 30 km south of the port, leaving around 10:00am. I'm not sure why there are no ferries from here to Bangkok, but it seems to me that would be a much more sensible way to travel than the crowded roads. There is a skytrain in Bangkok that should make travel within the city easier, but you have to get there first. Some of our briefings from people who have lived in Bangkok indicated that vehicle travel is faster than in India with less horn, and the only rule seems to be that any empty space must be filled. The jury is still out on whether we will try to make that trip.