Antonio C. Abaya - Letter from Alaska

First of all, I would like to apologize to my readers for disappearing from print and cyberspace since May 15.

I have been on vacation all this time, first in San Francisco, then on board a cruise ship to Alaska and back, and finally in Chicago.

My companion and I were booked on the ms Amsterdam of the Holland America Line, which sailed from Seattle on May 23 on a seven-day voyage that took us to Juneau (the capital of the state of Alaska), then through the Yakutat Bay to see the Hubbard Glacier (before it disappears, one more victim of global warming), to Sitka Island (the capital of Russian Alaska before the territory was bought by the US under President Abraham Lincoln in 1879 for $7 million), and the town of Ketchikan (center of the salmon industry).

The thought occurred to me that if the Americans had not purchased Alaska from the Russians in 1879, the US (and Canada) would have been militarily indefensible during the Cold War against the Soviets in the 1960s and 1970s, and the history of the world since would have taken a different turn.

The Amsterdam had been scheduled to dock in Victoria on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada, but the wind was so strong when we were there that the captain, fearing that his ship might slam against the pier, decided not to attempt to dock.

Which came as an anti-climax to my close encounter with a Canadian visa. The shipâ€™s itinerary had included a six-hour stop in Victoria (which I had misinterpreted to mean Vancouver) and we made plans to meet with our friends Arlene and Richard Vokey, as well as with businessman Gene de los Reyes, owner of the Gateway Industrial Park in Cavite.

But when my travel agent told me that a Canadian visa would cost P4,335 (inclusive of travel agencyâ€™s service fees), even for a mere six-hour stop, I said, forget it, we will just stay on board the ship.

Only to find out later that I, as a holder of a Philippine passport, would not be allowed to board the Amsterdam in Seattle if I did not have a Canadian visa, because the ship would be dropping anchor in Canadian waters, and Canadian law requires holders of Philippine passports to have a Canadian visa even if they do not intend to go ashore. Something about cases of Filipino seamen jumping ship while in a Canadian port.

So, a hurried effort to secure a Canadian visa in time for my departure for San Francisco on May 15, all of which came to naught when the Amsterdam could not dock in Victoria because of strong winds, while friends Arlene and Richard frantically called to say that Victoria was some four hours away (including waiting time for the ferry) from Vancouver City where I had erroneously said the Amsterdam was going to dock and where they were going to fetch us for a drive through their beautiful city.

A classic example of Murphyâ€™s Law. If anything can go wrong, it will. A virulently nasty meteorological condition. And my ignorance of Canadian geography, for which Arlene is threatening to send me a map of Canada.

Other than that, a good time was had by all. Those who are looking for a â€œperfect vacationâ€ would do well to consider an ocean cruise. And I cannot imagine a better cruise ship than the Amsterdam.

With nine decks of staterooms and function rooms, the Amsterdam is taller than a ten-storey building, with the amenities and appointments of a four- or five-star hotel, and the organized entertainment and activities of a self-contained floating country club.

On any given day, there are 20 or more activities on tap that passengers can avail of, mostly at no extra charge, which include yoga sessions, physical fitness workouts, origami lessons, culinary arts demos, bingo, sudoku, digital computer workshops, wine-tasting, social bridge, karaoke, etc. There is a heated swimming pool, a spa, a casino, a couple of small theaters for movies and stage shows. There was even a folk dance presentation by the shipâ€™s Filipino crew members. (Of the shipâ€™s 700 crew members, 230 were Filipinos, 400 Indonesians.) And for Roman Catholics, daily Mass in one of the small theaters.

Our favorite hangout was the shipâ€™s library where one can sink into one of the many comfortable lounge chairs and read and nap for hours, or access one of about a dozen computers (at the rather steep price of 75 US cents per minute). WI-FI connection is available at a lower price, 45 US cents per minute, but I found that still too high, which is why I decided not to go online even once during the entire cruise.

And our favorite musical artists were the Adagio Trio, three Ukrainian girls â€“ two violinists and one pianist â€“ who played classical and light classical music with finesse. Not that we did not enjoy the dance music of The Neptunes combo, or the racy cocktail lounge piano magic of Dr. Boogie.

The key to enjoying a cruise, especially to a backwater â€“ but spectacularly magnificent â€“ country like Alaska, is to decide to do nothing. I have never slept so well in my entire life. The constant hum of the engines, the gentle rolling of the ship, and the soft embrace of the bed in the cabin or the lounge chairs in the library were absolutely soporific.

The next best thing to doing nothing is to read to your heartâ€™s content. I came on board armed with two books: Memories of My Melancholy Whores, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, a sweet-sad, tender tale about a newspaper columnist who is gifted with a 14-year old nymphet on his 90th birthday by the madam of his favorite whorehouse, and not at all a lecherous retelling of Vladimir Nabokovâ€™s Lolita.

My other book was on the heavy side: Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why, by the Biblical scholar Bart D. Ehrmann, graduate of the Moody Bible Institute and the Princeton Theological Seminary, and current chair of the department of religious studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who has a reading knowledge of ancient Greek, Hebrew and Latin and is well-versed in the arcane discipline of textual criticism. He has since evolved from Born-Again Christian to agnostic.

I also borrowed from the ship library a relatively recent book about my favorite historical figure, Alexander the Great, by Paul Cortledge of Cambridge University, which suggests the high quality of the libraryâ€™s book selections.

And when we were not sleeping or reading, we were eating. There is food 24 hours a day, and at no extra charge, except for special dinners at a specialty restaurant which we did not bother to check out at all. Breakfast and lunches, cafeteria-style, at the Lido deck, and dinners at the La Fontaine fine-dining restaurant, where our travel agent had arranged for a permanent table-for-two for us, served by our permanently-assigned (Indonesian) waiter and (Filipina) wine steward. At no extra cost, except for the alcoholic beverages.

If one over-eats, one can easily burn off the calories at the shipâ€™s gym, or by walking around the ship on Deck 3: three and a half laps on the teak deck measure out to one mile or 1.6 kilometers.

And how much did seven days of sybaritic indulgence cost? I calculated it at about $120 per person per day, much less than what one would spend for, say, four days and nights at the Hong Kong Hotel, where one would have to spend extra for meals and taxi fare to go shopping and spend more money.

In my book, this is value for money. Perhaps one of the few real bargains left in the world. Those who want to try out a cruise should get in touch with our booking agent, Rizal Tour and Travel of Chicago, under our friends Isabel and Toti Juan at isabeljuan@aol.com.

Reactions to tonyabaya@gmail.com. Other articles at www.tapatt.org and in acabaya.blogspot.com

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