Burma and the Moral Dilemma

[OKKAR66127@xxxxxxx]

                  Burma and the Moral Dilemma

(Bill Glenton opens four pages on cruising with a luxury trip to Burma, one
of the world's most controversial destinations)
Financial Times, Weekend 21/22 March 1998

It needed something richly spectacular to impress the obviously wealthy
passengers on this luxury  cruise.  Our call on one of the world's poorest
relations seemed the last way of doing so.

Yet their Cartier watches and diamond jewellery looked as dull as coffee
stall cutlery compared with the golden magnificence of our landfall at=
 Burma.

Like some giant solar powered lighthouse to the gods, the towering, 326 ft.
high gold and jewel-encrusted Shwedagon Pagoda, gleaming in the blazing
sun, made a hypnotic sight for us spoilt westerners.

If the contents of Fort Knox's bullion vaults has been put on public
display, the impact on the many Americans aboard could hardly have been
greater.  Minds spent preparing for more sordid, unhygienic displays of
third world life went into reverse shock.

Close up, on our excursion there, this enormous, incredibly ornate eruption
of Buddhist faith looked even more like some Hollywood spectacular.  But
the many Technicolor, intricately designed temples, shrines and mammoth,
weirdly styled idols - far beyond anything found in Disneyland.

It was Shwedagon, however, that brought us firmly down to earth and
reminded tender sensitivities of dirt and disease.  Or rather, the
religious insistence that we walk around this 2,500-year-old world-famous
shrine in our bare feet.

It spoke volumes for that pioneering spirit of the US that the mostly
elderly passengers - who might normally regard walking with shoes as an
activity sport-shed their expensive footwear, socks and tights to comply.

There was, at first, a certain nervous tentativeness as delicately
lacquered toes trod warily between reddish splodges of betel spit and
other, equally suspicious, stains.   But, the beauty of the surroundings
soon overcame any phobias.

Or as the joker in our pack, Mamie, from Palm Beach, announced
philosophically: "What the Hell ... what's athlete's foot compared with
getting mugged at home?"

It was the colourful humanity of this bustling pilgrimage site that
captured the mind as much as anything.  The petite, brightly garbed Burmese
women, bearing gaudy bouquets to lay at favoured shrines, mingled with
saffron robed monks in a ceaselessly moving floor show.

By comparison, we supposedly richer tourists looked downright dowdy.  The
pungent smell of incense sharpened another of our softened senses while the
sight of gnarled old Burmese women smoking potent green cheroots gave the
powerful anti-smoking lobby among us extra cause for wonder.

This was east-meets-west in a way Kipling never imagined - a rare example,
too, of the tourist brochures proving less appealing than the reality.

Against the more basic surroundings of the capital, Yangon (Rangoon to most
of us), Shwedagon looked as odd as putting marzipan on a bread pudding.

Apart from a handful of high-rise blocks and a few new hotels, the city has
not changed that much from British colonial days - except to become more a
human anthill.  I returned from an attempted stroll through streets packed
with milling crowds and pavement traders feeling that I had been submerged
in a rugby scrum.

There are few, greener, more relaxing havens than the delightful former
royal park and lake with ornately carved royal barges.  You can also still
enjoy sanctuary in that famous old watering hole for British expatriates,
the Strand Hotel, where they eased the White man's Burden with gin slings.
New owners have made it more luxurious while retaining its traditional,
dignified atmosphere.

When you have as supremely comfortable a womb as the 8,282-ton Song of
flower, moored near the city centre, there is no need for such a haven.
Nothing softens the clash of cultures more than travelling with all the
pleasures of home and more besides.

No desert oasis beckoned more strongly for weary camel drivers than our
ship did for passengers as they hurried back to wash away the least
appealing of Rangoon's features.  Not, however, before they had been met by
white-jacketed stewards with scented flannels and a refreshing drink.

But not even sanctuary as attentively secure as this can be entirely immune
to the more penetrating facets of tropical life.  At our berth in the muddy
Rangoon River, it was not the dawn that came up like thunder so much as the
dusk descending in a cloudburst of tiny wings.

Huge squadrons of flying insects homed in on our bright lights to land and
cover the superstructure, decks and swimming pool in a moving carpet.  Any
notions of a romantic stroll under the moonlight were rapidly dispelled as
passengers stayed firmly below in air-conditioned comfort and safety.

Normally such a hazard would be short-lived - most cruise calls last less
than a day - but our visit was exceptional in that the ship stayed four
days in Rangoon so passengers had the option of going further afield to see
more of Burma's pagoda attractions.

Behind the powerful pagoda lure, however, lay a more uneasy current of
politics.  Should we be visiting Burma at all?  A largely unasked question,
but one there all the same.  Were we by the very act of being tourists
supporting a cruel dictatorship?

What conscientious objections may have existed were diminished by the
grandiosity of golden Shwedagon.  Any that remained were finally dispelled
by the smiles on the faces of local traders as they gratefully received the
outpouring of our dollars.

For most of us, political correctness failed to compete with the temptation
of the remarkably cheap gems, jade, precious metals and handicrafts that we
found for sale.

But, when contemplating a tropical cruise, it is palm trees and golden
beaches that count for more than the politics.  None of the nearly 100
passengers aboard were so happy as when we left Rangoon and reached our
next call on the Thai resort island of Phuket.

What made it specially appealing, and underlined the handy virtue of a
small cruise ship, was that we were landed straight on to one of the more
alluring beaches.  Song of Flower carries its own roomy landing craft,
which put us ashore without our even needing to take our shoes off.

The fact that there was a hotel of comparable four-star standard
immediately handy was a bonus.  Its amenities were freely available to us,
along with a juicy lunch buffet and free drinks.  To make sure we remained
spoilt the ship's stewards landed with us.

With a staff of nearly two to every passenger, lifting a finger became more
like a commando exercise.  What the ship lacked in amenities and
entertainment compared with those larger cruise vessels it made up for in
roomy cabin comforts and first-class service.

The Song of Flower may rate behind a few ships on the luxury scale but it
lacks nothing in exclusive intimacy and such appealing features as open
sitting for meals, full cabin service and all drinks and tips included in
the fare.  Most tours were also part of the deal.  Given all this, its
average daily rate of just over =A3400 is good value.

As we sailed on, via charming Penang and Kuala Lumpur to Singapore, our
final destination, I relished the thought that, in spite of what Kipling
wrote, east and west can come to terms... even if you have to tread warily
at times.

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