Cambodia, Viet Nam, Thailand and Singapore

Cruising with Mahfouz
Basil Waine Kong

For the past twelve years, Good friends, Mahfouz and Sylvia El Shahawy, and Admiral Travel, annually host fifty couples on a fabulous cruise to distant shores around the world. They have taken us to Egypt, China, Mauritius, Slovenia, Croatia, The Check Republic, Austria, Reunion, Zimbabwe, Turkey, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, the Western Caribbean, Tunisia, India, Spain, Portugal, Morocco, Italy, The Seychelles, Maldives; and who could forget our visit to Nosey Bee in Madagascar?. We depart on Tuesday, October 26, 2010 for Cambodia, Viet Nam, Thailand and Singapore. Stephanie and I have yearned to see this part of the world and it is now eminent.

One of the endearing qualities about my wife is that she keeps a detailed dairy of our travels with our photographs and clippings. I believe we will enjoy reminiscing about these adventures when we are old and sitting in wheelchairs. You see, we do not just visit these countries as tourists. Because most of the people on these cruises are physicians, Mahfouz is able to arrange meetings and symposia with other physicians where-ever we visit. These are meaningful exchanges that add tremendously to the value of our experience.

Some of the moments from these trips that occur to me as I write this include:
1. Celebrating our New Years Eve party twice by re-crossing the international date line;
2. Visiting a village in South Africa where everyone, including the women were topless;
3. Dr. Malcolm Taylor and I seeing a golf course while on a tour of Morocco and asking the bus driver to pull over. We walked across a field to the course, rented some clubs and enjoyed a marvelous afternoon. We then took a taxi back to our good ship, The Crystal Harmony.
4. Touring a sheep farm in New Zealand and after watching men herding several hundred little lambs into a slaughter house, my wife asked: “What are you going to do with those cute little lambs?” to which the herder replied: “Lady, have you ever hear of lamb chops?”
5. The marvelous food and wine in Tuscany (Italy) as well as enjoying a city without cars or streets (Vienna)
6. Playing elephant polo in India;
7. Meeting the head of Antiquities in Egypt who took us on a personal up close and personal tour of the mystic Sphinx. The four Alpha men in the group gathered and sang the Alpha Hymn in the presence of the Sphinx;
8. Standing on the rim of a live boiling volcano in Reunion;
9. The morning and evening exercise /dance sessions at the public parks in China
10. When we learned that the Canary Islands were so named because the explorers found dogs (canis) and that there were no canaries, we went to the Virgin Islands and didn’t find any canaries there either.

While we will be away for two weeks, I will obviously write about our travels, please pray for our safety and plan to join us next year. After all my travels, I continue to believe: “Nuh weh no better than yard!"