Setting sail for the Far Eastern oceans

Randi Kreiss

Can you imagine a weekly newspaper sending a foreign correspondent overseas? Well, you might imagine it, but it would never happen. My foreign travel budget pretty much stops at the bridges and tunnels. I haven’t worn a flak jacket in years.

But with countries imploding and revolutions exploding, I felt curious and ready for adventure. So I set out on my own journey, heading east, very Far East, to observe firsthand what’s happening on the ground in places like Cambodia and Thailand and Sri Lanka and India and the United Arab Emirates. OK, the truth: It was a trip my husband and I planned for some time, and because of the far-flung itinerary, we couldn’t find anyone to join us. Actually, our usual travel buddies thought we were crazy. They wouldn’t consider the inoculations, no less the itinerary. When was the last time you had to take a polio booster?

But we went, and I’m here to tell the tales, which I’ll do over the next weeks. We traveled mostly by ship, for nearly a month. Before we embarked, we spent several days near Angkor Wat in Cambodia and other ruins in the area of Siem Reap. This was not a voyage without some risk. But who would have thought touring staid and civilized Japan could be risky?

When we first hatched the idea of a Really Big Trip, the biggest danger in Cambodia was the mosquitoes — not an insignificant issue. So we took malaria drugs to keep ourselves healthy. Then, several months ago, fighting broke out on the Cambodia/Thailand border, which we would cross from Bangkok to enter Siem Reap.

So I subscribed to the Asia Times and followed the conflict. People were evacuated, guns were fired, temples were overtaken and both sides claimed to be right. I think it’s called war.

I figured that any minute, that part of the trip would be canceled, but it wasn’t. In fact, several weeks ago a cease-fire was declared, and there are now foreign observers on the ground to see that the terms of the agreement are not violated. Cambodia was a go.