LT60: Silversea, Trang (TH)

AN

ISSUE 60 - WINTER 2019

NI

VE

10

th

RS AR Y

IS SU

E

L E I S U R E | C O R P O R AT E | L I F E S T Y L E |

CRUISING ISSUE 60 WINTER 2019

NZ$15 / AU$15

THE MAGAZINE FOR CORPORATE AND LEISURE TRAVELLERS

QUEENSLAND

The Perfect Winter Getaway

Discover The Best Of MATAKANA MOROCCO ANAHEIM A Great Getaway Exotic Tangier

9

771176

461001

Front.indd 1

8/05/19 12:27 PM

Meet the Vikings Words & Images By Roderick Eime Roderick Eime discovers a Viking trail through Eastern Canada aboard Silversea’s revamped Silver Cloud.

I

’m not tall, but I still had to duck my head to squeeze into the sod cabin here at L'Anse aux Meadows, at the very tip of Canada’s eastern island of Newfoundland.

Inside it was dark and eery and a chap with a scary looking axe sat warming himself beside a open fire. It could have been 1000 AD and he could have been the famous Nordic seafarer, Leif Erikson, but his teeth were too good and the place didn’t stink of rotting seal meat.

We've all heard tales of the rampaging Vikings or seen the graphic TV series of the same name, but who knew these ambitious Scandinavians were the first Europeans to settle in North America?

True story. The great sagas have long told of heroic feats of exploration and conquest, but these sometimes fanciful tales have lacked hard evidence. But in 1960, two Norwegians

conducted a thorough survey of the area, finding archaeological evidence and locating the settlement now known as L'Anse aux Meadows. The site was later inscribed by UNESCO on the World Heritage list.

Despite many years of excavation, there's not a lot to see of the original settlement. The digs have been re-interred by Canada's Parks Authority and replica structures built adjacent the site. Here we meet our enthusiastic reenactors 'living' in the earth-covered timber-framed buildings carrying on life much as how these first settlers would have done 1,000 years ago.

So, what happened to the Vikings and why isn’t Canada ‘New Norway’ or something today? Well, they packed up and left and no one knows exactly why.

122 122www.letstravelmag.com www.letstravelmag.comAirlines, Cruising, AirSilversea Tahiti Nui

Cruising, Silversea www.letstravelmag.com Business, Hotels www.letstravelmag.com

CRUISING.indd 122-123

123 123

8/05/19 11:27 AM

Polar Class Conversion: I’m travelling here aboard the recently converted Silversea vessel Silver Cloud and we’re close to 100% capacity.

Just 250 guests ensure that when we do go ashore, we don’t overwhelm our destination. We're split into small manageable groups, so there are no queues for the museums or bathrooms and everyone gets small group attention when guided through the sites.

You'll recall Silver Cloud was converted to a Polar Class vessel after an intensive three month, $40million rebuild in 2017, so I'm curious just how this process was conducted.

Regardless, the result is nothing short of staggering. The 156m vessel was originally built in 1994 as Silverseas' first ever cruise ship, so to have her 'reborn' in this fashion and ready for a whole new life of adventure is quite something.

Lonely Lighthouses: At this time of year, we’re not subject to any of the weather famous for these parts. It gets wild out here in the Maritime Provinces and the stories of shipwrecks and strandings abound.

Hence, there are lighthouses - old and new - nearly everywhere you look.

The waterways around Newfoundland, Labrador, Nova Scotia and eastern Quebec are dotted with them, some more than 200 years old. There are about 150 of them in Nova Scotia alone. Yet even with all these lighthouses, ships still came to grief in their hundreds.

With an escort of a tiny Minke Whale, our little local ferry arrives at the pier of Petite ile au Marteau where Guy, our Parks Canada guide, awaits.

“Hello, bonjour,” he says in the quaint bilingual greeting that is part of life all over Canada, but particularly so in this region where Arcadian French communities still speak their own form of the language.

“Keep your eyes open and you may witness sea parrots or sea swallows,” he advises, using the local terms for puffins and terns. The French spoken all through these parts has its own dialects too, peculiar to local regions and even villages. So strange is it, that even the native Quebecois have to beg a pardon. Parisians would die with a leg in the air.

After a stroll of a few hundred metres, we arrive at the lighthouse with its keeper's cottage and outbuildings.

Guy points out the interesting plants like Labrador Tea, a curious, star-leafed plant of the rhododendron family favoured as a herbal tea by the early settlers and Inuit. But beware, you must steep the tea in hot water only to get the mild, calming benefits. Boil the water and you get both hallucinogens and a laxative. We joke that if you made that mistake, you would see purple monsters and crap yourself!

As we continue around the Gulf of St. Lawrence aboard Silver Cloud, many more lighthouses are counted including several on the Iles de la Madeleine and the Quebec coast to the west.

Journey to the Centre of the Earth:

Of course, these days with solar and wind power coupled with modern electronics, the life of a lonely lighthouse keeper is a thing of the past. Most of the old structures are preserved for heritage value with new, stark metal automated pylons standing nearby.

It's not every day you get to see the centre of the Earth, but that's what's going on at UNESCO listed Gros Morne National Park near the delightful hamlet of Woody Point, Newfoundland. Huh? Well, stick with me on this.

We visit Havre Saint Pierre with its Mingan Archipelago National Park, home to hundreds of weird, mushroom and phallus-like limestone monoliths formed some 500 million years ago when the ocean was much warmer.

Just outside the town is the Parks Canada Discovery Centre devoted to the neighbouring 1,800 sqkm Gros Morne National Park which, by the way, was inscribed on UNESCO's World Heritage list in 1987.

124 124 www.letstravelmag.com www.letstravelmag.com Airlines, Cruising, Air Tahiti Silversea Nui

Cruising, Silversea www.letstravelmag.com

125

Business, Hotels www.letstravelmag.com

CRUISING.indd 124-125

125

8/05/19 11:27 AM

Apparently, according to UNESCO, this came about because of a large, relocated portion of oceanic crust and ocean floor sediments. Here in the park, we go on a leisurely hike with our guide who fills us with knowledge of this most unusual landscape.

In the days when the theory of plate tectonics was still hotly debated, Newfoundland-born geologist, Harold Williams among others, advanced the theory of colliding super-continents much to the dismay of the established theorists, but the landscape of the Tablelands within Gros Morne held all the evidence he needed.

Here we see a distinct change in the landscape with barren, toxic Martian-like rocks on one side and lush green hills on the other. The minerals disgorged in the violent 'obduction' of the continental plates contain both the ancient ocean floor and minerals rocks like peridotite and chromite which can only come from the Earth's semi-liquid mantle. Got it?

Enough geology then.

Silversea Ad

This whole easternmost region of Canada is little explored by Australian cruisers, yet it holds a great many things to explore and discover, and aboard Silversea’s excellent ‘new’ Silver Cloud, and with the delightful Canadians as our hosts, it is pure pleasure to visit. www.silversea.com

126 126www.letstravelmag.com www.letstravelmag.comAirlines, Cruising, AirSilversea Tahiti Nui Business, Hotels www.letstravelmag.com

CRUISING.indd 126-127

127

8/05/19 11:27 AM

Destination Asia, Thailand

Consuming Trang Words & Images by Roderick Eime

T

he famous sweet cake from Trang is a Thai nationwide sensation. Roderick Eime samples this delightful treat.

When Kuhn Yee Keng was just 19, he started baking cakes in the family kitchen in Trang. In 1956, the busy kitchen turned out just 20 cakes a day using tough manual processes. Now 60 years later, his tasty fruit cakes are sought after all over Thailand, not just in his home province of Trang.

Kuhn Yee now operates five stores across Trang, producing up to 800 cakes on a busy day, and helped by family members who must often ferry finished cakes from one store to another during busy periods.

“Because we do not preserve in rum like many traditional fruit cakes,” Kuhn Yee tells me via my guide Suree, “they are best eaten within three days, but can stay fresh for up to a week.”

This alcohol-free process also makes the cake attractive amongst the sizeable Muslim population who live predominantly in the south of the country. While the recipe was once a closely guarded secret, Kuhn Yee is now happy to share his famous recipe on one of his many TV segments on Thai television.

Main ingredients include eggs, sugar, butter and blended fruits such as mango, tomato, plum, raisins, banana and nuts like cashews. These famous ‘tasty bake’ cakes can be enjoyed any time of the year, but are an ideal complement to tea or coffee.

Tuk-Tuk Tales: You can see them all over Southeast Asia, tootling along the narrow streets and weaving in and out of the traffic.

They have even starred in movies.

Any way you look at them, the darling autorickshaws are a signature icon of much of Asia.

Known lovingly throughout Thailand as the tuk-tuk, the little truck is a cheap form of personal transport and taxi-cab. Its name is derived from the sound made by the tiny two-stroke

154 154www.letstravelmag.com www.letstravelmag.comAirlines, Asia, Thailand Air Tahiti Nui

Asia, Thailand

www.letstravelmag.com

Business, Hotels www.letstravelmag.com

ASIA.indd 154-155

155 155

8/05/19 11:40 AM

motor, which in English would be more familiar as ‘putt-putt’.

Here in Trang, to south of the famous resort area of Phuket, the vast majority of tuk-tuks are owned by their drivers as opposed to Bangkok, where the uniform colour indicates they are company owned. Many have been in the same hands for decades.

For the ‘spotters’ among us, the design of the DKA Midget began in 1957 in the Daihatsu factory in Japan and the famous ‘frog head’ design has been kept alive here in Trang.

The idea was for a compact, economical vehicle for light duties in the many narrow streets of Japanese cities. After an appearance on a TV show, the idea took off and soon the mini-taxis were finding their way onto streets, alleys and workplaces all around the world.

They enjoyed some limited success in the USA as a light freight and delivery vehicle, and were even used around large factory sites like Boeing for transporting workers and parts.

The tuk-tuk taxi was marketed in the USA as the Daihatsu Trimobile AP (all purpose) ‘Safari Wagon’.

Trang is one of the few places left in the world where you will easily see the early MP5-derived models that trace their history and design back to the originals from the late 1950s.

The tuk-tuk is powered by an air-cooled 305cc 2-stroke, single cylinder engine with a power output of around 9kW. In many places of the world, upgrades to LPG are available. This was in response to some congested regions where the little 2-strokes can get a bit smoky, especially if not properly maintained.

Kuhn San has owned his tuk-tuk for more than 30 years, diligently painting and repainting it in the original factory colour. He is not so meticulous about the trimmings, with a Mazda steering wheel, Honda stickers and a Toyota bonnet badge.

couples in the Trang 20th Anniversary Underwater Wedding Ceremony were photographed with immaculate collector examples in prominent city locations.

you can expect to see tuk-tuks on the streets of Thai cities for a while to come.

To demonstrate their much-loved place in Thai urban folklore, bridal

While cheap and effective forms of urban transport remain in demand,

On the big wedding day, some people are happy to quickly run down to the

Underwater Wedding:

156 156www.letstravelmag.com www.letstravelmag.comAirlines, Asia, Thailand Air Tahiti Nui Business, Hotels www.letstravelmag.com

ASIA.indd 156-157

157

8/05/19 11:40 AM

registry office for a no-fuss event and maybe a few drinks afterwards. Others get married by Elvis in Las Vegas while some choose death-defying stunts like skydiving or perhaps a novel venue like a fast food outlet or a platform hoisted 50m into the air.

Here in Trang, couples come from all over the country and often from different countries to scuba dive to their ceremony beneath the waves.

On Valentine's Day every year, Trang throws a wedding party like nowhere else in Thailand, perhaps the world. Apart from the main event below the surface, there are street parades, parties, lavish dinners, fireworks, civic receptions and media events thronged with dozens of photographers rivalling a Hollywood A-List gathering.

For two full days the couples are run through this cavalcade of attention; waving, smiling and trying to keep up with the fast-paced action. With the benevolent image of the revered king smiling down on them from billboards and massive placards, it’s quite a royal tour with a most majestic blessing.

One couple, Bond and Rita from Phuket, seem to be taking it all in their stride. Rita is all smiles, beaming and radiant no matter what the occasion or how tired she may be. Bond is right there by her side, like any devoted groom with his beautiful new bride.

When it came time to take the plunge, so to speak, the two powered through what must have been a bit of a nervous moment. “We had an introductory dive at the resort and now here we are,” Bond confides to me, “and Rita is a complete novice too, just like me.”

the couples must descend guide ropes to a depth of 15m to meet the celebrant waiting for them. A squad of camera-equipped frogmen hover over the scene shooting all the action.

After the moment, our happy and relieved newlyweds surface near our boat waving their laminated certificates presented to them on

the bottom. There’s Rita and Bond, as ebullient and cheerful as ever.

No doubt there were moments of trepidation, but with their love to keep them safe, the pair are ready to embark on a life together sealed with the knowledge that everything from here is going to be easy! www.tourismthailand.org

The dive is no pushover either. We are in the open ocean near one of Trang’s massive limestone karsts where a couple of old railway carriages have been sunk to create an artificial reef. A platform has been lowered to create a submarine altar and everyone is dressed in the finest scuba outfits, including one couple wearing a full bridal outfit and matching suit.

Visibility is an unsettling 3-5m and

158 158www.letstravelmag.com www.letstravelmag.comAirlines, Asia, Thailand Air Tahiti Nui

ASIA.indd 158

8/05/19 11:40 AM