The Seychelles: A Unique Destination

© Dr. John Freedman, 2018

In my many interesting conversations with fellow travelers at sea, I’m often asked about my favorite destinations. I have a taste for the exotic and unusual, so a number of my favorites

fall into that category. High on the list is the unique granitic archipelago of the Seychelles.

A sovereign state since its independence from Britain in 1976, the Republic of the Seychelles is certain to intrigue those with a taste for the exotic – and the spectacularly beautiful. The exoticism starts with the archipelago’s remote location 1000 miles off the coast of Kenya in the warm turquoise waters of the Indian Ocean. The islands’ uniqueness begins with their geologic history. About 80 million years ago a giant fragment of the ancient supercontinent of Gondwana split into two pieces which were destined to become India and Madagascar. But there were tiny shards strewn between the two larger pieces in the breakup. These fragmentary bits were what we now call the Seychelles. The India piece drifted northward from its southerly oceanic position, eventually slamming into Asia (and creating the Himalayas in the process) while the Madagascar piece stayed close to the African mainland. But the lonely Seychelles – all 115 islands – were stranded between the two in the middle of the ocean. They now compose the only oceanic archipelago on the planet which consists of granitic continental fragments. This extraordinary geological provenance also makes the Seychelles the world’s oldest islands, by far. The great antiquity of the granite megaliths has allowed them to be sculpted over eons into a breathtaking variety of sizes, shapes and configurations, and the granite formations are as stunning in their curvaceous beauty and delicate texture as they are in their impressive size and heft. Much of the granitic substratum of the islands became carpeted with lush tropical forest over millions of years, while white sand came to fringe the islands’ innumerable coves. Nature was in an excellent, bountiful mood here.

Yet the Seychelles have another special card to play: the islands’ biogeographic isolation and gentle climate gave birth to a profusion of wonderful and unique life forms. With one of the highest endemicity rates on the planet, the Seychelles are a naturalist’s paradise. The Aldabra tortoises provide a sterling example of the evolutionary principle of “island gigantism”, and they are the only giant tortoises on the planet besides their famous cousins in the far away Galapagos. The diminutive Seychelles frog provides a stunning example of the obverse evolutionary phenomenon of “island dwarfism”: this tiny amphibian is about the size of your fingernail. The endemic black paradise flycatcher can be seen only on the island of La Digue (the best chance of seeing one is at the renowned Veuve Nature Reserve – and there are only 100 left). A particularly fascinating avian denizen is the Seychelles warbler – incredibly, the sex of its offspring is determined by the availability of food. During times of plenty, only females are born, to nurture the expected burgeoning population of young in the next generation. During times of more constrained food availability, only males are born, as they are the key foragers. The mechanism of this extraordinary adaptation – exactly how the sex-specific reproduction occurs biologically in the organism - is unknown but under intense study. Equally extraordinary and more whimsical is the coco de mer  - the world’s largest and unquestionably most erotically-shaped nut. Actually a giant seed of the world’s tallest palm tree which grows only in the Seychelles, the coco de mer's enormous seed/nut bears an uncanny resemblance to the female buttocks and pelvic area. You can see it growing on the 30 m/100 ft-tall palm trees on the island of Praslin, where the tree is known as the longevity tree because it has been known to live for up to 800 years. Or just enjoy the many coco de mer nuts which are decoratively displayed around the islands. The swashbuckling British Victorian General Charles George Gordon believed that the Seychelles were the Garden of Eden and the coco de mer was the forbidden fruit. Eve must have been in very good shape to hand it to Adam given that the seed weighs up to 45 kg/100 lbs.

But the Seychelles offer more than natural wonders. The history of the archipelago is rich and colorful. Although likely visited by Malay seafarers and others over the centuries, the archaeologic record indicates that the islands were never inhabited before the coming of the Europeans. The first recorded sighting is in the chronicles of Vasco da Gama’s third Indian Ocean crossing in 1503. He humbly named them the Islas Amirantes (Admiral’s Islands) after himself. The first documented European visit was by a ship of the British East India Company in 1609, whose chroniclers described the islands as “a paradise” where they replenished their stores with fresh water, fish, coconuts, birds, and the ample meat of turtles and giant tortoises. The British, being quite busy with conquests elsewhere, were slow to follow up. Without a colonial overlord, the islands became a pirate haven in the latter 1600s, a satellite of the much larger pirate stronghold on Madagascar. Most famous among the pirates was Olivier Le Vaisseur, better-known as “La Buse” (The Buzzard”). La Buse plundered a Portuguese ship carrying the treasures of the Catholic church, including the 7-foot high solid gold, jewel-encrusted Cross of Goa – with an estimated value of $250 million in today’s dollars. This and the rest of his treasure were supposedly buried somewhere on the north end of Mahé before he was captured and hanged in 1730. At least one cryptogram from the time has survived, allegedly hinting at the location of the treasure, which is still actively being sought by treasure hunters. The pirate period would end in 1742 when the French sent a colonial mission from their outpost in Mauritius to take possession of the highly-reputed islands. They aptly named the main island Ile d’Abondance (Island of Abundance) though its name was soon officially changed to Mahé (its name to this day) after the Governor of Mauritius who had sponsored the colonizing endeavor. The French named the whole island group after Louis XV’s Minister of Finance, Jean Moreau de Séchelles, and that name has stuck through thick and thin. The French colonists imported and planted nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon and black pepper – all enormously valuable spices at the time – and brought in African slaves to work the plantations. This dark history importantly gave root to what is today a vibrant and beautiful creole or “Seychellois” culture, rich in folk traditions and famed for its ginger-spiced cuisine which mixes African, French and Asian influences and capitalizes on the islands’ abundant fresh seafood. The mix of African and European cultures also gave rise to the colorful Seychellois patois which enriches the island’s culture to this day.

The British and French would tussle over these (and innumerable other) island chess pieces in the period of colonial conquest and European imperial power politics during the 18^th and 19^th centuries. French hegemony over the Seychelles would officially come to an end in 1814 when the British formally took possession of the islands as part of the spoils of the Napoleonic Wars, the islands would remain British until independence in 1976.

Cruisers usually visit one of several ports in what is known as the Inner Islands. That’s good, because the Inner Islands are the most dramatic and granitic, whereas the outer islands (most of which are uninhabited) are more coralline. Yet there is plenty of coral and wonderful snorkeling around the granitic islands, so it’s the best of both worlds. The most commonly visited port is the capital city of Victoria on the “big” island of Mahé. The capital itself offers interesting architecture and history, but the island’s greatest draw is the natural beauty of its granite-pillared beaches. Another draw on Mahé is the Morne Seychellois National Park, which covers 20% of the island and offers great hiking, though primarily in the thick forest of the interior rather than on the granite-studded coast. A second port often visited is the fabulously beautiful island of La Digue with some of the Seychelles’ most iconic beaches, including Anse Source De L’Argent and Grand Anse (the French word anse means handle, as on a teacup, which reflects the shape of these gently curved beaches). La Digue is the 4^th largest inhabited island in the Seychelles (after Mahé, Praslin, and Silhouette) but you can still walk most of it in a couple of hours. Bicycles and oxcarts are a great way to get around this tranquil island. La Digue is considered a birder’s paradise, but don’t miss the Aldabra tortoise preserve. A third port often visited is Praslin, which is known for one of the Seychelles’ most scenic beaches, Anse Lazio, as well as the Vallée de Mai preserve where the coco de mer grows in stately abundance. Praslin is where General Gordon came up with his theory that the Seychelles were the biblical Garden of Eden.

Depending on your itinerary, you’ll have lots of great options in the Seychelles. The main Inner Islands are quite close together - ferries between Mahé and Praslin take about an hour, between Praslin and La Digue only about 15 minutes.

That begins to scratch the surface of what’s in store for those lucky enough to visit the amazing Seychelles. It is surely a uniquely beautiful and interesting destination to set your sights on. Open your mind and get your camera ready!

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My wife and I were on the Oceania Insignia from Singapore to Abu Dhabi 

and were lucky enough to attend all of your outstanding lectures - 

the best that we have ever attended in over ten cruises.

Thank you and kind regards,

Chris and Joanna Thomas

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Spectacular Angkor!

© Dr. John Freedman 2018

Of all my experiences in Asia, there is perhaps none more stunning and climactic than watching the sun rise over the incomparable Angkor Wat. It is difficult to capture the essence of this singular experience with the written word, but let’s try.

This architectural wonder of Angkor Wat served as the Khmer Empire’s great state temple (Angkor=Capital, Wat=Temple) in the early 12^th century. It also was designed to serve as a magnificent mausoleum for its builder, the Sun God-King Suryavarman II. It has been described by observers throughout nine centuries with virtually every superlative available to writers in all languages. Intrepid French explorer Henri Mouhot, the temple’s 19th-century “discoverer” (of course, it had never truly been lost) wrote in his journal in 1862: “This grand temple, a rival to that of Solomon and erected by an ancient Michelangelo, is grander than anything left to us by Greece or Rome.” Its unparalleled enormity is not disputed – it is the largest religious structure ever built. Its artistic beauty, depth and unity, along with its engineering genius, complete the picture of a structure that represents the apogee of classical Khmer architecture and one of the greatest human achievements of all time.

To watch the sunrise over the great temple, one has to set out not long after 5:00AM and carefully walk down the long stone causeway over the temple complex’s 700-foot moat. The builders of Angkor were masters of hydrology and the entire city was one of moats, canals, and great reservoirs known as baray. Angkor Wat’s huge moat was designed not only for protection and irrigation purposes, but also to create an earthly representation of the celestial ocean which surrounded the mythological home of the ancient Hindu gods, Mt. Meru. Angor Wat’s five grand towers or prasats are each shaped like a lotus bud and taken together they represent the five peaks of Mt. Meru. They are arranged in a quincunx (put that down on a Scrabble board and you win the game) which is an ancient Hindu pattern with four towers on the four corners of a rectangle and one majestic tower in the middle.  The saffron disk of the sun spreads a soft bath of light as it rises behind and then over this expansive and richly metaphorical “temple mount” scene.

Of all the superlatives used to describe Angkor Wat, three seem most apt and encompassing: spectacular (the wow factor is certainly the first reaction), timeless (thus one stands in the Cambodian jungle today to watch the sun rise over the tomb and funerary temple of a ruler who left this earth in the year 1150AD), and captivating (the fascinating history and culture of this great Hindu temple city, which later became Mahayana Buddhist and then Theravada Buddhist, is endlessly absorbing and intriguing).

Once the sun has risen, in the full light of the pleasantly cool morning, it is then a treat to follow the sunrise homage with a personal exploration of this amazing structure. Imagine three-quarters-of-a-mile of finely carved bas-reliefs depicting innumerable scenes from the Hindu epics as well as the pomp and ceremony of the Khmer Sun King’s court and gripping depictions of his epic battles. It is was said over a hundred years ago and still true today that Angkor Wat is the most richly and intricately carved building in the world. As you ascend the temple mount, you will cross three progressive enclosures, rising higher and higher until you reach the upper level of the temple mount from where you can gaze down at the vast jungle in which this improbable jewel is ensconced. Imagine the expansive jungle as it was in Angkor’s glory days:  peopled with over 1 million inhabitants in long-gone wooden and thatch houses. Today, only stone survives.

If you have very high expectations for your trip to Angkor Wat, prepare to have them exceeded by this indescribably beautiful and impressive monument to the great Khmer civilization that ruled the Indochinese Peninsula for more than 600 years. But there’s more! : The great imperial city of Angkor had hundreds of magnificent temples besides Angkor Wat, and many still stand today as testaments to this grand civilization. One should not miss the famed and exotic-looking Ta Prohm, with its symbiotic armature of giant fig trees, or the enigmatic Bayon with its 256 giant Buddha-like faces (actually the God of Mercy, Lokeshvara, before the later Buddhists gave him a sex change to the Goddess of Mercy– or perhaps the face of God-King Jayavarman VII who built the temple and fancied himself as the earthly incarnation of Lokeshvara). A perfect complement to a morning taking in Angkor Wat’s grandeur is an afternoon visit to Banteay Srei, a small and exquisitely wrought temple constructed of a rare rose-hued sandstone. Banteay Srei is renowned for the refinement of its intricate carvings on every pediment (the triangular area above an entrance doorway) and lintel (a cross-beam over an entrance doorway or wall) as well as its innumerable walls, doors, and arches. Dramatic episodes from the mythopoeic Hindu epics are finely carved, as if by a jeweler’s hand, at every turn. The carving was so exquisite that when the temple was first “discovered” in the late 19th century it was felt to date from the early 14th century, about 200 years after the building of Angkor Wat. But decades later the consecration stele was unearthed and the temple was able to be precisely dated to 967 AD — a full 150 years before the building of Angkor Wat had even begun. One can only marvel at this artistic tour de force and it is made all the richer by the soft glow of the late afternoon sun on the rose-hued stone.

For those who want to get (just slightly) off the beaten trail, the stunning temples of the Ruolos group just southeast of central Angkor predate Angkor Wat by over 200 years and can be seen in a solid half-day of exploration. The sacred mountain and waters of Phnom Kulen and the striking temples of Koh Ker to the northeast can easily be combined with a visit to Banteay Srei on a day trip. These forays will more than amply reward you for your initiative. The entire area in and around what is now the tourist mecca of Siem Reap (meaning “Defeat of the Thais” – though ultimately the imperious Siamese did successfully overrun and sack Angkor in 1431) is a vast array of magnificent architectural and cultural treasures.

The glories of ancient Angkor will never cease to amaze. Spectacular, timeless, captivating!

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We thoroughly enjoyed your interesting and thought-provoking discussions!

Thanks,

Clint B

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The Grandeur of the Great Wall of China

© Dr. John Freedman 2018

For me, there is simply no other experience on the planet like walking on the Great Wall of China. It is astounding on so many levels.

Its history and its great antiquity grip the imagination: from its origins in the 7th century BC, to its famous consolidation by China’s very first Emperor in 221 BC, to its remarkable enhancement into its current state of architectural grandeur by the great Ming emperors of the 14th and 15th centuries. The sheer scope boggles the mind. Can it really extend over 5,500 miles east to west across the vast expanse of northern China? Indeed it does. It stands without peer as both the largest and longest building project in human history. As a technological feat, it inspires awe. Looking around from any vantage point, it is an engineering marvel that seems to border on the impossible, carving a massive serpentine path along the crests of steep and craggy mountains. The natural beauty of its setting is breathtaking. The wall offers undulating mountain vistas, and its thousands of towers are never-ending, changing magnificently with the seasons.

From a functional standpoint, the wall is intriguing — and full of irony. Its principal function was always to serve as a defensive military barrier to protect the realm against invasion from the north by barbarian assailants. Secondarily, it served as an east-west transportation corridor for merchants and messengers, through otherwise impenetrable terrain. It also served important social functions, controlling migration and dividing civilized society from the hinterlands. Yet despite its grand extent and great utility, the wall ultimately failed in its principal military function: China – not once, but twice - succumbed to foreign invasion by northern intruders.  The Mongol hordes of Kublai Khan penetrated the wall in the late 13^th century and ruled China for almost 100 years.  Less than 300 years later, the fierce Manchurian armies breached the wall in 1644 and stayed as ruling overlords into the 20th century. China’s final dynasty and last emperor trace their provenance to the Manchu invaders.

Today, the changcheng (“long wall”, as the Chinese very aptly refer to it) is China’s premier tourist attraction and undeniably qualifies as one of the world’s greatest wonders. Indeed, there is great accuracy as well as important irony to the common witticism that the wall - which was historically built to keep foreigners out - now brings them in by the millions.

Whatever part of the wall you visit, you will be impressed. There are several easily accessible spans around Beijing. The Badaling and Mutianyu sections of the wall are nearest to the city, northwest and northeast respectively, each 1-2 hours from city center by road. The Huangyaguan Pass section is nearest to the cruise port of Tianjin. All are striking and awe-inspiring as they carve their sure and mighty path over miles of rugged mountain terrain, enduring as a powerful symbol of a massive and mighty country with a fascinating but turbulent history. 

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Our cruise proved to be full of learning opportunities with four good lecturers. 

Our favorite lecturer was Dr. John Freedman, a retired medical doctor who had worked in Brazil,Tanzania, Zambia, Rwanda, Cuba and Haiti.

His lectures gave meaning and insight to our ports of call.

 - Carol H

     Oceania Insignia World Cruise 2016

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The Indian Ocean is a spectacularly beautiful destination. Those who love sun, sand and sea will find more than their fill of joy in this part of the world. But beyond its magnificent beauty, the Indian Ocean is also a region of unique geopolitical and economic significance – perhaps moreso than any other ocean on our planet, and perhaps now more than ever.

 Of course there is really only one ocean on planet Earth, the saline hydrosphere that covers three- fourths of the earth’s surface and contains 97% of our planet’s water. That’s a lot of water – billions of billions of gallons – and it is roughly, if artificially, divided up by geographers into 3 major ocean systems: the Pacific, the Atlantic, and the Indian Ocean. (Some geographers count the circumferential ocean around Antarctica as a separate “Southern Ocean” and the northernmost arms of the Atlantic and Pacific as a separate “Arctic Ocean”, but we’ll just consider the Big Three for now.) The Indian Ocean is the smallest of the 3 major oceans – but still of impressive extent: it covers over 27 million square miles and is over 5 miles deep at its deepest point in the Java Trench. It is the warmest of the planet’s oceans, and it is getting even warmer as the heat energy from global warming is transferred into it from the Pacific via a massive oceanic heat transfer mechanism known as the Indonesian Throughflow. The warm waters of the Indian Ocean combined with its relatively low salinity and its exquisite clarity and soft aquamarine tones make it my favorite ocean for swimming, be it in the Maldives, Sri Lanka, Madagascar, the Seychelles, or Zanzibar.

The Indian Ocean has long been the least studied of the world’s great ocean systems, yet that seems to be changing as more and more attention is focused on its economics and the overlay of geopolitics. Indeed, the Indian Ocean connects the Atlantic and Euro-African and Middle Eastern worlds to south Asia and ultimately through the Strait of Malacca to the greater Asian and Pacific worlds. Ancient Egyptian mariners traveled from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean via man-made canals which connected the Nile Delta to the Red Sea (pre-dating the Suez Canal by at least 3000 years). At the dawn of the first mil lennium, Greek sailors of the Alexandrian world were the first to grasp and master the unique and powerful monsoon system of the Indian Ocean. Understanding how to harness the energy of the monsoon was revolutionary, in that it made truly long-distance sea travel practical for the first time in human history. We think of the monsoon as a terrestrial rain phenomenon, but at sea it is actually a seasonally reversing wind regime of prodigious power over a vast ocean expanse. Every summer the warm air over the Asian landmass creates a low-pressure zone, and cooler air over the Indian Ocean comes rushing toward the Asian continent. That pattern reverses itself in the winter. For centuries, seaborne traders harnessed the powerful reversing winds of the monsoon to go back and forth to India, the “Spice Islands” of Indonesia, and to and from the exotic realms of Southeast Asia, China, and Japan. Persian and Arab traders dominated these routes for centuries, and many grew spectacularly rich from the enormous profits on ivory and gold from Africa and spices, silk and porcelains from the Orient. Their extensive trade activity went hand in hand with the Islamicization of much of south and Southeast Asia, a legacy which exists to this day. The monsoons also propelled immense Chinese treasure ships to and from Southeast Asia, the Indian subcontinent, and the Horn of Africa. Indian and Sri Lankan traders rode the winds to Southeast Asia, where both Hinduism and Buddhism followed in their wake, with Buddhism’s profound influence throughout Asia enduring to this day.

Famed medieval traveler-explorers such as the Venetian trader Marco Polo and the Moroccan pilgrim Ibn Battuta sailed across the Indian Ocean en route to China and wrote of its charms and mysteries – and its mercantile importance. They and other navigators since the 2nd century AD depended on maps created by the great Alexandrian mathematician and astronomer, Claudius Ptolemy. Ptolemaic maps depicted the Indian Ocean clearly enough, but incorrectly showed it to be a giant landlocked sea. Ptolemy and his centuries of disciples in the ancient cartographic world believed the southern end of Africa was connected to a large landmass known as Terra Australis Nondum Cognita (Southern Land Not Yet Known). This purely mythical land, amazingly, did turn out to exist – we know it today as Antarctica. But we know today that Antarctica is actually a separate stand-alone continent.

It was not until 1488 that the intrepid Portuguese sailor Bartolomeu Dias was able to definitively prove all the mapmakers wrong by rounding the southern tip of Africa by sea – a feat which changed the world forever by showing there was indeed an oceanic route between the Atlantic world of Europe and the Indian Ocean, which would then serve as the great crossroads and gateway to all of Asia. Vasco da Gama took the next giant step when he made it from Lisbon all the way to India in 1498. This opened the way not just for a new Age of Imperialism by the Portuguese and a host of other European powers who followed quickly and rapaciously, but also for world-changing globalization of trade and cultural diffusion between East and West – processes which continually accelerated over subsequent centuries and which are today more robust and of more importance than ever.

Steamships freed traders from the tyranny of the monsoon regime in the 19th century, and trade increased exponentially, a pattern which shows no sign of slowing down today or long into the future. Today the Indian Ocean is a vital shipping lane for the world’s goods and is also an energy superhighway. China, for example, gets 80% of its petroleum products from the Gulf States, via the Indian Ocean. The key geographical “choke points” of the Indian Ocean trade route have for centuries been coveted geopolitical loci, and remain so to this day. Two of the most important – the Strait of Hormuz which is the “neck of the wine bottle” of the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Malacca which is the “funnel to East Asia” – have been sites of great strategic value, continued political intrigue, and intermittent warfare for over 500 years.

The Indian Ocean has long been a major theatre for?global geopolitics, and this is especially true today as?China definitively assumes the mantle of a world superpower. China and India are two Asian giants who vie for economic dominance and political hegemony in the Indian Ocean sphere. China’s “soft power” approach through robust economic and diplomatic initiatives has been carried out on a massive scale in Africa over the past decade – so much so that some pundits have gone so far as to call Africa “China’s second continent.” The Indian Ocean is China’s sea bridge to Africa and the Middle East. Along the route there are numerous countries whose political and economic kinship China is very actively courting, such as Myanmar, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Madagascar, Bangladesh, and Pakistan (Karachi itself, the second most populous city in the world by some calculations, is a major Indian Ocean port city). China has developed what the U.S Defense Department has referred to as a “String of Pearls” of ports and potential naval bases spanning the Indian Ocean from Asia to Africa. A new Chinese naval base for “peace-keeping and anti-piracy activities” opened in Djibouti in July 2017. The U.S. also has a base in Djibouti as well as a major naval base on the remote Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia. The Maldives, a stunningly beautiful archipelagic nation in the northern Indian Ocean, is today in the throes of a dynamic internal confrontation between democratic and authoritarian forces – China, India, the U.S. and other western powers have all begun jockeying for an advantageous position as the political drama plays out.

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You are an excellent presenter - 

your material is not only informative but entertaining. 

Alex L

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