On Board The Star Cruise Libra

"Go cruising!!"

This was suggested by my elder daughter last October. She felt that a cruise holiday should be the most suitable for my wife as she will have more freedom to decide upon the amount and type of activities she wants to partake in, bearing in mind that my wife has a nagging knee problem.
She offered to pay for our trip.

Having decided upon to go on the Super Star Cruise in November 2009, I tried to contact the local tour & travel agencies in Bukit Mertajam and Penang. Unfortunately, most of them did not cater for cruise holidays as it was not popular among the locals, other than the rich gamblers. Some of my friends felt that it was boring to go on a cruise as it was like confining oneself in the vicinity of a resort for days. But, I felt otherwise as we yearned to have a yearly family gathering whereby we could have a 'marathon' chat for days on board a cruise liner. We can chat over a restaurant table for six times a day if we choose to. Besides, we will be pampered and waited upon.

On the other hand, the Europeans are very fond of go on a cruise. Besides participating in the daily programmes organised by the crew, they would still have the leisure to read books and make notes by the poolside deck, and enjoy sunbathing at the same time. I had met a Scottish gentleman at Island Plaza in Penang weeks before I went on my cruise. He assured me cruising was by far his best means of traveling, and he would do it a few times a year to different destinations.

The Super Star Cruise Libra provides a relaxed, resort-style cruise. It is a ten-decked cruise built with cabins at different decks with different categories and at different rates, and six meals a day are served in three different restaurants to cater for the needs of the passengers from different countries and different ethnic groups. It provides varied and flexible daily activities for the participants. Its non-intrusive services of the highest standard are most welcomed by holiday seekers in general.

The cruise is fully air-conditioned and smoking is strictly prohibited except in the open space on the uppermost deck. Services are prompt and swift with just a tinkle of the phone. Instructions on all the do's and don'ts are clearly specified and stated on the walls and doors of the cruise.

We embarked on the cruise at Port Klang on November 22, 2009 at around 4 pm. We surrendered our passports at the counter and were issued with access cards which doubled as 'charged cards' for all transactions done on board the cruise.

One and a half hour after the cruise left the port to enter international waters, the captain, through the PA system, wished all the would be gamblers on board "good luck" as the two casinos were open for them to try their hands on the game of chance. I climbed up to the uppermost deck to have my maiden view of the Straits of Malacca.

Standing on the deck overlooking the Straits of Malacca as the cruise was charting its course in the high seas heading for the Phuket Island, I could not help but thinking of the greatness of my mother boarding a cargo vessel travelling along the Straits of Malacca and venturing across the South China Seas to go back to China to pay a last and final visit to my lonely, ailing old paternal grandmother over forty years ago.


At that time, my mother travelled on a cargo vessel back to China, sleeping on a fold-able canvas bed at night on the walkway among the cargoes, part of which she had to dispense to her friends and relatives in China. The voyage took her ten to fourteen days to reach Swatow [汕头]. My mother could not endure the lengthening waves and the deepening troughs that she fell sick most of the time during the long and lonely voyage. She recalled that she dreaded she might not survive the journey to see my grandmother and her beloved brother.

Sixty years ago, due to old age and ill health my grandmother was left alone in China to stay with a cousin brother when my mother and my eldest brother came to Malaya in the year 1948. It was pitiful that my grandmother could not be with us since then. My mother was always worried and concerned about my grandmother living alone in China. It seemed that she was blind later on and was not well-taken care of by the family of my cousin brother, especially at the time when my father could not afford to send money back to subsidise her living expenses.

In the year 1959 my mother kept on urging and nagging my father to go back to China to pay a final visit to my grandmother. I could understand the predicament of my father as his financial standing could not permit him to do so. My father's business went bankrupt in the year prior to that. My mother said if my father did not make an effort to do so, he would never live to see his mother again. My mother reiterated that even to the extent of going around 'begging' from friends and relatives it had to be done, as time was running out for them to make the journey back to their homeland to see my grandmother.

Hence my father had no other alternatives, but to visit friends and relatives from Perlis to Kuala Lumpur promoting 'courier service', looking for people who were willing to remit kerosene tins of pork oil or baggage of used clothes, or monies to be sent back to relatives in China. By doing so, my father would get commissions or 'angpau' which would be utilised as 'water leg'[shui-jiao,水脚]，the fare for the round trip by cargo vessel from Penang to Swatow.

Three years later my mother followed my father's footsteps to go back to China. The voyage was a major challenge to my mother as she was illiterate and advanced in age. Handling of cargoes and document papers had to be done by my father when she embarked at Penang port, and by my maternal uncle when she reached China at Swatow. She could not converse with others, including the immigration and custom officers, in other dialects other than in her own mother tongue of Hakka. Imagine the trauma my mother had to go through for days in the open seas with no one to talk to and 'no book to read' as the Europeans did. Nevertheless , her seemingly impossible mission was accomplished. She finally met my paternal grandmother who died years later.

The lesson I learnt from my mother: it is 'never too late', 'never too often or too far' to visit one's parents when they are still alive! However, it would be 'crying over spilt milk' when they are no more around.