Halfway There

The MV Explorer has been quite a busy place lately, and things are only going to pick up from here. We departed Thailand last night and we will arrive in Ho Chi Minh City, formerly known as Saigon, early Sunday morning. It’s a virtual whirlwind through Asia that will also include Hong Kong, Shanghai, Kobe, and Yokohama.

Voyagers are taking full advantage of every stop though. Thailand provided all of us with a plethora of opportunities for exploration and travel. The most popular destinations included Bangkok, Phuket, Chang Mai, and Pattaya. From visiting orphanages, to riding elephants, to petting tigers, to learning about Thai history and Buddhism, and visiting incredible temples and palaces, Semester at Sea students really did it all.

We recently passed the halfway mark of our journey together, and for many students, the voyage is really starting to take form. We have reached a point where real comparisons of a number of countries and cultures can be made and the intrinsic unique value of the Semester at Sea mission becomes more and more evident. Charlie House, a student in international affairs at Marshall University, said that, “before I left, my friends told me that things would change...in Bangkok they did.”

The human contact that Voyagers are having, the poverty they are witnessing in certain places, and the cultures they are experiencing, in addition to an academic program that is truly global, is having a marked impact on Voyagers’ respective views of the world. Greg, a student at the University of Maryland, works in an ER back home, and in Bangkok, he joined UVa med students that are on board for a few ports on a visit to a major hospital. He described his experience to the community. “I was looking around, seeing patients and doctors interacting in the atmosphere…it was so different there – the language and the faces – but it was the same also…the same human experiences I see at home. Things are different, cultures clash, but I see so much of the same, everyone wants the same things in life no matter where they are. Things are remarkably similar in their different ways.”

The education students are receiving also hits closer to home though, and many Voyagers are finding out that they are learning more about themselves through this journey. SAS trips are taking many outside of their comfort zones and into unfamiliar territory. As Emily Cohen, a Babson University student, said, “It’s good to push yourself to places you don’t know.