T A B L E_T A L K Visiting any national parks or wilderness areas this winter? Exchange recommendations and advice in the Wanderlust area of Table Talk   R E C E N T L Y Desperately seeking e-mail By Lisa Dreier Finding Internet access in India is feasible, but not for the fainthearted (12/06/98) This week in travel Wanderlust's select guide to the top travel-related news stories from around the globe (12/04/98) In the driver's seat By Dawn MacKeen The smart alternative to renting, driveaways let you take someone else's car cross-country -- for free (12/03/98) At home in Tuscany By Ferenc Máté The slow-paced pleasures of rural Italy come to life for two new residents (12/02/98) The belles of St. Mary's By Jennifer Moses A Jewish writer learns about the Old South, and herself, in the most unlikely of places (12/01/98)   Browse the Wanderlust Feature archives     Wanderlust's Official Travel Book Partner		THE CRUISE COCOON | PAGE 1, 2, 3 - - - - - - - - - - To begin with, there's this newly burgeoning world of tourism, the cruise industry. In the past decade, the cruise industry has left the Love Boat in its wake, and today, thousands of Americans who otherwise might be driving that Winnebago through Yosemite are instead traveling the world by ship. New liners are being built and launched each year, and they sail to the four corners of the earth. The cruise industry is expected to grow by an astonishing 35 percent a year for the coming years. At first glance, why not? Cruise ships take much of the hassle out of travel. You don't have to worry about hotels and restaurants, about renting a car or making reservations, about navigating through unfamiliar countries or about trying to make yourself understood where you don't know the language. And cruise ships are family friendly, with built-in, floating child care, an attentive staff and a guaranteed social life. And it's all very safe. The excursions from ship to shore are planned out for you. The buses meet you at the dock, whisk you to the site replete with English-speaking tour guide, then whisk you to a pre-arranged meal at a tourist-friendly restaurant, and then back to the ship and onto the next port of call. And if you have a bit more to spend than the average family, you can go upscale, to a luxury cruise, or to a private, 175-foot yacht, with fewer than 30 passengers, a dozen crew and one guest lecturer. Of the passengers on my cruise, only four, or two couples, were under 60 years old. The rest were between 65 and 92. They were educated and affluent. They were respectful of other cultures, curious, on occasion playful. They were happy to be traveling, seemingly content in their lives and thrilled to be seeing places they had dreamed of seeing for decades. A fair number were on their second marriages, and this trip was their honeymoon. That included the oldest person, a 92-year-old retired university administrator who had served as dean of a prominent state research university in the 1960s. Several were doctors or lawyers; one was a retired clergyman of a very large and prominent urban congregation. Yet another was a former research scientist and engineer for an aerospace/defense firm. All in all, it would be hard to come up with a more successful or well-educated group. But that didn't make spending a week and a half with them fun. The trip that seemed too perfect on paper turned out to be far more difficult than I had anticipated, and made me question not only myself but the whole industry now devoted to bringing the world to you on a ship. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Four lectures, 45 minutes to an hour long. That was all that was officially asked of me. Four lectures. On archaeology and the life of Heinrich Schliemann, the man who unearthed ancient Troy at the end of the 19th century; on the Crusades and the Knights of St. John of the Hospital, who ruled the island of Rhodes until evicted by the Ottoman Turks in the early 16th century; on early Christianity, the isle of Patmos and the writing of the book of Revelations; and on Istanbul, which was our final destination. The lectures were scheduled according to when the yacht was due to dock at the various ports; three were after breakfast, and one took place just before lunch. In addition, I was asked to lead an informal discussion on Islamic fundamentalism and modern Turkey, which I did after dinner and several cocktails. All of the passengers and most of the crew attended the lectures. The passengers were attentive, except for one 82-year-old man who kept falling asleep because his hearing aid was broken, and the crew were attentive, except for the two waitresses from the Seychelles, who didn't understand much English. The atmosphere was relaxed, and I encouraged people to ask questions as they arose and to challenge me if they didn't understand or didn't agree. I was often asked to clarify or elaborate, but rarely did anyone raise a contrary voice. In the eyes of the passengers, I was the designated expert. I was part of the package deal, sort of a second coming of the Encyclopedia Britannica. "Oh, you're so smart," became a common refrain. I was constantly sought out for my opinions, my ideas and my data, often on subjects of only tangential relation to the areas we were visiting. "So, Zachary," said the former defense worker, "what do you think of this prick Clinton? An informed guy like you, I'd like to hear what you have to say." And of course, I did have an opinion about Clinton, and I did offer it, but after a few days, I began to wonder: Why are these people listening to me? Why was what I had to say about Clinton or art or food of any greater worth than what any of the passengers had to say, or the cruise director, or the waitresses? Why did I get the distinct feeling that I could have said just about anything and they would have nodded gravely and said, "Yes, you're right," or at the very least pondered my responses seriously. At times, I felt like the professor in a "Doonesbury" cartoon years ago. He notices during his lectures that the students are frantically taking notes, and it occurs to him that no one is actually paying attention to the substance of his lectures. So he starts making stuff up. "God is dead. Right is wrong. Black is white." One student turns to another while scribbling and says, "Wow, this is really cool. I never knew that." The professor collapses on the lectern, despondent. Over the course of the trip, I became acutely aware of the cult of the expert, and of the peculiar fetish for knowledge and education that we have. I was on the ship to fulfill a certain task, of no lesser or greater importance than steering the ship, cooking the food, cleaning the rooms and organizing the schedule and logistics. And much like the captain of the ship, the cooks, the waitresses and the stewards, I was treated the way I was because of my function, and my function was Knowledge Guy. We see the same dynamic every day on television, where someone is presented as "an expert" whose opinion is supposed to count. The problem with expertise isn't just that the people identified as experts sometimes aren't. For me, the problem with being a guest lecturer was that I'm not sure that anyone actually heard anything I said. Perhaps I'm being unfair. After all, I actually liked most of the people. The Boston Irish former defense contractor had a delightful conspiracy complex. I said over dinner one night that one place I'd like to visit is Angkor Wat in Cambodia. After the meal, he beckoned me over. "Psst," he said, "I was at Angkor Wat once." "Really?" I asked, "What was it like?" "Don't know," he replied. "Dark helicopters, late at night, early '60s, can't say more." The former president of the large state university talked about his new book on American morality, and many of the passengers generously bought drinks for me and shared their stories, of marriages, kids, deaths, divorces, careers and earlier travels. N E X T+P A G E | Viewing the world through a glass bubble