It was back to a bit of globe trotting in the
middle of October. First to the Maritime Dialogue in Galle, Sri Lanka. When I was invited to this I knew
it would be a bit poignant, as it was here that we first began to suspect that
what Cherry had might be a lot more serious than a passing bug. She had no
appetite for the special celebratory birthday dinner under the stars by the sea
and on the flight back to Singapore she felt faint and was nearly sick, a
worrying first for her. Moreover one of my hosts was the SL Naval officer who
waded into the river to recover the phone an over-excited Chery had dropped
into the water from a bridge when filming the washing of elephants. He even
salvaged some of the pictures for her. Now of course he was very sorry to find
out what happened to her not that long afterwards.
She would have liked the ‘Jetwing Hotel’ which despite its name was quite a grand affair right by the sea. I had a balcony looking out over it. The only slightly unsettling aspect of this was seeing the armed guard down on the beach.
They were clearly taking no chances as Sri Lanka has had a very serious terrorism problem in the past. Indeed the naval side of this is one of my special interests. My hosts arranged a few of what they call ‘bilats’ with some if the veterans of this which was very valuable for me.
For this and other reasons I was too busy to be
too sad for long. If apologetically, they worked me pretty hard. What I thought
was the last straw occurred the evening of the big conference dinner of some
350 diners, including the President of Sri Lanka. The guest speaker was Scott
Morrison, the last rather controversial
Prime Minister of Australia. I had heard whispers that he was stuck in
Singapore after a plane cancellation. The Chief of Navy sidled up to me in the
afternoon and asked me whether I might be prepared to stand in for him if he
didn’t make it. No pressure, but I could
hardly say no. An hour later when I realised I had my own car to the Conference
venue and was given a great garland of flowers on my arrival, I suspected that Morrison indeed hadn’t made
it. The evening went off Ok but it was nearly midnight when I was returned to the
hotel and I was chairing a session first thing the following morning. Then they
pulled me out of that conference and drove me for 2.5 hours back to Colombo to attend a small dinner party the President
was holding back in the capital. At his express wish apparently. I wondered why,
of course. Halfway there my minder’s
phone crackled into life. Would I mind saying a few words after dinner as
Morison still hadn’t made it. I couldn’t
do a repeat as the President and about half the gathering had heard the first
one so scratched out a few notes in a pocket book I happened to have on me,
bouncing around in the car.
Before this, and leaving Galle, which has a very fine old town inside the castle walls, my minder asked whether I would like a quick tour and obliged when of course I said yes. Here I am in typical tourist garb outside the maritime museum.
Although this was fun, the delay meant we only arrived at the dinner venue a few minutes before the President and I was whisked straight to the top table, and had no chance to write up my very few notes. Of course when the time came, I couldn’t read what I had scrawled in my very small notebook so it certainly wasn’t an ace performance. But there you go. One does what one must, being in such illustrious company. On my table of eight people there were three Presidents – of Sri Lanka, the Maldives, and a very impressive old lady who was the Director ( I felt sure she warranted a capital D) of one of the country’s biggest companies employing 25,000 people and the owner of the sumptuous conference venue. Two others were the Presidential wives, one of whom was an alumni of King’s College London like me and a Professor of English. Again frighteningly on the ball. I couldn’t place the two other big wheels. Another big, late dinner followed.
And 0400 the following morning off we went after
bumping our way through the Colombo docks on my way to the airport and Singapore. Hardly restful ! The flight was fine, but I needed a good night
by the time I arrived. The morning after
off to Jakarta, which was significantly less stressful since just giving
lectures is more my comfort zone, and I had a bit of time for a swim in the
pool. I was one of a small party from my other academic institution, the RSIS
in Singapore. The last Chief of the
Indonesia Navy was one of my students and is a big fan. Two private dinners for
me followed – one unfortunately Japanese which isn’t my favourite, but all very
grand again. I was introduced to someone apparently slated to be his successor.
Lots of bonhomie and fish-heads. Like the Sri Lankans, Indonesians are great
gift givers. I had taken a spare soft bag, just in case. This turned out to be
a good thing. Here’s my collection of goodies laid out on the table at home as
I unpacked. Lots of tea and conference presentations, cookies, a brass capstan with a compass on the top, medals, books, the lot. Altogether it weighed more than my suitcase. I was rather touched
when my minder – a SLN Commander went off and bought me a picture at the Galle
Museum. They really were very generous. Rather humbling.
By contrast being back in Singapore for the last two days of the trip was much more restful. I had a couple of meetings and met up with some friends, and managed a couple of hours in the National Archives, reading copies of the Straits Times just before the war which I find fascinating. The last day I decided to be a total tourist. By this time all this rich eating had had dire effects on my diet so I decided to be energetic. I went for a walk around some old bits of the real Singapore, Kallang and Geylang where I know there is a really splendid little tea emporium which sells tea direct from China. We tracked it down years ago; it’s hidden away in a small industrial estate, but contact failed, because the little lady in charge was clearly alarmed at my possible appearance and didn’t speak English. My Hokkien is likewise non-existent. So I put that off and resolved to go with a photo of the tins I want, on the next trip. Otherwise I just wandered around poking my nose into a temple to light some candles, having a Tiger beer in a local café, spotting unusual things to eat, exchanging compliments with the parrot outside the ‘Jesus Mission’ and so on.
As a historian, I always find it interesting to see reminders of the old British presence all over the place. Unlike other countries such as Mr Modi’s India,, the Singaporeans take care of these. Some are not so obvious as this lorry,
such as the 5 foot shaded walkways which Raffles (the founder of modern Singapore) insisted on being built for the comfort of shoppers and shop-keepers in the early 19th Century. The resultant Chinese shop-houses can be very elegant. Some tempting local delicacies were on offer too.
Some tempting local delicacies were on offer too.
The only problem with all this were temperatures in the mid 30s and very high humidity. By the time I staggered back to the hotel to pack for my departure I had done 17,000 steps and really, really needed a shower.
And so back to the UK to a few weeks of necessary recovery
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