The Anti-Cruise

Travel Blog  •  Michael Yessis  •  11.22.02 | 5:43 PM ET

Susan Wyndham recently took an unorthodox route from Newcastle, Australia to Hong Kong. She traveled with 23 Filipino crewmen, a Croatian chief engineer, a Filipino first mate, a Scottish captain, an English captain and a “Filipino Travolta in disco-yellow overalls” via cargo ship.

“Cargo travel is not for those who like casinos and beauty salons,” she writes in the Sydney Morning Herald. “We had a lifeboat drill one morning and the chief engineer gave us a tour of the ear-blasting engine room, the desalination plant and the food stores. I quickly got bored with the exercise bicycle and rowing machine. There was no pool.”