Singaporeans can now venture to the final frontier
A travel agency is offering tours to the stunning landscapes of Antarctica's white wilderness, whose ancient ice shelf is starting to break up
KOH BUCK SONG
SINGAPOREANS can now make bookings for a tour ti the remote continent of Antarctica.
The 15-day trip, which costs about $9,500 and leave in January next year, is offered by Country Holiday travel.
Travelers can cruise the icebergs, as well as undertake more intrepid explorations, including sea Kayaking and alpine ascents.
Officials of the National Association of Travel: Agents Singapore (Natas~ said that, as far as they could recall, no other travel agents here had offered similar trip.
Natas president Roberl Khoo said he was delighted to see a new exotic destination being offered.
"I’m always telling vents here to be innovative and look for new niches instead of fighting over the same area" he said.
Country Holidays, which specializes in adventure tours will be holding a slide presentation on the two polar regions this Saturday.
Mr Greg Mortimer, who will lead next January’s trip, will show highlights of the Antarctic Peninsula and the South Pole at the Regional Language Centre (RELC) Auditorium in Orange Grove Road at 2.30 pm.
One of the first two Australians to have climbed Mount Everest, he has 15 years’ experience in leading trips to the ends of the Earth.
He enthuses: "The Polar regions have visions and sounds like nowhere else on Earth — an orange dawn lighting a jade-blue iceberg, the din from a rookery of 200,000 penguins, the stealth of the polar bear and the deep, empty silences in a world of ice."
The Antarctic tour leaves by air from here to Buenos Aires in Argentina and from there to a town called Ushuala in Tierra del Fuego at the tip of the South American continent.
On reaching Antarctica by sea, the voyage continues in a chartered Russian research vessel. Experts on board will give lectures on geology, glacier studies and the regions’ flora and fauna.
Taking advantage of the long summer days, forays into the wilderness will be made by small inflatable boats called Zodiacs to see penguins, whales and other unique wildlife close up.
There will also be visits to scientific stations and an option to camp ashore.
The agency’s managing director, Mr Chang Theng Hwee, noted that most Singaporeans who go for back-to-nature tours are in their 20s and 30s.
"They can appreciate the simpler things in life and are less concerned about materialistic concerns such as fashion and cars. On trips, they can do without a casino or shopping," he said.
Judging from the response at the recent travel fair here last weekend, he observed, those interested in the Antarctica tour tend to be in their 40s, partly because of the package’s higher cost.
It was only in the last two to three years that travel to the region had "hotted up", long after the first cruises there started in 1958 with just a few passengers.
With more trips being organised from Chile and Argentina in South America, Australia and New Zealand, the icy region now welcomes more than 10,000 visitors annually.
Antarctica, the world’s fifth largest continent, surrounding the South Pole, is 14.2 million sq km in area.
Midsummer temperatures can dip to minus 35 deg C in the interior and reach as high as 15 deg C near the coast. The world’s lowest-ever temperature of minus 89 deg C was recorded there at the Vostok station on July 21, 1983.
Given the nature of the Singapore tourist, the polar exploration seems reserved for the experienced ones.
As one travel agent, who organises trips to Alaska in North America but not farther beyond, said: "If you tell them a place is going to be 8 deg C, they will say: ‘Wah, very cold’, let alone the polar regions."
One of the few Singaporeans to have visited Antar3~-tica Is Nominated MP Kanwaljit Soin, who made the trip there from South America three- years ago, with her two sons.
She recalled: "I felt like an intruder into the world of nature. That’s how the world must have been many, many years ago. "It is a trip she would recommend, especially in the context of eco-tourism which does not harm the environment.
"Anyone who comes back from there will be a better human being. "It makes you think about the philosophical things in life," she added. For more information ~n the Antarctica tour, call 334 -61 20.
Source : The Straits Times 27th Mar 1995
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