Carnival Cruise Lines waiter Made Giriyasa strides through downtown Miami on his three-hour shore leave checking off a mental shopping list: soap and deodorant from Walgreens, a CD player from Digital World and, most important, a traditional Indonesian meal at Matahari Café -- home cooking 11,000 miles from home.

Giriyasa is one of more than 3,000 cruise-line workers who stream into downtown on a typical summer Saturday, bringing alive streets that can seem deserted when office workers head home for the weekend.

It's a side of the center city unknown to many Miamians. Tucked among the discount clothing shops, electronics stores and Latin cafes are a handful of restaurants and other small businesses that cater to cruise crews.

''It's its own little world,'' says Robert Geitner of the Downtown Miami Partnership. ``Cruise workers are critically important to certain businesses.''

As city leaders like Geitner push to create a vibrant downtown where Miamians live and play as well as work, people like Giriyasa have already made it their stomping ground.

The cruise workers come from around the world, but mainly India, Indonesia and the Philippines. When their ships dock at the Port of Miami, they share cabs and shuttles to the vicinity of Flagler Street and Miami Avenue to shop, phone home, check e-mail at Web cafes and eat.

''Everything is here,'' says Giriyasa, who is sitting with a friend at Matahari, a month-old spot on Northeast First Avenue owned by an Indonesian ex-pat who once worked on a cruise ship himself.

Giriyasa and his buddy dig into a spicy mixture of steamed green beans, pork belly, roasted coconut, fried garlic and chiles sprinkled with lime juice. The smell alone takes him home to the Indonesian island of Bali, a place he hasn't been in months.

The cafe is a godsend for Giriyasa, 30, who works on the Liberty of the Seas. The cruise liner also makes stops in Jamaica; Cozumel, Mexico; Puerto Rico; and the Cayman Islands, but in those places he must settle for Chinese food.

PASSAGE TO INDIA

Two blocks east of Matahari, hidden inside a Flagler Street mall where vendors hawk Spanish-language CDs and fake leather handbags, Raj Agarwal pours steaming chai tea from behind a counter at Indian Prem while a flock of customers -- all young men from the ships -- browse his wares.

One wires money home at the counter, another pays for a Bollywood DVD, a third lines up to get a phone card -- $5 for a two-hour link home to India.

A man studies the small rack of dresses, picks one and gives it to Agarwal to mail to a girlfriend in New Jersey. This all-in-one South Asian stop even carries Indian shampoos and medicines in case Suave and Tylenol won't do.

Sandip Mondal, 34, a food manager for a Royal Caribbean ship, says downtown Miami has more to offer workers like him than other ports on the Caribbean circuit.

''I've been to Fort Lauderdale, but it's not as good,'' he says.

A dozen men sit on plastic lawn chairs in and out of the shop, taking turns dialing home to New Delhi, Kolkata and Chennai on Agarwal's cordless loaner phones. Saturdays are busiest for the Mumbai native, who settled in North Miami 11 years ago and opened Indian Prem (''love'' in Hindi) after a decade as a cruise-line housekeeper.

The workers begin arriving at about 10 a.m. and ''are always running,'' he says. The shop is almost empty by closing time at 4 p.m. Just an hour later, most ships have left port.

Summer is low season, with three ships docking on an average Saturday and a smaller number on Fridays, Sundays and Mondays. By fall, a half-dozen ships, each with a crew of about 1,000, will be in port on a good day.

''Miami is our biggest home port,'' says Carnival spokesman Vance Gulliksen. ``On any given cruise ship there are 50 to 60 nationalities represented. It doesn't surprise me that there's some industry that caters to the crews.''

If the workers at Indian Prem need more than chai, they can almost follow their noses. Around the corner at Raja's, a South Indian meal of basmati rice, lentil soup, curries and chutneys is less than $10. About a block east, Chithra's serves North Indian specialties. And just north of Indian Prem, Taste of Bombay offers a popular lunch buffet plus Chinese-Indian fusion and Thai dishes.

MANILA IN MIAMI

Inside Taste of Bombay is bedroom-sized Lutong Pinoy, an orange and lime space where Filipino workers gather at a raised counter to eat tilapia, shrimp, stir-fry and rice. Their other downtown option is Manila native Connie Romo's cafe and grocery, Cruise Link Corp.

Romo's business is just steps from the Gusman Center for Performing Arts, but you wouldn't know it from the street. You enter the mall at 144 E. Flagler St. between Watch Plaza and Best for Less Perfumes and look for the ''Oriental Grocery'' sign in a row of mini-shops that include a jeweler and nail salon.

''We connect the ship workers to Miami,'' Romo says.

She has been frying and steaming food for hours when Jonifer Fuentes drops in after the midday rush. Fuentes, 26, an engine-room worker, grabs a $5 plate of fried mackerel in vinegar sauce and sour pork soup.

Between bites, he catches glimpses of a Filipino boxing match on the shop's TV. He has been off the Liberty of the Seas for almost three hours and hopes to phone his 3-year-old son back in Ozamiz City before shore leave ends at 1:30 p.m.

Like most foreign nationals on these ships, Fuentes was hired in his home country by a cruise-line recruiter. The money is better than he could make in the Philippines, and, he says, the six-month grind is offset by two-month breaks.

``I'm lucky that I'll spend Christmas with the family.''

BACK TO BALI

Back at Matahari Café, Giriyasa, the Balinese waiter, has moved on to dessert, a sweet, bright green drink made of rice, coconut milk and jackfruit. Next time, he says, he might try Bali Café on Northeast Second Avenue.

Bali owner Nikolaas Lineleyan, a former Royal Caribbean chef, served only lunch when he opened six years ago, tailoring his schedule to the rhythm of the ships as most of these downtown businesses do.

As more Miamians have moved into downtown condos and lofts, his customer base and hours have expanded, and he now stays open until 8 p.m. weekdays.

During the week, Lineleyan says, most customers are locals, and it's easy to tell the difference.

''The cruise workers are always surprised to find us,'' he says. And when they order food, ``they always want it extra spicy.''

Join the discussion

Note: If this is your first time using our NEW commenting system, you will have to LOG OUT and then LOG BACK IN.

The Miami Herald is pleased to provide this opportunity to share information, experiences and observations about what's in the news. Some of the comments may be reprinted elsewhere in the site or in the newspaper. We encourage lively, open debate on the issues of the day, and ask that you refrain from profanity, hate speech, personal comments and remarks that are off point. In order to post comments, you must be a registered user of MiamiHerald.com. Your username will show along with the comments you post. Thank you for taking the time to offer your thoughts.

     Showing: Oldest first Newest first Most-recommended first Least-recommended first

@Nyx.AuthorDisplayName@ wrote on @Nyx.PostedAtTime@:

@Nyx.CommentBody@

@Nyx.Recommender@ @Nyx.AbuseReporter@