Epic

Gallery: KL-Penang

grinda — Sun, 25 Feb 2007 19:18:00 GMT

Malaysia

Penang

grinda — Sat, 24 Feb 2007 19:54:00 GMT

Malay Hideaway

grinda — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 19:52:00 GMT

Kuala Lumpur

grinda — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 19:50:00 GMT

Doing the tour thing

Seeing Ganesha

The crew mates

grinda — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 21:45:00 GMT

A quick note to introduce the lads that I call friends from the Baltrum Trader:

There is Joey and Freddie (he prefers to be called Eric). Young 25 year olds doing the best they can to secure a good future. Joey is a show pony, one day he will grow up to me the President or King of His Phillipines and he will rule with a loving dictatorship. Everyone will pin photos of him everywhere because he loves having his photo taken. My fondest memory of Joey will be him getting jealous of all the attention I was getting and he wasn't as we walked along the wharf together. Eric is shy to begin with, but hilariously funny once he is comfortable, I don't think he spoke to me for 3/4 of the trip because he was too embarrased to speak English with me. He will grow up to be the best father that will make his kids and then grand kids laugh at the turn of an eye. My fondest memory of Eric will be protecting him from the working girls in The Aristocrat Bar, Duxford St, Singapore.

Then there was Eric the fourth engineer and Raul the cross dresser. Both a little older than Joey and Eric and maybe they know themselves a little better as well. Eric is the sort of man that gets on with the job and with everyone around him. Just having him in the room makes you feel comfortable. Eric will continue to be a great and reliable engineer, one day his European bosses will realise his value and pay him what he is worth, but the real riches of Eric will go not to his ship but his wife and kids who must miss him terribly. My fondest memory of Eric is playing Table Tennis for hours and hours (and beating him!!)

Raul is sly and flirtatious. His stocky stature is complimented by a huge heart and his conversation is always delivered by a smile. One day Raul is going to fall in love and he will not know what to do with himself, where to put himself or how to look her in the eye. It will be a great moment! If his wish comes true she will look something like Shakira. My favourite memory of Raul will be cross dressing, him in a gorgeous Chinese red dress, hair in pigtails and me in Eric the Engineer's, overalls and hard hat.

Then there is Martin. Martin is a quiet seaman. He doesn't love his job, although it is good and he doesn't dislike it either. He accepts life as it is. He is a third mate with more sea time experience than the chief mate, but he is not ambitious about getting a higher rank.

In the galley there

Wharfs

grinda — Sun, 28 Jan 2007 19:51:00 GMT

I took a freighter ship from Melbourne to Singapore. The first part of my mission to travel the world without flying. I knew I was the only passenger, which meant I was the only female. I knew that I was going to be away for at least 12 months, that I would be seeing Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand, that I would like to make it to India and then Wales by November and apart from that I didn't really have all that much planned.

So with trust in fate and God and my own strength I boarded The Baltrum Trader a German owned cargo ship. About medium size, it can carry up to 2400 cargo containers. Its hull is green and it is meticulously looked after by its divine Filipino Crew and European Officers. (Check out the following links for more technical info).

http://www.freightercruises.com/?source=AdWords
http://www.smh.com.au/news/Cruising/Cargo-cult/2005/05/06/1115092633437.html
http://www.frachtschiffreisen.ch/Schiffe/08/2500TEU_Aker.pdf

Travelling by boat is sensational. Life slows right down and as a passenger there is nothing to do but sit back, relax and enjoy the great company. One of my favourite things was coming into ports. Wharfs are a whole world of their own. Possibly the most inorganic environment, they surprisingly inspired a feeling of warmth in me. Possibly because I felt the protection of my new friends in a place I would have otherwise felt extremely vulnerable (ie all male, labour, work place in a foreign country). They are like a carnival. Lights, beeps, bells, movement, height, the eye doesn't rest and neither does the work. They have their own personality. Here are excerpts from my journal describing the three ports I visited.

Melbourne

A wharf is a strange place, quite surreal. Straddlers flash their lights, hooting and whistling as they position themselves over the box. They go down and come up and roll away. There is a strong element of sex, but not sexiness, about a wharf. No doubt owing to the huge amount of testosterone, nudey pics. call girl pages in the phone book and falics in the bar. Its not threatening though. Otherwise I feel like I'm at a Rebel Base in Star Wars, with the drivers hoisted high in bizarre crane like automobiles (the straddlers) that have their own personality. There is not an element of organic about a wharf, yet it is so very alive.

Port Kelang, Malaysia

The port sits on the mouth of a river, which seems to have two main channels. the starboard channel hosts the wharfs. On either side of the entrances, low, thin, grey trees somberly welcome the ships to Malaysia. They are sad trees stripped of spirit, like they have given up under the imposing presence of man and his trade. But man and his trade seem to be attempting to bring some splash of life back to the port. As though in sympathy for the lack of blue in the water the entire port is painted in various kinds of blue, mot mostly bright blue. It misses its mark, but the intention is there.

Singapore

The Singapore port, in contrast to the blue Kelang port, looked more like an elaborate construction of multi-coloured pick-up sticks.

The Map

grinda — Mon, 1 Jan 2007 19:49:00 GMT

I was hoping to be able to have my travel map show on this site but it doesn't look like it is going to happen.

I'll keep it up to date though. This is the link: