We’re on a boat to somewhere…

We arrived at the border pa town of Su Ngai Kolok (such a fun name to say out loud) just as the sun was beginning to flex its muscles. We resisted the urge to get on a motorbike taxi…we reckoned we could have sold footage of us flying backwards off the bikes and landing like upturned tortoises on our rucksacks, but we needed consensus for that decision and there were one or two dissenting voices.

It wasn’t far to the border, but with socks on our feet (no open toes in Malaysia!) and scarves wrapped around our heads (mine and Rosa’s) the normal just before midday hot was close to melting us …at least we were ensuring our little toesies didn’t get cold, and modesty prevailed as we crossed into Malaysia.

It had the same colourful feel as Thailand but it was obviously poorer this side of the border. More corrugated iron roofs, more cracks in the pavements, cheaper clothes on washing lines, more children with bare feet…we wondered what life was like in Malaysia but with only 24 hours in the country we were not going to learn much…

We followed our map along the Main Street to what we hoped was the right bus station. When we arrived, there was only bus parked in the place – a quick ask around confirmed this bus was going to the town our next train was leaving from. The driver was nowhere to be seen but there was one passenger sitting near the back who nodded that it was okay to get in so we climbed on board into air conditioned bliss (…quite a swanky bus we thought!) …the driver arrived and charged us 60p each for the 23km trip and after forty minutes driving through northern Malaysia we arrived at Pasir Mas station.

We sat on the platform for about an hour before Theo spotted two women without socks on – we had ours off and stuffed back in our rucksacks within seven seconds …and went back to quietly melting.

The only cool place in Pasir Mas turned out to be the chemists. We went in search of food and relief from the heat, and found sanctuary! We made buying our sea sickness pills last as long as possible …and the two young women behind the counter were lovely to us. We had a great little conversation, sadly I didn’t hate my head scarf by that point or I could have asked them how they coped with the bloody things…

We were on that platform seven long hours, a distant lightening storm providing some distraction from the combined heat and tiredness. We were more than a bit relieved when our train arrived, three nights in a row is hard but a chance to lie down somewhere slightly cooler was very  welcome.

The beds were already made and I didn’t even notice the fact that I was in a top bunk again, so delighted was I to take off my sodding headscarf…

I woke up early the next morning (as I always do) and noticed my top bunk had it’s very own little window, I pulled back the curtains and watched mile after mile of what I guessed must be palm oil plantations go by. It turns out Malaysia is the second largest producer of palm oil in the world and has lost 17% of its natural tropical forests to this crop in the last twenty years. Interestingly as a source of oil it’s a pretty good choice as the oil yield is high for the area of land needed but the habitat loss is devastating …it didn’t look like anything much could live in those miles and miles of straight lined mono-crop.

I wondered what had lived here before the bulldozers came…

I looked up palm oil production when I next could and it confirmed what I already knew. ‘Avoid when you aren’t sure and get informed’, I have no idea how much palm oil we’ve eaten in our packet snacks during train journeys, a fair bit I reckon but if Iceland (the retail firm not the country) can ban palm oil in all its own brand products because of consumer pressure then we do have a voice – https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/food-drink/palm-oil-and-consumers

I think I might be writing the odd letter  to supermarkets when I get back, with my ‘better to do something than nothing’ however small, attitude to life.

…and on a similar theme I requested a family meeting that morning, once Theo and Rosa had woken up. We had a lot to achieve that day and we were tired already. I wanted us to decide on ‘a plan’ that we all agreed with so that our regular stress dynamic didn’t kick in.

When we are knackered, hot, and in a rush the following can happen, and anyone of us can pull the trigger and start our little spiral dance with each other…

One of us will walk somewhere unsafe, in Rosa’s opinion, and she will share her stress in her tone of voice and quickness of speech, ‘Mum! Dad…get in to the side…!’ We will think there is nothing wrong with where we are in the road, or one of us will agree with Rosa and one of us won’t. We will be tetchy and difficult with each other.

I have the only working map on my phone and so I guide us in to bus stations, train stations, hotels, places of interest etc and when I am wearing my rucksack and either of them challenge my directions or ask a question I’ve already explained, I will often shout my reply, ‘yes, this is the right bloody way’ – that sort of unhelpful thing.

Theo’s role in the dynamic is to question things we have already decided, or ask questions no-one could possibly know the answer to.

Any of us can start this little spiral and of course there are good reasons for each of our behaviours. Rosa is trying to keep us safe, I want to feel I’ve proven that me and the map can be trusted and Theo is making sure we have the best plan…but none of us enjoy it much, to be fair to us the addition of headscarf’s to intense heat and heavy loads was bound to up the ante…so, morning meeting. If we all knew fully what the plan for the day was maybe we could reduce our stress levels. Personally, as much fun as shouting can be, I’d rather not shout at my family…

The first decision we needed to make when we arrived in Johor Bahru (the city opposite Singapore on the southern most tip of Malaysia) was whether to get a taxi or to walk from the train station to the ferry. It was a  3.1 km walk which wasn’t so far for us hardy travellers but we needed to be quick. The consensus was ‘let’s see when we get there!’ Properly decisive 🙂 …the reality on the ground was that some stations are massive and finding your way out, never mind finding a taxi, is a challenge worthy of an SAS assault team …and sometimes you can simply stroll off the one and only platform in the whole station into the waiting throng of taxi drivers eager to whisk you away.

The second item on our meeting agenda was the booking of our passage on the ship going from Pulau Batum to Jakarta. (The one that takes a really long time but no one seems to know how long).

In order to book those tickets we had to be in Indonesia and at a Pelni ferry ticket office. In order to get to a Pelni ferry ticket office we had to get from Johor Bahru (in Malaysia where the train was arriving), to Pulau Batam in Indonesia (‘Batam’ is a small island to the south of us, just the other side of Singapore. Singapore turns out to be an island about the size of the Isle of Wight, and it’s own country – neither of these were things I knew before I left …anyway)

Our train was due to arrive at 12.30 and Rosa had found out that the ferries to Batam went every hour. Whether we walked or got a taxi the earliest we were likely to get to the port was 1.15. We had to get through customs and immigration on both sides of the ferry and get a taxi the 18km to the Pelni ticket office to book the ship that only sailed once a week – THE NEXT DAY!

I feel exhausted writing it down, never mind after three nights on sleeper trains.

Hampering our efficient decision making were things we realised we didn’t know, and couldn’t find out without Wi-Fi: 1) how long the first ferry was going to take, we knew the ferries went every hour and the island we were going to was ‘quite close by’ but that was it… and 2) we didn’t know what the opening hours of the Pelni ticket offices were. It was a Tuesday and the day before one of their major ships left the island so we assumed it would be open, but what time did they close?

If we had known both of those bits of info we would have kicked back and gone for an ice cream and decided to travel a week later (or leave Thailand a day earlier) but we didn’t and hope springs eternal.

At the end of our morning meeting I had successfully managed to make sure my family felt as stressed as I did, which wasn’t what I had intended but at least I wasn’t carrying the sense of urgency alone 🙂

The train arrived ten minutes early which was miraculous and we were ready, first off the train and up the escalator – it was a huge station with no signs saying ‘taxi’s this way’ so we turned right towards the first exit sign we saw and found ourselves on the edge of a multi storey car park. No sign of a taxi but we were going in the right direction.

It was a tough walk, not long, but we all showed our darker sides at some point in the 3.1 km, Rosa looking like she was telling us both not to walk somewhere but actually just saving us going the wrong way, neither Theo or I were particularly grateful for this timely intervention for which we both apologised …later!

Our first moment of lightness coming when we saw the ocean, smooth as a pebble (long may that continue). The very ocean we would be travelling on today, and tomorrow, if we were lucky, and then came a bit of joy in the form of a large monitor lizard on the beach. It was about two feet long and so cute – it definitely helped make our rucksacks lighter and the sun a bit less hot.

When we arrived at the terminal the next ferry was leaving in forty minutes which was great, but the journey took two hours …not so great. Interestingly it also cost half the amount of the next ship we were hoping to book – £21 each for foot passengers!! I was a bit outraged but we sucked it up (there was literally no other way of getting there). In the meantime Rosa had found out that there was a time difference between Malaysia and Indonesia and we would be losing an hour. Our chances of booking that ferry were looking slim now and Theo tried to be positive about spending a week in Batam …he has such deep resources of optimism our Theo 💖

We had onboard entertainment in the form of the third John Wick movie (I had never heard of ‘John Wick’ but Keanu Reeves is the main star and apparently there were four movies!)

Personally I preferred staring out of the window watching the ocean for signs of life. I said a silent goodbye to our brief visit to Malaysia, the palm tree country, disappearing behind the skyscraper skyline of Singapore.

Good news arrived half way through the journey when my phone went back an hour…instead of arriving at 5.00 we would arrive at 3.00, some info we get is lost in translation!

Getting into Indonesia was straight forward and with our passports stamped for the umpteenth time we were off to look for a taxi. Before we’d gone three feet out of the terminal there was a man stood behind a counter issuing taxi tickets. We told him where we wanted to go and he told us how much it was and pointed us towards a taxi – easy!

We would be at the Pelni ticket offices before 4.00 – surely they would still be open the day before their ship left?

No.

They close at three.

There was a brief stunned silence and then everyone spoke at once.

The taxi driver was all for driving us away then and there, one of the men who looked like the gate guard was offering to take one of us in to look for ourselves, and another man was saying something in Indonesian that we didn’t understand. Theo, Rosa and I sat looking at each other in incomprehension.

My obstinate streak kicked in at that point and insisted we got out of the taxi with all our luggage and went into the offices…we had travelled for 72 hours by train, by foot, by bus, by boat and finally by taxi and the small matter of the offices being shut was not going to stop us going in and finding out on what Earth a ferry office closes at 3.00 on a Tuesday?!

The man whose job it was to look after the front door saw us coming with all our luggage and took pity on us I think – he gestured for us to ‘stand over there’ and went and knocked on a wooden door to his left.

The door opened into a room full of teenage girls who started giggling uncontrollably when they saw us, and there was one woman at the far end who was clearly trying to work. I said ‘Jakarta ferry – tomorrow’ quite loudly, and the woman who was working looked up and nodded …oh the joy of a nod. Not the first nod we’ve had, and I hope not the last, but as they ushered us in to the ticket office…relief, absolute pure relief washed over me.

We bought our tickets – Rosa and I together in a cabin with four other women (in top bunks, the curse of the trip!) and Theo in a cabin with 7 other men, there wasn’t an option for men and women to be together so we accepted that without any comment – weren’t we just unbelievably grateful they had opened again?! Yes! …and after we’d thanked every one of the women in that office – taken photos with them all, exchanged instagram accounts and hugged everyone at least twice, we were done!! The boat left at 14.00 tomorrow, from a port no more than a kilometre from our hotel and we needed to be there by midday.

Time to go to that hotel and lie on a real bed. A helpful man shot off on his motorbike to get us a taxi and within minutes we were on our way.

We had done it.

We pulled up outside our hotel twenty minutes later …and it wasn’t there. Our map said it was there, our taxi drivers map said it was there, but it wasn’t…he drove round for a bit and then I felt sorry for him and said he could drop us (idiot that I am – he would have been able to ask people where it was at least…I think I just believed that if I’d been able to book it on booking.com it had to exist right?)

Rosa and I left Theo at a restaurant (which closed soon after we left, leaving him sat on the street with all our bags fighting off mosquitos) and we spent over two hours trying to find that hotel …following every lead we could re directions from other hotel owners and security guards we spoke with, we eventually persuaded a hotel receptionist to ring the hotel only to find the phone number didn’t exist. We gave up at that point and started to look for a new hotel.

Rosa and I went to six different hotels before we found one we could afford. It didn’t have three beds but they said we could bring in the sun lounger from the balcony and two of us could have breakfast the next day. It was £26 which was more than we had budgeted for but at least it wasn’t the £80 three of the hotels wanted to charge us…(£80!!)

It was such a cruel blow after three days of travelling. We had done all the hard stuff and now we wanted a break, a chance to recover before we faced the 34 hour journey on a ship the next day …the only positive was that we were all too tired to be nervous. I feel sick going over to the Isle of Wight – even if I necked every tablet we’d bought in that cool chemists I was looking at a pretty crappy two days …and Rosa was just as bad, luckily we were too tired to care 🙂

I have to acknowledge how incredible we were in that two hours, we all had to dig deep, through to the bit after your reserves have run out…Theo to sit by the side of a street with all our bags with loads of mosquitos wanting a piece of him, with no clue as to where we were or why we were taking so long to find this hotel. Rosa for not giving up when she was physically in quite a lot of pain, determined to come with me through all of it, and me? …keeping going until we found somewhere. Rosa and I asked for help in ordinary and posh hotels where receptionists looked the hotel up online for us …walking around a city we didn’t know in the dark after three days travelling and not taking the first hotel we came to which would have used up three days budget!

I’d say that was close to the roughest two hours we’ve had so far, although it wasn’t raining and no one was throwing up, but we bounce back pretty quick and after we’d been for a meal in the restaurant we all felt a bit better…and the fact that Theo and Rosa could have breakfast the next day was part of the recovery too 🙂

We didn’t have to get up super early the next day because we didn’t need to be at the port until 12.00. I went shopping for food while they ate breakfast and I came back with a right old random mixture of stuff (hopefully some of it edible) and we got ready to leave.

We decided we’d aim for 11.00 at the port because being a bit bored waiting for an hour is way less stressful than arriving on time, or late (!) …experience has shown us that once in every four or five trains, boats, buses something goes a bit wrong and we need the extra time. We were quite relaxed this time though because it was only a kilometre and the boat didn’t leave til 14.00.

We felt like camels heading off, we had so much extra water with us…and our food bags were really heavy.

As we headed out of the hotel there were signs that said ‘ferry port this way’ …my map said ‘ferry port the other way’. We went with the road signs and spent fifteen minutes doing a complete circle and standing outside our hotel again – and actually I think it was at that point we turned into camels, adopting the demeanour of those fabulous beasts, snarling and spitting at passers by…or each other – the overwhelming heat makes my memory hazy…

We arrived at the port, which was huge, full of containers ready to be shipped, and resembling the set for several of the action scenes in the John Wick movie interestingly, maybe that’s why they showed it on the ferry?!  …it was a tough call deciding which way to go but just as we were about to head in the wrong direction we saw a sign ‘ferry boarding passengers’. We were nearly there, the mood lightened slightly and we headed up the tracks.

‘Hurry, hurry’ we heard as we got in site of the low building – three men were gesturing wildly at us (well one of them was and the other two were joining in a little) …I hardly had time to think ‘he’s the one drinking the espresso shots’ before we were bundled through and rushed towards a window – the sense of urgency was upon us and we thrust our tickets at the man.

Those tickets were replaced by new tickets and we were off, into a building navigating the ‘go this way crowd control barrier stuff’ – through the baggage scanner – half our tickets taken and then ushered into a bus.

Several other panic stricken passengers joined us very quickly – our hands were all stamped (presumably so that when any of our bodies floated to the shore after the ship sank they’d know which boat we’d been on) and we were off. Covering the 200 metres to the ship at a sedate 15 miles an hour – it would without doubt have been quicker to walk but this way they definitely made sure they had us all in one place – and frankly it was nice to see a bit of health and safety in action 🙂

We walked up the stairs still a bit at a loss as to the frenetic behaviour of the last ten minutes – the boat wasn’t due to leave for over two hours. We were shown to a cabin, all together with three beds made up…what?! How could this be?! How amazing – none of us in top bunks and all together – we were still marvelling at this incredible bit of kindness when Rosa looked up and informed us that the ship was moving!

We had left at 12.00!!

We were just processing this incredible double piece of luck (same cabin and hadn’t missed the bloody thing) when someone knocked on our door to inform us it was time for lunch. Lunch!!

We had no idea we got food…three meals a day it turned out and there was tempeh with the first meal. Tempeh!!

We actually got to rest on that ship – sleeping a lot, reading, watching the sea for dolphins and flying fish and doing experiments with sinks full of water to see when we’d crossed the equator. …we didn’t see any dolphins and Rosa saw three little fish, and our experiments were inconclusive re which way the water was going (apparently you need industrial scale equipment to do the experiment properly and even then it’s still a bit inconclusive – apparently the reason we think it’s a thing is because loads of people have decided water flows a different way on the other side of the equator and that’s it! We all believe it..we want to believe it,  so it’s become ‘the truth’).

Hand on heart I can say that if asked if I wanted to see pods of dolphins and a whale or two swimming close to the boat, or have 35 hours of calm sea, I would opt for the calm sea every time…it was just so wonderful not to feel sick all the time.

We had three special bits of time together on that journey – crossing the equator late the first night. We’d plotted the equator line on my map which shows where we are and we stood on the deck at 11.00 that night having a good laugh jumping all together when we thought we’d reached it – I’m still not quite sure why we did that but we did it quite a few times – just to be sure 🙂

Getting up for sunrise and watching the sunset the next day was magical too…noticing that the sun was slightly to the north of us as it set, there’s something special about seeing a sun rise and set over the ocean in a day.

None of us had experienced as long a journey at sea as this before. There is a reverence you cannot help but feel at the vastness of the space before you and I thank every god there is for the smoothness of that crossing …apart from a mild case of megalohydrothalassophobiaflirted with rather than deeply felt by one of us, it was just what we needed.

Thank you sweet ocean.