An Island Border Crossing: Koh Lipe, Thailand

Posted on March 28, 2012 by alex

The Langkawi Ferry Service boat from Malaysia to Thailand left Kuah Jetty in Langkawi at about 9am. We’d booked with Langkawi Ferry Service who are currently dominating inter-island transport because they have online booking forms (in English) which allow you to book more than 7 days in advance. Passport control at Kuah was the briefest we’d yet encountered and we were soon following the ferry guide onto the boat. The ferry was slick and streamlined but its windows were all crusted up with salt which hinted at the barrage of waves to come. It was a relief that we could only feel them bash against the sides but in an attempt to keep people’s spirits up, a string of Kung Fu and boxing films were played at maximum volume(!)

A few hours later, we had crossed the oceanic border between Malaysia and Thailand and had arrived in Koh Lipe’s astonishingly clear waters. The ferry came to a slow halt about 100 metres from the shoreline, the closest it is allowed to go, given the reef which surrounds the island. The ferry was met by a couple of longtail boats which are owned and operated by the Chao Ley (literally translating as people of the sea), also known as the sea gypsies who inhabit half of the island. Each of their boats is brightly decorated with day-glo tassels and fashioned out of wooden slats with a bamboo floor. They are the only craft that can manoeuvre safely along the reefs and are therefore the only way on or off the island as there is no jetty.

There was a lot of scrambling as passengers and luggage were parcelled onto the longtails, which began to rock precariously. Trousers were rolled up and shoes removed as we all prepared to disembark in the shallows, carrying backpacks overhead to make the short walk to the beach-hut-style port-a-cabin which housed the immigration office (and was conveniently located next to a bar). This has got to be one of the world’s most relaxed immigration points where laid back officials stamp in their daily quota of 40 or so new visitors to the island before heading back to their hammocks. We waited on the sand for of a couple of minutes while our passports were inked with a 15-day permit (there is a bit of discrimination towards those arriving overland as you only get half the number of days that air arrivals are entitled to) before traipsing off through the island’s tiny main street, which is dotted with coffee shops, bars and restaurants to find our B&B. We realised quite quickly that it had been a mistake to book in advance – we passed many nice beach-side guesthouses before reaching ours (The Reef) which was quite pricey by island standards and slightly inland. Having said that, it was extremely peaceful, had beautiful views across the island, had been sustainably constructed with an outdoor stilted wooden platform from where breakfast was served and had an excellent book exchange library.

Koh Lipe is sadly starting to face the same fate as many other Thai islands where much of the available beach-front space is being gobbled up by developers whose aim is to create luxury resorts of one sort or another. Importantly here however, development has been slower and more tasteful than elsewhere in Thailand due to its unique situation: Koh Lipe doesn’t have an airport or jetty; it’s surrounded by the Tarutao National Marine Park where development, and the use of speedboats and jet skis are banned; the Chao Ley (who have animistic beliefs) own and run a number of the island’s accommodations which they have been able to hold onto in the face of aggressive competition from wealthy developers due to official recognition of their ancestral rights to the land; and plastic cards are as no-go as plastic bags as there are no ATMs to be found anywhere. You can’t help but feel that all these things have saved the island from going the way of Ko Phi Phi and the like for the time being and it was still possible to find stretches of almost deserted beach even in January, which is considered peak season.

The island itself is very small – spanning only two kilometres from end to end. There are three main beaches where most of the island’s accommodation can be found: Sunrise, Sunset and Pattaya beaches. Each beach has its own character – Sunrise beach is where the sun worshippers and dive enthusiasts hang out, Pattaya beach (where the longboats drop off new arrivals) is probably the busiest and is home to the island’s smarter bars and hotels, and Sunset beach (reached via walking through a Chao Ley village and wood) is the hippie zone where tiki torches are lit at dusk and deathly alcoholic cocktail infusions are doled out for next to nothing. All these are connected by the island’s one and only shopping street where you can get everything from a Thai Green Curry to a Tattoo or an Indian head massage. We spent most of our time on Sunrise Beach, which is lined with small bamboo bungalows and is also a fantastic jump-off point for exploring the reef. For the equivalent of 50p you can rent a snorkel mask and flippers for the day which gives you the opportunity to spot Clown fish, Trigger fish, Blue Tang, Parrot fish, glowing sea urchins, and much much more just a short swim away from the shore. I couldn’t help but contrast the experience with that of Pulau Langkawi and was thankful that there is simply no room for an airport on this island, which seems to have made all the difference where rash tourism-oriented construction is concerned.Once we had explored a bit and started to understand what a relaxed way of life really meant, we decided that we wanted to stay for a few nights more before the onwards journey to Bangkok. We found a reasonably-priced spare room in a little eco guesthouse called the Adang Sea Divers which was just minutes walk from Sunrise beach. The cabins were basic but mosquito nets and ‘moon tiger’ coils were provided and we were never really going to spend much time in the cabin with the beach so close anyway. The Adang Sea Divers is run by an environmentally-conscious Swiss couple, who have set up rain-storing water tanks as well as septic tanks to break down and filter used water, which they then reuse to water the plants etc. They told us that many hotels on the island do not filter their grey water and it is either siphoned off into sand pits or directly back into the sea. Awareness of the problem is growing but it is still an uphill battle, especially in the face of a growth in tourism. The Adang eco-lodge is primarily a dive centre but the staff are happy to provide you with a snorkel and fins if you don’t want (or in our case can’t afford) to dive. There is information everywhere about the reef and its inhabitants which is really helpful in identifying all the strange and magical creatures you encounter whilst exploring it. Thankfully, the Chao Ley and most of the foreigners who have set up homes and businesses on the island are fully aware that they are sitting on a little piece of paradise and are fighting to keep it that way (most noticeably by clubbing together to enforce the introduction of long term environmental strategies such as waste management and recycling schemes for the island) but the accommodation choices that visitors to the island make is a hugely important part of this battle.

Our last day on the island came around far too quickly but we made the effort to wake up early to see the spectacle that Sunrise beach is named after. It was well worth it as we, along with a few other early risers, sat on the beach to watch the sun slowly emerge from beneath the clouds. It was very difficult to tear ourselves away but with the clock ticking on our 15 day visitor permit, we knew we had to get to Bangkok where we hoped to procure both out Vietnamese and Chinese visas before heading for the Cambodian border. We collected our bags together, bid our hosts farewell and walked the short half-kilometre through main street to meet the island’s infamous ladyboy ferry ticket collector. We were headed for Hat Yao pier, a three hour ferry ride away and then from there onto Trang where we were hoping to get the train to Bangkok. Stupidly we had forgotten about Chinese New Year…

 

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The Great Hornbills of Langkawi

Posted on February 29, 2012 by anna

The following day, at the crack of dawn, we boarded the ferry that would take us to the island of Pulao Langkawi, just a few kilometres south of the Malaysia-Thailand border. The ferry journey itself was only a couple of hours, punctuated by one and a half martial arts films (a recurring theme on South East Asian transport, we were soon to find out). Our first glimpse of the island, appearing abruptly through the salt-encrusted windows of the ferry, was of mountains, dense jungle and an impressively detailed statue of an eagle (in Malay, the word Langkawi means a red-brown eagle).

After partnering with a Brazilian journalist to share the cost of a cab to the main beach, we passed along a newly-built highway straight to Pantai Cenang, which is also the main ‘tourist’ zone of the island. Some three kilometres of pristine coastline have been systematically blocked off by giant resort hotels and the beaches here are divided into tightly boxed sections for guests from each, while the sea itself has been split into small swimming sections and noticeably larger water-sports areas. We were staying at one of the last cheap hostels available within walking distance of a beach on the island, though we had to pretend to be resort guests in order to access the beach itself. With one notable exception, Langkawi was for us the island of disappointments. Back in 1968, the then Malaysian prime minister decided to ‘turn’ Langkawi into a tourist destination and began by granting it duty-free status. As the cheap drinks began to flow, so did the resorts and everything from the Four Seasons to the Hilton has laid claim to a patch. There are many smaller, less developed islands which make up Langkawi as a whole (actually around 99 in total) and we have been told that those to the North East in particular are still relatively secluded but accessing these on a budget can be a bit of a challenge. Our main reason for stopping here was to catch a ferry to Koh Lipe in Thailand where we hoped to cross the border in a relaxed, beach hut environment but even though we knew the main island was ‘touristy’ we weren’t quite prepared for what we had walked into: the hostel we were staying in was something akin to a club 18-30 holiday camp if one were run out of makeshift cabins surrounding a paddling pool full of ducks. The owner would spend all day sitting by the inflatable pool scattering duck seed while listening to the Badminton results on the radio, an activity he’d replace in the evening with poker and loud drum n’ bass until 3 a.m. The ‘beautiful white-sand beach’ we’d read about in the guidebook was actually a jellyfish-infested and oil-polluted stretch of water and litter-covered sand.

After spending a depressing hour or so in our dimly lit cabin questioning why we had come here, we decided to make the best of the situation by making full use of our beach-blocking neighbour’s pool and exploring the lusher inner parts of the island (which thankfully have been granted national park status). The Langkawi that you see when you step off the mainstream tourist trail is actually well worth exploring. We had read about a couple of local Malaysian naturalists who run highly recommended guided nature treks (see Dev’s Adventure Tours or Jungle Walla) and who only observe and never feed or interfere with the wildlife, so we decided that we would go on one of these in an attempt to restore our dented enthusiasm for the island. We opted to go on the early morning hill trek with a view to spotting some of the island’s famous bird residents. We were picked up just before dawn, though our guide had inadvertently woken up the ducks and dogs and subsequently half the hostel while trying to find our cabin. Leaving behind the quacking and barking, we were soon amongst much quieter, misty fields where we stopped to watch the dawn break. The first bird that our guide spotted was a White-throated Kingfisher, which was perched on an electric wire serenely absorbing the first warming rays of the dawn sun. After a brief pause, we continued to drive further up the mountain that makes up the north of the island. The guide stopped and pointed to a distant tree, where we could see a small dark-blue bird with a long hanging tail that looked like a pair of eyes. It was a Drongo, a word meaning idiot in Australian but in reality it is anything but as one of its main functions is to warn other birds and animals of approaching predators in return for the pick of the mid-morning insects. It is also a brilliant mimic: we heard it impersonate three or four other species while standing near by, a little like the Lyre birds we’d heard in Australia.

Our journey carried on up through the rainforest road which was alive with a tropical dawn chorus, courtesy of both birds and monkeys who we could hear cracking branches in the canopies above. Our guide spotted a few other species before we heard the whoosh, whoosh sound of some large wing-beats. It had begun to lightly rain and our guide had a look of intense concentration on his face.
He led us slowly around a corner and there in the canopy of a large forest tree was a Great Hornbill drying its wings in the sun.

It looked almost pterodactyl-like and we weren’t surprised to hear that the Great Hornbill is amongst the largest of its species. It seemed that the light dawn rain was in our favour as we went on to see many more Great Hornbills gather in the trees and whoosh over our heads. We were also lucky enough to spot the significantly smaller Oriental Pied Hornbill, the rare sight of a pair of Wreathed Hornbills who were also drying off in the sun, a Giant Squirrel, some Dusky Langur Monkeys and a few Macaques. After a brief visit to the peak and a pit stop in our guide’s uncle’s restaurant for a Malaysian brunch of omelette pancake and a Teh Tarik, we were taken to some open pastures to spot Kingfishers. Sadly we didn’t see any more but we did spot Green Bee Eaters, Golden Orioles, Bitterns, Snakes, Herons and a Pitcher Plant. We were also shown how to make natural plasters by wetting and rolling the leaves of a local plant until it made a gummy paste, which the locals use to stick over and heal wounds. After this trip, Langkawi suddenly didn’t seem so bad after all and even the ducks and the hostel dogs were slightly more endearing on our return (though this feeling sadly never extended to the post midnight drum n’ bass). We were glad that our stay had ended on a brighter note but were both excited and relieved at the prospect of setting off the next morning with a mission to cross the Thai border by sea.

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Street Food and Art in Penang

Posted on February 28, 2012 by alex

After we had spent a few days in the highlands, we had to brave another hairy trip through the winding mountain roads (it turned out that the driving was just as crazy on the descent). The journey to Penang took only a few hours and thanks to the newly built bridge to the island, we were dropped off in Georgetown itself opposite one of Malaysia’s ubiquitous ‘Reggae bars’ on Love Lane – the main backpacker street in Penang. We decided to forego this for the slightly quieter residences of Jalan Muntri and were lucky to find a delightful, arty B&B (Moontree 47) housed in one of Penang’s famous heritage buildings (think colourful tiles, hardwood floors and teak furnishings). Penang has started to garner a reputation as a home for the art-house boutique (very popular in Japan) where B&B’s have become something akin to gallery spaces crossed with individually styled guest rooms. It’s not hard to see why these operations have sprung up here as Georgetown specialises in the picturesque – from colourful colonial tiles to shuttered shop fronts, ornate Chinese temples and mosques, you really can’t fail to find something charming among its winding streets. Even the cafés have got in on the action, many of which sport quirky artefact collections, furnish themselves with smoke-stained, heritage furniture and actively encourage self expression by offering up blank wall space as a canvas to their customers.

The best way to explore Penang is on foot, so we decided to kick things off by walking to the historic Chinese enclave of Khoo Khongsi. This is an iconic courtyard surrounded by old clan houses and temples but it also contains an outdoor market (the bicycle equivalent of a car boot sale) where we saw people selling everything from home-made bracelets to old 1980′s TVs and antique mobile phones. Nearby, we passed Lebuh Armenian (Armenian Street), a local gathering spot for coffee-fans and artists, with mural-adorned shops selling Chinese antiques and warehouses flogging door frames and bookshelves. As dusk began to set in we wound our way from the Chinese district to Little India which smelled of spices and incense. The tempo of this district was slightly more frenetic than that of the tea-sipping Chinese enclave. Perhaps it was the time of day but the boom boxes were out and Little India was throbbing to the beats of Bhangra music emanating from pirate DVD stalls. The hawkers were also out thrashing at thick rods of bamboo and baking chapatis on the side of the road. Others loudly advertised their wares or lit more incense while fat tourists began to emerge from side streets at every turn being carried by straining rickshaw cyclists.

We journeyed through the heady incense mists back to our guest house for a quick outdoor shower amidst some energetic rooftop swooping swallows, before heading back out again to sample some of Penang’s famous street food. The local hawker stalls serve some of the best food in the city and each specialise in something different so it’s worth visiting a few. The grandmother of our B&B’s owner gave us a few recommendations which included Koey Teow soup and sweet pancakes, so we tracked down the stalls serving each and took a seat. Like most street food stall routines – you order your food from the stall, grab one of the plastic chairs and tables along the roadside and wait for the stall owner to track you down with your order. At the end you put your plastic dishes and chopsticks back in a big washing bucket where someone diligently turns them around for the next crowd. See here for more detail on the foodie delights of Penang.

Our visit to Penang was all too brief and if we hadn’t already booked a ferry to Langkawi for the following day we would definitely have stayed longer as there is a lot to explore here. We were up at dawn the next morning to catch our ferry but took a few moments to watch the swallows dart over the tiled rooftops which surrounded our outdoor bathroom. I never knew that washing from a makeshift, cold water sink could be so magical but Penang is full of surprises.

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The Cameron Highlands: the Land of Tea and Strawberries

Posted on February 25, 2012 by anna

I was quite looking forward to the bus ride up to the Cameron Highlands, envisaging a slow drive along winding jungle paths into the green, misty hills. This was before I had experienced driving in South East Asia however, having only had a little taste of crazy motorists in Kuala Lumpur which I had incorrectly passed off as a consequence of their being in a hot, over crowded city. As soon as we left the confines of the city’s outer suburbs, the speedometer on our mini bus to the Highlands began to slowly but steadily creep up and up. I should have guessed what we were in for when the driver asked if we could move as far forward as possible before we began to head into the hills but was too engrossed by the passing scenery to put two and two together. Dreams of a slow amble into jungle territory were quickly shattered when the bus began to tear up the spiralling roadway, overtaking anything else that happened to be on the road, and screeching recklessly around corners. I’m usually quite a relaxed passenger and very rarely get travel sick but after 30 minutes of this, my face started to mimic the colour of the green hills and I had to ask to stop for a break. It’s a shame, because the view was spectacular and it would have been nice to have spent more than a brief moment hurtling through the more undisturbed areas of the hills, which are still inhabited by the people of the forest, also known as the Orang Asli (‘original people’) or the Orang Kita (‘our people’). With the sudden burst of colonial era development in the form of tea plantations and highland retreats during the early to mid part of the last century, the Orang Asli were constantly pushed off their land. They have since grouped together and managed to retain some land and rights and clusters of their stilted forest huts (many of which now sport satellite dishes) can clearly be seen from the jungle road which leads to Taman Negara and Tanah Rata, along with a handful of the wooden stalls from which they sell honey, woven baskets and other forest goods.  As the Malaysian government continues to encourage development (particularly tourism and business related), the rights of the Orang Asli continue to come under fire. There are organisations such as the Center for Orang Asli Concerns monitoring the situation but the issues facing them seem far from being resolved at present.

After what seemed like the longest drive I’d ever been on, we finally reached Tanah Rata and made our way through the notorious highland rain to our accommodation. We’d tried to book into a hostel that we’d read about called Father’s Guest House, but the church which owns the land the hostel was on had recently decided to take it back and so we were taken to their other guest house, Gerard’s Place. It was about 10 minutes walk from the town and was located in a complex of mock Tudor buildings, slightly reminiscent of an Austrian ski chalet village. Jay, our host, was very welcoming and gave us many good tips on local walks and wildlife. She was part of a local environmental group called REACH (Regional Environmental Awareness Cameron Highlands) who not only aim to educate and inform the local population about current environmental issues but also actively monitor local problems such as increased pollution levels in rivers due to farming run-off. They are a very impressive grassroots organisation and also serve as a refreshing example of what people can do when they group together for a cause.

The guest house itself was a very relaxing base from which to explore the surrounding area. In true highlands style, it was very wet but we decided to take a trip to the ‘BOH’ Sungai Palas tea plantation, which is one of the oldest in the highlands. I had seen pictures of tea plantations before but was not prepared for just how extensive it was. Despite being a man-moulded landscape, I couldn’t help but find it beautiful – especially when the mists rolled gently over the hill peaks. The walk through the plantation may have been damp (though strangely this didn’t deter a wedding party whose bride and groom were being photographed, posing among the tea hedges), but the café at the end was definitely worth the trek. The ‘BOH’ tea café overhangs the plantation from an elevated height, providing spectacular 360 degree views of the rolling hills. The choice of teas was fantastic and unlike KL, there wasn’t a condensed milk carton in sight, which made for a welcome change. This, in combination with the damp weather and scones with local strawberry jam almost made me feel like I was sitting in a countryside café back at home. This thought was soon interrupted however, by several small dots which came into vision, moving around the hedges, dragging huge sacks of tea leaves behind them. A couple appeared to have clippers, which is a now old fashioned method of tea picking and has become increasingly rare in recent years thanks to the introduction of electric, tea-stalk-cutting strimmers. Some locals argue that this has had a negative impact on the taste of the tea but as the pickers are paid by the kilo (and at only 20 cents per kilo), you can hardly blame them for making use of this newly available machinery. A local man, whose mother had been a tea picker some 20 years ago, told us that there are no longer many Malaysians working on the plantations as the owners prefer to employ cheaper foreign labour from Indonesia, the Philipines and Nepal. The workers are usually signed up for a minimum of two years, during which time they live in huts (pictured above) in the plantation grounds. The tea harvesters we met seemed in good spirits – perhaps working in such lush, green surroundings helps – but there’s not doubt that it’s hard work which it’s easy to forget about when buying mega packs of tea bags in the supermarket (most of which incidentally contain cheap tea dust rather than actual tea leaves).

The next day brought even more rain than the day before but as it was our last in the highlands, we decided to make the most of it by hiking along one of the jungle trails to the Robinson falls. We had been tempted to embark on a longer walk in search of a Rafflesia (the largest known, and perhaps worst smelling, flower in the world) which was currently in bloom in the highlands, but after a couple of disappointing reports from other trekkers who had returned to our accommodation drenched, covered in mud and pretty miserable, we decided to forego it in favour of the easier path. The river that runs through Tanah Rata had started to swell and was running furiously alongside the jungle path, its banks barely containing the strong earthy-brown current. The walk snaked by some of the infamous highland strawberry farms, as well as several home made jam stalls before turning into a more densely forested area where the rain mists thickly gathered at canopy level. After crossing several bridges and shallow streams, we reached the falls which were thundering down a ravine. The town of Tanah Rata was only about 20 minutes away on foot but this felt like a different world, one through which elephants and tigers used to freely prowl. Sadly, as the human presence increased in the highlands, their habitat quickly diminished and in 1974 an elephant trans-location group was set up to move any ‘problem’ elephants away from the highlands, to various national parks and sanctuaries.  Some say that the highlands lost something when this was allowed to take place and that wild beauty was sacrificed in favour of the creation of a sort of controlled tourist park atmosphere (something which the British undoubtedly had a hand in creating – many of the highlands’ villas still bear the unmistakable marks of the British penchant for clipped lawns and manicured gardens). As long as there are groups such as REACH campaigning against further deforestation and unnecessary development however, I can’t help but feel that the highlands still stands a fighting chance.

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Kuala Lumpur: a Tale of Two Cities

Posted on February 5, 2012 by alex

Our guesthouse in Kuala Lumpur (referred to as ‘KL’ by just about everyone in it) was a very laid back place and a good introduction to the beginning of our journey across South East Asia. It was here that we were introduced to the quirks and customs of removing our shoes upon entering a house, not putting toilet paper anywhere near the toilet, shower heads which hang directly over the toilet, fruit jam which contains no fruit and going to sleep/waking up to the sounds of car horns and chickens.

Our first couple of days were mainly spent adjusting to life back on land and exploring the Chinatown area in which our guesthouse was situated. We had been told that the best food was to be found in the hawker stalls which line the street pavements at night, so we ventured out to track some down and give it a try. The vibrancy of the crowded streets was almost too much to absorb after nearly a month at sea, with brightly coloured Chinese lanterns, flowers, watches, fake DVDs and handbags at every turn. Pots and pans bubbled away at various makeshift stalls while people crouched around plastic tables wolfing down their food from plastic bowls, which were soon whisked away for a soapy clean in one of the many makeshift washing tubs. Refreshingly, the Chinatown district of KL seems to have staved off the fast-paced corporatisation which has bulldozed over other parts of the city (it was strange to think that the Petronas Towers and mega-shopping complexes were lurking somewhere nearby).  The decaying villas, ramshackle housing and bustling street scenes of the Chinatown district were reminiscent of those described in colonial-era literature such as The Singapore Grip, which was set in the 40′s. Our guesthouse, for example, was situated alongside some beautiful pre-WW1 shop houses such as The Old China Café next door, which operates out of the old guild hall of the Selangor & Federal Territory Laundry Association. In 1999, the rent control act was repealed and many older businesses in the district have since been forced to move out, resulting in a surge of wealthier business owners edging in, many of whom have carelessly renovated or in some cases completely demolished a number of KL’s historic older buildings. It was refreshing to come across places like The Old China Café, which make the effort to retain the spirit and features of the old buildings. The OCC has even created an excellent late night tea parlour upstairs reminiscent of those which were once a common sight in this part of the city. Some things don’t change however and the sounds and smells of KL had started to bring back memories from my childhood spent in Hong Kong which made me very excited at the thought of returning there further down the line in our journey.

Getting into the spirit of Farrell’s Singapore Grip, I decided I couldn’t leave KL without trying a Durian, something of a local fruity delicacy. Striking fear into the hearts of hotel-owners everywhere, the pulp of this spiky fruit has a similar texture to stringy processed cheese and tastes something akin to caramelised leeks. The overpowering and distinctive smell however, is what really earns Durian its reputation – as I was soon to discover. The Durian segment I had bought was wrapped in a layer of cling-film and two layers of plastic bags, but even this did not stop its pungent odour from escaping. Having quickly exited the local supermarket for fear that it had a major gas leak, it was only when we were back at the guesthouse that I realised the gas odour was actually leaking from the Durian bag and was quickly beginning to waft its way around the hostel (the many ‘no Durian’ signs we later saw in hotels throughout SE Asia made complete sense after this).

Having exposed some unwilling participants to the delights of this love/hate fruit, we were glad we were only staying one more night at the guesthouse. On our final evening in the city, we decided to go slightly further afield to visit the Petronas Towers, which are based in a strange ‘business zone’ (like Canary Wharf) to the east of the city centre. They were the tallest buildings we had seen since leaving New York and I felt quite sick from some kind of inverse vertigo within seconds of looking up. The towers were actually built by Malaysia’s large nationalised petrol company (who else could afford such a ridiculously tall building here?), so we weren’t surprised to see a museum dedicated to petrol nearby, which we mentally added to our list of weird museums alongside the Pencil Museum in the Lake District and the Tomato Museum in Guernsey.  A shopping mall is housed at the base of the towers, the magnitude of which is almost alarming .  The vast store locater map alone was enough to produce a sense of acute fatigue. We battled on however and spent an hour in the place trying to track down somewhere which sold a padlock and for that hour it felt like we had left Malaysia and entered some strange clinical world where everything is sponsored by petrol guzzling vehicles. It was also strange to see middle-of-the-road shops from the UK and Australia trying to pass themselves off as designer boutiques, with the exorbitant price tags to match. We were genuinely excited however, to find a Marks and Spencer food store, full of bargain-bin Christmas chocolate – which almost made the draining mega mall experience worth it.

Having replenished our chocolate supply, we geared ourselves up for a four hour bus trip to the Cameron Highlands the next day. We were looking forward to being amongst greenery again and hoped that we’d finally be able to enjoy a good cup of tea after two months of Lipton.

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Wind Powered Cargo Ships and Arriving in Malaysia

Posted on February 5, 2012 by alex

Our last day at sea was spent slowly crawling up the Singapore and Malacca straits. The Captain called us at midday to come and watch Singapore emerge through the heat and smog haze as a strip in the distance. The number of cargo boats and barges in this small stretch of water was insane and as we approached the area a thin strip of yellow smog surrounded us, which brought home the polluting impact of these ships. There are over 90,000 cargo ships sailing the oceans and seas of the earth at any one time, many of these still burning low grade ship bunker fuel 24 hours a day. This hit the headlines back in 2009 when it was revealed that one giant container ship pollutes the air as much as 50 million cars. The mounting industrial prowess of countries such as South Korea and China mean that plans for even bigger container ships are on the cards which seems like something akin to madness when particulate matter emissions from ship engines have already been shown to have contributed to the premature deaths of over 60,000 Americans and many others in Europe and South East Asia, not to mention its contribution to climate change.

It’s not all doom and gloom however; the International Maritime Organization finally got off the fence in 2010 and introduced a sulphur cap which will see sulphur in fuel reduced by 90% by 2020 which is in addition to the introduction of buffer zones (where emissions are controlled) around the US, Canada and it is hoped in Europe too. If these longer term action goals seem frustrating however (which they do to me), there are some refreshingly different smaller scale projects (see B9 Energy group) on the go, which focus on the development of wind-powered cargo ships that are also commercially viable. The B9 Energy group claim that its ships can ‘deliver competitive freight rates and equal performance against schedules of conventional oil powered ships’ which could prove to be a very important show piece for those who don’t believe that efficient and affordable low-carbon shipping is possible. A group called the New Dawn Traders have also just set off from the UK on a slow cargo adventure of their own, where they will transporting Devon beer to France and Spanish olive oil to Brazil. You can follow their adventures here; and not to forget the Pacific Voyagers who we met earlier in our trip and are currently sailing their way from Mexico back to the South Pacific in traditional vakas. They have exciting plans to introduce sustainable, wind powered transport between islands in the South Pacific so it’s definitely worth checking out their blog.

Back on the Carelia, our last night on board was spent packing and trying to reduce the weight and size of our luggage, which had slowly grown to epic proportions and desperately needed a diet. The seas were calm and at about 11pm we were able to tuck into bed for a few hours’ rest before immigration were due to board. The AS Carelia pulled into the container terminal of Port Klang in the very early hours of the 6th January. We were expecting an early wake-up to meet the port agent, but we instead got a call from the 3rd Officer to let us know that we could look forward to a lie-in as the immigration office, in Klang style, would not be opening until at least 9.

We had time for a quick breakfast before we said goodbye to the crew and finally stepped off the ship for the last time to meet a representative of the port agent who was to drive us to immigration. In an unusual arrangement for those used to airports and passenger terminals, it turns out that in order to get our passports stamped we had to leave the port and drive for a few miles to the back of a warehouse which looked remarkably similar to the Elephant and Castle shopping centre. Herein lies the the immigration department of Port Klang (though the sign for the adjacent department for the regulation of massage and alternative therapy was far more prominent).

Further cementing our belief that there really are very few tourists arriving this way, the man who had just driven us to immigration asked us to wait a moment before rapping on the roof of a chrome-plated sports car that had a man’s legs sticking out of its window. This it turned out was the port agent, Mr. Wen. He was friendly enough and did direct us through the passport control in an efficient manner (although we were the only people there so he didn’t have much directing to do). I think we may have been the first non-seamen and maybe the first male and female travelling couple that they had received in a long while, and we were presented with the lighter side of border control (lots of giggling and joking around with forms). In five minutes we were stamped into the country, if only our first hour on Malaysian soil could have been so easy…

When we left the immigration office we were offered a lift to our hotel for the steep price of US$50, which we politely declined as we wanted to get the commuter train into the historic Kuala Lumpur station. This was then swiftly countered by a demand for US$300 for ‘formalities’ from Mr. Wen. Our jaws dropped – in Malaysia this amount of money is a huge sum, enough to rent a nice flat in the city for a month and about the same as our travel budget for the whole of Malaysia. So now we understood how he was able to afford his pimpmobile car! After 20 minutes of haggling, we demanded to be taken to his office as up until this point we weren’t even sure if this man was a real port agent. After a short drive we stopped outside a row of dentists, doctors and surgeons practices which strangely also shared rental space with ‘The Trusted Name in Batteries’ electrical store. Our driver gestured to a room upstairs which, having no idea where we were, we approached with a certain amount of caution. Inside was a room with a computer and some files which did at least contain documents on shipping. We were shown email correspondence with the Captain of the Carelia, who it turns out had enlisted this company’s services as they are the Ahrenkiel groups normal go-to guys for this port. After a bit of debate, they showed us some of their competitors’ prices and it did indeed seem fair compared to some of the others. It turned out that this is the normal arrangement for freighter passengers, but it definitely caught us by surprise – a warning to fellow travellers – make sure you clear with your booking agent what the arrangements should be on the arrivals side or you could end up as confused as us. In the end, we were able to send the receipt to Globoship (the agent who booked us on the Carelia) for a reimbursement, which they dealt with quickly and helpfully. The port agents seem to be able to charge such ridiculous prices because to the wealthy, profit amassing shipping companies, such an amount is negligible and as a result, the port of Klang is a strange mixture of port workers scraping by and designer label clad port officials driving fast cars.

After our stressful experience at the container terminal, we made our way to Klang station to catch the hour-long Komuter train to Kuala Lumpur station (by contrast to the sum we’d just paid out, the tickets cost us $2 each). The train was air conditioned and the journey pleasant. After so long at sea we drank in our surroundings with intensity and watched as the jungle fringed railway line and corrugated iron housing began to give way to brick new builds and concrete as we neared KL. We also passed a newly built Tesco and a huge Carlsburg factory, the latest trophies in Kuala Lumpur’s commercial enterprise cabinet. We soon arrived at the impressive station building with its colonial-era, mosque-style frontage and interior. We trekked up the station steps to find an open kitchen with delicious Malay curries bubbling away in various pots and pans behind a screen. Tired and hungry, we pulled up two filthy plastic chairs from a stack and piled a plate with various dishes from the pots. A steaming cup of Teh Tarik was then brought to us (a brandless Malaysian red tea served with condensed milk which takes the edge off any spicy curry). This was some of the best food we had while in Kuala Lumpur and the flavours offered an incredible introduction to the city. We also had our first encounter with an Asian toilet here (a hole in the ground and a pale of water instead of loo paper) but compared with the portaloos at Glastonbury they were more than civilized. We hadn’t even left the station yet and we were already falling for South East Asia.

 

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