Random adventure #1: our August trip in Indo, involving Ange and the
Scotts, just got better: Dad rang me with the news that my brother Dan
is coming too! Sweet!!!! I can’t wait. And it’s only 3 weeks away!
Yeeeeharrrr!
They’re chronologically out of order, but random adventure #2 goes a bit like this:
On
Friday, I got a sms out of the blue from my mate James. It said (and I
quote): “Hi Jac. I am on a container ship just passing Jakarta heading
to Singapore. You close by maybe? Hope you are well. James.”
As
a matter of fact, yes, yes I am. This whole screwed-up visa renewal
thing was timed fortuitously with James’ one day stop-over in
Singapore. Awesome!
I like it when things work out like this. Especially when they come after such frustrations from incompetent people…
So,
when I arrived in Singapore this morning, I checked into my hotel,
cruised down to Boat Quay and had a nice lunch and a few beers with
James. It was great to see him, it’s been ages and it was a little
surreal to see such a familiar face in a familiar city that’s not in
Australia! I caught up on all the news from home, and then found out
about his adventure on the container ship.
James first
mentioned his idea to travel back to England (he’s a pom by trade) by
container ship a couple of years ago, and it’s cool that he’s gone and
done it. He is one of only two ‘passengers’ on the ship Alexandra
somethingorother, a German ship, and rest of the people on board are
either the Eastern European crew or the Filipino deckhands. Sounds like a
nice life: a nice front-of-ship-facing window looking out over the
containers to the horizon; all their meals with the captain and crew;
playing ping pong; reading books; tax free grog; star gazing parties;
karaoke ... It will take him 32 days to get there, stopping off at
Singapore, Colombo, Egypt and Italy on the way. Not a bad way to spend a
month I reckon!
Unfortunately I wasn’t able to get
past the gate into the port to get an insider’s tour of the ship, so I
just wandered back to Chinatown, a part of Singapore I hadn’t been to
yet. It’s a cool place to hang out, lots of good food stalls, markets
and temples to visit. I really like Singapore – it’s such a
multicultural place with an interesting history and while it is
essentially an uber-modern city with skyscrapers, flashy shopping malls
and sanitary streets, it still retains its ethnic heritage in the
Chinatown, Little India Malay and Kampong Glam quarters.
So
once I get my visa back tomorrow, it’s back to Simeulue and back to the
field. Looking forward to it. Kevin07 – oh yeah, we got a new Paul! –
will be coming as well. I forgot to write about my new boss. He arrived
this week. An Irishman by birth, he lived in Australia for a while, and
recently married an Indonesian lass who he met while working in
neighbouring Nias Island. He’s a very intense guy and has spent long
hours in the office this first week getting to know all the staff
individually and hearing all their stories and gripes and project/staff
histories. Seems very no-nonsense, just the sort of person we need to
sort out this bloody mess of an office. So, we’ll see how it all goes.
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