Kuala Lumpur

Parking Mojombo in Kelang we took a train ride into Malaysia's national capital, ‘KL’ as most folks call it.

Many of the city’s government office buildings are colonial treasures – this one, built by the British in 1897 currently houses the federal and high courts.

Oil and gas rich Malaysia celebrates this new found wealth with the Petronas Towers (Petronas is the national petroleum company).  For a while it was the world’s tallest building.

The infuence of the Indian sub-continent is very strong in Kuala Lumpur and the highlight of our visit was the Batu Cave – a Hindu shrine and pilgrimage site.

Approaching the Batu Cave

Access to the main cave is reached via 272 steps, guarded by a 43m high Murga statue.

The ascent begins...

...stopping for a rest...

... finally entering the main cavern, filled with little shrines...

.... like this one.

The temple at the very top.

Melaka

With out doubt our favourite Malaysian city, Melaka has a wealth of cultural and historic heritage on display for visitors, some of it dating back almost 500 years.

Melaka’s Dutch or Town Square

Strategically located at the narrowest part of the Straits of Malacca, Melaka began as an insignificant fishing village, but well before the arrival of Europeans had already become a strategic Islamic trading port linking India, China and places beyond.  In 1511 the Portuguese became the first European power to wrest control of the town, largely on account of its importance to the lucrative European spice trade.  After several pitched battles, in 1641 the Dutch East India Company assumed control.  Britain informally occupied the town in 1795, formalised after a trade with the Dutch in1825.  Occupied by the Japanese between 1942 and 1945, British independence was granted (as with the rest of Malaysia) in 1957.

Each of these successive waves of political and economic control has left indelible marks on the city, as has its diverse blend of Eastern cultural and ethnic communities.  So intact is much of the old city that in July 2008 large areas were inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Melaka River

Streetscape in the area formerly known as Kampung Belanda (Dutch Village) because it was where many of the Dutch colonialists lived.  Gradually taken over by Pernanakans (also known as the Baba-Nonya), a wealthy Chinese/Malay merchant class, the area is now known as Chinatown.

Interior of a beautifully restored shophouse on Heeren Street in Chinatown, with its mix of indoor and outdoor courtyards.

Shophouse features

 Beautiful villa, Chinatown.

Malaysia

Our view of Malaysia was not the most interesting one.  For a start we spent much of our time in western style marinas – marinas that look pretty much the same as they look anywhere else in the world (except here they are at least affordable).  When Mojombo wasn’t in a marina she was motoring up the western side of the Malay Peninsular – up through the Straits of Malacca.  On the port side there were ships, lots of them, and on the starboard side a low, and generally unremarkable coastline.  

Clouds looming over the ancient maritime highway, the Straits of Malacca

We were motoring because mostly there was barely a breath of wind – or if there was it was on the nose.  As well, compared to Indonesia Malaysia enjoys considerable wealth and with this wealth they have built highways, shopping centres, parking lots, gas stations and yes marinas – and well... much of it felt a bit deja vu.  However there were some delightful highlights, particularly Melaka, Penang and Lankawie.

Puteri Harbour
Preparation is everything!!??  Trouble is... if you take the time to make all necessary and desirable preparations for ocean voyaging you might never leave - there is always at least one more thing that would be a really good idea.  So making our departure from Brisbane in Mojombo we just set a date and left – despite lots still needing doing.  Puteri Harbour was the first place that proved really convenient for undertaking some of the outstanding work.

A stones throw from the shops of Singapore and an attractive place in its own right - at Puteri Mum and Dad worked on a new mainsail cover, a sun awning and on the engine – along with a host of minor things.

Meanwhile Zeke and Nina met brother and sister, Elliot and Marina.  Starved of some good kid company, all four got on like a house on fire.  While Mum and Dad worked the kids pretty much had the run of the docks and shore facilities – we could allow this with confidence knowing they were safe. 

The marina provided some good toys too!

Nice dresses huh??!

While there Elliot turned twelve and the boys had a bang-up party and sleep-over!

Raj – a really lovely man - a Nepalese guest worker and security guard at the marina – here enjoying some of Elliot’s birthday cake (all the guards wore spats - nice colonial touch huh?)

Singapore

It’s a small island, large city and a nation state. An exotic mix of old and new, it’s a financial, manufacturing and world trade hub. A highly visible (and audible) state of the art military protects its shores.  Its per capita income level is the envy of most other SE Asian countries, and, so unlike most of SE Asia, it is clean, tidy, efficient, and most everything works.  It even has a thriving contemporary artistic and theatrical scene!

Perhaps not entirely without issues, for instance Singapore, like Australia, has a rapidly aging population.  It has a large and some would say, exploited, guest worker population, some remaining social and political oppression (though I understand its a lot more relaxed than it was), a flagging industrial and manufacturing base and, like most of SE Asia, a very skewed distribution of wealth.

 Approaching Singapore; crap visibility, almost constant squalls, thunder and lightening and ships thicker’n grandma’s gravy.  Singapore lies across the doldrums – equatorial belts of little wind (except during storms) and high electrical storm activity.

The new casino, the one I understand that is causing havoc to Australia’s international casino market share.  It certainly has wow factor!!

The financial district:  As you’ll appreciate, we hung out there a lot!

 

Architecture: old and new.

 Singapore really is a shopper’s paradise – even for Gary!  This is the ‘hardware’ district, a fascinating mélange of small Chinese merchants – many highly specialised, ie: pipe and tube fitting retailers, big ship pump shops, electric motor rebuilders, vendors of assorted aluminium extrusions; bronze, stainless and aluminium billets cut to size; machinery control systems – whatever you want it is likely there somewhere!

Wanna buy a Buddha?

Mojombo never actually made it in to Singapore – she slid right past, going from Indonesia into Malaysian waters.  However we visited Singapore by bus from Malaysia on several different occasions as day visitors, crossing Johor Strait over a big impressive bridge, accompanied by tens of thousands of Malaysian day workers traveling mainly by bus, but also by car and motorbike.

Each morning on the Malaysian side of the bridge each bus passenger disembarks to clear customs and immigration out of Malaysia, then embarks for the ‘no mans land’ bridge crossing and then disembarks to clear customs and immigration into Singapore before a final embarkation for the remainder of the bus trip to the nearby commuter hub.  And each evening each bus commuter does the process in reverse.

Lots of Indonesians do a daily boat commute across the Singapore Strait as well.

As you can imagine, processing that many day visitors the customs and immigration infrastructure and procedures have evolved into slick, well oiled operations – as has the mass rapid transport system that underpins this important component of the tiny nation’s function.

Indonesian Boats

Any travelogue of a cruise through Indonesian waters could not possibly be complete without mention of the boats seen along the way.

Living in the world’s largest archipelago Indonesia’s 240 million peoples, scattered across 17,000 islands, trend to use boats a lot!  And so many different kinds!  The country’s legendary cultural diversity seems directly reflected in the vast array of boats we saw being built and utilized in the different island communities. Variations were distinctly regional, with vessels highly adapted and specialized with regard to income levels, intended uses and available construction materials.

It is clear they are undergoing continuous adaptation in the modern era, with for instance: the almost universal loss of sail (apart from recreational use); the adoption of outboard or inboard diesel engines; and, the use of modern steering systems.  Yet simultaneously they continue to display strong links to the past in their hull forms, materials, construction techniques and fastenings, decorative elements and the like.

Ambon

A cross-bay ferry with outrigger and long-shaft engine

Not an Indonesian boat at all, but Philipino (so we were told),
impounded for illegal fishing.  It features bamboo outriggers
and struts and a pilot house so low it can only be crawled into

And not even strictly a boat, but a Fish Aggregating Device (FAD), essentially a raft tethered to a float, tethered by a very, very long rope to the bottom.  This particular one is moored in about 400-500m of water – but amazingly we have seen them in water over a 1000m deep.  By providing a bit of ‘structure’ FADs attract fish, particularly mahi mahi.  This particular FAD is lit, but mostly they are not.  Some are reportedly made of steel, not bamboo.  Often they break loose and drift for hundreds of miles – we’ve seen them!

Wangi Wangi, Wokatobi

Short haul ferry, carrying passengers to a small island just 5 kilometres away.  Apart from people they carry everything from motor bikes to chickens and bags of cement.

Longer-haul ferries, they are large, impressive timber vessels.  While we don’t really know, they appear to be largely redundant – the government runs an extensive inter-island ferry service that seems to cover most current needs.

Fishing boats with small, heavy, single cylinder diesel engines.  Their slender
shape and long water line ensures they can really move along! We saw them
as far as 30-40km off-shore, usually hearing them well before seeing them.

Fishing boats under construction.

Careening for maintenance.

One of the very few boats we saw, carrying trade products from an outer island and still working under sail.

An inter-island motorised cargo boat with traditional
steering oar system.

 View of steering oar arrangement

Macassar

Inter-island cargo boats docked at Paotere.

These are real work boats carrying about 300 tons of cargo!

 

They have such majestic sweeping bows – this one getting a scrape down and fresh coat of paint.

I love the detailing around the pilot house

View from a bridge.

Modern replica of a fully rigged phinisi or pinisiq, with
traditional steering oars (quite a few of these have been
built as private pleasure boats and/or for commercial tourism/charter work)

An awsome sandeq trimaran, doing maybe 12-14 knots.  Each year
fishermen from around Sulawesi enter crews into this amazing 300mile
race series that finishes in Maccasar.

We watched from an unfortunate distance as this year’s
fleet of about 45 boats sailed in to town to finish the race.

End of a day’s racing.  These boats look hi-tech but are made of local timbers, bamboo spars and outriggers and are lashed together.  Beautifully crafted they are driven by a huge polypropylene sail.  Each boat carries a crew of 8 blokes who demonstrate amazing balancing skills, hoping from side to side on these spider like boats to keep them upright as they tack, both up and down wind.  

Kumai River

A heavily laden river boat.

Lightly laden inter-island cargo boat

Heavily laden cargo boat.

Construction of a flat bottomed river fishing boat.

Our interest in boats often piqued the interest of the locals.

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