November 5, 2006
Selamat Jalan Indonesia: Ferry to Penang
Breakfast at 7, packed, bikes loaded and riding to the Pelnai office to catch the bus to the ferry. We first park on the opposite side of the street, when we bought the tickets Patrick was told that is where to catch the bus.
We see others waiting outside the office, Patrick checks with them, they say no, we should be on this side. We move the bikes across the street and take off the bags, ready to load. The bus is to be here and leaving by 9.
The bus arrives after 9 and is truly on the opposite side of the street. Everyone has to cross 4 lanes and a divider. Patrick makes several trips taking each bike and a load of panniers and tries to supervise the loading of the bikes. He has paid an extra 100,000Rp for the bikes. They had been told we had bikes at the time of purchasing the tickets. It all seems so distressful to the workers and annoying, one says as he points to all our bags "for 2 people". Our panniers put together was not any bigger that some of the suitcases, but they see only the number of bags. The bikes are put on the back of the bus along the back row of seats. The bus takes off and after a few blocks pulls up to another tour office to pick up even more people!
Rachel watches as all our gear is unloaded then reloaded on top of suitcases. Pretty soon the bikes are off, Patrick tries to supervise but the aisles now have people standing in them. One worker seems to be with the bus and he tries to get Patrick to pay for the bikes. Patrick says he's already paid and the worker checks with the guy who has a yellow vest marked with "ferry" and he backs off.
What a ride to the ferry terminal!
In the seat in front of us is an Australian backpacker. We have seen him on the street when we were walking to the Tiptop restaurant yesterday. We arrive at the terminal after 10, everything gets unloaded, we get stuff back onto the bikes, and follow the crowd to the entrance. There's a lot of pushing and shoving and a rather chaotic process.
We first show tickets to guards outside the building. Then we are shown through a doorway and told to put our bikes here and return to another room to get our boarding pass. There is no one line, you just stand in front of the counter and maneuver your way to the front. Give your passport and ticket to the agent, he checks your name against a master list, and attaches a boarding pass to the ticket.
The next step is immigration and screening of luggage.
First, we are told to wait for immigration check in, then come back for the bikes for the screening. Patrick figures out that waiting to screen our panniers would be way too late. So, one bike at a time we wheel the bike up to the Xray belt, unload then wheel the bike to the other end and reload as the bags come out of the screener.
We stand in line at the end of the room that says Immigration. One guard tries to make it orderly with two lines and an aisle in between. Rachel hands her passport to the official and says "Salamet pagi".
You speak Indonesian?" and smiles. She responds with only Terima Kashi. He is friendly and the passport is stamped with an exit stamp for Indonesia.
Now we have to get our bikes through the crowd and loaded on the ferry.
Two ferry workers help with the bikes, just as we go outside it starts pouring rain! The bikes have to be unloaded again and bags are put in the forward hold, the bikes tied to the deck. Patrick tips the one guy that was most helpful. Others on the boat want payment for the bikes. Patrick says, "I've already paid for the bikes."
Finally, we are on the ferry, clothes wet and we take two seats only to discover there are seating assignments and we have by chance selected the right ones. We are next to the window in the five seat row. Bottles of water are passed out and pieces of yellow cake. The boat was scheduled to leave at 11am, it is now 12:10 and we are at last headed for Malaysia.
The TV on the ferry has the featherweight boxing championship on. The windows are cloudy and not much visibility. Our clothes are wet, Patrick has shorts on and is starting to get cold. David, the Malaysian with a "cycle hostel" is to meet the ferry that was supposed to arrive at 5pm. We are at least an hour late already. With every old airplane seat filled, the fast boat rumbles out of the harbor and starts moving at a pretty high speed across the Straits of Melaka. Fortunately, there aren't many waves.
Patrick is freezing in the wet clothes, and we are not sure how accurate the five hour crossing time is and whether it includes the loading and unloading or even customs and immigration time at either end. It includes neither, it's almost 7pm Malaysian time, losing an hour, before we dock in Penang in a tremendous downpour. We can barely make out the many high rise buildings in Georgetown, and Patrick fears we may be back into the smog. All our gear, bag after bag comes up from the forward hold. Our bikes have already been unloaded before we are able to wrestle ourselves off the boat. Then we walk to the immigration past where two long lines have formed. Progress is very slow. About half an hour later we each get our 90 day entrance stamp. Then customs signs and text on our debarkation card warns that death is the penalty for drug trafficking in Malaysia. We expect a thorough inspection of at least some of our bags but we are waved straight through the green line.
By now it is close to eight o'clock. David the Malaysian cyclist Patrick has emailed with was expecting us at about 4pm. He is still here though!
He has it all planned how to get to his house 40km away, now that it is too dark to cycle. We ride to the ferry that takes us to Butterworth on the main land and go straight to the bus terminal. He has a "friend" that drives the local bus and will take all of us to Parit Buntar. Again, we unload the bikes and now we also have to remove the bike wheels. David's bike lies next to the driver seat. At the drop off point David's son is waiting with a car to take our gear, we ride another kilometer to his house at the end of a subdivision.
David "collects" cyclists and is known to pick up cyclists from the road or via a web of friends that alerts him there is a cyclist nearby. Next to his house is a nice room with private bathroom, two double beds. On the walls of his house are pictures of cyclists that have stayed here before. We quickly clean up and sit down at his table for a late dinner. At about midnight we go to bed.
Addendum: since this was a paper journal since transcribing, we add here David's website address: http://www.bicycletouringmalaysia.com/
Also, in 2010 David visited us in Boise Idaho.
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