May 26, 2015
This is definitely not the way to Australia: F*ck it, let's go to Thailand
Our first full day at sea passed quite uneventfully and, as far as I can remember, primarily involved the buffet on deck 14. We did manage to poke our heads outside at some point though, and notice that we were going in completely the opposite direction from that required to reach Australia. We were in actual fact passing back north through the Malacca straits, the exact same stretch of water that we’d just sailed south from Medan on our cockroach-infested ferry. This apparent wayward misdirection would have been quite a blow to our spirits had it not been fully detailed within the cruise schedule. Unlike us, most of the Australians aboard were not simply using the ship as a means to get home again, and were in actual fact keen to visit some places, and so we were to spend the next few days stopping so that they could go ashore and do excursions. Our first stop would be, ludicrous as it may seem, all the way up in Phuket, Thailand, before various ports of call in Malaysia as we headed back south.
On the evening of our sea day there was a formal dining night at the restaurant, the more fancy alternative to the buffet or the pizza joint. Because it was a formal night the dress code required men to wear tuxedos or dark suits to dine. This really wasn’t my style of course, and I certainly didn’t expect it to be Tom’s either, but the master of contradictions struck again, declaring his full intention to dress up and go out for dinner. Naturally he didn’t have a tuxedo or a dark suit, but nevertheless he remained undeterred, and decided that a pair of trousers and a shirt that he’d found at the side of the road, when combined with a pair of five dollar trainers, would be more than sufficient. He slicked back his hair and, ignoring my comments that they were never going to let him in, marched off to the formal dinner.
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I caught up with him a couple of hours later and I was surprised to learn that he had indeed been allowed into the restaurant and, what was more, he’d made friends with a kind old couple that seemed to be quite taken with him. I had to admit Tom had this uncanny knack to turn on the charm in the most unusual of ways. Unfortunately for him, however, his charm wasn’t enough to score him some free champagne. As part of the formal night there had been a champagne waterfall, where many passengers had posed for photos pouring champagne over a pyramid of glasses. Now those glasses were being taken away, champagne untouched. Tom, seeing the staff doing this, went over to ask if he could have some, as they appeared to just be throwing it away.
“No, you can’t drink this, sorry.”
“Oh come on,” he remonstrated, “Why not?”
“Because it is contaminated.”
“Contaminated with what?”
“Dust.”
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When dawn arrived the following morning our ship had already docked in the port of Phuket. It was a rainy day and the location failed to overwhelm me, leaving me feeling surprised that this was one of Thailand’s top tourist hotspots. The limestone cliffs were not as dramatic as I’d seen on the west coast of the country, the water not as turquoise as in Koh Lipe.
It felt strange to leave the boat and to be back in Thailand after so much time had passed since I was last there. Saying “Sawadee Kap” again felt wrong. Not that we saw very much of Thailand, for whilst most of the other passengers took to buses and taxis, we settled for a café 200 metres walk from the ship, which had both beer (for Tom) and wifi (for me), and proved quite enough of an excursion for us.
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We spent most of the day in that café hiding from the rain, only returning on board Dawn Princess for lunch. Our differing styles were apparent as Tom sat and put away beer after beer and repeatedly chirped “Chris, we’re in F*ck-it!” approximately once every ten minutes, whilst I remained sober and used the wifi to make plans for my arrival in Australia. Originally my plan had been to do farm work of some kind for the first three months, a necessary requirement in order to obtain a second year working holiday visa, but I’d now realised that, with it being winter in Australia, there wouldn’t be much work around Perth. I didn’t really want to do farm work anyway (it would be boring and repetitive, and I might have to get in a tractor) and so my attention turned instead to getting to work pedicabbing as soon as possible, in order to try and get enough funds to continue the adventure within a single year. Now it seemed that Gold Coast would be my best bet for doing that, a city on the eastern side of the country and a whopping 4,500 kilometres from Perth. Work would be available if I could get there by the 9th of July, 33 days after we’d arrive on the west coast. 4,500 kilometres in 33 days? Was it possible? It looked like I would have strong tailwinds the whole way, and I’d be well rested after the cruise, and so in a moment of poorly-thought-out optimism I signed up for the challenge.
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