14th - 15 Dec - An interesting week - 2nd sailing trip - Part 1 -

I'm sailing on RSS Independence this time, and i'll be alone, not to mention there's actually a port-of-call(which means we'll actually be landing on a country/island).

Went to TMC, took my MOP(medical orderly pouch), my 'luggage', a box of condoms(bet you didn't know its compulsary for to bring it when you go for 'shore-leave' in a port-of-call), and went to the ship, which happened to be right at the very end of the wharf.

Phew, it was really hot and i was sweating buckets when i reached.

This time, i was directed to the gun-bay, which i stayed there for quite a time, reading my book and watching my 'Friends'. Eventually i mustered up enough courage to talk to a ship crew, and things slowly took off from there.

We got to Balai in a couple of hours, and basically there was no shore-leave initially, but somehow it worked out, and we were able to get an hour for us to walk around.

One thing i forgot to mention, Balai is an island in Indonesia, close enough to Batam, and the time difference is 1 hour, which is called Golf time. Hotel time would be SG timing.

The first group left at 12:45pm, and returned at 1:45pm.
I decided to join the 2pm group. We walked the streets, and i bought some tidbits to bring back, not to mention some hello Panda, and some red bull at the end. Oh yea, some Gum too.

The streets weren't anything much to walk. But being in Indonesia, the people are predominantly malay, though i did see a few chinese around. And they looked rather pretty too(was it just me?).

The streets were really hectic and busy with activity. Motorcycles were everywhere, not to mention vans(which i later deduced to be their main mode of transportation, sort of like Cabs. You flag one down, negotiate a price with them, and then take a ride. How did i figure out? They were honking all the time! One might thought they're crazy, but if you put it in SG Taxi terms, when they honk at you, asking if you want a cab or not, it all makes sense right?)

Motorcycles - You see families on it, 4-5 people on it, babies on it(with their mothers of course), and even kids riding it! I saw one who's probably around 12. Imagine my brother riding a bike in that hectic street. woo.

Oh yes shops! There were actually quite a lot of shops selling stuff, and some nice and decent ones selling bags, clothes. But they weren't quite in the mood, and i wasn't either. The weather was killing us, and our long sleeved coveralls didn't really help.

And yea, we attracted quite a lot of stares. Guess that's normal huh. However, some of us felt that they were hostile. I wouldn't know, i just think its normal, though i won't walk alone.

Later at 3+pm there was a volleyball match between the natives and us. 3 teams, one of them ours, one of them theirs, and one of them was mixed. Their team easily won first, and the mixed team was third.

Wow. I must say i'm really impressed at how some of them played, you could see that they've really trained and are skilled at it.

Later in the evening, at around 7pm Golf time(the sun was already nowhere to be seen), they had a mini celebration dinner at the top deck of the ship. It was to commemorate a wonderful year of sailing for them.

The food included lots of fried stuff, fish, chicken, sotong, prawns, some veggies, and a soup by the chef of the ship.

There was ice-cream for dessert, and some cake(which i didn't take. Didn't feel like cake. haha), for the people who's birthday falls on November, December and January.

I must say, each ship really feels like a family on their own, and i'm really really glad to be able to partake in this close-knitted family, even if its for a couple of days.