Two if by Sea…

BANGKOK — So how does one travel around the world with­out tak­ing a plane? Well, with a great deal of patience, for one. A tol­er­ance for long bus rides doesn’t hurt. But none of that gets you across those pesky stretches of open water, known as “seas” and “oceans”. For that, you need a boat. And I finally found one.

I’ll be board­ing the White Sea, call sign 9HA3050, in Sin­ga­pore on about Dec 10, set­ting sail for Perth. I hear this freighter ship made the Kessel Run in less than 12 par­secs. (#nerd­hu­mor!) She’s flagged in Malta, is 180m long and has a beam of 32m. In short, she’s big. Her last reported posi­tion was off the east coast of Aus­tralia, so she’s going to have to put on a head of steam if she’s going to make Sin­ga­pore by Dec 10. The trip to Perth will take about 10 days, with at least one port of call in Jakarta.

To book a freighter ship isn’t as easy as show­ing up at port and bad­ger­ing cap­tains to take you on. I scoured the Inter­net, a wretched hive of scum and vil­lainy if there ever was one (#moren­erd­hu­mor!), until I found the some­what omi­nously named Glo­bo­ship, a Swiss firm that han­dles freighter bookings.

This is not a cheap way to travel, and there’s lit­tle doubt fly­ing would be more con­ve­nient as well. (Most com­mon ques­tion I hear these days: “Why don’t you just fly?”) It’s cost­ing me about $1700 for the pas­sage to Aus­tralia from Sin­ga­pore, but that includes food, the chief steward’s state­room (which is very nice!) and, I assume, all the grog I can drink. Urs, from Glo­bo­ship, has been most help­ful, and has worked hard to get me on this ship.

Accord­ing to the German-​​language brochure Urs sent me, White Sea has a small swim­ming pool, a “fit­ness room” that seems to con­sist of a ping-​​pong table and a dart board, a pretty swank lounge with TV and DVD col­lec­tion and even a sauna. My cabin may or may not have a view, depend­ing on the cargo. Still, for 10 days in what can be con­sid­ered a 3.5-star hotel, the price isn’t bad. I may or may not be the only pas­sen­ger on board. I’ll find out soon enough.

There’s no Inter­net or phone while at sea, except for emer­gen­cies, although I think my need for hourly checks of email counts for that, right? Maybe not. At any rate, I’ll have a great chance to pho­to­graph on board a cargo ship, from the bridge to the bilge, and I’m def­i­nitely look­ing for­ward to that. Look for the gallery after I wade ashore in Perth. I’ll then have until about March 22 to get to Auk­land to brave the Pacific pas­sage to Panama. But that’s a whole ’nother story wait­ing to happen.

Now all I have to do is get down to Sin­ga­pore. Train from Bangkok, anyone?