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Across the South China Sea – Six days in the life of a Siberian Sailor

Tuesday, October 25th, 2005

To return to my homepage please go to: www.cyclinghomefromsiberia.com

“A ship in port is safe, but that’s not what ships are built for”-Grace Murray Cooper

“…but i would be content with nothing but going to sea…”-Robinson Crusoe (Daniel Dafoe)

Current Location: Manila, The Philippines

Km cycled: 12, 802
Km sailed: 1,100
Days spent at sea: 6
Number of being violently sick sessions on boat (!): 4

Plans change, intentions crumble, timings go out of the window. Having spent the best part of a year cycling down the east side of Asia, I approached Hong Kong in early July in the hope that I would soon be able to “hitch hike” a ride on a cargo ship across the South China Sea to the Philippines. And then, just before arriving in Hong Kong (as chance would have it) I did indeed receive a generous email from my parent’s friend’s son-in-law’s friend’s friend (!) Jon, inviting me to help crew his yacht on this very route. I was delighted and accepted the offer even though it would mean waiting in Hong Kong for two whole months whilst the boat was made ready. After a few spectacular delays due to renovation work and broody Typhoons, we decided to make a dash for it.

As we jolted and bounced our way through the dancing waves my body decided to celebrate this epic departure from mainland Asia by being repeatedly sick over the side of the boat! I confess that I now only recall this first day at sea as one in which I sat motionless by the open door of the wheel house, breathing carefully and unwilling to even move my eyes lest I set off a deeper bout of nausea. Sparing you further details details, I can say that after this first twenty four hours of misery, I thankfully found my sea legs enough to thoroughly enjoy the rest of the voyage.

Living, eating and sleeping out at sea is good adventure. The primary task is to take your turn at “keeping watch” behind the wheel. This basically involves trying to keep sailing in a straight line (not as easy as it sounds) and avoiding catastrophic collision with the oblivious super-tankers who slink across the horizon. Being on watch at night is especially dramatic – your 17 tonne, 36 foot, steel craft crashing poetically through the deep, dark seas – shifting skies watching down on you and empty seas stretching out to the horizons all around you. It is almost unbelievable to realise that all your movement is achieved just from the wind blowing on a big piece of outstretched sail.

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One of the most melodramatic tasks on board a ship is cooking. One day I (foolishly) volunteered to fry up some chicken. Down below deck I find is this no simple task. The boat keeling over at forty five degrees and not at all steady, I wedge my legs out between the sink and the galley panels (doing the splits, in a manner of speaking) and try to keep the pan sizzling whilst simultaneously avoiding getting boiling fat thrown all over my embarrassingly sweaty bare chest. Reaching over for pepper pot, all of a sudden the boat lurches over a bit further and I find myself flung across the cabin to smash my back against a cupboard. A drawer of cutlery at the same time chooses to empty itself all over the floor. There is rarely a dull moment when the wind and waves are playing their violent games.

Then gradually, on our fifth morning, as the wind began to die and the skies to clear and the ocean to take on a more friendly turquoise blend of blue, we at last began to see signs of land. First of all it was the precarious little fishing skiff darting around in the distance. Then I noticed the occasional coconut floating past – on one of which perched an an unwittingly doomed crab, now a good hundred miles from shore. The next day, we sighted the grey shades of mountains rising from the edge of our world… and with a final puff of wind and a few dramatic thunder storms, we raised our sails and swooped joyfully into harbour.

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Two days later, our boat anchored in the bay and all my stuff unloaded and repacked on shore, I knew I could no longer put off the inevitable – I had to get back on that bike! Behind me lay the happy memories of three months safe shelter in sparkling Hong Kong: the epic skyline, the hard working people, the good friends and even an amazing new-found girlfriend (now in London). Ahead of me lies a slightly daunting “out of my hands” relay of island hopping, visa blagging, rascal dodging, jungle crossing adventure. Realising I had better just quit worrying and enjoy it all (whether it be successful or not), I rise early from my bunk on the boat and decide to swim ashore. Pushing a little bin bag of essential possessions in front of me, I kick my way through tropical water, stopping briefly to allow a ferry load of bemused, smiling Filipino school kids to pass in front of me. Climbing ashore dripping, I wheel my well rested bike back onto the road and turn north for Manila…

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I hope all is well, best wishes,

Rob
NEW ON WEBSITE: a short QUICKTIME FILM I have put together with video clips from the journey so far – takes about 5 minutes to download, with groovy music, please do have a look: www.cyclinghomefromsiberia.com
If you would like to help out the work of Viva Network and their work with street children and orphans (which I am currently observing in Manila), please go to www.justgiving.com/cyclinghomefromsiberia

and finally… a quote about going to sea (!):

‘ “No,” said Harris, “if you want rest and change, you can’t beat a sea trip.” I objected to the sea trip strongly.
A sea trip does you good when you are going to have a couple of months of it, but, for a week, it is wicked.
You start on Monday with the idea implanted in your bosom that you are going to enjoy yourself. You wave an airy adieu to the boys on shore, light your biggest pipe, and swagger about the deck as if you were Captain Cook, Sir Francis Drake, and Christopher Columbus all rolled into one. On Tuesday, you wish you hadn’t come. On Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, you wish you were dead. On Saturday, you are able to swallow a little beef tea, and to sit up on deck, and answer with a wan, sweet smile when kind-hearted people ask you how you feel now. On Sunday, you begin to walk about again, and take solid food. And on Monday morning, as, with your bag and umbrella in your hand, you stand by the gunwale, waiting to step ashore, you begin to thoroughly like it. ‘

-Three men in a boat, Jerome K Jerome

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Into Hong Kong: The Floods and the Oasis

Thursday, July 14th, 2005

TO RETURN TO MY HOMEPAGE, PLEASE CLICK ON www.cyclinghomefromsiberia.com

Current Location: Hong Kong

Distance cycled: 12,652 Km
Distance to home: 27, 348 Km (approx.)

(if anybody has contacts in NEW ZEALAND I would really appreciate it if you could put me in touch – many thanks)

“Our moral nature is such that we cannot be idle and at ease” Leo Tolstoy

“It is an unnatural business to find yourself in a strange place with an underutilized brain and no particular reason for being there, and eventually it makes you go a little crazy.”
Bill Bryson

THE rains poured and the rivers thrashed as I tumbled my bicycle across half a dozen misty passes and down to coast of the South China Sea. I was greeted by a variety of deluge related obstacles on the way: flooded villages necessitated wading, whilst collapsing cliffs (which spat and slumped muddy rocks in my path) necessitated evasive maneuver steering. None of this seemed to particularly faze the local Chinese people, who just got on with their daily lives and good naturedly cheered me through the various minor perils.

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These excellent Chinese hats double up as both sunshades and umbrellas – a great idea in China!

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My hat (on the other hand) is next to useless (unless I happen to fall off and land on my head).

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Some roads were flooded

After a few weeks of such pleasant melodrama, I wheeled my bike out of China and onto a ferry … an hour later we were docking in the SAR (Special Administrative Region) of Hong Kong. Now this was somewhat different to mainland China!

Hong Kong had always been a major landmark on my map, and I am glad to say that it does not disappoint. At street level, you are surrounded by heaving crowds who gently sweep you along in whatever direction they happen to be moving. Old green trams clatter along the clean grey streets, whilst fashionable shops blast you with cool air conditioning as you wander past. Turning your head to look upwards, you see an array of glittering sky scrapers, interconnected by networks of bustling sky bridges… in between them you might occasionally catch a glimpse of the warm blue sky. As if this is not impressive enough, the city proper is fronted by a magical, lush harbour which rocks and sways round the clock with sea traffic. It is dreamlike to go watch over it at night – the sounds of civilization drift across the water as rippling party lights are reflected back up to the stars. In some ways I find all this cosmopolitanism slightly daunting, especially since everybody I meet seems so jolly successful! It is therefore a relief to discover that not far from all the human enterprise, there is an extraordinary back drop of green islands, sandy beaches and dignified mountain tops. Hong Kong is indeed a nice place to hang out for a while, in all sorts of ways (some of them quite unexpected).

As it has turned out, I have been, and will be here for a while – 2 months in fact. The reason for this is that I have now run out of land to cycle on, and I am faced with some bigger sea crossings. One of the goals of this journey is to make my way all the way down from Russia to New Zealand using only bike and, where necessary, boat (i.e. I am not allowed to fly). Whenever I meet the sea, in most cases I can simply jump on a ferry. However, there are also a few substantial stretches of water (such as the South China Sea) where there are no ferries. This leaves me with the interesting task of trying to hitch hike the oceans with yachts and cargo ships and oil tankers. After a lot of emailing and asking around for help, I am most grateful to Jon King and his yacht Talio for offering me a passage (leaving at the start of September) as far as the Philippines. Once there (all being well) I just keep island hopping south until I eventually get to New Zealand.

On realizing how long I would need to stay here, I tentatively told my old friend Chi Lam (now a successful Hong Kong banker) that I would be in town for considerably longer than anticipated… with characteristic generosity he handed me the keys to his spare flat, graciously urging me to “Treat Hong Kong… like an oasis in the middle of your long journey”. Sounded good to me!

It is weird to stop moving like this. But it is also good. Always on the move is not a good way to live for too long. It has been refreshing to have time off the bicycle; it is a privilege to get to know people for more than one or two days; it even feels fun to do some voluntary work. Probably, missing out on being able to build deeper friendships and not having a purposeful job is what I have been missing the most over these last eleven months. It is so easy to take such things for granted.

Once I leave these shores, I realize that I will be forced to stop even pretending that I am heading towards home. I am heading south and into (what I expect will be) the toughest adventures since Siberia… through the perilous high seas (with pirates), across the exotic spice islands (with corrupt bureaucrats and mountainous jungles) and down to the mysterious land of Oz (with poisonous snakes and strange Australians). (joke)

As always, many, many thanks for your kind emails, prayers and donations to Viva Network. In Manila I will be spending two weeks working with the children at risk projects they operate there – more info to follow.

To kindly donate more money to help street children and orphans through Viva Network, please visit www.justgiving.com/cyclinghomefromsiberia
THANYOU!

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China is a great and beautful place… I hope to return one day

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I think this one requires a little explanation! It actually has to be my most stunning “Mr Bean of global cyclists” moment of the journey thus far… AND it was caught on camera. What happened was this: having been hosted by some wonderful Chinese friends at a university for a few days, it was time for me to make my noble departure… the group gathered to bid me a safe, grand and victorious journey, and I positioned my camera to take a final “self timer” shot. I set the timer going and ran to pick up my ludicrously heavy bike… then wheeled it hastily over to join the line up… then realised I was moving far too fast and had far too much momentum to stop in time… and (o how foolish) that I could not reach my breaks in time… and thus (as you will by now have worked out) I crashed into my unsuspecting friends in their behinds (rather to their bewilderment)… and – of course – at that very moment – the shutter clicked. Ooops.(!)

…and finally, here is a funny Bill Bryson quote to make you smile:

“Prolonged solitary travel, you see, affects people in different ways. It is an unnatural business to find yourself in a strange place with an underutilized brain and no particular reason fro being there, and eventually it makes you go a little crazy. I’ve seen it in others often. Some solitary travelers start talking to themselves: little silently murmured conversations that they think no-one else notices. Some desperately seek the company of strangers, striking up small talk at shop counters and hotel reception desks and then lingering for an uncomfortably long period before finally departing. Some become ravenous, obsessive sightseers, tramping to see everything, Me, I get a sort of interrogative diahorrea. I ask private, internal questions – scores and scores of them – for which I cannot supply answers. And so as I stood by a greengrocer’s in Thurso, looking at its darkened interior with pursed lips and a more or less empty head, from out of nowhere I thought, ‘Why do they call it a grapefruit?’ and I knew the process had started.” (Notes from a small Island)

Shanghai at last… and a different side to China

Sunday, June 19th, 2005
Km cycled: 11,763 Km to home: 28,237 Current Location: Guidong, a small town in the South East China Mountains (between Shanghai and Hong Kong) 26 degrees North, 114 degrees East Cathy: Its like going into the future. Rupert (the architect): Its like going into the future ... [Continue reading this entry]

China’s East side… and some time off the bike

Monday, May 23rd, 2005
Km cycled: 10,100 Km to home: 29,900 Current Location: Nanjing, China (If anyone knows people in PAPUA NEW GUINEA (I know that is a bit of a longshot) or SHIPPING CONTACTS in Asia for a passage between Hong Kong-Manila, and ... [Continue reading this entry]