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So here I am in the deep of red china. Two days up the yangzees (don't hassle me over the spelling, they do things different over here...) river. I've been here for a couple of days, but this is the first time I've managed to leave the ship, nevermind the shipyard. I am most certianly ready to repatriate, much less gety off the fucking ship, though the two are esentially the same. This trip has been long on transit and short on shore leave. I got on the ship on the 22nd of june in Galveston, and waited a week to leave. Made Libya a dew weeks adter that, but (as I've said) couldn't leave the ship due to some passport snafu. A coup-0le of weeks and the Suez canal later, we hit Mombassa. And despite it's considerable charm density, I couldn't manage more time off the ship than a glass of gin and a tusker. Tanzania lent me a little more time, but barely so. Still drinking the tusker (after rejecting the "kilimanjaro" "safari" beers...) I spent maybe four days off the ship, wandering around without any REAL stories to tell, aside from the $25.00 plates of chicken necks, but even still, that's just a story of being a stupid american, not of derring-do. The only derring do came off the coast of somalia when we had a couple of white speedboats approach the ship around 0530, only to have them peel off adter they saw us up on the bridge wings. They saw us, waved, and peeled off. The next day, over the telex, we recieved a "high priority" piracy wartning for almost the exact spot for a couple of boats fitting the description to a "t". And then, of course, as we transited indonesia, we had a similar experience where a ship was taken only five nautical miles from our position at the same time. It goes without saying that I would love to die at the hands of pirates rtather than my soul or liver, but I think that it is becoming obvious to me that being an american flagged vessle makes us a little less palatable to pirates these days. It certianly ain't the fire-hoses we have ready to douse them with in case of "attack". (Reportedly, the somalians had RPG'S). Anyhows. Spent a couple of hours shore side in Jakarta, where I felt like a genuine GIANT in the bar, and now. Now? I'm up the river in red china. The people may not be very friendly, the rice beer is awful, but even when they are ripping me off, I'm still only paying fifty cents for over a half a litre of beer. There are peekeneese dogs running the streets as strays and a woman tried to sell me a freshly washed kitten for ten bucks not two hours ago. Pets or food? I dunno...
I'm here indefinately. I was supposed to fly home last week, but they are keeping us on until, well, until they decide they are sending us home.
I enjoy it here. They have the same concrete commie sidewalk tiles they had in Czechoslovakia when I first went there waybefore I knew I would waste my life finding new places to get drunk rather than becoming famous as I thought I should be. I miss czech, but all my friends there are dead. In one way or another. So I am contenting myself to drink the cheap and lousy beer in the bodegas that surround the port gates. Drinking beer and trying to learn how to say things in this inscrutable chineese. It's probably around 1300 here and I hust found out that most of the morning I thought I was saying "More beer" when I was REALLY saying "More PEE". But as they say the world over: "Same-same". Few english phrases are as universal as same same. But more on that later. I ned to get back to the ship and sleep this HORRID beer (pee) off before my watch.
And here, and two days up the river and a little time to relax for the first time in over two months. Up here in this industrial city that nobody, not even (seemingly) the dude playing 'everquest' next to me, the city thaty nobody knows the name of. And even if they did, I don't think it would really matter. Even if there was a name for this place there wouldn't be any post cards...
The air is so thinck that you can't get a picture, much less smoke another cigarette through your dust-mask.
Bu Knee How.
-Dog
*edit*
From weekly piracy report. We were aproximately ten miles from this location at the time.
16.08.2005 at 0200 LT in approx posn 01N – 104E, Indonesia.
Pirates hijacked a tug towing a barge. They threw a crewmember overboard who was rescued by a nearby craft. He reached shore and reported the incident to naval authorities in Tg. Pinang. The tug and barge are still missing.
I'm here indefinately. I was supposed to fly home last week, but they are keeping us on until, well, until they decide they are sending us home.
I enjoy it here. They have the same concrete commie sidewalk tiles they had in Czechoslovakia when I first went there waybefore I knew I would waste my life finding new places to get drunk rather than becoming famous as I thought I should be. I miss czech, but all my friends there are dead. In one way or another. So I am contenting myself to drink the cheap and lousy beer in the bodegas that surround the port gates. Drinking beer and trying to learn how to say things in this inscrutable chineese. It's probably around 1300 here and I hust found out that most of the morning I thought I was saying "More beer" when I was REALLY saying "More PEE". But as they say the world over: "Same-same". Few english phrases are as universal as same same. But more on that later. I ned to get back to the ship and sleep this HORRID beer (pee) off before my watch.
And here, and two days up the river and a little time to relax for the first time in over two months. Up here in this industrial city that nobody, not even (seemingly) the dude playing 'everquest' next to me, the city thaty nobody knows the name of. And even if they did, I don't think it would really matter. Even if there was a name for this place there wouldn't be any post cards...
The air is so thinck that you can't get a picture, much less smoke another cigarette through your dust-mask.
Bu Knee How.
-Dog
*edit*
From weekly piracy report. We were aproximately ten miles from this location at the time.
16.08.2005 at 0200 LT in approx posn 01N – 104E, Indonesia.
Pirates hijacked a tug towing a barge. They threw a crewmember overboard who was rescued by a nearby craft. He reached shore and reported the incident to naval authorities in Tg. Pinang. The tug and barge are still missing.
