Travelling to Russia

I am safely onboard my ship, the Pacific Endeavour, in Russia once again and this trip, without an ounce of doubt I will get to see ice! Not an ice-cube, not a lone icicle dangling from the end of a window wiper but pack ice, pancake ice, ice floes, thick ice, drift ice and ice that has to be broken up by us! I will see it all very soon as we sail north to the oil platforms and the -30 degree temperatures and I will never again wonder what it would be like to be in the middle of the sea surrounded by 1-meter thick ice and I will be experienced in ice-breaking, something that I have only watched on video, heard talk about and been eager to see.

The ice though comes tomorrow! Today I must recount my trip from where it started; every story has a beginning and mine started from the moment that I left my home and family in Kaohsiung, Taiwan!

Kaohsiung Airport Departure Lounge
Photo Copyright © Ieuan Dolby, 2007

I must say that if tears had value, my wife and son could make quite a tidy profit! At Kaohsiung International Airport on Sunday the 17th December 2006, I bid farewell to my little family and boarded a China Airlines flight to Singapore via Bangkok! My wife cried from love and separation, my son cried because he wasn't allowed to pass through into the immigration checkpoint with me (more from interest than anything to do with my leaving the country without him) and I didn't cry because men don't cry!

The flights flew by without cause for note, and so I arrived in Singapore at 1055hrs to be met by a driver! Just to give some background to any wonderment about why I was traveling from Kaohsiung to Singapore (Russia, my intended destination being North and the other way), I had to go there to obtain a new Russian Visa and to attend a small course on Cold-Water Survival and Helicopter Underwater Escape Techniques in Johor Bahru in Malaysia!

Johor Bahru is Malaysia's second biggest city after Kuala Lumpur! It nestles in the fertile lands of the south in the state of Johor, directly opposite Singapore (got that from some travel guide)! Much of its income is derived from trade with Singapore, from workers who travel daily across the border to Singapore and from the fact that many Singaporeans like to go there for shopping, as most items are cheaper than back home! Oh, and many firms, companies and business set up shop due to it's closeness to Singapore, companies like the Maritime Safety Training School (MSTS) whose income is derived from passing seafarers like myself!

A company hired driver picked me up outside Singapore Airport (Changi Airport), stuck me into his large four-wheeled drive, stuck a pen and an immigration card for Malaysia into my hands and set off at breakneck speed in the direction of the causeway at Woodlands, the main crossing point into Malaysia! I wrote that immigration card as we bounced along in the dark! I did manage to get a glimpse of my entries before reaching the checkpoint and could not decipher the illegible squiggles of all except my signature, but with a loud thump of a well-used chop, I was allowed into the country! Twenty minutes later and I was at the reception desk of the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Johor Bahru and after a cursory handshake my driver clambered back into his steaming vehicle and shot back off to his home in Singapore, taking with him my passport; this to be delivered to the Russian embassy in Singapore to obtain the required visa.

The Hyatt Hotel Sign in Johor Bahru
Photo Copyright © Ieuan Dolby, 2007

By 1230pm I was safely in my room, looking forward to a nights sleep and ready to be thrown violently around in a helicopter, made to fight shooting flames, stuck in a pitch black and large container filled with smoke and to huddle just a bit too close for comfort with a group of men in an unheated swimming pool! All under the heading of a "course".

The Hyatt Regency was okay! I would like to describe it as a run-down colonial-era building that reeked of neglect and I would probably be right if a little bit out-of-date! I am doubtful if the Hyatt group of hotels actually owns this hotel anymore, notable from the fact that the manager visibly shivered when I asked for the membership points to be added to my account and from the fact that Hyatt do not tend to allow green slime to build up on the room windows to the extent that the light is blocked from entering. I suppose these little things gave charm, removed the hotel from the run-of-the-mill chains that are exactly the same from Rio-de-Janeiro to London to the extent that unless the patrons step outside the front door they could in actual fact be anywhere in the world and they would not know it.

The Green Slime on the Window of the Hyatt Regency
Photo Copyright © Ieuan Dolby, 2007

So with my greenish windows, the cracked walls, the chipped doors and the television cabinet door that fell off in my hands when I opened it I was quite happy to stay there! The room was comfortable, the service friendly and the atmosphere excellent so what else could I ask for?

I was picked up from the hotel on Monday morning by a course appointed driver, a service offered by MSTS! We drove for one hour to the training barge on the coast and there the first day of the training course started! I knew what to expect, I have done all this before (every three years offshore workers must do such crazy things) and taken with a pinch of salt it is an enjoyable way to spend three days! Why not? It is physically active, for the most part outside, it involves minimal brainpower and looking at the end-result it will help us should we ever wake-up to find the ship we are currently on sinking beneath us, be on a helicopter that suddenly decides to lose a blade or two and should anybody fall victim to cardiac arrest and require Pulmonary Resuscitation a life might be saved (in this instant it is in my interest that every other offshore worker in the world attends the course and not myself only).

I must admit that the course was severely hampered due to a freak rainfall that disrupted the whole state of Johor. The downpour was recorded as the most rain that had fallen in 75yrs and it rapidly turned once smooth roads (my driver insisted that potholes were unknown in the state until these rains came along; an assurance that I somehow doubt) into pot-holed assault courses. The course managed to keep going despite the fact that all attendees arrived late, that we all had to leave early to beat the waterlogged traffic jams to arrive back at our respective homes/hotels before midnight and that the lunchtime food always arrived late due to being stuck in a pothole somewhere on the other side of town! The rains created havoc but in their own small way gave good scenic effect to the training course; if a ship is going to sink, if a helicopter is going to go down in all probability it will be in the middle of a typhoon or hurricane.

I passed the course (it is difficult to fail) after the prescribed three days. I stayed one further night in Johor Bahru (to await my visa) and then at midday on the 21st December 2006 a driver came shooting across the border with my newly stamped passport to whisk me back to the hustle and bustle of the concrete jungle of Singapore; once again I was on the move!

There is not that much that I can say about the next step of the journey! It was relatively normal and does not deserve comment or embellishment! In factual narrative; I was whisked across the border having rapidly filled in a Singaporean Immigration card with illegible scrawls and was driven to the Allson Hotel near Bugis Junction! I stayed there until 8pm, mostly asleep, was then picked up by yet another driver who whisked me away to the airport. I checked in for a Singapore Airlines flight to Incheon International Airport, changed flights for an Asiana Airlines one and by 1300hrs on the 22nd December 2006 I landed with the usual thump onto Russian Soil (lumpy tarmac really) and so I was in the land of ice, the place were I will at last get to see more than an icicle dangling precariously from the end of a window wiper!

Ieuan Dolby
Author and Webmaster of SeaDolby.com
Copyright © Ieuan Dolby, 23rd December 2006