Bangkok to Singapore - Grounded: A Down to Earth Journey Around the World - page 82

The British kid, whose dad owns a yacht berthed at the club, pulls a baggie full of weed from the pocket
of his shorts. “This is very bad news here,” he says, rolling a joint. “Death penalty.” He sparks it up, takes
a long toke, and passes it around.
The yachting vibe is infectious. Rebecca and I start fancifully discussing whether we should blow the
remainder of our life's savings on buying a boat. We could cruise around from one tropical port to the next.
Or just slowly dissipate here in Langkawi. Boats up to forty feet can berth at the marina for three hundred
bucks a month. That's a fraction of the price of a nice one-bedroom apartment in D.C.
Forbes is surfing the Web, looking at sailing-related online bulletin boards to see if anyone's seeking
crew. He hasn't given up. “I'm gonna get you on a boat!” he says, a bit wild-eyed. When he takes a break
to get another beer, I run a quick check of my e-mail.
There's a message from Hamburg Süd in my in-box. The Theodor Storm —the freighter we're planning
to take from Singapore to Brisbane—is having mechanical problems. It needs to bring engineers on board
to fix them. It can't take us to Australia.
This is utterly disastrous news. It plunges me back into reality. We shelled out nonrefundable deposits
for the freighter that goes from Australia to New Zealand, and also for the cruise ship that will take us from
New Zealand to Los Angeles. It was all lined up in a tight row. But with the first domino fallen, I'm not
sure we can catch the next two ships. If we do miss them, we'll be out a truly painful amount of money.
(Like, a two-door Japanese hatchback amount of money.) And we'll be stranded halfway across the world
from D.C.
I crack another beer and put on a brave face. But I'm panicking inside. The simple truth is that we cannot
afford to miss those ships and eat the expensive deposits. If we don't find a surface route to Brisbane in
time, we'll have to get there using . . .
It's unspeakable. The entire quest would be ruined. Just the thought of walking through the airport se-
curity gate and down that jetway, slumped in defeat, is making me nauseous.
THE next morning, we cut short our Langkawi idyll and hit the road with determination. There's zero time
to waste. It's imperative that we find a ship departing from Singapore by the end of this week.
We catch a ferry out of Langkawi to Penang, about eighty miles south down the Malaysian coast. The
skies are rainy and the seas are rough, and I'm still hung over from last night's party. A loud Chinese-lan-
guage action movie plays on a TV bolted to the ship's wall. I'm trying to keep my eyes fixed on the horizon
to stave off seasickness, but out the porthole all I can see is rolling gray swells.
In Penang, we head straight for the bus depot. There's just time to scarf down some fried rice from a
steamy little stall in a corner of the station before we board another overnight coach. This one calls itself
“executive class” and touts its comfy “snoozer seats.” They're indeed roomy, but it doesn't matter: I can't
fall asleep. My mind is racing, searching for solutions. There must be some good way to get across the Java
Sea to Australia.
We arrive in Singapore early the next morning and hit the ground running. I start methodically calling
every single port agent in town. Port agents are the folks who sit in little outbuildings down by the docks,
managing container ship traffic in and out of the harbor. They know which freighters are in town right now
and where the ships are headed next.
Sadly for us, none are going our way. A port agent with a thick Indian accent tells me he only handles
ships bound for Calcutta. Another agent only deals with freighters that shuttle north to China. A third guy
says he has a ship that goes to Australia, but it gets there too late to catch our freighter out of Brisbane. (In
the course of every call, there comes a moment when the agent asks, “Why don't you just fly?”)