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May 20th, 2011 | Asia

Johor Bahru – Fun and Frustration…

The past few days I have spent here in Johor Bahru, have been both enjoyable, and immensely frustrating…

Rory and I have managed to get a few things done however, in between the numerous visits to restaurants, open air markets and being introduced to friends of his…

I have bought a fourth external 1 Tera-byte hard-drive to go with the 400 gig, the 500 gig and the 750 gig that I already have…!! I have taken almost 25 000 photographs, and shot almost 250 gigs of film already, and saving it all has become a bit of a headache…!! My computer has also been acting up, and we manged to have it looked at and hopefully repaired by a company Rory usually uses… No point in having all those hard drives when your computer isn’t working, now is it…??

There have also been a few health issues to deal with… And no, they do not involve large doses of penicillin…!!

In recent times I have had a few “asleep at the wheel” incidents, where I came close to nodding off while tootling down a boring stretch of highway at 120 km/h…!!

Otherwise known as Bloodsuckers (Pty) Ltd....

This has led Chenty to question the state of my overall health…!! My above average sugar intake has raised more than a few eyebrows, and the fact that I hardly ever get a full night’s sleep hasn’t helped matters either…

I usually wake up between 2 and 3 am, desperate for something to eat, and end up snacking on wonderful and nourishing eats such as chocolate… This precious commodity can be found in just about all my bags, so there is never a shortage of it when I get my nightly case of “the nibbles”…

When Rory told me he was due for his annual blood tests, I summoned up an enormous amount of courage, and opted to go with him to let Dracula’s Merchants have their way with me…!!

For less than RM 200, (about R450.00), a local lab runs about 50 different tests, and within a few days is able to advise just how unhealthy, and close to death you really are…!!

When I asked how much blood they needed to draw, the nurse on duty sweetly informed me that hundreds of tests could be run using just a few drops of blood…

So why they proceeded to drain my body of what felt like a few litres, is beyond me…!! Rory did not help matters when he came over to see what the “medical technician” was doing, and then in a rather concerned voice, exclaimed,

“Oh… So you take that much…!!”

His remark almost made me look to see just how much “that much” was… But knowing that one look at the needle in my arm would have sent me to dreamland, I kept my gaze fixed on a spot at the end of the long passage on my right…

"This will only hurt a little bit...!!" said the Vampire... "Mmmm... And the right uppercut I might give you will hurt a lot more...!!" I thought...

Once the vacuum cleaner that they must have attached to my arm was removed, I finally stood up from the leather chair I had been sitting in, and staggered over to the counter opposite, to let Rory take my place… He seemed fascinated by the whole blood-letting thing, and probably would have taken his own blood if he had been given the chance…!!

“Are you going to faint…?”  the nurse asked me anxiously…

“I don’t think so,” I replied, “But I won’t be playing hopscotch for a while either…!!”

See how much fun it was...!! Rory braces himself as the Vampire comes in for another meal...

While Rory was having a turn at having the life sucked out of him, I looked into the large mirror close to me and wondered where the hell my tan had gone…!!

Strange how a visit to the doctor can leave you looking like you need to visit a doctor…!!

After making special arrangements to have my results ready by Saturday morning, we left go in search of Vitamins… I had been nursing a cold for a few days, and wanted something to give my system a boost…

The “Centrum: A to Zinc” multi-vitamin that I had been taking all the way through Africa and into Europe, and again through the Middle East and the Indian sub-continent, (Debbie had replenished my supply when she visisted me in Turkey…) had not lasted into South East Asia, and I had wondered what I should replace them with…

Imagine my surprise when I saw a box of them on the counter of the pharmacy we visited…!! The woman behind the counter, noticing my delight, managed to sell me two more bottles of mineral supplements before I held up a hand for her to stop…

I was getting my colour back, see, and with it, my usual assertiveness…!!

“That’s more than enough, thank you very much…!! Haven’t you heard that too much of a good thing can kill you…??”

Having fasted before the blood test, I needed a big bowl of something to replenish the big bowl of blood I had lost...!!

Afterward, we retired to a nearby restaurant and enjoyed a meal of curried noodles, which had my mouth and lips numb by the time I reached the bottom of the bowl, but also had the positive effect of taking my mind off the “trauma” I had just been through…!!

A tasty dish of curried noodles did the trick...

The vast majority of our time has however been taken up with trying to get the Big Fella and I into Indonesia…

There are two regular sailings to the island of Sumatra, which had I had the time, I would have opted to use… The first is a “vegetable and fruit” cargo ship, that leaves from Butterworth in Penang, and sails on a schedule known as “at the Captains Pleasure”… That is, any day of the week which ends in a “y”… You basically arrive at the offices of Mr. Lin of Cakra Shipping, in Georgetown on Penang Island, and hope that the vessel you have just seen leave the harbour, is not the one that you needed to be on…

Your bike is lifted onto the vessel using a dock-side crane, and gently deposited amongst the crates of veggies and fruit. It crosses the Straits of Malacca and a day or so later, depending once again on the whim of the Captain, deposits your precious cargo in the port of Belawan, close to the city of Medan… The boat does not take passengers, so there is the added hassle of getting a flight from Penang to Medan, and then getting to the harbour at Belawan before your bike does, so that you can supervise the offloading…

Or at least be there to watch your bike crash into the sea as it swings off the deck of the freighter…!!

The second, and newly introduced ferry, leaves from Port Dickson, south of Malacca, and sails directly across the Strait to Dumai, also in Sumatra… This service is now available two to three times a week, and takes both cargo and passengers… Again, a crane is used to lift the bike on and off the vessel…

P.D Marine Services remembered shipping Morgan Parker’s bike just a few weeks ago, and knew exactly what to do, which was a nice change from some of the idiots we had been talking to both in Johor Bahru and Singapore…

Proudly South African... Rory was a bit sceptical when I told him that Nando's was an SA franchise...!!

Neither of these options appealed to me, as I no longer had the time to ride through Sumatra, and much preferred getting to Java, and the port city of Semarang instead… Rory sent off a veritable blizzard of emails and made numerous calls to shipping agents both in Singapore and Johor Bahru, who for the most part had never handled the shipping of a motorcycle, and did not know where to begin in order to assist us…

There are many vessels leaving from the two nearby ports, that go across to Indonesia, but you need to use a 20′ container to get your bike across. It takes about three days, and Damco Shipping proved to be the most helpful, and after a visit to their offices nearby, we settled on a rate of $725.00 to get my bike across to Semarang… The vessel sailed on the 24th of May and that suited me perfectly… I arranged to be at the harbour gates first thing on Monday morning, and breathed a sigh of relief as we left their offices…

Then at 5.00pm last night, I received a call from Damco, advising that there was a shortage of containers, and no container could be issued to me until further notice…!! At this bit of news, I finally gave up on shipping the bike to Java, and after a frantic call to the same agent that Trevor was using in Kuala Lumpur, arranged to fly the Big Fella to Denpasar in Bali instead… At double the cost of shipping it I might add…!!

Johor Bahru HQ... Rory's office where all the "hard work" gets done...!!

Despite all the hassles and frustrations we have been through in the past week, I am now a lot calmer, knowing that I will be on the move again soon… Once in Bali, I will double back into Java, using the regular island hopping ferry services that ply the waters between the string of islands from Java to East Timor, to see a few of those special places that I have set my heart on…

Until then, I will continue to plug the holes in my story, and to this end made a solid start yesterday by completing a post on our short stay in Koh Pha Ngan… Click here to read all about it…

But right now, I am on my way to collect the results of my blood tests… Should make interesting reading…!!

©GBWT 2011

4 comments to Johor Bahru – Fun and Frustration…

  • Mark Behr

    Sounds like a really good place to be “stranded” while looking for transport for your bike. Hope you pass the blood tests 🙂

  • Charmz

    We cannot believe how cheap the blood tests are, back home one test would cost that. I’m sure the results of your 50 tests will all be positive, including the sugar part. Our ancestors were made of sugar.

  • Tony Royle

    Good luck with blood results and freighting to Indonesia!

    No response from my mates in KL I’m afraid.

    Some suggestions for Indonesia:

    Seafood restaurant on Jimbaran Bay beach (Bali)

    http://wikitravel.org/en/Jimbaran

    Yogyakarta (Java) – Borobudur ruins and evening puppet/dance show. Watch out for a batick art scam where you are duped into pay outrageous prices (US$200) at “official” gallery – hook, line and row boat!! (although it probably cost just as much to get them framed when we got back to the UK!)

    http://wikitravel.org/en/Yogyakarta

    We stayed with a friend on Lombok. It was really quiet and much less touristy than Bali. You can also do a day trip across to the Gili islands from Lombok.

    http://www.moreindonesia.com/gili-trawangan-is-one-of-the-best-beaches-resorts-in-indonesia/

    enjoy

  • Thanks Tony, will check out your suggestions…!! Be riding back to see Borobudur as they are on my list of “not to be missed”… R.

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