Singapore
May 15th 2002The Irish are really pretty lucky - we're well-liked everywhere, for some bizarre reason, and are welcome in pretty much every country in the world. Visa hassles were to become a prominent nuisance for a couple of people onboard - predictably enough, the Palestinian and sometimes the Israeli too.
Singapore was the first place to do this. Yazan, the Palestinian student was held back on the boat while some PeaceBoat staff
tried to negotiate with immigration, emphasising that it was a PEACE mission, after all. It fell on deaf ears, so Yazan was going
to miss out on this port of call.
With all due respect, I figured Singapore wasn't going to be the most exciting stop on our journey, and thought we could have more fun staying onboard the empty ship with Yazan, so myself and Kurt ran into town for an hour or so to check email, then came back to crack open the much-anticipated Vietnamese "whiskey".
My only memory of the place is Kurt finding a van-taxi for us all and greeting the driver with a raised open palm and a "Thank you, friend," which seemed more suited to the jungles of Papua New Guinea than this modern and multi-lingual metropolis. Then again, what was I doing, other than standing idly in the ferry terminal with a blank expression on my face?
Back on the Olvia (the Ukrainian name of our trusty vessel), the three of us camped down on the front deck with someone's tinny radio, and hit the booze. The label seemed to be covered in bird shit, and the bottle did smell like poultry (everything in the market smelled of poultry), but those were the days before anyone had heard of bird flu, so we were undaunted. One sip of this elixir and we decided we'd need a lot of mixer, but after the third glass or so, it tasted pretty alright.
We drank our way through a couple of bottles, bad-mouthed the Singapore immigration guys, and talked a lot of shit 'til we heard the announcement
for people coming back onboard. Then we shuffled back to the rear Neptune Deck, where the pool, the bar, and the fun was always at, ordered a few more
drinks with my glassy eyes, and fell into the pool occasionally. One more country brought under our blanket of peace...
A few new guest speakers had come aboard at Singapore - one of them was a really interesting man called Hassan (RIP), who was going to be lecturing on Muslim culture (the Maldives is one of the less famous Muslim nations). He was kind enough to humour our drunken ramblings that night, and gave us the best introduction to our next stop, the Maldives...
PEACEBOAT HIGHLIGHTS:
37th Cruise
DepartureShanghai, China
Danang, Vietnam
>Singapore
Male, Maldives
Safaga, Egypt
Suez Canal
Port Said, Egypt
Athens, Greece
Dubrovnik, Croatia
Tripoli, Libya
Bilbao, Spain
London, England
Amsterdam, Holland
Oslo, Norway
Fjords, Norway
Belfast, N. Ireland
Azores, Portugal
Havana, Cuba
Acajutla, El Salvador
Acapulco, Mexico
Vancouver, Canada
Petropavlovsk, Russia
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