Dopers, I’ve reached the end of my Google searching abilities and before I start phoning random places I thought I’d turn to you.
I currently live in Manila, Philippines. Since I moved here I’ve had a crazy idea to try getting back to Scotland without flying, I know this is possible – even easy, if I can reach mainland Asia.
Which is my problem, I can’t work out away to do that. If there are scheduled ferries I can’t find them. There’s some talk that there might have been one once, but nothing concrete.
Anyway, I came up with three options:
[ol]
[li]Travel via cruise ship – but I only want to go to the nearest mainland port. Can I book just one segment of a cruise? And if so how? Also there’s not many cruise ships that dock here so it limits the timing, which might be a deal breaker. [/li][li]Travel via shipping line – which should be possible but slow, and I haven’t the first idea how to do it. Plus I have this feeling that many shipping lines have different immigration procedures which might make things tricky. [/li][li]Travel via private boat – totally possible, but I’m told I’d need to learn sailing, be prepared to ‘muck in’ and even then people might not take me. If that’s what it takes I’m all for it, but I’d prefer an option where I’m not risking the wrath on the nautical crowd (which includes many of senior management). [/li][/ol]
Anywhere on the mainland will do, but Hong Kong or China is preferable.
Ideas, comments, suggestions, and other options are all welcome – particularly on the ease or otherwise of sailing to HK.
i don’t know how one can secure a permit to travel as a paying passenger aboard a cargo ship from manila to either japan, hongkong or singapore. but on the southern islanf of mindanao, it’s a different story. there are indonesian and malaysian cargo liners that take in passengers (you’ll have to check if they still do.) EPA shipping (indo) moves from general santos city to bitung indonesia. aleson lines and SRN tranvel between zamboanga city and sendakan malaysia.
caution: the seas separating mindanao (philippines) from borneo (malaysia) and indonesian islands is very porous. muggling, illegal immigrants and piracy is a centuries-old problem. for pete’s sake don’t try to sail out.
Ah, thanks. I can look into that. I guess if they do it there I can probably swing it in Manila, just need to find the right people …
I should have said that I’d rather avoid going from the south – first because I have to travel the length of the country without flying and secondly because my company will have a fit. Business travel to the Mindanao is either banned or heavily restricted, they can’t stop personal travel obviously but I’d lose my (company) travel insurance/rescue plan.
I’ve done this but not from the Philippines. You need to find out the patterns of cruising yachts for your area. Cruising yachts tend to go to particular areas at particular times, and follow routes based around weather and where the good cruising destinations might be. A local cruising yacht club would know the answer.
Experience is useful but not necessarily essential. I did a sailing course and gained my Competent Crew certificate before I went looking for a crewing position, but two of the other guys crewing on a yacht I sailed on (across the Atlantic) had hardly any experience (one had virtually never set foot on a boat!).
You will not be “risking the wrath of the nautical crowd”.
The cruising crowd is generally laid back. The main reason they want extra bodies is to stand watches on long ocean passages. If you are half smart and have eyes, you can do it. Many cruising yachties are couples, and they will travel to somewhere like the Philippines and stay a few months. While they are there, they can sail two handed on short passages around the archipelago. Extra crew would just get in the way. But when they want to do a long passage they may well want enough crew to stand 24 hr watches. They don’t need experienced sailors. They may well just need people who can stay awake for four hours and yell for the skipper if there is traffic or something breaks or whatever.
The racing crowd is not so laid back but they tend to need crew. Again a junior member of the crew does not need a lot of skill.
If you really wanted to do it, my guess is that if you ask around amongst contacts and/or just turn up at cruising yacht club and tell them what you want to do, you would quickly get an offer of some day crewing, and that would give you some experience. It would also give you contacts who would probably point you in the direction of someone looking for crew for a passage to HK.
When I was crewing I found the only hardish thing was getting the first crewing position but that was in quite adverse circumstances and even then it took me only a week or so. After that (assuming you are not an unpleasant doofus) it was easy. Crew are useful and quite often hard for yachties to find. Yachties are highly social. I came across people who just crewed on one yacht after another by word of mouth.
So it does look like freighter travel is occasionally possible, but schedules would be limited and it’s probably a long trip.
Sailing sounds like the best option, it looks completely doable, I’d probably find something close to my schedule and I’ve got plenty of time to make contacts and learn what I need to know – wouldn’t hurt to get familiar with sailing anyway given where I live. Thanks for the detailed response Princhester.
Another option would be to head the other way around the world, and take a cargo ship to the United States (if you can get to Mainland China there should be plenty sailing, don’t know about passenger policies). Getting to Oz or Japan then sailing cross-Pacific from there might work. Dock in Seattle, San Francisco, or LA, then take Amtrak trains to New York, then sail out of NYC to Liverpool (cargo again, natch), then get on a train back home.
Canada also might be an option, but I don’t know if there is passenger service all the way from Vancouver to Halifax
robert_columbia, I’d considered that but if I was travelling across Canada and/or America I’d like to take a lot more time than I’d have left after the two ocean crossings.
Omar Little, it’s my own rules so I could twist them if I liked the idea. Is there a reason you’re asking about hot air balloons – it might feel a bit like cheating but I could always set a height limit above ground level instead of a outright ‘no flying’ rule.
If you value your sanity, don’t do it by bus! It would take maybe a week, almost nonstop: a week without showers, decent beds, or real rest. Greyhound.ca gives a trip time of around 5 days with 5 transfers. On the other hand’ it’s only $200ish.
The rail trip would be not much shorter in time, but incomparably more comfortable. Vancouver -> Toronto -> Montréal -> Halifax.
Yeah, I’ve often thought about doing the US coast-to-coast via rail but, as I said, not this time.
But, in case this thread has inspired anyone else, I will link to one of the most useful sites I’ve ever found if you’re planning to travel anywhere by rail (or boat, or bus): http://www.seat61.com/ ([cross-USA page](A guide to train travel in the USA | Cross-country by Amtrak from $232 the USA by train)). Sadly it doesn’t cover the Philippines. Not that there’s much of a railway system left here, although there are apparently moves afoot to fix that.
It looks like Costa Cruises has a couple itineraries per year that visit Manila. I don’t know what the rules are for joining a cruise in the middle of a voyage, but they would seem to take you to various ports in Southeast Asia.