Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Malacca strait: The danger of pirates?


Source

My French family was eager to visit Malaysia again, and this time I recommended them to take a cruise trip, from Port Klang to Singapore. "No way, it will be too dangerous", was the response from my father in laws.

Before I visited France, I had never known that the Strait of Malacca is dangerous due to the devastating piracy activities. Either I was not reading enough, or the Malaysian medias failed to report the seriousness of this matter. Never once I heard a Malaysian said they won't visit the Strait due to the pirate activities. We went to Pangkor, toured Langkawi, boarded on Star Cruise without second thought.

And here, a foreigner is telling me that my country is full of pirate activities. I really don't know what to say. Has anyone heard of people being kidnapped in this Strait? Any pirate story to share?

If you are interested, you can read this piracy report on National Geography.

4 comments:

  1. Hi Bee Ean, yes, the Malacca Straits is indeed prey to Indo pirates mainly, especially there are so many little islands and inlets they can hide in on the Sumatra side which is quite closeby. There have been many fishermen that have been hijacked or kidnapped in the past. I don't think large Cruise ships like Star Cruise would be in any trouble as they hug the Malaysian coastline anyway.

    By the way the Britanny desserts look yummy! Cheers!

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  2. Hi Bee Ean,
    that was exactly my reaction when my colleagues told me the same thing about the Strait of Malacca! I thought I was not reading enough also :) .
    Cheers!

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  3. Coucou Bee! c'est pau-lynn de la malaisie (je t'ai ecrite y a longtemps). Vous etes ou exactement a Nantes? Je serai en France pour les vacances avec mon copain et on sera a Piriac Sur Mer. C'est pres de chez vous?

    et oui. BBC even did a story on the straits of malacca. either bbc or national geographic. and franchement i'm not surprised about the pirates stories.

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  4. svlee,
    Oh I can still recommend Star Cruise then. Just that I didn't know that certain part of Malaysia could be dangerous for the foreigners. I wanted to bring hubby to Sipadan but was once told that it is not safe to go there.

    ladybird,
    Glad I'm not the only feeling this way. :-)

    Hi Pau-lynn,
    Piriac Sur Mer is around one hour from Nantes if not mistaken. Send me an email if you have time to meet up in Nantes.

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