MV Doulos, the world’s oldest active passenger ship (built more than 90 years ago), and one of the world’s premier floating bookshops is in town 13 – 25th October. She arrived from Hong Kong, having spent about about a month there. Apparently Sabah is the only Malaysian state it will visit this year. Its last visit to Malaysia was in December when it berthed at Pasir Gudang, Johor.

It’s open 10am – 10pm, except on some dates where the hours are 2pm – 10pm.

We visited it on the first day at almost noon. The following photo was taken about 12pm as we’re about to board the ship. It seemed to be a popular photo spot, but dangerous because there are no fences. When we left the ship about an hour later, the entrance to this spot has been blocked. So I consider myself lucky…

It is 130m long, 16m wide. Apparently it has a crew of 300, from 30 different countries. They even offer you to join as crew on their website. This is a good opportunity to gain experience and see the world.

Kids and the disabled might have difficulty in ascending / descending the non conventional steps (sorry I forgot to take photos to show what it actually looked like).

Kids can get free hand paintings of butterflies:

The fences on the ship are not childproof, so keep an eye on your kids at all times!

The books are all located on one floor from one end to the other. On the following photo you can see the cashier tills. I counted 4 of them. Don’t go to the left queue – go to the extreme right, because the one on the left is most visible and most people go for that. When I went to the rightmost queue, there were only 4 people in front of me as opposed to more than 10 on the left. It’s hot in there – the ceiling fans are not adequate – you’d want to be done paying for your stuff as fast as possible.

Beyond the cashiers is the food counter. There’s another counter for drinks down below, but remember it’s Coffee Bean’s counter, so it won’t come cheap.

This is strictly books with pro-Christian values. Not necessarily Christian theme (there is a section devoted solely to that), but family-friendly nevertheless. I can’t find any novels – don’t expect to find any discounted Harry Potter novels.

Some books are ridiculously cheap, like this hardback, 2,000+ page dictionary (2001 edition). This cost about RM80 nett, and would easily cost RM250 in KK bookshops.

This one (2006 edition) only cost RM24:

You can also find Bahasa books, but don’t even dream of getting them at discounted prices; this dictionary (Kamus Komprehensif Bahasa Melayu) cost more than the imported ones i.e. at RM39:

It’s a special experience being here: how often do you go up a floating bookshop and have this view?

Sources
doulos.org

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