Is there boat passage from India to SE Asia?

Hello All!
Is/are there any type(s) of boat passage from India to any port in SE Asia? I am particularly interested in Malaysia, Thailand or Singapore. I am not interested in cruise type ships, but more interesting methods of transport. Thank you. Paul

There used to be a boat from Chennai to Malaysia, but I haven't heard it mentioned in many years.

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Apart from asking around and getting lucky on the ground, I've never heard of any, no.

Would be interested to hear of it though. There are international deals for sailing along with freighters; all I know is it's not cheap, on a par with cruising say, or not so far below it. Would merit some googling around, there are companies specializing in this.

Google 'Superstar Libra'.. I think they go up to the Singapore Straits. Expensive.

More or less, there used to be. International regulations in the post 9/11 scenario are so crazy ( ) that very few do that now. In the 70's and 80's, this was not uncommon.

Good thought, I was thinking you might be along.

I guess the whole world's gone a little crazy since, don't get me started.

I did that trip on a school tour in 1978/9. MV Chidambaram was the ships name.

Madras, Nagapattinam (brief stop), Penang, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore and back. 21 days.I think there was also another brief stop at Port Kelang (sp?) in between somewhere.

The original ship burnt down and this was a French ship (MV Pasteur or something)renamed as MV Chidambaram. Operated by Shipping Corporation of India Ltd. I don't think it operates any more.

Hello to all,

Thank you all for your input. I guess the bottom line is that there is no regular boat service to SE Asia. I suspected not, but you never know. We will keep you in the loop if we discover something. Paul

Another long-shot here...

When I was in the Andaman Islands, there was some sort of rumour that someone, at sometime, had managed to find a boat going from Port Blair to Phuket.

Of course, no one had ever met this person, and as far as we heard, it couldn't be done at that time.

So yeah, that's probably not much use to you - I would guess it would be wildly expensive even if you cold. It's just worth a mention because of how close the Andaman's are to mainland Thailand.

Cruise ships do operate, mucho dinero..