I woke up super rested, thanks to the legit bed, and was ready to get the day rolling, as I was already several hours later than I wanted due to the unexpected delay of the English Premier League games the evening before. So I was just gonna pop down to the lobby area, grab my quickie included breakfast and roll. Then I saw the continental breakfast. One word: DAMN. The food was amazing and in large, large quantities where I felt no shame in eating several people's worth of food. After stashing away enough food to hold me over through several winters, I made my way back up to my room ever so delicately. Back in the room I took some quick shots of the skyline, then waddled back downstairs.
Outside the hotel, several taxi drivers swarmed me to find out where I was going and after explaining to them I needed to get to the bus terminal, my driver huddled up with his colleagues and deliberated. As it turned out, the main terminal was closed (I was told this the evening before and didn't remember that simple fact), and the drivers were discussing which of the minor terminals would be best for my destination. In an attempt to milk more money of out me, he negotiated a set price before we set off, despite stickers on his window clearly saying something to the extent of "Hey jackass, just run the meter!" in English. I didn't really care enough to argue, so I guess that makes me a victim of a scam. As it turns out, the only cabbie who didn't scam me in Malaysia was the Indian guy, aka the foreign employee. He was also super cool, as we chatted about the various degrees of corruption in our respective countries. Fun. So let that be a lesson to you, Korea, America, whoever: Foreigners are not trying to destroy the moral and economic fiber of your treasured lands, they just wanna make a little cash to support themselves and families. Shouldn't really have to spell that out, but the world's a funny place.
This new bus terminal we went to, it was, in a word, low-tech. It was, as far as I could tell, just a big tent set up in the middle of a parking lot. But they certainly knew how to treat the customer, though. As soon as I stepped onto the property, I was greeted by a guy who asked me where I wanted to go, then escorted me to the appropriate ticket booth, all while he chattered to his colleagues. I felt pretty special, cuz, well gosh darn, I've never been escorted anywhere by a dude with a walkie talkie before. I must be some kind of VIP or something. Ohh, they do that for everybody? Ohh, well okay...
I wasn't kidding when I said the ticket counter was just a big tent. It really was. My escort/security detail walked me right up to the appropriate counter, told the guy where I was going, the guy said the price, I handed him the money, he handed back my change and ticket. Transaction completed. Then I merely had to wait a whole 15 minutes before my bus left. Finding my bus was the most difficult part, as none of the gates were well marked. Perhaps because there were no gates, just buses in parking stalls. Sooner or later, i found my bus, sat down and settled in for another 5 to 6 hour ride.
I took some pics along the ride.
After the 5 or 6 hours, I arrived in Lumut, the coastal town the ferries depart from. My final destination was a beach island about 40 minutes away by ferry. I didn't know how to get to the ferry when I arrived, but I followed all the other tourists, as they were going to the exact same place. Eventually, through repeated trial and error, our large group of foreign tourists were able to find the ticket office and buy our tickets. I was disappointed to find out that the ferry across was actually kinda legit, as opposed to the one i rode in the Philippines. I really wanted to sit outside while we rode. Guess it wasn't meant to be. In case you were wondering, here's the Malaysia ferry I took:
And now the ferry from the Philippines:
See the difference? I thought so.
Anyways, the ride was super calm and quiet and peaceful and completely uneventful. Sorry.
Once on the island, I still needed to find the beach and a place to sleep. Which meant hitching a ride to the other side of the island where the beaches were. There are no taxis on this island, but they do have an army of cute pink vans. Why they have them? I couldn't tell you.
I, being the super prepared person I am (snicker), knew exactly where i wanted the taxi to take me, but a British back-packing couple I met on the ferry didn't so they tagged along with me in our big pink van and we all rode together to Teluk Nipah. Once there, I sought out and found my residence for the next few days. And it was wonderful. Sure i could have found some place cheaper, but this place was wonderful, so I was very, very content. And at $30 American dollars, what is there to not like?
Inside my little cottage. Since almost all the other tourists were Europeans and with their families or spouses or significant others, I felt a little lonely. Having two beds didn't help with that....cue the music....
Then we have my deck, where I spent many many hours reading after dark. Don't tell anybody, but I also might have studied some Korean while sitting there. Yes, I am that messed up in the head. Couldn't find the time to pick up the books when I was actually in Korea, but as soon as I left the country and was on vacation, I hit the books like nobody's business. Weirdo.
Next, we have some of the neighbors. Not sure if anybody was in those cabins though.
With everything squared away for sleeping, and my stomach satisfied with a late lunch (actually at 6pm its probably dinner), it was time to head to the beach.
As you can see I was way, way, way far away from the beach. Nearly 3 minutes walk. But eventually I made it. And it was, well, it was as it was supposed to be. Not really sure what to say. I'll let the pics do the talking.
After a long, long time just staring at the water, I pried myself away to go to the nearby internet cafe to let people know I was still alive. But the place was full, so the internet would have to wait. Apparently the computers are always full at night, as the local youngsters are off work and come in to play Call of Duty online or check their facebook pages or something. Damn kids. So instead I grabbed dinner, headed back to the cabin and read some books. Cheery and sunny beach fare like Kurt Vonnegut's "Sirens of Titan" and Toni Morrison's "Sula". Some folks have criticized me for my depressing books I bring to the beach, but these people don't understand. I don't really happy novels. I don't think I can find a single one in my collection.
Tuesday, in brief, consisted of: wake up, breakfast, read and study Korean for a bit, try internet cafe (but it was closed inexplicably), go to beach, swim, wander around crazy temple, lunch, read more, attempt capoeira on the beach and FAIL, swim at sunset, shower, dinner, read again, bed. Very simple, but very good.
Outside of the capoeira FAIL and the nutty temple, there isn't even anything worth commenting on. Breakfast was breakfast, swimming was swimming, the beach was the beach, etc. I did run into a bit of a complication with my swimsuit, but that was because I had accidentally mailed my actual swimsuit home weeks before, thus leaving me with a pair of soccer shorts for swim trunks. They generally did the trick, except the fit was much looser on my legs than a normal swimsuit would be, meaning that sometimes the waves would push the suit all the way up to my groin and "stuff" would fall out of the suit. Hmmm, I didn't think it was one of those beaches, so I ended up buying a real pair just to be safe.
As for the capoeira FAIL, well that was pretty spectacularly bad. Tons of the songs sing about playing on the beaches of Bahia, so I wanted to give it a shot myself. Turns out, as you would imagine, playing on a beach is awful. The ground is never firm or stable enough to really plant or move or jump properly. And the slant of the beach towards the water? Not cool. Sure, doing acrobatics down the hill is easy and wonderful. But going up the hill? Hell, I nearly faceplanted on a simple macacua (spelling?). In conclusion, don't ever do capoeira literally ON the beach. It's awful and you will hurt yourself and get sand everywhere. Everywhere.
Here's some pics of Coral Bay, the primary beach at my area.
Yes, those were my ugly legs in the first picture. No, that wasn't my junk causing the suit to lump like that. The swimsuit was just laying down weird. Hand over my heart. I swear.
Now for that nutty temple. Now, I was forewarned that it was crazy by my guidebook, but still that didn't prepare me for it. I mean can you ever prepare for a temple that has a statue of Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse at its entrance. And this is a real real temple that people actually can worship at. Nutty.
There isn't really much about that this temple that can adequately be summed up in words. Well, at least not when I'm sober. Maybe if I was out of my mind on mushrooms or LSD, I could explain to you what this temple was all about. But I'm not, so I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.
You'll notice that I included a picture of the incense holders and various icons to clearly demonstrate that yes, this is a legitimate temple of worship. The giant door and turtle and frog and mushrooms seem to say otherwise, but this place is for real. So so so real.
Wednesday followed the same wonderfully relaxing routine from Tuesday, cuz if its not broken don't fix it. Woke up late, enjoyed a tasty breakfast, read on the porch/deck of the cabin for a few hours, then headed out to the beach for the vast majority of the day, then when the sun went down I headed back to the cabin for dinner and more reading before bed. Simple but it fulfilled all the daily food groups: food, sun, water, and literature.
As it was day 2, I had to be a little smarter with my sun exposure, as my deathly pallor didn't handle the first day terribly well. 100% my fault as I decided to hit the beach and the water during midday hours (noon to 2), meaning I got burned. Not so terribly thanks to my spf 100,000,000,000 sunscreen. Try as I might to get an even tan (hell, I would have settled for an even burn), I ended up with burned shoulders and face, but with a completely white chest. Honest to god, I took off my shirt. Or at least I thought I did. Day 2 I was on the beach from noon to 5 or 6, but mostly I cowered in the shade afraid of the light like some sort of vampire. Gave me plenty of time to read though. But at this point I was running out of literature and my only remaining book was a Salman Rushdie. Which normally wouldn't be a problem, but he hasn't been super popular among certain Muslims in the past and Malaysia happens to be a primarily Muslim country. Thus my hesitation. I'm sure I would have been fine, but I don't like to take any chances (zero, zip, none) when traveling abroad.
Day 2 did feature lots of animal interaction, which I was super excited about. First, while eating breakfast I was able to watch the resort I was staying at come under seize from various bird species. The initial wave was a large gathering of little finches (I think) started moving in to the property and slowly spreading across the land like a plague.
I think they eventually ended up walking off with a mini fridge. Sure, it took a ton of them, but they managed. Tough little buggers.
After being decimated by the finches, the big birds moved in to clean up the scraps. In this case the big birds were the macaus. And these guys were big. They would land in the trees overhanging the restaurant/lobby and pick the fruit from the trees. From the amount of noise they made when landing and the strain they appeared to put on the branches, I was sure they were gonna bring down most of the tree with all their jumping around. Then I was 100% sure they were gonna rip the power lines out of the buildings they were attached to when they jumped on those, thus sending the resorts and their guests in total darkness and chaos. Come to think of it, that may have been their plan all along....
I must note here that I didn't even have to move from my breakfast to get the shot of this guy. He was a 10 feet or so away from my breakfast table at the time. I simply put down my toast and eggs, picked up the camera, and shot it.
The beach was pretty active itself, as it was home to large quantities of beach burrowing crabs. You could find their holes quite easily, but managing to see them took more effort as they weren't terribly social creatures. Like me. But if the area of beach was undisturbed for long enough they would pop out and scamper along.
My final animal encounter was the most interesting. While leaving the resort complex for the beach, I turned a blind corner to find a garbage can dumped over and a large monkey picking through it. He saw me immediately, raised up onto his back legs (he seemed to be about up to my waist, so taller than most Koreans....I kid, I kid), and then showed me his teeth. I promptly peed myself and walked away back to my cabin to find an alternate route and alternative trousers. He didn't strike me as the cute and cuddly monkey companion to the organ grinder man or anything like that. When I wandered back through several minutes later he was gone, but several more garbage cans had been tipped over.
My final evening on the beach ended with an amusing dinner with a Dutch couple about my age. When I first met them, the guy had annoyed me by calling me "Mr. USA" or "Mr. America" or something. But then I realized how blatantly obvious it was that I was American. So much so that I might has well have worn a sign or a US flag t-shirt. For starters nobody else there was using English, other than to speak to the hotel staff or waiters at the restaurant. Dutch, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, you name it, it was being spoken. So I kinda stuck out. As you might have guessed from the preceding statements, I was the only American there. It's pretty lonely being number 1 though...WE'RE NUMBER 1!! WE'RE NUMBER 1!!! Despite my early annoyance, he won me over when, while discussing how nasty the sun can be for pale bastards such as ourselves, he referred to us as "whitey brothers". Gawsh, that's sweet. We had a generally interesting conversation about all manner of stuff, but mostly American politics. I found it really cool that someone from the Netherlands would know that much about American stuff, but then I thought about how I'm having a much more intelligent conversation about politics than I could possibly have with the overwhelming majority of actual Americans (aka the people that should know this shit) and then I got really sad. There knowledge was a quite liberally-slanted (not like that would be a surprise), so I couldn't help chuckling when they told me they had watched Michael Moore's "Farenheit 9/11" and when they mentioned 9/11 conspiracy theories. A amusing dinner with some solid people. Maybe Fox News was wrong. Maybe the rest of the world isn't populated by evil communists hell bent on stealing our freedoms out of jealousy of how awesome we are. Maybe.
For more pics see the Singapore and Malaysia photo albums 1 and 2
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