February 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th Pulau Pangkor, Malaysia
Look people I know I have been ignoring you, but all you Brits have been too busy skiing to work and sleighing home, enjoying turning the heating up (after all gas and electric is sooo cheap nowadays) and sleeping with snowmen.
You Yank readers have been too busy dodging bullets and pushing unwanted aliens back over the borders and blowing up small dusty desert towns world wide.
And for my Aussie readers, well, knowing I will soon be in your wonderful country, I am sure you have been busy preparing for me. Now don’t forget I want hand maidens to take care of my every need and young virgins throwing rose petals for every step I take.
So look, I have not been doing anything. The world is financially falling apart our house is worth beans and my job prospects are beyond a joke, so, here we are trying to kick start the world economy single handedly, and all you bastards are worried about is me telling you how great it is doing nothing, lazing on a white sand beach while the sun bakes my pathetic pale skinned fat ass. So in a nut shell, we tried to get a hotel in Ipoh but failed and life is so difficult we had to extend for a further three days on our little paradise island.
We have been swimming in the sea, I have been motorcycling around the island (this would make a great Asian TT) , feeding Macaques, eating average food, yes sfood is one of this islands weak spots and the other very sadly is the disgusting amount of litter on the beach, near the beach and around the beach (oh and everywhere else on the island) and I will tell you here and now it’s all the fault of the locals, They would rather drop a bag of rubbish on the ground than physically put it in the rubbish skips around the island and the amount of used babies nappies they leave behind on the beach, frankly dirty bastards is all I can think to say. you see it’s not all fantastic.
We have been watching lizards, hornbills and just plain enjoying this almost paradise island. In amongst all the relaxing I have been struggling to organize our further travels, the next proposed Island seem unwilling to have me on board, well I guess that’s what It is, as they wont answer my e-mails.
With Sasha and Gabbi off on their travels, Sasha will be meeting up with us again in three weeks, at the moment they are in Phuket. That leaves just three of us traveling although Sasha has left us her big luggage bag so we still wont be able to travel easily or take normal taxis (sigh).
We tried and failed to book a hotel (triple room) in Ipoh and eventually said fcuk it and are going to head to Pulau Tioman instead of Ipoh. After a phone call I finally have booked for six nights, this is an Island on the east coast, which is supposed to be one of the top ten most beautiful islands in the world and I believe the film South Pacific (ask your parents) was filmed here. The only problem may be we are just at the end of the monsoon season, so we may possibly get some crappy weather and rough seas, then again maybe not.
The place we will staying in advertises no aircon, no hot water and no TV!!!!! Bloody hell what am I doing? So we will have two days of five hour plus car journeys, from Lumut to Melaka (again) and then the next morning from Melaka to Mersing from where we catch a ferry to Tioman. Apparently upon arrival on Tioman we will have a ten minute walk to our resort, now that would be fine normally but we have enough luggage to sink a small ship, so, that may mean a few journeys.
So that’s it, that’s my last few days……..
Wait! Wait!
Oh yes I also found a hotel with a Spa, so decided to have a massage (you know I love a massage). I chose the Spa Special and endured 1 ½ hours of possibly the worst massage anywhere, it was arms, legs, head, arms, legs, head over and over and then she kept trying to crack my finger and toe joints which I hate anyway and with my feet is all but impossible as thanks to being barely human myself plus some old nazi surgeon experimenting on me many years ago I have six toes that are just basically stuck solid, so there are no joints to actually crack! Simply the massage was a big waste of time.
I know that our plan long term is to literally get back to the UK and then just turn around and head back to the country of our choice to live forever. However the housing market is in serious danger of making that much harder, if we cannot sell our house in the long term (at least at a semi sensible price) or, at least Let it in the short term, none of these plans will work financially. If we can at least Let it, maybe we can live in a tent and tour on a motorbike. Sabastian will have to sleep outside and run after the bike! Hmmm that might not work. But I am getting the travel bug bad and I really would love to do a major tour on a motorbike, I have not had a bike for twenty years, but getting back on the little motorbikes on the island and also having watched the Top Gear Vietnam special a half dozen times I am inspired. Sadly Sofia would not get on the back of a bike for a mile let alone thousands.
What follows are Sofia’s experiences of the last few days:
Thursday 5th 2009 – Pulau Pangkor, Malaysia
Really bad night, kittens crying out side the room, then in the morning jet planes doing sonic booms over and over, not what you expect out here. Alan hired a slightly bigger but automatic bike and he disappeared of around the island with Basty and the girls wee both feeling rough after a heavy night (hung over).
So I was left to my own devices, I swam, collected more shells and read my book on the beach. The book is Mission Canyon by Meg Gardiner I am finding it hard to get into it.We tried a new place for supper and it was good, my soy sauce chicken and rice was yummy.
The girls packed up ready to go off on their own, I gave Sasha some more money. We tried to book a place at Ipoh but they were full up. We watched Sleuth on the TV, a good film, I think it was the remake with Jude Law .
Friday 6th February 2009 – Pulau Pangkor, Malaysia
Another bad night, eaten alive by mozzies, Alan was as well, which is unusual he usually gets away lightly. The girls have gone, we got a text from them to say Sasha had left one of her flip flops. As we can’t get a hotel in Ipoh we decided to stay here until after the weekend and then travel on, so we booked out of our room and into a triple with Basty.
Alan cleared out the girls rubbish and we fed the Hornbills some leftover food. After we had moved our bags in, I sat outside in the sun and did my diary. I went and got some snacks from the resort shop, it was one of the rare times it was open.
Alan had a shock this morning when he put his hand in his pocket of his shorts and found a big cricket type of bug in his pocket, boy did he jump (they both did).
Later I grabbed Alan to come and see a very cool black throated lizard that I had found, it had spines and very long legs, Alan got some good photos of it in the bushes.
We dragged Basty out of bed and onto the beach. Alan found a large `(very) dead puffer fish and I found a little octopus. We walked back to the far end of the beach, I swam it as I have a cut on the bottom of my foot. The sky got blacker and blacker so that we knew rain was on its way, we headed back to the room and sure enough the heavens opened.
When it had passed we walked down to monkey beach and few the monkeys in the jungle at the side of the road. We checked out the café but it was doing a BBQ tonight but not until later, so we headed back to our beach, we stopped to observe a large monitor lizard disappearing from the side of the road into the jungle greenery, it was at least 4 foot long. We decided to eat at the same place as last night, after supper Basty asked for the room key and headed back on his own as he was tired. We went to one of the few places that serves beer and played some boggle. We noticed a young lady sitting on her own so I asked her to join us. Her name was Christina Hamsa and it was the day after her 23rd birthday. She was from the USA but was working as a teacher in South Korea, she had been traveling since graduating from school.
She had been to Africa as well, where she had fallen in love with a Sudanese man. She struck us as a ballsy gung ho lass, we wish her all the best wishes for her life ahead she will make a difference for the better in peoples lives.
We walked back to the Havana Resort. I was feeling rough and by the time I got to bed I was running a high fever, with a sore throat, ear ache, shivering and shaking.
Saturday 7th February 2009
Luckily during the night my fever broke so I got a couple of hours sleep. Alan got a bike again today and took a ride around the island stopping at a spa for a massage, which he found unfulfilling and not at all relaxing. I took the morning slowly as I still felt rough, but nowhere near as bad as last night.
Later Alan went with me to the beach and we swam, then we went to the shops, he wanted some shorts, but in the end did not buy any. I bought another sarong with a dragon fly design in batik and an orange sundress that I knew would be perfect with some alteration.
We went out to supper at the nearest fish restaurant and Alan had a huge fish cooked for him and I had squid but it was hard and rubbery, Basty had a mince omelette which he did not like much, afterwards he went back to the room. Alan and I went for a beer and boggle before bed. I sat up and altered my new sun dress, Basty played at being a football manager on his PSP, while Alan watched football for hours on TV.
Sunday 8th February 2009
Feeling much better. I read this morning then to the beach for the afternoon. Loads and loads of people (myvi fan club) funny, funny games, sack races, hula hops, filling bottles from sponges and many games we could only guess at.
Basty jogged the length of the beach, people were painting and flying kites. We saw a large jelly fish today and the water also felt quite stingy. I finished my book and I am pleased because it was big one and I no longer have to carry it around. My thoughts have been with Elizabeth Jane and all my friends who went to see Cherry of Zennor at the picture house in Exeter, wish I could have been with you.
We had dinner at the place we usually go to for beer, I had of all things a prawn cocktail and I really enjoyed it. Boggle and then back to our room for top gear and the sopranos. I started a new book that Sasha had left for me, the house of lost souls (some doors are too dangerous to open) by FG Cottam
Packed tonight ready to leave in the morning, we have loved it here.
Sadly the people of the Island do not care enough about the rubbish and are happy just to dump it from the restaurants directly outside their stalls onto the beach.
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