Perhentian Kecil & Melacca

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Hi everyone from Bali, Indonesia!

Ok ok ok, been very slack with writing - but that's usually a good thing, means I'm too busy doing interesting things!

Perhentian Kecil

Took a fairly epic bus journey up here from KL still feeling like crap and followed it up with a 40 minute boat trip out to these relatively remote islands. Met Ciaran first eve there out on the beach and later met another guy Nigel. Nigel works in SE Asia on oil rigs month on, month off and gets a pretty damn sweet living out of it. He'd just brought a Catamaran and had arranged to have his own place built on the island whilst he stays there between jobs - not too shabby! Ended up sailed the boat with him and Ciaran a couple of times, including going over to the big island to snorkel on turtle bay. Loving the taste of sailing even though Nigel did most of the work, although I did job the bits at the front, the job maybe?! Gotta love new experiences like that, especially when they're free! Plus anytime you can pretend to be a pirate is good!

After finally feeling a bit better myself and Ciaran took the PADI diving course, nothing to challenging in it so passed nice and easy and got to see a shark, some stingrays and lots of other fishy type things. Yes, there was endless amounts of Nemo's and we saw a couple of Crush's. No Dory's though. Oh, there was the wierd French cleaning shrimp thing who did our nails for us, not too shabby! The hardest parts are controlling your bouancy (staying level in the water) and controlling your breathing so you don't run out of air too soon (not that you'd be in danger, you just sorta wanna be able to dive for longer!).

Was going to do an advanced dive or two, one being a shipwreck dive - but started feeling like crap again. In the meantime we spent loads of time with 3 girls, Lyndsay (Irish), Gemma (English) and Cate (Guernsey). On meeting Lyndsay we randomly found out that she worked in the same shop as Ciaran in Dublin when they were both 16-ish, small world and all that.

Endless pirate and monkey impressions with Lyndsay and Gem have led to the concept of 'monkey-pirate'. I'm working on it day and night and hopefully will have developed this hybrid by the time the girls arrive in Melbourne later in the year.

Spent a lot of time with Cate, fair amount of time drinking the local spirit, Orang-Utan (yum...) and skinny dipped a couple of times in this Muslim country. Clearly ill advised, but fun! Was a lot safer than the streaking that led to my knee being destroyed in any case. Walked through the jungle to the other side of the island for sunset, laughed far too much at Asian's various photo posings. We've started mimmicking them now, look forward to the peace symbols, the heart and the double heart, oh yes, DOUBLE heart.

Went to have some lunch on the beach with Cate when we were greeted with a pure comedy moment. A bunch of tragically dressed Malay scuba divers appeared (seriously, camo-wetsuit, WHY?!). They sat down and ordered their stuff. One nearest us had a coke and proceeded to pour and enormous amount of salt into the can, yummers. Asians are different to us! This was followed by a hefty burp. Another agreed with him and burped also. This led to a Blazin' saddles kinda scene where they seemed to burp in harmony to each other for five minutes!

Eventually we all got bored of the island and went separate ways except for myself and Cate who headed south-west to Melaka (yet another world heritage place). It is a gorgeous town, has a nice pool and lots of historical hooplah from its various occupations under the Dutch, Portuguese and later the British.

The weekend market there was fantastic and I had a lot of fun hanging out with Cate, despite her fever for mocking me at regular intervals! We shopped, marketed and took possibly the most camp mode of transport of all time, pedalos covered in flowers, flashing lights and disco music.
Above: Camp is thy transport!

I was of course ill again and so as some of you know, I spent a night in hospital eventually.
Having no shame I confess to the following:

On being told I needed to be admitted several hours early than I thought and was only going to be allowed a meal of mash, rice, or porridge I went for petty revenge in somewhat of a sulk. Two large mash with gravy portions and a large rice - all from KFC.

This literally backfired hideously the evening after being given drinks to 'clear my system'. Imagine the horror. Actually, don't. Next morning I was awoke nice and early (actually good sleep thanks to aircon although not helped by the person opposite coughing her guts out. That would be easily forgiveable if it was a patient, but nope, Coughy McFlemerson was a visitor who decided to stay all night.

I underwent a delightful ultrasound (turns out I'm not pregnant) and a chest x-ray followed up by stripping into the standard hideous hospital 'bottom hanging out' gown. Following two weeks at the beach, white butt was an understatement. Next up was being wheeled down to have the pleasure of a camera down my throat and unfortunately - a camera up my ass into my intestines (wrong wrong wrong WRONG). Missed out on the stool sample I gave the night before. Was such hard work trying to give a sample, however as soon as I had done this tiny joy, my floodgates opened and I spent several sessions clearing my system of literally everything and anything - poor mash.

Having been put under (was not told that was going to happen) I awoke during nether-regions camera part. All the stuff with my knee and any other physical pain I've had before just doesn't compare. The pain was unreal. I must've been awake for about 90 seconds before they managed to put me back under. I'm not sure if it was the initial injection or the second they were forced to do that has led to a needle scratch and an epic epic bruise on my arm.

Anyways, spent a week being slightly scarred from the whole thing and I honestly just think I was unlucky. The staff at the hospital were all fantastic, from the reception staff all the way to the nurses. I would accuse the people over England way handling the insurance claim of being racist in how they spoke to the Malays in the hospital, which does make me a bit sad. But then again most Western folk have no clue about the East and vice-versa. Malaysian's are fantastic in any case, like most Asian's i've met. They are also from a country with a suprisingly (to me) strong and modern culture whilst keeping their heritage. It reminded me of the UK more than anywhere else.

After being told i had worms but not really anything else (psshhh, I still feel like ass two weeks later although the worms have gone), I waved goodbye to the 10-15 nurses at reception. I was a celebrity to them for being white, FANTASTIC!!! Probably the image during 7 months travelling that i most wish I had a picture of.

Lyndsay and Gemma joined us in Melaka later which was excellent. The two girls are fantastic. Gemma is a Liverpool girl and Everton fan (important info) and always makes you laugh, Lyndsay is similar and very sweet as well. Both light up the place with the dancing games, drinking and various other fun things! On a sidenote, they flew to India today armed with fake wedding rings, fake husband stories and baggier clothes after myself and Ciaran persuaded them to go, wish them both best of good luck!

Spent an afternoon at the pool. First mistake was no realising it was an outside pool (of course it would be, its bloody hot here!). Second mistake was my clothes. Being a Muslim country, the women are meant to wear full bathing costumes and the men tight shorts or *shudder*, speedos. Of course with a male pool attendant, the girls were allowed in their bikinis and I got to wear a pair of tight tight shorts which had a hole in a very inappropriate place. The girls have pictures, sob.

Final night in Melaka I told the girls me and Cate were heading for Singapore and with time to kill before their flight to India they led the way and got their an hour before us.....


UNTIL NEXT TIME.... I will attempt to think of something interesting to write!

Enjoy the sun people! x

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Photos

Perhentian Kecil
My idea of paradise.

Ciaran
Last seen in Kathmandu.

Melacca Eye
Don't go on this if you're ever in Melacca, the next photo helps to explain why.

The View
A foul polluted river at this angle. Foul polluted sea another way. A little to the left here is a bridge to nowhere, further to the left is an empty space. To the right are a few reasonable looking buildings.
Seemingly whilst trying to turn Melacca into an over the top tourist resort for the sort of folk who come off cruise ships and appreciate this type of things, the money ran out. Leaving it an unfinished mess.
Melacca was nice as a whole, but felt artificial.

Gorgeous Irish
Took Lyndsay and Gemma out for dinner at a local authentic Indian restaurant for practice. This meant waiters getting without a couple of inches of your face and demanding your order only a couple of seconds after you have sat down and looked confused at the menu on the wall written in Hindi. The food was fantastic and the girls went to India.