Glorious Pulau Kecil

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The first thing you must know is that I am now an Advanced Certified PADI diver. So can I get a little respect please? 😊

Now that we have that out of the way, a short update from the beautiful island of Kecil in lovely Malaysia. As you can see, I am quite fond of this place. The water is absolutely crystal clear, the diving is phenomenal, by far, the best saltwater diving I've ever done. I have spent lots of time in the sea which makes me happy. When not amongst the fishies, you can generally find me lounging at the beach or drinking a mango icee. This has been one of those weeks that words can't really describe. Just very nice and relaxing and calm.

Kecil is a funny little island. It's beautiful, yes because of where it is, but it is pretty skanky at the same time, because humans have come and built in a very haphazard manner. You can't go far without smelling waste (I don't even want to know what they do with their waste here) and I'm pretty sure there's a rotting corpse near our chalet. The hum from generators never stops and everything is in a variable state of moisture at all times.

There are moniter lizards, rats, ants, frogs, bats, snakes, mosquitoes and a myriad of other creepy-crawlers. Have you ever seen a moniter lizard up close? It is not pretty. They will eat you for dinner. There are also a zillion little kittens running around, which makes me very happy. They love to play with the tourists and will fall asleep in your lap. Sigh. I hope Matthes doesn't mind that I am two-timing.

We managed to find a decent room at a place called Matahari, which is also who I did my dive certification with. We got very lucky with the room. In fact, when the reception guy gave us the room, he wrote "Lucky" next to our names on the guest registry. And it's true. We got one of the 10 rooms with ac on the entire island and a relatively* (*this is the key word) clean room for a reasonable price. For the rest of the day and week, we have watched newcomers arrive and scour the island with their packs (some in the pouring rain) looking for a bed. I guess most of them find something somewhere and I think a fair number of people end up sleeping on the beach.

Did I mention that the diving here is amazing? I can't get enough of it. Matahari dive shop is run by ex-pats, all of these 30-somethings who have quit their corporate jobs to live here in paradise. Hmmmm. There's just SO MUCH marine life, I can't explain it, words will only detract from what the experience was like.

Unfortunately, massages are expensive here ($35/hour vs the $5/hour in Cambodia or $8/hour in Thailand), so won't be doing much if any of that. Well, maybe one. 😊

Next stop on the venture is Kuala Lumpur for one night, we leave the little island Wed and then Thurs Sarah heads back home and I go to Hanoi until Aug 18.

Hope all is well in your respective homes and lives. I will blow a little kiss across the pacific as the sun sets this evening.

xo

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Comments

[andy]

snakes
hate to break it to you but all those kittens are probably the reptile's primary food source.......what snakes have you seen?

[Pamspace]

snakes
Didn't see any big snakes. Just the monitor lizard...