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Published: December 12th 2005
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Waterfall
On our drive around the island we stopped to hike up this waterfall. October 24th - November 1st
Yay, Phil's parents came to visit this weekend! Our first official visitors. The week went by as usual, though we were thrilled to finally receive Phil’s replacement debit card on Friday (thank you again Mark!!!!). His parents arrived Friday evening and we took them straight to one of our favorite local restaurants, Roo’s Cellar. It is a wine bar that that serves good food and has an upstairs bar and an incredibly wine selection considering where we are. We had some late dinner snacks and a nice bottle of wine. Back at home we were lulled to sleep by what Phil’s dad described as “firecracker junkies.” I should explain. The ninth month of the Islamic calendar is Ramadan, a month of fasting that happens to fall in October this year. Muslims fast during the day and eat small meals at night with family. Ramadan ends with the festival of Hari Raya, which started in November this year. In the weeks leading up to Hari Raya people were letting off all kinds of fireworks at all hours of the night. Unfortunately the nights that Phil’s parents were here were particularly bad.
Saturday we drove around
Spice Garden I
View from the top of the garden. the island and stopped at a waterfall. The hike was very short! Just as we were getting to the top of a ridge there was a fence and locked gate; we couldn’t go any further. A little disappointing, but we continued our drive and stopped at the Spice Garden for lunch. We were again disappointed to find that the café was under renovation so we walked through quickly and ended up in Georgetown for lunch. Getting out of Georgetown was exciting; the traffic was really bad (weekends are a bad time to be in town) and it took us an hour just to get moving! That night we had a very nice dinner at the E & O 1885 restaurant. On our way home we were again caught in really bad traffic. This time it was because of a festival parade that we didn’t know about. All the sudden there were tons of people walking through the cars, then people were directing traffic to the sides of the road so a procession of lit-up trucks and people carrying shrines could make their way down the street. It was pretty cool to see, I just wish I had known what it
Big Swing
Phil's parents on the swing. was for and that I had my camera. A couple weeks later I found out that it was a Chinese festival for the ninth moon of the ninth month.
Sunday we went up to Kek Lok Si, the Buddhist temple complex on the hill. For dinner we tried something a little different. The island we see from our apartment has a hotel on it and I though we could take the ferry over for dinner. I tried to call for reservations but the person who answered didn’t speak much English and said they would call me back. This should have been my first clue that it wasn’t a good idea. We decided to go anyway. The ferry ride over was nice. A warm breeze was blowing and the sun was just starting to set. The only other people on the ferry were a family and the hotel staff. Another bad sign? We got to the jetty and walked up to the hotel. There were a few hotel staff, but no sign of any other hotel guests. Very weird. We found the restaurant and were a little concerned that it was completely open, no protection from mosquitoes, but we sat
down anyway. Do you ever look back on a situation and think, “why in the hell did I do that?” This was definitely one of those. It seemed that no one there spoke English, though they would let you ramble on and not their head like they understood you. They knew enough to tell us that several dishes weren’t available (after we had ordered them) and that they only had a half bottle of wine available, already open. ARGH! This was not the exotic experience I thought it would be. We got through dinner and managed to laugh a little at the situation. The ferry runs were spaced out enough that we had to wait over an hour for the next one to take us back. We walked around the complex trying to pass the time. It seemed pretty nice, it just wasn’t operated at the level I expected. The website makes it sound like an amazing place for ecotourism with lots of daily activities, though after being there I can’t say I would ever go back unless it changes ownership. All in all it was a pretty disappointing experience.
Monday we had better food, but Phil’s dad was
Beach view
From the cafe at the top of the garden. pretty sick so we spent most of the day at home. We did drag him out for dinner to a place that we again had not been to before, but it turned out to be pretty good. A major lesson we learned, don’t take visitors to restaurants that you haven’t already visited unless you are in a foreign place together! They left on Tuesday to go back to Singapore. Though it seems like their trip was full of disappointing experiences, it was really nice to just have them around. And they are coming back! We obviously didn’t scare them off well enough. Just kidding......
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