Advertisement
Published: September 9th 2007
Edit Blog Post
Welcome to Malaysia
Crossing the Thai/Malay border My good friend Jack, who I'm sure anyone reading this knows, and for that reason, why he needs no introduction, was scheduled to arrive into Thailand on the 18th. With the 15 days he had in Thailand we planned to do the whole Ko Pha Ngan, Full Moon and Ko Toa experience togther along with Katie his girlfriend and three of her friends who we'd be meeting later. However, Jack fancied doing some of the West Coast, Krabie, Rialay beach etc etc, which I had just done. This meant I had about a week spare while he did that before meeting up....... so what better thing to do with a spare week in the south of Thialnd than..........go to Malaysia!
The Perhentian Islands had been mentioned to me a few times by various people since I'd been traveling, described as a couple of idyllic islands, with some beautiful beaches in the North of Malaysia definitely worth visiting. I had originally planned to try and stop off to see them on my way out of Thailand, but now I had the perfect opportunity, so a couple of bus rides later and i was crossing the Thai/Malay border. The next part of my
journey was really quite a nice experience, upon crossing the Malay border I was immediately and expectedly accosted by taxi drivers offering me rides to the port for the Perhentian Islands. However, determined not to take the easy option I was adamant that I was going to wait for the bus and pay 5 Ringget (75p) rather than the 70R (9GBP) for the taxi. However, after a while one taxi driver approached me and even after I'd explained to him that I was a poor student and I'd rather wait for the bus, he was still happy to just hang around and chat. By now I had already been impressed, firstly, the level of English the Malay people spoke, secondly, by the genuine friendliness of the few people I'd met
So after some time chatting and waiting for a bus, he offered me a deal that was hard to refuse. For 50R (7GBP) he would take me to the port (which the bus wouldn't of), dropping off two other guys waiting for the bus, and for the deal clincher, he got his friend on the phone who ran boats from the port to the Perhentian Islands (which I'd have to
My digs!
Comes inclusive with a range of wildlife! get anyway) and I was offered a free bed/sofa for the night. So I took the taxi ride to the port, chatting to the driver and the various people we picked up and dropped off along the way and claimed my free bed for the night at the other end.
My plan for the Perhentian Islands was to spend a day or two on Long Beach, the main backpackers beach and then go and check out some of the other beaches on the island, however, my plans changed on the first evening upon meeting five rather curious individuals; Ben, Kate, Cat, Emily and Sara. I use the word 'curious' not because they were in any way actually curious (well, Cat was a bit 😉, but simply because that word became the most used word for the next two weeks.
I remember seeing Ben on the beach earlier in the day, I also recall seeing him sitting on his own when I walked past the restaurant to pop back to my room before coming out again to eat. The next time I saw him that evening, when i came out to eat, he was in the same seat, only this time
Kiaking trip
Seemed like a good idea at the time, but we started to regret it a good 5-10 minutes in. four hotties had joined him and I distinctly remember thinking.......'you jammy bastard, where did they come from'. Anyway, after I'd finished eating, one of the girls, Sara, stopped at my table on the way past and invited me to join them.....and here began a fun filled couple of weeks with a great group of people. We all got on pretty much immediately and I later found out that one of the reasons was that they were impressed by my rather unorthodox introductory topic of conversation when I met them, which I will re-tell now, since for anyone planning on traveling, it is worth knowing.
Mosquito repellent; A essential travel item, especially for South East Asia. However, as a word of warning.....Do Not buy the
Jungle Formula CREAM. I bought the cream rather than the spray as I thought it would be the easiest and least messy to apply.......maybe so.........however, big mistake, I have never in my life come across a cream that resembles more, in its look and consistency.......how can I say......."Man's Milk". If you don't know what I mean by "Man's Milk", use your imagination. Every part of my body would cringe when rubbing this stuff into me, which
Kiaking trip 2
Walking the kiak back as soon as the water was shallow enough. was only once, I've since refrained from using it, I'd quite frankly rather be bitten than rub this stuff into my body. Seriously, if you get the chance, next time you're in Boots, go and find this stuff, it's in the travel section, a green bottle, squirt a little bit out and see..........it's uncanny. So, word to the wise.......avoid the Jungle Formula Cream.
The next day we all met up on the beach and Ben and I being the
men of the group thought we doing something manly and active.....so we hired a kiak. We had a great itinerary planned for the morning; we'd first paddle over the bay to turtle beach, then we'd go around the headland to the more posh beach, after which we'd paddle back over the bay to the fisherman's village for some lunch before heading back to long beach. This was our plan........what actually occurred differed quite significantly. After paddling for a good 5-10minutes, we realized this was far more effort than we'd ever anticipated, in addition, the kiak we'd hired, as well as being the most uncomfortable thing I'd ever had the displeasure of sitting down in, seemed to have some sort of deficiency
in that it would always point a good 20degrees right of where we were aiming to go. Since the second stop on our, now obviously optimistic tour, the posh beach, was to the right of turtle beach so we ended up there anyway, missing the first stop on our trip. It took us a good half an hour longer than we expected to get there, and for half the journey it felt like we were on some kind on water tread mill not getting any closer to our destination, or any further from our starting point. Still we got there in the end and after taking full advantage of the posh places facilities, we both agreed that the fishermans village was out of the question, that we should cut our loses and head back. So we paddled over to the shallowest bit of water jumped out and walked the canoe back. Returned with our tails between our legs, both feeling wholly defeated by this little exercise and regretting not going with the original option..........to lay on the beach and do nothing.
The next day a couple of Ben's mates; Chris and Luke joined us so we now had a crew
Beach Vollyball
I was a force to be reckoned with on the vollyball court! of eight. We took advantage of the banana boat rides and on one day went on a snorkeling trip and got to see some turtles (briefly). By the end of the week I'd made plans to visit the Cameron Highlands in the mountains of central Malaysia and Ben decided to join me. We had a big piss up on the last night, that inevitably ended in streaking into the sea and the next day we went our separate ways. Chris and Luke went their own way, with the aim to meet us for the full moon party on Ko Pha Ngan and we arranged to meet the girls in Ao Nang, where I was also meeting Jack.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.119s; Tpl: 0.02s; cc: 8; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0691s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Jeremy
non-member comment
Nice streaking shot mate. Were you using the 'isolate colours' function on your camera to bring out red?