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Published: September 13th 2007
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Two tropical islands, aquamarine clear warm waters, golden sands, tropical forests, amazing coral reefs, thriving marine life...beaches to suit all...from the quiet romantic retreats for the wealthy, to the socialable backpacker's destination of Long Beach, complete with chalets (and shacks!), restaurants, dive centres and snorkling trips...that's where I have just spent the last six days, and they have undoubtedly been some of the very best of my travels so far.
Long Beach was social heaven for the backpacker...I met so many people during my time there through the daily anyone join in volleyball games at 5pm, group meals afterwards, drinking and dancing until 3am at Palm Tree bar and general friendliness of the location. I also bumped into two friends from my travels in New Zealand, Mark and Lee, whilst walking down the beach on my first day, which was awesome! Sweet as bro! (NZ catchphrases that have faded away from my daily speech now!)
During the day people lie on the beach, snorkle, swim, dive and generally relax.
Unfortunately I underestimated the scorching hot power of the Malaysian sun on my first day there and during one hour's snorkling completely burnt my entire back half and turned
a very painful fluorescent red...finding it difficult to sit, lean back, move, not move that evening! Worse still, despite my seeming protective efforts I burnt the burn on my mid back on the second day and have now lost and entire layer of skin - leaving me an interesting mottled blend of white, pink, red, beige, golden brown and dark brown - not the most attractive!!
I arrived on the island by myself and headed to the cheapest accommodation around - Rock Garden. The 'chalets' were very basic shacks with a double bed, mosquito net and balcony (no fan!). The electricity (when the generator was working) ran from 7am to 7pm an consisted of bare lightbulbs (one per room) strung up from wires that dangled precariously across the site. The bathrooms were dark, damp and shared with frogs, lizards and various other creepy crawlies - and in typical asian style the toilets had to be flushed by buckets!
The first night I arrived I vowed I would leave the next morning and pay 40RM for a nicer room, rather than 20RM...the annoying thing being I was paying for a double and really wanted to split the cost with
another traveller...however, by morning I changed my mind. It's funny how quickly you get used to a different style of living (when you know it's temporary I imagined!) and I developed quite and affection for Rock Garden. Whereas the other more classy places lined the beach, Rock Garden was up on the headland and I opened by back door to the most stunning view across the bay and other to the other island, behind which the sun rose in the morning. Plus, the six young guys who ran the place all lived in a similar shack...so why should I need more?
I was, however, rather lonely in a room to myself after 4 1/2 months of dorm living - and up on the headland felt very vulnerable at night...so I found myself another traveller to share with and my last three nights only cost me 10RM since a fellow SE Asia traveller called Simon moved in...and through him I met more people...I loved that beach!
- However, as brought to my attention by Randy, my divemaster who had been living on Long Beach for a couple of months, the island did have an interesting subculture to the
tourist haven paradise it is famed for. As he put it 'the locals rule on the island' and he filled me in on various stories of thefts, tensions between locals and visitors/long term residents, and, apparently, a real drug problem amongst the local Malay youths. This all made me a little nervous and wary, especially when Lee, and a friend Rich, had phones and ipods stolen from their room one day.
Furthermore, the Muslim culture did show through a little despite the acceptance of westerners wandering around in swimwear all day long...all the local women lived in the fisherman's village...the island was run by the local men with a few token wives (taken women). So whilst the locals joined in the dancing with the travellers at Palm Tree each night, there was a need to avoid some unwanted advances (though not all girls chose to do so!)
---The snorkling trip on my last full day was incredible...I felt so alive and inspired as I weaved my way through beautiful corals, so many giant clams of different colours, not just shoals but clouds of fish at times...exploring an incredible world beneath the waters...I am becoming quite addictive to it!
Lee and I
(We met in NZ) The dive were fun too, but the snorkling won hands down!
---
And now I'm back in KL sat in an internet cafe next to Sarah, a friend from Long Beach who I bumped into half an hour ago in Chinatown - staying in the room next door to me at the same hostel! This morning I crawled off the nightbus and applied for my Vietnam visa...and whilst it's being processed I'm off to the Cameron Highlands.
Why did I not come to Malaysia earlier?!
xxx
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