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Published: March 13th 2007
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Mentawai and Malaysian Moments
Before I begin with our Malaysian musings, let me go back a few weeks prior to my arrival in Kuala Lumpur. Bryan had flown from South Africa to Kuala Lumpur ahead of me and decided to try and find some surf off the coast of Sumatra, Indonesia on the Mentawai Island of Siberut. As I cuddled with my daughter on Christmas, opening presents by a warm fire at my sister Susan’s and brother-in-law Brian’s home, Bryan was having a far more adventurous holiday. After unsuccessfully prodding him to write a blog on his experience, he has agreed to let me use an excerpt from one of his emails to me during this time. It’s a bit rough because it was originally intended for my eyes only and, wanting to retain the true essence of his description, I have not edited a thing (hence the warning).
WARNING: The following is rated PG-13 for some vulgarity and obscene language.
“Well, finally made it back. I made it to the island, a 14 hour ferry ride in regular class, no cabins available, and the boat was a little wooden thing, very small, with about 300 people on
Monkey skulls in a Mentawai hut.
Any time a Mentawai kills an animal, they hang its skull in thier hut in the belief that this will keep the animal's spirit away. it, all natives, no english speaking, and jammed packed, shoulder to shoulder......ohhh great....soooo, ended up climbing up to the roof of the ferry to try and sleep. There was me and one other guy up there, so tons of room. It was all going great, just snoozing away on my mat, until it started raining.....kinda a constant drizzle...so went back down till it stopped, about an hour and half, then went back up, slept great until raining again...well, it was warm out, was just drizzling so I said hell with it and just stayed there.....it rained off and on for the next 5 hours but nothing too intolerable......soooo, made it out to the island at about 11 am the next morning, got a ride to the town, more sorta a village, roads are wide enough for only scooters and got checked into a losmen, sorta a room with toilet-ish (asian style) and a shower (tank of water with scoop), also for washing your ass after pooping....out of about four days of being there the electricity worked for about 6 hours......anyways....got out to the losmen and started talking to a guy and told him I wanted to surf for Christmas and
New Years, he said there is no swell now so no surf...I said HUH????????????? AHHHH SHIT. When is the next ferry out of here?…he said not till the next wed....so I asked about jungle trekking and long story short, I spent 4 days trekking through the jungle getting introduced to the Mentawai culture. Was actually really fun, spent each day trekking about 5 to 8 hours from one longhouse to another, visiting different families that live off, and in, the jungle. Was really good......the hiking was great, you would have loved it, ankle to knee deep mud, crossing ravines on 8 inch diameter logs, muddy of course, with backpack full of four days of stuff......ohhhh, dont forget the leaches.....yeah, was picking leaches off every few hours or so......as far as the mud and walking, it was mostly slipping, and if possible in a foward direction...had multiple river crossings, either by wading up to the bellybutton, or by dugout canoe.....it was awsome.......have a few pics.....it was tough to pull out the camera when it is raining (the majority of the time) and everything is coated in mud..... sooooo, I spent Christmas with the Mentawai people, picking leaches and swatting mosquitoes trying
to stay dry in humid, hot, rainy, sticky weather.........I loved it!!!!!!!!!!! “
Anything that follows THAT description is going to pale in comparison, but I will do my best to fill you in on our Malaysian experience once I arrived.
After the holidays, I met up with Bryan in Kuala Lumpur, the busy capital of Malaysia. We stayed in a hotel in the heart of China Town where the shopping comes alive at night as hundreds of stalls are set up in the street and then torn down in the early hours of the morning. During “happy hour” we were well entertained as we watched our street transform before our eyes, the metal frames of stalls assembled like Linkin’ Logs, and then filled with knock-off name brand watches, t-shirts, and purses, etc.
Happy to get out of a bustling city for some beach time, we took the overnight jungle train to the northeastern corner of Malaysia. There we caught a small supply boat to Pulau Perhentian Besar, (Pulau meaning island in Malaysian) located in the South China Sea. This was the bigger of two sister islands but also the quieter one. We arrived mid-January and
with the tourist season not starting until mid-February we ended up being the only westerners there. Slowly a few other tourists arrived but in the 9 days that we spent on this island of white-sand beaches, turquoise clear water, and jungle interior there was never more than a handful of us there at any one time.
Bryan and I spent our days exploring the island by: canoeing to hidden, deserted beaches to hunt for shells and snorkel with a variety of rainbow colored fish and a few sharks; jungle trekking with giant ants a full inch in length, swinging our sticks to break the spider webs along the way; catching barracuda and snapper with a local fisherman in his little motorboat; joining a group of Malay girls for an evening of henna hand tattoos; watching the chickens fly up into the trees each night for their evening roost; spotting two-meter-long monitor lizards similar to a komodo dragon; and being visited by a family of monkeys in search of food.
We made friends with a local cook that quickly won over our palates. He would allow us to choose which fish or giant shrimp we wanted him to cook
for our evening meal and then he’d describe with animation how he was going grill or sauté this selection, adding garlic, oil, curry, pepper, etc. His love of cooking was evident by the simple masterpieces he placed in front of us and these meals have remained a favorite that Bryan and I still talk about with mouths watering.
As we began and ended each day we walked a dirt trail to our hut that passed under several large spider webs. Normally, as some of you may have noticed from past blogs, I do not handle bugs well, but one particular web held the largest and most splendid spider I’ve ever seen. Each day we would check on her well-being and see what sort of goodies she had captured or watch her clean her web of debris and weave repairs.
After a long and relaxing stay we decided it was time to move on. The variety of sea life we saw while snorkeling inspired us to look into getting our scuba diving certificates and we heard that this could be easily and cheaply accomplished in Thailand. We had met a wonderful couple from Canada that were headed to Ko
Taratua and we joined them for the journey.
But Thailand memories belong to another blog...
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Sandi
non-member comment
Breaking through your writer's block
Sara, I am so glad that you have broken through your writer's block. It has been great catching up with your travels. I can't wait to hear about your scuba experiences. I have been diving in Mexico and loved it. It is such a beautiful, peaceful experience.By the way, you are looking FABULOUS.........