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Published: April 2nd 2008
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Port Dickson
The Blue Lagoon This is Hannes writing. As said in the last entry Erik and I split up last Sunday. He went toward Pulau Tioman, apparently getting stuck in Mersing for a night when missing the ferry by 5 minutes, and I headed for Port Dickson. As might be noticed by the attentive, this entry is written in Melaka, the place we started from.
After starting the Sunday of split-up with a mediocre breakfast at McDonald's we both went to Melaka Sentral. We were a little worried when we were told it was Chinese Spring and neither of us could get tickets at the first try. Both were, however, successful at the second and subsequently parted ways to our separate buses.
I arrived a little more than one hour later at Seremban were the connecting bus to Port Dickson waited. The view along the road from Melaka was, as almost always here in Malaysia, mostly of enormous oil palm plantations. It was not as bad as in Sabah, where miles and miles of uninterrupted plantations spread along the road as far as the eye could see, but it was still enough to make me a little sad thinking a lot of it was
Port Dickson
The road up to the Lighthouse rainforest not too long ago.
Changing bus one more time in Port Dickson, I was dropped off outside a huge resort, clearly not the one I had asked for. I walked for perhaps two kilometres, was ping-ponged up and down the road by at least five people until finally a kind man took me and my, not so small, backpack on his very old moped and gave me a lift.
Finally arriving at the right hostel I took a much-needed shower and, after getting something to eat, dropped into bed.
The following day was probably the most lazy day on the trip so far. I woke late, went for some lunch and much-needed internet access, and then went down to the beach. The sand was incredible! White soft dunes stretching for hundreds of metres without anyone but me on it. I only wish the water could have been as awesome. It was murky and brown, and at one time it actually managed to get above my knees. Never more than that though. Fortunately there were some nice waves, so I lay there for while just flowing back and forth with the water. Not much more happened that day.
Yesterday I went to the seemingly most famous of Port Dickson's attractions; the Blue Lagoon. The bus only took me to 1,5 kilomtres from the lagoon, but as I set out to walk a car stopped and picked me up. It was a nice Muslim couple who felt sorry for the poor Westerner walking in the heat. They took me the entire way, even though they were actually supposed to go in the other direction.
The Blue Lagoon wasn't as great as I had anticipated but the water came as far as my hips, which is a great improvement from earlier. After some lazy swimming around I gathered my things and started walking toward the Cape Rachado Forest Reserve. It wasn't long until I walked under the thankful shade of enormous trees. As soon as I entered the forest a loud ieeeeeee continously sounded along the way and I could hear movements just out of sight. I saw quite a few squirrels climbing trees on either side of the road.
Just as I was nearing the top of the hill that rises in the middle of the Forest Reserve a large monkey materialized in a branch just 3 metres above
the road. He seemed quite uninterested in me so I clicked away on the camera undisturbed. As I came closer I noticed a lot more of them but they moved toward the upper branches when I came too near. They looked quite like macaques but was almost as large as a Probiscus monkey and had a tail at least one-and-a-half times as long as their body.
I walked up to the top of the hill to the lighthouse of Cape Rachado, from where you on clear days apparently can see Sumatra, 38 km to the east. Unfortunately for me this was not one of those days but the view was still very good.
I went back to the hostel, had dinner and then sat on the beach watching the sun set. Quite an impressive show.
Today I woke early to catch the bus. Having done what seemed to be Port Dickson's most exciting stuff I was really bored and decided to join Erik in Pulau Tioman for some snorkelling before going to Singapore. After changing bus a couple of times I arrived in Melaka a quarter of an hour after the afternoon bus to Mersing had departed. There is
Port Dickson
View from the Lighthouse however an evening bus at 6.15 which I intend to take instead. Hopefully it will work out with lodgings in Mersing for tonight. If possible I also hope to see the Liverpool-Arsenal game, but since it will be around four in the morning here chances are not too good.
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