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Published: September 29th 2005
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Salang beach
Excellent beach for snorkelling. Pity about the sand flies. After a week on Tioman Island we decided to head to the historical port of Malaka on the west coast of Malaysia, about two hours south of Kuala Lumpur. We are staying at an excellent guest house (Travellor's Lodge) with clean, comfortable rooms, air conditioning and no bed bugs. Melaka has been occupied by the Portuguese, Dutch, British and Japanese over the last 600 years and has large Indian and Chinese populations. As you can imagine it has a lot of historic buildings and a lot of different cultural influences. We have done a bit of sight seeing but have mainly been sampling Indian food in "Little India" and shopping for gifts in China Town. We found a great local eatery where they serve your meal on a banana leaf and you are supposed to eat it all with your hands. Keith has become quite adept at this, Lisa is not convinced as it takes too long and we are usually starving by the time we find somewhere to eat. We are planning on staying here for three nights before heading north to KL. We are currently in the Internet Cafe as we were refused entry to the local swimming pool.
Morning swim
Tioman is teaming with monitor lizards some of them reaching two metres! The old man selling tickets insisted that Keith needed a speedo and that board shorts are not accepted swimming attire. Not sure what he would have said to Lisa's bikini so we decided to give it a miss even though we could see locals swimming in shorts. Despite the heat it was not worth creating a scene.
Before arriving in Melaka, we spent a week on Paulo Tioman. The island was a mixture of ups and downs for us. We had heard so many great things about it, but when we arrived on the island the beaches were pretty rocky and not great for swimming, especially at low tide. The sand flies on the island are a real problem. We didn't know what they were when we first arrived and wondered why very few people ever lay on the beach. Well, by day 2 we were covered in a huge red welts/bites that are so itchy and turn in to blisters and don't seem to go away for days on end. So after that we spent most of the day reading books on our veranda overlooking the sea, in between swimming and snorkeling.
We started off staying three
Bleary Eyed
Keith eating his new favourite breakfast - Roti Canai. Never though curry in the morning could be so good! nights in Salang, one of Tioman's main beaches. Salang is one of the better beaches in that it has a good sandy beach on its southern end. So after a long day travelling from Cherating we managed to get an over priced room at Zaid's Place overlooking the ocean. We spent a few days in Salang bay and met an Australian couple - Shane and Charlotte, who we had dinner with most nights and who were our buddies when we hiked and then kayaked round to Monkey Bay on two occasions. This is an awesome beach and can only be reached by boat or a strenuous climb over the headland. So we were glad to find it and even happier when we found there were no sand flies, just monkeys.
After 4 nights we decided to try another beach on the island so caught a boat to the next big bay (ABC) and then left our bags there and did a hectic 2 hour hike across the island to the East and the bay of Juara. The beach there is a lot better for swimming, although the sea was quite rough at the time - not good visibility for
The friendly Roti man
One of the few friendly locals we met. I guess dealing with tourists takes its toll after a while. snorkeling. The Australian, New Zealand and Singaporean navies were all there on R&R so Lisa had loads of hunky men to admire in between reading her novels and swimming. We stayed at Rainbow Chalets which are right on the beach and have lovely verandas to sit on and admire the sea. Our camera got wet in our kayak when we canoed round to Monkey Bay for the day and stopped working straight away so we have to see if it can be fixed in KL or not. Otherwise we have to buy another one....Not in the budget! We thought we may have lost all our photos too but we have just checked the memory card and the pics are all there - for now anyway. We have purchased a disposable camera but it will take a while for us to get it developed.
Keith has developed a liking for the local fayre of Roti, which is almost like a crepe that you eat in the morning for breakfast with curry sauce. The best ones are the banana ones, which even Lisa has learnt to eat, considering there is nothing else available for breakfast at the local stalls, unless you
Cooking chicken curry
Keith cooks his tinned curry at Monkey Bay. Note we took our litter with us. Shane from Australia hanging around to ward off the monkeys. want a whole rice meal!. We have also discovered Tongkat Ali which is the name of a herb which they mix into a coffee drink together with Ginseng. It tastes delicious. Our mad friend Mun from the jungle told us it is meant to be an aphrodisiac, but we haven't been able to comment on that yet! Needless to say Lisa bought a whole bag of the stuff today. Our time in the cafe is up so we must be off for another Tongkat Ali.
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Bryan Knight
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So Jealous!!!
I am so jealous that you guys are still being beach bums and still traveling. I'm now back in the States working crazy hours at my law firm. But I've been keeping everyone here entertained with stories from my travels and especially stories from the Jungle! You guys will really like KL, I stayed in Chinatown and really liked it, I heard a lot of travelers say that "Red Dragon" or "Dragon Inn" was a good place to stay, it is one block toward China town from the bus station. Keep me updated on your travels, I am now living vicariously through you guys.