Diving in paradise

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Firstly I'm in the most annoying, headache inducing place in the whole of Malaysia, possibly the whole of Asia, which up until now has been very tranquil and zen. The internet cafe is also some sort of computer game cafe, full of adolescent boys playing war games - feel like I'm in about 3 different war zones at once.

Took an overnight bus here, wasn't too bad, 10 hours though and I put my trousers on backwards then couldn't change them round. Luckily they weren't a pair of jeans or anything, else that would really be retarted, they were sort of the Malaysian equivalent of tracksuit bottoms, a bit like harem pants which I hear are all the rage at home but seeing as I'm unaware of what is and isn't cool anymore I wouldn't know. The driver, atchally they were 2 to share the journey, which was entertaining, they went through phases of swapping every time we stopped at a set of traffic lights which was interesting. Either way they had some sort of Malaysian radio station on which seemed to play the same xylophone music for a decade or 2. But we got here, stress free and well.

So spent 2 nights in Terengganu, not really the most cultural or busiest city in Malaysia, but perfectly nice and cleaner than most. Off the main tourist route which has been nice, people a lot more interested in us and we get a lot of 'hellos' walking down the street. We wanted to go to Redang Island, and you can only go there if your booked into a resort. So booked onto a diving tour which didn't leave until Monday so had 2 nights here, and also spending tonight here - we've exhausted very possible tourist attraction in the town and then just aimlessly wondered around for a while. We visited the market which had more batik than you thought could exist on one planet, and also a floating mosque. It was quite pretty but I forgot my scalf and we hadn't covered our arms so we wondered around the grounds for a bit.

Monday morning we left for Redang Island, got a bus to Merang harbour and then the resorts boat. Got about 5 minutes outside of the harbour when the boat got stuck in the sand (I'm sure there's a technical boating term for this) and the monkeys driving it took the whole morning to get it out. Eventually they realised it would be easier to push it out if there weren't 10 people on it, including luggage and food supplies and fuel for the resort. So the genius monkey men got a fishing boat to take us to this deserted beach - which would have been completely stunning, white sand, no one for miles, surrounded by forest. Except they were pumping god knows what from the sea into the forest using 2 huge tractor things which sort of ruined the mood. This coupled with the fact the water was sort of orangey, the colour of petrol. So spent the morning on our deserted beach roasting whilst the boat people called all their friends who came out to push the boat out of the sand. The geniuses instantly ran into sand again and we spent another hour or so being pushed out of that. Luckily me and Helen kept our Asia zen like states for the whole thing and just read all morning pretending nothing was happening.

Arrived at the resort, which was paradise (which I was pleased with seeing as when we went to the travel agency to book our only criteria was that we went to the cheapest place). We had a little wooden hut thing, and it was right on the beach. The food was fantastic and it was a small family run resort, with lots of young Malaysian men running around looking after you.

Did 5 dives whilst we were there, all we really good. The owner of the resort dived with us which was good (and comforting - seeing as it was our first dive since we'd qualified). So the reefs we dived were great, some fantastic coral and marine life, saw lots of tropical fish of all colours and sizes, highlight was seeing a turtle (which is apparently really common) and some huge stingray, about 5 meters, nose to tail and a 6ft moray eel (which apparently isn't very common!). On one of the dives I was lent an underwater camera and got some fantastic photos, it belonged to a young Malaysian staying at the resort and I really hope he emails the pictures over.

They had karaoke in the evenings, which you'll be sad to hear we didn't do. I think that the English are more sensitive to cringy moments than other cultures, I couldn't stand the karaoke in Jinja and the karaoke here was just as awful - but the Malaysians loved it which I guess is the main thing. Also I wonder how I've managed to go through the last 19 years never stepping foot inside a karaoke bar, but go to a small town in the middle of Africa and a remote island in Malaysia and find one.

So back in Terengganu and heading off tomorrow, leaving for Singapore on Friday and can't believe that this part of the trip is coming to an end but getting very excited for Vietnam!

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Comments

[Whiteman]

*JOKES*
"seeing as I'm unaware of what is and isn't cool anymore" were you ever? =P haha, sorry, couldn't resist. And as much as my lecturer harps on about the impacts of it, the diving sounds cool =]

[Uncle Mike]

Jealous - me?
Thats it, I'm chucking it all in for a year off travelling!!