Short Adventures not far from home.

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Once again that gripping fear sets in. We’ve spent a year in Malaysia, but have we seen enough? Did we waste too many weekends trying to recover from our work week, rather than exploring this tropical paradise? How many amazing sites have we missed? Will we regret our use of time here upon our return?

So, once again, just like our last weeks in China, we find ourselves desperately cramming our last weekends with little trips to try to minimize the guilt. This blog will cover a few of those trips.

Adventure # 1: Beth learns to drive on the “other” side of the road.

Now if you will recall, upon our return from Thailand last August, Craig lost his wallet in the taxi cab right outside our building in KL. In the wallet were mostly replaceable cards, but sadly his driver's license was lost. As such, based on me being chicken of driving over here, driving isn’t a mode of transportation we have seriously entertained all year. But with time starting to evaporate, I finally became desperate enough to rent a car.

Most teachers at school rent through a rather “shady” fellow. There are rumours of threats of broken knee caps, wheels falling off, windshield wipers broken (a serious problem in a tropical country) and a significant lack of paperwork and so this didn’t seem like our cup of tea, at least for our first driving adventure. We found an international company nearby, paid a little more, and were even afforded no fault insurance with a 200 dollar deductible. Things felt ok.

So how does one switch to driving on the other side of the car, on the other side of the road? Well one big issue is the entire weekend; I kept trying to get in on the passenger side of the car. The pedals are the same, so that was ok, but changing the gear shift with my left hand was a little awkward. More awkward was judging spacing on either side of the road. Most awkward however, was turning corners; I had to talk to myself out loud to make sure I would end up back on the right, that being left, side of the road. Also of note, the cup holder is still in the centre of the car, causing an awkward crisscross of the arms in order to get a drink. To which I suggest the briliant idea of a cupholder in the side door.

So, car rented, AND car moving down the “correct” side of the road, we loaded in two of our friends and started to climb over the highlands in the middle of the peninsula, destination: Cherating otherwise known as beach paradise.

Although we ourselves were in the midst of exams, public schools were on holiday, and our current weekend adventure was put together with about 1 hour of preparation. Stuff a bag, double check for bathing suit and go! Unfortunately it would seem a lot of other people had the same idea. We arrived in Cherating, a beach side “town”/village around 10pm to a no room in the house kind of situation. I kept the car in idle as Craig and our friend Nat went from hostel to cottage looking for space to no avail. Finally, I convinced them we should head back to the city “Kuantan” for the night, and try again first thing in the morning.

However, outside of town, we noticed a motel and amazingly they had space. We booked two rooms for an exorbitant price, but vowed it was fine for the night. Well, it didn’t last long. For one thing, there was a distinct lack of toilet seat in the girl’s room, and a distinct presence of roaches in the boys’. Now 1 am, we got our money back and got back on the road. A few minutes later, we saw another hotel. This one offered a small apartment for an exorbitant price. This time the boys’ checked it out first, proving it to be just fine, we happily crashed into our respective beds. The next morning, calling ahead, we booked a cabin back in Cherating for half the price, and got back on track with our original plan of a weekend on the beach.

The day was spent as it should have been, I laid out a blanket on the sand, fell asleep, got a weird burn where I missed a sliver of skin with the sunscreen. We swam, though the water was full of miniscule stinging something or others. The stings were sharp but not so intense as to get us out of the water. In fact, it was almost invigorating, like minor shock therapy, really woke us up.

That evening, we happened upon a very strange scene. Looking for a place to be, we heard a lot of music out of one pub on the river so we ventured in. Inside everyone was dressed as zombies and vampires. Suddenly the dance floor was cleared and a big production with ghouls, vampires and other demons ensued, with the grand finale being a dance routine to Thriller. Then, a group of sarong clad local guys from the Kampongs attacked the vampire with rakes and such, drove a wooden stake into him, and threw him in the river. Then the pub went back to normal, except for the people in costume. " Alright then!", we headed back to our cabins.

The next week, there was an article in the National newspaper, “the Star” about how a voodoo doll was found in a cemetery not so far away from this town, how it required calling in forensic experts, and having the area “cleansed”. Malaysia is at times, a very interesting country.

The next day we drove leisurely back down the coast, checking out the scenery we missed when arriving on the Friday night. Had we known the traffic jam that awaited us, we might have pushed onwards, but for the time being ignorance was bliss. Halfway back across the peninsula, we wisened up. Everyone was coming back from school holidays. A drive that should have taken 2 hours, piled up to five hours.

The closer we got to KL, the stupider people got about driving habits. There is also the issue of me getting more than a little lost once finally inside KL itself. At midnight, we met the car rental guy in front of our building. I had been driving for 12 hours, pretty much non-stop. Frazzled, I went to bed.
The next morning however, Craig and I were planning further car rental adventures.

Adventure # 2 Pulau Tioman

The island where they filmed South Pacific! A duty free island! An island with a sea turtle sanctuary! And our good friends also planning to head to Tioman after graduation. It was the perfect holiday! It should have been.

First there was the six hour journey by bus. Then the 1 hour ferry ride to Tekek. There we met up with our friends, and planned our journey the next day to the secluded paradise side of the island. We watched the sunset on a decent sort of beach, and watched flying foxes dive about on the coast.

The next morning, we went to the store to stock up for the beautiful beach, I scratched my cheek a little. I scratched my cheek a little more. Suddenly I recognized a familiar though long forgotten rash I used to get when living in a log home near Nackawic. This rash had twice landed me in the hospital on an anti-biotic drip. I rushed to the island clinic where I was given a mild anti-biotic. Our friends went on to paradise, we decided it was best to wait where there was a clinic to see what would happen next.

The rest of the day in Tekek was pretty boring except for finding the trees where the flying foxes nested during the day. So we returned in the evening to watch them awake and take-off. It was so incredibly loud, and impressive, and cool. It almost made up for being stuck on the wrong side of the island.

The next morning, my rash was obviously growing. We went to the island airstrip, and caught a flight home. No island paradise for us. In short, 2 doctors and a dermatologist later, and about 9 pills a day for a week, and my face has finally returned to normal. The first day we just laid around depressed, but then we decided to look for a local adventure.

Adventure # 3: FRIM!

Not ones to mope for long, we started to search for local adventure... what hadn't we done yet?

The Forest Research Institute of Malaysia is inside KL boundaries, accessible by a poorly serviced train. The cool thing about FRIM is that there is a canopy walkway. You climb a hill, then you walk along a plank and rope bridge through the forest canopy, 30 metres above ground. Now, had we arrived separate from the school groups I would imagine there would be tons of wildlife to see. But such as there were a hundred people screaming, the view and the thrill of possibly plunging to one's death had to be enough.

Actually, after descending, we missed a turn in the path, resulting in a pleasantly solitary walk back down the hill. We had the rainforest to ourselves! Or so we thought... we had no idea what the rainforest could offer until we arrived in Borneo... but that is another story.



The rest of the time we just got ourselves ready for a two week trip across Borneo… where we happen to be at the moment. But there lie other stories.

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Photos

Craig Relaxing on the Beach
This picture is just to rub it in, for all of you back in Canada. Tee Hee.

Paradise!
Horses galloping through the sea. Can you imagine? (Cherating, Malaysia)

Early Morning in Beach Paradise
Cherating, Malaysia

Nat on the Beach
Silly picture of our friend Natalie at Cherating.

Silly picture of Shaun on the beach.
Our friend Shaun messing with our heads on the beach.

Seaside Monkeys eating fried Chicken.
Beach near Kuantan.

Bus Driver to Mersing
Interesting reflection of our bus driver on the trip to Mersing, where we would catch a ferry to Pulau Tioman.

Dense Rainforest at FRIM Centre
Not bad for inside city limits.