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Published: November 11th 2008
After another stupidly uncomfortable night outside KL's low cost carrier terminal we peeled ourselves from the benches and hopped on a few buses.
Our next destination (and last main stay in Malaysia) was the small friendly island of Palau Pangkor......A place where the locals go for the weekend or a well deserved break! I was starting to regret not straying from the main tourist trail in Malaysia and so was really pleased when we arrived here to find locals on holiday with only a very few foreigners to be found. We managed to find a lovely little cluster of "Chalets" at a reasonable price, and I was really excited when the owner led us to ours, which resembled a dolls house - See pic!!
There was a really nice relaxed vibe here, just one friendly island made up of fishing villages and beaches, with a few quiet resorts thrown in for good measure.....a real Malay place. So from all this you would imagine foreigners to be a little respectful??? For example, if you're surrounded by locals, with the majority of women in Muslim dress and headscarves you'd probably want to dress on the conservative side and save the sunbathing
for a tourist island OR a deserted beach??........Not one lady, fair skinned and blond haired, at the weekend, on a beach where everyone is swimming fully clothed........cavorting around in the shallow water TOPLESS....Say no more!!
Dan - I even think it's one of the last Islands left in Malaysia that has not been taken over by the tourist brigade. It was so quiet in the week when we arrived that only a few things were open!! it was only on Sat/Sun when the Malay tourists arrived that everything seemed to open up.
The center of the island is pristine jungle and is teeming with Monkies & Hornbill birds. Bearing in mind that while in Taman Negara we spent alot of time up in the canopy walkway trying to spot a Hornbill (and failing miserably) but within minutes of arriving here loads flew past!!!.
Most of our time here was spent on our own little beach - as before we searched a little harder and found a nice secluded cove! we manged one day to pull ourselves from the sand and took a walk around the island (17km) (armed with sticks to fight off monkies as they DO
ambush people for grub) to meet a few locals, and they were very happy to see us as I think not many people bother to venture to the other side of the island. this was actually the most interesting side!!!
BUT as quickly as we had pulled oursleves from the beach, we found ourselves right back on there again!! Although the last day we somehow found the energy to swim across to Coral Island, maybe 1km from the shore! (which to Swimming anoraks is not alot BUT throw in the currents and the hot sun makes it a little hard!) I was scared at one point as once your in the middle your on your own with no one around to help should you need it!!!
Nic - We made the most of the fresh seafood as well, and every night picked a fish from the aray of choices outside every eatery which was to be BBQ'd with lots of chilli, garlic and lemongrass....mmmm Yummy! The weekend was great as well, because more food stalls opened up and I was extatic to find that they had a ABC/Cendol stall. This is the desert of choice over here and
I love it. It's made up mainly of shaved ice with loads of sweet goodies thrown in for good measure: Jelly, Sweetcorn, Red beans, Tapioca, condensed milk, fruit sauce, syrup and coconut milk.....Cendol is slightly different and looks like green worms, Sounds totally disgusting, but still they're both a sweet-tooths heaven!
Dan - So that's it for Malaysia now were sitting waiting for a bus to take us to Johor Bahru where we'll cross to Singapore to catch our flight to Oz in a couple of days time.............expensive times ahead!!
One thing I would like to say about Malaysia is that the people are perhaps the friendliest we've met even if they are a little bonkers (in the nicest possible way) and anyone visiting i'm sure will think the same.
Us
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Stew
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Hair cut?
Have I missed a blog or have you forgot to mention that Dan's had his barnet chopped? - certainly looks that way from the pics in this blog. Take care.