All entries for Wednesday 20 July 2005

Coast to coast

Selemat Datang everybody!

That's Bahase (the official Malaysian language) for welcome. But don't think I'm clever or anything, it's 1 of 2 words I've learned so far.

Sorry it's been a while since I've been in touch but I did mention we were heading for some isolated islands for a few days…but first we got a bit sidetracked…

You might remember (or have just scrolled down to see) that the last time I wrote, we were about to catch a bus to a place called Mersing on the east coast of the peninsula, to catch a boat to an island called Pulau Tioman.

Well, we overslept and missed the bus.

So, in one of those spur of the moment things, we decided we'd head to the old town of Melaka instead for a couple of days and then go to the island. So, instead of heading east, we soon found ourselves on the west cost of the peninsula.

The historians among you might know Melaka (or Melacca) as one of the major trading posts of the 17th and 18th centuries, and the Dutch, Portuguese and British have occupied the town since 1511. Unfortunately all that really remains is an old (but newly renovated) Dutch fort called Stadthuys: a dull museum that we managed in an afternoon. Outside of that, we stayed in a lovely hostel, and ate at an Indian place where the food was served on a palm leave.

After a few days we made straight for Mersing as originally intended (this was last saturday) and by the evening, we were relaxing in a chalet beside a gorgeous tropical bay: white sands, calm turquoise seas, and a generally very chilled atmosphere. Now something similar in say the Maldives would probably set you back hundreds of quid, but on this undiscovered idyll, we were paying about 1.80 each a night for the chalet.

We trekked across the island through dense jungle to an even more deserted beach and generally spent 4 days snorkelling (amazing fish and coral) eating (great seafood barbeques) chilling (hammocks. enough said) and congratulating ourselves for finding somewhere so dirt cheap.

There were probably 2 dozen other visitors on our stretch of beach and everyone (tourists and islanders alike) were all amazingly friendly. We'd got settled after the 4th night and so it was quite hard to leave. But we got ourselves up at 8am this (wednesday) morning and a 2 hour boat trip and a 6 hour bus trip later we've found ourselves in Kuala Lumpur!

...but there I'm going to keep you waiting! Keep emails winging my way - I'm trying to reply to them all, and Claire's photos from the last week should be online very soon!

*Until next time kids,*

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: 20 Jul 2005 15:43 |  Tags: Travel |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem