Swiss Garden Resort Damai Laut Lumut

I would give Pangkor Island an A+ for sunbathing and swimming and beach bumming qualities...but a C- on all the rest, unfortunately. My plan was to just hang out on the beach for about a week, because hanging out on the beach doesn't cost anything...but I should have picked my beach more wisely, instead of just going to the nearest one. Well, I was aware that this isnt the best beach in Malaysia, but I thought that a less-popular beach ...

... jumping into the ocean is a logical way to cool down. But it doesn't work like that here. It's like slipping in to a warm bath. Very surreal. And so we headed over to join Dave and Liam for the sunset. I left the three of them supping on Tigers and did another 3-2-1 straight into the pond-like stillness of the ocean as the sun slowly dipped in to join me at eye-level. It was out of ...

Well, not really a whole lot to report from the sleepy backwater of Lumut. After corresponding with my prospective landlord, Mrs. Kan, over email a bit first, I caught a bus down from KL one Sunday afternoon to check the place out. The Kans, who live in nearby Ipoh (more on them later), had purchased the apartment many years back as a weekend getaway and because it "has good feng shui," according to Mrs. Kan. Since the kids ...

Took a flight back to KL and arrived in time to meet sister number 2 at the airport, fresh off the plane from oz. As not to feel left out, we created a small sign saying "STOREY" and spent 15 minutes with the rest of the touts shouting it out whenever a group of passengers emerged from the arrival hall. Well, you've got to get ...

... a Singapore Sling we thought and they were delicious. Silver cutlery and bone china clinked while a harpist played in the corner. Grandma was suitably impressed! Alas the time had to come to leave this place of order and English speakers and move on to the tougher and hopefully more rewarding sections of our Asia leg. Singapore was a fantastic introduction and we held our breath as we boarded the bus to Malaysia... We arrived in ...

... The rain started as we made our way back to the guesthouse for a rest an didn't let up all evening, we watched the lightning out of the window for a while before venturing out in search of food. We eventually settled into a restaurant to sample some traditional Malaysian 'Baba Nyonya' food. Nathan had Mee Mamak (peanutty-curry noodles with unannounced tofu) and I had Otak Otak (fish grilled in a banana leaf). They were both gross. After ...

... in Gurney Drive which mum tells me was just a scummy dirt track last time I was here (I was only 5 at the time!). I went for a dip in the pool and whilst drying off it started to rain... I think the curse is back or I just don't have Colette and Pierce's good luck aura with me anymore :(! So instead I painted my nails and dyed my hair... I now have purple nails and blue hair! And apparently I'm dirty brown again - after half an hour in the sun ...

... there was a large, concrete, well lit place right here. Worth a shot. After checking out the room and hearing the great price, we happily checked in. This ended up being the first time that we ended up having a TV in our room. What luxury! A few minutes later, we found ourselves at a local restaurant chowing down on some yummy Malaysian food and washing it down with two Tigers. While watching Cold Mountain (great movie, by the way) we had our first bug scare of the ...

Excerpt from letter home: The next day, we took some bread and fruit and walked 20 minutes or so to a really lovely, private (well, there was one man there part of the time) beach. We swam for a long time and the boys went snorkeling. In the early afternoon, I read and relaxed and guarded our belongings in general. We went for an early dinner to a hostel nearby. The food there was pretty good, and we had a nice breeze. It was very relaxing, so we stayed and chatted over tea and ...

... to fit comfortably. Ours was two-story: Pat and I took the loft and the boys had the lower half. We could even stand up in the center of ours. When we opened the shutter doors, we got quite a nice breeze flowing through. (Pat and I decided we felt like pigeons with the shutter doors ... then we decided we should poke out our heads every hour on the hour and say, "Cuck-oo, Cuck-oo!" Then we started laughing so hard the boys thought we had lost our senses.)