Rumbia Resort Paka

... with the two hand handshake and a deep head nod. Some of us sat on the floor and others in chairs while we ate snacks and the host prepared a chocolate like drink that was similar to iced coffee. So in other words, it was delicious. It is very common for men in this area of Malaysia to dress in what I would describe as a full leg length skirt-wrap kind of thing. Kind of threw me off at first. After a short while there ...

... was pretty interesting. Open air of course, no english menus, and no one working there knew the slightest English. Fortunatley three of the five of us are Malay and had no problem helping me and Alex, who is from 1200km north of Moscow (cold) find something to eat. I had two milk shakes, a bowl of fried rice with spicey calamari, and a super spicey seafood mixture soup all for about $3.75. I have to say it was one of the best meals I have ate here ...

... were very few people and even fewer shops. I have to admit I felt like a bit of an idiot walking to find a phone box with my various bags but luckily I got through to Rahayu (who arranged for me to visit) and she picked me up from McDonald's, which coincidentally is the only place of any interest in Kerteh. Rahayu drove me to the Ma'Daerah turtle sanctuary where I set up a small room and one of the guys there helped tidy it ...

... of the trip was the rest stop, which was also being frequented by a bus load full of Indians in drag! Other than that it was comfortable, but boring for me, as most of the conversation was ...

... out here. Again I was ushered to the front of a queue and told the receptionists what I needed. They found me a doctor immediately and I'm sure more queue pushing was done for that! The doctor was a nice woman and was interested in my trip as they don't get too many tourists up there for them to try their English out on. That was all very nice but the bottom line was that there were no yellow fever vaccines at ...

We arrived in Cherating around 8pm on Sunday evening. When i say arrived, we were left on the main road by our bus. We had checked out a place in lonely planet called Cerating Cottage which we went to and got a room(RM50) for the night. We had something to eat and watched the grand prix. We then moved onto a bar and watched the football, as it was the last day ...

... to Durban, except not as nice, although it is extremely peaceful and allows for really nice long walks along the beach. There is not much to do except eat, drink, sleep, swim, read and relax - which is exactly what we all did!! We managed to come across some local spots for sundowners, which was great after a long walk on the beach and I think the most memorable evening was stopping at a local seafood restaurant, which was quite shabby during the day, but transformed ...

... and singing camp song favourites, like "Heart Will Go On," "Auld Lang Syne," and "I Believe in Angel." Wrote lots of "profiles." Signed lots of "autographs." On the upside, there were girls without headscarves. We put boys and girls together in the same groups. They liked it. Scandalous. The Times I Wasn't On Vacation: Back at Imtiaz School has been good, although I still haven't actually been at school and teaching for more than a few weeks in a row ...

... prepared (some were very much "off the cuff"), and some were downright Marxian. It was interesting for the first hour or so, but after that my mind started to wander. At 2:30, all of the students assembled in the dewan makan to cast their votes. There were 6 "stations" with computers set up for voters to cast their ballots. On each computer, an excel spreadsheet listed all of the candidates, and each voter inserted a "1" for each of ...

... in Marang - actually a small kampung (village) outside Marang where Fauzi's in-laws live. There, I met his wife and her family, who were quite shy. Along the way, we had picked up some keropok lekor, and we enjoyed it grilled with some sweet tea on the porch. Keropok is a generic description for fish or prawn crackers, but there are two major types: kerepok keping and keropok lekor. Keropok keping is your standard crispy fish cracker, like shrimp chips in Chinatown ...