A sleepy beach town

Trip Start May 06, 2007
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Trip End Jul 24, 2008


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Where I stayed
Matahari Chalets
(Cherating hotels)

Flag of Malaysia  , Pahang,
Monday, July 7, 2008

During my travels in Malaysia I met a few people who had stopped in Cherating. They'd all described it as a sleepy beach town, but said that it was a nice, relaxing place to stop for a couple of days. They were right - it wasn't anything spectacular but it was an okay beach and a nice little town. I spent my two days there relaxing, reading, and chatting with people. On my second day I met Eva and Manya from Germany. Manya had been living in Kuala Lumpur for about 6 months, but was heading back to Germany in a couple of weeks. The two of them, along with Manya's Malaysian boyfriend, were driving down to Mersing, the port city where the ferries leave for Tioman Island, the next morning and offered me a ride with them. Of course I accepted the offer. It would save me money, time, and a bus change in Kuantan.

The original plan was to leave at 10 am and arrive in Mersing around 2pm. Later that night Manya's boyfriend got a call from a friend of his they were meeting in Mersing telling him that they needed to be there by 11am. So the new plan was to leave Cherating by 7am. The three of them were staying in a different set of chalets down the road from where I was staying, so they said they would come pick me up in the morning. That night we hung out at the beach-side bar with a bunch of their local friends. Knowing I had to wake up early, I left the bar at midnight and set my alarm for 6:15am.

The next morning I woke up and saw that my alarm clock said 6:52am. Uh oh! Not knowing whether I has slept through the alarm or if it didn't go off, I raced to get dressed and pack my bag. I somehow managed to be ready by 7:05am and before they arrived to come get me. When they still hadn't arrived at 7:15am I decided to head over to their chalets and see if they were almost ready. I was a bit panicky when I didn't see anyone up and moving around at their chalets. I checked and the car was still there, so I knew they couldn't have left without me. I banged on Eva's door and ended up waking her up - all three of them had overslept as well. We woke up the other two and after a bit of morning craziness we were on the road about a half-hour later. An interesting start to the morning, but we ended up getting to Mersing around noon.
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