Help with my typing...take two
Trip Start
Nov 01, 2007
1
63
81
Trip End
Jun 28, 2008
Cherating,
Malaysia
Friday, April 25, 2008
So, as I was saying before, Cherating is a very small village on the east coast. Its very quiet and there isn't much to do except relax and hang out on the beach. Unfortunately for us, its been raining the whole time we've been here! Still, yesterday we did walk a few kilometres to a nearby turtle sanctuary which was interesting. I got to hold a baby turtle (only a few days old) - which was very cool. They are suprisingly strong and I had to heed the "don't drop it" warning more closely that I thought I would! You hold them with your fingers either side of the shell or one on top and one on bottom. Either way with their front flippers/arms (??) they try to push themselves away from you and indeed they can push hard even at that age.
Otherwise, we've mostly just been reading, eating and generally lazing about. We head out tomorrow again, this time up north and out to the Perhentian Islands. They are meant to be spectacular, but hopefully we don't have the rain following us. It doesn't normally rain this time of year, so I'm afraid that maybe our luck has finally run out and we are dragging it about with us. Guess I shouldn't have prayed so hard for rain when I was in Bagan!!
The journey here was a bit of a mission - we had to take a 5 hour bus from Tanah Rate to Kuala Lumpur, then hop a different bus for another 5 hour journey across to the east coast to Kuantan. By the time we arrive in Kuantan of course we had missed the last local bus of the day to get to Cherating. We contemplated staying in Kuantan for the night, looked at a couple of hotels, and then decided that paying for a one hour taxi ride to Cherating would be better! We checked into one place here, and then discovered how awful the room was, so checked out again. The place we finally ended up in is wonderful though - and the owners are from Edinburgh.
It really is amazing (especially compared to the rest of SE Asia) how poor value the hotel rooms are here. It seems that there is plenty of "cheap" rooms, but perhaps were last cleaned last century?? And then everything else is really rather expensive and overpriced. Not, of course, compared to hotel prices at home, but still - its a bit of a rip off and stretching our budget more than we would like! For less than $10US a night in Vietnam you would get a room with windows, satellite TV (with English movie & sport channels), air conditioning, attached bathroom with western toilet and hot water. Here, for $15US a night, you might get windows, attached bathroom with cold water (if you are lucky!) and that's about it. And it won't necessarily be clean. Possibly not even close to clean. Still, what's a cockroach or nest of ants among friends?!?!
Guess that's about all the news for now. Duncan, we heard Charmaine is out of the hospital? Please give her our love - we are thinking of her and hope she feels better soon. Fiona, good luck on the training for the 10K - you crazy girl!! I once thought I would like to do that as well - I, however, sat down for a while and the feeling passed!! Mands - when do you get your exam results? Oggie - have you done your exams yet? When is your graduation? Will we be home in time for it?
All our love, we will update again soon!
K & M
Comments
Typing kittens
Malaysia has seemed not been as interesting/successful as the rest of your sojourn so far. At least the rain will remind you of what your are missing at home! Since coming back to live with me, Kippie Kat, has taken to attention seeking behaviour and sits in front of my computer monitor and tries to attack my fingers on the keyboard. It's rather cute! Hope you didn't sneeze too much following your kitten experience. The turtles must have been so lovely!
Take care
Love, Adie/Mum x