Malaysia Pg 2

Friday 4th July Cont…

There was a very cute, incredibly fast squirrel scurrying down a palm tree. Now that’s more like it! But he was much too fast for us to grab anything but blurred photos, we just weren’t set for speedy shots. We wandered around and explored to see what there was to see. The massive family pool in the centre of the resort as usual, the boutique, a noodle and snacking restaurant, the beauty spa with overly large western-sized prices for massages etc, and an excursion booking desk which was a bit of a laugh. We could have gone to a market in the nearby village on the Thursday night, or back to Kuantan where our plane had landed to see a western-style shopping centre. Or there was a river trip in canoes. Imagine the number of mosquitoes that would have been notified of my coming for that? Even on remote Lindeman Island’s Club Med in Australia there were day trip options for helicopter tours and sailing trips to exclusive beaches!

There were 3 pretend portholes near the children’s Mini Club and I loved them so much and photographed them, though I’ll only share one here.

We got ourselves a drink from the bar and sat around enjoying that. In most Club Med resorts the bar and family pool are like the social hub of the whole place. In this one the bar was tucked away and just didn’t have the usual happy and welcoming buzz for some reason. Perhaps because the others can be accessed from 360° and this one had a wall close to it all along one length, and another wall not much further away along the short side. Still, it served its purpose, I’m not complaining. Just an observation. Though the staff weren’t as cheery as ‘usual’ either. Except for one young man who spent his working day picking up the glasses that everyone left lying around. Now he was very, very sweet, kind and gentle with a very ready and heart-warming smile. He wasn’t a G.O. so was probably a local Malay.

We didn’t stretch to the Moet. All drinks are included in the price, but the ‘upper shelf’ stuff needs to be paid for.

After this we went back to the room for another shower. The buildings were very old and certainly in need of a fair bit of maintenance, but the rooms were very, very clean and I’d rather have old and clean than young and dirty. We had no idea if we got the same person for room service each day or we’d have most definitely have left them a tip, I was so impressed! It’s the first tropical resort we’ve stayed in that doesn’t smell of damp wood, and the bathrooms were virtually spotless.

On getting out of the shower we looked at each other and almost said in unison “Is it *still* Friday?”

Our room door couldn’t be deadlocked from the inside so we went to reception to ask for that to be fixed and the man was there in no time – though he didn’t achieve much! And there was a warning sign in the room, as well as having been told during induction, to keep all windows and doors locked because the monkeys could operate door handles. Then the toilet cistern was running constantly so we reported that as well. A different guy came out, flushed the toilet and waved his arms around in a ‘there it’s fixed’ manner. It wasn’t ha ha! David managed to find some magic sequence of pushing the 2 buttons to get it to stop – I never did.

I loved the shallow water features near reception.

By now it was 7.30, dinner time, and I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed the foods for this meal. Lunch hadn’t been very enjoyable, other than sheer gratitude to eat a real meal, but that could well have been more about my tiredness than the actual food. We ate at a leisurely pace, taking it in turns to go up for more, and really enjoyed the food and the time together.

David was now beginning to look quite pale and dazed through lack of sleep, but we were both determined to stay awake for the nightly show which started at 9.30. I know – late isn’t it? We’d been told it was the premier of a new show and the G.O.s had been up until 2 or 3 in the morning rehearsing until the choreographer was happy. We went and found 2 seats at one side of the audience where we could move our arms around with our cameras without affecting anyone else’s view. We were also on a nice tall step so that our own view wouldn’t be obstructed. The show, titled ‘Bang it’s Love’, was spectacular. Truly world class, as they usually are!

But as soon as it was over we returned to our room and cleaned our teeth, accidentally using tap water. We had not been told to avoid tap water – well, not that we’d heard anyway – but we did use bottled water every night after that.

It was now 11pm, roughly 38 hours since we’d woken from a decent sleep and we totally crashed out on the absolutely massive, and very comfortable bed and didn’t know a thing until the next morning. And I have to say that, with the room so clean, I didn’t feel at risk of any wildlife at all from that moment on.

Saturday 5th

I woke at 8am and David was still beside me, rather a rare thing, so I lay as still as I could and dozed on and off until he woke at 9. Breakfast was served until 9:30 so we hastily dressed and walked to the dining room where there was a choice of all the similar Asian foods that were served at lunch and dinner or, more to our tastes, fresh fruit, yogurts and things like fried eggs, sausages, hash browns, omelettes and baked beans. I have to say that the wonderful smiley lady that cooked the hash browns did an amazing job of it, I really loved those. So beautifully crisp on the outside and soft on the inside. Definitely yummy!!! The bacon was beef bacon because of course Malaysia is a Muslim country. David decided he didn’t wish to eat that after the first day and I didn’t even try it. In KL they had served turkey bacon – I don’t know if that was any better.

We went back to the room to shower, dress, and pack our things for the Zen pool but along the way we got side-tracked and ended up at the archery, which shouldn’t surprise anyone who knows us. David was given a bow named ‘Dylan’ and I didn’t notice if mine had a name but I didn’t like it! I asked for a stronger one and the G.O. said she only had a really strong one that nobody liked because it was rather Herculean and needed a lot of power to draw. Needless to say, I loved it and began to do better, though David definitely got the best score over the course of the 1 hour session. After just one arrow shot from Hercules I had to go and get finger protectors though – ouch! That string really went with force.

Once the archery session finished we were *just* able to walk quickly to get on the train and did make it this time to the Zen pool. We floated gently in the soft water, loving the warmth of the sun on our skin. That’s after we’d managed to get in, because David made a big fuss about it being freezing cold to start with tee hee! After this we downloaded our photos to date onto David’s little laptop and did some reading as well. Mine was a ‘real book’. Well, it was made of paper, but the story was a rubbishy romance that was trying to be a thriller/mystery but failing miserably. I don’t usually even read novels, much less ‘frilly nonsense’ but it was nice for a change. David had an ebook on his laptop.

One of the cute things about the Zen pool was that when you looked to the left you saw the ocean.

And when you looked to the right you saw the ocean.

And David, being David, with his creative use of the English language decided to remark “It’s lovely being out on this little proboscis of land isn’t it? After I finished laughing I said “Do you mean promontory?” but he replied “No. I meant peninsular.” Talk about choices!

Today we decided to stay and lunch in the small restaurant next to the pool area. It was a very similar buffet to the main restaurant anyway, just a smaller variety of foods; probably because this restaurant was about 1/6th the size of the main buffet. They also had cauliflower and broccoli in cheese sauce which I love! There were a few other hot veggies, meats, smoked salmon and salads and, as per the big restaurant, they served wine with the meal. As much as you wished for!

After we’d eaten our leisurely meal, we went back to the pool and read for a while but both soon became aware of upset tummies. Whether it was the teeth-cleaning water last night or something we’d had for lunch we don’t know. We tried to walk along the beach but had to bail out and decided that heading for our room was the best bet. Watching for the arrival time of the train, getting to the stop, making the journey, and then the walk after we got off it was a bit of a daunting prospect! Fortunately all went well though. As soon as the train pulled up at its destination there was great excitement because there were a family of monkeys on the roof of the main restaurant. We hastily grabbed a few shots but then had to go and find some ‘facilities’ which we located near the main pool, so that helped before the longer walk back to our room.

Once there we sat and looked through our photos on the computer screen, always better than the tiny screen on the back of the camera, but not a spot on the big computer screens at home. Eventually we showered, dressed in white, which was tonight’s dress-code, and then headed towards the main area. We have often wished that you could find out what the dress-codes would be before you arrive at the resort!

As we walked along the path near our room David suddenly noticed a smallish lizard with his head and front feet sticking out of a hole in the end of a box – which turned out to be holding the fire hose. To save me mentioning it again, this lizard was in the exact same spot every time we passed by during daylight hours. Obviously he was very happy there, and we felt as if we became good friends by the time the week was up!

Arriving at the bar, I had a rum cocktail of some description and we chatted with a totally gorgeous New Zealander G.O. named Sasha who, it turned out, had played a pretty major role in last night’s show. She was young, bubbly and beautiful in both looks and character.

One of the lovely things about Club Med is that the staff come and share your table for meals – if you say yes! And Sasha came and joined us for dinner and also brought along one of her friends, a business manager in the admin section, named Karlien. Karlien was from Cape Town and, for her tender (to us) age had achieved so much in her lifetime. She was so incredibly interesting to speak with and listen to!

Unlike Friday, today was whizzing by and we went and settled ourselves in for the show. Tonight it was named ‘Paradiso’ and we got the same 2 chairs to sit in. In fact, due to some careful tripod-leaning-on-chair-arrangement that David did before dinner each of the remaining nights, we had these same chairs for every show.

‘Paradiso’ was purely a dance show except for one trapeze-hoop act but it was very enjoyable all the same.

Afterwards there were fireworks and a champagne fountain as well as loud music and dancing down on the terrace between the hall and the beach. We chose instead to have a quiet drink near the bar together and made the mistake of trying to log on to our email on one of the 2 computers in their quiet room. Oh my goodness!!!!!! Let’s just say that it took about 10 minutes of frustration to get to the web page and log in, and then the computer was too weak to even open a single email. But that wasn’t the worst of it. I was determined to clear the browsing history so that our website didn’t show up the minute anyone typed the first 2 letters into the browser. We’re talking private domain webmail here (not this domain, another one) and I didn’t want it to show up to unknown persons. David said I was being silly – he would. I said I was being safe – I would 😉 In the end David went out to get us a cup of coffee each from the bar, which happened to come with the most delicious little wrapped chocolate as well. It took that whole time, plus drinking-the-coffee time to manage to clear the browser ggggrrrrrrrrrr! It’s not even as if I’d been able to see my email for all the trouble!

We went back to our room, remembered to use bottled water for our teeth and climbed gratefully into bed.

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