Malaysia Pg 3

Sunday 6th

We awoke at 9am, which isn’t unusual because this is our normal body clock time anyway, but it did mean we had to hurry to breakfast again. I liked breakfast – there were the crispy hash browns, and yummy yogurt, though (amongst the good variety of fruits) there was only ever pink watermelon at the fruit station. At lunch and dinner each day there was golden coloured watermelon and it was soooo delicious. In fact David usually hates watermelon but he was yumming down this golden version like no tomorrow.

And the story may become unusually brief after this because we repeated most of the things we’d already done most days. I remember on this morning as we lay near the Zen pool wondering how on earth we were going to fill the remaining 5 days! But there are still adventures worth reporting. I promise!

We planned on going to archery but when we got there it was really full so we were brave and decided to follow the arrow on the footpath (instead of the archery target!) and walk to the Zen pool.

I should say that each time we left the room, after that first trip where I got eaten alive, I either covered myself in lavender oil or wiped tumble-dryer fabric softener sheets all over my face, arms and legs. Or both. They both seemed to work a treat and the lavender oil really did work wonders on any bites that did happen. They’d continue itching for about 20 mins and then totally go away. No more itch and no bright red lumps, which I’m *very* prone to doing. The lavender oil went everywhere with me!

So, having explained that I was relatively safe from the mosquitoes, we headed now down a concrete path. There was the large lake with warning signs up. They were in Malay, but I think they said ‘No Swimming’ or something. We had no intentions! We went over a little bridge, past the green, plankton-covered lake on our right and with jungle on our left. And soon it was jungle on both sides with bird sounds, and a constant high-pitched noise, and I never did find out who was making it. The path was easy-going and we were shocked at how short it was compared to the train’s journey. I had eyes everywhere watching for wildlife though, I can tell you!

On reaching the pool area we settled ourselves into a shaded daybed and went into the pool, which seemed a little warmer today. A peaceful morning flew by as we alternated between lazy floating in the water while looking at the yachts sailing in the bay, or reading our books. Before we knew it it was lunch time, but I refused David’s kind offer to risk the little restaurant again, so we caught the train back to the main one.

I think this must have been the laziest day of them all. After lunch we walked the path once more back to the Zen pool for more swimming and reading. At one point David was swimming on his back ahead of me but didn’t stop when he reached the wall, bumping his head. Anyone else would have said ‘Ouch!’ or try to pretend it hadn’t happened. Not David. He declared loud and clear “I’ve arrived!” which cracked me up for some time to come. And this was an adults only *quiet* area!

We suddenly noticed a little bright green crickety thing on the pool surround glass and we could see his underbelly – not an everyday sight – so of course rushed off for the cameras to take some shots. Doesn’t he have the cutest smiley face?

I don’t think I’ve written a single story that doesn’t mention a quirk about the bathroom facilities and this is no exception. It’s a minor thing but it really tickled me. Here is the basin in ‘the ladies’ at the Zen pool. It looks really good quality doesn’t it? So you wash your hands, the water slides down a slit the full width of the basin at the back – and then pours from the bottom of the pedestal all over the floor!

We were almost dry when David looked at his phone and realised that if we wanted to do the afternoon archery session then we needed to rush for the train and, though we tried, we were too late. So this time we walked back up the jungle path. Where did this hill come from? It was only at the beginning but quite steep and we’d not noticed it at all in the other direction.

Oh – and if ever you think your job is boring, check out this poor man. He was there every day raking up, and then bagging the seaweed on the beach. I only once saw him speak to anyone – a security guard who had wandered down there. Although I’m sure he doesn’t suffer the stresses that so many of us feel, I don’t think I’d swap!

Well it soon turned out that we were very sorry we’d bothered to go to archery. This session was for ‘adults over age 11’. If that isn’t a stupid statement then nothing is and we had 3 prime examples giggling, dawdling, messing around and thoroughly ruining it all for everyone else who wanted to be sensible and actually fire more than 3 shots every 15 minutes. Not only that, but when each of them got an arrow into the yellow area on the target, the G.O. in charge gave them a fourth arrow each. The rest of us – the actual adults – had 3 arrows each so we now had to wait even longer for these very silly boys to fire 4 arrows before we could go and retrieve our 3. It was very frustrating to say the least and we popped out to the main bar for a little snack so that we could have a break from them before returning for another session. David was still doing very well and beat me again. This is not usual at archery, this *my* sport 🙂

Afterwards we went to the bar and I had a cocktail and David a scotch before going to our room to shower and read in the cool air there. We also charged our camera batteries and downloaded the newest photos to the laptop. We did leave the shots on the cameras also, and backed them up to a portable hard-drive that goes everywhere with me. No chances taken.

Dinner was nice but unremarkable and then we settled in for the show which was rather slapstick comedy style and really not our scene at all. Obviously they have to cater to all tastes, we had no complaint. After this was a games night, or you could choose to go and watch the film ‘Frozen’ under the stars. We watched the games and enjoyed seeing the fun had by everyone participating. These involved removing about 10 marbles from a glass jar using only chop sticks and lots of other whacky, tricky and fun activities. But soon it was time to bail and we got to bed by midnight.

Monday 7th

We woke at 8am and I could tell straight away that bright sparkly David was back. Obviously he’d caught up on his sleep and was bounding around with all the energy in the world as usual.

We had breakfast and decided to walk to the Zen pool. As we got level with the last of the buildings David’s eye was caught by a movement in the bushes and he said “Oh no. That baby monkey just fell out of the tree!” Just as we were getting concerned the little blighter climbed up the tree and threw himself out of it again. Obviously it was a great game, and the slightly larger sibling watched on. Mum was a short distance away, but closer to us, so I kept on moving ahead after all the warnings we’d had. But not David. Of course not! His rose-tinted ‘it’ll-never-happen’ glasses were firmly in place and, for his trouble, he got much better photos than I did and, thankfully, there was no price to pay – the mummy monkey seemed content to just watch him.

Once David finished showing me how brave his is we’d barely walked 2 steps when I drew in my breath sharply and frightened him. Half out of a rock-covered drain, just inches from our feet was an even bigger lizard than we had yet seen. The gap he was squeezed out of looked far too small, but he just stayed there, as cool a dude as you ever could wish to meet, leaning on one elbow looking at us. And he remained still and calm while we took photos of him too. By now we were both thoroughly accustomed to the lizards and not at all worried by them. They had the same attitude towards us.

We got to the pool and swam a bit, but suddenly I noticed that there was an eagle flying over the hills on the other side of the bay. We both got out of the pool, dried our hands and grabbed our cameras as fast as we could. David definitely got the best shot of the 2 of us. Even though it’s not award winning you can definitely see that it’s an eagle.

We read for a while, which for me means taking my glasses off, and then we were chatting when all of a sudden my eyes got big because the eagle was really close behind David. Well, he appeared large to my blurred vision anyway. But in the few seconds it took to grab the camera and take the lens cap off it was back over the hill again. We watched eagley (:D) for it every other morning but never did see it again. Such a shame!

A family of about 5 adult Asians arrived (children were not allowed here) and were chatting, almost shouting from one daybed to another. This was supposed to be a whisper-only area, but the one staff member did nothing! This went on for about half an hour and we started to look at each other with raised eyebrows so, after a while longer, we decided to go to the other side and see if there was a cooler, quieter daybed to lay in. One of them was already occupied…

We chose a different spot, after David had gingerly removed all of the cushions to check under them for wildlife, and lay there happily reading for quite a while. Then we decided on a walk along the beach towards the yachts. These were Club Med yachts and we could have booked a free session on them had we wanted. But we just enjoyed a leisurely stroll along to the furthest spot you can see below, and back again in time to catch the train to lunch. What a life!

We lunched on the verandah above the spa (as in bubbles, not the massage place) and decided we’d go and enjoy that once we’d eaten. We chatted to a few of the other people there and spent some pleasant time until the large, under-water light fitting floated up to join us. This didn’t seem like a good idea so we got out of the water and David went to tell the life guard, who got into the water and put it back in its place. Hmmm. We didn’t go in there again. This spa was joined to the entire huge family swimming area and we wondered if absolutely everyone would be electrocuted if it did go horribly wrong, or is there a limit as to how far electric can travel in water? After all, with all those electric eels in the ocean…

We went around to the other side of the pool and took it in turns to play with the water in the little water fountains so that the other one could take photos.

Eventually it was time to return to our room, shower, then dawdle back to the bar to enjoy a drink before dinner. We also got chatting to a very effervescent G.O. named Ashyraf who did me the honour of admiring my brief photo gallery on my phone. Thanks Ashyraf! He also joined us for dinner and brought along one of the official Club Med photographers to see my pics. She was named Eleanora and was Italian. Oh how I love this mix of nationalities!

The show was named ‘Latina’, and we did take photos, but none really worth sharing. However, God was vying for attention with the amazing lightning storm that was going on, visible through the open sides of the building. The show was barely over when the heavens opened and rain bucketed down as it only can in the tropics! We had another drink and chatted with one of the chefs, Chris from Melbourne – yaayyy an Aussie! – and waited for the rain to stop before we could even consider returning to our room. There were covered walkways, but the way that rain was coming down it would have been bouncing sideways into the walkways. And with all the lefts and rights to go the under-cover way, well I didn’t get it completely down pat until the 6th day I think it was LOL The rain came down in buckets for around 2 hours and then just stopped. It left quite a mop-up job for the staff though!

We returned to our room where we saw…

Is that a moth or a dinner plate? That thing was *massive*!!

We decided we weren’t tired yet, so we had a cup of coffee and read our books until 1am. I always dread kettles in hotel rooms, never knowing how clean they are, and David had opened this one veerrry carefully. It was absolutely pristine. Sparkling. Truly! He rinsed it out anyway and we used some of our bottled water, but my opinion of the cleaning staff just got higher again!

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