swim swim

swimmer boy. instead of going to an island (been there, done that) we just lounged at a local beach & pool. (tough life) sun kissed inbetween crazy fat-as-coins raindrops.  even brother and sister bear had a good time.
most bizarrely, this couple (only 21 years old!) were having their wedding pics taken. From Singapore, they'd come up for a few days BEFORE they were married to have their album done.  great seeing the world through their eyes for a while. 

best thing

did I say my fave juice was watermelon? I meant fresh orange. or pineapple. or mango. or a mix.  Making friends with shining girls was also fun. of course everyone fell in love with Janu, making connections easy. 

kiblat

 I finally found out that this 'kiblat' written or stuck on the wall or ceiling in all rooms in Malaysia didn't mean 'gas pipe here' or 'emergency exit' - but it is the direction of Mecca!

Janu's bears came everywhere with us. he's changed their name constantly, but now they are brother and sister bear. and much dirtier. 

mersing

is it possible this was my favourite (hot hot hot) town? Mersing, a gateway to an island that we never went to. just an out of the way place, but oh! the food! chinese for breakfast, indian for lunch and malay for dinner. all for not much £$£$£.  (*get a look at janu's face in this one - to his credit, he did try!*). it was so hot, and so hot hot hot but we just wandered back streets and had no plan.  and the clock was ticking - hours till that flight to Melbourne! 

durian is the stinkiest fruit ever - (rotten flesh, sweet fly gunk..) none coming in this room! 

chief rest house

we stayed for a couple of nights in an old wooden verandah'd chief rest house - pronouced 'chee ress how', said very fast and all strung together. I love the accent here.  we rest and play, janu finds some 4x4 car magazines and we're all happy! we even find a cafe just round the corner from these fluro trees (!) that serves the best veg tom yum soup AA has ever had. I am dying with pleasure over fresh watermelon juices. Janu gets his kicks from white rice and boiled egg... food (needless to say) is huuuge highlight as we wind our way down the east coast. 

wheels and tides

 something I love about this sign, along the boat canal, where everyone and their dogs were living.

brother & sister

the buses in Malaysia, and the roads in general, were very disappointing in terms of chaos. there just wasn't any! little presents, that I'd packed and friends had given Janu, came out of hiding. brother & sister bear are now among his best friends.  this bus waited for ever in the baking sun before jerking on it's way to Mersing, SE Malaysia. 

pekan

exploring tide-lines, shells and abandoned ships

east coast

counting down till our flight to australia, we spent a few days bussing down the East coast of Malaysia toward Singapore.  On the first night, a night market blew us away with colour and taste.  This is closest Janu really got to a shark!

bye, seashore!

the tradition of bubbles is to wave, wave, wave till the boat leaving goes out of sight...
it would have been easy to stay there forever.  did I mention one night an excited staff member rounded all the guests up at 10pm - come to the beach, she said! There were 98 baby turtles (she had counted them as they hatched) crawling from their nest to the sea.  We watched quietly as they paddled down the slope and into the soft surf. They had 36 hours of energy in them, she told us, to swim their little hearts out to where they needed to be in the ocean currents.  Only 10% would make it.  Steering by the moon, the bright lights of fishing boats easily take them off course.  sigh. 

sunrise

on our last day, we wanted to make the most of it and were up at sunrise (the hot hot temperatures made it cooler outside our room too).  the previous day we'd climbed up - sweat, sweat - and over the hill under the pink clouds. I realised that we saw a lot of animals in the wild (giant millipedes, giant cockroaches!) that Janu had seen brought into Playgroup one day by a junglewoman expert.  Lots of rustlings in the forest, but no bigger animals. A resident lemur monkey did join us for most breakfasts though! 

snorkelling

how can we not have huge smiles on our faces? we saw rainbows of fish - blue-purple-yellow-pink-black. crazy corals, reef sharks shooting past, clown fish (nemo's!) hiding in anemones, giant clams - all just below that deep blue.  Janu bravely floated and swum way out of his depth from the boat, bobbing among the waves with (harmless) sharks drifting below! brave little fella. one day he'll put his head under!