Claire takes on the world….

I couldn’t resist the pun in the title considering how many I have been hurled at me over the last few weeks!

After leaving the paradise island of Tioman, I headed back to Kuala Lumpur and got settled into life in the Trekker Lodge again. When a girl moved into my room she said she had heard about the girl who was here for her 3rd time. Yes, that’s me. This time I am here with a new mission. I’d been thinking of things to do with my students in India (where I’ll be teaching in the summer) and the principal of the school agreed pottery could be fun and educational. I’ve now enrolled in a local class and have 3 crazy weeks of commuting and building mugs.

On day two of my course I was allowed join a class. The first day I had struggled for 4 hours to make something that looked like a cup. If it had looked a little less square it would have made a fine cup. There’s two parts to this course, hand building and wheel throwing. Wheel throwing is incredibly difficult so I was glad that in my first group class I only had to use my hands.
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After a few days of Pangkor Island I really wasn’t expecting much from Tioman. But Pulau Tioman, on the other side of Malaysia, was a world apart from that other place. I only went there to kill a few days while waiting for my flight to India (for which I finally have a visa). I stepped off the ferry at ABC, and it was completely silent. One other guy got off with me and zoomed off somewhere on his moped. Walking down the jetty I was a little nervous about walking around, in the dark on what seemed a deserted island. I saw a sign saying that if a muslim is caught drinking alcohol on the island they are liable to “3 years imprisonment, RM5000 (€1000) fine or a flogging of no more that 6 strokes”. Happy that I was born a Christian I proceeded to try and find a bed for the night.

There’s no road on that part of the island, only a little path between the beach and the jungle. Every few hundred feet there is a small restaurant or a few chalets people can stay in. With no one approaching me I eventually had to ask a guy how I could get to a hostel. He just said follow the path and I should find something. And sure enough I did. This being a couples place I had the dorm to myself. Smelled funnier than the last place on Pangkor but after flushing the toilet a few times and drowning the place in perfume it was just fine.
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