Archive for December, 2005
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Malaysia Morning
Friday, December 2nd, 2005
My first really amazing morning of the trip, here on Pulau Lakawi in Malaysia. The sun is out, but it did not get oppressively hot until noon. I spent the time watching the antiques of the ‘Gecko’ guesthouse’s tame monkey (it had managed to disconnect the television areal. It still startles me to see a monkey bound across the room instead of one of the ubiquitous cats) and eventually crossed the road to find some breakfast. And there it was: a glaring white beach with sand finer than caster sugar. A cluster of islands with coconut palms leaning lazily into the view. The sea was barely cool and as smooth as silk on my skin. Everywhere, tiny crabs obsessively shaped the sand into pearly balls which were so neat that it seemed a shame to step on them. Doing so felt pleasantly prickly on the sole of my feet.
There is no USB in this town, so sadly the photos have to wait [fixed;)]. And I should really go and get some food now. This afternoon, I’ll be out island hopping.
Meanwhile, my attempts at learning Bahasa continue. I keep forgetting the word for ‘thank you’, the most important word of all. Eventually I had to memorise it by thinking of the Earth, a rimmed hat and a suitcase: Te-rim-a kasih—Terima kasih. Why is it so hard to say thank you?
Don’t ask me the time in Bahasa—yet.
Troubles with Thai (language)
Thursday, December 1st, 2005One thing I do not like about Thailand is the weather. It was raining in Satun—if not as hard as in Songkhla—and the sky was covered in uniform grey clouds. The weather in Thailand is like London, only stickier.
[read on]
Land of Clean
Thursday, December 1st, 2005When picking up my breakfast snack in one of the ubiquitous 7-11 stores this morning, I briefly felt my sense of reality shift—the ‘dim sum’ in the little oven were the same as in Taiwan. And also as in Taiwan, the friendly check-out girl will give you a plastic bag and a straw with every purchase; actually you might get two such sets when you buy a small bottle of water and an even smaller bottle of milk. The girl was about to put my little dumpling into a third bagand gave me a vacantly surprised look when I raised a hand and then pointed at my daypack. I smiled, transferred the thing into the milk-bottle bag and stuffed both inside. But whereas Taiwan and Sri Lanka are in danger of suffocating under a blanket of plastic bags, in Thailand the rubbish is miraculously whipped away and recycled. That is a pleasant surprise—everything is clean. I have yet to see a cockroach on the meticulously swept floors in the guesthouses, although it may be a different matter in the Ko Tao NMP longhouse accommodation. With cleanliness comes the absence of smells and meticulous hygiene extents to food and water. Get this: all the water offered in even the cheapest noodle bars is safe to drink, and even more remarkably, all the ice is safe—made under government control from purified water. So go on and try one of the carefully carved wedges of pineapple that are displayed on a bed of naked ice by the street vendors. They are fine and particularly delicious here. Even the salads are fine.
Shame that these things are never around when needed. Back at the Hat Yai bus terminal, I was whisked straight onto the next bus to Satun, only managing to quickly pick up a bottle of water on the way. I glanced longingly at the fruit vendors across the street—no time! As the bus rolled towards Saturn, I looked down on pyramids of pineapple wedges, papaya and melon on their beds of sparkling white ice and then onto papaya treas pregnant with fruit. At least it reminded me to check food availability in the Ko Tao NMP: very little. I resolved to stock up on everything.
Denni