Wednesday, 18 April 2007

Orang Malas..!

The jungle railway swept us away from KL, right up the spine of Malaysia, to the north eastern corner of the country... We were heading for a set of islands called Perenthien. But first, a note to travellers!

Note to Travellers: If you arrive at a small town after nightfall, it might not be such a good idea to proudly turn away the taxi drivers, on a valiant search for the bus station, which may or may not actually exist. When you find that the buses have stopped running, it may be that the taxi drivers have all disappeared as well. You may be forced to take up the offer of a young guy with no english except a handwritten phrasebook with handy coversation starters such as "Malaysia has many beautiful beaches and there is a very interesting museum nearby, I can take you to a local craft market...".





Look! Wave to the tourists! These kids proceeded to do a little rain dance for our entertainment...




Anyway, a night in Kota Baru, a yummy breakfast on the street with the locals (yes! locals! they put condensed milk in their coffee - soul mates!), and we made our connection to Coral Bay.

The quiet side of the quiet island, Coral Bay sports three cafes, a couple of dive shops and some of the most crystal clear, turquoise water I've ever had the pleasure of wallowing in...


We ate Barramundi BBQ, wandered through private tickertape parades of dusty cream butterflies, and inspected the shallows - but mostly we did Orang Malas...














2 comments:

Tim said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Tim said...

R & B

Sounds like a great start to the holiday, even if there was a bit of a hiccup with you turning down the touts in search of a cheaper deal.

Ros, I had a sneaking suspicion you'd love condensed milk coffee... caffeine and that much sugar in milk form, what isn't there to love ;)