WONDERFUL WILDLIFE

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Of course no trip to this side of the world would be complete without a good look at the wildlife. As the island is covered by rainforest there are plenty of opportunities to study from the smallest to the largest creatures in the region. In fact our study started by default on the very first night in our treetop lodgings. Ali had told us about a cry we would here at dusk every night and sure enough on the evening number one we heard it right on time. Sorry folks but it goes like this..........'fuck you' It's the mating call of the ferocious tokay ghecko that patrol our balcony looking for insects and small vertebrates to devour. You might think this rather frightening but they cling skillfully only to walls and ceilings hunting


their prey. These little heroes are most welcome, for one of their yummiest meals is any mosquito that carelessly flies past. This keeps the little bloodsuckers to a minimum. Not sure about the moths though. We watched the other night as a ghecko stalked, then pounced on a large moth which had come to rest near our balcony light. The moth was then devoured whole.
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Then there are the monitor lizards, giant prehistoric beasts that stalk the undergrowth. But the best has to be The Blue Planet, the underwater universe easily accessible by boat to any one of five points around the island. Indeed we took one such trip yesterday, to snorkel off Shark Point, Turtle Point, Fish Point, The Lighthouse and Romantic Beach. A little less used to the sport of snorkeling, I was a bit nervous at first but with Ali and Annabel both experienced in the art, I was soon in my element gawping in wonder at shoals of brightly coloured fish of all sizes flitting through the equally colourful coral, turtles, barracuda, clown 'Nemo' fish, stingray and most impressive of all, one and a half metre white tipped sharks going about their business in the deep, like sleek torpedoes the perfect killing machine. Luckily they are only interested in eating other fish. But they certainly made you gasp as they swam effortlessly past just metres away.
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What really is amazing about all this is just how much it costs. For example, our snorkel trip, complete with dinner, hire of equipment, transport and guide was about £9. Malaysia is top value for money and then there's the food! More on that next time.

ROOM AT THE TOP

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Annabel and Ali have been coming to this island paradise in the middle of the Indian Ocean for many years. There are two small beaches and no hotels such as one would imagine a hotel to be. In fact there are more dive kiosks on the beaches than hotels. We are staying on the incredibly beautiful Coral Beach, so named because once upon a time it was all coral and no beach. In fact no one even came here unless it was to dive amongst the coral. Everyone went to Long Beach on the other side of the island. The something terrible happened in another part of the area which created Coral Beach by dumping tons of sand from the ocean floor on top of the coral. The 2006 Tsunami.
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Our hotel, one of only two, is built entirely of wood. Our room is accessed by a flight of winding stairs which climb precariously up the hillside. Each stair is different to the one before and by the time the last flight is reached, the builders must have run short of wood, because where there should be two steps there is only one, leaving a rather large gap for the careless climber to fall down. You need to imagine an adventure trail walkway at a children's activity camp. By the time Ali and I had reached our room with our suitcases a stiff drink was needed.

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Our rooms at altitude

And that's the second strange thing about The Senya Bay Hotel, no booze. Run by the Malaysian branch of Islam, the demon drink is forbidden. Well I suppose that's a bit of an exaggeration, it's just that they don't sell it. Ali's advice to purchase as much booze as we could duty free was sound .So on our first night we were to be found on the balcony of our tree top residence knocking back Absolut Vodka and orange courtesy of Air Asia and wondering whether installing a zip line would be a good idea for the guest at our altitude to gain access to the restaurant and beach!

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But the view is worth it!

FERRY TERRIFYING MR BOND

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Ferry across the???????

Hunched over the throttle control the Malaysian driver, with a passing resemblance to Goldfinger's 'Oddjob' had a crazed expression on his face. He seemed determined to make our ride across to the Parhentian island of Kecil as uncomfortable as possible. However he wasn't in the Vincy van on St. Vincent last summer. Now that was the ride from hell.

The day had started in KL as we emerged fairly bleary eyed from our overnight cell at Tune Hotel. We were soon checked in at the airport for our short flight to Kota Bahru from where we would make the 20 mile hop across the sea (that Ali does not know the name of) to our ultimate destination for the first week of our holiday. We were soon looking for somewhere to eat breakfast. Alli, as cultured as ever, suggested we make our way to McDonalds. Incredible don't you think, here we are with Mr. Gastro himself, and he is suggesting we eat at one of the world's most common restaurants. We were soon sitting in his second choice, the almost equally disgusting Marry Browns where we ate a breakfast which tasted like it had been made from Lego. This over, we boarded the 11 am flight to Kota Bahru.

Mmmmmmm...our first meal in Malaysia

Arriving some 40 minutes later, Mr Fixit Hearn negotiated a 'special' price for the taxi drive of one hour to the port from where we were to take the 'ferry' Upon arrival there he was soon at it again. Now he had, to be fair, us that the 'ferry' to the island was in fact a speedboat which carried 12 people and their bags. I had not expected what was to come. Firstly, we were taken to the boarding area where small boats with makeshift awnings scuttled around on the water taking on those wishing to make the trip to Kecil. They actually looked like the sort of craft that would take tourists pootling around a secluded bay.

I can make you afraid.....

To board the boat a steep flight of concrete stairs was negotiated complete with suitcases. The intrepid traveler then had to complete the operation by squeezing through the small gap between the side of the boat and the awning. As I was doing this I glanced to my left and noticed the size of the outboard motor which was clamped onto the back of the boat. I thought momentarily of my old mate Gary, who in the early 70's, being a car nut, had bought a mark one Ford Cortina. Underneath the bonnet of this monster lurked a pretty ferocious Lotus engine!

We soon found out just how powerful. Our driver, the mean looking Malaysian jammed the throttle forward and the prow fair rose out of the water and we were off at breakneck and to me, seemingly break boat speed across the sea with no name. In actual fact there were two 'officials' on this craft. In addition to the driver was a short, thin, wiry looking oriental, whose job it was to sit in the front and look out for obstacles such as marker boys and worryingly, any vessel, including those such as we were in, coming our way. Our driver also accelerated and deaccelerated sharply at regular intervals, attempting, I am sure, to throw his mate off into the water. But he was an old hand, as he like the rest of us, clung on desperately to avoid being pitched, head first over the side into the clear blue water.

TUNEFUL KUALA LUMPUR

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Mr Fixit approaches another deal

Landed at KL after a fairly easy flight. As usual when coming from one climate zone to another, leaving the petrified atmosphere of the aircraft and stepping out into the sauna that is the tropics was like being hit with a wet, warm blanket. Malta's answer to Judith Chalmers Ally Hearn and his poor partner Annabel were waiting for us as we emerged, eventually, from baggage claim. From there we were taken to Ally's choice of hotel in KL. Right by the airport, The Tune hotel is a haven for cheapskate travelers. Ally is one such. As we entered our room (sideways) we could see why it was only £10 a night. Papillon had more room in his prison cell and that's the solitary confinement part of the story! Even the addition of a full length wall mirror could not add an illusion of space. The fan in the middle of the ceiling had barely room to rotate. But what the hell, after a few bottles of Tiger beer we were ready for a bed of any kind!

No room at the room

ON THE ROAD TO KL

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Pre flight refreshments Rustan style

It was with a sense of the usual trepidation that we greeted the arrival of our driver Iddon. He had kindly agreed to ferry us to Stansted where we were to begin the first leg of our journey to Kuala Lumpa. The drive there was uneventful apart from the occasional sniff or sneeze from poor Trish who has a cold. I seem to remember she was similarly inconvenienced when we set off on the fateful Wagrain trip at Christmas. We waved goodbye to Gary who is house sitting for us while we are away.

When we arrived at Stansted, a sight I had never seen before fair took my breath away....it was almost empty. It looked as if there was some kind of strike but there was a lack of bodies sprawled out over the floor so it could not have been that. No, joy of joys, our flight with Air Asia was a night flight and we were the last departure of the night. Even WH Smith was closed! We checked in bags really quickly as I had already done it on lie but was a massive queue of fellow travellers who had not. I could not help but wonder why. We were soon sitting in the one place that was not closed, the good old bar. The queue joined us later!

After a couple of beers and a wine for Trish we were boarding. Now here I have to mention the fact that Ally Hearn traveller extrodinaire forgot to tell us that Air Asia was nothing more than a Long Haul Ryan Air but with more comfortable seats Nothing on board was free, and there was no free in-flight entertainment which I for one always look forward to as it passes the time rather efficiently. To obtain this you needed to book a console which showed reruns of mostly American soaps. No movies. Trish would have been in her element. Also worrying was the sight of the cabin crew seemingly praying as we boarded. As it was a night flight we were soon getting plenty of shut eye, which proved to be pretty good in-flight entertainment.

ALL MIXED UP

-Just what we wanted

It was with interest that I read my good friend Jill Taylor's blog today. She had been waiting for a few days on the delivery of a new sewing machine. It came later than she was promised but when it arrived she was so pleased with it and sparked it into use straight away. Similarly I was waiting too, for a new mixer for The Cheats to replace the old one which sounds as if it is on it's last legs. We ordered it last Thursday and a Friday delivery was promised. So it was with relief that I opened the door to my neighbour Gary who announced he had taken in a delivery for me.
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As soon as I saw Gary coming towards me with a parcel the size of a DVD player I knew something was wrong and all my carefully laid plans to have it delivered on a day when I don't work were as nothing. I should have known better. Now the correct mixer is the size of a small suitcase and I knew what I had ordered was right so what was this? I freed it from it's bubble wrap. The box it was in turned out to be twice the size of this mixer. Here...take a look at it resting on my coservatory sofa.

-A phone call to the suppliers gear4music (be warned) followed. Of course their Customer Service department was 5p a minute but they rekoned without one of my favourite websites http://www.saynoto0870.com/ and I was soon being told that 'the picker does not know much about mixers'. I resisited the temptation to suggest maybe the 'picker' to stick to removing the contents of his nose. Anyway, they collected the rogue item and assured me the new one would be delivered on Monday, a day when I would not be there. Now that's another problem then.

SATNAV SENSATIONS

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Britannia Stadium

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I have spent this weeked taking part in one of my least favourite activities and that is driving or being driven. How I hate it. I especially hate city driving followed closely by motorway driving. So a Saturday spent motoring to Stoke and back and then to Charlton in south London on Sunday was beyond the pale. However, there was at least a plus side to both trips,....... eventually.....We got home safely!
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The trip to Stoke was of course to see the Premier League game between them and Super Spurs. I went with some trepidation as to go all the way up there and return empty handed was too terrible to contemplate. Nick did the driving thankfully, which eased the torment somewhat. The rain was persisting most of the way there and we were pretty much dependant on SAT NAV to get us past the inevitable delays on the journey. What a great invention that is too. At least you can't really get lost with one of those, which for me was one of the absolute worst things about driving to another place. -

Nico's SATNAV working fine!

In London today I realised that they are not infallable when after emerging from the Blackwall tunnel we lost the signal for an instant were without guidance and took a wrong lane. The software then recalulated the trip using the next 'convenient' route. We ended up in gridlock mayhem on the North Circular. Not the best way to spend a Sunday.
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Stoke were well beaten by Spurs in an exciting game thanks largely to Stoke striker who looked as if his own personal SATNAV had malfunctioned as he fired over from close range with the goal at his mercy. But moment of the day was to come at the Harlington Performs quiz, which we really had to fly down the motorway to get back for. In our team was The Iddon Family. Nick, our driver, Jane, Nick's wife and son Tom and his wife Amy.
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Over the evening Iddon senior consumed a fair amount of beer and was beginning to look the worst for wear. He also began to speak louder, either in answering questions or taking the rise out of his son. It was during one of these interludes when Jane's personal SATNAV went AWOL as well. As she was admonishing Nick for speaking too loudly, fooling about and 'drawing attention to himself as usual', she reached forward across the table and in one deft yet fantastically snychronised moment, tipped the entire contents of her wine glass over the table and more importantly, him too. It made a hell of a noise as well Priceless! You had to be there.