Day 144 (Friday 6th) - Happy 91st Birthday Grandma!
Last night on my way home from the Internet place - the fancier resort at the end of the beach has Wi-Fi, surprisingly - David (who is just finishing a Maths & Physics degree, by the way) and Eva from the boat asked me to come and play cards. Shithead is the only game we all knew how to play, and I lost three out of four times.
Today I awoke a little later than I planned, about half 12, and headed across the island to Long beach, which has an oddly ramshackle and unfinished air about it. There are 4 or 5 shops and restaurants in the middle, a couple at either end, and nothing really in between. I'll be intrigued to see what it's like at night, as this is supposedly where what little nightlife there is is concentrated. The beach is pretty nice, although it's windy as hell today. On the advice of the bloke from Daniel's cafe I went on a 'trek' (his words, not mine) up to the wind turbines on top of the hill, as there are apparently great views. This isn't really true, all you can really see is the rocky bay below, and a bit of big island, but not much else. There are, however, 2 large turbines & banks of solar panels, which leaves me a little bewildered as to why most of the island runs on generators.
I followed the path/road on down the other side, where it sort of terminates with a shack or two, a digger and some other equipment - I didn't investigate further, as I had already passed a 'NO ENTRY - AUTHORISED PERSONNEL ONLY' sign. On the way back I saw a spraypainted sign saying 'D'Lagoon' or something to that effect. I followed the path through the jungle, losing and finding it a few times, before arriving at the end at a really rocky and windswept bay, with 2 tarp-covered shacks and nothing else. Having put so much effort into getting here, I remained for a while, before getting too cold (I don't agree with this being cold in Malaysia nonsense) and heading back over the hill, which was a lot steeper on the way back up than on the way down, I swear. On the way back I saw a 3-4 ft monitor lizard running across the path, which was pretty cool. We saw a similar one on our way back from Freedom Beach on Koh Tao, and David said they saw 3 outside our bungalows earlier. Tomorrow I think I'm going to go on a snorkelling trip with David, Eva and a few others, as due to elections (again!) the Malay instructors can't do any courses until Tuesday or so. I'm fairly sure I did nothing remarkable after that, just went to the internet place again, had dinner, watched some godawful film with Antonio Banderas about teaching dance to angry New York kids, and went home to sleep. Oh, I forgot, Eva taught us a drinking game involving dice, but since none of us felt like drinking, it sort of failed. We made a half-hearted promise to try it again tomorrow night, with drinks this time. Also I lost a few more games of Shithead - I have been the Shithead 6 out of 8 games so far. Boo.
Day 145 (Saturday 8th) - Snorkelling
And overslept, at that. I woke up at 10:05, panicked, brushed my teeth and ran, shirtless and shoeless, to the dive shop we were going snorkelling from. As it turned out, this was unnecessary as our guide was late for some reason, so we didn't leave until 11. Our first stop was the light house, which is surrounded by coral and pinnacles - in fact, the whole day we were snorkelling there wasn't really any clear sand or empty rocks, everything was completely covered in coral. We saw a fair few colourful fish, although visibility was pretty low. Next stop was Turtle Bay, where we were one of three or four boats circling a central point. Everyone was looking out for sea turtles, and when one was spotted everyone swarmed to follow it. We saw 2 here, I think, pretty big ones too - at least 2 ft across, both of them. We headed closer to shore, our guide (called Matt) deftly nipping over the 'no boats allowed' ropes, and we saw another couple of turtles, one of whom was massive, at least a metre across. David was feeling pretty ill and missed the first few, but saw this one, which was good. Next stop was Shark Point 2, where we didn't see much at all. David swam back early and later told us that in his weakened state he was worried he wouldn't make it, and was genuinely terrified. All we saw was a big blue Boxfish, similar to a Puffer.
We stopped for lunch at the Fisherman's Village, which is far less rustic than I was expecting, and is in fact a little port town with a school, police station and various other amenities. Our guide seemed disappointed, and tenuously asked us if we really wanted to see Sharks - we replied yes, if possible, so he took us out to Shark Point 1, across the choppy waves. We got in, all except David, and swam towards and past some rocks in the middle of the bay, and almost immediately we saw a metre-long Black-Tip Reef Shark, swimming slowly away from us. Further searching turned up a couple more, including a 2m pregnant female one, which Matt said was among the biggest he's seen. On the way to our next he took us through a gap in the rocks which couldn't have been more than 8 inches wider than his boat, for no reason whatsoever, at startling speed. This terrified David and Eva who were facing backwards, and didn't realise what was going on until the rocks were zooming past their heads.
Next stop was 'Romantic Beach', a really nice little beach north of Coral Bay, with incredibly fine white sand. Here I was forced to do something very unromantic - due to the Chicken Cili Berakan (I think) that I had last night, I suddenly and urgently needed the toilet, and was forced to climb up the rocks into the jungle, find a spot where the others couldn't really see me, and bury my shame in the sand. Luckily I remembered to bring toilet paper, as the only leaves about were painful looking Aloe plants. Anyway, we sat on the beach for a little bit, building stuff in the sand, before Matt took us back to Coral Bay at an unbelievable speed, just to show off. I think I got a little sunburnt today, and certainly got exhausted. It was all I could do when we got back to get in my hammock and read my book - I've finally finished Crime and Punishment, which was really good, far better and easier than I'd been expecting, and now I'm reading Gallows Thief by Bernard Cornwell, which I have already almost finished since starting it last night - it's a compelling read. Dinner was eaten alone, but was delicious nonetheless - freshly caught BBQ Kingfish, rice, coconut curry sauce, coleslaw, Roti & curry sauce, and watermelon. That's not very interesting, is it? I'll leave that sort of stuff out in future, sorry.
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