Month: July 2012

We had our first minor hiccup today. Susie ran a very high temperature all day slept most of it away.  At about 5pm we decided she was getting worse rather than better so we asked the hotel about options to visit a doctor.  We were told a boat would take us to the island clinic staffed by a nurse.  Susie and i duely set off, passports in hand…..

The boat driver was very kind and took us into the clinic.  Whatever he said seemed to work as rather embarrassingly I think we queue jumped horribly.  The nurse took Susies temperature (39.9) and asked me to undress her.  He then shoved two large paracetemol doses up her bum with no warning.  He hadn’t bothered to ask, but we had given her paracetemol not half  an hour before.  The nurse was all set to send us home at this point, but, not being the retiring type I insisted that he look in her ears first as she had been complaining that they hurt.  Oh yes, she did have an ear infection!  He tried to give me ear drops but I went into full on stroppy western tourist mode and insisted on oral antibiotics. I don’t think he’s speaking to me anymore…….

We made the boat trip back and the driver was an absolute star, even refusing to take any payment for his service.  Back at the hotel, and one paniced call to our doctor friend (thanks Kate!) to check the paracetemol dose wouldn’t cause a problem and panic over.  Susie has felt well enough to watch a film and eat two biscuits – a significant improvement on the rest of the day,  we are hoping that the antibiotics will continue to do their job.  If this is the worst of our medical problems whilst away we shall have got off very lightly!

We are sitting in the communal area of our guesthouse in Cherating waiting  for the long distance bus which will take us to the jump off point for the Perhentian Islands.  It’s drizzling, although still very hot, so it seems a good time to leave!

We’ve had a mixed time here – we have loved seeing the fireflies, just like real life fairies, viting the turtle sanctuary and laughing at the cute baby turtles waiting to be released, and the river boat trip where we saw mangrove snakes, crabs, monitor lizards and a magnificient sea eagle.  We haven’t loved the relentless heat with no air con, the unbelievable amount of bugs that have left us all itching despite buckets of repellant, the rubbish left lying around everywhere or the local youths on moterbikes zipping around everywhere.  We had the unsettling experience of sitting next to a local lady who had her jewellery snatched by one of the youths who then jumped onto the back of a motorbike as it sped past.  We have been more careful with our stuff since then but that hadn’t helped the poor lady who was very upset.

Here we have also experienced our first “proper” local breakfast – western options don’t start before 10am and the kids still want to eat at 8am.  The restaurant serving the locals offers fish curry, chicken curry, curried eggs and rice.  It was all tasty, but i do have to argue with my stomach about whether it can handle it at that time in the morning.  Susie is esting a lotmof rice and tomato ketchup at the moment.  Luke and Emma are getting addicted to soups which is surprisingly healthy!

We have hopes for airconditioning and hot water tonight :-). Perhaps our age makes us need a bit more luxury!

We left Singapore feeling sad but not for long…….. Our luxury car drove us in air conditioned comfort into Malaysia. Immigration took longer than the driver had anticipated which resulted in some hair raising overtaking, use of truck only lanes etc to get us to our 2pm boat on time.

The boat took off at a fantastic speed with no warning causing some consternation and rapid hat grabbing, but once we got used to it there were big grins all round. Very exhilarating!

The boat took us to the island of Sibu where we were treated to luxury and relaxation at Sea Gypsy Resort. We had a lovely two bedroom chalet and fullboard included. It was completely idyllic, like a holiday brochure with white sand and palm trees. We made great friends with a family from New Zealand and the kids ran feral together. We were able to walk through the jungle, seeing lizards and giant millipedes, to another beach where we could snorkel (or in our case goggle) right off the beach. We saw hundreds of brightly coloured fish, jellyfish and crabs. Amazing.

Today we have travelled to Mersing, for the first time with no accommodation booked and seem to have fallen on our feet with a reasonable room for a good price. Now we are off to find dinner. No doubt Phil will add some photos and video to this later on…….

It’s been lovely to have Tony off work and to be able to do things with all the Hunts. We spent Saturday morning chilling by the pool again but this time with the addition of Josh and James while Tony and Ally took Isabelle to view a potential school. After lunch we headed to the Singapore Science Centre. Loads of really interesting things for the kids to do ( and the adults!) and heavenly air conditioning. We are all struggling with blisters on our feet although we are used to our shoes just because of the level of heat and humidity.

In the evening Ally had booked us a BBQ pit next to the pool at the condo so we had delicious food and a late night swim in the pool. A late night for the kids but definitely worth it! We are STILL struggling with jet lag – only Luke has got the hang of sleeping through the night so far. Hopefully the rest of us will work it out soon.

Today we planned to visit a wildlife park and a boat trip but looking at all the tired faces we are scaling back to just the boat trip. We are looking forward to it, and tomorrow we have to leave the luxury of staying with Tony and Ally and head off by ourselves. We’ve found it hard to find accommodatioion the islands we wanted so we have pre-booked for 2 nights on Sibu – three hours north of here, off the Malaysian East coast. Bizarrely, although we first contacted them before we left the UK it turns out Tony and Ally have stayed in the same hotel before and are able to recommend them. Should be fun!