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!