randomwisdom.com

You may have noticed I haven't posted anything the past several days. That's because I took a trip up to Malaysia to an island beach resort on Redang island. As you can see, it's far from pretty much everything, a 2 hour boat ride from the mainland pier and a 9 hour boat ride from Singapore to the pier... which is exactly why I went there. As you can see, there are two connected beaches separated by a rock outcropping. My hotel was on the southern one; I stayed at Redang Beach Resort.

The bus ride over was a night bus sleeper coach with TVs and a large selection of movies. I was a bit nervous going through Malaysia customs, but the guy next to me helped out. He had a China passport and his girlfriend was from Indonesia, but they both spoke fantastic English. They had both moved to Malaysia at age 14 and met in high school there before moving to Singapore later. At one of the rest stops they shared their food with me, a jackfruit. It tasted almost like a lychee, which will make no sense if you've never eaten one of those, but it had a sweet outer layer and a hard rocklike pit in the center. This was just the first in a string of chance meetings with really nice people.

On the boat ride getting off I met a woman from Kuala Lumpur who happened to be a diving instructor. She was on a trip with 5 other people, one of whom is an associate producer for some Malaysian travel show. The boat pulled right up to the beach and we hopped off to check in, and then they invited me for some coffee. So we dropped off our stuff and walked around to a restaurant on the other beach where I saw this:

I listened them talk a bit in Malay and a bit in English, and sipped on an iced coffee. They ordered some light snack food, a kind of sausage-jerky stuff that was green and made from fish (and quite tasty with a bit of spicy red sauce), as well as a mashed up banana wrapped up in a leaf. She wouldn't let me pay, but gave me her business card and suggested I give her a call the next time I was in the area to go diving. The rest of the Malays I met on the trip were some of the most laid back people I've ever met. Completely chill. And almost all of them speak English quite well, especially considering it's not the national language.

The package deal I purchased included a bus ride and ferry transfer to the island, 2 nights accommodation at the hotel, meals, and snorkeling trips (gear not included). Renting a snorkel and mask for the whole trip cost about 3 bucks, with a life jacket it's a bit more but not overly so. Every day the hotel boat makes two trips to other islands around the area for snorkeling, but there are reserved swimming/snorkeling areas with reefs that make for great viewing and you can go any time you want. I applied sunscreen and wore a T-shirt but still got burns on the back of my legs from being face down in the water so much.

I took my first swim around the block with the snorkel right after renting it, and was astounded at the number of colorful fish swimming around in just 1 meter of water. As I got further from shore into the deeper parts, I could see schools of zebrafish swimming around, lots of butterfly fish in large groups, and plenty of individual parrotfish chomping on the reefs (a few species: one purplish-red with green fins, and a greenish one with a blue tail and red lines radiating out from its eyes). The coral were also very impressive in a few places. While the areas around the jetty and high-traffic boating areas were bleached, the rocky areas had plenty of fan corals, brain coral, and anemones. One of the divers told me the visibility was 50 meters, and it seemed pretty clear to me. One boat trip took us to a pristine reef around a remote island, with entire forests of staghorn and finger coral, massive numbers of large fish schooling around them. It also had large numbers of jellyfish very close to the surface, and so I didn't linger for long. But I did see one clownfish way down on the bottom, hiding in the safety of an anemone. Absolutely amazing.

After snorkeling I came back and just sat around at the beach for awhile.

Sea, sun, and sand... what else could you wish for?

Two days of that was some great relaxation. I met some great people, partied with the locals working there (who were really awesome), strolled on a fantastic beach with no crowds in the way, and got a great view of the sea. At night there was live music and dance clubs for those who wanted to do that sort of thing. The hotel rooms even had air conditioning. And the whole trip cost me less than 300 bucks. Phenomenal.