Jun 2006

spent week on tropical island called Pulau Tioman. Went snorkellng with thousands of fish and canoed out to secret white beaches with only monitor lizards and monkeys for company. Spent evenings eating with the locals at the restaurants and drinking beer in the BB shack. One day we did the jungle walk to Juara, passing through a jungle we inhabited only by ourselves, our way blocked by falling trees, monkeys armed with coconuts and devious snakes with martian faces and poison hearts. Went swimming in fresh waterfalls and plunge pools and slept devilish nights in unbearable heat. The heat and humidity is difficult to get used to, at times oppressive, the cool ocean breeze is our only relief. Today we headed to Cherating half way up the east coast. A rustic lil town with a strange mis-mash of styles. Our chalet resembles some sort of pioneer's nebraskan farm house complete with stove....................................................................................................................................... then we head to beach , further to a bar hidden in the woods called the half moon at half past four...... the deadly nightshade....... an occultish, macrabre cottage with splintered ceiling that resembles some kind of new england hut, complete with pictures of ghouls, phantasmagoria, witchcraft collections and jagged almost incongruous trees that seem more artic than tropical... ............................ i drink two beers....... it cheap.... an offshore oil 'fisherman' called alan from great yarmouth drinks with our cambodian host.. from siem reap... ... he is mildly polemic in conversation but not enough to make me uncomfortable.......... the surroundings strange enough to save me from any yarn.... the beer making it more interesting than it would be.......... normally when i'm not drunk..... tomorrow we will try batik, a traditional malay form of art using wax and waterpaints..... maybe some horse riding.... booyakashah......... or even some turtle watching/voyeuring.....................................................................................................................................................................................

Arrived in Singapore after flight via Doha, which is a sweaty and sticky kinda place. Singapore is only 13 degrees north of the equator and the air is so humid, it feels difficult to breathe, like taking in a noxious gas and exhaling some sort of whizz glue type phantom. Singapore itself is an amazing place: walk from chinatown to little india and you will see the amazing difference between the two areas, like walking between two countries, and after having a delicious indian meal served on banana leaf we head to chinatown which is full of hawker centres and bustling market stalls, spices and all sorts of incredible but useless tat. Hindu shrines and Chinese tao/buddist temples are dotted all over the city as well as a few mosques down where i am staying on Baghdad Street. The Hawker centres are amazing you can get fish head curry or even eminent frogs legs which is my personal fave, staying clear of green turtle soup, because i don't like the idea of digesting something so putrid in design.. and which belongs on the beach, crying dolorous tears for all of its lost hatchlings kidnapped mercilessly by the beading eyes of predator birds.......... Today we arrived in Malaysia, and we are now in Mersing, which is a little fishing port. Tomorrow(wed) we catch the longboat to pulau tioman in the South China Sea, where we will snorkel and jungle trek.... i tink its where south pacific the movie was filmed, but if its too overcrodwed we will explore the seribut archipegalo and surrounding isles, by boat.... People very friendly.... food excellent... bout 90 p for a three course indian dinner... hostel is 2 pound a night... and malaysia is suppost to be expensive in south east asian terms.............................!!!!!!!