Cherating Beach

The rocket car is turning out to be fantastic. We are able to quickly load the kids and take off. This weekend we went north to Cherating, stopping at all the beaches along the way. The road is good with decent beach scenery most of the way. Cherating itself is more spread out than Kuantan and less built up. The tourist strip has you really feel you are in an Asian beach town with food stalls and restaurants, loads of cheap hotels with cutesy names and vendors selling swimming tubes and t-shirts.

We got out at a beach a little south of the main tourist to check out the sand quality and be thrilled it wasn't as steep as our private beach. The kids loved it, Tom stepped foot on the sand and started trying to take his "clothes on" (2 year old mistake for off and on) and I wasn't sure how much attention we would create so I let him down to his nappy (I was not looking forward to a repeat of the dick pulling incidents in Vietnam) but lucky to say we had the beach to ourselves. The kids ran freely playing with washed up coconuts, wood and yelling us little crabs popped into and out of holes along the beach.

From 2009 July Malaysia Pekan, Cherating and Kuantan

At the main tourist part I couldn't resist taking a photo of a group of girls laughing and giggling eating their icecreams.

From 2009 July Malaysia Pekan, Cherating and Kuantan

Taxi's in Kuantan

We have needed a cab once or twice since being in Kuantan and like beer these seem to be elusive when REALLY needed. The other night we were out and managed to get a flat tyre on the new rocket car. It then turned out we had been given a wheel brace for normal nuts and the car had "special" don't steal my tyre nuts so we were well and truly stuck. At the servo we managed to limp to the night orderly was very helpful and when I asked him if wheel stealing was common in Kuantan he replied

"It used to be ..... now they just take the whole car"

This was happening around 11pm and there was not a cab in sight. I walked a short distance to a restaurant which was filled and asked them to call a cab. Well there are no 1 3 numbers or taxi companies to call, you need to know a cabby. This is where it got slightly irritating. I was told a good dozen times to call a taxi and when I asked for a number I was given the look of derr don't you know one. Now it seems living in a town with few drinkers you don't have a need for cabbies late at night. They all shut down around 10pm.

One of the waiters of the restaurant ran us home in his little car which hiccupped and stalled its way up the Tembeling hill and when we got to the security guard we asked if he new a taxi number. We were given Mr Haran's name and number with a big cheesy thumbs up. This would be needed the next morning.

Meeting Mr Haran the next morning was great. A friendly chap who called a few ties to reconfirm times and places. The kids loved him and his red and yellow cab. First stop was school where the kids got out and when leaving school we got caught at an ugly intersection in Kuantan morning rush (its hardly busy though). Mr Haran creeped out a little and then realised he couldn't get through so needed to reverse a bit. This he did fine, no one behind us. The problem was he was too busy teaching Trev some Bahasa and telling us he was available any time of the day until 11pm except Friday's where he was busy at the mosque to notice he had left the car in reverse. The traffic had cleared and when he put his foot down he just about shat himself as the car lurched backwards.

Pekan

We have a car, no visitors and no hangover. Hooray!!!

This morning we took a trip to Pekan which is about 50km south of Kuantan. Firstly its great to have a car to be able to explore places in comfort. The motorbike in Hanoi was great and we could get out for some day trips without the kids but it was nice to just load up and go.

It only took a little under an hour to get there and we passed over the Kuantan river, loads of road side hawker food (didn't see a beer sign though) and the scenery was pleasant enough. We arrived in Pekan which I think used to be the captial of Pahang state and were greeted with large signed arches over the street, a mosque or two and some big open public spaces with grass.

We passed a busy market and got out to wander much to Trev's distress initially and it turned out to be really great. There was the regular fruit and vege part with an abundance of the national fruit durian for sale and odour. I was surprised to see the butchery section all together with fish, chicken, pig and cow all in a row; for some reason I thought it would be separated on opposite sides of the market for religious reasons as it is in supermarkets in Kuantan (there is a special room for the pig and booze products and they are sealed and paid for then and there). Instead they just had different sellers with their goods under different tents. Also in the market were some clothing stands and then we got to the good bit, the food for purchase to be eaten. Different foods and drinks everywhere a carnival type atmosphere and no one really gave us any notice which was great. A few hello's but no pulling or prodding the kids or shouting out to get the whole town to see the foreigner.

Is this not the biggest wok you have ever seen?

From

Bad Bad Monkeys

Our new apartment looks out over a reserve and botanical gardens with heaps of nice greenery and flowers and I love having breaky on the balcony with my pot of tea to start the day. However some afternoons and only some a herd of monkeys - not sure if that is technically correct but they come in a flock of bad arses venture down cross the tennis courts and head to the balconies of the apartments in search of food. Yesterday I was having an afternoon nap (I am retired you know and had been up to almost 3 am the previous night) and left the windows and sliding glass doors open to catch a nice breeze.

About 3pm I am woken by what sounds like the kids clambering up on to the table to the fruit bowl, having a party by tipping their toy box out on the floor so I shout to "Cut it out". Only problem it was NOT the kids. There were savage monkeys in our living room. On the dining table, microwave, playing with the kids toys and when I shouted to get out they hissed me. Petrified is a word that springs to mind.

They did move on taking loaves of bread, oranges and apples. Thankfully they left the lego behind and I must say they weren't too keen on the bag they ripped open containing some dirty kids school clothes.

JEC Kindy

Tom and Claire have started kindy. They go 5 mornings a week now and are in a class of 8. Their kindy has some similarities to their old kindy, namely it’s a bright yellow building. Different from Morningstar there is a great outdoor GRASSY area, yes that is not a misprint it is green grass which you are allowed to play on. They have been for 2 mornings now and are screaming less with each day.

Today they even came home for an afternoon sleep which was terribly kind of them seeing yesterday after a very late night with the Canadian’s they opted out of their sleep in order to follow us to the beach for an afternoon of fun. Bomber had Tom crawling under large rocks into special houses called caves and Claire asking for cakes made from sand. Disappointingly as I am not 2m tall my hands are slightly smaller than the big fella’s which only led to disappointment when my cakes were smaller than his.

Happy Canadia Day

Mark RW a colleague of Jo’s at Hanoi International School and a mate to us both is currently travelling Malaysia with Jean-Mark a friend from home so as they passed by our little part of Malaysia they just happened to drop by. As it turned out they arrived on Canada Day and to quote RW’s text

“We’ll be lookn to crush some beers hope ur up for hangn out with drunk canadians on arguably the greatest day of the year”

We certainly did crush some beers with Jo piking it at 240am and the lads calling it a night somewhere around 5ish.

Happy Canadia Day Fellas! It’s not everyday you celebrate Canada day with some top Canadians in Malaysia