Pulau Redang Laguna Beach Resort

Onto the Redang trip. This place was an island paradise! It's no wonder that Asian movies are often shot there. In fact, we saw an Indian movie being filmed on our resort during a torrential downpour. It was rather exciting and I took a couple of pictures of course. The trip was long and though the buses were probably the most comfortable I've ever seen and been in, somehow I would substitute the 10+ hour long trip for an hour or two plane trip in a heartbeat. The buses were pretty cool though. The seats reclined almost to a flat-lying position and they even had a kick-out extension leg rest as well as a foot bar that folded down from the seat in front. There were drapes as well to cover the windows. We had a bathroom on the way up, but the bathroom was exchanged for TVs on the way back. Except Boon wouldn't let me watch War of the Worlds because he wanted to watch it in the theatre instead so I just read Angels & Demons instead. I thought I was going to be seasick on the boat ride, but it was most likely remnants of the bowel problems I was having earlier from the food shock inflicted on me in Malaysia. Anyhow we made it there alive.

On the first day, we spent time on the beach, which was right in front of our resort, beautiful white sand and clear water from the South China Sea with many different shades of blue. Lots of corals were washed up onto the beach so we had a hint of what we were to see later on. The water was very warm and calm, not to mention salty. It stings the eyes and leaves an intense bitter taste in your mouth. Then we spent some time in the pool which was extremely large and had a mini-slide and attached hot tub. I got to show off my swimming skills (ie pseudo free-style/breast stroke, smashing into the side of the pool, and struggling to stay afloat). Seriously, if you saw me in Jamaica, then you know to have an experienced swimmer around me at all times. There was of course, over the 4 days, all you can eat buffet meals 3 times a day. The BBQ on the second day was the best meal. And the Canadian in me could not get enough of green salad and pasta, even though there were plenty of native dishes to eat. I guess I needed to get my fill because I wouldn't see any more of that the rest of the trip. After the long trip, we had anticipated having a massage that night, and we longed for it all day. When the time finally came, to our horror, it was not just any massage, it was a Chinese massage which equals REFLEXOLOGY. Oh shit. Not again. I must say that I took it pretty well the second time. The girl was probably wondering why I wasn't wincing in pain...*she cannot beat me*...that was until she started to massage my back. Now that was a new experience. Knuckles, elbows, fingers, digging into my spine and shoulder blades! Crap!! Lady, I wanted to pile drive her after that. On top of that, we were lying on these massage tables where you put your head through some donut. To be sanitary, they put a towel on top of the part where your face sits, but I could hardly breathe. She was breaking my back, and suffocating me. Grrr....what do I have to do to get away from these people and get a normal massage. It always gets me because these massage ladies are pretty tiny but they pack a lot of strength. By the way, reflexology stores popped up more frequently then Tim Horton's in London, so it is a pretty common practice in M'sia. I really felt sorry for Boon though, it was his first time. I think I could hear tears rolling down his face. He got the full body too, and a guy was giving his massage.

Day two we went snorkelling in the open sea. Thank goodness I had a life jacket with me. There were many beautiful fish, of all different colours and sizes. I spent most of the time trying to follow them around, but they were too quick for me. After we came back from the snorkelling trip, we walked along the beach a little bit and we came across this little hut on a neighbouring resort that made hand-drawn batik paintings. I snatched a couple of those up. The colours were far more vibrant than the batik paints I used to make my pillow with in Gr. 11 Fashion class. The weather changed really quickly after that, and the ominous storm clouds that surrounded the shore were getting darker and darker...until all of the sudden rain started to pour down harder and harder. We were caught in the rain and ended up half-drenched by the time we reached our resort. That's when we saw the filming of the Indian movie. Later that night we ate dinner, then went off to the recreation centre where I discovered Carrom. It's kind of like table pool where several discs, either black or white are shuffled into pockets in the corners of a square playing board. You use your fingers to flick a disc (the cue ball) into another coloured disc (one player tries to score the black discs, the other player the white discs) to deflect it into the pockets. There are a few other rules as well. As I was trying to discover this game, a little Chinese boy came up to our board and started staring, obviously curious about what we were doing. Then he just grabbed one of the playing pieces from off the board! What the! Who does that? Don't parents teach their kids not to bother other people? He didn't look like he understood it either when we told him he couldn't do that. If you've ever seen "The Grudge" with SMG, he looks like that scary kid who haunts the house. After that I tried some Milo (chocolate drink), got some ice for my itchy nose and called it a day.

Oh we saw this little baby cat and its mom hanging around by the stairs. The kitten was so small but very friendly and playful. I picked him up and petted it. The mother didn't seem to mind. Later when we went for dinner, we saw the kitten again, this time he was crunching on some food. When we went to take a closer look, we saw this reptile head on the ground, severed from its body. The kitten must have been eating it. The grossest thing was that the head was still moving!!! Yucks!!! The kitten no longer seemed as tame and innocent as we had first thought.

Day three we went snorkelling again in the morning. This time we went to Marine Park, a conservation area for fish. This time the fish were everywhere! We got to feed them with bread and they LOVED it. They even eat it right out of your hand, but I only tried that once because as my hand was being swarmed by 20 fish or so one of them missed and bit my finger. It was so awesome!! The corals were so nice and colourful too. I thought at first that it was man-made. How could something natural be so bright and colourful? We had hoped to go on a sunset cruise or go fishing, but nobody else on the island wanted to go, so we couldn't charter a boat. We spent some more time in the ocean and played in the waves. Oh and we played beach volleyball and it was so much fun. Boon did pretty well for his first time playing. Although he's tall, he was afraid to block the ball against this crazy giant Indian guy (part of the movie crew) who would spike it down every chance he got against all the unsuspecting players on the other side. Good thing he was on my team :) There were some nice snorkelling pictures taken of us so we bought those. It rained again that night and of course we were soaked again trying to make it back to our room.

Our room was so nice, it had 3 beds in it. One king and 2 twin beds. It was very spacious with a balcony. It even had an arrow on the ceiling pointing towards the direction of a mosque for people to pray. The sign on the outside of all room doors says "do not feed the monkey". The whole time I wondered where this monkey was, and if there was only one. Finally on the last day, before we were leaving, I saw 3 monkeys playing in the treetops and jumping onto the roof of the souvenir/More More Tea building. The sand was so smooth and clean I had to take some with me. Then it was back to the boat ride, then bus and another 12 hours to get back to JB. We stopped a couple of times to get food. Other than the resorts, Terengganu is a very conservative Muslim state. Little did I know, wearing my bikini top under an open tank top and shorts, I was probably violating every conservative rule in the book. Whoops! Anyway, we came back with tans and full bellies. I'd love to go back there soon.