All the way to Pangkor, I prayed it would not rain. The dark clouds were playing "Chipsmore" on us. Now you see it, now you don't. There are 6 cars altogether. 2 more will join us at Lumut. I only knew a few people from the group but I'm very excited to be on the trip. They are a group of photography enthusiast who loves traveling. I can only listen to their many traveling tales with envy.
The group includes healthy 50, 60 and 70-year olds. I feel so self-conscious when I sneezed non-stop due to allergy, has to take anti-histamine immediately after seafood to prevent untoward allergic reactions, getting painful sunburn even after putting dollops and dollops of sun block and most of them are very much older than I am without even once complaining about health problem.
Teluk Nipah is not a Celcom territory. There is no coverage at all. We stayed at
Nipah Bay Villa. The room is so-so. I got the top bunk and it was dusty. Luckily one of the girls offered her silk sleeping bag so I can cover the sheets. It helped a little but I still woke up feeling like I've inhaled layers of dust.
After checking in, we went out trekking to the nearest waterfall. It was a very small waterfall, with a pool of water smaller than the normal bathtub and very shallow like a children's section in the swimming pool. Anyway, I really love the exercise. We went to the beach for the sunset but it was early so I went back to freshen up.
At about 7, everyone was ready with their tripod. A few who don’t have one also get into position to capture the beautiful sunset. At the same time, several speed boats doing stunts in the water to our delight. But one incident marred the evening. Nothing happened but it could. One speedboat carrying several passengers sped to a stop at the beach where there are many people still playing in the water. The passengers were almost thrown out of the boat but managed to grab on to something. They looked like rag dolls tumbling in the boat.
Everyone in the boat laugh but I fear one of these days, there's no reason to laugh at the same antic. What if someone was thrown overboard during the rough stop? What if the boat hit somebody swimming in the water? Don't they have common sense at all? Do we need guidelines for everything?
The next morning we went to see some fishermen unloading fishes and a place where they are making nets. The youngest with the net making skills are more than 50 years old. The younger generation did not want to make nets for a living. At lunchtime, the 3 Muslims in the group have difficulty finding food to eat. I decided to ask one
pakcik near the mosque if there is any restaurant where we can go to.
He said there's none nearby and invited us to some food at the mosque. There is a function at the mosque and they are cleaning up but there are packs and packs of leftover foods they even invited everyone in the group to eat there. But the others have ordered food at a nearby Chinese restaurant so only the 3 of us ate at the mosque. I'm so touched by their generosity.
Not everyone is as nice though. In the afternoon, we decided to go cycling and the nearest place where we can rent a bicycle is just a few doors away from our chalet i.e. at Ombak Inn. The bicycles were rusty and the owner nasty. He said the new bicycle is RM7 and the old ones are RM3. But he can give us RM5 and RM1.50 for an hour in the afternoon because we ask for 7 bicycles. The thing is, the bicycles are not working properly. We can only use 6. When we asked him to take a look at the bicycle, he said "pay first if you want some service". OK.... so we paid him. But later we found out nothing much he can do as the nuts and bolts are all rusty. We decided to cycle anyway. Very carefully though because the gears are not working and the brakes are in a worrying condition.
Then one of us discovered the chains did not move when she cycles. She went back to the place and the owner started grumbling about us paying so cheap and complaining so much, how we hurt his feelings blablabla. Duh! Helloo... I don't care if you want to rent things for 10 cent but it better work because we rent it for its ability to perform things it is supposed to do. And we hurt his feelings? I don't remember any of us shouting at him. Just trying out the bicycle and complaining about the rust. Anybody would.
What happened to the saying "Customer is King"? Didn't he realized he is only hurting his business in the long run. If you don't provide service with a smile, nobody would come to your place anymore. Just because there are hoardes of people coming to Pangkor doesn't mean they will keep on coming if the beach becomes dirty and places not maintained properly and the folks are grumpy. He is not the only one with attitude. A few chalet owners and stall owners are like that. Maybe they are just nice to foreigners. Hey, they pay in RM, we also pay in RM OK!
Anyway, despite that incident, I'm happy to discover I can cycle after many years. I know people have said cycling is one thing you won't forget but I'm still ecstatic about the fact. Considering the bicycle is such in a poor condition, I did well. I still have a sore backside :p
A good thing about traveling in a big group, we can get discounts or we pay less for an item. We only pay RM2 for the mini van ride because there are 10 passengers in a van. We need 3 vans for every trip. We also paid less for seafood meals. We had seafood dinner twice and did not pay more than RM15 each time for a very sumptuous meal.
On the way back, we went to Teluk Intan to see the Leaning Tower. It was an interesting sight but everyone is already very hot and bothered in the afternoon sun that we didn't stay long. Everyone is longing to get home by now. Luckily, it didn't rain during our trip to Pangkor. It rained a bit on our journey back but not as heavy as the few days last week.
I'm on leave today so I can do the laundry and get some rest. I'm having flu and didn't feel well all day actually. The heat and the tons of seafood has finally taken its toll on me. I drank gallons of water. I hope I'll feel better tomorrow since a day after tomorrow I have to conduct a two-days training.
