I arrived at a tiny little airport, similiar to Easter Island in many ways! As I’d read online, I paid for my taxi at the booth at baggage claim and then just showed my coupon to the taxi guys outside – I think the system is to avoid unlicensed cabs? My first impression of Pantai Cenang (lit: Cenang beach) is that it’s a pretty built up little strip of a town, looks like lots of new development happening. I got dropped straight at my hotel and settled into a lovely big room with air con. After unpacking and chilling for a minute, I finally crossed down to the beach – nice! Flat, white sand, but tons of people, including a stand selling jet ski tours every 20m. Not super awesome. And this was at 7pm when they were all about done for the day…see these two pictures taken at the same time facing different directions š
Ate dinner of fried rice and chicken with Milo for 10RMY, or $2.50. I love Milo everywhere! I do keep forgetting to avoid drinks with ice in them though, hope that doesn’t come back to bite me :/ It got dark about 8pm so I walked back to the hotel and chilled (literally) in my room for the night – I thought I’d be asleep pretty quickly but instead stayed up looking at all the maps and things to do on the island. I got the impression that this is an actual case of tourism spoiling the place – its a UNESCO heritage area for the nature areas, but they’re in danger of losing it because of large numbers of tours running through the wetlands on jetskis and motor boats with a wash that ruins the banks, organising to feed the animals and destroy their diets/ability to hunt, and leaving litter everywhere. I did want to go snorkelling out in the marine national park but since (a) you have to do a whole day out there and (b) it sounds like it’s crowded and increasingly grubby, I decided to skip it. Instead I will rent a bike and ride an hour or two to the seven wells waterfall, have to leave early so it’s not too hot!
Monday
I woke up at 8am, before my alarm and while the sky was still colorful with sunrise (! But I did go to sleep at 1) and went to ask the front desk to call and get me on a kayak tour at 10.30, which worked. I went for a walk to try and exchange money to pay for it but not much was open, and all said they’d be open at 10 or 11. The beach was pretty deserted, guys just starting to set up stalls for jetskiing etc.
The hotel I’m at (picked online for good reviews onĀ hotels.com/Expedia) was very friendly. They lent me cash to pay the kayaking tour I went on, and when I was sitting waiting for my pickup one of the guys who hadn’t even made the booking for me noticed it was about ten minutes late and called them for me. When I made the kayaking booking, and forgot I meant to ask them if I could extend, the woman at the desk asked me if I was staying longer and said I could move to a room further from the reception (where breakfast was cooked basically outside my door) to the same room but cheaper, for the walk-in rate instead of online rate. I hadn’t noticed any problems but cheaper sounded better! So I left my bags packed in the room to move later.
Only a little late, my bus arrived to head out on our tour. We drove around picking up the rest, and then headed across the island to Kilim Karst Geoforest Park. Once we were all collected thereĀ was a group of a dozen of us, two on our own, an English girl and NZ guy who had met at the aquarium the day before, a Swedish guy and German girl who were on exchange together in Singapore, a Japanese couple, an English couple and two Chinese guys.Ā Seems like the vast majority of numberplates start with KV, I wonder why? Perhaps they are district based? (Langkawi is in Kedah, I can see that turning into KV )
The first natural phenomenon our guide pointed out to us was the leaves of the Babuta tree – getting sap in the eyes causes blindness, in food it’s a laxative where 2 drops is medicinal, 10 drops causes hospitalization. A hardcore tree!
We walked through the bat cave, which was pretty impressive – hundreds of bats hanging a couple feet above us.
The guide said there used to be thousands but the tourism was driving them away. He explained the limestone stalactites and why you can’t touch them (acid on your hands), andĀ then we sailed (motored) up the river to the restaurant. We put in lunch orders then headed out on kayaks – they were all plastic molded, with an interesting setup so you could either seat two people or one in the middle. I was very glad to be on my own, watching some of the pairs flail around! We kayaked up the river to the eagle gathering place, where he explained what was wrong with the tours feeding them (is a bad diet, destroys their ability to hunt and make them dependent on humans) but said that it wasn’t tourists fault they didn’t know this, and it wasn’t the boat operators fault they followed orders since most of them had little schooling and no alternative jobs, so it was necessary to educate tourists while they were on the island or even before if possible. He also said some of the boat operators would secretly keep or throw out the meat instead of feeding it all to the eagles, which was good. We saw a half dozen eagles circling high up, and a couple dived low enough to identify a brahmin kite and a white bellied sea eagle.
Around another corner he said that we were at a good spot to swim, so about three of us jumped in – most of the others didn’t want to get that wet! The water was lovely, salty enough to float in, and right about body temperature, maybe a touch cooler to feel refreshing. After a short while we got back in and continued into a mangrove channel.
Ā 
Here we had to single file and he said only one person in the doubles should paddle. Peoples lack of steering meant you could constantly hear kayaks hitting each other and the bank. He warned us that snakes liked to hang out on the mangrove branches over the river so we should keep to the middle where possible, which for a lot of people just wasn’t. He went first to spot any snakes, and pointed out a couple of vipers that we went past – we had to give them a wide berth since they could jump a metre off the branch if aggravated. After a while we had to stop as the channel narrowed and he talked about the mangrove trees and uses and how they handle the salty water, which was pretty cool. While he talked I could hear rain on the mangrove canopy above us, but we hardly got a drop since the canopy is so thick. On the way back we spotted one more snake hanging over the river that we’d all missed the first time past!
Unfortunately, once we’d turned around and got out of the channel, it started tropical bucketing. All of us were completely soaked through (some people now regretted not swimming earlier) and my dry bag must have failed since I found a centimetre of water in it after this, was worried that my phone might be dead for a while! We paddled much more quickly back to the restaurant, with some decent winds making it a little more of a challenge, and most of us regretted not having a spare change of clothes. We ate lunch – rice, fried chicken and tom yum soup – which was delicious, and were half dried off when we got in the boat to head back. Everyone was pretty exhausted and about half of us were asleep on the bus.
When I got back, I was shown my new room – functionally the same but off in a corner and with three singles instead of one doubleĀ – and, I later realized, with no wifi connection :(. I had to go out and get cash to repay my loan, so wandered down the main street for a bit. Something about being in the tropics apparently makes me think “oh I should totally get one of those nice little sundresses! It would look so relaxed! They’re only $10!” And then I get closer to a shop and realise that come on, it would look like a cotton sack in some random colors and I would literally never put it on again. I had the same internal conversation in Tahiti. But I did explore some gift shops and found that they have a bit of a thing for owls, bit odd as I haven’t seen any mention of them being a local animal.Ā I kept looking for somewhere to eat dinner, a little hampered because apparently 7pm is too early so all the restaurants were just opening and had nobody in them – except one that I’d heard of which had an actual line at the door. But I didn’t feel like expensive so I kept walking. Then I spotted a little sign for Melati’s Food Court and walked into what turned out to be a nice little co-op space; a half dozen independent places with one guy co-ordinating, who I think was from the Melati’s Female Dorm at the back, which I’d read about. He was very friendly, sat me down, brought over the six menus, took my order, and chatted with another pair of women that arrived while I was eating. I had a delicious lamb shish kebab and a Vietnamese caramel pudding for dessert and a grape soda, for about $5.
So once again, by 8pm I’m settled in my air conditioned room to relax and this time, probably sleep early! I was trying to plan what I’d do for the remaining two weeks. I was very tempted to hire a scooter and go visit the nearby falls – some of the others on the tour had talked it up, and the falls sounded pretty awesome, and how hard could it be on a scooter? Eventually I decided that it definitely failed my “would I feel stupid for dying that way” test, as well as probably not being even a little bit fun if a downpour like that afternoon hit!Ā Similar concerns applied to riding a regular bike, so I decided that if I was going there it would be in a taxi.
Tuesday
Works up at 6am to heavy heavy rain, feeling grumpy. Woke up again at 8am, same thing. Woke up again at 11am to sunshine, feeling great! I had a stale chocolate croissant and a carton of Milo in the fridge so I had that for breakfast, and internetted in bed for a couple hours until it was definitely too late to hire a taxi to go visit the falls. I went out to book one more night and settle up, and had them book me a snorkelling trip for Wednesday and confirm that I could catch the ferry Thursday morning no trouble, since its offpeak season and so advance booking is unnecessary. Then I went to change more money and look for a yoga class I’d read about. Walked along the beach, lots of planes landing, a boat on the horizon the size of what the fuck is that?? (Probably a container ship, looking outsized among the sailing boats and tiny islands). Although it was mid afternoon, the beach was pretty empty – perhaps we’re way offpeak and so there’s nobody here? That would explain why there seem to be so many more people selling everything than tourists anywhere, and orders of magnitude more hotel space than people in them. Or perhaps because everyone who was there was indoors hiding from the intermittent rain, wusses.
Looking for the yoga was cool, because I ended up finally going off the main street into some of the side paths, which turned out to contain a ton of hotels, restaurants and stuff – I don’t know why I didn’t realise this earlier when my own hotel is down one. From the main road they all kind of just look like driveways. I didn’t find the yoga but ate a late lunch at a nice place (some quite spicy tom yum soup and black coffee), and then on my walk back was joined by an iraqi guy who made the normal traveller conversation (where are you from, how long, what are you up to while here) and then went to “I am 40, make good money, single, you are so beautiful?” so I said I wasn’t single and then there was my turnoff. Perfect timing, as I arrived back at my hotel the thick grey clouds were finally beginning to drop some rain. Not intense rain though, so I decided I should push through it…
So I went out to the beach, it was raining but not too hard. Felt pretty awesome going for a swim in warm water with warm rain, I was almost the only person up my end of the beach (the swankier resort area). There’s an island not too far offshore that looked like you could swim to it – I thought I’d swim out to the edge of the buoys (markers for swimmers vs jetskis, I think) and reassess. It wasn’t far, maybe 50m, but in that short time the rain came on fully and visibility decreased so it was hazy just looking at my beach, you definitely couldn’t see the island beach! I gave up on that idea and just swam around. The rain cleared pretty quickly and soon it was a delightful afternoon again, and a few more people wandered out. I also saw the first dogs on the island, a pack of about 15 wild dogs out for a run down the beach while it was empty. I was out of the water walking alongside it when all of a sudden I heard barking and the dogs had surrounded me and were circling closer, it scared the shit out of me. I yelled and they jumped back, so I kept yelling and then made some throwing movements and they cleared off a bit. There were a few guys on the edge of the water about 100m from me, looking over,Ā so I walked towards them while looking behind me but the dogs didn’t follow. One of the guys asked if I was alright and said the dogs were just marking their territory – later when the same thing happened to him he seemed to engage in a protracted staring contest which may have gone on forever if his friend hadn’t got bored and yelled the dogs away. I am not sure how much of a dog expert he really was.
Decided I had done enough swimming (and *finally* having done most of a proper stretch routine!) I went home and had a rewarding shower, but then realised that despite the still ominous sky, I was going to be hungry again and needed to go for dinner. I went back to the restaurant of the first night, because it was both cheap (10rmy/$2.50 for dinner and a drink) and close – with lightning and thunder already rolling it was sure to rain soon! While I was in there we did get another short torrential downpour, and I waited that out watching Thailand v Iraq (football) come on TV, and ordered a drink of asam, or sour plum juice, to pay for my spot (although I don’t think they cared). As I left, Iraq scored the first goal at about the 40th minute. Right after I stopped watching to go pay for my meal, in fact. Typical.
I’ve been noticing the cats, since Tim pointed out how almost all the cats in Jakarta have fucked up tails. Here too, the tails often seem kinked or short. Today I saw one that almost looked like it had been tied in a knot – I wonder what happens to them? Is it people?
Wednesday
I woke up bright and early to be ready for my snorkelling pickup at 8.15 – greeted by the sound of pouring rain again, and a slight queasy feeling in my guts. I started wondering how much fun snorkeling would be in these conditions, and how likely it was I was actually getting sick. I decided it was just early morning hate again, made my instant noodles and had a couple slices of banana bread. As I was getting dressed there was a knock on the door – the girl from the front desk was here to say snorkelling was cancelled due to weather. I thanked her cheerfully, and considered going for an early run on the empty beach for all of half a second before I remembered yesterday’s dogs and went back to bed guilt free.
After snoozing and then reading/internetting happily most of the morning (turns out I was fine, it was just my stomach telling me not to go snorkelling earlier), I went out and got the front desk to call me a cab to go see this waterfall. I had read that you should get the cab to stay, as its hard to get one from there – I asked the woman at the desk and she said no, that would be silly, there are plenty of cabs there. 30 ringgit and half an hour later I was dropped off at the gate to the falls – the cab driver asked if he should stay and I said no. He looked doubtful. It was raining lightly. I said nope, thank you! And he left. About 50 steps up (out of 700) it began pouring tropical buckets. That’s cool, I thought, that’s why I put my towel in a plastic bag. Maybe I should out my phone in it too….And it won’t last long, maybe j can shelter under this tree. It had lasted long enough that even under the tree I was soaked through, so I decided to keep climbing. I passed some other people going down in ponchos and umbrellas. Then I saw the turnoff for the base of the waterfall and thought I’d try that. A short way along that path was a section about three meters long and three inches under water, with a heavy stream running across the path and down the mountain. It was impressive just how much water was falling out of the sky! I decided to take a rain check on this route (get it? Get it?) and headed back to go straight up to the top. There was a drain cut alongside the steps, running a steady stream several inches deep, and occasionally bursting into the path – overall the infrastructure was very well built and either quite new or well maintained.
Finally, after a couple short breaks in some pretty nice shelters along the steps, I reached the top exactly as the rain cut out. It was…nice. Not the kind of spectacular I’d walk through a torrential downpour to get to. I think there was too much water to appreciate it – the place is called Seven Wells because the top section runs through seven rockpools that people swim in, but the water had risen so high you could only see one and you’d be stupid to get in there. There was a hiking path you could follow to the top of the mountain (a real hike away)- but the trail began on the other side of what was now a foot of rushing water, so I passed on exploring it. Oddly enough there were people camping up there, tents erected inside the picnic shelters. I’m not sure if they were broke locals or cheap visitors, but they looked like nice tents so I think the latter – perhaps hoping to hike the mountain but put off by the rain?
After a couple photos, I headed back down. Hoping it had dried off a little, I tried the track to the waterfall again, and found the path only an inch deep in water for a meter, so quite passable. The view from the base of the waterfall was far more spectacular and totally worth it. Even here, you could see that the water had broken its normal banks – concrete steps down to a bank showed at least one step flooded and possibly more invisible steps underwater.
Back down to the entrance, there was a collection of mostly closed shops. I stopped in to buy some food, tempted by the pot of buttered sweet corn – delicious! I also picked up a plastic looking pizza roll – as I carried it away from the store, a monkey ran up and jumped at me, making a grab for it and then circling around behind me for another go. Smart but irritating! I put it in my bag to get away and walked off looking backwards a lot. I didn’t see any cabs, so I walked a km or two down the road to the Oriental Village we’d gone past on the way up. When I got there, I weighed up the idea of visiting Malaysia’s Largest 3D Art Museum, but caved and just got a cab from the well-populated Taxi Rank outside. Home again, a warm shower and I felt great – plus so smug for having made all that effort! When I decided that I had to go out again for dinner it was still raining, so I stopped at the nearest nice-looking restaurant and had the butteriest butter chicken I’ve ever seen, with literal butter swimming in it, which was quite good actually. It was an Arabic/Indian restaurant featuring an Arabic food menu and an Indian food menu, a bit odd, and not that amazing for costing 4 times as much as my other dinners nearby. Much nicer looking place, I guess.
Thursday
I got up bright and early for a hotel breakfast before catching my cab to the ferry. Breakfast turned out to be a decent omelette with some hot snacks like a curry puff and some kind of rice roll. The drive into town took about 45 minutes – I hadn’t really understood that there was quite a decent sized town on the island, I’m glad I stayed where I was in the small beach town! It got quite built up, then less so again as we got out of town towards the ferry. I missed the big sign saying Penang on one of the ticket windows so had to ask someone and get helpfully directed towards it, then successfully purchased my ticket, walked past the Customs checkpoint that couldnāt care less, and waited for my ferry. When everyone got up and went to board I followed, although it was not yet boarding time – turned out it was for another ferry leaving first, but this is how I met Natalie, a South African woman who is travelling around South East Asia before going to stay with her sister in London who is having a new baby. Neat coincidence, huh? š