SUNDAY, June 15th
Day 94
Our trip to Monkey Beach is FAN-TAS-TIC! They pick us up at our apartment (totally worth the extra $10) and drive us to the tip of the island where our boat awaits.
Ahhh.... I love boat rides.
I LOVE boat rides. Maybe we need to add "own a boat" to our retirement plan. It's perfection to see the island from the water.
For me, this is how islands are meant to be seen. Regin is doing great also, despite the occasionally choppy ride and the fact that this is overlapping with his morning nap time. It's Father's Day, so I'm taking a lot of pictures of Papi and his boy.
After a short time on the water, we go to Monkey Beach. Odd, I thought the ride was supposed to take an hour! I start to hop off and they tell me that they're just here dropping off supplies, our ride has only begun.
The tour usually includes an hour of fishing, but we have opted to tour around for longer. I can't stop taking pictures!
Monkey Beach is beautiful.
We have a little picnic table allotted to us. And there is a BBQ meal prepared just for us.
At the table next to ours is a nice couple of honeymooners from Syria. We didn't know this about them at first. Actually, she is so cute, and so covered, and layered, that I totally thought she was some incognito celeb with a skin condition. But it just turns out she is muslim, and that's why she is so covered. She asks to have a picture with Regin, because they hope to have one of their own on the way before the trip is over. They're so cute and happy.
We're supposed to spend this time swimming, but George forgot his trunks, he's not even wearing shorts. And I'm a little nervous about jellyfish, so we're not in the water much.
Finally, our food is ready, and though I'd planned to eat the eggs, nuts, and apples I'd brought with, I'm delighted to find that I can eat some of the food they've made for us.
After eating, we're enjoying the sun and the sea some more,
when suddenly we're whisked away (before I can even get my shorts back on) to walk to the other side of the beach to see the famed monkeys of Monkey Beach. We walk, and walk, and walk. There is a little river in the sand that we have to cross.
We walk some more. We come through another camp of people. We walk some more. We're finally there, and nothing. Another man is there trying the "call" the monkeys out, but nothing. We're asked to hang out for a while at this other camp, they try and sell us "fresh" coconuts (that are pre-cut and plastic-wrapped) to drink, then we're walked over to another area through some open grass, and some more calls are made. Nothing. They shrug. The monkeys aren't hungry right now, though we're assured that there are normally monkeys everywhere. This all seems suspicious to me, like some kind of performance. Either there never are any monkeys or right now we're being detained here so people back at our camp can rummage through our things. We have all our valuables on us, thankfully, so we'll never know which it is.
Back at the camp, George thinks about renting the jet ski for 15 minutes, but decides against it. We see some wildlife.
And then it's time to go home. The ride home is ridiculous! They're no longer taking their sweet time to show us around. They want to get us back and out of their boat as quickly as possible, so they are ZIPPING back to our pick up spot, and the boat is up and smacking down on the waves again and again. I'm very nervous. They had no life jackets for Regin's size, and now I'm thinking we were very silly to turn down jackets for us. I'm a little angry that we weren't warned about no life jacket for him, especially given the fact that the tour company promised safety, life jackets, and that they specialize in families.
But it's a fabulous day, and we now have that wonderful exhaustion you feel after a great day out.
Happy (belated) Father's Day From Penang!
For more pictures (better shots of Regin & also those skinny pics of me I promised) see our Father's Day photo album. If you want to see some arty shots I took that day, check out my art blog.
2 comments:
Woohoo! You were able to finally get the post up!!! Great pics, and the trip sounds awesome :)
Reminds of how I felt when we went on a tour to Buck Island in St. Croix. The ride there was awesome, the island was like something out of a dream, and after it was over, we were totally beat, but it was a good kind of beat.
Too bad you didn't see monkeys :(
I know, Yaaaaaaayyyy! I mean it only took me a MONTH!
Yesterday Reem was chatting online with me while I was trying to get this post up, and the longest I was connected to the internet for a while there was about 3 minutes. Ugh.
About the monkeys -- Carmen later told me that they went twice to Monkey beach. Once was awesome, once was horrible. The awesome time, the place was covered in monkeys (stealing food off their plates), the horrible time, the place was covered in tourists and litter.
I hope if we go back, it will be another nice time. I think it's a perfect place to go with a group of friends and spend the day or evening. It's kind of like camping, but without the uncomfortable sleeping. SO, if ANY of you EVER come visit us (HINT HINT), we'll maybe go for a half day to monkey beach.
Post a Comment