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Vikentious in Msia
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Port Dickson 1999
Pangkor as Promised
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Fabian's Trip to Malaysia
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 | Intro to Redang Wackos
 | First, let me introduce the bunch of us that made it to this fantastic trip:
 | There was the super-efficient Anussa, who made sure that all our plane tickets were
properly accounted for... and always was ahead of us in everything, like walking ahead of
us as if she was being chased by a pontianak.... |
| There was her side-kick Tesy, who filled in the quieter gaps of the holiday by injecting
her own brand of excitement, like making us all wait for our snorkel trip while she makes
her bed, and almost causing a repeat of her Heathrow Case-study 101 in "Adventure at Airport." |
| Ida Yasmin, who made sure she got her priorities right by leaving her husband behind
with hardly a wave to poor Fazly at the airport, had a great time exploring the corals of
Redang as she had no problem propelling herself in the waters.... |
| Jock Nee, our sifu at finger massage and jungle-trekking, was a little hesitant at
jumping into the deeper waters, but with her friendly influence, she managed to get some
strong assistance to show her the way... |
| The lovey-dovey couple, Devendran ("Indy") and Mala, certainly needed no
assistance when it came to exploring the rich sea-life of Redang; at one point, they were even left behind by
our boat! Dev was particularly good at this, taking the meaning of V.I.P. to greater
heights, by jumping onto the boat last, making everyone wait while he dresses himself up
for the occasion.... |
| Last but not least, there's me of course, who is the video-cameraman capturing the nutty
bunch in action, and who moans and groans at every opportunity, taking the meaning of
"faster-lah" to greater heights than before. |
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| Needless to day, our adventure had to begin early in the morning when we were
checking-in at Terminal 3, Subang Airport. Just as we were about to enter the departure
lounge, Anussa discovered that although we had seven Wacko passengers, we only had six
tickets and six boarding passes. We had to rush back to the check-in counter where it was
realised that Tesy had unknowingly kept the other plane ticket, so, after some stiff
negotiation, we finally got the seventh boarding pass. |
| The flight to Kuala Terengganu took forty minutes, and landed with a jolt. Apparently,
this is Mala's first-ever local flight (her first flight was to USA) and it gave her an
extra boost to her adrenalin level. |
| After that, we were taken on a bus to the ferry port, which took almost an hour, and
then got onto a long but narrow speed boat that got us to our resort in fifty minutes. |
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| Hello Beautiful Redang
| As we approached the resort, we were just marvelling at the scene: gorgeous white sandy
beach dressed with the right amount of coconut trees. But it was the colour and clarity of
the sea that simply lit up the place: it was a brilliant almost luminescence blue that
blended so well to brownish rocky sides of the island, which were topped with lush
greenery. |
| Redang is a small island, and its beauty is
arguably better than Tioman and Perhentian. I preferred the atmosphere of Kampung Salang
in Tioman, which had a more cosy and village feel to it, but the richness of Redang's
sea-life and corals which are right in front of its beaches, are its great attraction. |
| Our chalets were pretty adequate (no jacuzzis though...), and the food served by the
chef was very good and fresh, esp. the vegetables. We had different dishes for every meal,
and for the BBQ on our second night, we helped ourselves to scrumptious helpings of tender
lamb chops, wisdom-filled sausages, emotionally inspiring sotong cutlets, intellectually
elevating and tasty otak-otak, complete with chicken satay in spicy kacang sauce. |
| Ours wasn't the only resort there, as there were a string of about ten other places to
stay, mostly on another separate stretch of beach a stone throw's away from us. We
definetely had the better stretch of beachfront, as the other one tended to be occupied
with many passenger boats. Ours had less people, too. |
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| Snorkel with the Sharks
| This holiday didn't waste much time as its agenda was filled with three snorkelling
trips, the first one happened right after lunch on our first day. Three boats took us all
to a spot twenty minutes north where they dumped us into the deep sea near some rocky
islands alive with loads of colourful fish and live corals. It was amazing to be able to
swim what amounts to a huge aquarium. I didn't see the large three feet long garoupa which
the rest did, nor the spinning (?) fish seen by Yasmin. |
| The second day took us to Redang's Marine Park, which was even more beautiful than the
previous place. We could feed the fish with bread off our hand, so a whole gang of them
would charge towards you and bite away at the soggy pieces of bread, and a few would
nibble on your fingers. The current was a little strong here, so it was easy to be pulled
away and be drifting towards the sea. I got stung by a jelly fish on my right arm as I
accidentally brushed it aside while swimming. |
| In the afternoon, we went for the third snorkelling session, which was more of the same
thing. Some parts were very deep (more than 20 metres) while a few were only one metre
deep so we had to be very careful when swimming in the shallower parts, always avoiding
stamping on the corals with our feet. |
| On our third day, since we were only leaving at 3pm., we were given a special treat by
the one of the local boatman who would take us snorkelling around a rocky alcove near our
resort beach. This was a fairly long stretch, the longest in fact, that I had swam, so
just the remaining three stooges took up on his offer, namely Anussa, Tesy and I. Saw some
pretty cool fish and closeup of purple-coloured oysters. I got to play with a sea cucumber
which felt soft and icky. |
| After that long session, which lasted I think forty minutes, we rested for a short while
before snorkelling again at the shark "home" area. I saw a school of three baby
sharks swimming just in front of me; they are such sleek and striking creatures, if they
were cars, they would be the Lamborghini Countachs of the sea.
| According to the boatman, this was the only place near the resort that baby sharks would
live. They tend to appear in places where you would find turtles (we didn't see any
turtles, though.) He also told us that you could find sharks the size of 1 to 1½ metres
behind the Marine Park, which was why we weren't taken to that place. There is a strict
rule in Redang that no animals or fish be killed; this is because if blood were spilt into
the sea, the mama sharks will be drawn to it before you could even say "You jump, I
jump!" |
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| Bye-bye Redang
| Well, after all that fun and relaxation, it was back to reality. The reality of KL
pollution, traffic jams, office work and no sea. Our boat arrived late at 3pm, so we waved
our goodbyes to Redang Island. |
| We were extremely fortunate as it did not rain a single drop while we were in Redang, as
opposed to KL which was raining everyday. |
| Another amazing thing is that, after three days of sun-soaked snorkelling, I hardly
tanned, let alone burned. I only used Coppertone's SPF 8 for protection; hmmm, I think I
need another island-paradise holiday.... |
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