A Year in Exile: Lumut and Pangkor

We enjoyed the hockey in Ipoh although we were disappointed with the GB performance, they finished 4^th out of 7 despite being the top ranked team and will have to play much better to claim an Olympic medal. We will definitely be cheering them on though as we now feel a certain affinity with the team and even know their names! We also met some of the parents and can empathise as they await their sons’ inclusion or not into the final squad as two of the 18 players won’t make the final cut.

Velu (the hotel co-owner), took us out to dinner and after several false starts, mainly because I don’t eat meat or the stalls we needed were closed, we had an Indian. He also said he would take us to the bus and show us an original market which he did, buying us some plum sauce and chilli and garlic sauce while we were there, very generous. He also reiterated that we have strong accents which is why some people (like the taxi drivers) don’t understand our English!

The bus – what can I say about the bus – we seem destined to travel in Malaysia’s worst, this one was old, rusty, no air con and doubled up as a parcel delivery service, once we started we realised it was also VERY NOISY. Brian said it reminded him of the plane we travelled from Rumania in that was so noisy you literally could not hear yourself think. On the plus side this journey was only 2 hours, not 9! A much needed pint at Jook’s Bar in Lumut, shopping at Tesco and the shuttle bus saw us back in Swiss Garden – felt quite like coming home.

We settled back into life at Damai Laut very quickly, not getting up very early, scrabble, reading and walking. I have made curries and Lakse (traditional Malaysian dish) as well as the usual pasta and fish dishes so we are definitely eating well!

Two random things I feel the need to share; one habit you need to get into quite quickly is collecting your loo paper before entering the cubicle, makes you feel like a naughty schoolgirl but must be done, I’ve been caught out more than once – not funny - connected is that most toilets are ‘squat’ toilets, apparently locals would rather stand on a loo seat than sit on it! The other, unrelated, is that the shops never appear to have customers so you would think they would be pleased to see a bona fide customer – no! I was desperate for a haircut and decided to trust a local salon. I walked in and the 3 people in there looked mystified – yes 3 – we can’t do that they said the hairdressers have already left! So who were they and where had the hairdressers gone? Who knows?

We went to Pankgor Island for a couple of days to celebrate Brian’s 64^th birthday – he has been singing the Beatles’ version for days already – and what a brilliant choice. We stayed at a little guesthouse run by Alicia and Anuan, the rooms were very clean and cute but a bit small, didn’t matter, we only intended to sleep in it. The beach nearby, Coral beach was beautiful and we found Daddy’s restaurant just waiting for us. The meal for Brian’s birthday was absolutely fantastic, jumbo prawns and local barbecued fish (turned out to be barracuda) with vegetables and potatoes accompanied by a bottle of wine – so good and eating it on the beach, just yards from the sea made it an unforgettable evening. This was followed the next day by a visit to Giam island. We spent the day there, snorkelling, reading, swimming and feeding the fish – they actually ate food straight from your hand (in this case Brian’s). Some of the time there was just us as boats arrived to drop people off or pick them up, most of the time perhaps 8 or 10 people and then…… from about 4 o’clock we were invaded! Boatload after boatload of Malaysians, mostly Muslim, turned up, however, they all wore bright orange life jackets and sat in the shallows fully clothed. By the time we left boats were having to clear a path through the people who were reluctant to move and the whole area was covered in orange blobs – really bizarre! Imagine being the only female in a swimming costume and the only people not needing a life jacket to stay afloat. On the way back Sham, our boatman, showed us round the island, rock formations in the shape of a crocodile and a turtle and the beach side of the island and treated us to some showboating manoeuvres on the way to shore where at full speed he pulled up the motor and zoomed up onto the sand – well worth the fare! Nevertheless a brilliant day, very enjoyable – happy birthday Brian!

We went back to Daddy’s but were a little more restrained, beer to drink and a plainer meal, still excellent though and the setting would be hard to beat. After breakfast we went for a walk, chose not to go to the beach because of the sand so went inland, found huge jackfruit growing on trees, bananas and mangoes – we still get really excited even though they are the norm here.

Ferry back to the mainland and to Jook’s for a beer and lunch, however, this time the place was literally full of western faces, we are usually the only ones, turned out the US Navy were on joint manoeuvres with Malaysian Navy, it felt really odd not to be unique! We had the added bonus of the sport channel and saw a bit of France v Ukraine and the first half of the New Zealand v Ireland rugby – quite a treat. Took a taxi to Tesco, he took a long way round and tried to overcharge us but he reckoned without us knowing the area and the usual fare – ha ha!

The day was spoiled though by the shuttle bus failing to turn up, it should have picked us up at 6.30, at 7 I phoned the reception – several times, still no bus, we ended up getting a taxi at 8, tired, annoyed and MR60 out of pocket! (While we were waiting the battery on my phone went, I spotted a plug and as we had been away I had my charger with me so I plugged in and stood with the trolley in front of the plug, can’t think I would have got away with that in the UK but thank you Tesco for charging my phone.)

At first when we got in at 8.45 we decided we would just have a drink and chill as it was too late to cook but after a beer I decided I should make an effort as it was Brian’s birthday so I cooked the giant prawns and the fish which we ate with some lovely fresh bread – turned out not too shabby after all.

KT phoned to check we were all right and to invite us out the next day – we said yes although we weren’t too sure where we were going. When he came to pick us up he arrived with a large basket full of local produce – bananas, passion fruit, rambutin, lemons, limes, two fruit we didn’t know and some chillies, all from either his garden or farm, very generous, Bee Yong also pointed out that there were 3 fruit trees just outside the apartment that we could pluck fruit from. We have picked one (don’t know what that is either) but were told to wait 2 days for it to soften before peeling and eating it.

We went in their car for over an hour through paddi fields to where they catch and process a lot of the fish on this coast, then to a Chinese restaurant that specialised in seafood, KT ordered and we were a bit apprehensive but the food was delicious, it turned out to be Prawn Tom Yam, battered eel and octopus in black bean sauce plus a vegetable called bitter something or other, it was all delicious, KT didn’t tell us what they were until we had finished – don’t blame him we are a bit prejudiced against some things but a lesson learned!

We stopped at Teluk Intan on the way back famous for two things – a mini leaning Tower of Pisa and noodles steamed with dried prawns – the first we admired and took photos of, the second we of course had to try. Along with the noodles we were ‘treated’ to Hong Kong desserts, Gingko and Barley and coconut with coconut jelly. Can’t say we aren’t experiencing the different cultures! We felt the need to return KT and Bee Yong’s hospitality so we invited them to dinner. Now we have to find something that I can cook with limited facilities and equipment!

18^th June – our Building Permit has been granted by the City of Wanneroo, building work can now commence – yippee! Hopefully they will start in the next week or so and we will see some changes to our little patch of sand. The builders have sent us a link to their new website where we can log on and see progress on our build, something we are pioneering, should be good.

Having found a menu I thought I could carry off – water melon and feta cheese salad, bouillabaisse with garlic bread and passion fruit cheesecake, KT and Bee Yong cried off to the relief of both parties I think. We had the cheesecake anyway and it was delicious, made with passion fruit from KT and Bee Yong’s tree.

We decided in the meantime that we might go a bit stir crazy if we stayed here for a couple more months so we will be moving on. It is beautiful and peaceful but remote and with no transport we are pretty much stuck here unless we catch the shuttle bus but that goes at 12.45 and comes back at 6.30, a long time to fill at Tesco’s! So we have Thailand, Hat Yai and Phuket, Langkawi, a duty free island, beer at 50p apparently, and Penang to look forward to, after that who knows? Penang is for the duration of the Olympics and it was quite a task to find somewhere in our price bracket with sports channels but hopefully, fingers crossed we have!

KT and Bee Yong invited us out again the next week, this time to a crab farm. A friend of KT’s owns it, as the age of 48 he decided he no longer wanted to be a mechanic and researched how to breed these crabs on the internet – he now runs a very successful business selling 2.000kg a week to restaurants. The crabs were mud crabs and you eat them whole as they have soft shells, however, the way they get the soft shells isn’t very pretty. A worker cuts off the crab’s legs with a pair of scissors and the crab is placed in a salt water tank, there it grows new legs and as the legs are attached to a new shell the old shell is cast off and there is a soft shell underneath – at this point they are harvested, frozen and packed off for a tasty treat. We couldn’t bring ourselves to try them though being rather squeamish of brains and intestines etc. What we did try though was coconut straight from the tree, first the juice then a jelly like substance inside that presumably forms the coconut we are familiar with and a papaya straight from the tree – very nice.

KT also took us to his pig farm, very impressive, no smallholding this but a very efficient and very large pig factory! The farm is surrounded by palm oil trees and, in the middle, where the government put overhead electric wires, a little oasis of lime trees, bananas and pineapple because the palms would grow too tall. We picked loads of limes and some rambutin to take back with us, yummy.