Island Time, Ready or Not

Everyone says the monsoon isn't over until a couple of weeks after Chinese New Year. But Kapas Island was mostly open and we were itching to get out there. We also have a new 'Fellow' to show around.

We got up way too early, and arrived in Marang with plenty of time to spare. Wandering around the market, I picked up a few snacks to try.

 I love the way they do them up in plastic bags with plenty of air to stop them being crushed. (I just hope they don't blow in the bags to fill them with air!) What is it? Well, the green things are little cakey things, sort of moist and jellyish, with coconut. The yellow things are corn kernels - sort of bigger and softer than you'd expect - with coconut (didn't really like them much!). The pink things are jelly, pink colour but no real flavour and hardly sweet at all, rather too firm ... with coconut.

While we were waiting on the jetty for the boat across to the island, we saw an unusual disturbance in the shallow estuary at low tide.

The local people told us it was 'memerang' - which is Malay for 'otter'. We watched him chewing away on a fish he caught. We were a bit surprised, thinking otters were cold weather animals.

We had chosen to travel in one of the bigger ferries - not being sure how Linda would feel about smashing along in a speed-boat. We were glad of it with the waves being a bit bigger than they usually are later in the season.

We had also chosen to stay in the resort we always used to stay in - called 'Pak Ya' (Uncle Ya). Unfortunately, with the departure from the island last year of our old friend Zai, the place has become fairly run down.

So we ended up walking down to the next bay to the resort known as "KBC" (Kapas Beach Chalets) for our meals.

This resort restaurant has a polished wooden floor, and varnished wooden tables!

AND it is a lovely place to relax and read a book. Quite civilised and pleasantly western! (That's Linda on the sofa. I'm sitting at one of the tables further back.)

We'll go back out in a couple of weeks. (Next weekend we have to present at a conference down in Kuantan, four hours drive from here.) And we are planning to stay at KBC this time.

The weather was cloudy, and pleasantly cool, and as soon as we got back the wind and the rain started up again - the monsoon isn't quite over. Hopefully it will be by next time.