Blog 11: 24th April 2014. Finding Nemo

Over the hills and far away

Previous visitors to the hotel had described the sounds from the nearby mosque as ranging from very negative to highly positive if you happen to be that way inclined. We had totally forgotten this, until at 5am the incredibly loud recorded voice of the chanted calling to prayers burst through our door-frame and window like a rocket launch! I could now appreciate what the previous visitor had said, though to Emma and me this was a cultural experience, and I actually felt the voice was rather soothing, having no idea what it was saying. The prayer stopped after about 5 minutes of melodic chanting, and about 5 minutes later a short chant indicated the end of the session, I likened it to the all-clear from an air-raid warning! We went straight back to sleep, and had another hour or so before having to get up ridiculously early for breakfast.

It was about 7.30 when we entered the breakfast hall. The silver domes had a variety of curry, spice, rice and noodle dishes within them, steaming away on a soft paraffin flame. The breakfast room was simple, with tea and coffee the far corner next to the breakfast cereals and milk, and a toaster with bread and plastic pots of jam nearby. We couldn't really stomach a traditional Malay breakfast of curry and rice at this time of the day, so opted for the western choices of toast and jam and chocolate-flavoured cereal, with tea and orange juice, and sat talking and observing the ten-or-so other guests scattered throughout the room. We were up this early because the bus from the Langkawi Coral company was scheduled to pick us up from outside the hotel.

8am came and went. Emma and I, already in swimming-friendly clothing, were sitting by the main entrance to the hotel, in the car park, avoiding ants which were crawling around nearby flowerpots. Emma was sitting on a step; I chose this time to take the jack to the car and check the front-left wheel for loose bearings, or worse still, a loose wheel. Thankfully, nothing abnormal detected! People were sitting chatting and eating breakfast it the food stall on the opposite side of the road, the one we'd enquired about the laundry yesterday. A western couple in matching blue and pink jogging suits bounced past us, sweating profusely and bright pink. Nobody had told them about the climate. Admittedly at this time of the morning it wasn't too hot, probably mid-20's, certainly nowhere near as bad as we knew it would get once the sun shone from directly overhead. We watched as a few cyclists rode past, from the villages up the road to their places of work on Pantai Cenang, and a dozen motorcyclists and scooterists buzzed past, mostly on the wrong side of the road in the dirt, and none of them wearing helmets. Some had children on the back, of course helmetless too, t-shirts and shorts flapping in the breeze.

After a while of sitting there watching the island slowly awaken, we noticed increasing numbers of 56-seater coaches going up and down the road, bearing the logos of the travel agencies we'd seen in the airport yesterday. They were all the same colour scheme, white with a green lower portion, and the only differentiating feature was their unique logos. There was no sign of Langkawi Coral, or indeed Kasina - we didn't know which would provide the transport. I contemplated telephoning the number on the receipt for the trip, our pick-up having been booked solely on handwritten paper and by what seemed like a voicemail message yesterday, but incredibly the system worked and our coach finally arrived to pick us up, its pneumatics hissing and squeaking to bring it to a standstill in front of our carpark.
"Mr Jah-mez? Dua?" said the driver, looking at a ticklist of names;
"Yup, that's us!"
He gave us two purple wristbands and two stickers, without explanation, before ushering us into the vehicle. We climbed aboard, noting a scattering of orang-orang putih already aboard, dressed similarly to us, though worryingly some carried snorkels and masks and towels - we hadn't thought of that!!

Once we'd settled into our front right-hand seats the driver pulled away, though left the door open and kept the coach in 2nd gear. Before I begun to question why too much, he indicated to pull in and came to a stop outside the grander looking hotel just opposite the laundry, and tooted the horn. A couple more whites came out to meet the bus, and had their identities checked too. The guy was about my height and age but light haired and heavily built, with presumably his girlfriend accompanying him, slim with auburn short-cropped hair. Both were looking as sea-sidey as the rest of us, and both of them carried masks and snorkels with them too. We quietly hoped that these would be provided for us! Visas anyone? We learnt that our two seat-neighbours were from Germany, and that they had been recently staying in Shanghai at a friend's penthouse apartment. Lucky for some!

The coach took a right along the main strip of Cenang beach, stopping to pick up about 10 more tourists along the way, before heading out of town and turning back on itself but on a single-carriageway main road through the southern hills of the island, heading eventually toward the main town of Kuah which lay to the south of our beach but over the headland stretching far out to the south-east of us, about 12 miles away in a straight line. The driver was just as reckless as the one for the Concorde Inn KLIA, the coach's tyres surely digging-in heavily to the road surface as we performed some fast corners on route! We noted typical Malay homesteads passing us by, wooden shacks on stilts and the more modern concrete bungalows with porches and driveways, scattered throughout the fields and trees of the surrounding countryside. A few cars passed us in the opposite direction, but it was generally quiet until we reached the outskirts of Kuah itself, marked by an increase in the density of buildings and streetlights, as well as the cars and people dotted around. The coast was to our right all the way, though we couldn't see the water. The hills all sloped to the right, and we were on relatively flat land toward the end of our journey. Driving down the main strip of Kuah, and noting a large shopping mall with a sign for "DUTY FREE SHOPPING" attached to it, we hung a right and headed for a more scenic area, lined with trees and more decorative streetlights, with open spaces and large ponds scattered around it. This looked like a peninsula of land, and indeed it was. Our destination lay before us, a large but low-lying white-roofed shopping centre complex built around one of the main jetty, Jeti Kuah.

The thirty-or so of us disembarked from the bus and after milling around for a bit, followed a man in a red Langkawi Coral polo shirt across from the bus park toward a set of open-fronted booths set into one of the walls of the shopping complex, noting that one of the booths of displayed the Langkawi Coral logo. Our coachload joined with more people who had presumably arrived from other coaches, and we all gathered around a guy who looked like he was in charge, and over the hubbub of excitable tourists, we were instructed to put on our wristbands. Some people had red ones, others purple. We knew not why - maybe they were diving, as opposed to just snorkelling? It turns out we'd find out later. Wristbands donned, and payments taken from those who were yet to pay (not including ourselves), the leader took us through an archway of the shopping centre and stopped us next to a busy road where shoppers were being dropped off and collected by car. Again we waited, a queue forming by a few people next to a set of traffic lights, but nobody really knowing for what reason! Reassuring looks from others with equally negligible amounts of knowledge about the situation eventually put the whole group at ease as we stood there. I questioned why we were queuing, and whether I had time to buy an underwater camera, but with nobody of any particular authority to ask, decided to wait it out, after a brief discussion with Emma!

Eventually we heard a shout from the group leader, a middle-aged Malay man wearing a faded cyan t-shirt, again with the Langkawi Coral logo on its left breast-plate, and the crowd started to move toward the set of lights, ironically not led by those who had queued - typical. We trickled across the busy road, much like sand flowing through big boulders, and were led inside the shopping mall itself, toward a less busy area of it down a dimly lit corridor. We passed by several shops, most of which were closed for some reason, and some market stalls selling sweets and cuddly toys, manned by eager salesmen. Eventually it became clear where we were going, as signs to Customs started appearing and an unmanned desk, complete with rectangular grey metal-detector archway stood in the middle of the corridor we were heading down. We bypassed this, and continued through the now port area of the jetty complex, and eventually emerged at the covered quayside. It grew louder and hotter as we exited the air-conditioned shelter of the complex, the relative peace giving way to the sound of diesel engines and smell of raw and burnt diesel fuel oil wafting through the air. The high-pitched scream of a turbocharged diesel generator filled the air as the hundred-or-so of us approached a small twin-hulled passenger ferry, again with our familiar logo on its side.

By some quirk of logic, Emma and I were now amongst the handful of people leading the pack, following our Malay-speaking company representatives. We were told to wait a minute while everyone formed a rough queue to board our white and red catamaran. Our boat was one of a few moored up on this side of the dock; we saw on another jetty across the small patch of water a similar boat, but single-hulled, seemingly ready to go, its cooling water sloshing out from a discharge pipe low-down on its starboard side, and whiffs of black diesel smoke puffed from its funnel occasionally. There were a few faded multicoloured fishing vessels of all sizes dotted about the place too; some lengths of rope and black hoses lay scattered toward the middle of the concrete jetty protruberance. Eventually the all-clear was given, and the metal gate allowing access to the hand-railed gangway was opened, and with a clatter of feet-on-aluminium, our leading pack boarded the 30-or-so metre long catamaran first, arriving on its starboard stern muster area. We were ushered into the main cabin, away from the now roaring  noise of the turbocharged generators, and an accompanying hot blast of air from two large cooling grilles just before the wooden entry doors. The cabin was well lit by windows along its perimeter. A wooden bar area formed its aftermost part, protruding between the two main doors on either side. Seats were all forward-facing save for eight at the furthest end of the cabin against the forward bulkhead. There were rows of three seats on either sides of the cabin by the window, about 15 rows in total, separated from a central bulk of rows of eight seats by two main aisles. We headed forward, under the nautical-standard grey metal grills of the ceiling, up the right hand aisle and turned left along an aisle at the front, before electing to sit in the far left-most seats of the cabin, allowing us a good forward and port-side view from the right-angle of windows here. We waited as the remaining passengers trickled in and took their seats, filling up nearly every seat in the cabin. With a shudder and a quiet roar, we felt each of the two main diesels kick into life, adding to the noise of the generators and hum of conversations in the cabin. A couple of old cathode-ray 21" TVs on both sides of the cabin kicked into life, and started displaying a Welcome Aboard video, with scenes of Langkawi and its coral and tourist attractions displaying on the screen before the important yet unceremoniously ignored-by-all safety video came on, complete with inaudible commentary from small tinny speakers located in the now-rattling ceiling.

I took the time to look at the GPS; Langkawi, an island about 30km wide and 20km tall, was situated about 30km to the west of the coast of Malaysia, just south of the Malaysia-Thailand border and a short hop from the island of Phuket which lay to the north. We didn't have a clue where we were actually headed on this boat - I had assumed the destination to be a small atoll not far from the main island, but perusing the satellite view, found only one island within reasonable range of Langkawi itself, a kidney-bean shaped island named Pulau Payar. A quick Google confirmed this as a popular tourist destination to see coral reefs, and entering its latitude/longitude coordinates from a marine navigation website into my phone revealed it to be about 30km south-east of our current location at Kuah. The Malaysian peninsula lay beyond this island, its closest point being the town of Alor Star about 25km to its east. I hadn't realised we'd be going quite so far out to sea! This twin-diesel catamaran, complete with "Made in Australia" stickers on its windows, was probably manufactured by the Incat corporation of S.E. Australia, the same as made the 86m and later 112m cross-channel catamarans for Hoverspeed. Knowing this craft was capable of achieving about 35 knots (about 65kph) we would spend just over half an hour between ports, including manoeuvring time.

We eventually set off, the captain choosing to "spring off" from the jetty, pulling the aft away to the port-side before steering left and engaging the forward engines. We watched as the buildings of Kuah were left behind us as we gathered speed, neatly avoiding the numerous fishing and pleasure vessels dotted around the bay area between Kuah and another couple of large islands just to the south, Pulau Dayang and its smaller easterly neighbour Pulau Tuba. By the time we were clear of land and heading directly for the GPS waypoint I'd set earlier, we were already at speed, I was pleased to note we were travelling at approximately 35 knots, and after about 5 minutes we were allowed out on deck.

The waters of the Malacca Strait were calm as a millpond that day, the sun shining brightly overhead and only a few clouds scattered throughout the sky. We stood on deck, peering over the sides out to sea, hair being tousled by the gusting 60kph winds blowing salt spray at us from left, right and centre. We had to shout to be heard over the twin turbo-diesels, the wind, and the noise of the powerful wake as it was forcibly pumped behind the boat, Newton's 3rd law played out in full for all to see, should they have cared to look. A small hump of land could already be seen in the distance directly ahead of us, with another hump, just a dot, to its left. From where we stood the main hump looked thin and long, like Pulau Payar had looked on the map earlier. The occasional small wooden fishing boat could be seen in the near distance as we passed by at speed, and a couple of smaller touristy-looking boats could be seen passing in the opposite direction to us, about a mile away to the south-west. These would have been the boats we'd seen from the air as we made our final approach to Langkawi International yesterday.

We'd been travelling in a more-or-less straight line for about half an hour, when we were asked to return to our seats in the cabin; Langkawi was now a small, haze-faded feature on the horizon behind us, and our destination island was looming ahead of us. We could see it was rocky, and entirely covered in trees, with no sign of any sand on its coastline between the rocks and the azure waters surrounding it. Now inside, as we slowed, the boat passed directly between the north-eastern small island and the main island of Payar, and rounding the corner, taking a turn to the south-west, a small sandy bay suddenly came into view, complete with an large, white PTFE-covered offshore platform advertising Langkawi Coral, with various boats moored up to it. You could see people on the platform, and a selection of plastic chairs and tables were laid out on it at one end; at the other, a couple of wooden shacks stood, presumably kitchens, loos, generators and equipment stores. A long wooden jetty protruded into the blue waters from the middle of the sandy beach, just off-centre, and a couple of small boats shuttled people between it and the landing stage. A collection of small, inoffensive buildings lined the beach itself, just at the tree-line. People were already dotted around, but too far away to make out clearly.

The catamaran moored up to the jetty with a bump, starboard-side first, and the engines were shut down. Our friendly group leader stood up at the front, and explained the reason for the red and purple wristbands - some people, us included, with the purple bands were to be served a simple packed lunch and drinks by staff on the island itself. Others were to receive a sit-down buffet-style meal on the floating platform! Anyone wishing to upgrade to the buffet would have to pay an extra Rm200 each! No thanks. We let the red wristbands off first, and they filtered onto the landing stage. It was our turn next, and we were informed that once on the platform we'd receive our buoyancy aids (NB: NOT "life-jackets"), and be shuttled by smaller boat to the beach where we could then pick up our snorkels and masks. Overcoming the undulating action of the boat, we climbed across the gangway and walked around the platform's perimeter, joining a queue to collect our buoyancy aids. While waiting, Emma noticed that basically everybody else had a towel, and was wearing sandals. Two things neither of us had thought about! Never mind, it was a bit too late to turn around and go back.

We received our blue buoyancy aids and waited by a blank area of the platform for a small boat to appear, more like a floating golf caddy than a leisurecraft, complete with raised canopy suspended on poles. The captain of the craft held the bow of his ship against the platform by keeping full-revs on the engine, allowing people to board clumsily one by one, encouraged on board by a member of staff on the platform. We crashlanded into our seats, and by the time we'd noticed that the floor was actually glass and that you could see a few fish swimming around beneath in the water clouded by multiple propellers, we were reversing away from the platform and making way toward the jetty. A similar head-on collision with the jetty at the other end of the short hop allowed all the passengers to disembark from the shuttlecraft, and we disembarked up a flight of concrete stairs to a covered holding area, to allow stragglers to gather around. I have no idea how we always ended up at the front, but I suspect it might have something to do with the international Ministry of Slow Walkers and their accompanying lackadaisical mannerisms!

Selamat Datang ke Pulau Payar! The sandy beach, blue seas and jetty of the coral island of Payar.

The bunch shuffled along, straining to hear the words of our guide. Lunch would be at 1230 til 1330; please wear buoyancy aids at all times, especially if going east of the jetty. Snorkels and masks would be collected on the beach. Enjoy, but be sensible, don't chase the fish or steal any corals! Briefing over, we walked the length of the jetty, and scrambled across the concrete at its landward end toward the sheltered buildings along the beach. These turned out to be a mass of tables and benches, to be used for storing belongings and eating lunch on. We collected our snorkels and masks, our purple wristbands marked with a number with which to identify us later. It was already 1145, but we decided to ditch our belongings and trainers and head for the inviting water, donning our Factor 50+ (what did the "+" equal?!) and hiding our bags and tying them to some table legs for security!

I remembered that I had been to Pulau Payar a very long time ago. Back then it was quiet, there were no concrete buildings or hundreds of people, simply a couple of dozen with a tour guide. There was a wooden causeway lining the coastline along the beach and for a few hundred yards either side of it, which was designed to allow you to regard the sea and rocks beneath without getting your feet wet. This causeway, though still in existence, was now closed off to the public due to wear and tear. The water had also been cleaner back then, now standing on the edge the signs of the island being a popular tourist destination were all too clear, the occasional plastic bottle or crisp wrapper seen bobbing around in the more sheltered areas of the bay, and the water not being anywhere near as crystal clear as it had been 15 years ago! Never mind, it was still clearer than the Mediterranean, and still a darned-sight warmer than it when we stepped into it from the hot sand, sharp underfoot from millions of shell fragments. By the time we'd waded in up to our waists, about 10m from the small waves breaking on the beach, we could easily see dozens of little fish zipping around between our legs and around the water. At this point, mask in hand, Emma now revealed she hadn't the foggiest of how to snorkel, and so I gave a quick lesson. She wasn't keen to practise the snorkel clearing drill of blowing out hard to eject water! Irrespective of this, she took to it like a fish to water, and had no problem swimming around head down and admiring the sandy seafloor below us. The diving signal for "Are you OK?" is an O-shape between thumb and forefinger, with the three remaining fingers pointing upwards; "Go up to the surface" is a thumbs-up sign, and "Go down" is a thumbs-down sign. I always make sure I look for the three fingers perfectly straight in the "Are you OK?" - someone not willing to let on that they're not as OK as they'd like you to think may have bent fingers!

The bay was about 200m wide; about 200m from the shore there was a floating inflatable boom, complete with dangling net, marking the safe territory for swimmers. Observing the colour of the water changing from bright blue to dark green, it was clear that further out from our location lay the reefs, and reefs meant life and fish, so we initially headed to the right (based on my previous experiences of the area) to try to find interesting fish. Emma had hoped to see clown fish and the whole cast of Finding Nemo while we were out here! Nearing the right-hand-side reefs it became apparent that this was not in fact where the life was; only a few fish darted around beneath us, and the coral to my disappointment was not brightly coloured and filled with thousands of fronds of anenomes and seaplants swaying in the currents, but here was dull-coloured and for all intents and purposes, dead. It was a huge blow compared to how it had looked in the past. The odd thing about swimming over coral, especially when snorkelling, is that you can hear the giant organism breathing. As soon as your ears find the solace of the water, the busy sounds from the surface immediately cancelled out, you can hear clicking and crackling noises. It's like putting popping candy on your tongue, only the sounds surround you, and you can nearly "feel" them as much as hear them, from all around. Even this brown-coloured reef was cracking and popping, I have no idea as to what actually causes the sound. 

The coral reefs of the Malacca Strait, it turns out, according to a Wikipedia article anyway, suffered a terrible episode of bleaching only a few years ago, the sad impact of global warming and tourism. Despite being the cold truth of evolution in action, it was sad to see. Swimming over living corals is similar to being thrown head-first into a flowerbed, or being put into a blender with a Rembrandt. Everywhere you look you see colour, bright flashes of intense hues coming at you from everywhere, the fish needing to be colourful to be camouflaged from predators! Swimming with a bleached coral is like swimming through a graveyard. Every now and then a recognisable coral brain shape, or the classical spiky white forking skeletons can be seen poking up at you, but the colourful fish would have had nowhere to hide from the brown and black predators lurking in the crags of the reef. I consider myself very lucky to have the memories of swimming in this unique and treasured ecosystem before it was hurt so badly by global warming. Do it while you still have a chance!

We let the current drift us eastwards, along the bay to the far left, and the varieties and number of fish started to improve; there were now at least some colourful specimens of the marine world, brightly coloured blue or pearlescent white, and a few orange/white/black angel fish lazily swimming by. Occasionally you'd feel a sharp twang somewhere, and look down seeing a fish have a go at biting you like a mosquito would. A quick flick of the limb would be enough to discourage its attempt at eating you alive! The coral to the left, despite being nearer the boat drop-off area, also seemed more alive, though with only the hardiest of species. It was still predominantly brown in colour, you could see the marks and shapes where plants would once have graced its surface, though now within crags and cracks you could see petrifying-looking black spiny anemones, their hemisphere of dozens of 6"-long black spears poking out from a central black core. You really wouldn't want to stand on one of them! Some huge fish swam by us, easily half a foot long, and white/pearlescent in colour, accompanied by hundreds of smaller fish swimming past in a shoal. Unfortunately, no Nemo, but there were a couple of Dorys! I was delighted to see an increase in colourful vegetation coming into view, particularly in the more protected parts of the reef's superskeleton. The occasional bright flash of blue alerted us to the presence of incredible sinusoidal plants growing in similarly shaped crags, about half a foot long and a few inches wide. It is just possible that these are plants recolonising the once bright and beautiful reef. I sincerely hope so, because it's equally possible that they're the sole survivors of their golden days. 

Our stomachs and my Casio watch told us that it was lunchtime, so we headed for the shore and swam through the higher density of crowds not brave enough to venture far into the water. There were sunworshippers here too, blatantly they were Westerners, who didn't seem in the remotest bit interested in venturing into the water despite having paid to do so. I found it hard to excuse such a blatant waste of a trip! Never mind. We headed for our bags and finding a family already seated at that particular table, had to move further along the rows of tables to a pew at the far end from the food being served, and took our place near to some Chinese already eating their lunches. A friendly middle-aged Malay tourguide approached us, telling us that the Chinese never stop talking! We weren't entirely sure what would be appropriate to reply, nor indeed if our new tablefriends were fluent in English, so were very diplomatic and said "It's great that they can have so much to talk about!". If he was unimpressed by the answer he didn't show it. 

I left Emma to guard the bags and seats to go collect the food, and after battling my way to the front of the enclosure and front of the queue, had to return empty handed to look for the stickers we'd been given earlier! Damn. Second time lucky, and two foldable polystyrene trays in hand I approached the drinks counter, receiving two bottles of ice lemon tea. And then a problem happened! We also were to be given two oranges, and two bottles of water. Good God! I had swimming trunks on and no pockets, and now 8 irregularly shaped items to carry, with no shoes on, across a wet sandy floor, through throngs of unexpectedly-reversing tourists! The oranges went into my pockets, becoming a suddenly dangerous opponent to the weak elastic of my shorts! The bottles under one arm, the cans under the others, and the food in hand, I waddled my way back to the table at the other end, now seeming about 5 miles away, and crash-landed onto the table, bottles rolling away from my impact site. Ah well, any landing you can walk away from is a good one!

Lunch was rice, deep-fried chicken and a side-salad. Washed down with the tea, and finished with the orange, it wasn't too bad considering the whole trip plus food had only cost us £20 each! Our friendly Malay tour guide came back for a chat. He said he liked the English, which was lucky for us. He'd worked there nearly 15 years, and was probably working the day I'd visited so long ago. He recalled that the place used to be far less developed, and you had more freedom to explore back in those days. Ah well, we were here for the present. He offered us to join him and a family after lunch in swimming beyond the jetty (where buoyancy aids were "mandatory"), to see bigger and more fish in that area. We agreed that we'd join him, and finished our lunch relatively quickly to meet his schedule.

Back into the water we went, satisfactorily satiated, and headed in the direction from which we'd exited previously, the man's blue shirt and orange-tipped snorkel just visible above the waterline, surrounded by the blue buoyancy aids and snorkels of the family he'd mentioned. He was right, there were more fish here. The water was rougher here too, being funnelled against the rocky shoreline; the waves were quite high, at times leading me to fear being beached on the coral and possible anemones below! We ventured under the concrete jetty between its rows of cylindrical pillars, tourists waving down at us and taking pictures, and entered uncharted territory. We were the only group of swimmers in this area, the water now clear but very dark from the reef below. We saw the group, either Indians or Malays, intently looking downwards into the depths, as if they'd lost something. The coral below us was big, still brown but with some aspects of dark vegetation growing from it. A couple of big gaps in the coral revealed the sandy sea-floor below, at least 3 metres deep - quite a long way down compared to the main bay, where you could stand on tip-toe. We thought we saw what the family was looking at, a shoal of big fish lazily ambling (if fish can amble) in the swell. Pretty cool actually.

Then the fish scattered, like you see in movies! Whoosh. Gone. Darting for cover. Two other fish appeared in the void; slender, like missiles. Silver above, white below; two beady eyes looking sideways and forward, menacingly, and black-tipped pectoral and dorsal fins. About a foot long each, and looking like they could give you quite a bite. Reef sharks. That was what the family was there to see! The fish were right to be scared away; Emma and I who had drifted slightly from the family also hastily rejoined our own shoal of clumsy marine explorers - safety in numbers was a default setting in the human subconsciousness it seemed! The guides had said earlier that you'd lose a finger, or even a hand, or at worst, your life, if you antagonised the sharks; and the nearest hospital was at least an hour away, with no air-rescue services available. Incidentally they'd only told us this when we were standing on the island, boat already departed. Great! The sharks were wary of the floating blue and fluorescent human blobs, all staring and pointing, kicking up the water with their fins with blatant disregard for the rows of teeth behind the pointy noses of the predators. The unbreakable rule, when faced with animals of ferocity, is that you don't need to be the fastest to be safe: just faster than the slowest! There was no danger of Emma or me being the slowest among this group of splish-splashing people. We stayed for a while, bobbing up and down in the swell by the jetty, before moving to a different area of the reef to see what it had to offer.

We'd wished we had an underwater camera at this point, with the added variation in species and scenery, so I ventured back to the beach through the increasingly dense crowds, amorphous blobs with snorkels and bums in the air, oblivious to everything but the fish beneath them. Underwater cameras were sold, said our now landed tour leader, but thanks to our status as members of a captive audience, they were being sold for the crazy price of Rm100 (100 Malaysian Ringgit, or £20) - easily more than 5-times what they were actually worth! There were waterproof iPhone covers available too, for Rm150 - but that was even more excessive, and besides, I didn't have an iPhone (nor was I prepared to test my Galaxy S2's resistance to the Andaman Sea!). I asked for the underwater camera, and was told to wait. The guy got on his personal radio, a small PMR-446 type device, and spoke something into the microphone. He then turned to a young female colleague who started walking in the direction of the jetty. The guide informed me that the camera would be brought in by boat from the "mothership", and would be about 20 minutes. He'd come and find me when it arrived, and take the money then. Luckily Malaysian notes are all plastic, so I popped the two Rm50's into my pocket and rejoined Emma out in the water, who was casually bobbing up and down some way out, still looking for clownfish. 

We spent more time bobbing around and trying to find exotic fish species, with me checking the shore occasionally for our Malay tourguide. After a while, I spotted him looking for me, with a shiny metallic bag in-hand, so I swam over to meet him and he removed the Fuji disposable camera from its protective packet, and held out a hand for the two (soggy) Rm50 bills. After showing me the trigger and the winding levers on the camera, basically a cardboard disposable camera encased in a see-through rubber-sealed perspex box with protruding buttons, I said terima kasih and headed back to the water, winding the camera to the first shot as I did so, ready to use the 27-or-so exposures on the film.

I found Emma again, and after trying to pose for various shots underwater by holding our breath and pointing-and-hoping with the camera, I gave it to her to take a few photos that she wanted, while I bobbed around nearby looking at coral and enjoying the cracking sounds coming from below, some loud enough I swore I felt the vibrations. All of a sudden I heard a yelp! I looked up, just in time to see Emma take off - swimming rapidly toward shore - some of the best swimming I'd seen her do in a long time, camera still in hand. I reached out to grab her leg but she was too quick, and disappeared off! Amused, I followed. And followed. And followed. Until I had to overtake her and grab her arm before she stopped swimming. Breaking the surface, panting, she had a partly-scared, partly-relieved look in her eyes! She hurriedly explained something about a photo, a big fish and cramp. I had to get her to repeat, before I could understand what she was getting at! It turned out that she wanted to take a photo of a big fish that was casually swimming in front of her. Just as she was ready to take the photo, camera outstretched, apparently the fish had darted straight for her! Spooked, she had tried to swim off, but managed to get a cramp in her leg at exactly the same time! Unable to simply stand up on the bottom for fear of putting her feet in a spiky sea anemone, she had simply continued swimming for quite some time, with the aim of beaching! I didn't really know what to say! She laughed about it, eventually!

It was eventually time for us to get out of the water and dry off; though typically we'd forgotten to bring towels, so we opted to stand in the 35°C breeze in the sun by the water's edge, and dry off by evaporation - which was surprisingly inefficient! So we were still dripping by the time we had to get back to the beach hut to hand in our snorkels and masks, and even after the shuttleboat ride to the main catamaran, we understood why the Langkawi Coral boat had plastic-coated seats! We found a seat amidships, not near our window this time, and awaited departure. The sea was a bit rougher than before, and a few clouds had rolled in from the west, but it didn't look like it would rain anytime soon. The big diesels started up and before long we were on our way, departing the floating pontoon, still with people milling around it, mostly staff. Most of the people on board were fast asleep by the time we'd cleared the two islands of Payar, but Emma and me, still needing to dry off, opted to go out on the noisy and diesel-scented deck, to enjoy the sun and scenery, and take advantage of the 30-knot winds!

to be continued...

-authentic chinese food with knives and forks and lots of Russians

Blog 2: 15th April 2014. Flight day! And pre-holiday holiday

T minus zero days... and a trip to Windsor

Our flight was due to leave at 2200hrs, and we were in London. What better then, than to have a day trip somewhere! Emma and I with much deliberation (i.e. "Shall we go somewhere, even though our very expensive flight leaves today?" "Yeah alright!") decided to hop on a bus from Hatton Cross to nearby Feltham station, to take a train, and disappear off to nearby Windsor for the day, with no plan for what to do when we got there other than the knowledge that it had a bloody big castle and was near some famous school. So we set off, and stoically fought off the nippy April wind, albeit under a brilliantly blue spring sky, dressed in aeroplane-friendly clothes (not having brought coats, owing to the plan of going to Malaysia!). For want of imagery, I was dressed in a stylish blue fleece accompanied by stylish blue trousers, which could cleverly be converted to shorts by means of a pair of cunningly included zips!

Our train arrived at the high-walled and immaculate "Windsor and Eton Riverside" station. The station itself boasted delicately placed ornate lampposts decorating its sweeping twin platforms, bordered on one side by a high (yet graffiti-free) sandstone wall, and the other by a low iron railing, leading north to the station car-park and eventually River Thames and town of Eton. The station building comprised of a neat prism of a glass roof, supported by Hammerite red iron beams, and little else apart from a short concourse, automatic ticket barriers and a couple of information stands. 

Windsor Riverside and Eton Station platform

Turning left out of the main station exit we were immediately impressed by the look and feel of Windsor town's cleanliness, neatness, and traditional architecture, overlooked by the incredible and imposing castle atop the hill. Across the road to the south of the station on the Datchet Road was the tudor styled Royal Oak pub, to its left the 1930s style sandstone buildings of St George's School. We crossed the road via a zebra crossing, and made a right turn toward signs saying Town Centre, marvelling at the castle perched above us to the left. We turned left at the George V memorial, a great horizontal limestone monument, complete with bird baths and fountains. Thames Street, which was lined with Union Flags, took us past a stone back-gate to Windsor castle before it climbed to the right, orthogonal to the slope of the castle's hill. Thames Street was a great example of a traditional English high street, albeit lined on the left by the slopes of Windsor Castle. To the right it sported 4-storey pre-war buildings, with traditional wooden and glass shop fronts containing local businesses, cafes, fudge shop and even a Japanese restaurant. The old-fashioned Theatre Royal, still immaculate, was in the middle of this row of shops, about half-way up the hill before it turned to the left in front of the castle itself, and had just finished showing Jesus Christ superstar a couple of days beforehand. Its cream coloured ground-floor paintwork didn't detract from its inviting overhanging entranceway, adorned with dozens of lightbulbs so typical of show business. We made it just past the theatre, but on the opposite side of the road, before noticing a bus stop, which had on it an advert for the amphibious Windsor Duck!

And the spending started there...

Duck!

The letters YOLO came to mind, and were quickly quashed for the sake of all things street-cred. But they had an impact, and I was just about to look up the prices and timetable of the duck tours when astute Emma pointed out that they were printed just below the advert, and that the next tour was not fully booked and would arrive shortly! In the stiff April breeze we waited in typical British style, a couple of metres up the road from the relative warmth of the bus shelter. There were a couple of people in it, you see, and one can't be too careful these days! Especially with pensioners like that. A crowd of tourists joined us (the pot here definitely calling the kettle all sorts of names, as I had a camera fixed to my hand), and we were sort of swallowed up among them for a while before the bright yellow duck with its massive tyres came trundling up the hill. She was a beast of a machine, a great big pointy bow to the front giving way to the cockpit above, sporting three strong panoramic windows and a roof. Its roofed passenger cabin seated at least 24 people, and it had retractable plastic sides that could be pulled down in the unlikely even of rain. It had an afterdeck just rearward of its second set of wheels, the deck containing the retractable metal staircase allowing embarking/disembarking of passengers. Not waiting to see why the dozen or so camera-bearers were waiting around, we did the very un-British thing of being assertive, and determining from the crewmember at the rear of the machine, after the previous passenger load disembarked, that there was space and it would only cost us ₤18 each to board, we took our seats and awaited departure.

The duck tour, albeit extremely chilly, was good fun! It took us around the west and south aspects of the castle, including its main gates, and down toward the aptly titled Long Walk. Before it left the castle behind, we noted the very long queue of people waiting to actually get access to the castle itself, stretching from the entry hut most of the way down the first stretch of St Albans Street, a good hundred yards or so. We waved at them, and they waved at us, a couple taking photos of us taking photos of them (for evidence, I assume).

http://www.windsorducktours.co.uk/

The duck, which we were reassured was purpose built, and not a renovated ex-military machine (reading between the lines - it wasn't going to blow up like the unfortunate sinkings in Liverpool and London), seemed to have only three methods of moving when on land: Bone-jarring halt, back-breaking acceleration into low-range gear, and shriekingly-loud but not shriekingly-fast high-range gear. We were taken around popular tourist hotspots with commentary by a local Windsor boy, who remembers fondly stealing apples from Her Majesty's back garden. The route took us to the south of the castle, out into the open countryside, following parallel to and then cutting across the miles long "The Long Walk", a directly straight path leading from the castle itself to a huge statue of a horse and rider, the King George III statue, visible from miles around, situated in Windsor Great Park, a park apparently containing the large(st?) man-made series of lakes and ponds!

Duck!

The Long Walk - look back towards Windsor Castle

The machine then cut back through Windsor town, our commentator described how the recent flooding had devastated the low-lying floodplains of the surrounding countryside of the Thames. We had a good narrative of the stories of the many bridges, and the most recent one to be built that had also been destroyed owing to disagreements between the landowners on either side of it leading to its very poor construction, before WWII! We were then taken to the industrial and less attractive areas of Windsor (Prince Charles described one 1960s concrete block of flats as the ugliest building he'd ever seen!). The reason for this being access to the River Thames upstream of the town itself, via a sports centre complex! We were given a safety briefing, told not to do silly things like run around or jump overboard, and shuffled around a bit in the half-full passenger compartment to adjust the ballast of the soon-to-be boat.

Entering the River Thames oh-so-cautiously, the driver (now captain) engaged the propeller and we bobbed off downstream at a leisurely pace toward Windsor. On the way he pointed out the old railway bridge to the other Windsor station (there had been a race during the early days of railways, between two rival companies, to see which one would get the Royal appointment - turns out it was the Riverside station, i.e., not the one under the aforementioned bridge); apparently bathers used to wash on an outcrop of land just to the east of the railway bridge, but they were politely told to move by Queen Victoria who could see them baring all just outside her carriage window as she arrived in Windsor!

View of Windsor Castle from the Duck, with the Royal Standard flying to show the Queen was home but only for a social visit.

The Duck actually turned around before reaching the main waterway of Windsor, which was a bit disappointing but we guessed its sole purpose was twofold, i.e. the novelty of a bus floating, and of seeing Windsor Castle so prominently on the hill above the town.

Getting Asian

So following our duck tour, we were of course hungry. The machine dropped us off where it had left us, just in front of the Theatre Royal, so we decided to walk up the hill a little, in the direction of the castle. Greeting us as we went further up were of course the quaint traditionally-fronted shops of old Windsor town, and about a hundred yards uphill, just after the road bared left at the southwesternmost point of the castle, we noted a shopping precinct, but tastefully styled, which disappeared off away from Thames St. Surrounding it were further arrays of cafes and pubs, and of course, a McDonald's. Which we avoided.

On the hunt for something to eat, we happened to stroll past a fudge shop, with eager tourists snapping many photos of the place, but in traditional unimposing British style, we took a step around them and carried on walking... Until a ginger bearded, straw-hat wearing student (we guessed, owing to his hippie appearance) appeared on its doorway and started playing the ukulele! Trying to be subtle, I snapped off a photo, but to my HORROR! he spotted the camera... Well, what is a self-respecting photographer to do but to go into the siren's lair and buy some fudge? So we did. And the guy talked, very quickly, about many things, faster than one could think. Emma quickly fired off "do you have ADHD?" he didn't reply. So three fudge-tastings later (they were all very good, and hard to choose between), we settled for an Eton Mess flavour (I figured three is about the limit one can have trials of food before the shopkeeper gets bored), and left trying to figure out what to do with half a pound of fudge the day of an intercontinental flight!

Music man. Emma's best friend, playing a uke and selling fudge. What a life!

Just down the road from the music man and his fudge, we spotted a nice-looking Japanese restaurant, and on failing miserably at getting through the locked door on the main road, found a side-entrance just around the corner towards the Thames, and arrived in our first experience of an Asian restaurant of the holiday. Being indecisive, we immediately concluded that the lunchtime platter would be ample for our needs, and indeed it was.

Platter at lunchtime, Japanese style. YUM!

Eton is not a mess!

Successfully replenished, we took the advice of a lady we had met earlier on the duck. She had been visiting her son, I can't remember why now, but had decided to take a day of sightseeing. We discovered she was from north Wales, and was very impressed by our knowledge of Llandudno and Criccieth! She told us that Eton College was not far from Windsor, in fact, just over the bridge; I had not realised this, the both of us thinking Eton was somewhere near Cambridge, and not just outside the M25! So we took a short walk through the picturesque streets of Windsor in the direction of the river, crossing a pedestrian bridge, and taking many photographs along the way of the scenery of the riverbank. Lucky it was a sunny day, Windsor really is a lovely place!

The calm streets of Eton, just north of the River Thames; the shopfronts were enough to make anyone feel poor!

Eton College was only a 10 minute walk further along the road, and really surrounded the main throughroad of the town (village?). Its red-brick imposing buildings and gravel courtyards were impressive, and very typical of a private school. Eton's history started as a school for the less well-off, but quickly developed into a highly selective establishment, eventually charging very high prices and demanding very good entrance grades! Scholarships are available, and good ol' Boris Johnson was one such student. The college's grounds were very well kept, viewable from the road just a short walk further north from where the photo below was taken, near the main library. To the left of the main road, impeccably manicured cricket fields are surrounded by red-brick 5-storey student dormitories to the south, and a snaking path to the north giving way to acres of land including football fields spreading out into the distance. We noted that the cricket scoreboard showed that the Eton team had lost to visitors by about 40 runs in their preceding match!

Some of the college buildings in the centre of Eton. We overheard a French tourist seeking information, relaying that the "bibliotheque" was near by, i.e., the library.

 Can we squeeze in a sightseeing trip to the airport?

As if walking around Windsor and Eton wasn't enough to do for the day before a 12.5-hour flight, Emma agreed to take advantage of free bus fares around Heathrow Airport, and we took the bus from Feltham Station to the Central Terminal Area (Terminals 1 and 3; 2 was being re-built). From this main central bus station, we followed a maze of colourfully LED-lit underground corridors, complete with travellators and bright yellow signs, enough to convince even the most dubious that they were in an airport, to the Heathrow Express train station. The Express runs from Paddington station non-stop to Heathrow, for about ₤20 one-way, but it is free between central Heathrow terminals and Terminal 5, so that is where we went. As a regular destination for many of my passengers when I was a taxi driver, I spent many hours at Terminal 5, and had followed its progress when it was being built when I was back in Loughborough. I felt I had an affiliation with the place, because before it was built lay the underdeveloped part of the airport, on the western end between the main east-to-west runways. This was a marshy/boggy area of land, very attractive to migratory birds, to the annoyance of airport staff and jet-engine maintenance crews, called Perry Oaks. It was home to the Heathrow Fire Department at the time, and on work experience I had a chance to visit them, drive a fire engine (indeed chase a landing Virgin Atlantic Boeing 747-400 down Runway 09L!), and even fire the 10-bar pressure foam hose (the "Monitor"). The FD also owned a hovercraft, a Hoverguard 800, for use in case a plane came down in the swamps!

Anyway, arriving in Terminal 5 we walked around a bit, me trying to impress Emma by pointing out the architecture, which by some Pavlovian response immediately induced a yawn in her, I struggle to figure out why! (Sorry Em!). Indeed, the solution to her sudden-onset lethargy by avoiding the subject of tension cables and trusses, and finding a Costa Coffee to get a strawberry ice-cream milkshake to compliment our Eton Mess fudge, while watching the Airbus A320s of British Airways arriving and departing at their gates.

Time to go

Well, our fun had, we returned to the hotel for one final time, via the bus to Hatton Cross from the main station. All packed up, and triple-checked - passport, wallet, keys, phone, toothbrush, tickets! The fleece stayed on, though. Emma relayed a neat trick with luggage, I believe courtesy of Hayley, of attaching a shower bobble to the handle of one's suitcases, to make them more identifiable - so this is what we did! The plan now was for dad to drive us to the airport and wait for us to pass through security, with mum given VIP treatment by Malaysian Airways in the form of a wheelchair, to allow her transit at KL between flights to be made much easier. Dad would then return from the airport to the hotel where he stayed another night, with a radio scanner listening to the control tower and waiting at the western window of the 7th floor, for us to take off (conveniently, due to the wind changing, from runway 09R and thus directly toward the hotel!). We checked-in very easily, and the bags were taken, to be seen next time 6,500 miles away.

The luggage (Rincewind?)

To my delight, a white grand piano with the words "PLAY ME!" written on its music stand, was placed just by the check-in desks in Terminal 4. So after we'd all had our last cups of proper English tea for the next x-number of weeks, I had a go playing a few blues riffs on the piano, unashamedly becoming the loudest sound in the terminal! Just to say it had been done, you know. Music played, and with one solitary round of applause by a guy serving coffee nearby (God bless you sir!) we made our move through the security gates, taking off anything metal, removing electronic items from bags. The most undignified way of walking past security guards is with no shoes on, and ones trousers threatening to fall down! 

A quick trip to Boots to re-stock our liquids, having been prohibited from taking anything over 100ml through customs, we made our way to the gate, with mum leading the way but not walking a step! Arriving at the gate we were ushered straight through, before anyone else boarded. Definitely worth spraining an ankle or something the next time you fly! We were first on the plane, on the lower-deck of the massive A380, and took up our positions in the three left-most seats of row 68, as planned, behind the enormous wing of the plane. Of course by now it was nearly 10 PM so there was little to see out of the window, but we managed to spot Jury's hotel and then the metal arches of Wembley Stadium pass by below us to the left as flight MH-002 climbed out of Heathrow over north-west London and made a right turn to track just south of Luton, passing 27,000 ft before climbing out over the north sea at Harwich. Next stop Kuala Lumpur, on this huge but incredibly quiet double-decked airliner.

Sitting on the left of the plane meant that just about every interesting sight of interest passed by on the other side - but as it was nighttime we didn't miss much. From the right we could have seen Prague and Krakow pass by. I made sure to get up and walk around many times, generally between in-flight movies or episodes of Mythbusters on our fully interactive seat-back in-flight entertainment systems, giving in to general tiredness owing to it being about 0300hrs local time before day broke outside over a cloud-covered Caspian Sea. Before the sun came up, the moving map told us were passing just north of Simferopol, where the troubles were in Ukraine, so I ventured to the starboard stern emergency exit and snapped a few photos to the south, of the lights of the southern tip of that troubled country.

Southern Ukraine, and most likely Simferopol as the bright lights on the horizon, as viewed from the peace of the world's biggest jetliner, at 33,000 ft in the air.

Day dawned over the Middle East, and snow-capped mountains in the northeast of Afghanistan were visible below us, but quickly the scenery changed to a thick layer of cloud passing below us, for as far as the eye could see. By the time the cloud had dissipated, we were well into India, having passed far to the south of the Himalayas and Nepal. By now breakfast had been served, and we were soon to cross into the Indian Ocean over the river delta system of the settlement of Saharabedi far below us. The next land was now about 1000 miles away, to the south-east, the Andaman Islands, meaning we were fast approaching the Far East.

Home away from home

The first signs of making landfall were seen out of our left windows, the coastline of Thailand emerging from the haze just north of the island of Phuket. Out of the starboard stern emergency exit window we saw the island of Langkawi roll by, and saw its very long runway (mentioned very often in the early reports of MH-370), and the beach where we would soon be staying nearby! It was cloudy in KL however, so the city could not be seen out of our windows, but the estuary port town of Klang came into view as we passed to the east of Kuala Lumpur International Airport on the downwind leg, before turning twice to the right and lining up with the runway. By this time we were covered by clouds, but the in-flight entertainment screens switched to the view from a camera mounted in the empennage of the plane, and the four lights marking our glideslope to Runway 36L finally emerged out of the haze (two reds, two whites - perfect, said Emma!). A very good touchdown followed, with a short spell of some very hard braking to meet the taxiway following; finally we were told Selamat Datang ke Malaysia - Welcome to Malaysia! The local time was about 17:50 PM, and the temperature was pushing 30°C, even in the rain! Disembarking from the plane, even via the moving walkway, introduced us to our first taste of Malaysian air. It wasn't that hot, not like previous visits to the country at mid-day in the sunshine, where disembarking from the plane was similar to walking straight into a sauna. The thing that tells you you're abroad is not so much the temperature, or even the stickiness of the humid air, but instead the smell! Malaysian air has a characteristic smell, not easy to describe. It is slightly musty, slightly smoky, and a bit like cooking cabbage. Once you're there for a while you don't notice it, but transitioning between air-conditioning of a car or a building and the outside world you get hit by this sensory overload of heat, humidity and smell! There was a mild whiff of the atmosphere as we walked along the walkway to the terminal building.

We said cheerio to mum, who was popped into another chair by the helpful staff at the airport, ready for her connecting flight in 45 minutes to Kota Bharu; Emma and I continued on to baggage reclaim via a surprise monorail trip, to wait for our pink-bobbled cases, and passed through customs, to end up searching for a way to get to our first hotel, the Concorde Inn KLIA. Emma informed me that taxis could cost up to 100 Ringgit (RM100) for this very short journey, due to gullible and unaware tourists to the area; however a helpful policeman informed us that the Concorde actually had a shuttle bus service every 30 minutes from the coach station below the airport, and this is where we headed next.

We managed to get a bit lost along with a German guy who was on a work trip, due to the fact that KLIA has two pairs of lift shafts descending to different sides of a set of railway tracks - enter the wrong lift and you end up in a railway station, not the bus departure hall! So scratching our combined heads the three of us went back up to where we started and tried the other set of lifts, which magically (and I'm still not entirely sure how), took us to a completely different place (even though there was only 5-metres between lift shaft pairs) and our bus station. Magic! Still clueless.

With a bit of waiting and eventual reading of signs, we found ourselves on the 24-seater coach with the Concorde Inn KLIA logo emblazoned upon it, and after a series of incredibly fast, tight corners from the driver obviously very experienced with driving the short 2-mile route for 14-hours a day, we arrived in the chalet-style single layer sprawling complex of the Concorde Inn, our bags being taken swiftly before arriving at the check-in desk. Passports and details confirmed, we were taken to our room, 906, about 100m from the lobby, and had our first taste of the Malaysian dusk as it fell quickly across the complex, complete with ciccadas chirping and goodness knows what other insects squeaking in the fading light.

Our room was basic, with tiled floor and a sofa, and a very old cathode-ray 20" TV set, but at least it had air conditioning, a safe and a bathroom, not to mention a double bed. Not wanting to give in to tiredness, it being only about 8PM now (1PM UK time), we decided to go to the bar and have a bite to eat, a pint, and a couple of games of pool for want of something better to do. After my first Char Kuay Teow (fried noodles and egg and veg and all sorts) and an authentic chicken satay meal for Emma, she proceeded to thrash me at pool over 3 games before we retired to bed in preparation of heading to KL city the next day.

Spots wins, every time. Drat!