Spot Gets A Tan…ok, Tries To.

As an appetiser to our annual vacation, we decided to spend the Labour Day extended weekend at Cherating, on Malaysia’s east coast. Apparently Cherating and Kuantan are in Pahang, and not Kelantan, as I had so understandably thought. Understandable, of course, only in the context of my C6 grade for Geography in Form Five when I described the topography of Burma in answer to a question on Thailand.

So off we took, on Saturday morning; a carload of 4 people, snacks for 6 adults and enough sunscreen to marinate 50 medium sized babies. 4 hours later, we were stepping into the oven that was Kedah Pavillion, the two bedroom "villa" that was to be our home for the next 3 days at the Eastern Pavillion Resort.

The bedroom and sitting room floors were covered with fake wood laminate, which was a blessing, given our immediate need, on our first step thereon, to carry out emergency mopping manoeuvres. Laminate floors are so easy to clean, don’t you think? Especially when you have to do it yourself, despite having paid RM1,400 for 2 nights.

One of the rooms had a king-sized 4-poster bed that was completely separated from the second room (with twin beds) and sitting room by two locked doors and a landing. Perhaps the resort planners were considerately thinking of lots of unbridled, desperate sex for mommy and daddy in the privacy of their room, but um…doesn’t that leave the kiddies with unsupervised access to the vcd player, mini-bar, verandah and the private pseudo-rock pool?

Anyway, apart from anti-social room design, grimy coffee cups, wonky sitting room air-conditioner, invisible fruit basket, non-functioning lights in the pool and on the mushroom-shaped garden table, crappy breakfast and a suicidal kingfisher hell-bent on breaking into (literally, beak first) the second bedroom, it was not a bad place. The grounds were relatively lush, give or take some errant wilted bushes and leaves, and it was nice to see plants that are becoming a rare sight in KL…frangipani, bunga tayik ayam and those daffodily-looking flowers.

The beach was nice, there was real white sand (as opposed to the grit & mud mix that attempts to pass off as beach on most of the west coast) and real crashing waves.

Because I’m too lazy to think in paragraphs, the rest of my observations and experiences will be in point form.

1. A tight pair of Speedos on a curvy body, wet from the sea and silhouetted against a sunlit horizon makes for a good simulated-porno shot.



2. Having one’s own private pool invariably leads to thoughts of skinny dipping under the stars…thoughts only, no action since there is an unspoken rule amongst friends (there being 3 classmates on this trip) against seeing each other’s dangly saggy bits.



3. I am incapable of tanning the way real people do. 1 ½ hours of sitting under a blazing sun without sunscreen only succeeded in tinting me a comely shade of pink.



4. Kuantan drivers turn into suicidal raging beast-drivers after dark.



5. Upon sight of a massive unmarked speedbump merely 0.5 miliseconds before hitting it at over 70kmph, there is only one thing possible to do…simultaneously let go of the wheel, scream like a girl and hold hands with your front passenger.



6. Apparently, it is possible to get from the hotel to Pak Su’s Seafood Restaurant in Berserah by way of a 20-minute drive (at raging-Kuantan-beast-speed) straight down the VERY DARK road, galloping over the said Hand-Holding Speedbump, passing 2 enormous nuclear-reactor-looking buildings disguised as giant coconuts and straight through a shipping port.



7. Pak Su’s stuffed crab was NOT worth a 40-minute wait on top of the exciting thrills of the said adventure in 6 above.



8. It is fun to pretend to be a beached whale.



9. It is also fun to pretend to be a sunning-yet-not-tanning walrus on a pseudo-rock pool.



10. Sand is an excellent exfoliating agent and exfoliating is a helpful way of passing time whilst waiting for that elusive tan.



11. I dreamt of 2 girl cheetahs and 1 boy cheetah tapping at my window and proceeding to have a threesome once they caught my attention.



12. On the way to Chukai we saw a roadside vendor selling stuffed animals, including a cheetah and giraffe. There must be a connection with my dreams of wildlife porn and giving birth to giraffes.



13. Do not listen to the counter girl at the Shell station in Chukai. She is evil and will send you on a wild goosechase all over Trengganu in search of keropok lekor.



14. Keropok lekor in the East Coast is eaten steamed instead of deep-fried. Yick, yet also yum.



15. Road signs in Trengganu are helpful. They tell you that the road is uneven and to beware of glutinous rice – Awas! Lemang.



16. Sex panties and exotic beach holidays, sadly, do not necessarily result in getting some.



17. Singing Little Mermaid's aaah aaah aaaaah song from the Disney cartoon will result in you being blessed with good seashell-finding luck by the horrified mermaids.