Friday, May 28, 2010

Joining the queue...

despite our full knowledge that we should not go to tourist spots on a public holiday.

Against my better judgment, as always once SP decided on the itinerary, it is difficult to change her mind as she would persevere just so that she can convince us that she is always right... so it seems.

We had breakfast of local 'kueh' from the temple because of Buddha's birthday and some local fruits including mango and mangosteen. We then went into the estate to check on the harvesting before heading towards Lumut.

The multi-storey car park was full and the open space car park was filling up with cars. I suggested going to Marina Island Resort to take the ferry as it is still relatively unknown, but she would not budge. Having parked the car, we headed towards the ferry terminal and it was packed with mainly local travellers going to Pangkor Island.

While we stood in queue in front of the welcome sign, I asked our Dutch guests which of the foreign languages was Dutch for Welcome and it turned out to be 'Welkom', after big letters in Bahasa Malaysia, smaller characters in Arabic, Japanese, Mandarin, French, German and Swedish, and followed by Spanish! In other words, Dutch was placed second last! Just wondering which criterion they used to place in that order.

Anyway, I estimate each ferry could take around 200 passengers and 4 ferries came one after another to pick up the passengers. The ferry took 20 minutes to cross to the jetty on Pangkor Island. But before that, we could see a smaller ferry leaving Marina Island Resort and it reached the jetty before us! So it was quite true what they advertised as 5 minutes to Pangkor! For the first time, our ferry had to wait its turn to dock! Just for the information of would be travellers, the ferry from MIR costs the same at Rm10 return but it requires membership fee of Rm5 which is valid for 1 year. In other words, we would need an extra Rm20 for the four of us to get over faster instead of waiting among the big crowd.
View from the jetty while walking towards the island

Taxi fares on the island were unofficially increased to take advantage of the crowd. It costed us Rm20 to get to Coral Bay and an additional Rm10 to take in Kota Belanda (Dutch Fortress) because of our Dutch friends! They had a swim in the open sea while I looked after their belongings. How could I nap when I had to keep an eye? I rushed them to get ready because we were told the last ferry leaves at 8.00 pm. SP could not stand without having a bath and a primitive bathroom costed Rm1 for that privilege! Arne managed to take pictures of a monkey and a hornbill.

After crossing back to Lumut, we drove to Sitiawan to our favourite hawker centre. SP took them round to each stall and explain in detail before they decided what to have. He said he had never tried so many foods within such a short period of time!

Anyway, Arne noticed our car's canopy had a sign 'SUV Plus' and it was funny to him because in Dutch 'Suf' means 'slow' (mentally) and 'Suf Plus' would mean 'Extra slow'!

The following pictures (not taken in Pangkor) from another site, added for variety:

But this sign looks Malaysian to me!
Link

No comments:

Post a Comment