Day 78 of The Big Adventure.
Due to many free roaming cockerels, every day started with a very loud cockadoodledoo coming from seemingly right outside our house. I learnt to sleep through it (I’m good like that). The family did not. This usually meant that in the morning I had a little blissful half an hour of peace when I could just lie in bed.

I went across to the turtle house for cornflakes again and got into a very long conversation with Connaugh (another intern) about Watford of all places.

This mornings activity: beach clean up. We got a boat across to a lovely beach that was basically deserted. We took black bin liners and picked up all the litter off the beach. I was rather disappointed (but I wouldn’t go as far as surprised) to find they didn’t have those handy litter-pick-up things with the handles so you don’t actually have to touch the rubbish yourself. No, nothing like that here. We didn’t even get gloves.

Anyway thankfully there wasn’t too much rubbish about and it meant we had a good hour and a half to explore the beach, sunbathe and snorkel.

Now because this beach was not near the village, the dress code did not apply. I took full advantage of this and found the nearest rock with the best sun for a good old sunbathe.

It was, however, rudely interrupted by Georgia and Jo-el nagging me to play with them. Malaysians just do not understand the time and dedication that has gone into this tan and the effort needed to maintain it. Especially now that there is a very strict, very conservative dress code.

We compromised with me agreeing to be the judge of their swimming race. Something I could rather conveniently do from the rock whilst sunbathing.

That didn’t keep them satisfied for long and it resulted in Jo-el literally picking me up and throwing me into the water.

I could tell we were going to have some issues.

Anyway we had a nice little snorkel around the coral garden and saw some amazing fish and very bright corals.

Before we knew it, the boat was back to pick us up and take us back to the village. We went back to Mammas again for lunch. Rice again.

At this point I would have been happy to never set eyes on rice again. But there wasn’t really much choice…

I decided to order a Mars bar shake as a dessert and it was easily the best thing I ate those entire 2 weeks.

In the afternoon we had a khuil making lesson which is basically where we go to a local restaurant (which changes every week) and they teach us to make a typical Malay dessert. This week we were making a strange coconut noodle soup, which was very surprisingly reminiscent of bread and butter pudding. 

I noticed that the lady who was teaching us how to make malay dessert had her baby swinging in what looked like a piece of cloth hanging from the ceiling, but looked surprisingly comfortable. I saw these little baby swings in various places around the village and decided they were nothing short of ingenious.

Then we headed back to the volunteer house and I tried (unsuccessfully) to have a nap.

I woke up and went back over to the turtle house where I helped cook dinner with the interns. The family liked routine and liked to have dinner quite early so they had already made their own and eaten it. I was having a bit of a chocolate craving and went in search of peanut m&ms, which have been a pretty much constant in my Asia travels. You may not be able to buy milk. You may not be able to buy bread. But you can usually count on peanut m&ms, which suits me just fine. Anyway, the shops were closing and the only one still open did not stock peanut m&ms. They did however have white almond magnums – a true rarity in Asia. Lauren and I spent many a month scouring freezers in 7elevens for white magnums. Who would have thought they’d have them on this tiny island? Side note: I was still getting regular cravings for the fish ice creams in Vietnam but I have accepted that they are only available in Vnam.
I wandered back up to the Ecoteer House (separate to the volunteer house and the turtle house) to use some of their wifi. Had a lovely little phone call with Sam and then it was time for bed.