Saturday, April 5, 2008

Travel Blog: Redang Island Trip Day 2, 热浪岛之旅第二天, 5 Apr 08

Morning 6am. The 3 of us guys wanted to wake up to watch the sunrise, and hopefully take some nice pictures. But we were a bit lazy to wake up, since we were dead tired from Day 1's activities. It was pretty cloudy anyway and looks like it's gonna rain, therefore we didn't wake up for the sunrise trip. Damn! Suay No. 1. We thought maybe we could still try our luck on our last day's morning.

Jiahao woke up much earlier to eat breakfast and went to check out the island while Peyyong and I still lazed in bed. Wahaha! When Peyyong and I finally woke up, we were informed by the girls that they had registered for the next snorkelling trip for us. And guess what? That trip was the actual Marine Park snorkelling trip! No more chance for us to take pictures of our snorkelling activities already. Damn! Suay No. 2. Peyyong and I then quickly went to take our breakfast, then rushed to the gathering point.

We set off on a boat again. This time, the boat brought us much further than the day before's snorkelling spot. It's the Marine Park. We alighted at the long jetty which led to shore. Both sides of the jetty were low depth waters in which we were free to swim around to admire the marine life. We first entered the left side, and at one point of time, one of the guides lured a moray eel from its hiding place under the coral reefs with a dead fish. I was wondering where the guide got the dead fish from. Poor fish. Anyway the eel was damn big. I'm sure he can swallow my whole arm if he felt any hungrier. The guides told us we can actually see a 45kg pomfret swimming around if we're lucky. Jiahao said he saw it, but I didn't manage to catch a glimpse of it. We saw some small swordfish though. They're silver in colour, long and slender, and about the length of a cat. We also saw plenty of colourful corals and sea cucumbers and lots of bigger than palm size striped fish, which resembled tiger barbs. We slowly swam under the jetty to the other side. Just beneath the jetty, it was like fishes ALL AROUND us. It's like you can only see fish in front of you. Awesome sight. And they really were not afraid of humans at all. Many people were feeding them with bread crumps.

We then slowly swam towards the so-called shipwreck at the other side of the jetty. It was quite a distance from shore. At one point in time, I found it quite strange that although I was swimming forward, my body was sort of drifting towards the right. I still didn't realize that the current was getting so strong that we were actually drifting further away from shore. Before we could turn back, it was a bit too late. Peiyi, Siying and Sharon were drifting along too. At that moment I was thinking "holy shit, Siying can't swim". Peiyi told me later on that she actually couldn't swim too. All 6 of us were drifting further and further away from shore and into deeper waters. We actually saw some other snorkellers holding onto the floating buoys behind the shipwreck. There were actually a line of floating buoys all around the Marine Park area, however the line ends just a short distance after the shipwreck. Therefore we had nothing to stop us from drifting out to sea. The 3 girls were holding onto Peyyong. They encouraged each other to keep paddling towards the shore. I tried to swim as much as I could, however it seemed that I only managed to inch forward even though I was swimming with all my might. Jialatz. The current was really too strong all of a sudden. I tried to shout out and wave to the people hanging onto the buoys behind the shipwreck. They seemed to see and hear me but they didn't give a hoot to our situation. They were probably just as panicked and holding onto their lives. Luckily one of the guides wearing flippers from the other resorts probably saw us and quickly swam towards us. Our own resort's guide, Mike also came along. He then led us safely towards the rocks which were quite near our location. We couldn't swim back to the sandy shore cos the current forbade us to swim closer. Therefore we could only try to get out of the water by climbing onto the rocks. The rocks were very uneven and covered with barnacles etc. I had a slight slip and landed my right arm on the rocks, gaining some cuts. The other guys also had cuts and scratches from climbing the rocks. What luck. Suay No. 3. But luckily all of us were safely back onto shore. I can't imagine what would have happened if we drifted out to deeper waters. Sharks? Piranhas? Argh!!

By then everyone from our resort had already gathered at the jetty and getting ready to board our boat back to our resort. At that time my right arm was quite a bloody scene LOL. Although they were just very minor cuts, but together with seawater, it seemed like my arm was so bloody. I cleaned up my arm a bit, and later the blood stopped flowing. Back on the boat, Mike gave us antiseptic with cotten bud to let us clean our wounds. And he told us to look for him when we get back so that he'll help us with dressing our wounds. So nice of him haha. We went back and cleaned up and went for lunch. What an adventure it turned out to be. We almost became fish food.

After lunch we went to the locker counter to grab our room keys. Mike saw us approaching and immediately told Sharon to sit down and wait for him to get his first aid kit. Mike had earlier saw Sharon's deep cut on her knee and helped her clean up her wound with cotten bud and antiseptic. Sharon was quite reluctant to allow Mike to help her clean up her wound. Mike was gonna apply hydrogen peroxide to her wound area. Sharon kept saying "it's ok", "never mind" etc, but Mike insisted that she sat down and let him do the rest. LOL. Therefore the liquid was applied to the wound, and we could tell from Sharon's facial expression that it was excruciating pain. Holy shit! After Mike was done with Sharon, he was inspecting all of us. I almost didn't want to let him apply the killer liquid to my wounds, but still gave it a try since I didn't want any infections. At first touch it felt cool and soothing, but as soon as the chemicals started to react with my wound, it became like burning fire eating away on my wounds. Ouch! Jiahao also had a taste of hydrogen peroxide. It seemed like I had the most number of cuts, but they were all not very deep. Sharon's was a very deep cut though. Even now as I type, the cuts are still visible, but the dried blood are starting to peel off already.

After the ordeal, we told ourselves we'll forgo the 3rd and final snorkelling trip. Anyway even if we didn't encounter the unlucky incident, we wouldn't have gone for the 3rd trip anyway cos two trips were more than enough already. We decided to walk all the way to the extreme right end of the stretch of resorts. We first went to the famous More More Tea Inn, which was built in the exact architecture as the house used for the movie. It's actually a souvenir cum provisions shop selling all kinds of souvenirs and foodstuff and necessities. We took several pictures around the area. I also bought a small glass bottle and later filled it with Pulau Redang sand. We explored the resort at the extreme end of the shore, then went back to Laguna for desserts again. Then we went for more desserts - ice kachang - at the outdoor area of Laguna. Not as nice as we thought. It's pretty shiokz downing ice on a hot summer day. I also grabbed the chance to take a picture of me with my bowl of ice kachang relaxing on the beach chair in my Hawaiian style outfit. Aloha!


After satisfying our stomachs and itchy mouths, I suggested going back into the waters again. Only Jiahao was onz, the rest of them wanted to nua. ZZZzzz.. In the end I managed to get Peyyong along and we took the volleyball to the beach to play beach volleyball. However three people ain't enough for a game, therefore we only tried to pass the ball to each other. We quickly got sick of it, therefore Jiahao and I started shooting penalties with the volleyball-turned-soccerball. There were goalposts and volleyball nets scattered along the beach. We used one of it for our goal-scoring attempts. Peyyong then went to climb a small hill on the coastline. This hill proved to be a blessing later on. Read on... The girls actually went back to their rooms to nua. Jiahao and I took plenty of kicks and eventually got tired. When Peyyong came back from his climb, I wanted to go back into the water again. And it seemed like the waves were rushing in endlessly. Jiahao and I then went quite far into the waters. It's like 100m away from shore but I'm only waist-deep underwater. We crashed against the incoming waves everytime they came. Damn fun. It's like free massaging. After a while, the sky began to turn dark. Peyyong went back to our room first. The two of us then made our way back to our room when we found a gigantic pufferfish washed ashore, apparently dead, since there were flies swarming around the poor fish. We took plenty of shots of the pufferfish. Never in my life had I seen such a humongous pufferfish! I remember seeing one on our Singapore shores, but it's like Earth compared to Jupiter. Just look at the size of the bloated fish compared to me!

We then went back for the final dinner of our trip. Just as we started dinner, the match between Arsenal and Liverpool also just started. Peyyong, Siying and Jiahao, being crazy soccer fans, finished up their dinner quickly and zoomed off to the TV area to watch the match. After the first half was over, we decided to walk further down to other resorts to watch the match. Eventually we stumbled back into Laguna. There were already plenty of people occupying the seats in front of the large projection screen. Therefore we sat at the bar tables and ordered drinks while getting ready for the second half. The final score was 1-1 and it seems like Arsenal can kiss the championship goodbye.

Actually earlier on in the day after our snorkelling, we were quite sianz as to think of what we should do for the rest of the day. Little did we expect that the fun has just begun! We had no plans at all for the night. After the match, we walked on to the More More Tea Inn again to take the night versions of the house. The house was decorated with lights all around the borders. Always wanting to take nice shots, I told the guys to climb onto the stairs outside the house while I adjusted the camera to a stable position to use the timer feature for our picture. I must have took such a long time that a girl nearby offered to help me take the picture. However I told her that I'm taking a nightshot and thus the camera has to be stable and therefore thanked her for her offer. After finally adjusted the camera to a good position, I set the timer and dashed towards the stairs for our picture to be taken. And voila...


The girls then suggested taking a 自拍 ourselves, therefore they needed me, having the longest arms, to take it. Seeing the six of us trying to take a 自拍, the girl who offered to help me take our picture came from behind without us knowing and squeezed into our picture. LOL. Looking at the picture we took, I told them that the girl squeezed into our picture! So we decided to take the 自拍 again. This time, the girl and her two other friends squeezed into our picture too! LOL! 厉害 loh. Just look at how they managed to squeeze into our pictures.


Looking at this picture, we were quite impressed at how they managed to squeeze into our picture. Therefore I showed them the picture that all 9 of us took. We found out that there were also fellow Singaporeans! Cool! Therefore I offered to send them the pictures through email, so I got down the girl's email address. Woo new friends found? Hahaha.

After that, we then left the house and walked along the shoreline until we reached the Redang Beach Resort. There was DJ spinning dance hits and many party people grooving on the sand. Beach Party!!! We jumped straight into the crowd and danced along. Everyone was invited to join in. The DJ was playing canto dance songs, much to the delight of Peyyong. Hahaha. Then even Bon Jovi's "It's My Life" was played. Got everyone super high with this infectious hit. It's amazing seeing Peyyong, Peiyi, Siying getting so hyper and dancing along to the music. It would never have crossed our minds as MKGians to chiong together LOL. We grooved along with the beats for quite a while. It later evolved into a "BBoys battle" where the stage area had two sides of guys trying to outdance each other LOL. These guys were happening man. And they really can break! Awesome! There was also one period whereby the DJ taught us to dance the Redang version of the Macarena. Also, near the end of the whole program, the DJ played the theme song for the island, what else but "浪花一朵朵". There was even "对面的女孩看过来" and the DJ made everyone form a train and danced along etc etc. It was so happening... Haven't had so much fun like this since days as a scout back in secondary school hahaha. It's like we're back in time as little kids.

After the exhausting dancing, we finally decided to walk back to our resort. However along the way, we were drawn to the small campfire set up by some other people near the hill along the shoreline. This hill was the one Peyyong climbed earlier in the day. We took some pictures on the hill and then made our way back to our resort. Just a short distance away from the hill, I discovered that one of Siying's slippers was leaving a trail of blue glowing substance everytime she stepped on the sand. We took the slipper up and checked out what it was. We thought it was just fluoroscent liquid from cylume sticks. I didn't really think too much after that, but now come to think of it, how can the liquid stick onto the slipper for so long and still leave a trail behind? Anyway just as we were leaving the place, there was a group of youngsters squatting on the sands apparently looking for some things. As we walked past them, they actually called out to us and asked "你们要不要看‘蓝沙’?" Huh? Blue sand? Therefore we went forward to see what they were looking for. It's glowing "sand"! Eventually we managed to discover that the glowing "sand" were actually living organisms called Bioluminescent Ostracods (also known as Firefleas/Sea firefly) . They use bioluminescence during mating where the males will attract females to them. We managed to catch two of them and placed them into a bottle cap and brought them back to our resort. However, they had stopped moving on the next morning. Sobzzz... Peyyong brought them back to Singapore and even gave them names "蓝蓝" and "星星". Now all our msn nicks have these two names, in remembrance of the joy and delight that they brought to us during our Redang trip.

This should be all for my update on my Redang trip Day 2. Day 3 is just travelling all the way back to Singapore. I managed to catch two movies on the coach "Just Follow Law" and "Ghost Rider". The rest of the time was sleeping or trying to sleep, or listening to my MP3s on my PSP. What a long journey back. If I'm going back to Redang again, we should take planes instead. 12 hours of journey from Redang to Singapore!

For a list of the hotels/resorts available for booking in Redang Island via Agoda.com, click here.

Links to my Redang Island Trip 2008
Day 1

Friday, April 4, 2008

Travel Blog: Redang Island Trip Day 1, 热浪岛之旅第一天, 4 Apr 08

Actually I should start from Day 0, the day we got onto the coach. It's from Konsortium Bas Ekspres. Very cool-looking coach. There's even a Personal Entertainment System for each passenger. It comprises of a HDD player similar to the one I have at home, where movies and music are stored inside a HDD. I managed to finish a korean horror movie "9:56", plus scan through all the English songs. All were oldies, but some were really good, like those from Bananarama, those classis retro hits often played at Zouk on Mambo nights. Anyway the coach took us to the 2nd link. And it was the first time I used the new gates. We simply had to scan our passports manually, then the gate will open up, then we walk forward where we had to have our thumbprint scanned, and finished! So convenient! Truly impressed by the technology the Singapore government has employed. So we continued our journey to Trengganu...

4th April 2008, Friday

It wasn't really comfortable trying to sleep on a coach that's twisting and turning and bumping up and down. Didn't sleep much at all. I woke up at 5am plus to see the surroundings very bright. We were actually in the middle of some power generators or something. The generators were all over the place, with lights and fluoroscent lamps all over. It's like some fortress or something. Looks damn cool. It's a pity the coach was travelling too fast for me to take some nice shots. The best I could do was this:



We reached the jetty where we were supposed to wait for our boat. Then we found out that we were at the wrong jetty, and thus we had to find the correct one. There were many jetties around the area, and what's worst was that it was raining! The 6 of us only had 2 umbrellas, thus I suddenly thought of the tablecloth which I had meant to use it as a groundsheet. Then Peiyi, Siying, Sharon and I then grabbed one corner of the tablecloth each and used it as a makeshift umbrella. LOL Finally we reached the correct jetty. Those youngsters who took the same coach as us were at the jetty already. They were quite paikia, dyed hair and smoking. Too bad, one of the girls were quite cute. LOL Anyway we then took the boat and reached Redang Island in approximately one hour.

Woohoo paradise! I finally stepped on Redang Island. I had long wanted to go there, ever since watching the movie "夏日么么茶" starring 任贤齐 and 郑秀文. 我终于到乐浪岛了! We were led to our Redang Bay Resort by one of the guides. We walked through several other resorts and finally reached our resort. The guide gave a short briefing before we marched off to our rooms. We immediately went to grab our snorkels and masks, which cost RM10 for renting for 3 days. We were told that we would have a total of 3 snorkelling trips for the 2 days. We then signed up for the supposed Marine Park snorkelling trip for the first 2:30pm trip. We then explored the beach right in front of our resort.


The beautiful white sand and crystal clear waters was truly a marvellous sight, just as what was seen on the movie. Truly a paradise worth visiting. We started taking pictures all around the beach area. Shiokz man. Just love the place. We then went for lunch at the canteen in our resort. All our meals were provided for, including tea break at 4:30pm. Awesome. The lunch was very simple fare, just like any home-cooked food. Not too bad at all. After lunch, we got ready for our very first snorkelling trip! Woohoo!

We were taken quite a distance away from our resort on a boat, and then stopped in the middle of the sea, which was quite close to shore. We thought this trip was at the Marine Park. However, we realized on the next day that it wasn't so. Anyway we then jumped into the sea and were mesmerized by the enchanting scene. Fish of all shapes and sizes and colours surrounded us. There were clown fish, dory fish, plus many other species that I don't recognize, but still very beautiful nonetheless. It feels as though the fish were not afraid of humans. Some of the angmohs dived deep into the waters as they didn't wear life jackets. I almost wanted to do the same because with the snorkels and life jackets on, we could only view from just below the surface of the water. The seabed was about 4 to 5 metres deep only. There were many types of colourful corals and creatures at the seabed. Was very tempted to take off my jacket and snorkel and dive deep into the waters hehe. The water was so clear you can actually see quite a long distance ahead of you. But the only bad thing was it tasted VERY salty. Once the seawater got into my mouth and eyes, it felt so irritating. I had to keep adjusting my mask to wipe off the seawater on my face, and also to get rid of the air that got into it. Very lousy masks they have. Anyway it's quite a waste I couldn't take any pictures of our snorkelling trips. Damn...

After soaking in the seawater for about half an hour or so, we were brought back to shore. Since it was still early, we decided to play beach volleyball. Thanks to Jiahao who brought his brand new volleyball, we managed to become beachboys and beachgirls. LOL! Then we went back to bathe and change and got ready for dinner. It was free flow of barbeque food. Not too bad for a $275 package. Still got bbq buffet dinner. I had a second helping to the bbq dinner, and also additional rice and even add extra from the leftovers from the girls. Peyyong too. We exhausted all our energy on the beaches of Redang Island, therefore we had to eat a lot to replenish our energy. The food were not bad at all. After dinner, we explored around the island. I brought a tripod along to take some night shots. The night scenery was so romantic. All the beautiful lights coming from the buildings, plus the shimmering stars decorating the whole of the dark sky. Such sights can never be found in Singapore. Truly a wonderful sight and atmosphere. We then walked on to Laguna Redang Island Resort, one of the most prominent resorts on the island. It's got very nice lighting and decorations. The picture shown here shows that exact resort illuminating the island. We walked along the shore, admiring the sight, eventually reaching Laguna. Then we went to explore the restaurant. The prices seemed very reasonable, therefore we went for drinks and dessert. After that, we went on to explore the disco cum KTV pub further behind the resort. The whole place was empty except for a family of angmohs. We checked out the KTV rooms and were shocked to find that it only costs RM30 per hour for a KTV room! Without hesitation we took one room and started singing our hearts out. I ordered a Pina Colada at only RM20, and also went into the main public area to check out the music. The DJ was spinning quite old dance hits, which were like at least four to five years back. The 6 of us sung until 12+, which was time for them to close shop. So we slowly made our way back to our resort and slept like logs.

For a list of the hotels/resorts available for booking in Redang Island via Agoda.com, click here.

Links to my Redang Island Trip 2008
Day 2