"Sunburn, Stingrays, and Sea Lice"

Over the weekend six of us Americans went beach camping! So my personal belief is that there is no mediocre beach camping- it is either the greatest weekend ever or it goes completely sour! Let me just say, our camping weekend was fantastic!!! After a 2+ hour car drive and 45 minute ferry ride, we made it to Pulau Pangkor: an island off the west coast of Malaysia. By the time we got to the island it was dark and we ended up walking an hour and a half to a deserted beach to set up our hammocks and tents. The last half hour was a trek through the jungle: which was hard due to the fact that it was quite steep and I had no light. On the way we walked into a man with a machete- at least he was super nice, lived on the beach, and was happy to let us use his site. That night we sat around the camp fire singing and listening to the guitar, telling each other funny stories, and swimming in the ocean with the moonlight guiding our way. We didn’t bring any food but the next morning we got a delivery of food from some nice person- spicy fish and rice. Thanks to the monkeys, half of it was stolen immediately. We got to see some huge monitor lizards, dozen of monkeys, tons of coral and barnacles (of the six of us ‘mericans, over half got are feet sliced), and gorgeous tourist free beaches. 

One of the prettiest sunsets ever!!!

Album cover for our band

The view from my hammock

We all rented motor bikes- although I had never driven one before or driven on the left side of the road, I survived and did great! Hank (aka Jocelyn), one of the girls, crashed her bike in the first 15 seconds of driving and lost her driving privileges. We drove our motorbikes to a pretty but crowded beach and swam about 45 minutes from one island to another: this was not my brightest moment due to the fact that I was wearing underwear instead of a bathing suit. Being college students, we didn't want to spend the five ringgets it cost to take a boat to the island, so we swam. We also got bit by lots of sea lice on the swim over- regardless, we had a blast! When we got to the island, there was no reggae bar as we had been told, and we had to hike through the mosquito and ant-infested jungle to get to a snorkeling spot. Between wearing underwear, it being so humid outside, and walking A LOT, my legs get super badly chaffed- ouch!!!!! Thanks to everyone, we stopped and got baby powder- problem solved. We all slept in our hammocks (much better than a tent) but I still managed to get a bunch of mosquito and ants bites even with a net over me. That night I told Erin and Sarah a bed time story- Sarah was so tired that at the middle of the story she randomly asked me if the main character, whose name was Gringley, was a caterpillar...nope, she must have been delusional (after 12, Sarah is gone). The story took place in the African Safari and in order to get the listeners attention, I asked what kind of tall animal could help Gringley- Sarah said a long neck dinosaur...you would think a biology major would know their species and location a little better. The whole time we were at the campsite, it reminded me of survivor and I now realize more than ever how hard it would be to be on that show!!! They pretty much always eat rice on survivor and I feel like I have been doing just that for the last three weeks. The second morning we had no food and some kind fisherman let us come fishing with them on their boat! They caught over 100 “dangerous” jellyfish, flounder, stingrays, and conchs: they said it was their unlucky day considering the jellies are useless to them. When we got back to camp we restarted the fire and cooked up a flounder and STINGRAY for breakfast- yep mom, I am not kidding. Sometimes you gotta do what ya gotta do.

Birds and Monkeys!!! 

Fishermen that let us join their journey 

Stingray for breakfast anybody???

Awesome monitor lizard!

I have only been in Malaysia for three weeks now and have sooooo much to look forward too!!!! I have at least 4 more camping trips, a trip to Indonesia to get my dive certification and hike a volcano, going to Borneo, and about a million other adventures!