News from Home - For My Family

Thank god for island retreats

25 July 2004 11:24 pm

I'm back from my weekend getaway. I wish I don't have to work tomorrow.

Well, I had a lovely time in Sibu Island. This being our second trip there, I still marveled at the ease with which we set off and arrived. 6pm pick-up in town. 3-hour journey up the Malaysian east coast. 30-minute boat ride to island. 4 hours total and you're in another place, another country. The night we arrived, all I did was read Dan Brown's Angels & Demons till I fell asleep. I remember the last thing I said was "That's what I'm paying for", with reference to the sound of the waves outside. It was the most blessed sleep I've had in a week.

Things I love about Sea Gypsy Village Resort:

The fact that very few Singaporeans go there. In fact, this weekend I was the only one. There was a French family, a British family, a Dutch couple, another couple of unknown nationality (we talked but didn't ask), an American (K) and me. This is the nearest place to Singapore you can go to feel like you're far away from it all. Bintan Island in Indonesia is fun and even more accessible and developed, but it is a popular playground for Singaporeans so you don't get that "away" feeling so much.
I suspect the reason why few Singaporeans go there is because there is no air-con and hot water in the villas (a hut, really). So, I will not find people who are spoilt on mod cons and likely to bitch and moan in their absence there. Good.
You can't get a signal so forget about making phone calls on your mobile. No cable TV in your room either. So you have no choice but to unwind completely and get comfortable with yourself and the company of other human beings.
They serve delicious food. Traditional Asian/Malay dishes like chicken rice and beef rendang for lunch, a barbecue dinner on Saturday night. Satisfying.
The staff are very friendly. They'll talk about anything.
It's peaceful there. No screaming kids, no loud-mouthed tourist-types.
The beach is clean.

Some milestones to announce: I completed my 40th dive (applause, please), and K tried diving for the first time! It's something called a Try Scuba course and basically you get to put on scuba gear and go on one dive in relatively shallow waters (around 5 metres) with an instructor, who controls your buoyancy for you so you won't have to do much except breathe and kick. He saw a sole on the seabed and a nudibranch which he refused to touch even though the intructor signaled underwater that it was okay to. I'm so proud of the fact that he took the plunge, literally. As for my one leisure dive at Little Bay, it was just okay. The visibility was apparently 10 metres, but I felt that it was lower than that, 8 maybe. The water was cloudy with sediment because it had been raining heavily. It was an easy dive, though, and a good way to kill time. I touched a starfish that looked like a brown pillow.

I'm going to stop here and go to bed. I'll try to update as soon as I can. Ta.

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