ent “husband”), we decided to move on. We needed to get back to KL, as T's passport was full, and we needed to get to the US Embassy to have extra pages put in, but we decided to make a stop midway at the small surfer enclave of Cherating. The bus left us off on the side of the highway at the main road into town. It was a short, 1/2-mile walk into town. This time T left me with the bags at a cafe and spent a good couple of hours wandering the small town, scouting out all the bungalow options. While she was searching, there was some commotion in the cafe, and I turned to see a macaque monkey swing into the small store next door, land on a stand of packaged snacks, steal a bag of nuts, and then swing back off. Funny that we've been to so many tropical places, into deep jungles, and the only “wild” monkeys we've seen have been wandering the animal rescue centers, or stealing packaged snacks in the center of town!
T did a great job checking out places to stay, and got us a cheap (RM 40/$11) bungalow with fridge, TV and fan, and nice little porch to hang out on. We even picked up wi-fi from the pizza cafe next door! It was run by a lovely man, Mr. Din, who happily helped us with any info we needed, and even brought us mosquito coils, mangos and an umbrella when it rained, which it did quite often.
Cherating is a very calm little surfer town, and the locals (mostly surfer bums) and tourists mingle quite easily. The beach isn't beautiful, but it's large and I was able to swim to cool off and get some exercise in the afternoons. There's not too much to do, but it's definitely relaxing.
The afternoon we arrived, I was sitting out on the porch when I s
potted Andy and Pat from Pulau Perhentian at the pizza cafe next door. I went over and said “hi”, and they offered to go buy some beers for later. We ended up having a fun evening chilling on our porch drinking beer and whiskey, which they'd brought with them – good fun.
We spent the next couple of days checking out the town (when it wasn't pouring rain.) There's a large, modern cultural center which was never open, as well as several small restaurants and bars. We went to hear a live “R&B” band one night as well. They were good, 
but the music was more top 40's hits than R&B. Still even if we didn't love the selection of music, it was well and energetically performed.
Without much to do, though, and far too much rain, we decided to get a move on back to KL and get business taken care of. We'd heard from several people how erratic the local buses were, which we needed to get to nearby Kuantan in order to catch the long-distance bus to KL. Indeed, after lugging our packs out to the highway, we waited over ½ an hour in the heat, when a very nice man pulled up in his car and offered us a ride to Kuantan. He drove us straight up to the bus terminal, which was incredibly hospitable of him. Even though we weren't smitten with Malaysia overall, the people were some of the friendliest we'd met anywhere. From Kuantan we got a bus right away, and were back in big, noisy KL by mid-afternoon.
Talor: What can I say about laid-back Cherating? It certainly is a peculiar place... a popular weekend destination with national tourists, it had been recently dev
eloped with a new road, a tourist office and a cultural center, but they were both closed the entire time we were there. It also has... get this... an equestrian club (why there?), though we never saw anyone riding a horse. There were plenty of surfer dudes walking around town, but not surfing since there were no waves. And it also had some of the skankiest flophouse chalets I'd ever seen, and they were not cheap! We were lucky to find a clean chalet at the Payung Guesthouse and spent the next few days watching the rain from our porch. Consoled ourselves with some Western comfort food... surprisingly good thin crust pizza and pretty decent sized “American style” burgers, but they came at a cost, about 10x the price of a standard Malaysian meal... o well, sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.
The one afternoon it didn't rain, we ventured out to the beach. It wasn't the prettiest beach and the water wasn't exactly crystal clear, but still... it was a beach, so we did a bit of sunbathing and Erik took a swim. It was interesting to see that Malaysians do not go to the beach at the heat of the day, but rather wait til late afternoon/early evening to take a dip. And, like the Cambodians and the Lao, both men and women are much more modest than Westerners and go swimming fully clothed.
But after several days of watching the rain, we were bored so we decided to move on...
Photos of Cherating... |
| Cherating, Malaysia |
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