What A Wonderful World

Day 2

I was very surprised with myself for being motivated to get up as early as 5.30 am to watch the sunrise! I brisk walked to the beach in total darkness. It was a lucky thing that I took my hand phone with me. I used the dim light to lead the path. I was cursing profusely because they didn’t keep the corridor lights on and the lightings along the way to the beach. To save cost, I guess!

As soon as we got there, my colleague and I sat on the ramshackle life guard platform. It was a shaky structure, so if it could withstand my weight, anyone else could just climb on it!

We waited patiently for the sun rise while waiting for others to drop by. About five minutes later, my sister joined me with the Mechanic, then followed by another colleague. Not long later, a motorbike passed by us and stopped some 100m in front of us. I was a bit worried he might be a Mat Rempit. Who knows? Mat Rempit are bunch of morons who don’t know how to get a proper job and prey on other honest and hardworking people for a living. They should all be lined up against the wall and be shot! I was worried that the Mat Rempits might come to terrorize the early birds who wake up early to watch the sunrise.

For a moment, I felt vulnerable. Even with the five of us there, I didn’t feel we were safe. I was telling my colleagues to run as fast as we can if he began to behave suspiciously.

We heaved a sigh of relief when we got to know he was actually the security guard. He made his rounds in the mornings to ensure those people who came to watch sunrise were safe. Thank goodness for that. Blame our fear on the useless government who failed to do something about the dreadful pests.

The sky was thick with clouds and mist. As forewarned by the tour guide the night before, he said, the past few mornings sunrise watch had been unsuccessful due to thick clouds. He wished us good luck though.

The Shy Sun

He was right. The clouds were so thick, that we actually waited almost two hours for the shy sun to emerge from its hiding. It wasn’t as spectacular as I wished it would be but, it was sufficient to make me happy. I tried to absorb the very moment as much as I could and Nat King Cole’s song – “What a Wonderful World” kept playing repeatedly in my mind.

Romancing the Sun

The few of us were goofing around taking pictures of sort. I kinda like the one above.

After the lookout for sunrise, we headed straight to the restaurant near the beach for breakfast. There was a beeline at the omelets counter. I guess the hotel was not prepared for such big eaters. We basically cleaned up the buffet within minutes!

Breakfast with a View

The morning started with nature walk – which the lazy me avoided. I went back to the hotel to catch up with some sleep since I woke up early. I was awaken by a knock at the door, asking me if I would like my room to be cleaned. I was quite annoyed actually that they didn’t have keys to our rooms to clean it while we were gone. I think the hotel hired extra help from outside and wanted to keep things simple.

Woodball goalie

Disrupted from sleep and feeling slightly disgruntled, I decided to go for a walk myself and joined others for a game of woodball. It was quite fun actually. The colleagues had a ball of time hitting the ball to the “goal”. We were supposed to play only 4 lanes but ended playing all 24 lanes. Haha! It’s a must try for everybody who intends to visit this resort!

After the woodball game, we went to have lunch at the Casuarina Restaurant near the seaside again. Actually, we were kinda sick of the place as its environment is not that comfortable. It was a bit hot and the place is old. We were glad that we were informed dinner would be served at the Bill Fish bistro by the pool, which is nearer to our hotel

The deserted beach

Instead of watching the boys to play water polo, I decided to walk about beach myself and took some photos. The sun was a bit unbearable, so I decided to go back to my room to catch up with some winks of sleep. This is a holiday – so by all means I am going to indulge myself with some valuable shut eye!

Mana tau… my nap became a long, long sleep. I couldn’t believe I slept from 2 pm right through till 7 pm! If my sister didn’t come to wake me up for dinner, I wouldn’t have woken up!

Jejarum

Some of the girls complained of lack of activities to help them go through the day. Indeed. When you are here in Lanjut Beach & Golf Resort, time passes so damn slowly! It’s like you are being sucked into a time warp where time stands still. Not a bad thing entirely. Don’t we all always wish to stay young forever? Probably this is the place to go!

After dinner, we got ready to go to a nearby mangrove swamp for fire flies watch. I was glad that it was a truly dark night. Instead of using small sampans to ferry the passengers to watch fire flies, we gotten into big sampan which could cater for 35 people in each boat. The night was fresh due to the rain earlier in the evening. I simply love the smell of the air. There wasn’t smelly salty river. It smelled kinda clean and almost untainted.

As my eyes slowly gotten accustomed to the darkness and feasted on the swarm of dimly flickering fire flies, I breathed in the fresh air and somewhat felt, we are living in such a lovely country. How I wish that everyone in our country feel truly blessed with the abundance of wealth that nature bestows us and make the most of everything.

The night ended with jungle war games in which again I didn’t participate. My old bones probably couldn’t take my heavy frame prancing around in the forest! I went to karaoke instead. I didn’t sing any songs as songs selection was restrictive to only Malay songs and the only English CD has some oldies which I didn’t even heard of. I was entertained by the antics of some colleagues, particularly the super moron woman, who belted her lungs out with her son wailing and tugging at her legs; as if begging her to stop as she was embarrassing him.

I went to bed just before 12 am. It was such bliss to be able to sleep even after a marathon afternoon nap, on such a comfortable big bed and soft pillows and dreamed away.

To be continued..