1.1 We were in Redang, Trengganu, population 50, goats 512.
1.2 There are certain restrictions when young families come to choosing a place to go on vacation. Screaming young kids means (a) nowhere too far away (b) nothing historical, cultural or faux-historical and (c) no ecotourism, adventure tourism, or anything else involving Mortal Peril. The island of Redang epitomises what you have left.
1.3 When I was little, we did a lot of trips like this: Langkawi, Phuket, Batam. I think I even looked forward to them. Obviously then, observing the other families on our flight, the first thought that comes to mind is: was I so obnoxious when I was 8?
1.4 The second is: probably.
1.5 Jianyi’s idea with the leashes isn’t so bad.
2.1 It’s a 1.5 hour flight from Seletar Air Base. They’ve opened up most of Seletar Camp for civilian use. Singapore Technologies is still in there, and the bungalows that the British officers used back in the day, but as far as I could see a lot of the SAF facilities are gone. I used Seletar Camp once in my NS days, for a river crossing exercise, and the most memorable thing about that was how my socks turned mustard yellow afterwards.
3.1 The first thing you notice are the goats. They come in four flavours: brown with horns, black with horns, brown without horns and black without horns, and they all shit extravagantly.
3.2 And chickens.
3.3 The kids are extraordinarily friendly, and wave at us every time we pass. They seem to spend an unnatural amount of time wading around in the drains with their homemade fishing hooks. There is a school very nearby, and I’m almost positive they are playing truant.
3.4 My aunt thinks that it’s remarkable that they do not succumb to ringworm and other vector-borne diseases. They probably do.
3.5 This is my aunt.
She would have my head if she knew I had posted her picture on the Internet.
4.1 The seawater is calm, turquoise, and so clear that it’s almost unnatural. Along the private stretch in front of our resort, it appears that there is no marine life whatsoever. If you look really, really hard, you can locate the occasional dead bivalve. I despair, but just a little.
4.2 Fortunately, there are rocks. And where there are rocks, there are cirrepedia; and where there are cirrepedia, there are other macrofauna.
4.3 We spend a pleasant afternoon communing with the fish, as well as a knobbly sea cucumber that scares the bejesus out of a little girl with a Strawberry Shortcake wading ring.
5.1 The food tries to be average, and occasionally succeeds.
5.2 Drinks at 17 Rm a pop sweeten the deal a bit.
6.1 I Shall Not Hear the Nightingale has nothing to do with the Rossetti poem, and I’m beginning to think that Khushwant Singh did not even mean the title as a quotation. The book was dull, and suffers from being a dolled-up political statement, which I’m sure people know how much I hate. Don’t be tempted.
7.1 Kayaking reminds me of OBS, where Kenneth Gay thought it would be a good idea to cook a whole, unchopped onion into a cauldron of asparagus soup and canned chicken curry and call it dinner.
7.2 It’s a singularly inefficient way to travel, although I suppose you could look at it from another angle and say that it’s a great workout. .
8.1 There isn’t much to do at nights. The television is on the fritz, and the other recreational facilities they have are lame. I wish I had better books. (Currently reading: The 13.5 Lives of Captain Bluebear – Walter Moers)
9.1. We visit Pulau Tamun, MPA. It’s no more than a rock in the ocean, but it has a mosque, a few chalet bungalows, a cemetery and a research lab.
9.2. They study sea turtles in this lab, and it continues to amaze me that Chelonia navigate the world, avoid the soup pot, and have still not gone extinct.
9.3 According to a sign on the beach, SAFETY IS AT YOUR OWN RISK. ACCIDENTS are also AT YOUR OWN RISK.
9.4 There is life in abundance. The fish eat from your hands. In particular, one snout-nosed species is more than happy to swim right up to you and poke curiously at your fingers.
9.5 Even after much coaxing, the only person willing to venture far from the shore is The Other Brother. Everyone else: you missed out.
10.1 It wasn’t perfect, but I kind of needed the break.
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