Happy Malaysia Day everyone. And the really happy way to celebrate Malaysia Day is to make sure that everyone has a day off. Because Malaysia Day fell on Sunday 16th this year the pay-back holiday was Monday 17th which meant a day off and a long weekend at the beach for various Lawrences.
We gratefully accepted the offer of the use of a friend’s apartment at the coast and set off in the Proton Saga. I like to think that Proton named its mainstay, signature vehicle because of its longevity: it goes on and on, just like any good saga. With only 40,000 km on the clock it is only really only its warm-up cycle.
Traffic was busy most of the way until we turned off the main north-south drag and then the ever cheery sat-nav took us to the coast road. It had no idea where Coco Bay Beach Resort was but we were hopeful and peeled our various sets of eyes looking for bounty bar paradise. While Coco Bay Beach Resort did not live up to my mental billing, we did eventually find the crumbling block that was to be our pad for two nights, negotiate our way past the mobs of swifts and associated bird crap on door bars and then dodge the leaks from the apartment above. The apartment itself was very pleasant and arriving late as we did was just right to sleep in. I dread to think what the people in the apartment above were doing that created so much noise and so many drips.
On Sunday morning the clan drove to a nearby beach and experienced our first immersion into tropical waters. While the beach did not have the classiness of Cromer it also did not have the chill of Cromer’s sea. In short it was just like bathing in a warm salty bath. However the one faux-pas that we all made was our beach attire. Malaysians on the beach wear the same when on the beach and in the water. In effect it is a strictly clothes on swimming style. It is a style that I really did not like when doing life-saving classes at school. Classmates and I were forced to swim length after length of St Augustine’s Pool dressed in pyjamas in preparation for that sure to happen day when one might be out for a pleasant stroll, dressed only in one’s pyjamas and see a fellow human struggling in open water and in need of rescuing by a brave soul in their night attire. Sadly I have never had the need to remove my non-existent pyjamas, knot the legs and make them into an impromptu float to save a soul from drowning. From that period of time onwards I have never willingly swum in my clothes and I did not feel the urge to on Sunday either. But I did stick out like a sore thumb. White skinned and hairy-backed I was unique. However I was not as much of a tourist attraction as Trixie. Small blond girl, with regulation pig tails jumping happily over waves attracted much attention and photographs from a number of fellow swimmers and waders.
Lexi’s desire to fit in with the fashion, understandable seeing as she would have been the only woman on the beach in a swimming costume had she gone in to the water forced me to add t-shit buying to the list of lunchtime chores that Rupert and I set of to do at lunchtime. Clearly we bought lunch and also bought Lexi the ghastliest garment available, a Mr Happy, with red tongue sticking out the side of his mouth and with the words “I LOVE PORT DICKSON” was what we found and duly bought. Lunch was not a huge success. The children all disliked their hotdogs as they had lots of brown sauce on them, the hot dogs not the children. Edwin managed to unwrap his with his customary vigour and complete lack of delicacy and so his rolled smoothly onto the sand. However sun drenched we did the leave the beach in relatively high spirits.
After washing the beach off under the shower we cooled off at the apartment before setting out for tea, a rather nice Thai style meal which we had to order in broken Thai as the waitress spoke no English and we spoke no Malay. Quite how come she was a Thai speaker we could not establish but the fish, vegetables, omelette and rice were all delicious.
Next to the restaurant was a curious looking warehouse-like, blue and white striped tent named Baden-Baden. Scouting reference? Malay-German twinning? We had to explore. It turned out to be neither. Instead it was effectively a clothes market where pretty much everything was priced at RM5 per item. Yes there were some fetching bargain blouses that Lexi bought but my attention was grabbed by the huge range of t-shirts. These were not just any t-shirts. This was a place where people came to buy the really oddly designed and sign-written numbers that amuse the native English speaker. Still chuckling from seeing a lady wearing a fitted pink number on the beach which bore a large red heart and the words “Love Child” I set about looking at the many offerings that were available and I was not disappointed. A swift sift through the hangers and my eyes were taken by an orange number that had the following delightful phrase “Pimps Smoke Chronic.” Marvellous. I have no idea what the phrase means taken as a whole nor do I have any clue why such a phrase has been lovingly printed on an orange t-shirt. All I know is that I now own it. Please let me know if you have occasion when you might find use for it and you can gladly borrow it.