May...hem

If you see a 6ft long monitor lizard, a relative of the Komodo Dragon, what are you going to do? Run towards it? Thought not. Unless you are one of the instructors at Outward Bound! Shukri followed one the whole way down the beach and disappeared for a while, there was a slight concern that a role reversal had occurred, no worries he appeared safe and sound. Having a few days off allowed me to do my PADI Open Water Scuba Diving course which means I can dive up to 18m anywhere in the world! I did it locally from Marina Island with Syafirul, one of the instructors. Alistair was supposed to do it with us but got an ear infection with the most inconvenient timing, although he did his a few weeks later. We completed the course in two and a half days ‘cause we are such pro’s! To be honest the visibility wasn’t the best, although we did manage to see some cool purple and orange fish, an abundance of sea urchins with flashing lights and a few other things. The main thing was the experience though, it is such an odd feeling kneeling on the sea floor being unable to see your hand and then removing your breathing apparatus to prove you’re good enough! Alistair and myself got a bit bored and weren’t too sure of the rules of snooker so we’ve invented our own game. It is a combination of pool, snooker, drinking games etc. It is played with the same basic rules as pool and snooker. The key rules are that the rules are decided at the start of each game, so generally a game will involve forfeits for potting the wrong ball, a ball leaving the table, hitting the wrong ball first etc. Common forfeits are crawling under the table which hasn’t been swept in 10years, running round the table with the ball above your head shouting the other persons name, dribbling around the table 3 times, you get the idea. An important ingredient is to be high on energy drinks or vanilla coke. That is SNOOL. My next course was one of the best, Nilai University students. The course was a week long including a kayak round Pangkor and trekking HTM. The participants were good craic and because it was a challenging course you could see bonds forming among the group and people changing. Camping at Teluk Sekadeh I actually woke up “cold” in the morning! But for the first time in months I got that nice cozy feeling when you’re cold and put on a jacket to warm up: bliss! You guys probably find it strange that I miss that dreich weather where its cold and wet and blowing a gale, sometimes constant 30+°C heat gets a bit too much! There were strong winds and big waves so we postponed departure slightly. I was the MC for the informal closing ceremony which is always great when you can read Chinese names…nah I’m joking I think I managed ok! I had even more time off so I arranged with Alia, my awesome Malay friend, to go to her house in Ipoh for a few days and go to Penang for a night. When I arrived we went to a school concert that Alia’s cousin Ainan Tasnin was singing at, she is a recording artist in Malaysia! We got a train at 2am to Penang! The train was so uncomfy and had far too much air-con it was freezing but at least we got a few hours sleep and saved ourselves time and money on accommodation. For the next two days we basically wandered around seeing what was about, eating food and taking stupid pictures with the Penang street art. We visited all the classic tourist sites like Fort Cornwallis, Penang Hill, the street art, and the hawker food. This was Alia’s first backpacking experience so she was well excited to be staying in a backpackers and talking to people travelling from Germany and New Zealand and laughing at them thinking roti canai was a pancake! Back in Ipoh we just jalan-jalaned and had to make a run back to Lumut because my visa had run out and it had to be sorted that day. Thankfully Alia drove me back, I got the visa sorted and then went back to Ipoh in time to pick her sister and mother up from work. Next morning we continued Alia’s swimming lessons at a local outdoor pool and she is getting pretty damn good at swimming, must have a good teacher…. hehe

Malaysia IS food!

Rewind two months and we come to my first time instructing a course! We went to briefing assuming we would be support as always but me and Alistair got taken into Syafris office and told we would be instructing a watch (15people) each with the help of Din and Fendy. Before instructing this course I thought I knew a lot about each activity and that instructing would be reasonably easy, how wrong I was! Its so difficult to keep the kids attention and make sure I'm one step ahead of the game. Most of the course went well, however the teachers on this particular course made life difficult for instructors by always intervening and telling the kids different meeting times to us. This also made it hard for us to gain the respect of the kids as teachers were always undermining us. My watch managed to lose their store key and a compass costing me 86ringgits! I learned a lot from this course and hope I get another opportunity like it to improve on my performance and there is a lot to improve on! The feedback forms made me laugh though, one kid commented

There should be less international instructors.

this particular kid was Indonesian and came from an international school! I had a rare free weekend and no plans so with 10minutes notice headed back to Alia's home in Ipoh. Her family are lovely, especially her mother who made me feel so welcome in her home. We visited multiple other family members who were equally nice. I got a full tour of Ipoh courtesy of Alia, her parents and her brother. We went to a couple of Buddhist temples, mostly situated in caves and have very colourful statues about (great for taking stupid pictures with!). We also went on a cave tour and visited Kellies Castle which was built by a Scot for his wife but she died before it was completed so the castle was left unfinished, still worth a visit although we were too stingy to pay the entry fee so just took pictures from outside! I'm pretty sure one day we had 5 meals, pretty standard in Malaysia, as Alistair said "Malaysia is food!" I had a great weekend getting to see another part of Malaysia, meeting Alias family and understanding more about malaysian culture. I also bought glow-in-the-dark stars so Libby and I can now stargaze before we go to sleep every night! We have Orions belt, the plough, north star, toilet star and light star among others! Back at OB and we're off on another training expedition. This time a kayak around Pangkor Island in two days. Heading up to Syawal took only 2hours, but once we got there we had to camp as participants so instead of our usual hammocks or dome tents we had to pitch a single tent made from a rope between two trees and tarpaulins over the top. Tents pitched, que the storm! Heavy rain threatened to flood our tent so mammoth trenches were dug, Libby hid under a wok and Alistair had a shower in the rain! Next day we started strong making good time, we didn't touch land for 6hours, only stopping for people to jump in the water to relieve themselves! And a mass capsize drill! The last little stint back to OB required good teamwork in each kayak to motivate those who were tired and sore but we all made it in one piece and without any fallouts! Habis for the moment! More to follow on Sunday (maybe)!