Pretty little Pasir Bogak is just one of Pulau Pangkor's pretty beaches
Where better to spend a few days taking it easy than at the beach? Normally I'd be full of smug answers – 'up a mountain', 'in the pub', 'in bed' or possibly even something witty – but the next logical stop after the Cameron Highlands was Pulau Pangkor, a popular little island off the west coast of northern Malaysia, and we took it. It's a tourist spot, sure, but Charlie and I had decided to see the rest of the year out with some real relaxation before the rigours of the New Year's travels. And where better to relax than at a beachside resort?
The bus journey was simple – getting around Malaysia is child's play, even easier than getting around the UK – and we boarded the ferry to Pangkor with plenty of time to spare.
On the Beach
Pulau Pangkor is a pretty island surrounded by pretty scenery
Beaches are beaches wherever you are, and Pangkor was no real exception. The water was murky, the sand lightly dusted with litter, and the jet skis and power boats were as annoying as anywhere else, but there were some interesting differences between the little village of Teluk Nipah and similar hotspots on the Costa del Sol.
For a start, the place was totally Muslim, as is most of Malaysia. Sure, there weren't loud mosques blaring out the call to prayer – indeed, Malaysia is a hell of a lot quieter than Indonesia, even in the unfortunate hotels that sit next to the mosques – but every woman wore a tudung (a scarf covering the head, also known as a burqa), and there wasn't a hot dog stall to be seen anywhere. Even on the beach the Malay tourists observed the modest values of Islam: male and female adults bathed in T-shirts and long shorts, exposing a bare minimum of bare skin, and non-swimmers would laze on the beach in jeans, long-sleeved shirts and, for the women, burqas. It looked odd: there were a few westerners with their slinky Speedos and suntan lotion, but they looked out of place among the well-covered locals.
There's also a distinct lack of alcohol in Pangkor: it's available, but only from a few places, and then it's only between certain hours. This is a serious bonus: it prevents the resort turning into a drunken orgy of beer-and-beach proportions, and makes the behaviour of tourists pretty acceptable, with few late nights and drunken rampages.
Pulau Pangkor's small shipbuilding industry peeking through the tropical greenery
The fresh fish available at the restaurants along the beachfront more than makes up for the lack of beer, with the charcoal smell of ikan bakan (barbecued fish) lilting across the sea breezes, thankfully masking the smell of the choked streams meandering down to the beach from the village. If it weren't for the savage attitude of the mosquitoes, Pangkor would be a pretty pleasant spot: as it is, it's just another beach, on just another island.
There's something I noticed on Pangkor that had been driving me silently potty ever since I landed in Indonesia. The most common piece of Southeast Asian footwear is the sandal, whether in the professional leather-bound version, or the tacky rubber-and-plastic thongs: only businessmen wear proper shoes. There is one thing about the prevalence of flip-flops, though, that drives me stark, raving mad: Malaysians, and indeed Indonesians, drag their feet, making their flip-flops slide along the ground with a scraping noise that's constant and infuriating, and given that most floors are concrete, the sound's loud and grating. The problem is that once you've noticed it, you notice it everywhere, and much like the tap dripping at night, or the window rattling on the bus, it's torture. But, like much of Asia, you either take it or leave it, so I learned to take it, like it or not.
Charlie and I both discovered, too, that we'd lost the art of conversation. After such a long time learning to make small talk, both from travelling and, in Charlie's case, his career1, we'd both decided that polite small talk is simply boring. We sat around, studiously ignoring everyone, and exchanging glances every time someone mentioned their travels. People can be so repetitive, you know: I know I'll sound monotonously boring when I return home and keep saying things like, 'Well, in India they do this...' and 'That's not half as big as the spiders in Australia...' but I didn't think I'd ever get bored of talking about travelling.
Swarms of biting ants blocking the path on the way up Bukit Pangkor
I suppose another reason for our lack of interest in conversation was the collection of Time and National Geographic magazines lying around our guest house (or should I say campsite, as we stayed in an A-frame hut rather than a room). We spent hours each day devouring news and real journalism: I felt a need fulfilled as I read articles written in flowing, informational script, as opposed to the pandering prose more common in Southeast Asian countries. Good journalism is like a lemon sorbet – refreshing, bittersweet and with a lingering aftertaste – and after the stodgy staple of pidgin-English propaganda I'd been reading in the Southeast Asian papers, this was truly a taste sensation.
However we hadn't lost our interest in walking, spending the second day hoofing round the island on the one road available. We also included a bush-bash up to the top of Bukit Pangkor, but seeing as the path was overgrown and the views non-existent (due to trees) it wasn't one of the most successful jaunts of all time. Still, just sitting on the beach for three days would have sent me mad, so I should be thankful for small mercies, even if it included plenty of ripped flesh from the evil plants in the local bush, and bites from the clouds of (malaria free) mozzies. Bloody rainforest: whatever happened to the pledge I'd made after Taman Negara never to bash through jungle again? Looks like it went the same way as vowing to keep off boats and promising not to moan about other travellers...
Bloody whingeing Poms, eh!
1 Charlie used to work for the Ministry of Defence, under contract from GEC Marconi, so we've both signed the Official Secrets Act. As a result he got used to talking about his job at cocktail parties without ever saying what it was he actually did. He almost became as much of a waffler as some of the journos I know, and that's saying something...
