Life as we don't know it

What we did in paradise (Part 1)

Friday, December 2, 2011 @ 5:00 PM PERMALINK

So what do we do in paradise?

Different variations of nothing and exploring
(oh and cooking and a little bit of manual labour for the boys ; its only fair that we earn our keep)

Once we got there, we were tired out from all the travelling and it was pretty late. We ate, showered and just relaxed and talked.

Trying to smoke 2 ciggs at a time ; one menthol and one reds. It's supposedly very amazing. I wouldn't know.

I was standing on the balcony with Carolyn and Ally when I noticed this:

GIANT LIZARD!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We spent awhile trying to figure out if it was just a decoration because it stayed so still. When the three of us couldn't come to a conclusion, we enlisted the opinion of the boys; which is when all hell broke loose.

We tried all means and ways to make it move to prove it was real but the lizard would not relinqish its spot. We shined flashlights and lazers at it to no avail. We even went as close as we dared to it (which was behind the screen door in the room) and made noise but it still wouldn't move. Finally Jordon threw three tealights on the boards near it before it finally gave up and scurried off.

We were too chicken to get our hands close to it for scale but its sitting on 2 1/2 planks used to build the rooms and each plank is about one hand wide. This lizard is like 15x the size of a normal lizard! I'm not even being dramatic.

(Sidenote: I showed this picture to my mum when I got back and all she had to say was: "Aw, its so pretty!")

We finally went to bed soon after.

The next morning, we all magically managed to wake up to drive down for breakfast. There is this amazing wanton mee stall that we go to but sadly it was too early so it didnt occur to me to take pictures.

After breakfast, we just relaxed in the waterfall pools and napped/read until it was time to drive out for dinner and to buy supplies.

We decided to go for bak ku teh and Carolyn was the designated driver. With the help of the GPS and memories from the last time the boys went to the store, we managed to find the place.

The bak ku teh here is amazing and super affordable! The soup tastes like a mix of both the peppery and herb versions that we get in Singapore.

The claypots are filled with ingredients including mushrooms and tau Kwa. Yum!

After we filled our stomaches, we headed to Tesco to buy supplies for the rest of our trip. We didn't want to leave Uncle Steven's house bare when we left so we decided to buy whatever we needed to use/cook.

Once in Tesco, we spilt up and the girls went to buy drinks and stuff for making drinks while we put the boys o charge of buying food and snacks.

It is alot harder than it seems to buy food for 11 people because you never know how much is too much or too little.

I love supermarket shopping though and it's fun to zip around with your shopping cart looking at all the local products. Malaysia still sells vanilla coke!

We got stumped when it came to buying mint leaves because we couldn't find them and we didnt know how to ask for them in Malay. Ally finally managed to get someone to tell us where the mint was and with that our shopping was complete.

The drive back was very eventful. Our van broke down just as we pulled out of Tesco's parking lot and the boys had to push start it. Malaysian drivers are nothing like Singapore drivers, even though our van was blocking all the cars behind, no one horned at us and just went around when they realised what happened.

After that, we got caught in a massive traffic jam due to a religious procession on the street.

We also discovered that the 7-11s in Malaysia sell kickass Mountain Dew flavored slurpees when we stopped to buy supper for the guards as an apology as we would have to wake them up to open the gates for us to get home.

Now that all the serious logistics were sorted out, we all headed back to the house some midori, beer and much needed relaxation.

(More on our adventures in paradise in my next post; its more exciting I promise. It even contains the story of a near death experience + lost belongings)

Labels: malaysia, travel