Madame Blossom's Book of Poems

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Pulau Perhentian Besar

Hey. So I just came back from a wonderful, beautiful holiday in Pulau Perhentian Besar. I actually went to buy a waterproof camera, to bring along for this trip, so that I can take pictures of fishes and corals and us, under the sea.

We decided to drive up to KL and take a flight to Kota Bharu from there. If not for Hadi's tournament, we would have left early early Wednesday - but because of it, we had to leave like 4pm, and we reached KL only about 7pm.


And since we were going to reach 8pm and the flight is the next morning, we decided to stay at Tunes Hotel - it's a budget hotel (a 5-star bed for a 1-star price!) near LCCT. The room is OH!-SO small. When you open the door, it brushes against the corner of the bed. To room, fits only one bed, and room for only one person to move around the bed + 1 small & clean toilet.





So anyhow, the next day, it was Air Asia - so that everyone can fly. "Air Asia has been awarded World's Best Low Cost Airline in the year 2009, by Skytrax." The flight was about 55mins.

Once we reached Kota Bharu, we booked an airport taxi, to take us to Kuala Besut, where we'll take the ferry to Pulau Perhentian. That road journey took us about 45mins. But it was through kampungs so, it was ok for me.

When we reached there, we collected our boat tickets and resort voucher from the tour office we booked from (anjung holidays). It rained for a short while, and alhamdulillah, only that short while, so we had to wait for a few minutes until the rain stopped before taking our boat.

And after the three modes of transportation, we reached our destination:


We didn't waste any more time, changed and headed to the beach. But the waters at that resort, didn't have much corals and therefore not much fishes. I was determined on snorkelling amongst many fishes, so we decided to take the water taxi out to the other part of the island, Tuna Bay. We asked the boat to fetch us back at 630pm. And we were not disappointed.


We swam and we snorkelled, fed the fishes and played with them, until dusk. :D Then we went back to our resort. And continued the next morning - went on a snorkelling trip and saw more fishes and more corals!







Thereafter, we stopped for lunch somewhere on the island. It was at a place where their mosque is. And it happened to be a Friday. So we saw all these people coming in by boat loads, in their baju kurung and songkoks, to attend Friday prayers.. it was cute. I like.. forgot to take pictures of those. cet. :-\.



Anyway, after that, we went back to the resort. Some stayed behind, while we got a water taxi out again to another beach to... yes, continue snorkelling and swimming in the sea again.





Before we left, my mistake was, I didn't charge my camera battery a bit more.. so it died on me just 1 hr before the boat picked us up.. but that was the time, we went to a warong, by the beach.. and they had swings hanging from a tree, facing the sea and it was sooooo nice, and I couldn't get a photo of THAT.

We asked the girl at the warong, if they sell goreng pisang, and she said, "sini takde, tapi kat belakang situ aje ada". So I thought, belakang pokok, around the bend ke.. when she actually meant, belakang island tu..like you have to take a boat there. That's the thing, their main form of transport is the boat. There are no motor vehicles on that island. That's why the taxi driver at Kota Bharu said, that this is a virgin island. :)

Back at the resort that night, the weather was beautiful, the sky was full of stars - like it was the previous night.. but the previous night, we were busy chit chatting. This night, we decided to just lie down, be quiet and gaze at the stars.. it was a serene experience.. love it! I'm so glad we did it.





This picture cannot show u the exact beauty of that night.. something you cannot get in Singapore, because it's so poluted with lights everywhere.

Very soon, the next day, it was time to go already, to leave this beautiful island.
:(






haih... how I love this place. I want to go back there. :)



For much more pictures of fishes, corals and the trip, click here!


*unplugged*

Saturday, June 13, 2009

Love thy brother




- Posted using Mobypicture.com

and about sleep.

Hi blog. Long time no see.

Long time no time to update much too. Most updates are just thoughts.. good enough with twitters.

But today, I came across a scienceblog, 'everything you wanted to know about sleep'.

So, apparently, there are the larks and there are the owls.. larks sleep at dusk and wake up before dawn. Owls sleep very very late at night and would wake up when the sun is really up. I would prefer to be more of a lark than an owl, although right now.. i'm tilting towards the owl.

Then, it also mentioned about what was the natural way of sleeping for humans, before electricity disrupts natural human lifestyle. Yes, I've read about this in another article.. about how, nighlights can do harm to our body because we need real darkness to sleep well and for our body to rest well, actually. In this article also it tells us to not turn on the light at night, when we sleep.

The thing I was going to get into actually is about the natural way humans sleep before. It was the bimodal sleep pattern. When human actually goes to sleep after dusk. They wake up in the middle of the night for an hour or two. goes to sleep again, then wake up just before dawn. And maybe take an afternoon nap. This is amazing. This fits, our prayers timing, very well. Including time for qiyam!

So, I hope I can get back to our natural way of sleeping. I hope. I want to try.

*unplugged*