Langkawi

Well it has been a rather eventful two weeks. We decided to continue the theme of ‘roughing it’ and travelled to the tropical island of Langkawi. This collection of over 500 islands is located on the north-west coast of Malaysia. It is considered one of the best wildlife islands in Malaysia with many species of birds, reptiles and extensive mangrove. Oh, it’s also duty free, which means alcohol was not only allowed but cheap.

 http://goo.gl/maps/ajexV

We travelled to the small town of Kuala Perlis by night bus from Kota Bharu. This 8 hour experience was made less enjoyable by my inability to sleep on moving vehicles and the fact that James went out like a light after 10 minutes. We travelled as a group of 7, James and I, along with Helena and Alex from Kuala Krai and the three boys from Besut. We arrived in Kuala Perlis at 6 in the morning, and caught the first ferry the Langkawi. This ferry was interesting as the Malay’s had attempted to be highly organised and assign everyone seats, on a ferry. This did not work, everyone was wandering around very confused by the ridiculous seating plan, some people were in the same seat and even some people sets didn’t exist. We finally managed to arrive on Langkawi and find our accommodation, Pantai Tengah Beach Inn. After a well earned chill out session, we strolled into the main town and had a McDonalds. Bliss. An evening of relaxation mixed with cards and question based games followed were much was revealed out about some people. 

The next day was supposed to be our beach day, relaxing in the sun, getting a tan (or in my case getting burnt, James compared me to a lobster more than once). However it was raining. Yes on this tropical island paradise for the one week we were there it was raining. No matter, like true Brits we powered through, we went in the sea instead. The rumours of calm crystal blue waters were totally wrong, the huge waves, crashing breakers and fierce winds made for a more breathtaking experience. After being battered for what felt like hours, we retired home. That evening we went to the famous Little Lylias beachfront bar, complete with life music, palm trees and wooden tables with candles. It was a lovely scene.

The day after the group divided, James, Dale and I rented Mo-Peds and toured the islands while the others 4 went for a full day snorkelling experience. On our island tour we went the Langkawi Aquarium, cable car, Bird Paradise, black sand beach and several waterfalls. Then after becoming totally lost we were guided back through the back of the backstreets by a friendly Malay farmer. During this excursion James managed to take a bump a little too fast causing his phone to fly off his bike. Let’s just say not all the pieces were found. That evening we had been told all about this fantastic night market, and since we still had the Mo-Peds we decided we should try and find it. After assuring Helena that my driving was very safe and she wouldn’t die if she rode on the back with me, we heading out into the night. An hour later, we had lost James and all sense of where we were. Not good. We somehow managed to stumble back to familiar lights, however with no luck on the night market mission. James appeared 30 minutes later, so at that point we decided to call it a night.

The next day we had booked a mangrove tour. After sleeping in and almost missing our transport, we boarded a boat and heading into the mangrove. After seeing a bat cave, eagle feeding, monkey feeding, crocodile cave and a limestone cave (we walked through, it had not been eroded with tall people in mind) we went to a floating fishing village for some lunch. That’s when it started to rain, and rain it did. It was so strong it was painful to drive through it, so the trip was unfortunately abandoned. After changing at home, another chilled out evening followed, made memorable by James and the girls pretending to be unicorns using pointy shells from the beach, oh dear.

On our final day was our island hopping trip, the activity that had been most recommended to us by every teacher at the school. Our first stop was the lake of the pregnant maiden, which legend says if you swim there with you partner you will conceive. Thankfully that hasn’t yet happened to any of us. The enjoyment started with Danny. Danny had purchased a large tube of Pringles, smoked barbeque flavour. He promptly ignored that numerous warning of ‘No food on the island, leave everything on the boat’ and took them anyway. We got about 50 metres onto the island when a monkey, as cheekily as possible crept up behind him and snatched them. The mocking was endless. When we finally reached the lake, we chilled out and fed the catfish for a while, it was such a peaceful spot. The rest of the trip included eagle feeding and a lively beach visit. When we gt back to Langkawi there was time for one last McDonalds before the ferry back. We caught our bus home and arrived in Kota Bharu at 4:30 the next morning.

James and I had failed to remember that later that day was our schools family day, a hectic day filled with tiring games and activities. After that we then had a uncomfortable and mosquito filled 5 day ‘team-building’ camp with Form 3. After almost 2 days of nearly constant sleep we have now recovered, and I have written this blog. Mum, if you nag me about this one being late, the death will be quick and painless. To sum up, trip to Langkawi was wet, expensive and not much of it is fully remembered. We had a fantastic time.

Normality

Yes I am posting again, mostly because my parents keep nagging me. You would have thought that travelling to the other side of the world would be an escape from your mothers constant grumbling that i haven't done things and dads helpful, yet very repetitive tips. I love them really, dispite what i might say, or do, or think most of the time.

Malaysia is still as amazing 6 weeks in as it was the first night we arrived, however I have noticed  that we have settled into a routine that is not so different that at home. Ill  wake up at 7, ehhhhh, head over to school around 8, sit around for an hour or teach a class then go for breakfast. While James devours a huge plate of rice with sauce, meat and vegetables (the amount my partner can eat is unbelievable and I thought I ate alot) I will have a doughnut with a Milo (basically hot chocolate but made with condensed milk). My ideal breakfast, and actually approved in Kelantan as it is considered he sweet state of Malaysia. Thats the morning, then lessons until 2 at which time we go over to the dining hall for lunch. Oh we will probably have had a mid morning snack with the office staff. They are fantastic, however whenever we go in they always seem to be doing no work and are sitting around eating food. They always have food. After an afternoon of jamming on the guitars (until my string snapped, upon which I found acquiring guitar strings in Malaysia in impossible. A request for some was sent home very promptly) we will join the boys for an hour of football at 5. these kids are insane, they play on concrete in bare feet (James tried this, and promptly couldn't walk for 3 days). Then its dinner at half 6, maybe an evening class after that and bed at around 10 (the kids think we are boring as they stay up till around 2 in the morning, I personally think they are zombies). James has now decided that sharing a room is uncool, so he wants to be free in another room. I think he has just abandoned me, but this does mean I can sing as loud as I like in my shower now. Also I got to organise stuff, which is of course one of my favourite past times.

We had a rather hectic weekend this week. The original plan was to visit the girls (Helena and Alex) at Kuala Krai for a day trip. They then decided to come to us and go bowling. Well we soon discovered that maintaining our manliness and beating the girls at bowling was harder than it looked. Alex had an interesting technique, bowl at a snails pace but get ridiculous numbers of strikes, we couldn't believe it, even I was stumped for an explanation. Luckily for us boys I maintained a decent while James was useless and Helena attempted to destroy the gutter with every single bowl. Finally the boys emerged victorious and thus our dignity (or what's left of it) remained intact.

Then the boys from Besut phoned 'Can we come stay with you, we are having a spontaneous shopping trip to Kota Bharu and have no way to get home', sigh. Having just been paid the day before (RM874) and feeling like we could buy the world James and I of course went it to join them. Many boy things were bought, including knifes, lighters, an nether region trimmer and even a sword. it was a good day. Getting back to Pasir Tumboh was an interesting experience as we decided to save money and squeeze five people into a Malay cab. Now Malay cabs are built for FOUR Malay people who are on average smaller than Mat Salleh. it was not a comfortable ride home but we did make it. We saved RM3 each, around 60p.

That evening we took to the local  night market. Quite possibly the most disorientating place  I have ever been, even worse that Gold DofE when we were up the top of a Munro, the fog came down and Kirsty Alexander said ' don't worry guys, ill read the map'. Oh dear. The night market however was incredibly beautiful, with people selling ever manner of things imaginable, from shirts to jeans, torches to watches etc. I had my first experience of haggling and quickly discovered I am awful at it.  Ill leave that to James in the future as I accidentally managed to pay more for something that the original stated price. Using our trusted squeeze method of travelling once again we returned home. James and I then dug out some chilli for dinner that we had cooked. Th first comment from the boys was 'this doesn't taste like chilli, there isn't enough chilli in it', never satisfied huh. True it did taste like  cottage pie with no potato but it was home made and slaved over. The option of 'add some more chilli was requested' so what can you do.

The next day we took of trip to Kota Bharu again, this time to sample some of the fantastic museum around the town. after getting very lost and lost some more we found the World War II museum. With an in depth look at the Japanese/American conflict in Malaysia and surrounding area it was very interesting. After Tom and Dale where nearly locked in for not paying attention to the announcement of 'the museum is now closing'  we heading home. The boys then abandoned me, including James and went back to Besut to be dropped off. I then cleaned and begun our favourite weekend activity, boiling 25 litres of water. The mains water is undrinkable, so in reparation for the week we boil and cool all our water at the weekend, it takes many many hours. I also found that for the first time, a visit had been made and nothing in the entire house was broken thus miracles are true.

Next  week there is a mid term break for Hari Raya Raga and marking the end of PMR exams for form 3 (the sort of equivalent to Standard Grade/GCSE) and we are taking a trip to Langkawi, a big duty free island of the coast near Penang. I shall post an entry about that on return, however we are all rather excited, mostly for the opportunity for consuming alcoholic  beverages may present itself. It seemed only fair that as my entire family leaves for my favourite place on earth, Florida and Disneyland I should have a holiday too. See you after a week of sun and beaches.

Settled In

It has now been a month since we arrived in Malaysia, James scared me by telling me this the other day. It has gone so fast. Finally I have stopped feeling like its a holiday and realised that I am actually living here for a year.

We have taken our first solo trip away from Pasir Tumboh. We travelled to MRSM Kota Putra to visit Tom, Danny and Dale. We took the most unreliable bus in the history of the world, which caused every single teacher to worry about us. It was an interesting trip, it made me realised how weirdly clean I am for a boy. The boys apartment was lets say, needing a scrub however being the old sick bay and being infested with ants didn't help. So we just lay on the beach for two days, and promptly got sunburnt. James even managed to get burnt on his feet, while they were buried in sand. We also experienced Tom Yam, a Malaysian soup. James experienced this more than the rest of us, when he discovered a full Habanero pepper. Much swearing and gasped followed, along with much laughter from the rest of us. It was an enjoyable lads weekend, however the curse of sand followed us home. It of course it found its way everywhere, including our beds, shower etc.On the way back we travelled through the town of Besut, gateway to the Perhentian Islands. We saw the largest number of Mat Salleh we had seen in Malaysia and felt very local as we stared at them constantly.

During the next week, it was constant spelling revision leading up to the Kelantan Spelling Bee. This was broken only once by a game of football. The teachers asked us to come and play with them, in what they called a friendly. Well, it was rather too competitive for our liking oh and plus we were put on the other playing our own school. We won, so we felt strangely smug. When we were told about the spelling bee, we assumed it would be a small competition with kids spelling words like Cat, Dog etc. Oh no, this is a national competition, with prize money of RM3000 for the state challenge and RM15000 for the national final, insane. The words these kids have to spell, bearing in mind this is theiir second language were unbelievable. We hadn't even heard of most of them, even pronounce them let alone spell them. Some examples (cymotrichous, guetapens, prospicience). We had five pupils who made it to the state challenge, and one of them walked away with 5th prize, a small RM1000. We were so proud, as we felt we had played a small part in helping him get there.

We now have 3 weeks of solid school until our next adventure, a trip to the island of Langkawi of the North-West coast with Helena and Alex from Kuala Krai. We are very excited, however now feel this our home, so will just as happy during the next 3 weeks working with the kids. Oh also I am being allowed to help with science.

Teaching

We were slightly nervous on Monday morning as it was the start of our first real teaching week. We would be trailing two teachers, Miss Reen and Miss Sham around their classes to learn the ropes before starting for real. It soon became apparent however that there was nothing to be nervous about.

the kids here are incredible, we are treated as though we are One Direction. They always say hello, shake our hands, ask for pictures, we have even been signing shirts and footballs. The classes we visited turned into massive scrambles to see how could ask the the Mat Salleh the most questions in half and hour. We still haven't grasped how valuable the skill we have, that we take for granted is. To these kids, English is their favourite subject and they view it as a gateway to a successful life. They all have a desire to learn English, so to have a native speaker to practice on is just unbelievable. To be able to give them that, to see what it means is very humbling. They think we are incredibly talented, but we haven't had to work at this at all, its just something we have. To be able to give these kids something so important and to see what it means to them is why I did Project Trust.

During the week we did many classes, including some larger group classes where we played giant scrabble, pictionary and 20 questions. A full scale war nearly broke out between the boys and the girls (they are all extremely competitive). James and I intervened we were strong and determined, sort of.  My first teaching experience has been a real eye opener, that in a country as developed as Malaysia is, all the kids still long to learn English, as it viewed as the gateway to the western world.

On top of our regular teaching hours, we have taking up extra responsibilities. we are now drilling a select group of students for the national spelling bee. Its incredible, the winner receives RM10000 (about 2000 pounds). Id have entered a spelling bee if the prize was 2000 pounds. The standard of words however is insane, i cant even pronounce some let alone spell them. One of my students, Fauzi can never get a moments peace with me, as his friends insist on turning up to our tuition and asking me loads of questions (mostly if i have a girlfriend, and then don't believe that the answer is no).

Apart from school, this week was the celebration of Hari Raya which marks one month from the end of Ramadan. Muslims fast from sunrise to sunset during Ramadan and then celebrate for one month afterwards. I have never eaten so much food in my life, I thought I was going to explode. I could effectively see my waistline expanding before my eyes. As we were the Mat Salleh we had to try every dish, and had to like it. We went to two different celebrations that day, and this was when we first tried Durian, the king of fruits. Imagine garlic mixed with old socks, that is the smell and taste of Durian. James was almost sick, how I kept a straight face I have no idea as this is the ultimate Malay delicacy.

On Saturday we were invited to our first Malay wedding, the daughter of one of our fellow teachers. We felt it would be a formal occasion, so we arrived in shirt and tie. When we realised all the other men were in t-shirt and jeans, we regretted our decision. At Malay wedding you arrive, shake hands, eat food (of course) and leave. The number of colours, the attention to detail, the decorations were all exquisite. On the way home from the wedding, we had asked to go to the local pet store, just to look. We came out with 3 baby turtles. Neo, Hermionie and Kopi are now part of our household, they are so cute.

As the next week begins we are now being put in charge of our own individual classes, practising conversational English in the form of games and activities. Although I am slightly nervous, i know that these amazing kids with be so enthusiastic I will not worry one bit.

Pasir Tumboh

We arrived at our school at around 10 o'clock in the evening. having experience a jungle toilet more than once on the way we where keen to just go to sleep. When we pulled up outside this two storey house, we where certain it was a joke. When we had been told we where staying the the VIP Principle's house, they really weren't lying.
http://goo.gl/maps/E2XBa

The house is incredible, we have two living rooms, 4 bedrooms all en-suite, plus dining room and kitchen. the best part however is definitely the AirCon however the heated electric shower comes close. We where amazed, and a little smug. We spent the entire evening sorting and conttsuting a list of everything we would need to "pimp" our house as James called it.

After a fantastic nights sleep, we woke and prepared ourselves for our first day at MRSM Pasir Tumboh. After being shown round the school by our Mentor Reen and meeting the staff and Principle, we went round to be introduced to some of the kids. This reminded me of the scenes when One Direction step out onto the red carpet. The kids went ballistic, especially the girls. We where doing pictures, signing shirts and answering endless questions about every topic imaginable from 'Where do you come from" to "Do you have a girlfriend". The kids have also decided i look like Justin Bieber and James looks like Zayn Malik, oh dear. that evening in the dining hall. We had sat down for ten seconds when we where instantly surrounded by boys asking us about football. Some kids even made others go fetch them a drink so that their seat would not be stolen.

The staff were also incredible friendly, I reckon if we fluttered our eyelids we could eat for free for the entire year. Everyone we spoke to said they wanted to take us out to dinner. We have been good friends with the other male English, Mr Zaman who is so nicely we feel guilty every time we see him. He has taken us to dinner, lunch, breakfast, out shopping, to the market  and so much ore i cant remember. The same continued the next day, it never gets old being treated like a superstar. we where however quite glad of the arrival of the weekend.

As we were still loving our house and project we decided to invite our nearest volunteers, Tom, Danny and Dale to come stay as this was a long weekend to celebrate Malaysian independence day. the Malays have ridiculous amounts of holiday. They are working in MRSM Kota Putra and Basut in the neighbouring state of Terenganu. They arrived on the Friday afternoon. Much swearing and jealousy then took place as they check out our house. Tom and Danny are staying in the old sick bay, so Tom says "he can practically taste the disease". Dale described his accommodation as 'A cardboard box that is wider than it is tall", but imagine that in a Geordie accent. That evening we where treated again by Zaman to Malaysian Satay. One thing malaysia has taught me already his how far from real chicken chicken nuggets actaully are.
http://goo.gl/maps/HM6Uf

The next day we went to visit Kota Bharu for the first time and visited the central state market. You could have bought anything, from cabbage to a samurai sword. That evening, we had been invited to the football by the schools technician and my new best friend Hadifh (he extended the range of the wifi so we get it at home). we assumed it would be a small local game, but no. When the Malays do football they do it properly. It was a home game for Kelantan FA, or the Red Warriors. They are the states national team and this was an important game, equivalent to an FA cup semi-final. the tickets were still only RM15 (around 3 pounds). The atmosphere was incredible, however unfortunately Kelantan lost.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelantan_FA

The next day there was a surprise visit to the biggest Tesco known to man. Seriously this place was massive, it have 42 checkouts plus there was a complete mall built around the store. Tesco's in the UK do not compare. On the way home there was a surprise visit to what has now become my favourite place, the Bundle Store. Basically imagine a pile of second hand t-shirts, about 4 feet tall. we where told it was RM10 for 3 items. James bought 10, I bought 9 and we wanted to stay forever.

That marked the end of the weekend, the boys went home rather reluctantly on Sunday afternoon ao James and I had the afternoon free. after cleaning the entire house, we jammed on the guitars for a good 2 hours. After a relaxing first week we were prepared to begin our teaching the next morning.

MRSM

The thoughts as we travelled from the safety of Seremban to the hustle and bustle of KL where a mix of apprehension and excitment. The journey lasted around and hour, mostly dominated by a view of palm oil plantation on either side for as far as you could see. When we hit civilisation again, we where in the outskirts of KL with the huge Petronas Towers visible in the distance.

We pulled up outside our hotel, "Quality Hotel" right in the middle of KL. 

http://www.quality.com.my/KL/

The size of the place was huge, just a little larger than Gairloch. We had to travel to the 17th floor for our room, in a glass elevator on the side of the hotel. What a view. Then we realised our room our room was not yet finished, so we dumped our stuff and went shopping at a traditional Malay mall down the road. It was a nightmare, I still have no idea how many floors it actually had and everywhere looked exactly the same. Eventually we had what we needed, plus loads we didn't so we returned to hotel where we promptly watched Ice Age 2.

That night we met our MARA rep Marwati who took us out to KLCC where we had lunch at a Malay food court, most of us had Subway. we then went to the central plaza, directly under the Petronas Towers. The lights where all on, plus there was a light show and fountains in the water. we could have stayed there for days. 

http://www.petronastwintowers.com.my/

The next morning we all dressed into our smartest attire and prepared to meet the big boss, the Head of MARA. Before this however we had to cross the road, this was made difficult by the 6 or 7 thousand soldiers marching through Kuala Lumpur practising for the Independence Day march. this was further made difficult when they began cheers and shouting at the site of 12 very smartly dressed Orang Putih. We where now very embarrassed Orang Putih, it was certainly strange to be this noticed. 

After meeting with the big boss and having our final briefing, we said goodbye to each other and boarded our respective school buses. we had an 8 hours drive ahead of us, however 10 minutes down the road we stopped for some lunch. Our mentor, Reen was advising us on what to have at this Malay truck stop for we told ourselves we would not have McDonald's again. a chicken dish caught our eye, so we inquired about the strength of the spice. Mild, Reen said. Well if this was mild hot could have killed an elephant. After finishing half out of pure politeness, we where informed that eating large amounts of spicy food can caused some potential bowel related problems. We quickly stopped eating and went to McDonald's, where strangely we found the rest of the volunteers all whom had stopped in the same place but had been sensible enough to stick with familiar food.

 http://goo.gl/maps/tB54y

 

After this it was a straight run north to our school, MRSM Pasir Tumboh. Our orientation had been fun, but now it was time for the real work to begin. Or something like that.

Arriving

So this is the first entry to my blog, however fashionably late it is. I will write about the experience up until departure in due course.
After a year of nervousness, last Thursday August 22nd I finally left the UK for Malaysia. After 21 hours of travelling, we finally arrived at Hotel Sutera, around 1 hour south of Kuala Lumpur kin the town of Seremban. 
 http://goo.gl/maps/yiSeP
We had barely enough time to think when our rep, Noraini arrived and announced she was taking us for food, at 2:30 in the morning. I had now been up for over 42 hours, however i couldn't say no to free food. We experienced the Malay favouriters Roti Canai and Nasi Goreng, along with Milo Ping and Tea Tarik. We finally flopped down in our beds at around 3:30 and instantly turned the AirCon down.

We all slept to a ridiculously late hour the next day, then chilled by the pool until mid afternoon. Feeling very relaxed we walked over the road to meet Kenny, the rather large Chinese phone shop owner. After being very jolly and enthusiastic for around 30 minutes he suddenly realised he had forgotten all our Sim cards, oops. After buying a Malaysia Nokia brick phone, complete with the classic game snake, we went to experience a Malaysian shopping mall and immediately regretted it. A horrible smell filled the entrance, something like garlic mixed with dirty socks. we where later informed this was a Malaysian delicacy known as Durian, a fruit which is currently in season. Noraini encouraged us to try a small bite, lets just say the Malaysians are welcome to this particular delicacy. 

The rest of the day was filled with poolside antics, swimming, some Malay language and culture lessons and ended with a formal dinner. this was attended by past volunteers from the UK.

We awoke bright and early the next day and climbed into hot, sticky buses to travel to the town of Malaka on the west coast.
http://goo.gl/maps/WpJuB
Well myself and a friend hit the jackpot and where invited to travel with Noraini in her leather clad air conditioned car, oh yes. When we arrived we went to a beach front seafood restaurant and was again treated to an amazing Malaysian lunch. I experienced the Malay favourite 100 plus, effectively Lucozade but it actually works.

After lunch we strapped on life jackets and jumped from the balcony into the sea. It was incredibly salty and the floor was covered with a dark, sludgy mud. It felt like walking in thick, moving custard with large lumps. Some volunteers, including my partner James tried the myth that rubbing it on your skin acts as a beauty agent. I may ion the long term, but in the short term it just looked ridiculous.

After the swim in the sea, we where invited to ride on the restaurants banana boat, basically a huge inflatable, you guessed it, banana towed behind a speed boat. ill have to admit, at this point it did feel like a holiday. We then travelled into the centre of Malaka town to visit a world renowned Chinese heritage site. Although the buildings had been converted into shops, the architecture was breath taking, plus you could buy samurai swords. After buying the worlds most tourist like hat, now known as the Swag hat and trying a colourful rice lump Kuih Lapis we drove back to Seremban. Then due to a lack of organisation there was no food planned, so we had to go to McDonalds.

The next morning, Monday August 26th we packed our bags and prepared to leave Seremban. We met Marwati our rep from MARA and after almost forgetting one volunteer travelled in an amazing coach to Kuala Lumpur. 
http://goo.gl/maps/65rMG
This coach, wow. the seats reclined completely flat, there was huge leg room, full AirCon, comfy leather seats and TV. As we travelled to KL I have top say I was enjoying Malaysia so far.