Home Thoughts From Abroad

With three days booked at the hotel and four sets of snorkel equipment we were thrilled to find that although the name had changed, this was the same hotel we had loved seven years earlier. It is a beautiful hotel, on an incredible island and was fully staffed in spite of the fact that there were a total of eight guests, including us. Sadly it rained, almost literally, the entire time we were there, By the second day we decided that the waves were calling to us and it was warm and there was no lightning.

Steve rustled us up four boogie boards and we spent the next two afternoons riding the waves. We all had some pretty amazing runs. It was so sad to know that the beautiful coral reefs and colourful fish we came to see were only feet away but completely unreachable because of the rough seas. We had internet access, plenty of books, tons of snacks and drinks and a deck of cards and great friends with us. Not at all what we hoped for but it was fine in spite of Shelley falling on the steps and landing on her computer. And they got to experience monsoon rains up close and personal- enough for a life time.

It was evident that the weather was not going to change and it was now too dangerous to take a speed boat so we opted for the public ferry. It was an enclosed boat, large enough to seat over 250 so a safe option. It was a pretty wild ride with swells that appeared to be a couple of stories high. Almost two hours later, we were pretty ready to celebrate when the town jetty finally came in to sight. For a price, a significant price, we switched to an earlier flight that got us home to KL by early afternoon. When we looked down on the floods in Kuala Terengganu, we felt very fortunate to be heading back to a much drier KL.