not so enjoyable, but definitely memorable.

that sentence basically summarized my redang island trip. i kind of expected it to turn out that way after all that happened for the past few weeks before the trip. i was having doubts about going but i made a promise to someone and i don't want to break it. furthermore, i was the one making all the bookings and the others had no clue whatsoever. for the record, those who went are lay wei, chin chin, liang liang, sheue mey, hui yen, chee hui, wee how, zhenjian, kea loon and me.


day 1 - disaster!

nevertheless, i was excited when we finally reach the island. i had no idea that the boat ride would take an hour and a half! almost throw up in the boat. good thing i slept for a while. after checking in, i went out alone to check out the beach. my thought was, since i already paid for it and i'm here, why not just forget about everything and let myself off for a few days? after all, my final exams were terrible and i really need to relax before i study again for my supplementary paper. *sigh*

just when i thought everything will be ok, it was not! one of the guys (there were 10 of us, 4 guys and 6 girls) came and told me some unpleasant things about the project i've worked on previously. suffice to say that what i heard killed off my mood instantly. it took me a while and some walk along the beach to cool down before taking my lunch.

after lunch it was snorkeling time! wee how and hui yen decided not to go because hui yen was having her period (bad timing) and wee how stayed back to accompany her. those who went were taken to the marine park by boat and the process of getting on the boat was hilarious. because the water was to shallow, the boat can't stop too near to the beach. so we had to swim a bit to get on it. no one briefed us about this and most of us had no idea how to put the life jacket on properly. i managed to figure out the correct way but i don't understand the use of the strap which goes in between our legs and just left it loosely clipped. off to the water we went and it hit me. the strap was supposed to keep the life jacket on our abdomens. you see, when we get into the water, the life jacket will float and our heads and body will sink. the bad thing about the strap is that you'll get a sore groin. imagine jumping into the water from the boat and ...you get the idea. i'll explain about this bit a little later. anyway, since most of don't know how to swim, we struggled a bit to get on the boat. once we got on the boat, the first thing we did was to tighten up the strap as we already know the purpose.

i thought the marine park was in the middle of the sea, but it's not. it was just a small area off the coast of a small island. we were briefed about the do's and don'ts and was given one hour to snorkel. i had no prior experience in snorkeling, so it took a while for me to get used to it. i don't really know how to swim either, but i had knowledge in breast stroke. i can't thread on water nor swim without some floating aid, so i was a bit reluctant to go to deep waters in the beginning. still, i tried practising my so called swimming skill and managed to navigate around. feeling confident, i even brought lay wei around since she doesn't know how to swim at all. although the one hour period was short, it was enough to make me feel exhausted from all the swimming around. in addition, my mood was lifted a little...

and then came the bad luck. i was sitting idle on the boat, waiting for everyone else to get on. the boat started moving shortly after, and suddenly, one big piece of plank fell down from nowhere and hit me on my nose and right arm. it caused a noticeably deep wound on my nose and the back of my right hand and i was bleeding from it. a small area of my right arm got swollen as well. i can't bend my right arm either because it's painful. i was suspecting some internal injuries but i didn't really see a doctor (there is no clinic there). some other guys and girls on the boat looked at me one kind. perhaps feeling sorry for me? anyway i think the plank hit another guy but he didn't suffer any injury. that being said, then next thing on my mind was, how am i supposed to get down from the boat? sea water and open wound don't go along well, right?

upon reaching, i realised that i had no other choice. i just have to bear with the pain. i couldn't use the ladder to slowly go into the water (we had to swim to the shore) because i can't use my right hand. the most obvious decision was to jump into the water, and i did, totally forgetting about the strap in between my legs. conclusion : pain in between the legs, nose wound and hand wound. not forgetting i swallowed some sea water as well. also, i became an instant celebrity because i overheard some people who saw the incident spreading the news around, and people were looking at the blood on my nose.

now don't get me started on the bathing part...

the rest of the day wasn't so interesting. after dinner i went to take a nap because i had a small headache. the others went to look for blue sand and then went to a open air pub a little bit later in the night, without the courtesy to ask me along. what they said (which i came to know after the trip) really baffled me. the guys said that they assumed that i wanted to rest so they didn't bother to call me. i was like, is that a valid reason? another version was that they didn't know where i was, which was really a stupid reason, because i took the key from them and told them i wanted to take a nap. what about handphones then? a call would've easily located me. luckily, siew eng (my coursemate who also went holidaying at redang island, but not with us) mistakenly called me and woke me up. i can't sleep anymore, so i called them to ask for their location and joined them. oh yeah, i forgot to mention that we got to know a snorkeling guide there and he's really friendly. he intro himself as ah kiat and he brought us around and even treated us drinks. but we felt sorry for him because when he paid for our drinks he accidentally dropped his money and lost it. RM250 that he got from his salary earlier that day...

p/s: saw 2 meteors that night...


day 2 - so-so..

nothing much to write about today because we played separately.

ah kiat wanted to bring us to watch some turtle early in the morning, but most of them are lazy to go because it's early in the morning. only liang liang, chin chin, sheue mey and i went though we never saw any. that was also the last time i went snorkel during the whole trip because the pain became unbearable once i touch sea water.

all of them went snorkeling again in the afternoon except hui yen, lay wei and me. the 3 of us walked along the beach and snapped a lot of photos as well. unfortunately, most of the photos turned out...uh...not that nice.

we wanted to ride the banana boat in the evening but we were too late as it was fully booked for the day. T_T

after dinner we went to get some souvenirs and then we went to a disco in laguna beach resort. the disco was nice, but the dj sucked big time.

the night was spent watching stars and enjoying the cool sea breeze and the sounds of the waves. some of us didnt sleep for the whole night, me included, waiting to watch the sunrise which was bee-you-tee-fool!


day 3 - i'll be back...

after breakfast, liang liang, chin chin and sheue mey went to take more pictures since they accidentally deleted the earlier pictures. hui yen and lay wei joined them later while the guys, except wee how, slept. a funny thing happened today though.

we had a double decker bed in the room and i slept on top. i usually leave my sweater there when i go out and after breakfast, i went into the room and climbed on top to sleep again. zhenjian was already sleeping below me. i was in the process of wearing my jacket when a cockroach crawled out of my jacket! i told zhenjian and he totally freaked out and jumped out of bed! we tried to lure the cockroach out and maybe kill it so that it won't disturb our sleep, but to no avail. in the end we slept on the extra bed on the floor.

over at the girls' room (we had 2 rooms, one for guys and another for girls) they were panicking because one of the snorkeling goggles was missing. they searched the whole room and they still couldn't find it, which only mean one thing, they have to pay the RM80 for lost goggles. we didn't pay in the end, because ah kiat secretly told me he took the goggles away when the girls were not looking after it. he wanted to teach them a lesson because he already told us on the first day of arrival that we shouldn't leave our goggles and life jacket lying around. he asked me to lie to them that i forked out the money to pay for the fine and i did! i only revealed the truth to the other guys and later told everyone about it when we reached melaka.

after checking out, we took our lunch and snapped some last minute photos before heading to the boat for our journey back to melaka...


after thoughts...

i will return to redang island in the future, maybe with other friends, and make sure i play every single thing and go on every snorkeling trip. i was a little disappointed with this trip, but like i said in the beginning, it was memorable. i had some happy moments there, and also some unhappy ones. plus, i gained a slightly darker skin, 2 wound, sore arms and legs and experience!