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A paradise for msg and meat eaters

There is not much else to do in Perhentian than swim, dive and sunbathe. It is a perfect place to chill out. For party animals the place is probably a disappointment as alcohol is not widely available and it is rather expensive. Just a few days before we arrived, the police had raided all the bars and destroyed one of them.

We enjoyed the peace and quiet. Food was the only thing that made us return to the mainland. There were no vegan and msg-free food available in the restaurants and when we bought toast—the only food available apart from flesh-flavoured instant noodles—fearless giant rats raced our chalet all night long to get their share of the toast. It was a sleepless night.

Good old island scams

Compared to other South-East Asian tropical islands, it is pretty much the same. There are scams when getting into the island. In addition to the jetty ticket, 50 Malaysian ringgits (12€) for return, you have to pay an extra 5-ringgit (1€) conservation fee. It is a government enforced fee. Poor Malaysia needs desperately the money for keeping the beaches clean. Despite our donation, there was some trash on the beaches, but not too much. This kind of milking foreigners reminded us of Gili Air in Indonesia and Jericoacoara in Brazil. Remote locations that require special transportation are always perfect spots for rip-offs.

If you go to the Small Island, don't take the offer to go straight to the Long Beach. They will call a special taxi boat which costs you extra. The way from Coral Bay to the Long Beach is only a 10-minute walk. From the Long Beach you can get a chalet with 20-40 ringgits (5-10€) with shared shower and toilet facilities. Not bad!

We had a chance to live in a Chinese neighbourhood away from the hassle. People greeted us in the street and dog owners stopped to talk with us. Because we were always walking, people offered us rides probably thinking that we are too poor to own a motorbike. Sometimes they thought we were lost because we were so far away from the touristy areas where the Westerners hang out.

Easy Living

The tiny island is quickly explored. Normally a couple of days should be enough for a visit. We stayed longer because we finished writing the Finnish manuscript Urban Nomads—Adventurers or Vagrants which was interrupted in Africa by the scamming landlord. We had a possibility of signing a rent agreement of a nice condo with a sauna, swimming pool and gym at affordable price for one year but we thought the contract was too long and flat too big. Now that the manuscript is in commentator's hands for some months, we are free to explore.

The weather is quite nice outside the monsoon season which is supposed to be from November until February. This year March and April were exceptional. There was plenty of torrential rain. On some days, we couldn't take our daily walk. The humidity makes everything grow mold so we experienced some flu-like symptoms like coughing. In Malaysia mold is considered an aesthetic problem rather than a health hazard. The marks are covered by paint. We are using vinegar to kill the mold.

Penang is good if you want low living costs and easy living without much excitement. That is why so many pensioners choose Penang. For Europeans, the visas are easy. You get automatically three months which is renewed with every exit for free.

Today Santeri woke up early in the morning and Päivi slept until noon. She had a bad
cough a couple of days earlier which prevented her from sleeping. Now she was able to take it all back. Sleeping is a luxury. We are staying with Santeri's former
babysitter and her family: husband and four already grown-up kids and two dogs. Our hostess had cooked lovely porridge for the breakfast taking us to a trip down the memory lane to our childhood days.

It was the eve of Christmas Eve. Previous Christmas we spent in New Zealand cooking some traditional food and walking outside watching stars, and before that we were in Brazil at the beach where lots of people were having barbecues and drinking joyfully. This year there was a lot of preparations to be done to celebrate
Christmas in the traditional Finnish way. The girls made gingerbreads while we peeled
huge piles of swedes and potatoes for casseroles. The shop brought some ham and turkey. Salmon was bought already the day before after a lengthy shopping tour in town. It was salted for preparing in a Finnish-style smoke oven. It is really hard to keep one's fingers off the delicacies.

In the afternoon Santeri surfed on the Internet writing a letter to his former colleagues, checking out how computer viruses are written, finding out what are blog pings and feeds, and reading some news. Päivi was reading Finnish books she
had borrowed from our hostess. There are not really many occasions to read Finnish
literature when travelling, except the old classics that can be found in the fantastic Gutenberg.org service. We have downloaded and printed many of the books. Our hostess wanted to listen to some Finnish music as well so we played her some of our favourites including Ismo Alanko, Kauko Röyhkä, and Ultra Bra. The feeling was almost surreal when in the middle of this typically Finnish ambience we saw some little monkeys jumping in the garden. The dogs barked at these frequent visitors. The monkeys were annoyingly far out of reach for them, eating rambutan fruits in the trees.

We had cooked for a couple of days,
but now our hostess prepared the dinner. It was a delicious fish casserole and tandoori chicken. There was some garlic potatoes left from yesterday, too. After eating we landed on the couch to caress each other for a while. Then Santeri looked at the pictures from a Finnish magazine while Päivi invaded the computer to write this blog. After that we decided to wash some clothes. There was a washing machine at our disposal making it a lot easier than normally. Santeri took a shower to prevent clean clothes from getting dirty again, and finally we went to bed. It was evening or so, at least it was dark. We embraced each other, made love and Santeri fell to sleep. Päivi stayed up with our hostess a little bit longer and continued the Christmas preparations, bottling some home-made ginger ale and finishing the casseroles.

This day was just like any other day, a perfect day.

Merry Christmas from Malaysia,



Päivi & Santeri