November 1st- November 5th

After taking the cable car and bus back to Kuala Lumpur we had to sit in a coach station for 2 hours. We had missed the bus we needed by five minutes and were incredibly annoyed. The next bus driver we had however was not a stickler for time keeping. Our destination was Cherating, a small east coast town far from anything. The bus we were waiting for would only take us as far as a place called Kuatan; we then needed to take a public bus to Cherating. Our lonely planet guide had told us that the bus ran until 8pm, so we were conscious of time. We were meant to leave KL at 2:30 for a 4 hour bus drive. Simple maths means we would be there with time to spare. But this isn't Blighty and we weren't on National Express. Our driver was late by 20 minutes. After then being on the road for an hour he decided he was hungry and we stopped off for 45 minutes. Time was ebbing away. We looked at the clock and worked out we still had enough time if he just drove. He didn't, every so often he would stop to let someone off. We arrived though in Kuatan at half 7 and quickly tried to find the local bus stop. It was then we realised that all our praying on the coach was futile. The last bus was at 6:30. Our lonely planet had lied to us, and not for the first time. We sucked it up and got a taxi.

Bags dropped off we went for food. Cherating is a very small place, 1 road with a few hostels, a shop and a few places to eat. We stopped off to have our first pizza in weeks, it was amazing. After a while we were fed up of being eaten by mosquitoes so we returned to the chalet. We've got these amazing burning discs that keep everything away, they have been a godsend, it makes the room smell like smoke but it's worth it to not be bitten. After watching a film we went to bed hoping the karaoke from the bar two doors up would eventually stop. From what we could hear, someone just kept singing The Cardigans -Zombie! It didn't stop, the terrible renditions of popular songs continued till about 4am.

The following day after being roused earlier than we wanted to by a cockrel wandering about outside our chalet, we began our exploration of Cherating. It didn't take long; we found the beach and another handful of shops that only opened during the day. We stopped off for breakfast at a place called Mimi's Cafe. Again the food was amazing, it was only egg on toast but my god was it well cooked. After, we headed for the beach. The beach looks out onto the South China Sea and is famous for being home to nesting turtles. Unfortunately at this time of year the turtles are off waterskiing in the Bahamas so they weren't around. We did catch a glimpse of a crazy man in Speedos doing yoga/Pilates in the middle of the sea. This included a headstand that lasted for about 5 minutes. The day then turned to night and we went off in search of food. Along the way we noticed that we had stumbled upon the film set of 'The Fast and Furious', every car that was driving up and down the one road in Cherating was souped up with neon's and body kits. Along with glamorising their cars it would appear the local Cherating-ites like to drive really slowly past westerners, almost like they're conducting a 'drive-by' shooting. While slightly concerned, we chalked it up to them just being really bored. The pizza place was closed so we found a local food stand that did dirt cheap rice and chicken. A monsoon style rain shower ended our evening early. All was quiet in the town, however we knew at some point the karaoke bar would spring to life. It did, and we put up with Zombie till just after 2am.

We did pretty much the same for the next two days, we stayed up late listening to terrible singing, and then got woken up by a crazy chicken. Other than that there was not much else to do but relax, read, eat and listen to midnight karaoke.

On our last night we ventured far down the road in search of a different place to eat. We found a place called 'Don't tell Mama'. It appeared to just be a bar however we were amused by the name and asked about food and were handed a menu. The food looked a bit pricey, £4 and over! We couldn't be bothered walking down to the local restaurant and we knew the pizza place was shut. We begrudgingly decided to eat there. It was a decision we would make again in a heartbeat, the food was brilliant. We both opted for 'The Mama burger' as Mel's first choice wasn't available. The burger that came out was humungous, with a massive slab of beef in the centre. Not like typical big burgers that are just loaded with salad. Malaysian is terrible at making pork products and their beef isn't very nice either, they're big chicken fans, and that's mainly what we've been eating. Anyway back to the burger. The beef was a proper cut, and it tasted great. It was so big that neither of us bothered with the chips, and after we had ate the burger we couldn't fit them in. We left, stuffed, the best way to leave any restaurant. That night we slept soundly, no karaoke to be heard.

After one more breakfasts at Mimi's we boarded our bus to journey to our last stop on our Malaysian adventure, Melaka.

On a totally unrelated note, underneath this blog is a comment/message section. When we finally return to Britain we are having the blog turned into a book,(one of the amazing features of this website) although with the amount of pages we already have it'll be more like a bible. It will include pages for the blog, photos and any messages people leave. If you want to leave a message that will be printed into the book don't hesitate and for anyone (Dec's mates) who thinks leaving a dim-witted/crude message for a laugh will be funny, we can delete them!