Another great nights sleep and we awoke bright and breezy. It’s our last day on the island as tomorrow we push onto Penang.
I had planned another lazy day on the beach but Crispy awoke invigorated. She made it clear there was no lazing about today and she wanted to go for a walk. Never one to miss such an opportunity we were up dressed and out. We enquired about the possibility of renting bicycles but there are not many about on the island so we settled with a stroll to Pangkor town. The island is small and Pangkor town lies about 10km away. An easy stroll through jungle and roadway. We had been walking less than an hour when we came across a collection of what appeared to be animal enclosures on a small secluded beach. We went in to explore and to our amazement discovered it was a Green Turtle protection co operative.
The Green Turtle is not yet on the endangered animal list but it is pretty close to being included. The sanctuary is built at the edge of a beach where the Turtles lay their eggs. These amazing people wait for the eggs to hatch and rescue as many as they can. They then raise them for 3 years before releasing them back into the sea. We spent an hour being given a tour and the were allowed to hold the turtles. We had to wear protective gloves so as not to damage or contaminate the gorgeous wee things.
The people working there are all volunteers and are doing an amazing job to protect these fragile creatures.
From there we carried on our stroll into town. It was very hot. By the time we got to the town we were both hot and sweaty. Approaching town we stopped at a small cafe. Just as we were finishing a furry fecker strode into the cafe. It looked at me with knowing eyes. I could see it thinking “so you don’t like monkeys”. It strolled around for a while trashing the cafe bar and rooting in bins. Crispy went to the toilet which was the monkeys sign to move in. I think they are like cats and instinctively know when you don’t like them.
As soon as Crispy had gone the furry fecker fixed eye contact with me and slowly climbed onto the table in front of me and sat down. It stayed there an eternity just staring me out. That creepy sideways stare that they have spent a lifetime perfecting. I was building up courage to move away when it got up walked towards me and jumped off the table. It hung around for a few minutes then moved away.
As we were walking past a ditch close to the town we heard a loud splash in the water and both saw what we at first thought was a small crocodile. On closer inspection it was a huge lizard. Probably an Iguana. It was about 3 foot long and made a very hasty getaway down a drainage pipe.
After the town we caught a taxi back to the beach and had a couple of beers whilst dipping in and out of the sea. Whilst swimming I felt something touch my left shoulder. Hard and scratchy. I reached up and to my surprise pulled off a gorgeous little swimmer crab. I tried to let it go but it gripped onto my hand. I swam into deeper water to release it safely into the blue but when I got back to shore the crab had swum back and was now happy as Larry on my swim shorts. It took two attempts to get the thing back into safe water. We have never seen swimmer crabs before but my they live up to their name. They can go like crazy. Only after getting out of the water did I notice the welts on my shoulder and leg. The crab had been hitching a lift on a passing jellyfish that inadvertently bumped into me. The crab jumped ship onto me and it’s scratchy legs camouflaged the sting of the jellyfish. There are box jellyfish here which cause drowning by injecting a neurotoxin which causes complete paralysis of the victim. This was obviously an inshore jellyfish as I’m still here to write the blob.
We leave the island in the morning to catch the bus to Penang. This has been an incredible place to visit. We are so pleased we chose it to break up the travelling. It will become most definitely one of our “happy places”.
Bare and Crispy signing off for the last time Pangkor Island , Malaysia 🇲🇾
I had planned another lazy day on the beach but Crispy awoke invigorated. She made it clear there was no lazing about today and she wanted to go for a walk. Never one to miss such an opportunity we were up dressed and out. We enquired about the possibility of renting bicycles but there are not many about on the island so we settled with a stroll to Pangkor town. The island is small and Pangkor town lies about 10km away. An easy stroll through jungle and roadway. We had been walking less than an hour when we came across a collection of what appeared to be animal enclosures on a small secluded beach. We went in to explore and to our amazement discovered it was a Green Turtle protection co operative.
The Green Turtle is not yet on the endangered animal list but it is pretty close to being included. The sanctuary is built at the edge of a beach where the Turtles lay their eggs. These amazing people wait for the eggs to hatch and rescue as many as they can. They then raise them for 3 years before releasing them back into the sea. We spent an hour being given a tour and the were allowed to hold the turtles. We had to wear protective gloves so as not to damage or contaminate the gorgeous wee things.
The people working there are all volunteers and are doing an amazing job to protect these fragile creatures.
From there we carried on our stroll into town. It was very hot. By the time we got to the town we were both hot and sweaty. Approaching town we stopped at a small cafe. Just as we were finishing a furry fecker strode into the cafe. It looked at me with knowing eyes. I could see it thinking “so you don’t like monkeys”. It strolled around for a while trashing the cafe bar and rooting in bins. Crispy went to the toilet which was the monkeys sign to move in. I think they are like cats and instinctively know when you don’t like them.
As soon as Crispy had gone the furry fecker fixed eye contact with me and slowly climbed onto the table in front of me and sat down. It stayed there an eternity just staring me out. That creepy sideways stare that they have spent a lifetime perfecting. I was building up courage to move away when it got up walked towards me and jumped off the table. It hung around for a few minutes then moved away.
As we were walking past a ditch close to the town we heard a loud splash in the water and both saw what we at first thought was a small crocodile. On closer inspection it was a huge lizard. Probably an Iguana. It was about 3 foot long and made a very hasty getaway down a drainage pipe.
After the town we caught a taxi back to the beach and had a couple of beers whilst dipping in and out of the sea. Whilst swimming I felt something touch my left shoulder. Hard and scratchy. I reached up and to my surprise pulled off a gorgeous little swimmer crab. I tried to let it go but it gripped onto my hand. I swam into deeper water to release it safely into the blue but when I got back to shore the crab had swum back and was now happy as Larry on my swim shorts. It took two attempts to get the thing back into safe water. We have never seen swimmer crabs before but my they live up to their name. They can go like crazy. Only after getting out of the water did I notice the welts on my shoulder and leg. The crab had been hitching a lift on a passing jellyfish that inadvertently bumped into me. The crab jumped ship onto me and it’s scratchy legs camouflaged the sting of the jellyfish. There are box jellyfish here which cause drowning by injecting a neurotoxin which causes complete paralysis of the victim. This was obviously an inshore jellyfish as I’m still here to write the blob.
We leave the island in the morning to catch the bus to Penang. This has been an incredible place to visit. We are so pleased we chose it to break up the travelling. It will become most definitely one of our “happy places”.
Bare and Crispy signing off for the last time Pangkor Island , Malaysia 🇲🇾
No comments:
Post a Comment