MASS TOURISM, SNORKELING & CASTAWAY!

Forgot to add this before: from the plane landing in KK

When we got to the island where we were supposed to snorkel and have a picnic lunch, we were horrified that the tranquility of the rainforest was not transferred to the island. “MASS TOURISM” Mum said in disgust, and it took her 13 minutes to “speak” to the guide to change the plan! I could see Don on his mobile, not looking too happy. But when he told Mum we could catch a boat to another island - at least Mum was happy!

Whilst Mum was “speaking” to Don I was doodling in the sand using natural media - dead twigs and dead coral. The signs saying “Don’t step on the coral” were misleading, there wasn’t any coral, just fluro orange marshmellows floating off the beach. I’m using a metaphor here, there seemed to be hundreds of life-jacketed people floating with snorkels!

Mum & I talked about the dilemma of tourism, I mean how can people visit beautiful natural places without harming the environment. I know there’s an island on the east coast of Borneo called Cipaden which only lets 50 people a day on it - Jason (the better guide who is trying to get a scholarship to an Australian university to study tourism management) told us it’s the beginning of sustainable tourism. BUT, those tourists would probably have to pay huge amounts of money. We also talked about how lucky Australians are, living in a country with so much beauty. There was a Norwegian family with us, and they thought the beach was “lovely”. Mum & I just looked at each other, Balmoral is 5 minutes from home and it is SO much more beautiful (but it does get winter!).

My sand art! 

SO - we left, and unfortunately we found out that the other island doesn’t have live coral either! But, there was no one on the beach but us, so Mum and I, snorkel faced, swam around looking at dead coral, some fish, sea snakes and a boat mooring! Although it was disappointing not seeing the live coral, it was way better than swimming at the Spit Swim Club when the water is SO murky. The clear water was amazing. 

You might be wondering why I titled this blog “castaways”? Well the story goes like this. We were dropped on this island at 1:15, told to be back on the jetty at 3:00pm for a boat would pick us up. After our snorkel Mum and I were identifying all the clod types when it became clear that there were far more cumulous clouds turning different shades of grey (maybe even 50 shade of grey)! I was collecting dead coral, which i’m somehow going to smuggle into Australia (ps don’t tell customs!), and I saw Mum putting her hiking boots back on. I kept collecting dead coral, and I heard her say “you’re going to get wet”. I continued to collect dead coral when the blackened cumulonimbus cloud sparked a growl - thunder, rain, winds like a cyclone. I stopped collecting dead coral and ran! 

It was 2.30pm so Mum read her book (about an Aussie POW) and I made note for my blog. At 3pm we went to the jetty. Boats came in, boats went out. More boats came in, more boats went out. No boats were our boat! At 4pm, Mum said “they won’t leave us here”, and still more boats came in and still our boat didn’t come. By 4.45pm, the storm had gone and the sun was shining, when a boat sped towards us with a man waving and pleading apologies saying the storm caused the delay. Mum reckons we were forgotten. Anyway - we did get back to the harbour .. and Mum went and got a Malaysian SIM card for her phone. She said she doesn’t want to be left somewhere along the death march trek!

Some facts, which I didn’t find very interesting but Mum did. Petrol costs 1.60 Ringet/litre in KK,  that’s 53 cents/litre in Australia. A brand new Honda Accord costs 25,000 Ringet (that’s AUD8,333 !!!). Mum got a SIM card with 2GB of data AND plenty of calls for 33 Ringet (that’s AUD11!).

More uninteresting facts (but interesting for me): I had spagetti cabonara tonight and a scoop of chocolate icecream! (or about to now !)