Bits and pieces of yesterday.

You're my Deathstar, my heart's your pinata.

Self conclusion.

If there’s one thing bloggers like to do, or so I’ve noticed, is read older posts that they’ve put up from yesterday, last week, last month, last year. Maybe it’s because it’s nice to reminisce, or possibly because we need to past time.

I recently did so and cringed at the number of times I’ve promised to update more frequently. Alas, like a lover who constantly disappoints, I’ve broken that promise one too many times. I’m not exactly sure the co-relation, but it made sense when I wrote it, so I’ll let that one stick.

It’s not because I’m lazy or bogged down with work, although admittedly, it’s more a case of the former perpetuated by the latter.

But have I lost my writing mojo, and get ready for this – become uninspired? Shock, shock, horror, horror, gasp!

Luckily for me, I’m not uninspired. If anything, I think I lack focus.

The real success of any blog is a point of interest. Some blog about food, others blog about fashion. Or technology, how-to’s, books, movies, music, politics. The rest blog about themselves. I did this today, will do that tomorrow and will be doing something else the day after. I try to do some of all the above, but not successfully able to any one of the above.

What’s the point again? Oh, I dunno. It’s not that I didn’t follow-up with my preview, I was distracted for a bit. See? A lack of focus. I’m my own diagnosis. I don’t actually know what that meant, but I liked the sound of it. Pre-bed time revelations are fun like that.

The art of blogging.

1) Update frequently.
2) Update frequently with lots of pictures.
3) Update frequently with lots of pictures taken from interesting activities.

I suppose that's easy enough to do.

Tomorrow. Something which meets the above criteria will be posted tomorrow. Can you guess what it'll be?

Here's a preview.

This looks familiar.

Oh. That’s right. It’s my blog.

Pfft.

It’s no secret that I’m not good at this blogging thing. But I do try.

Be patient ya.

Perhentian in pictures. And some words. Pt 3

Right. I'm wondering if this should be the final installment of the very staggered Perhentian saga.

I think yes.

(Warning: lengthy. turtle-y)

So the question beckons, what in the world did I do in Perhentian aside from lounging at the hammock?

This is Gan, the funny host I spoke about in my first Perhentian post. So he invited a bunch of us to Bubbles on this nature-holiday program he was running.



Remember I mentioned that we called ourselves Nature Intepreters? That's what it was, a nature intepreting program which actually involved labor and lotsa experiential learning.

So here we are in our full regalia. We definitely took our program seriously.



Some of the activities in the program consisted of beach cleaning, hiking, snorkeling, turtle watch and coral reef checks. All exciting stuff.

Beach cleaning was a real chore. You'd be amazed and surprised at the amount of trash that gets washed up to shore. These were just SOME of what we managed to pick up in about two minutes during one of beach clean session. So if you considered each session was about 30 minutes, multiplied by seven days we were there, bearing in mind we were only there for seven days and at a relatively pristine beach. You get the picture.



Did I mention that Bubbles is a turtle nesting spot? We had to help ensure that the beach is clean from rubbish. Hence the beach clean. Baby hatchlings tend to eat at small bits and pieces of fisherman nets or plastic fragments and that's not very pleasant. If I'm not mistaken, almost 90% of turtles have junk in their stomachs. We also raked leaves as those are nesting grounds for red ants. When the hatchlings emerge from the sand, some end up getting attacked by these red ants aroud their eyes and necks and flippers =(

Turtle watch was exciting the first couple of nights. Especially when you get to see a turtle lay its eggs! It's an amazing experience. Of course, we don't just sit and watch it lay eggs. As a Nature Interpreter, we also helped collect turtle data.

Turtle tracks. We measure the width of the turtle based on the tracks it leaves coming up to shore. We also the time it takes for it to swim up to shore till it digs its nest and till it's done laying its eggs till it goes back down to the sea.



Then we count the amount of eggs it laid. A good lay (hee hee...pardon the pun) yields about 80-100 eggs.



Did you know, turtles have a built-in GPS system that helps them find their way back to their nests? If Beach A had minerals XYZ and Beach B had minerals MNO, hatchlings from Beach A would return to Beach A, so on and so forth. Did you also know that the temperature of the sand in which the eggs are determines the sex of the turtle? The higher the temperature, the greater the likelihood that it'll be a female turtle and vice versa. Because of global warming, there has been an influx of female turtles. If this goes on...well...you can imagine what happens in a world without males.

While all this is fun and great, there were some heart wrenching moments too. Men from the fisheries department nearby would circle round Bubbles every night to pick up freshly laid eggs and bring them back to the fisheries. Bad, bad fishery people!



It's sad to see them take the eggs away. If that wasn't enough, turtle eggs were at the mercy of poachers too. So as part of turtle watch, we also had to do poacher watch. Turtles nest anytime from 8pm to 5am typically. You can imagine we had to stay up during those hours to watch for nesting turtles and horrid poachers. For what it's worth, I've learned a lot and I'd encourage anyone to have a go at it.

One last note on turtles (I know, I know...long grandmother story about turtles. I promise no more after this):

TURTLE EGGS ARE NOT MEANT TO BE EATEN!!

-_-

So that was the turtle bit.

The other activity I thoroughly enjoyed was that which enjoyed being in the water. It's a bit of an irony this one as I'm actually afraid of the water. The reason for that is story for another day. But this time, I was a water baby all over again. Just this time though, cuz I had my life jacket =D



I like little fishes. The littler and more colorful they are, the more I love them! We went snorkelling almost everyday - sometimes to do coral reef checks, sometimes to do fish ID. So here we are, all prepped in our life jackets and snorkels. This time, we were out to explore the rocky shore and note down interesting items we saw.




Reef checks meant we had to swim out, look at corals, compare coral colors to a chart to determine if it was healthy, so-so, or dead.



Fish ID is well...ID-ing fish. Is that a parrot fish? Nemo? Trigger fish or butterfly fish, so on and so forth.






Oh and turtles!!



My least favorite was hiking. Next to Bubbles was a hiking trail. Generally speaking, trees bore me. It didn't help that I had a bad sinus attack the day we went hiking. There was something that did catch my eye though: the bleeding tree. Don't ask me why it bleeds, it just bleeds.



And here's something else that caught my eye in a not-so-good way. I hate worms. Or anything remotely resembling worms. Urgh. Disgusting creatures!



Lastly, lookout point. The day we went hiking, a storm was brewing. You can tell from the grey waters as the water reflects the color of the sky. Would've been the highlight of hiking otherwise. Good workout nevertheless. My muscles ached over the next couple of days.



So...that's it! That's Perhentian in pictures. And some words. Now you know what I did in Perhentian. More or less.

I do apologize for the slow Perhentian roundup, but I do hope you've learnt a thing or two about turtles and turtle conservation. Did you know that there's only a 1% chance for turtles to survive? And for leatherback turtles its even lesser? All turtles are on their way to extinction and if you've never seen on for yourself in real life, imagine our future generation. I don't know about you, but I sure as heck wouldn't wanna just point at a book and say "oh look, this is a turtle". Ok ok...I'm talking about turtles again.

It's been a thoroughly insightful and pleasantly rewarding trip. I saw many of nature's wonders which I would've very quickly missed if it wasn't for the trip. Would I do it again? Definitely. But the real question is, would you?

I sure hope so.

(All pictures courtesy of Chui)

Emo-Ee.

*sulk*

~ Jeff Buckley: Lover, You Should've Come Over ~

Perhentian in pictures. And some words. Pt 2

So where was I? Right, arriving Bubbles. In Pt 2, I'll tell you a little more about Bubbles.

First up, our pad for the week. See, I'm a Princess. I need my mint on the pillow, tiny bottles of toiletries lined up on the bathroom counter, fresh and fluffy towels, thick bedding and lots of pillows. I need my hairdryer. God forbid I walked around looking like a deranged lion! But there was none-o-that in Bubbles. Bed? Check. Bathroom with running water and flush system? Check. Towels for the sole purpose of drying your body? Check. Gecko, mozzies, spiders? Check. I was 'roughing' it out.

Bubbles was simple, minimalistic and down to earth. Bare necessasities. But I loved it! The beds were oh so comfy and the best part is, it has air-conditioning and hot water. Although...when you're on an island and under the sun, you don't really need hot water showers. If anything, you need cold water showers. And the kind that comes from a fresh water creek is the best. So that was fantastic. You wake up, you see the blue ocean, prance around, bake, fry, tan in the sun a little and when you're done for the day? Whoooshhhh...crisp, cold water shower. The bliss. Sorry, no showering pictures, but I can show you our porch area.

Now, this was the epicenter of Bubbles. No special name for it, just the place everyone naturally gravitates towards, mainly because there's where food and drinks are served. If Bubbles was the US, this would be NYC.



Food at Bubbles was a simple affair. More or less home-cooked style, but really delicious. They have this dish called the Mongolian Chicken that's to die for! And, they also have some of the most wicked shakes! I didn't try any of the shakes, but I hear the Chocolate Coconut Milkshake was the bomb. I've been told it's like a Bounty Bar in thick, cold, liquid form. There was this one other drink that was suspect, to me, but well-loved by everyone else. I called it the Slimer Juice.



Oh, on our first night, we had one of the most amazing Nasi Lemak ever! I'm sure by now you'll know that Bubbles is the embodiment of simplicity and so, the Nasi Lemak we had was no different. It was so simple that it warms your heart. What made it even more special was that we sat on the floor in sarongs, and ate it with our hands. Bubble's doesn't always serve their Nasi Lemak that way. It was just a coincidence that one of the guests was leaving the very next day and so it was a little farewell do for her.


The heartwarming Nasi Lemak.


Even the kwai los were doing it.


Here's yours truly looking like a Mak Nenek. Hee hee...



All standing pretty in our sarongs. (From L-R: April, Sophie, Daniel, Jek, Maz, Amelia, Mak Nenek, Chui).

There's actually lots more about Bubbles, which I'm not entirely doing justice to in this post, but I'm saving that for Pt 3, which will detail what I actually did there since it's also part of what Bubbles has to offer.

But before that, I wanna share with you my favorite place of all in Bubbles - The Hammock. I've spent countless hours here and it was my little piece of Heaven for a week. Nothing fancy, it's made of old fishing nets nicely tied up under a big ol' friendly tree. The leaves cascade and tumble downwards providing a cooling shade from the sun. To your right is the view of the ocean. Lying there, rocking from side to side...there's no where else on earth I'd rather be, really.



Alrite, I gotta get back to work. Reminiscing about Bubbles on a Friday at work isn't much help to my productivity levels.

All pics courtesy of Chui.