Back from Tioman

Last week it became apparent that I was finally given all the courses I need to fulfill the criteria to study here and to have it as an integral rather than an additional year. So now I have courses in Managerial Economics, Asia-Pacific Business & Society, Leadership (HRM) and Business Strategy & Policy. Good stuff, I was and am really happy!

Because I was so happy last week, I decided to spend the weekend somewhere nice. Talked to my travel buddies and we decided to make the trip to Tioman, the biggest Malay island, only six hours by bus from Singapore. So Aurélie, Sandra (another nice Swede!), Kristoffer and me took a taxi early Friday morning and went to the border. When we arrived at the Malay side, we made the decision to take a further taxi from the border to Mersing (Small port from where the boats depart for Tioman). We were four so the price was amazingly low (135km, 6-7€ per Person!). It took us some time to get to the taxi and when we saw it, wow, I was laughing... but a tad bit scared as well! But take a look yourself:



The car was an old Mercedes-Benz, but I guess there were no more original components in that car. To start the engine our driver had to open the engine bonnet! But the old lady was up and running, there was even am aircon! So off we went direction Mersing. After ten minutes, our driver went nuts: we were on a four lane main road and apparently he had missed the exit. So first he stopped and tried to go reverse. Somehow this did not work out the way he wanted it (I still ask myself why?). So he kept on driving very slowly and then... then he suddenly turned his old lady on the four lanes and drove the opposite direction and was driving against the traffic! We could not believe what was happening! We shouted at the guy but he did not understand a word, and honestly, we were in his hands anyway. My mood dropped to below zero and I thought about doing bad things to the nutter holding the steering wheel. Somehow he managed to reach safe grounds without getting into serious problems. My plan to sleep the whole journey did not exist anymore, I felt I had to keep an eye on him... but he relaxed and rest of the trip was ok.



So we arrived in Mersing, took the ferry to Salang Beach, checked into our hostel and... it just was not as nice a place as Perhentian Kecil! Too touristy, a lot of concrete, 24/7 electricity. When I took a swim and was engaged in some relaxed "floating" I suddenly realised that I was floating next to two pieces of human excrements... Fantastic!
Apart from this incident everything was just fine. Again basic but decent accommodation, good weather, pretty cheap Tiger and good food. Actually we had a seafood barbecue on the second day. We chose from a variety of fresh fish, clamps, squid, veggies. We got red wine (low quality but who cares, we are no wine experts). And when the stuff was finally barbecued it was the best seafood bbq I ever had. Just execellent!
We spent the days pretty much with swimming, reading, lying around and studying (yes, yes, good students!). Here some more pics:





And again. Nice sunsets! I am addicted to taking photos of sunsets. Here you go, haha:



And some weird people actually tried to climb palm trees!

Hey guys,

Long time no hear. I still owe you my travel report about the Perhentian Islands. I started it, but it takes longer than expected.

In the meantime it looks like I got all the courses I need to have this year approved as an integral year! Yes, guess what, I am really relieved now. Therefore I decided to spend the weekend on a Malaysian island called Tioman. I will leave tomorrow at 6am. Really looking forward to it.

I will update my blog when I come back! Here some footage from my core course, haha:

Sunset at Coral Bay. Did you guys know that the sunsets a few decades ago looked less spectacular? All the colours you see today during a nice sunset are caused by the pollution of the air. Great...

Back from Paradise

Here it is! Late but finally here! My report about my stay on Perhentian Kecil!

Guys, I am going to switch from German to English. The reasons I don't have to mention I guess. It is for the benefit of all.

Right after I had published my last post we decided to go to Malaysia the same evening. The whole thing was really spontaneous... I have to admit I was a bit suspicious in the beginning. Nevertheless I packed up my stuff (I had bought a Chinese-made backpack for 20EUR) and we met to catch a taxi to the bus station. It took us a while to find the right bus operator but we finally managed to get tickets for the 11h overnight bus to Jerteh. After a quick spicy dinner we boarded our bus which was equipped with aircon and business seats. Everything looked perfect. Sometime in the middle of the night we woke up to realise that our bus broke down. We were somewhere half the way between Singapore and Jerteh. After a while and after some discussions with the bus driver and his assistant, we could get on another bus, but we had to sit on the floor. After we had switched to a third bus we finally arrived at Jerteh, took a taxi to Kota Besut and jumped in a speed boat, which was supposed to bring us to the Perhentian Islands. It did and we finally arrived at Perhentian Kecil at 8am, without having any clue or even accommodation. Luckily we were really early, so at 11.30am we were able to book a room for three in the Mohsin Hostel, a nice Hostel a bit further up the hills, overlooking the beach. So we moved in, relaxed and had a nice breakfast with ice-coffee and banana pancakes. In order to avoid boredom on the readers side, i will just sum up the five days: the main activities during our stay were pretty limited to sleeping, eating, lying around, swimming, drinking, talking, playing poker ("allons joue au poker!"haha!) and a tad bit of reading... normally I am a person that needs at least some sort of activity. But the island teaches you how to behave... everyone is just relaxing and trying to have a good time. So I adapted. During the night people met at a bar called "Palm Tree 2". Quite a nice bar selling Tiger Beer and even Vodka... they even have a dancefloor where you dance barefoot! It was really nice meeting all sorts of people, talking about random stuff and even having really serious conversations until early morning... So nice! During my five days stay I managed to see eight (8) meteors! On Friday Kristoffer and I went snorkeling. Actually we were meant to do the trip with Aurélie, but we were just to lazy to get up early enough to join her on her trip. So we went down to the beach and booked a private tour, for a really good price actually (Kristoffer is the man when it comes to bargaining. He loves it so much that I have to remind him of the ethics sometimes, haha!). We saw sharks (small but still they looked like sharks!), stingrays, turtles and a bunch of other fishes. Really nice. It was during the snorkeling that I decided to take a scuba-diving course. Yeah!

To sum it up. Long Beach on Perhentian Kecil is a perfect place to laze away and have a good time. The people that go there are all adapting to the local lifestyle, so the atmosphere is really chilled out... We met really nice people from all over the world: Dutch Jasper, easy to recognise because he always wears one black sock, haha; British Gareth who loves to talk about "rim jobs" and Ben & Sebbe, two French guys who really enjoyed the chilled out atmosphere at Kecil. Here are the guys:



But as mentioned before, we did not do much... Guess I would get really bored after a week. But the five days were so nice that I would love to go back some time.

So if you ever happen to be near the north-eastern coast of Malaysia, make sure to stop by at Perhentian Kecil. Take your own little chalet near the beach, have an ice-cold Tiger and a seafood barbecue and enjoy the fun of doing nothing! You will like it.

The view from our Bungalow down on Long Beach.







My travel buddies Kristoffer from Sweden and Aurélie from France. Best group ever!

Perhentian Kecil, located on the north-east coast of Malaysia.... I call it paradise!

He Leute,

hoffe Euch geht es gut! Bei mir gilt "no news is good news", habe mich ja auch schon lange nicht mehr gemeldet, was daran lag, dass ich hier nicht zur Ruhe komme. Ein kleines Resümee meiner letzten Woche:

Ich habe die Stadt erkundet, habe viele neue Leute kennengelernt, habe das Nightlife ausgecheckt, habe Freunde aus Hamburg getroffen, habe viele leckere Sachen gegessen und wenig geschlafen. Ich habe sogar damit begonnen, meinen Körper der Sonnenstrahlen zu stellen - bis jetzt ganz erfolgreich. Darth Shadow is transforming... Meine Kurse habe ich noch immer nicht, in England sind die meisten in den Ferien und hier muss ich bis zum 14. warten, um überhaupt irgendwas ändern zu können. Positiv bleiben! Diese Woche steht nichts auf meiner Agenda, daher werde ich vermutlich morgen früh mit ein paar Leuten nach Kuala Lumpur und dann weiter auf eine Insel an der Nordostküste von Malaysia fahren. Wird sicher nett.

So, muss heute noch ein paar Sachen für die Reise kaufen und mit Lübbi Mittagessen. Werde versuchen mich regelmäßiger zu melden, ihr könnt gerne auch mal die Kommentarfunktion nutzen! Also, reinhauen.

Ich bin in Singapur! Kann es selber noch gar nicht wirklich fassen... Der Flug war ok, leider eben doch mit einer LH Maschine, daher kein eigener Fernseher und keine Spielkonsole sondern schlechtes Essen, kotzende Kinder und zu wenig Beinfreiheit.

Angekommen in Singapur wurde ich von einem Senior Studenten vom Flughafen abgeholt und zu meiner Hall gebracht, wo ich 1.5h warten musste, um endlich einchecken zu können. Feine Sache, aber so hatte ich Zeit meinem Pickup-Buddy Löcher in den Bauch zu fragen.

Das Zimmer ist leider noch spartanischer als das in London, aber es hat Klimaanlage und einen überdimensionalen Fan... sehr angenehme Features. Leider war es aber so schmutzig, dass ich erstmal, nur mit einer Rolle Klopapier bewaffnet, Staub gewischt habe.

Mein Abendessen habe ich mir hier in meiner Hall in einem Food Court geholt.... undefinierbarer, chinesischer Kram, der aber doch ganz schmackhaft war. Danach habe ich mit drei Amerikanern, von denen einer auf meinem Gang wohnt, noch ein wenig gechilled... wurden auch prompt beim Rauchen erwischt, was auf dem Campus verboten ist. Der Guard meinte aber nur, wir sollten uns nur gut vor den jungen Studenten verstecken, um die nicht auf falsche Gedanken zu bringen. Gesagt, getan.

So, jetzt bin ich auch saumüde, morgen muss ich mich um meine Kurse und um Einkäufe kümmern. Daher Schluss für heute!