Cherating

 Day 1 – Hippy Beach

Sad to be leaving, It was an early start today as we had to catch the 8am speedboat back to the mainland, so after packing we made our way down the hill, spotting some monitor lizards along the way, to coral beach and the jetty.

We were a bit too early as we didn’t want to miss our boat so we had to hang around whilst various other boats came and went, until the guy in charge told us which boat was ours.

The journey back was thankfully less bumpy and when we arrived at the ferry port we quickly found ourselves a taxi to take us to the coach station.  Arriving at the coach station early we found a nearby KFC where we went to grab some breakfast as our coach was not due for a couple of hours, I can safely say it was not fast food as I had to wait around ½ hour to get our food (which was not great!).

Returning back to the coach park, we waited and waited wondering whether we had missed our coach as it had not arrived ½ later than scheduled.  We got speaking to some helpful local who after asking around told us that it was late and was not due for another hour.  So we had to wait around in stifling heat until it turned up 1 ½ late.

It was around a 3 hour journey to Cherating, which was described as a hippy/surfer/backpackers town and beach.  Relaxing and reading for an hour or so we then stopped at a café for a break and bit of lunch, but the food looked as though it been there for a few days so we gave it a miss and just had a chilled coffee and made use of the facilities.

Back on the coach and when Shell checked on her phone where we were staying for the night and showed me it turned out we had booked a hotel in completely the wrong town (Shell not Glenn).  So after a quick bit of searching on Bookings.com we found somewhere in Cherating and re-booked.

Not sure where we were supposed to get off I spoke to the driver to let us know when we had arrived and an hour or so later he indicated that this was our stop so we got off and headed down the road in the general direction that we thought our hotel was.

After dragging our luggage down the road for about ¼ mile we stumbled across our accommodation for the next couple of night and went to check in.  The only issue was that it appeared to be cheaper on their tariff that we had been quoted, when we queried this we were informed it was their leaders birthday so it was a public holiday therefore it was more expensive on one day.

Our room was not great so we quickly unpack and headed in search of the beach which was just down the road.  The beach was a large sandy bay with a few ramshackle bars and restaurants dotted around it, but there was no sign of decent waves, apparently this was the wrong season, it was now wind surfing season. 

Looking around for a specific bar that was mentioned in our guide we gave up and just headed to a hippy looking bar (which turned out to be the bar we were looking for but just had a different name) that looked like it had been built out of driftwood.  We stopped there for a bit and had a couple of drinks and listened to their music, which turned out to be Steve Vai!!

We then thought we would check out somewhere else and walked to the end of the beach and found ourselves in a Rasta beach bar which was also a laidback affair and we had another beer there and then went native and got a small bottle of vodka and bought the mixers to go with it (far  cheaper).  We got speaking to the friendly owner and asked him where was good for food and he told us there was a cheap locals restaurant just up on the main street.

Finishing our drinks the sun had now gone down so we headed for the recommended eatery.  The restaurant was a very basic affair, a large area of put-up tables and benches under a large canopy but it was very busy. 

We grabbed a table and then were handed a very extensive menu, which under examination had Chinese, Malaysian, Indian, Thai and English dishes on it, all of which were very cheap at around £ 2.00. a dish.  Due to the choice we ordered up around 6 different Malaysian/Thai dishes to share and wondered if we had over ordered.  When the food arrived it was pretty good and we just about managed to wade through it all.

Full up we thought we would head back towards our hotel and maybe drop into a bar for a night cap along the way, as it was out of season most of the places were closed or closing and the one bar we did see was pretty empty so we gave it a miss and headed back home to bed.

Day 2 – Just Chillin

As we did not have breakfast included in our hotel we headed down the road and soon found a surf shack café where we order up some nice coffee and breakfast which for me was a full English with perfect scrambled egg whilst Shell plumped for the local Malaysian (and cheaper) breakfast which turned out to be some fish, anchovies, rice and chilli combo that she quite liked (Yuck!!!).

After breakfast we walked down the road and found some hotel that also did transfers so we popped into there and spoke to the ex-pat owner who we booked a taxi with for the next day (we had already arrange our flight to Singapore).  He was very helpful and explained that there were loads of sand flies on the beach and we should go to the beach bar on the front where we could use their rooftop veranda.

We decided to have a lazy day and relax before Singapore so we headed to the bar he recommended and bought a large water (we felt we should order something if we were going to stop there) and then headed up to the Veranda.

For most of the morning and afternoon we just chilled out on some mats reading and watching the sea and the people on the beach.  During the afternoon we grabbed a beer and were entertained watching a group of Indian tourist play beach games, which consisted of about 12 of them tying balloons around their ankles and running around in a marked out area trying to burst each other’s until only one was left.

The second game which was more amusing was about 8 couple who had to throw water filled balloons to each other.  Each round where the catch was successful meant they had to move further apart resulting in more explosions and people getting wet, until one remained.

The sun was starting to drop so we headed across the bay to the Rasta bar for a couple of drinks before returning to the restaurant from the previous night.

Once again it was packed so we had to wait a while before we tucked into another feast of about 5 dishes for the cost of a tenner before going back for the night, tomorrow another new country!!