Carefree Christelle: Leaving the Islands

After nearly two months bumming around on the beach at Aseania Resort it finally hit that I had one month left on my Malaysian visa and I'd only seen 3 islands that were all located near the Singaporean border and the rest of the country had barely been explored. Once this realization hit I gave myself one last week there and told Jasbeer. During that last week Jasbeer was gone till the weekend and the resort was somehow nearly empty so it wasn't a super busy week. I did however have many great conversations over cold tigers with Fritz, the Dutch expat friend of the boss who was staying there for weeks fixing up his sailboat. We even made plans for a sailing trip before he returned to Melaka but the last day there was not even the faintest breeze. Oh well, c'est la vie! At least working the beach bar was easier now that the terrible 200 songs John and I now knew by heart were deleted and replaced with 2000+ actual good songs by this South African guy George, thus saving our sanity or what remained of it after hearing the gangster boogie song a zillion times.

During my last week I got to hang out with the staff a fair amount too, which meant many talks with Halim and the restaurant boys and talking and joking around with John at the beach bar. Eewyn and I would hang out at the jetty and one very slow evening the indian boys were playing cricket on a small field and I was dragged on the field to join them. Sadly I don't think I have a career in the world of cricket. After playing cricket everyone leapt into the sea and for once I held back because it was the one time I was not wearing a bathing suit (stupid me) then I realized I could just swim Malay girl style - fully clothed. We played catch in the water and two of the guys made us race afterwards, of course I lost miserably but that evening was pretty great.

Four days before I'd be leaving a new volunteer Amber from California arrived. Terrible timing because she was a really cool person and super easy to get along with. We bonded over drinks and just how cheap we were, so with any luck we may get to travel together again in the future since it seems we have similar travel styles. On my very last night the resort was pretty much dead so they decided to have a big staff dinner where everyone from volunteer to restaurant to housekeeping staff gathered. The boys drank beer and Amber and I assembled sangrias and it was a perfect last night hanging out with everyone. Plus once the music broke out all the indian boys were suddenly tearing it up on the dance floor...and I was somehow dragged out too! The next day was almost surreal leaving since I'd been there for so long but I was bound for Melaka and still needed to see the rest of Malaysia.

My Friends on Pulao Besar