Malaysia - South, Part I; Port Dickson

Since awakening on the cool wooden hospital bench in Banting along the West coast of Malaysia, Chris and I have managed quite well for ourselves. Just a week shy of a complete month and we have yet to pay for accommodations. This is not so much something to brag about as it is something to be grateful for.

Let me tell you that nothing hurt this far like waking up that morning. After reaching with only half opened eyes to assure my wallet had not been sniffed out and stolen, I was able to wake up to more pressing matters, like my stiff neck, back, and shoulders. Or perhaps the smell of sleeping in clothes I spent all day yesterday sweating in. 

On a normal non-traveling day back in the States, I would have simply stayed in bed and let muscle atrophy set in till supper time. This day was not one of those days. No time to complain, now each sunrise demands its daily cycling sacrifice, stiff back or no.

Thankfully we only had to cycle a short eighty kilometers away through boring but flat palm oil plantations. We were invited to live in the luxurious estate of the Beach Bayou Hotel, guests to David and Sabrina who had rented a flat on the property.

Many thank you's to Sabrina and David! Two German cyclists in their own right; they will be heading North to Thailand as Chris and I travel South to Singapore.

Completely welcoming and hospitable, they were joyed to learn after a hard days cycle, that we too would enjoy very much to simply shower and rest. Our feet never touched the water that afternoon. Our heads preferred too much the comfort of pillows and air conditioning. 

Not for nothing, we had a beach day the following morning. Warm, almost hot, water and cold milk atop cereal for lunch - it's days like these that curve my drive to live a super chaotic, successful, eventful, and stimulated life in exchange for this numb feeling brought on by deep breaths and even deeper ponderings about the origins of sea shells and fallen leafs.

The most traditional German style food you might ever get using Malay ingredients. Potato salad and sausages - YUM!

We naturally spent the night away playing cards, exchanging the games we knew for new Germatic games.

I, of course, over indulged myslef again while at the Hotel's all you can eat breakfast buffet. I ate all that I could eat, Chris slept. Maybe I should have slept in too. After kicking me out to ptepare for the lunch crowd, I was left for dead at the nearby hotel lobby couch; resting, scratching, indifferent to the swarms of people entering in and checking out as I looked hopelessly up at the ceiling asking why oh why did I do what I had just done, struggling to digest my meal like an overstuffed sea manatee outstretched upon a sea cliff rock under a bothering Sun. 

It's always hard to leave people's home. Not always because of the convenience of a nearby toilet or a door with a lock, more so because of our hosts - who we are very gracious to. Back on the bike, moving away from social conversations and back into the depths of my own thoughts, I biked South to Malacca.