Had a terrible headache last night and couldn't finish up this post. I think i'm having less time to blog nowadays. I wonder how long can i still keep this on...
Carol, KT, 贝 and i continued strolling along the beach. I looked around and saw a guy lying in the water. He seemed to be enjoying himself very much in this posture.
Sleeping Buddha in water?
We saw a guy selling home-made ice cream so we decided to get some. We got to pick three different flavours in a cone that could hold three scoops of ice cream.
Bei eating the three-scoop ice cream (notice the ice cream guy at the back)
We didn't swim but Carol did take off her sandals and dipped her feet into the cooling sea water. However, i think the sea water was not as enjoyable as her romantic stroll along the beach with her hubby.
Carol and KT strolling along the beach -- what a romantic view
Well, 贝 and i had our share of romantic moment too. We took a different route back to the resort and gotta cross over a small strip of water. I didn't wanna get my feet wet so 贝 carried me on his back. I almost strangled him to death with my arms around his neck so tightly.
贝 giving me a piggy ride
There was a pole in the middle of the strip of water and it looked like something that could be used as the net for playing beach volleyball, but i really doubted it was for that purpose.
I wonder what is the use of the poles in the middle of the water?
As we headed back to the resort, we passed by another resort by the beach. Its reception was the most run-down one i've ever seen:
Reception for a resort by the beach
There was no one in the reception except a money tied to a tree beside it. I felt really bad seeing this poor animal being tied up and unable to move around freely. I wonder if this is even legal.
Poor monkey tied to a tree
While we were walking back to the resort, we noticed a dog walking at the opposite street from us. The strange thing about this dog was that it just followed our movement. It stopped when we stopped, and it moved in the same direction as us when we walked. I told 贝 that we were being stalked by a dog in Cherating.
We were stalked by this dog
We passed by some shops and were really surprised to see a cyber cafe. I guess Cherating was not that ulu after all We peeked inside the cyber cafe and saw that there were only two computers in the shop. I also have two laptops in my home so i guess i can start a cyber cafe business too. The only problem is that i don't have StreamyX broadband connection at home. I wonder if this cyber cafe is using dial-up connection or StreamyX. It would be really upsetting if it's the latter -- even a remote place like this can get broadband connection but not at my home?!
Hey, cyber cafe in Cherating with computer training!
The shops there were mostly restaurants and stores selling souvenirs. We didn't buy anything but something caught our eyes:
Life-like but freaky adornment sold in the souvenir store
Huge moth on the wall (this is a real moth, not souvenir for sale)
All of us turned in very early that night after an exciting day. Sui actually asked us if we wanna join her and her team mates for a chat or poker game but we declined. I really admire her for her ever-lasting energy. She only slept for 2 hours the day before and she should be more exhausted than any of us after one long day of treasure hunt. But no seree, she is just like the Energizer rabbit -- keeps going and going and going...
We woke up very early the next day (16-July) at 7.40am and had breakfast with Sui's team. We checked out at around 10am and proceed to drive home. As we passed by Kuantan town, we took notice of how wide and clean the roads were in Kuantan.
Wide and clean roads in Kuantan
I also noticed the very special No-U-Turn sign and traffic lights that we do not see in JB:
No-U-Turn sign in Kuantan
No-U-Turn traffic lights in Kuantan
The thing about the traffic lights in Kuantan was that it took a very long time for the red light to turn green. How long was it? Well, it was so long that even the normal two-digit counter on the traffic light couldn't handle it; it would just be static at 99 for a very long time before it finally started to count down the seconds.
Traffic light counter stayed at 99 for a very long time
In JB, we also don't have big signage of the name of the city, such as the ones we saw in Pekan and Mersing. Maybe JB should build a really big one that can be seen even from Singapore.
Town signage in Pekan along a river
Town signage in Mersing up on a hill
We had lunch at 乐天园 Restaurant when we reached Mersing, which was the answer to Q.17 in the game. The food there was indeed very delicious. No wonder it is so well-known in the town. We also stopped at the biscuit shop that Carol has recommended the day before when we stopped for toilet break at the petrol station. We tasted some samples of the biscuits and it was indeed as delicious as Carol has described. So we bought 10 (buy 10 get 1 free) in total, 7 packets for Carol and 4 for us.
One packet of biscuits (马蹄酥)
The biscuit is very fluffy and the fillings would ooze out with just one bite... yummy!
As we were traveling on the narrow winding roads again, we saw a bus that tumbled off the roads. This was exactly what we were worried about when we saw other teams driving so fast on this road the day before.
Bus tumbled off the road (notice the busybody motocyclist at the side)
We arrived safely at JB around 6pm. Although the long drive home was really tiring and we didn't win anything for the game, i've enjoyed the trip very much. The teacher who was in charge of the event told us that this may be the last year for them to organize a treasure hunt because this was the 7th times they were holding it and were really running out of ideas. I hope he didn't mean what he said as i would really like to participate again.
If they were to organize the treasure hunt again, there are a few things that they may want to improve on. I think having the treasure hunt as a one-day event at a nearer location would be better than going to another state. It won't be so tiring and can shorten the driving time with more clues to solve. They should also think of a way to prevent the teams copying each other's answer by looking at where the other teams were taking the photos. Their initial intention of having the teams to take pictures of the answers was to avoid teams copying the written answers without actually solving the clues themselves. However, this has brought on another problem of "mass cheating". Perhaps they could consider having different questions or change the question numbers for different teams. Just a thought.
Labels: travel
