Desaru Again....

Well after are the disastrous trip to Tiomen, we decided a day on the beach was the order of the day.

Desaru is the nearest place so we packed up some food and took of in the faithful Wira on another mad trip to the beach. This time we took the right map with us making the trip a lot shorter than the previous time I went.

The beach was great. We found a relatively quiet spot under some trees and the kids and I went for a swim in the warm South China Sea. E then spent the rest of the day just lazing around doing nothing but reading, getting bitten by ants, and getting sunburn. It may not be the best beach in the world, or even in Malaysia, but it is clean and the sea is lovely and warm.

Tropical Island....

Off to Tiomen Island 1.5 hours by 'speed boat' off the East coast of the Malaysian peninsular in the South China Sea. We went to Minang Cove for a three night, four day break

I booked it all over the net, had several emails detailing that I wanted 2 rooms, preferably a 2 room villa, one room for Catherine and me and one for the kids.

We arrived and were greeted by Alex, who gave us an introductory talk, telling us all about the resort etc, etc. He then showed us to our accommodation. A one room wooden structure that had seen better days.

There was a double bed, a single, and a camp bed squeezed into a room no more than 15 foot square, that included the bathroom. The camp bed was across the end of the double bed making it very hard to get between this and the wardrobe. The bathroom door had a broken lock, and the handle on the outside was a zip (cable) tie. The shower only just worked, and was warm, the sheet on the double bed was torn, and the camp bed had no top sheet, just a blanket. On one wall toilet paper had been used to block up a hole.

We said about having booked two rooms, and as we had already been told the place was full, was most surprised when they said that they would ask the guest in the room next to ours to move so we could have two rooms. The problem was, it would be the room we had, plus the one next door which was just as bad.

The food was supposed to be traditional Malay. It was not. It was just like school dinners, bad school dinners…

We asked to leave the next morning, why pay good money for something worse than a garden shed. Alex ignored us from then on. The next morning Catherine went and asked if we were booked onto the ferry back to the main land. He could not even bother to look up at her when he spoke. How rude!

Tiomen Island looks a beautiful place; we just chose the wrong hotel. Go to Berjaya, that’s where all the rest go, I just wish we had listened…….

Minang Cove or was that Minging Cove?