I'm a little bit far behind on my blogging, but I'll try and pick it up as from exam period. There wasn't much for us to do that week, but help the pupils during study time or give them some encouragement.
When the exam period was over we were ready for our first holiday in Malaysia! As usual I packed far too much and then complained about carrying such heavy luggage in the pressing heat. We got a ride to Kota Bharu from the maths superteacher (which is what you are called when you have worked with that subject for a long time and are particularly good at it). We met up with Gemma and got a taxi down to Kota Putra. I really do not want to relive that journey. It was so awful. The driver was a real creep, he overcharged us, persistently blew cigarette smoke in my face, kept on talking in Malay to us while it was quite obvious we didn't know what he was on about and then he got terribly lost and tried to charge us even more. When we finally arrived we tried to let the boys persuade the driver to get the price down, but we still ended up paying double the price of what it should be.
Our day did end very nicely with a barbecue on the beach looking out onto the island we would be going to the next day.
The boat ride to Pulau Perhentian was choppy and painful, but all was made good when we arrived at the beach. White beaches, clear blue water and palm trees everywhere. We got our bikini's on for the first time in Malaysia and relaxed for the rest of the day.
This is pretty much what the rest of our holiday looked like. Though we did do a couple of more exciting things. Gemma and I went snorkeling with 2 others whom I didn't know. We saw really big turtles, I was the only one to see sharks and we saw loads of nemo's and beautiful coral.
A highlight of the trip was scuba-diving. 7 volunteers did the 4-day course to get their PADI qualification, but I had never done diving before so I didn't want to spend money on it yet. So I did the Discovery dive with Rosie, Ellie, Rianne and Hannah. It was amazing! We got a short training on how to use all the breathing equipment and not panic when we're under water and then we went in for 45 minutes. We went down to 11 meters and again saw more beautiful coral and saw a massive turtle which got us all very excited. If I get the opportunity to do the PADI course in the future I will definitely do it.
In the evenings we went out to party's on the beach which involved lots of dancing.
Rosie and I left the island a day before everyone else to go down to Kuantan and meet up with Hajar, an English teacher from Tumpat. The journey was 2 hours longer than it was supposed to be and SO hot and sticky. Public transport is always a bit of challenge here. We got picked up in the evening and Hajar brought us to her cute traditional Malay house on sticks and surrounded by chickens. The houses are always a lot bigger than you expect when you go inside. Then Hajar suggested we go to the cinema which got us VERY excited. I LOVE going to the cinema and there isn't one in Kelantan so this was a real treat. We went to Olympus Has Fallen, which was about Koreans attacking the White House. It was quite disappointing to be honest, action isn't really my thing but hey, it was a good night.
The next day we got up early, had doughnuts for breakfast and were off to the beach with Hajar and her sister Ocha. There were supposed to be monkeys in the jungle near our walk along the beach, but I'm so glad they didn't show up because they were so terrifying when we got up close to them at Batu Caves.
Then we had Twistie Fries at McDonalds and then we headed off to the little Kuantan zoo. There was a very shy bear, scary bearcats, cute mousedeers, lazy crocodiles, intimidating ostriches, turtles, alligators and some very noisy ungka monkeys.
After a little break back at their home we were off the waterfall which was incredible! So refreshing and a nice change after being in seawater all week. We paddled around for hours, then had dinner and were told loads of Malay ghost stories and then we relaxed for the rest of the evening in front of the television.
The next day was reserved for our journey back to Tumpat which was 6 hours. This was probably the most relaxing journey we had here. Until the last to hours in the bus when we were bursting to go to the toilet.
Then I tried to get out money from an ATM for our taxi back home and discovered I was skint. Rosie's card got swallowed by the machine so we got in a bit of a panic but then I discovered I had just about enough left.
When arriving back to Tumpat one of the students proved why they are the best in the whole world and gave me Thai food she got in her holiday. That was so good.
Our first week after the holiday was a bit quiet as we still didn't have a timetable so we just randomly got given lessons. Nothing really exciting happened.
But then it was our BIRTHDAY WEEKEND. I turned 19 on Friday the 5th of April and Rosie's birthday was the next day. Declan, Ollie James and Gemma came up to Tumpat on Thursday and we went bowling in KB Mall. Then we went back to our house and played cards. The next day was my birthday and I got everyone roti canai and when everyone was finally ready we all squeezed into Gemma's tiny car she got from one of the teachers and headed to the waterfall in Jeli. The car was named Boris, because he was inadequate, ridiculous but after a 4 hour journey he got us there in the end. We climbed up the waterfall and jumped off the rocks into the water several times with a big Malay audience encouraging us. When we were back in Tumpat we went into the dodgems at the funfair which was quite a weird experience. Gemma and I - being white-skinned and the only girls to boot- attracted quite a lot of attention so loads of things were shouted at us. The best one was 'WHERE ARE YOU GOING?' Strange question when we're in dodgems.
For Rosie's birthday the next day we went to the Buddhist temples in Tumpat which was very interesting. While we were walking around in a touristic fashion with our camera's we were followed around by some very cute Thai children. After that we headed to Kota Bharu to drop the boys off and then we got all girly and went shopping.
Sunday school started again and loads of students called out 'happy belated birthday!' and all the classes we taught that day sang happy birthday for us. One student gave me a card with a superhero mask that I could cut out and on the back it said 'Remember that you're already a superhero in our eyes'. SO CUTE.
On Monday the 8th our Desk Officer from Project Trust, Chris, came with the head of the English department of all MARA schools, Marwati, to inspect whether everything was going all right with our project here. Their visit was really short, but they managed to arrange more work for us and now we FINALLY have a timetable. It's still only one lesson each a day, but we're getting more and more lessons to fill in for and there are lots of after school activities to join in on. And I might be starting a French class! I don't know why I had not thought of this earlier.
I think this is enough for now, I won't leave my next update for too long now! Such a bad habit.
Here are some pictures:
Yes, that is a Gangnam Style table cloth
