Vacation at Cherating Beach
I thought I would try to upload some photos from my vacation (again) even though the internet connection is still terrible. It took a long time since I could only upload a photo or two per day. I hope you enjoy it! Here's a quick rundown of my trip...
On Friday, 22 December I finished work early and caught an afternoon flight from Dalian to Beijing. Phyllis was nice enough to come see me off before she had to go into work. Thanks Phyllis! I checked into my hotel in Beijing and met up with my friend, Jackie, and we went out to dinner at Peter's Tex-Mex Grill. It was great! Jackie ordered the enchiladas and I ordered the chimichangas. The next morning I had to wake up early and catch a flight from Beijing to Kuala Lumpur.
The reason I woke up so early is that I knew it would take a long time to check in and go through immigration and customs in Beijing. It was very very crowded (even for such an early flight) and it took about an hour just to get through immigration. Surprisingly, the flight to Kuala Lumpur was on time and I arrived there in the early afternoon. At first I was very surprised... where was everyone? The airport at Kuala Lumpur seemed deserted after being at the airport in Beijing. I had included time for flight delays and going through customs in Malaysia, but there were no crowds or delays in Kuala Lumpur. My flight to Kuantan was not for a few more hours, so I wondered around the airport for awhile... They have a Cheers bar in the airport! My flight to Kuantan arrived there at around 10:00pm and the bus ride from the airport to the resort was about 40 minutes. A whole day of travelling is tiring.
The resort I stayed at is really nice. Surrounded by the South China Sea on one side and a jungle on the other, so it seemed very isolated and peaceful. Here are a few pictures of the place...
It is hard to see, but this yellow bird came up to my balcony every day and would sing a pretty song and then knock on my window. Maybe someone fed him before from my room...
The resort actually has two seperate beach areas... the north beach at the main resort area and the south beach. The north beach has large waves and a strong undercurrent...
...and the south beach was calmer...
To get to the south beach you have take a tram along a little road through the jungle or walk. I walked... more to see.
A big lizard (about a meter long) I spotted in the jungle...
This resort is more of the family resort than other Club Meds that I have been too, so Christmas day was very busy. In the morning they had a Christmas parade through the area for the kids (the Malaysian Army was nice enough to have a band come play in the parade)...
... a visit from Santa with gifts for all of the children...
... and a show and beach party for the adults so they could have a little fun while the kids were busy elsewhere...
... and get soaked after getting sloshed...
There were a lot of things to do at the resort such as sailing, snorkeling, swimming, trapeze, rock climbing, etc... I went swimming, went to the golf driving range a few times, and shot some archery almost every day. Toward the end of the week they had an archery tournement, and I came in second and got a silver medal...
It is almost like the silver medal I got in an archery tournement at a Club Med in Mexico a dozen years ago.
I also ate... a lot. The food here was really wonderful...
I even took a half hour class on Chinese cooking given by the Chinese chef here...
I made some crispy stir-fried shrimp. Yum!
One of things that was funny at meal time was that some days a bunch of monkees would come out of the jungle and come over to try and steal food from people while they ate...
Most of the time though, I just laid about, relaxed, and watched the ocean. After living in a crowded Chinese city for so long it was so wonderful to just go some place quiet and be alone. One day we had tea...
We had teas from China, Japan, and Korea.
On New Years we had a great party. Lots of dancing and celebrating...
... and celebrating with lovely company...
On Friday, 22 December I finished work early and caught an afternoon flight from Dalian to Beijing. Phyllis was nice enough to come see me off before she had to go into work. Thanks Phyllis! I checked into my hotel in Beijing and met up with my friend, Jackie, and we went out to dinner at Peter's Tex-Mex Grill. It was great! Jackie ordered the enchiladas and I ordered the chimichangas. The next morning I had to wake up early and catch a flight from Beijing to Kuala Lumpur.
The reason I woke up so early is that I knew it would take a long time to check in and go through immigration and customs in Beijing. It was very very crowded (even for such an early flight) and it took about an hour just to get through immigration. Surprisingly, the flight to Kuala Lumpur was on time and I arrived there in the early afternoon. At first I was very surprised... where was everyone? The airport at Kuala Lumpur seemed deserted after being at the airport in Beijing. I had included time for flight delays and going through customs in Malaysia, but there were no crowds or delays in Kuala Lumpur. My flight to Kuantan was not for a few more hours, so I wondered around the airport for awhile... They have a Cheers bar in the airport! My flight to Kuantan arrived there at around 10:00pm and the bus ride from the airport to the resort was about 40 minutes. A whole day of travelling is tiring.
The resort I stayed at is really nice. Surrounded by the South China Sea on one side and a jungle on the other, so it seemed very isolated and peaceful. Here are a few pictures of the place...
It is hard to see, but this yellow bird came up to my balcony every day and would sing a pretty song and then knock on my window. Maybe someone fed him before from my room...
The resort actually has two seperate beach areas... the north beach at the main resort area and the south beach. The north beach has large waves and a strong undercurrent...
...and the south beach was calmer...
To get to the south beach you have take a tram along a little road through the jungle or walk. I walked... more to see.
A big lizard (about a meter long) I spotted in the jungle...
This resort is more of the family resort than other Club Meds that I have been too, so Christmas day was very busy. In the morning they had a Christmas parade through the area for the kids (the Malaysian Army was nice enough to have a band come play in the parade)...
... a visit from Santa with gifts for all of the children...
... and a show and beach party for the adults so they could have a little fun while the kids were busy elsewhere...
... and get soaked after getting sloshed...
There were a lot of things to do at the resort such as sailing, snorkeling, swimming, trapeze, rock climbing, etc... I went swimming, went to the golf driving range a few times, and shot some archery almost every day. Toward the end of the week they had an archery tournement, and I came in second and got a silver medal...
It is almost like the silver medal I got in an archery tournement at a Club Med in Mexico a dozen years ago.
I also ate... a lot. The food here was really wonderful...
I even took a half hour class on Chinese cooking given by the Chinese chef here...
I made some crispy stir-fried shrimp. Yum!
One of things that was funny at meal time was that some days a bunch of monkees would come out of the jungle and come over to try and steal food from people while they ate...
Most of the time though, I just laid about, relaxed, and watched the ocean. After living in a crowded Chinese city for so long it was so wonderful to just go some place quiet and be alone. One day we had tea...
We had teas from China, Japan, and Korea.
On New Years we had a great party. Lots of dancing and celebrating...
... and celebrating with lovely company...
On January 2nd I had to say good-bye to this little bit of paradise, and begin my trip back. I left on a very early bus to Kuantan where I flew to Kuala Lumpur, then Shanghai, and then back to the freezing cold of Dalian. Brrr.
posted by Steve Harms at
4:27 PM
3 Comments:
Look at you with all the hotties! :-) Nice job! Looks like you had a blast and what a lovely place to go.
Was it in Malaysia or Indonesia? Either way, both places are high on my list of spots to visit. First up though, Thailand for the third time :-) But it'll be Maggie's first time leaving the country - it should be awesome.
I take it Internet is still crawling in Dalian? It's funny as a lot of reports had it that the north was faster than us down here south of the Chang Jiang - at least at first. But now it seems the opposite as I'm not having much trouble at all with net now.
By
Anonymous, at 8:35 AM
Hey Ryan,
Cherating is in Malaysia.
I loved Thailand... I think Maggie will love it there too.
It might just be my ISP, but it's almost impossible to do anything online at home. The connection at the office is better, but still way too slow.
By
Steve Harms, at 9:22 AM
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
By
Anonymous, at 8:36 AM
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