Where the Wild Things Are: The Trek to Pulau Sibu, Malaysia

The Bach Family has been in Singapore for about 2 months now so we figured we were ready for our first trip to Malaysia. The hard work of figuring things out (where to live, where to send the kids to school, how to live) is mostly done, so we deserved a celebration. Man, did we get it! We found Paradise at the Sea Gypsy Village Resort in Pulau Sibu, Malaysia.

But first, we had to get there. This first chapter will tell the tale of our adventures over the causeway and into the country to our north and the rest of the 3-hour drive and then boat ride.

(Admission: we packed the camera in the suitcase in the back of the car for our trip there. These images were actually taken during our trip home, but I'll put them in reverse order so it will seem like we took them on the way there. The trip to the place sets the scene and is way more important than telling you about our trip home)

We left on Saturday morning around 10. We had a boat to catch at 1:30 and left plenty of time for getting lost. While we didn't get lost, we were delayed at the causeway between countries due to high traffic. We thought most of the traffic would have moved through on Friday night and early Saturday but we were wrong. It was busy! Obviously, I did not take pictures while going through Customs or anything like that. You'll just have to take my word for it that it was busy.

Singapore is a very wealthy, very clean and organized city-state. In our little time here apparently I have already taken that for granted. We crossed the bridge and narrowly touched the city of Johor Bahru before heading onto a highway that reminded both of us of riding through Appalachia. Do you know those stretches of highway through parts of Ohio, West Virginia, even Pennsylvania that have houses built right up to the highway's edges? Houses that look like they were thrown up overnight about 100 years ago? Houses that are all packed together into one section and then in the distance beyond lies rolling green as far as the eye can see? Houses with coal smoke coming out the top? Everything reminded us of our long drive home to Ohio every year.

But then a palm tree would pop out. Or a monkey would scramble to the side of the road and run back away. Or a Hindu temple. Truly, we are not in Appalachia anymore.

The dramatic difference from the streets of Singapore was startling.

I liked this guy just cruising along the plantation on his motorcycle.

These pictures were all taken from the car obviously. It was drizzling rain and we wanted to keep moving.

We kept seeing field after field of plantation and were trying to figure out what fruit the palms were growing that would make them so valuable. These plantations lasted for the duration of the trip, just into Malaysia and all the way to Mersing, where we parked at the jetty. Two hours of plantations. Eventually, Ted found out that they are palm trees (duh) grown for their palm oil. Malaysia is the second biggest producer of palm oil in the world. Now you know.

Here are some pictures of the fields of palms in various stages of maturity.

And here is the plant where they render that palm oil.

Singapore has made us lazy with language. We forgot to learn any sort of Malay before we headed out, which made reading the signs kind of entertaining.

We did learn that "awas" is the word for danger or caution and the exclamation point is the international sign for "Holy crap, look out!"

This is an entrance to a village along the way.

All along the road were these little food stands. The rain must have closed them up.

When we turned off the main road, route 3, our GPS didn't know what were doing. The (paved) road didn't exist.

Once we reached the end of the road, we parked at the jetty and had a snack. We bought our jetty passes and grabbed some sand toys for the beach. Sitting next to us was a family who looked very nice with two little girls who looked to be Ella and Zoe's age. Turns out, they were heading to Sea Gypsy too and had been there in June but couldn't wait to get back. Coincidentally, they were not only from Singapore, but our neighborhood. They live probably within 2km!

We carried our bags down to the dock, wrapped them in plastic bags because the boat driver told us the waves were a little choppy, buckled our life jackets, and hopped aboard.

To take the scariest boat ride of our lives.

If Zoe and Wyatt could have opened up our skin and crawled inside, they would have. They were cuddled into us so hard. And Ella and her new friend Maya were holding hands and squealing with laughter every time we would hit a wave and get sprayed hard with water. We were soaked and my muscles were sore from squeezing Zoe so tight. Zoe wouldn't even let me let go of her to get a grip on the boat so we really were bouncing up in the air. As there was nothing then to hold on to, I held my breath and tried to not worry. It was fun, in an extremely dangerous kind of way, but still fun.

Once we neared the island, Zoe released her grip a bit. She smiled and pointed out the people wading out into the water to help us alight. The guys from Sea Gypsy grabbed the kids, one over each shoulder and carried them ashore. The rest of us stepped out of the boat and into shallow-ish water (just above the knees) and walked straight to the bar for our free drink while our bags were unpacked from the boat.

Hey, they told us to do that. We had to go to the bar. Someone met us there to give us our cabin number and tell us the rest of the procedures. We calmed down for a few minutes and headed over to check out our cabins. That's coming up next.