Our arrival at Matahari Resort at Cherating was a lot like our arrival at most resorts on the East coast of Malaysia in April. We spent the first 15 minutes looking for someone who worked there. But once we found him he was friendly and even showed us the shortcut to the mini-mart.
At US$6/nite with a fridge and a well-stocked minimart just a shortcut away, it would have been easy to hang out at Matahari for a long time. We even found a good restaurant that served very cold Tiger beer in frosted mugs. We ended up staying two nights, during which time nothing much happened except I got tangled up in an Elizabeth George mystery novel that would dominate my life all the way to Kota Bharu, just south of the Thai border.
By the way, Cherating has a good inet cafe.
We left April 27. The road continued flat north of Cherating and was much less industrial. About 11 a.m. we stopped at a cafe just for a drink and got into a long talk with a 33-year-old Malaysian man of Chinese descent. The cafe had lots of flags on the wall, including ones from Australia, England, Wales, Scotland, USA, a confederate flag, and an Australian Aboriginal flag.
In Malaysia, an ethnic Chinese Malaysian is considered Chinese, not Malaysian. He told us about the "Bumiputra" policy whereby native Malay people get special treatment. (Joan: this is basically Malaysia's version of affirmative action, since native Malaysians generally don't do as well economically as Malaysia's two biggest immigrant groups, those descended from Chinese, and those from Indians). He estimated that the population of Malaysia is 50% Malay, 30% Chinese, and 20% Indian. He told us how Bumiputras get better loan rates and can get some jobs more easily.
(Joan: He was very bitter about it. He said that it was a form of discrimination, and it really sounded like it. We didn't actually read that Bumiputra is a form of affirmative action until well after we talked to him. He made it sound more like Apartheid. Which I guess is how a lot of Chinese and Indians see it. He went on to say that he liked the U.S. because the U.S. doesn't discriminate like that. We told him he was wrong, that we do have some special treatment based on race. I don't think he quite believed us.)
In Malaysia, your race is printed on your identity card. Also it is perfectly legal to specify in a job ad or apartment ad the desired age, race, sex and even beauty level of the person you want to hire. (Joan: We've seen the same kinds of ads in Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines, where over five-feet seems to be one of the more common requirements).
Our Chinese friend didn't like this, although he didn't want to go around protesting. We made it very easy for him to say negative things about his government but he usually stopped just short. (Joan: Often he lowered his voice when saying something even remotely controversial, like how he thought the government was more quick to fine Chinese than native Malaysians for crimes like open burning.)
Joan told him that in America your race is printed only on your face, so you waste a lot of time going to interviews where they really want someone older/younger, lighter/darker but can't specify that in ads. I think she's a little cynical. (Joan: obviously we disagree on this. I don't think it's good to discriminate in ads, or in person, but if I'm going to be discriminated against no matter what, I'd rather know it before I waste my time applying for a job I won't get). Our friend did too. He said sure, there's a percentage who discriminate even in America, but at least discrimination is illegal in America.
Among all the flags in the cafe, not a single one was Malaysian. Our friend said he wanted to hang one, but there are strict rules about how to display a Malaysian flag, so the owner decided it was safer not to have one at all--rather than risk losing her license if it fell down or was displayed incorrectly. I proudly told him that it is perfectly legal to burn an American flag in America, though I've only ever seen it done on TV.
We stayed at the cafe gabbing for a long time. We didn't talk to all that many Malaysians on the East coast except him. The other folks were friendly enough, and often waved and said a cheery hello when they weren't try to sell us stuff. They seemed genuinely interested in us unlike people in rural Indonesia, who treated us more like a sideshow attraction/money spigot. The Malaysians even spoke English (mostly). But for some reason we could never get a conversation going, beyond standard introductions, where are you from, etc. Because of these difficulties we were especially happy to talk to this man in the cafe.
Later in the day we rode through Kuala Dungan where a week later a man was mauled and nearly killed by a bear he had surprised while it was chowing down on honey. Until I read the newspaper article, I had no idea there were any bears around.
After a long, hot and unmemorable ride we arrived in Rantau Abang, a.k.a., Turtle Town. Sea turtles come to the beach here at night to lay their eggs (in May). Thousands of turtles used to come but the number dwindled dramatically after turtle watching became a participatory sport. That is, the watchers started riding the turtles and what not. Now you are not even allowed on the beach after dark except with a guide, and even then you can't get close. For a fee the hotels will wake you up in the middle of the night when a turtle comes by and maybe you'll get a chance to see it. We arrived in the non-turtle season, but we probably wouldn't have gone for this anyway.
We stayed at another almost abandoned resort of no particular note. As usual it took us awhile to find anyone. The restaurant would not open until turtle season, three days later, so we had to walk about one kilometer down the highway for some mee goreng (fried noodles).
In the morning we passed the same restaurant but didn't stop. Rantau Abang is a tourist attraction so we figured there'd be another option up the road. There wasn't. We passed a place with a hand-painted sign, "24 Jam" (24 hours) but it looked almost exactly like a boarded up Stuckies off I-74 in Illinois. It hadn't been open since the last time a tourist rode a turtle. We stopped at a couple other roadside food stalls but they were closed too.
So we rode a long time that morning without any breakfast. Predictably we got a little snappy with each other until lunch.
The kampungs (villages) on this stretch consisted of simple rectangular wooden houses on stilts three feet above the sandy ground. The houses sat relatively far apart, like in a suburb, except the spacing was irregular and the houses were spread out in thin palm forests instead of lining up along the roads. The palm forest provided a good layer of shade but the trees did not crowd the kampung. A very thin skin of grass grew on the sandy soil. Goats, sheep and cows kept it short.
If the construction had been a little tighter and wood had been painted, some of the kampungs would have looked like a nice Virginia Beach time-share vacation spot.
We had lunch at an AC hotel restaurant in the happening oil city of Kuala Terenggnau. The best part of the restaurant was that they kept refilling our ice water. We each drank at least a pitcher. It was a nice change from our bottled water which gets hot during the day. Ice water is the best tasting thing in the world at 1 p.m. in Malaysia.
The bank machine had a long line but we needed cash so we waited. Then the machine went out of order just before Joan's turn came up. We waited some more and a few minutes later it was working again. Banks in Costa Rica, Indonesia and Malaysia often have long lines. I don't understand why. In Costa Rica they had long lines all day. Also, in all three countries, it is hard to break "large" bills, i.e. anything larger than the smallest bill. Malaysia is a little better than Indonesia or Costa Rica but still, if you try to pay for something without exact change, the cashier disappears into the place next door to get change.
We rode through a light industrial strip for about 15km north of Kuantan. We stopped at a gas station with a fridge full of cold drinks. From the curb we watched four or five young Muslim girls in headdress and all the trimmings pumping gas for customers. Groups of highschool-aged boys came in on motorcycles and flirted with them. Everyone stared at us without much shyness, but they were friendly stares. We smiled and waved back.
The industry ended abruptly about 10km before Merang. We stopped at a pretty posh looking resort. It appealed to us for the most unlikely reason: a tour bus sat in front of it. That meant people. It would be nice, for a change, to stay at a place with other people making a little noise with their silverware during dinner. Maybe they would even speak English. This is not like us. Normally we avoid tour buses like our lives depended on it (both on and off the highway). Also we prefer talking to locals. But the locals weren't talkative. And the quiet resorts and closed restaurants of the off-season were getting depressing.
Things weren't depressing enough, however, for us to pay 120 ringgits per night. So we rode another five kilometers and found a great spot for RM15 per night, with an excellent cafe and some of the best fried noodles on the whole Malay Peninsula.
Malaysian Peninsula Main Page 
Malaysia Main Page 
World Trip