Day 42: Beach time in Damai

We left the our curtains wide open overnight and woke up early-ish with the sun. A good sign! Barely any clouds in the sky, and our patience from yesterday was being rewarded. Down to the hotel restaurant for breakfast around 8am (banana pancakes very good), then straight off to the pool.

The main pool here is absolutely enormous - much longer than any pool I've been in before, I'd say it's close to 80 metres end-to-end and about 30 metres across, with infinity edges towards the ocean. I spent the morning alternating between reading, lazing on the sun lounger and swimming. More people around today than yesterday, I guess yesterday everyone was hiding in their room due to the rain.

Back to the hotel restaurant for lunch where we both had the fish & chips that was unavailable yesterday - again very good! Maybe the better chef was on duty today. Had a swim at the beach in the afternoon, the water is probably the cleanest we've seen since leaving Australia, though the visibility isn't that good. Probably about 1.5m I'd guess - I could see my knees while standing up in shoulder-deep water.

Again spent the afternoon alternating between the pool, the sun lounger and reading my book. Around 6pm we decided to head back to the bar from yesterday. Had a drink while watching the sun set, and decided to lash out and eat there. My first choice of spicy chicken pizza wasn't available, and my second choice of beef burger wasn't available either! Went with a third choice of chicken burger which turned out to be a chicken parmigiana burger - schnitzel with spicy tomato sauce and melted cheese. Pretty decent, and Shandos's pineapple fried rice was good too. Though the bill was 99 RMY for four drinks and two meals - about $33 AUD which is very overpriced for Asia! Quite a shock coming from Kuching where we'd spending about $5 AUD combined per meal.

Back to the hotel satisfied, and with the weather forecast for tomorrow looking good we decided to spend another day here. One more day, then we'll check out and head back to Kuching, spend the day after that at Bako National Park to see proboscis monkeys, then the following couple of days at a highland jungle longhouse!Read more