Halfway to Singapore

We left the island and bused to Cherating on Saturday. We're making our way down to Singapore, and Cherating is about halfway there. This town was formerly a popular backpacker stopover point, and is still a popular surfing destination during the monsoon season (winter). Right now, it's nearly a ghost town. There are a few Western tourists, but most of the vacationers here are from Kuala Lumpur.

We've seen a lot of wild animals around town. Monkeys run across the phone lines like squirrels do in Boston. Last night, we walked by a wild monkey hugging a dog. Supposedly the monkey was friends with the dog's mother, and has known this dog since it was a pup. The dog's owner told me that the monkey was friendly, so I put my hand down and the monkey walked over and grabbed it. He then gently nibbled on my finger, but I could tell he was packing some serious teeth. I thought back to a story I heard a couple years ago in Thailand about a lady that paid to take a picture with a monkey, got bit in the face, and ended up in the hospital. Kind of scary.

The monkey is NOT humping the dog.

Along with the monkey and dog, the unlikely group of animal friends included a cat and what the dog-owner called a Malaysian fox. We couldn't find "Malaysian fox" on Google.. and it doesn't look like a fox. The first person to correctly identify what animal this actually is gets a prize (seriously).

"Malaysian fox"

While Janet was checking her email a few minutes ago, I walked down to the river that's 30 feet away from us and saw some walking/jumping fish. Or are they fish-shaped frogs? Those interested can see the Youtube video here.

Best of all were the sea turtles. We went to a nearby Sea Turtle Sanctuary and were able to participate in one of their programs by releasing baby turtles into the sea. Basically, they monitor the beaches every night and when a turtle lays eggs, they raid the nest and re-lay them somewhere secure. When they hatch, they keep them for three days to ensure that they're healthy, and then let visitors (us) release them into the sea. Pretty cool.

On the walk back (at 11PM and still several kilometers from where we're staying), a family with three young children stopped and offered us a ride. Within one minute of getting in the car, it started down-pouring. Thank you so much random tourist family from KL! Maybe it was karma? A few days ago we participated in a volunteer beach cleanup on Pulau Perhentian with only one other person, taking bags of trash off the beach, while dozens of other sunbathing tourists looked at us funny. It was probably just coincidence but the timing was unreal.