7 years ago today.

June 5, 1999

Juara Village, Malaysia

We woke up late this morning. well, I did, at least. D______ had been walking around, looking for better rooms to stay in. We decided to leave “My Friend’s Place”. After a little walking around, we heard about a quiet little place on the other side of the island called Juara Village. The only catch was, we were going to have to walk a few miles over the mountains with our packs on to reach it. Which we set out to do.

We walked from Air Batang to Ketek, and turned left towards the east. About 10 meters into the hike, we came across a green tree-snake, which was crawling across the trail. It looked just like a long leaf, and I normally wouldn’t have seen it. I was already day-dreaming and looking at the ground and saw it. We took a short break, and headed across the mountain. The sign at Ketek said 4 km to Juara Village, but a smaller, hand-written sign said 7.

Once we entered the jungle, the trail turned into a two-and-a-half mile stone staircase; which, with the jungle heat and humidity, was a sweaty bastard to climb. It took us about 2 hours to reach the top of the the mountain. There was a cafe there, a small bamboo hut really, but alas! it was closed.

From there it was all downhill, and we started feeling sore in all the places the climb up had missed. At one point, we saw a family of monkeys crawling around on the big electrical cables that connect the two sides of the island. We also saw some very big ants, but luckily none of them killed us.

We eventually staggered into the Village, and it was very, very nice. The beaches were clean and wide, with soft sand. We had lunch right off, and the prices were much lower than on the other side. We walked up the beach a bit, and found ourselves a little bungalow for the night. It was just a little shack, really, but it was clean, and only about Rm15 (about $4.00 US) per night.

Once we got unpacked, we walked up and down the beach. We sat on the pier and looked at the fish. While we were there, a fisher boat pulled in, and all the townies walked out and bought their fish for the evening. It got dark shortly thereafter, and we went to the nearest open-air beach cafe as the Muslims sang their call to prayer. There was no menu, just a Rm10 all-you-can-eat fish and chicken barbecue. I had some nasi goreng, salad and fruit for dinner, while D______ at a few fish, a squid, and a chicken’s arms and legs. The cafe’s cats were all over us throughout dinner, as you can imagine.

After dinner, we went back to the bungalow, and D______ took a shower while I wrote.