“Why don’t we do something spontaneous?” my mums voice breaks the silence with her predictable refrain.
These things always start this way. My parents decide its time for a holiday, devise a crazy plan travelling there for less money than you would pay for a sandwich and end up in an overpriced golf resort because there was nowhere else to go. Thankfully, the chaotic nature of these adventures also means that most of them don’t happen.
It was my dad’s birthday so he decided we should go to Desaru Malaysia because that was where all his work buddies go. So, after hiring a car and putting the birthday cake in the freezer, we were on the road out of Singapore. Or at least we thought so until we realised we were heading in the opposite direction.
Finally we saw the start of the queue ahead and breathed a sigh of relief. Unfortunately queues, like icebergs, have nine tenths hidden round the corner. One hour later we were still there. Another hour later, we had opened the snacks, the CD in the car was on repeat and I could tell by the suffocating quality of the air that dad was really enjoying his birthday. I tried to convince everyone that this was ‘quality family time’ but was met with nothing but silence, and rhythmic munching next to me.
Much later, we were on the open road. I passed the time identifying road kill and explaining to my brother that trees didn’t usually grow in straight lines, the vast plains of palm trees were harvested for oil. The younger trees looked like the tops of pineapples poking out of the ground and the sky behind them was like a smudgy cirrus reflection of the grassland around us.
We didn’t pass many villages. The area was strangely desolate, buildings abandoned and left to bleach in the sun.
I suggested that we start making phone calls to some hotels to see if they had any vacancies, surprised that someone hadn’t mentioned it before me. We used my dads phone to Internet search hotels in Desaru. The only thing we found out was that internet on phones is not a very clever idea and every time we clicked onto a new page it was necessary to scroll down through endless ‘trackbacks’ and ad’s before you got to anything useful. But times were desperate and nowhere had vacancies. Then we hit lucky, and found a place with all the room we could want. Despite mild speculation as to why exactly they had so much room, we were glad to know we weren’t sleeping in the car tonight and so we told them we would be there in twenty minutes.
We rounded a corner and the thick jungle gave way to the unexpected sight of a sprawling castle-themed complex, plastic flags frozen as if flying in the wind. Over the red tiled turrets we caught our first glimpse of the sea. “What is that place” We exclaimed, partially out of horror at finding a tourist hotspot of commercial perfection after driving for hours through rocky tracks and dusty plantations, and partially because we weren’t staying there.
Another mile down the road we started to spot little huts like beach houses through the trees. “Here we go”, my dad smiled. My mum’s eyes widened. “Oh no. Oh no, you can’t be serious”. We came in through the muddy gateway and beheld the sight in silence for a few seconds. Little salt stained huts scattered along the weedy rock littered dirt. They cowered in the shadow of what I think was a recreation hall. That or the meeting place of a religious sect surviving hard times. The roof stretched into a huge peak that pointed towards the sky, along one edge was a hole as if something large had taken a bite out of it.
The person looking after the place watched us, beady eyed as we continued down the track, turned around and headed back out as fast as we could. “Oh, can’t we stay there?” I muttered. It wasn’t pretty but it was bound to be more interesting to stay there than some crumbly B&B . I mean, interesting in the way you wonder if you are going to find a dead rat in your bed or not.
We continued up the road. We finally came across a large hotel, and drove into the car park, which was inhabited by a tractor dressed as a malevolent train, giving a ride to a small girl and her father. They puttered round the parking spaces and we pulled in next to a bullet hole riddled black car. My mother narrowed her eyes at dad as if he did it on purpose. We climbed out and headed into the reception hall where my sister and I emitted loud ohhs and ahhs and after a few minutes wondering around realised everything was identical to a different hotel we visited in Bintan, from the sun beds down to the bathroom signs. My dad went to reception hoping to be harder to turn down in person than on the phone, but came back with a grim expression; looks like all the rooms are taken. I looked around, but the place seemed totally deserted apart from a few people dressed in matching blue t-shirts.
Dinner was quiet; we were all alone in the restaurant. We watched the group of blue t-shirted people grow larger and start on a sumptuous buffet through glass windows. Plates of steaming food were carried past us through to them, I could only sigh and start on my salad.
The beach, though, made it all worth it. The sand dropped steeply away to a warm green ocean, the huge waves made satisfying smashing sounds. We could only go knee deep the currents were so strong but we walked away dripping all over from a particularly large wave. Meanwhile, phone calls were made and every receptionist within a thirty-mile radius interrogated. We finally found a place and drove away, only after promises to my little brother that we will come back tomorrow for a marathon session of table tennis. Wearily we climbed back into the car and because dad was annoyingly ignoring our questions about the hotel, we were once again revived by the sounds of the radio and all started dancing when speed bumps coincided with lines like ‘my lovely lady lumps’. My brother unfortunately, caught the concept of the song quickly.
The new place was right on the edge of a man made lake, where forty boats or more were moored along a long wooden pier, from big iron cruisers to little fibre-glass catamarans. Walking alongside them, the sun nearly blinding me from the glare off the water, owners proudly washing their decks and polishing their instruments, willing me with their eyes to ask them a question about their boat.
We learnt that you could get a passenger ferry straight from the hotel to Singapore. I felt a huge laugh that summed up my exasperation surge inside of me, but I was slightly scared of what would happen if I let it out. My dad’s eye twitched.
The apartment had not been lived in for a while, a musty curtain smell pervaded the rooms and bugs littered the floor as if giving up hope of getting out. The place had a kitchen, though without any cutlery or plates and amid a pile of broken ply board and rusty nails we discovered a flight of stairs leading to an unused empty room.
We huddled round the TV and watched ‘lord of the rings’ after smothering ourselves in mosquito repellent. We eventually dragged ourselves off to bed, gingerly stepping around in bare feet and trying to subdue the worries of our mum of someone coming through a secret panel in the room upstairs.
Breakfast was lovely, and for once we weren’t the last people to get a table. Breakfast buffets are the best, especially in Asia. Where else could you get noodles, prata and an omelette all at the same time? We trundled back over to the other hotel and enjoyed a few hours of skin scorching fun. Soon I had had enough and went exploring for something to do. I found a few editions of ‘golf life’ and ‘the business times’ that were being used to prop up a table in the hotel shop, and I took them away and read them cover-to-cover, waiting impatiently for the others to get squeaky with sunburn.
Lunch, a number of similar sandwiches, was interrupted by my sister hurrying to our couch clutching her mouth in distress. She had fallen over in the pool onto her teeth and one tip had broken off. Flecks of swimming pool blue stuck to her tooth and I was reminded of the time I had broken a tooth upon helping to carry a demonic sofa bed. I told her it wasn’t as bad as she thought.
My mum insisted we should rush back to Singapore right now, whereas my dad and I told her after she had recovered she would be fine, and adding five hours of car-sickness into the mix wouldn’t help. Thrusting Hailey’s tearful face towards us eventually convinced dad, but while driving away we both looked back at the skidoo sign at reception in longing as we squelched and settled into the car seats, clothes wet from swimming gear underneath.
Back at the border in the queue, the entire thing had been forgotten and my mum and dad had convinced themselves it had been an excellent ‘getaway’ and they should do it again next week. My sister once again gnawed on a candy bar, broken tooth forgotten, and I prayed this was the last time we would listen to the CD.
We drove off into the city smog sunset. Them, singing happily the praises of hire-car travel. Me, watching in trepidation for the next destination to spring up in the chatter as we unwillingly speed towards ordinary life again. Next time, I will bring an i-pod.
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