Paradise at USD56 per night

As a child, I spent many weekends by the beach. My parents were avid divers and we would often tag along. Sometimes we stayed on the boat and other times we were dropped off at some beach to play (with supervision of course). Sometimes we camped on the beach while other times it was just a day trip.

Ipoh is about 90 mins from Lumut. This is where we used to get on the hired fishing boats that took us out. I can still remember jumping off the roof of the boat into the water, swimming under the boat and then climbing back to the roof again. My brother and I would do this repeatedly!

These were perfect weekends but as I grew older and started earning my own money, I forgot about those simple days and have spent countless hours browsing the internet for exotic seaside destination and luxury hotels. Last April, we went to Bali and had a wonderful pampering style holiday. I enjoyed it and don't regret spending the money there. However, these past two days, my parents and I went back to the place of the fishing boats. We didn't go out to sea and only took the ferry to Pangkor Island (where the fishing village is) but that was enough for me to realize that the expensive hotels and destinations are not any more enjoyable than a simple beach front hotel at a nearby island. The place we stayed only cost USD56 per night and we had rooms just meters from the beach.

For once, Aaron's early morning wake up calls came in useful. This was taken at dawn, a few minutes before I jumped into that irresistibly calm water.


Here are some scenes from the local fishing village.