Malaysia - Day 12

Eat, sleep, drink, repeat.  Add in a 100 minute Malay massage just to mix things up a bit.

Gaya Island Resort

Malaysia - Day 11

For the last couple of days, there has been a monkey hanging (literally) around my villa.  Every time I try to get a picture, it runs away. I've been to several places where there were monkeys.  The warnings were don't feed them and be very mindful of your belongings because they are notorious for stealing them.  Here, the same warnings apply with the addition "Keep your villa locked."  This morning, a monkey (not sure if it was the same one) tried to get into my villa.  Later in the morning, another monkey was at my door.  I managed to get a picture of it before it ran away.  It's not a great picture, but it is the only one I have managed to get so far.

The rest of the morning was uneventful.  Snorkeling, not good.  Again, bad visibility, it was around 10 ft. 

I had lunch later.  Something at lunch did not agree with me.  Amazingly, in all my years of travel to foreign countries, this was the first time a meal did not sit well with me.  I was fine later though.

I went to the Spa Village for massage #3 of 5.  (I think I got this package for making my reservation early.  It is not something I would have chosen, but I definitely wasn't going to say no.) I chose the Balinese massage this time.

The weather here is cooperating nicely.  It's been nice in morning, usually continuing into the afternoon.  Then rain in the evening.  Which has been good because usually by late evening, I'm done.

Gaya Island Resort

Malaysia - Day 9

The day started with a beautiful morning.  That, turned into rain (occasionally heavy) in the afternoon.  Then clear in the evening.  Much of my activity was in the morning.  I had the buffet breakfast.  (Quite good, but Anantara is still my favorite.)  Then I took a walk around the resort.  It's quite big.  I worked up a little sweat...  The humidity may have contributed some to that.  I stopped at the Spa Village and scheduled my first of 5 massages that came with my package.  Then back to explore more of the resort.

Later, I had a late lunch.  I arrived at the restaurant just as it started raining.  I can't spell or pronounce what I had, but it was very good.  (Minor rant: Why fly thousands of miles just to have pizza or fries?)

It was still raining when I finished lunch.  Luckily, the resort has umbrellas just about everywhere.  In addition to the two in your villa, there are umbrellas in every common area.  If you didn't bring one from your villa, you can use one of those, which I did.

I returned to the Spa Village later for my 50 minute massage.  I chose the "Malay Massage: Long kneading strokes that focus on the muscles, and pressure applied to various points of the body."  Yep, it was good, and also a great way to end the day.

Malaysia - Day 8

Travel day #2.  Got up at 0400 this morning in the Philippines to catch an early flight to Malaysia.  I've been in airports all day.  By the time I arrived in Kota Kinabalu, it was dark and rainy.  And I still had to do a 20 minute car ride to the boat, followed by a 20 minute boat ride.  I was tired when I arrived at Gaya Island Resort.  Unfortunately, I couldn't go to my villa because the resort lost power earlier in the day and they hadn't restored power to the section my villa was in....

Positive things today were:

   1.  Malaysia is my second best immigration experience ever.  (Switzerland is still number one.)
   2.  Gaya gave me a free dinner while they were trying to restore power to my villa
   3.  When power still wasn't restored after I finished dinner, they moved me to another villa