The Grand Welcome.

The Grand Welcome to Berjaya Resort and Spa Hotel, a very impressive place, built on about 50 acres of jungle mountian side. There are 500 chalets scattered through the jungle all the way up the mountain, on the beach front and even out over the ocean, built on stilts right out in the ocean, these are the most expensive executive suites, larger and more luxuriously appointed with their own restaurant out there over the water.






Most of the chalets are built single or double - side by side, ours was a single one built about three quarters of the way up the mountainside, surounded by all the animals,birds and insects of the jungle, reached easily by the 24hour shuttle service, the small vehicles race up and down the narrow mountain tracks, wecould often just flag one down like a taxi or you could phone and order one, when we wanted to go to the lobby, the beach to one of the 6 restaurants or to the near by Oriental village.






I forgot to mention, that when booked our accommadation, we as we always do, requested a basket of fresh local fruit for our room. Sometimes we get it sometimes not, we are quite prepared to pay for the fruit, but seldom have to, it is so nice to have something to nibble on when you arrive in a strange new country often late at night.






We had just settled in to our lovely chalet, when the door bell rang. There stood a little malaysian girl with a nice basket of apples oranges and nashi pears, we were delighted, she then told us to have a look in the fridge as she had already put a lovely cream cake there for us. We looked and were amazed to find a heart shaped cream cake there with the words 'Happy Honeymoon" iced on top! Oh dear and heres us married already for 12 years! A bit embarrassing, but we decided to hug rather publicly now and again! The cream cake it has to be said was one of the nicest softest squishiest cakes we have ever eaten, and didn't last very long. How I wish I had taken a photo of it.


Dragonfruit
Shortly after another lady rang the bell and gave us a Dragon fruit, a strange red fruit withcreamy white fleash that is full of tiny black seeds, it tastes quite nice and sweet, this is getting embarrasing but we were efusive with our thanks.

Quickly following on her heel was yet another older lady, the most amazing of all, she had cradled in her hands like it was a precious jewel, a frsh mango. It blew us away when she told us; Yesterday, when she was home in her own garden she saw this mango fall from her tree, and she thought of the couple coming from New Zealand tomorrow who had probably never ever tried a fresh off the tree mango (and she was right.) So she brought it in to work with her and gave it to us.


Wow, to think that the Malaysian lady, bless her was thinking of us, whom she had never met, total strangers, when she was in her own home the day before we were even to arrive in her country, its positively mindblowing. Boy did we enjoy that precious mango it was so tangy and flavoursome. What a kind thoughtful lady.


We were almost scared in case the doorbell rang again. But fortunately that was it, but what a grand welcome we had, so we settled down to enjoy a second honemoon or should that be the 12th honeymoon as we go away at this time every year on these wonderful trips.

An Unsettling moment.

While we were quietly strolling along the jungle path, we heard the sound of a couple of fighter jets zooming around the bay; they circled a couple of times noisily. Now at home in NZ this would not have been of any note, no worry at all, for NZ has no enemies who might send fighter jets in to scare or worse, but this was a foreign nation. I clutched at Erle and asked just who were Malaysia’s enemies? Do they have any; we supposed they must do seeing NZ kept a peacekeeping force there for so many years. Did all those Arabs that filled the resort have any bearing on the jets being there? Were they likely to be throwing bombs at us any moment? Makes you really appreciate the peaceful life we live in NZ.
No of cause they didn’t bomb us, but they had us a bit unsettled there for a moment.


Monkey Business

From our balcony high up in the trees we were able to watch the monkeys swinging through the trees quite close to us, there were two completely different species; a grey/brown small one called Macau’s I think, that eats just anything and everything from the rubbish bins etc and a larger black one with white patches around their eyes, quite pretty and a vegetarian only eating fruits. There were also other animals climbing around in the trees, like squirrels of several different types and we saw a sloth, but there were also many different flying Lemurs and Tapirs, a thing like a pig but with much longer legs like a small horse and other stuff we only saw pictures of, and huge birds approx 3ft long Hornbills bright yellow coloured, we had a pair flying around noisily a couple of times, they crash into small branches of the trees as they land.
Erle and I eat a lot of fruit, especially when we are in the tropics, we buy it up from small stalls at peoples gates, very cheaply and its so nice and fresh doesn’t last long usually. Plus that gives you a lovely chance to have a nice chat with the locals.
We had been sitting on that balcony again gobbling bananas and rambutans before going off for a swim one afternoon, we left one small banana on the wee table, quite stupidly! We did shut the door before we left the chalet but didn’t bother locking it –we were 10ft at least off the ground and the back door was locked.
When we returned and opened the back door we were greeted by a gosh awful mess. Plastic bags all torn up paper bags too, things from the dressing table all thrown around and little sticky handprints everywhere. Plus not a sign of any fruit in the place, monkeys had just climbed up and opened the door and helped themselves to anything they fancied, fortunately the house maids had seen and heard them and driven the pesky monkeys out before they investigated our suitcases, where there were some cashew nuts, well hidden I am glad to report. Could have been much worse, they didn’t find the Rum bottle, but it still took us a while to clean up, monkeys can leave quite a mess as the darn things are not house trained!

Darling Squirrels
We had been hearing a lot of Chittering noises during the nights, just outside and suspected that there could be a squirrel nesting in the trees close by or even the roof of our chalet, though we tried hard we never managed to spot what was making all the noise until the last day. Mrs Black Squirrel seemed to bring her young dainty baby squirrel to visit us. We were so delighted we forgot to photograph them ofcause, we just watch enthralled as both of them dashed about on the small branches very close to us. She had been nesting in the roof as we thought. We also saw red Squirrels in the trees from time to time.
And amazingly a quite large Sloth, about large dog sized with no tail, hanging below the branch making its was slowly until I turned the torch on to it. Made pretty good time then as they are very noctural.