Rawa. First Impression.

Rawa. First Impression.
Originally uploaded by kimberlyhart.

Celebrating in the sea with Tiannii after kayaking around the island

In the Sea
Originally uploaded by kimberlyhart.

Tiannii,
my adventure mate! Let's go surfing soon. Sarawak here we come!

Mahynoor and Me

los dos nenas
Originally uploaded by kimberlyhart.

Mahynoor has a dog, Plato, who reigned over our modest apartments in Michigan. Plato and I didn't exactly hit it off at first, but then we learned to appreciate each other and formed a real tight bond. Somewhere along the way, his nickname became Mr. Tina, and he had a sort of identity crisis. Blame it on living with his mom and his auntie or blame it on Napoleon Dynamite. Take your pick.

Mahynoor is my rohi and I miss her a lot.

Break the wrist, walk away.

Aaaaand all this??? Even dough. . .

Pulau Rawa, a Trip to Remember

They say you should never assume because you make an a*s of you and me. I don't exactly know who "they" are, but I'll believe "them" 100%. It was my first Friday night in Malaysia, and I was already leaving town, boarding a bus to Mersing, which would eventually take me to Pulau Rawa, a small privately owned island in the South China Sea. I was exhausted, and expecting to sleep on the bus. Wishful thinking. The bus lurched forward like a raging lunatic, mercilessly leaving my friends, Pilli and Tiannii stranded behind at the station, and continued in this beligerent manner the whole 6 hours to Mersing. As my luck would have it, I chose the seat directly below a speaker where Malaysian music blasted consistently throughout the bumpy, nauseating ride. Sleep quickly became a distant hope fading into nothingness.

After about an hour we stopped at a rest stop, not the kind with Burger King and Taco Bell, a convenience store, and maybe a TCBY if you're lucky, but something a little more "rustic." Picture a giant open-air cafeteria, illuminated by painfully bright, buzzing, florescent lights, tables crowded together, surrounded by stall after stall of men and women frying up spicy Malaysian goodies. The public restroom featured a long line of agitated women, each waiting for her turn to use the hole in the floor as a toilet.

We reached Mersing at the magical hour before dawn. Descending from the bus, I couldn't have been more excited for the arrival of my friends and the speedboat that would take us to the island.

If the boat ride to Rawa felt like a splash of heaven, then I wouldn't know how to describe the incredible paradise, our destination. White sand, 100 different types of palm trees, clear, turquoise water. . .the whole 9. Our accommodations consisted of small, wooden huts with thatched roofs, playfully scattered throughout the beach. Dead pieces of coral cluttered the shoreline, enticing the newly arrived to plunge into the water and explore the endless coral reefs surrounding the island. And we did.

Snorkleing and splashing around all day and night, we couldn't have been more enchanted by the beauty surrounding us, nor happier to have a break from the city. We were a group of 15, arriving from Kuala Lumpur and Singapore, representing 12 countries, respectively. As the only American, I was often confused by the subtle differences between International English and American English. For example, it took me the entire trip to figure out what the heck everyone was referring to as a "jetty." Laugh now, but I honestly had no idea what it was. When my friends heard that Tiannii and I had kayaked around the island, they asked if we had seen another "jetty," farther down the shorline. "Sure we had," I responded, smiling and nodding without a clue to as what a "jetty" could be. Note to all Americans travelling abroad: a jetty is a dock! A freaking dock. And to think I was on an island for a weekend, and had no clue what the heck everyone was referring to.

At night we partied, dancing and jumping around in the sand, under the full moon to hip hop, salsa, and euro techno beats blasting from the small speakers in the main hut. At one point, Nacho had everyone lined up on the beach trying to learn how to salsa dance. We didn't create a very graceful image, nor did we care.