The guys

Back at the resort we headed towards our room using a shortcut through the swimming pool, which consisted of an adult pool on the left side, and a smaller child pool on the right. These were separated by stylishly designed platforms that emulated rocks in a river. The rocks had smoothed tops to allow for children to stand and sit on, and even had streamlets running in between them from the child pool to the adult pool. Huge vases carried at an angle atop large marble bases flanked the sides of the pool, periodically shooting jets of cool water over the platforms.

We decided to walk upon these platforms to the other side of the pool upon which lay the staircase leading up to our room on the second floor, to save ourselves the trouble of going around the pool. It was also the case that the vases were silent at that moment. However, as we crossed it, the vases suddenly opened fire and shot continuous jets of cold water unto our wind-dried bodies.

“Argh!” I exclaimed at the shock of being hit by cold water, “I was already dry!” frowning down at my once again, wet bikinis.

Cherlyn laughed and we continued our path, somewhat only I being slightly dejected.

Back in our rooms, and before we changed out into dry tanks and shorts, we decided to bring our camera out and take a few shots of ourselves in our full glory of wearing only a bikini. Since it was 12 noon, we were intimidated by the extremely hot sun basking down from the cloudless sky, and hence only took a few shots from beneath the roofs of the chalet stair-landing

Having had lunch shortly afterwards, we decided to take more photographs of the beach and the More More Tea shop. The village house or ‘Rumah Atap’ as is known locally, was made entirely of wood but had been recently painted a brilliant cascade of a sweet pink and apple green color, exuding vibrancy and youth. It had been featured as the main object of a romance film entitled “Summer More More Tea” that starred Sammi Cheng and Ricky Ren in the year 2002.

We later found out that it was this same house that Sammi and Ricky were fighting over in the movie and that it had only been moved from its original position in the centre of the Laguna Beach to the side of the resort. Before the movie was launched, Pulau Redang was unheard of even to Malaysian locals, and even now, the island was only known to the Chinese, who probably got to know the beach as the romantic venue of summer love from the movie.

As we walked over from the lobby to the Shop which was nestled at the foothills of the mountain that rose steeply and formed an outcrop off the right side of the beach, I accidentally dropped Cherlyn’s camera onto the sandy beach.

“Oh no! The camera’s not working anymore. Look, it says ‘LENS ERROR’ on the LCD display.” I lamented as I picked up the camera and inspected it.

I handed the camera back to Cherlyn who shook it in order to try and get the sand out of the lens aperture, in turn blowing at the aperture and sucking air out of it. Finally, the error message disappeared and we got the camera to work again, although the screen was still a bit blur due to the remaining sand in the aperture.

“I’ll have to send it to repair once we get back to KL.” Cherlyn moaned.


“Well, at least now we can still use it.” I tried to redeem myself unsuccessfully.

As we arrived at the shop and looked for a suitable spot to photograph ourselves, a young man in his mid-twenties called out to us, “Hi! May I help you take a photo?”

“That would be nice, thanks!” Cherlyn replied, grabbing the opportunity for a chance to have both of us featured in the same picture.

As she handed the camera to the slightly plump but cute man, however, he exclaimed, “Hey? No, I mean that we should all be in the same picture!” He informed us cheekily, and handed the camera over to his buddy, another young man, this one tall and skinny.
 
We all laughed and agreed to let him into the photo. As we posed and waited for the click to sound, his friend, shouted out, “Hey your camera is not working. It says ‘LENS ERROR’.”
 
“Oh no!” I mumbled, afraid that I’d destroyed Cherlyn’s digital Nikon which cost her more than 400 Ringgit.
 
“Why don’t we use my camera and then I’d send it over to you via email?” He offered.
 
We hesitated for a second, and deciding that we would need help if we didn’t want to walk back to the room and grab my camera, we conceded and posed with the plump young man again. We took a few photographs, some alone, some with just the two of us, and met two more of that guy’s friends.
 
The plump young man was Paul, and the skinny one, Ah Soon. Thomas was a shy big guy with tattoos on both deltoids and Terence was a less shy big guy also with tattoos on both deltoids. As I took a photo posing with Terence by my side, I noticed that his tattoo somewhat resembled a Nazi swastika, curved into a thorny bush. He gives me the shivers and I only smiled politely to have my photo taken and done with.
 
By then, it was time for us to head out for the afternoon snorkeling trip. As we waved goodbye to our new friends, who insisted that we met up again that evening to go to the beach disco, Paul asked me, “So how do we contact you?”
 
“Just recognize our faces!” I shouted back impertinently and disappeared round the corner with my cousin.