Saturday 8/18

Today was a non-formatted day because we were leaving for the Redang airport at 1:20pm. After breakfast, we walked around the island. Every single local person we saw said hi to us (sometimes they were overly enthusiastic). It was great to have a load of kids ride past screaming (cheering) at us while wildly waving their hands.
The island is quite small and the town is even smaller. Most people would not have even had the word “town” come to mind when describing it. The town consisted of a few “streets” and buildings. There was a police building, one or two convenience stores (shacks would be a more appropriate definition), and several restaurants (again—shack is a more fitting word). Aside from the police station, just about everything looked the same—run down.
We had read in our travel books that Malaysia (as a whole) had a problem with keeping things clean. The people themselves (anyone you encountered) were the best; it seemed to be their goal to make sure you were happy and enjoyed your time in their country. Everyone took it upon themselves to be an ambassador. The cleanliness, however, was a problem. The book mentioned that efforts to change the way the Malaysians dealt with trash was underway.
Trash was everywhere the eye could see—the beach, the side of the road, in the road, their front yard. Sadly, the resort area was the only place that was immaculately clean. It looked like the stereotypical white trash, car-on-blocks-in-the-front-yard house. Now as I describe this to you, it isn’t just about Redang. It is about everywhere—Taman Negara, any town we drove through on the way to Redang (6 hours of driving). Kuala Lumpur also has it but it is cleaner because now the country is hiring people to sweep up. Hopefully they will hire people to start actually picking up the trash (rather than just sweeping it to the side).

I neglected to mention that our resort in Redang was owned by Berjaya, who also owns lots of other resorts, and an airline company. The airport is on the island, so we had approximately a 1 mile trip down the main road (where Frank & I had walked earlier). The airport had a cattle crossing guard (goat crossing guard) at the entrance and was two rooms—arrivals and departures. The ticketing, check-in, baggage check in, screening, and gate were all in the same room (outdoors with a roof).
Watching our plane land was very surreal. It was a prop plane—bigger than I had expected so it was a nice surprise.
It was an old plane but my confidence level was raised when I saw the captain doing his inspection very thoroughly.
Inside the plane’s age was even more evident. The A/C dripped on my leg at a constant rate. The condensation that came out of the A/C made it look like a Batman movie—holy smokes Batman, they’re trying to smoke us out!
We were served bottles of water and towelettes—very nice touch.

We arrived at the airport (not the large international airport but a smaller and closer airport). This time we stayed at the Millennium hotel (4 star, not 5 star). I wanted to re-visit Petaling street & Central Market since we visited them when we were zombies. Frank was definitely pushing himself to be there—shopping isn’t his thing. I should re-state that. He does a very good job when he has a purpose for shopping. When it is just looking for souvenirs he does not have a high tolerance for it.