Mari menangkap obor-obor di Melawi ; Spongebob dan Patrick bertubuh kenyal
I take a train to Wakaf Bharu the Ekspress Senandung, my first ever train trip and I don’t know what to expect. Since it’s Kelantan-bound so quickly I feel out of place as there is a pressing need for me to imitate Kelantan dialect so that I can blend in. I finally decide that I’d only speak when I have to; never tell, never volunteer. The journey on a train cuts through small towns and jungles you can see the reception bars in your mobile phone goes from 5 to none in a jiff. The air-con freezes the train coaches and too bad I don’t bring warm clothes, I end up using kain pelikat as an insulator but most of the time I can’t sleep anyways during the overnight journey with the noisy sounds of coaches and the torturing air-con I hang out at the space between the coaches where people would smoke, a habit that would destroy your life no matter how you deny it.
Orang buruk picks me at the station and on my third day there we finally go to Melawi beach with another friend PG of Kg Rupek. There we rent a small wooden hut that they call a chalet, good thing the hut is wired to the ass so there are lights and a pathetic fan with no front cover, spider webs hanging all around. At one corner of the ceiling there’s a termite nest with the colony encroaching from the ceiling down the pillar, and there are two beds with some old and smelly bed sheets. With a termite nest and a fan with no front cover then to top it off the bed sheets with unbelievable aroma that these all make a great combo I just think I might be sleeping in a safer and nicer place on the beach tonight.
Melawi beach is great because it is so long probably some 5 miles and the beach floor doesn’t have that much incline it’s great to swim in. But it is not so great when you consider the rubbishes Malaysians just leave around the area as if this whole nation is a big dumpsite, except your own home and your own vehicle where it’s got to be clean no matter what – of course I know it is Malaysians who did it because I just don't think it can be Bosnians.
Because we arrive late almost dusk we only have little time to play in the waters while it is daylight but during the night there’s thunderstorm we sleep only a little and spend most of the time on the hut veranda that overlooks the beach watching the spectacular lights and lightning show on the ocean. It happens that there are so many thunders and lightning that night it is fantastic to see the ocean and the whole beach get illuminated. Truly magnificient.
The next morning we all jump into the waters of Melawi. Apart from big bellied humans that swim so sluggishly that you could take them for du-freaking-gongs, the waters is littered with creatures like starfishes, clams, sand dollars that we mistake as starfishes, finger and shield limpet, snails, periwinkle, whelk, invisible plankton that colours the water, and also the lovely jellyfishes that comes in different colours and presumably if my extrapolation is right different flavors as well. Unless I’ve got a light microscope I won’t be able to physically appreciate the plankton, and the sea snails always hide their soft body in their shells whenever I pike them up from the beach floor. The starfishes are a bit more interesting because you can find out if they’re alive by checking if their thousands small legs beneath them kicking in the air.
But I really got into them jellyfishes because they swim around you as if you’re nobody – it’s a kind of offend to humanity when another creature acts as if you’re not there they neither dart off like gazelles nor they brush their sides against your legs like flirtatious cats. I know people always say that jellyfishes sting but I feel like holding one of them in my hands because as the name implied it really looks like jello. At first I carefully touched the cap where the tentacles aren’t but in the end I end up taking the whole jellyfish from the water altogether for a nice snapshot for my bulky and old digicam that has tasted the saltwaters of Teluk Batik and Redang Island. I got so obsessed with taking pix of these colourful jellyfish, some are reddish, some are just dull orange, some are even dark purple. By now I guess that the whole jellyfish community has become alert of my raiding the seas for their ilk and their kin because after the several first meek jellyfish the animals always swim away from me. I finally assume that jellyfishes, at least the ones that are here are harmless at least in the immediate time frame. While Orang Buruk gets himself occupied by teaching PG of Kg Rupek how to float on your back, something that I haven’t quite managed to do, I keep myself busy catching jellyfish as if I’m Spongebob Squarepants who catches jellyfishes with Patrick Starfish. Except that I should have brought a jellyfish net.
I completely think that it is safe to have a jellyfish war so I throw one after having it in my hand and confirming it is not stinging, you know, just to start a war. I throw that one in PG of Kg Rupek’s direction. It doesn’t hit him at all it landed on the saltwater near him but some backsplashes make their way to his face in no time he goes aaah aaaah and half of his face is going red. At first it is hard to digest what is happening to him because you don't think you’re hurting him by throwing the animal and it lands not on his skin but on the water near him but I finally gather my senses that the devil that you know is better than the devil you don’t know, a proverb that I don’t know how it fits in this jellyfish context. I have the trouble to get into my senses because the whole thing is counter-intuitive: the jellyfish is safe to play in your hands but throw it in the right way it can be a commerciable and biodegradable anti-assault weapon for woman. Yes, perhaps I should write about this. But he says he can’t open his left eye he washes his face with saltwater.
I remember watching Surf's Up where the kiddo penguin says that if you're stung by a sea urchin you should pee on it, on the place where you get stung, I mean. But I don't think that I should start peeing on his face, plus I am also not sure if peeing would relieve jellyfish sting in the first place. Anyway I don't think peeing on a friend's face out in the beach is entirely pleasant sight to behold for families who are at the beach as well.
But he then goes back to the chalet to do wash his face with freshwater and finally thank god he gained his sights after awhile.
Now I know that just because something is not harmful to your hands doesn’t mean that its saltwater backsplash is not to your face especially if them jellyfishes come in different colors.
Good thing the jellyfish war that I was trying to wage never breaks out.
Orang buruk picks me at the station and on my third day there we finally go to Melawi beach with another friend PG of Kg Rupek. There we rent a small wooden hut that they call a chalet, good thing the hut is wired to the ass so there are lights and a pathetic fan with no front cover, spider webs hanging all around. At one corner of the ceiling there’s a termite nest with the colony encroaching from the ceiling down the pillar, and there are two beds with some old and smelly bed sheets. With a termite nest and a fan with no front cover then to top it off the bed sheets with unbelievable aroma that these all make a great combo I just think I might be sleeping in a safer and nicer place on the beach tonight.
Melawi beach is great because it is so long probably some 5 miles and the beach floor doesn’t have that much incline it’s great to swim in. But it is not so great when you consider the rubbishes Malaysians just leave around the area as if this whole nation is a big dumpsite, except your own home and your own vehicle where it’s got to be clean no matter what – of course I know it is Malaysians who did it because I just don't think it can be Bosnians.
Because we arrive late almost dusk we only have little time to play in the waters while it is daylight but during the night there’s thunderstorm we sleep only a little and spend most of the time on the hut veranda that overlooks the beach watching the spectacular lights and lightning show on the ocean. It happens that there are so many thunders and lightning that night it is fantastic to see the ocean and the whole beach get illuminated. Truly magnificient.
The next morning we all jump into the waters of Melawi. Apart from big bellied humans that swim so sluggishly that you could take them for du-freaking-gongs, the waters is littered with creatures like starfishes, clams, sand dollars that we mistake as starfishes, finger and shield limpet, snails, periwinkle, whelk, invisible plankton that colours the water, and also the lovely jellyfishes that comes in different colours and presumably if my extrapolation is right different flavors as well. Unless I’ve got a light microscope I won’t be able to physically appreciate the plankton, and the sea snails always hide their soft body in their shells whenever I pike them up from the beach floor. The starfishes are a bit more interesting because you can find out if they’re alive by checking if their thousands small legs beneath them kicking in the air.
But I really got into them jellyfishes because they swim around you as if you’re nobody – it’s a kind of offend to humanity when another creature acts as if you’re not there they neither dart off like gazelles nor they brush their sides against your legs like flirtatious cats. I know people always say that jellyfishes sting but I feel like holding one of them in my hands because as the name implied it really looks like jello. At first I carefully touched the cap where the tentacles aren’t but in the end I end up taking the whole jellyfish from the water altogether for a nice snapshot for my bulky and old digicam that has tasted the saltwaters of Teluk Batik and Redang Island. I got so obsessed with taking pix of these colourful jellyfish, some are reddish, some are just dull orange, some are even dark purple. By now I guess that the whole jellyfish community has become alert of my raiding the seas for their ilk and their kin because after the several first meek jellyfish the animals always swim away from me. I finally assume that jellyfishes, at least the ones that are here are harmless at least in the immediate time frame. While Orang Buruk gets himself occupied by teaching PG of Kg Rupek how to float on your back, something that I haven’t quite managed to do, I keep myself busy catching jellyfish as if I’m Spongebob Squarepants who catches jellyfishes with Patrick Starfish. Except that I should have brought a jellyfish net.
I completely think that it is safe to have a jellyfish war so I throw one after having it in my hand and confirming it is not stinging, you know, just to start a war. I throw that one in PG of Kg Rupek’s direction. It doesn’t hit him at all it landed on the saltwater near him but some backsplashes make their way to his face in no time he goes aaah aaaah and half of his face is going red. At first it is hard to digest what is happening to him because you don't think you’re hurting him by throwing the animal and it lands not on his skin but on the water near him but I finally gather my senses that the devil that you know is better than the devil you don’t know, a proverb that I don’t know how it fits in this jellyfish context. I have the trouble to get into my senses because the whole thing is counter-intuitive: the jellyfish is safe to play in your hands but throw it in the right way it can be a commerciable and biodegradable anti-assault weapon for woman. Yes, perhaps I should write about this. But he says he can’t open his left eye he washes his face with saltwater.
I remember watching Surf's Up where the kiddo penguin says that if you're stung by a sea urchin you should pee on it, on the place where you get stung, I mean. But I don't think that I should start peeing on his face, plus I am also not sure if peeing would relieve jellyfish sting in the first place. Anyway I don't think peeing on a friend's face out in the beach is entirely pleasant sight to behold for families who are at the beach as well.
But he then goes back to the chalet to do wash his face with freshwater and finally thank god he gained his sights after awhile.
Now I know that just because something is not harmful to your hands doesn’t mean that its saltwater backsplash is not to your face especially if them jellyfishes come in different colors.
Good thing the jellyfish war that I was trying to wage never breaks out.
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-org buruk kelate
org buruk melawi