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Day 5
Sunshine! Streaming through the slats of the house, filtering through the mesh of my mosquito net. And very welcome it is too. Bread and fish arrive, and by the time I’ve showered about four people are cleaning our windows and the housekeeper is halfway through the washing up.
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Day 4
No power this morning. I open the back door to find the housekeeper waiting for us to wake up, and a chap painting the well, who sees me looking forlornly at the fusebox and says ‘power at ten’, which a big grin. Whether this is knowledge of power company schedules or simply blind faith, who knows. I guess we find out at 10 o’clock.
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Day 3
Artur has borrowed the car to take Rita to the hospital, and the weather is still overcast, so we have a late start (again) and potter about reading and trying to make the pool table work, unsuccessfully, until lunchtime. Some fishermen arrive with some fresh prawns, so we buy a kilo (at prices comparable with a supermarket at home, which seems a mite pricy to me) and make a prawn curry for lunch.
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Day 2
The bed is blissfully soft and Paul’s mosquito nets, which he explains at length are imported from Australia and very expensive, seem to have done their job admirably. I get up at around 9am, having slept like a log, and get myself a drink and some fruit while I wait for the latest electricity outage to end so I can have a shower (water is pumped into a tank using an electric pump). The housekeeper arrives, and starts sweeping. A girl comes to the door with fresh bread, and George arrives to do whatever it is that George does. Suddenly I feel slightly underdressed and go to put some more clothes on.
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Day 1
Being friends with the editor of FT Alphaville, the Financial Times’ award winning markets blog, has its benefits. Like for example, borrowing Kaya MJ – his ‘mud hut’ in Africa – in exchange for knocking up a quick marketing website for it, so he can rent it out. Mud hut may be how Paul describes it, but by the time we come to leave he has excitedly provided a 19-page essay on the house, the car, the staff (of which there turn out to be four), the beach, the local amenities and the restaurants around the area of Barra, on the southern coast of Mosambique.
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Day 18
location:Perhentian Islands
summary:Which features all manner of exotic sea creatures, including giant turtles, and a selection of the author’s observations about the natives
trip:sea04
day:18 -
Day 17
location:Perhentian Islands
summary:In which nothing of major consequence occured
trip:sea04
day:17 -
Day 16
location:Kota Bharu – Perhentian Islands
summary:During which the author commits a premeditated act of trespass, and an expanse of water is traversed at exceptional speed
trip:sea04
day:16 -
Day 15
location:Banding Island – Kota Bharu
summary:In which the existence of an exhibition of the utmost triviality is exposed, and a brief history of violent conquest is presented
trip:sea04
day:15 -
Day 14
In the morning, when it finally arrived, I gingerly dressed in the wet clothes that had failed to dry overnight. I did have a dry shirt, so I wore that, but I was still feeling pretty wet from the waist down.