(Daniel) I woke up this morning and seriously considered leaving the village for KL or possibly Thailand.  Why not, I was still struggling to communicate here, and my reason for returning was turning out to be a dead end.  Besdes Rowan and Gabby would be back from their break in India soon, and I may as well be settled and ready for them.   I sat and updated the diary for a while, and found myself opening a beer in desperation.  But just as I felt like packing up and heading for pastures new my phone rang again. It was Fie, Thomas and a few friends were planning on coming down this evening.  They would try to use the unfinished East West Highway, bribing the work crews to get access to the site, and driving along the gravel tracks and unfinished road.  This news sounded great, as I would finally have some company here.  It is pretty frustrating having this great beach house and your own beach, when there is no-one else here to share the experience.  It would be good to see Fie and Thomas again too.  I put the phone down after speaking to them and decided to fit the new safari cables to the Wolf.

I drilled out the Wolf Lamp guards on the front and slotted the small bow shackles which I had bought through these.  Then I looped the cables around the roof bars, and used the d-clamps to secure these in place.  The tensioners which I bought allowed me to make the steel cables tight enough to deflect bamboo and brush in the jungle. I also took the time to remove the roof bars from the Maggiolina Adventure roof tent, which often caught on low branches.  I have put rivets into the holes which were left behind.  At some time in the future I would like to fit chequer plate in the place where the bars were to protect the fiberglass from damage.

After I had finished fitting the cables and modifying the roof tent, I went to lunch to see Zi at her restaurant.  I ate dinner watched by the usual crowd, and afterwards asked Zi if there was any possibility that I would be able to meet with her alone.  She told me that I could come and see here after work for a drink.  During my conversation with her, I asked her again how old she was, remember last time she told me that she was 28  This time she said that she was 20.  My heart sank.  Now it all made sense.  She was much younger than I thought.  This was why she didn’t have any freedom, looked so young, and this was why she wouldn’t try harder to communicate, and this was why she wasn’t married yet.  Doh!  All my questions answered in one number!  I told her that I would come back later, but already my interest was depleted.

I drove from the restaurant to the market, I planned to make a Tom Yam, and bought shrimp, lemongrass, limes, mushrooms, and tomatoes, then on the way home I saw a fisherman with an icebox at the side of the road, I stopped and bought a Tuna from him, and then drove home and put all the shopping in the fridge.  I sat and typed up some more diary for a while until I was tired of that, then I walked out and tried again to clean the outboard motor.  I used the Wolfs airline to blow sand out of the various places which it had accumulated. once I thought it was clean I tried to start it, but to no avail.  I decided that a mechanic was possibly the way to go, and left the engine there for the time being.

At 9pm, I drove out to Zi’s restaurant, and sat while her parents tried to communicate with me.  They couldn’t speak any English, and I only had a dictionary, which allowed me to use a few key words.  My best way of showing what kind of person I am was through playing with the 5 other kids that were apparently Zi’s younger siblings.  I guess that I must have passed this assessment, as Zi appeared and her parents left.  Then she I and her younger sistyer, who had obviously been appointed chaperone walked across the road for a drink.  I bought them some Milo, and got myself a coke, then sat through a very painful attempted conversation, using the dictionary, and her sister who seemed to understand more than Zi, but would not speak a word of English as she was too shy.  I was just about to give up, whien Lawrence phoned.

A native Malay speaker, I told him what I had wanted to say, and gave him permission to  use some poetic license.  Then I passed the phone to Zi.  I am still not sure what he said to her, but she went very red, and started giggling.  Eventually she passed the phone back to me.  Lawrence told me that he had asked her to come out on her own, but she had explained that she was a Orang Campong, or village girl, and that would not be possible, he had tried hard to find ways to make it possible, but in the end his opinion was that I was on a hiding to nowhere.  I told him about the age thing, and that it was probably a good thing.  He spoke again to her before she put the phone down.  I could see that she liked me a lot but she probably knew that this was just a flight of fancy too.  We said goodbye, and I drove home.  I went to bed then, knowing that Fie and Thomas would probably call soon to say that they were near, or that they had decided not to come tonight.  I slept until about midnight when the phone rang.

Fie and Thomas were close, they had arrived at Terrenganu, and were on the road on the way to Batu Rackit and me.  They had successfully bribed their way past the road crews and the police, and had driven the incomplete East West Highway to the east coast.  It had taken only about three hours as opposed to my journey which had taken about seven hours.  I gave them directions, and then drove out to the main roundabout where I waited for them to arrive.  They pulled up at about 12.45pm, and then followed me back to the house.  They had brought two friends, and I noticed that they had two boats also, one on top of each vehicle.

It was good to have some company, I made everyone dinner of Tuna fried with olive oil, chilli and herbs with rice. then we sat out on the beach, drinking beers, fishing and catching crabs with a torch until around 4am, then we went to sleep in the house.  It was really good to have the company, but the noise that these guys made was hard for me to bear with my knowing life here to be so quiet.  I wondered if the local residents who I had been trying so hard to earn the respect of will appreciate these loud Chinese guys arriving on their doorstep!

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