An involuntary diet

No one wants to get food poisoning but three months in I am very grateful it has been our only major illness. We had just come back from an amazing time at Redang Kalong, see previous post for the scoop, and were pretty exhausted and staying at Pandan Laut for one night before heading three hours down the coast to Pekan. We’d stayed here the night before on the way to the island and knew it was basic but clean accommodation with a wonderful deserted beach we intended relaxing on before we checked out. Our room this time was twice the size and instead of tiled, a log cabin, sarongs laid over the floor to cover the rather large gaps between the planks, we settled in for the evening. 

The food options weren’t that plentiful and we’d discovered as soon as we arrived in the region of Terengganu, a week or so before, it was the first area we felt slightly out of our traveller’s depth in, very much strangers in a strange land. But we’d eaten at a nice enough restaurant down the road the last time we stayed and did the same again. Thankfully we did not eat the same thing that night, a habit we may now adopt as standard. No details required but from about 6am I was painfully unwell. As we were due to check out that morning we kept pushing the leave time back until we had no choice but to extend another night. Luckily they had the room free! Not sure what would have happened if they hadn’t. Several hours of me asking JHubz if I was dying later and by mid-afternoon I was at least keeping sips of water in. It pays off having every pill known to man with you and the squished dioralyte packet I found was much appreciated. JHubz, who had been giving me until 4pm to turn the corner before he whisked me off to the hospital, breathed a sigh of relief. We’ve all had food poisoning and know it can be pretty hard core, I’m grateful the worst of it was out of my system quickly.

The next day exhausted and pretty weak we drove down to the lovely Ancasa Royale Pekan and have been lounging and recovering here ever since. Overall it is the nicest hotel we have stayed in. A huge contemporary clean room with two double beds we’ve pushed together to make one giant one, a lovely comfy armchair with a foot stall and the modern desk I now sit at to type. The large bathroom has a connecting wardrobe to the bedroom which if you open the doors on both sides provides a window into the bedroom, very Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe of it. The toiletries are awesome, which is a relief as I had an allergic reaction to the ones from a crappy hotel we stayed at in Terengganu and was covered in bumps the whole time we were on Redang. The food in the spacious restaurant is varied, tasty and reasonably priced. We checked out the gym and bar (two pool tables) today and both look really nice. The huge outdoor pool looks over a river the colour of caramel and is lovely and refreshing (the pool not the river) and we’ve got telly! We were total TV addicts in the UK, the first TV we watched here was the DVD for the PADI Open Water last week but when I was not so well JHubz watched and I dozed and moaned through some great movies and we’ve continued the habit here. It’s such a sapper of time, you can’t write when the TV is on, you can’t read, so I hope we leave the habit here, but it has been nice to have a little TV relaxation these last few days as I recovered, now totally better FYI.

Anyway all this down time and I get philosophical. It’s ok to stop when you need to. Ok to allow yourself to rest and recover from the poisoning life occasionally throws your way, food or otherwise. You don’t have to do everything all at once and you don’t have to do everything on your own, be you single, widowed, married or anything else. 

We are here until Monday when we get back on the road to Muar and then Melaka. I’ve been looking forward to Muar ever since we booked it because every time I say it I think Mwahahaha like a comic book villain, it’s the small things. 

Wishing you the greatest of days Xx