Lumut to me is one of those places in Malaysia which is rather well-known, yet strangely does not have a proper highway exit. You get here either by getting off the North-South Highway at Bidor, Changkat something, or Gopeng/Batu Gajah and it’s a good 1-2 hours of trunk road journey from there.

Anyway, how to get to Lumut isn’t the point of this entry. What you do once you get here is. Apart from Pulau Pangkor which I bet people here don’t go to everyday, there is well, not much.

Today a colleague and I went to Teluk Batik, a beach about 15-20 minutes from Lumut. In not so many words, it’s like Port Dickson - not as dirty, but just about as enchanting. I think the best thing about our visit was this bunch of guys who were burying two of their friends in the sand, and making a real effort of it. At the end, one guy had sand boobs with pebble nipples and another had a coconut frond in a beer bottle vase stuck by his side. Very entertaining, but rather disturbing as well to watch grown men do this with the fervour of 12-year olds. And the artistry of Martha Stewart.

So what am I doing? Actually with the lack of the very-global Astro, I am watching local channels and learning quite a bit. Like:
1. there's a whole flush of local reality programs apart from Malaysian Idol
2. there are Malaysian teenagers who actually don’t know how many years we’ve been independent
3. there's this program that talks about restoring our old cinemas which I thought nobody cared about
4. the "I'm Not Stupid" series is surprisingly funny and real for something Singaporean, and
5. that there IS an updated version of the Adabi spice mix advertisement

I have another week to go - let's see what else comes my way.