Beach Experience

On 23 December 2004, we went to Ras Al Hadd, a beach. We set off at 11 am. The hotel we are going to stay is called Turtle Resort. It was an hour journey from Sur. The road was gravel so we had to use a four-wheel car.
When we reached there, we moved our luggage into the huts (our supposed room). Then, we had lunch with Uncle Iskandar’s family.


This is the bed inside the hut.


This is the hut we were staying.

After lunch, we were asked to go ‘berlayar’ (I don’t know what is the English, somebody else explain, hehe) in the OLNG sailing boat. The guy who took us was a colleague of Dad and Uncle Iskandar. We sailed along the beach called Gulf of Oman.
After spending an hour sailing, we returned to the beach. We played ‘petong’, the kind where you have to throw or roll the metal ball near to the wooden ball. After the game, they went swimming.


This is the saling boat that we went on.


This is taken in the boat while saling.

After dinner at 7pm, we got ready to go to see the turtles laying eggs. Each of us paid R.O. 1 to see the turtles. The rangers did not understand English that much when one of the tourists asked questions.
We returned to the hotel at 11pm.
The next day, we took our breakfast at 8am. After that, we went swimming again. Mum picked lots of seashells. I went in search of crabs, hoping to catch them. Uncle Iskandar’s maid caught few crabs for Arif, the son and Ivy. Each of them had 2 crabs. Ivy named hers, Jet and Pinchie.

I was told that Arif’s crab died a week later. Ivy’s crabs were very strong. They survived until we had to go back to Malaysia. As dad could not look after the crabs, they were given to dad’s colleague. After on month of us back in New Zealand, the crabs died.

2 days later on 26 December, we heard about the tsunami that hit Asia. May God rest the souls in peace.