7/19 – Teluk Bahang turns out to be such a small town that it doesn’t have an ATM!  As our hotel only takes cash (Malaysian ringgits, approximately 4 to the dollar), our first order of business was to get back on the 101 bus and go back to the bigger town of Batu Feringghi for some money.   There is a Hard Rock Cafe there!

 
Lots of touristy stuff, right on the beach.  

   
The mixture of cultures is evident here, with Danish / Pakistani restaurants, and Arabic / Lebonese restaurants in addition to the Chinese, Malay and Indian varieties.

   
Most important, there was a 7Eleven with an ATM!  We had some yummy Malay lunch (don’t ask me what it was called, we just pointed at things that looked good), then, flush with ringgits, got on the bus to return to our town.

Teluk Bahan is a one-street town.  Motorbikes are the prevalent mode of transport.  I continue to cringe, as I have throughout Asia, at families all sharing one motorbike, especially those who ride without helmets.  I’ve even seen a mother driving one-handed with an infant cradled in the other arm and a toddler between her knees! 

    
It also unnerves me when the driver wears a helmet, but the passengers don’t! 

We found a great little restaurant for our breakfast of roti canai – very thin dough fried then folded over with a scrambled egg and cheese in the middle, served with curry sauce.  Coffee is very good here too – they ask if you would like milk, but assume that you want sugar – way sweeter than is good for me! 

   
We walked by a drainage ditch and got a shock – a huge lizard swimming slowly toward us through the shallow water!  These are water monitors, very common here.  Sort of alligator-like, with a long, flicking, serpent tongue. This one is about eight feet long, maybe more with that long tail.  Wikipedia says they are carnivorous – hope they can’t get out of the ditch!  We saw this one in the evening:

Here’s another one we saw in the morning:

    
 
Tomorrow, the park!