Rimba Resort ~ A Remote Island in Malaysia

On one early Friday morning, Tim and I crawled into the back of a van bound for a small harbor in the southern part of Malaysia. We were headed to the island of Sibu and a small resort called Rimba. This was where I first met Shazz and Kea – a mother and daughter pair filled with life- and was reacquainted with Tim’s Australian mate Kristy who is a delightful woman. We headed off towards the boat that would take us to a deserted island in the South China Sea. I was elated.

The drive was fairly uneventful although I was pleased to watch the expansive palm fields breeze by while exchanging stories with my new friends. It was when we boarded the little boat and began our journey across the sea that I felt the true nature of what I was about to experience. The sea stretched out in brilliant glimmering blue and ended at the towering shadows of majestic mountains on the horizon. The men who drove the boat smiled sheepishly when water sprayed my face and Tim closed his eyes against the wind. I was exhilarated by the smell of the sea and the familiar feel of the boat as it rocked and bounced and seemed to hover just above the water. When we pulled into the bay I was able to peer deep into the emerald water and see the rocks and corals beneath the surface. The distant shore bore grass hut shelters – humble little abodes that I have come to call palapas from my travles in Latin America but Tim insisted that I refer to as chalets in the company of those on the island. As we ventured onto the sand and inward on the island I saw that a restaurant under renovation because of fire, a small dive/snorkel shop, a bar that doubled as a gathering place, a few hammocks, an small but amiable staff and a number of chalets were all that inhabited the island. I felt like I was in the Blue Lagoon.

The island offered endless hours of quiet. I found plenty of wonderful ways to pass the time: I took a run through the jungle to the far side of the island where despite mosquito bites and a stubbed toe I was rewarded with the view of an expansive white beach and crystal aqua ocean. I floated far out into the bay on a large inner tube for hours and dozed in and out under the hot sun. I lay limp in the large hammocks and listened to loud music in my headphones while writing line after line in my journal and reading about a woman’s adventure on the Nile. I stayed up late at the bar with the staff and talked about all kinds of things while drinking one Carlsberg can after another. It goes without saying that the sunsets were amazing.

One night, after a fairly heated debate with Tim and the owner of the resort about the state of the world – I of course fall on the side of idealism and insist that the world can and should be better and they of course pointed out all the flaws in my ideals – Tim and I stumbled back to the “chalet” but not before Tim coaxed me into the sea. In a moment’s time, I staggered over a rock and felt my right flip flop slide off my foot. Before Tim could devise a drunken plan to shine the flash from his camera on the water my lonely shoe had drifted away and was gone. We gave up searching, but not before Tim had succeeding taking a number of drunken photos of my mucking around searching aimlessly and my falling amidst hysterical laughter and completely submerging myself and all my clothes in the sea. Those photos I pray, will never be seen as Tim has recently lost his camera in a salt water accident. Needless to say, I spent the rest of the trip completely barefoot; even more like the Blue Lagoon!

And then there was the snorkeling…