Day 4 -- Thursday, 21 May 2009

We did not plan for anything today.
We meant it to be a free & easy day.
We slept in late.
We left for breakfast at 10am. (It’s the same bread and jam at Xplorer Backpackers so we decided to give it a miss.)
We limped down the staircase of Xplorer Backpackers.
It was a funny sight – all 5 of us holding onto the railing of the staircase and descending the staircase in a single file, sideway.
Even the receptionist could not resist the urge to laugh.
It’s quite embarrassing but we could not waste the day hiding in the room.
We decided to go for a massage after breakfast, hoping that the pain would go away after that.

Different types of tea

Our breakfast - the braised pork is the most tasty of all!

Gaya Foot Reflexology is just beside Xplorer Backpackers. After listening to what they have to offer us, we opted for the “Aroma Leg Massage”, which was said to be able to soothe the muscles and ease muscle aches.

Gaya Foot Reflexology

We went to the washroom as the massage therapists prepared the rooms for us. To our dismay the washroom has a traditional squat style toilet, which users had to squat to use the toilet. Our aching muscles made the process feel like overcoming an obstacle course with high difficulty. We winced at every inch we moved to lower ourselves to use the toilet and at every inch as we went up after that.

After the washroom episode, our legs hurt even more. We limped painfully to our assigned rooms.

Ping and Qin shared a room; Lynn shared a room with me; Joyce had a room to herself.

Massage in progress - taken by Joyce whose massage session ended half hr earlier than us.

The initial part of the massage was comfortable; I can feel my calves muscles loosen up. However, as the therapist pressed onto my stiff thigh, the pain was almost unbearable. I grimaced at each attack on my protesting muscles but I bit my lips as I struggled to endure it in silence. Beside me, I could sense that Lynn was doing the same too.

Next door, I could hear Ping screaming in pain.

Joyce, on the other hand, seemed to be enjoying her massage – she even requested her therapist to increase the pressure as she was feeling ticklish!

Our legs (except for Joyce) felt worse after the massage.

Descending was still a problem!

We even had trouble going up and down the kerbs when crossing the roads. Walking around it was an easier choice!

Despite walking like old ladies, we were determined not to waste the day. We visited the Central Market, KK Plaza, Warisan Square and finally stopped at Port View Seafood Village Restaurant at the Waterfront.

Harbor View

Big red dried shrimps from Sandakan - We each bought a kg back for our mothers

Qin's mum said that the purple organic wild rice from the mountains are good for health - I bought half a kg back for Gran.

Port View Seafood Village Restaurant @ Waterfront

Joyce read online about the fresh seafood served at Port View and we decided give it a try. We spent a long time looking for the restaurant. The locals apparently did not the location of Waterfront well as we were directed in all sorts of direction except the right one. When we finally reached Port View, we were dead beat, dehydrated and our legs were aching badly.

To make things worst, I had a tummy ache. I went straight to the washroom upon arrival at Port View while the others went ahead to take order.

I had a hard time in the washroom going through the same ordeal with the traditional squat style toilet. With the soreness fully unleashed onto my muscles, it was virtually impossible for me to descend. I had to use my hand on the walls as support before I can finally relieve myself with much agony. I spent a good 20 minutes inside; never knew that this could be such a chore.

When I join the rest at the table, I found them fuming mad. There was no food at the table, not even a pot of tea.

I was told that the staff insisted that the minimum order was 1kg for each seafood and would not take any order lesser than that. Joyce tried to explain that there were only 5 of us and we would like to try some of the other dishes too; hence, it would not make sense for us to order 1kg of each seafood. However, the staff ignored her comment and left them at the table with some menus.

The staff did not even come back to follow up on the orders or offer us some other solutions. They just left us sitting there!

What kind of customer service is that?! Is double standard a common practice with them? Such that customers in t shirts and shorts are treated as dirt? Perhaps they thought that we were not going to spend enough to deserve their service, so they rather not do our business?

Whatever the reason, we were very pissed off. We cancelled the order and went off. We ended up taking a cab back as we were too tired to walk anymore. My aching legs coupled with a bad tummy left me with no appetite. We had a light dinner at a nearby KFC before heading back to Xplorer Backpackers.

Who knows, we were locked out. Sighz...what an unlucky day!

Seeing that Lynn is so crazy over the Naruto anime at moment, Qin suggested we try getting a Naruto figurine for her from a toy dispenser. But we got this instead. Can you see the resemblance?

After a hot shower, we once again coated our legs with Counterpain and Salonpas – we finished everything that was left!

It wasn’t long before we discovered that Qin was down with a fever. Her face was scorching hot but she refused to take medicine. She insisted that she was ok but she was already looking daze and she started to babble senselessly non-stop.

Unable to take her senseless gibber anymore, Joyce forced two Panadol down her throat and made her sleep.

Lynn started having sniffing away too. This trip really did stretch our bodies to the limit....

That night, the pain from our post-massage muscles set in. It was so painful that every toss and turn in bed woke us up. My tummy ache wasn’t getting better too – I kept feeling bloated and wanting to visit the washroom.

I woke up at 2am to find Joyce sitting up on the bed too. Her muscles and backache had 'finally' set in. Though the set in was slower than the rest of us, it was just as agonizing. She couldn’t get back to sleep.

I went back to sleep after another round of washroom-struggle.
Joyce still couldn’t sleep – she went to the balcony to call to her hubby to whine about her sufferings but this didn’t help to reduce her misery.

Finally, at 4am, when fatigue exceeded pain and self-pity, Joyce joined us in the la-la land.

.......... Day 5