Trusting Skeletons

I live for the boat rides just before a storm when the water reaches for the sky in sharp points like meringue, and there are no guests in the boat, just Rippen and I and sometimes Sebastian. Rippen drives faster then, careening off the waves like a roller coaster, surveying the water for logs or garbage. Where I see debris, he sees the shadows the waves cast on the water. He is a skilled driver, born i n a village called Mukut just south of Bagus Place, where he grew up on the water. He knows when the sea is angry and when it will be calm and flat like porcelain. On these boat rides, I scan the horizon, watch the beaches and the jungle of Tioman stretch out in both directions, search the water for giant sea turtles, and feel the salty wind whip across my face. It’s the only time I feel movement, as if I’m getting somewhere, traveling to a point somewhere in the future. I can’t help but smile. But when the boat pulls into the harbor in Tekek and the heat of the day p...

After a slightly troubling bout at the airport in London (which seems to be a trend with me), where we found we had to prove that we were leaving Singapore, a feat which was difficult to prove seeing as we were planning to take a taxi from Singapore into Malaysia and it’s hard to prebook a taxi on the internet, forcing me to book two bus tickets from Singapore to Kuala Lumpor, a place we were not going just to prove that we were planning on leaving, we finally boarded the plane. A long, exhausting plane ride later, we arrived in Singapore, found our hotel and ventured out for some fish head soup or frog leg stew (apparently a popular dish in Singapore). The next day, tired from jetlag, we found our way to the bus station, haggled our way into a taxi and began the three hour journey to Mersing, a small port town on the eastern side of Malaysia. We arrived in Mersing, found the ferry port, had a few beers and then boarded the boat to Tioman Island. Seeing as we were both exhau...