Day 2 and we decided to sign up for the 4 island tour as recommended by the reception at the Hotel.
Lina, Sonia and Harry aka Harry Potter was really helpful in arranging the tours for us. However we were rather late and the tour guide had a sour face when we boarded the van about 20 minutes late. Lessons learned - never be late for tours as the tour van had to go around picking up passengers.
We were taken to a harbour and waited for the boat called Funky Monkey also the name of the tour company. The boss owned 3 boats bearing similar name.
First stop was a small island with a smallish aquarium but the aquarium had some of the most beautiful fishes! It was also built into a rocky outcrop so as you moved inside the aquarium it felt as though we were moving inside a cave. The reward at the highest point was an awesome view of the islands surrounding NT.
The second stop was for snorkelling and diving. Yours truly stayed on board the boat as I could not swim! However the rest of the family had a good time. Although the currents were strong, the boat owner gave some clear instructions to keep together.
Having been to Lombok where we saw some of the most beautiful marine life and the clearest underwater corals (plus taking pictures of them with my Samsung S7) they were most disappointed as there was nothing to see underwater! Yes...at Lombok I could even see the corals and beautiful fishes from my boat!
Anyway we had lunch on the boat. Delicious food like tomato chicken, Vietnamese spring roll, egg roll, vegetable soup, noodles were served to us in small plates. Guess what was used as a table? The very chairs that we were sitting on right in the middle of the boats were laid flat and a mat rolled over it! Yes, unique as it was a floating restaurant!
After lunch, the Funky Monkey owner lined up all his boats one after another and had his own boy band sang some songs for us.
The fun thing was when he started to call different nationalities forward to introduce them country by country and made them sing some of their country's well known songs! Whilst some of the songs were played by the boy band (actually they were more the middle aged boy band as some of them were really middle aged and not so young ) the Malaysians were asked to sing any song as they did not have the repertoire. We sang Rasa Sayang! Just the chorus but this song is really a lovely song and very Malaysian.
Of course for the Koreans, it had to be Oopa Gangnam style!
Diving sessions followed where the guests on the Funky Monkey boats dived from the roof of the boats into the sea. They had floats around their bodies due to the strong currents. The boat owner advised to hold on to each other floats due to the strong current. Drinks were served in the sea!
We were then taken to chill out on a private island. We had to pay some money to go into the island. We sat on deck chairs and drank coconut water!
We got back rather tired and decided to try out Lanterns, one of the top 10 recommended restaurant at NT. Incidentally it was just about 5 minutes walking from our Hotel!
However Lanterns turned out to be so popular that the queue to go up lined the narrow staircase...yes...if you have knee problems this is not the place to have dinner unless you go there at 5 pm!
As I could not stand for too long (you guessed it - knee problem) the family decided to try a Russian Chinese restaurant nearby. Did I tell you that the whole street seem to be teeming with Russians (shops especially) although an equal amount of Chinese and Koreans also liked NT very much!
On the boat there were only about 8 Malaysians and 2 Russians but quite a bit of Australians who sang Waltzing Matilda and a lot of Chinese from China!
We had 2 plates of spring rolls (really delicious) and a plate of bacon (cold but yummy) and steamed fish (which seemed rather hard to me).
After dinner the family walked to the beach (Summer Hotel is near the beach which is about 20 minutes walk) while I chose to retire early.
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