Easter at Rawa

Hi Ya'll! I hope that everyone had a nice Easter! Singapore gives Good Friday as a holiday so I got a nice little 3 day weekend. I was invited up to Malaysia to go to Rawa Island with a group of 26. I had met a majority of them and knew it would be a fun weekend!

We set off at 6am from Singapore Friday morning in an attempt to beat the queue at the border. Apparently everyone else in Singapore had the same idea too as it took forever to make it through. Once we did, our driver became the Malaysian version of Mario Andretti in a mini van. A two lane bumpy and winding road through fields of palm trees (fun fact - Malaysia is the world's largest exporter of palm oil), and he decides to pass slower cars in the other lane while there's oncoming traffic.  Needless to say, I was incredibly happy to get out of that van at the Port of Mersing! We then boarded a ferry for 20 minutes out to Rawa Island.

First glimpse of Rawa

Rawa is a tiny island that's owned by 2 brothers. They had a feud and have basically split the island in half. There's the side with a true resort (pool, legitimate cabins, etc) and then there was ours. Granted the resort was filled with families up from Singapore for the weekend, but ours was kid free and much more relaxing! Our cabins slept 5 to a room with basic accommodations and no hot water. Good thing there wasn't much time spent in the room as we were on the beach the entire weekend.  

There was tanning (or burning in my case), reading, card games, pier jumping, snorkeling, volleyball, and a ton of relaxation!  The water was incredibly warm (like bath water) and the most amazing blue.   There was a little coral reef off of the beach that we snorkeled around.  I saw a reef shark...it wasn't that big...rainbow fish, other random fish I can't identify.  I need to get an underwater camera!

Here are some other pictures:

The main building where we ate our meals and hid in the shade as it was insanely hot over the weekend

Beach

Beach Part 2

The boys playing a heated game of volleyball

Sunset over the pier on the first night

Panoramic View

Overall it was a top notch weekend.  If I couldn't spend it at home with the family eating a Honey Baked Ham and Hominy, then this was a good alternative!

Rawa, I will be back!

...I'm off to go sit in a tub of aloe vera...