Ramunia Beach to Desaru Beach

We spent the morning before the ride having breakfast with Siva and Sharmini's family (whom we had met at Changi Village the day before), and they very generously filled us in on some key Malay phrases and yummy things to eat.  After some great times playing in the surf it was time to go and we reluctantly said goodbye.

It's never the same on the ground as it is on the map.  Such was the case with this leg of our trip, where 20kms as the crow flies over flat terrain turned into 35kms over rolling hills in 36 degree heat.  We are not complaining - on the contrary, we really felt like we got to stretch our legs - however we both were dipping into our reserves on some of those hills.  We also managed to finish all of our water too!  Suffice to say we were happy with our progress.

We arrived at Desaru Beach in the nick of time, as we were fatigued and thirsty.  The first resort we hit had no rooms available - which was very worrying and very unexpected (everything we had read said it was low season). The second resort fortunately had space, and it was at this point we found out it was a weekend and Monday was a public holiday in Singapore hence the high occupancy.

The Damai Desaru as our hotel was called was great, despite the monster cockroach we terminated in the bathroom on the first day.  Biggest. Insect. Ever.

We soon forgot all about it when we saw the beach and the view out the window.  10kms of practically deserted beach (the locals seemed to prefer the pool and we were the only foreigners around).  The owners of the hotel were very friendly, shouting Bron dinner and giving Bella a lovely cowrie shell.  All in all the hotel was spectacular so we stayed two nights. Wait, who are we kidding? Our legs hurt too and we needed a break!