Our next destination was Cherating beach, on the east coast of Malaysia. The bus dropped us off at the side of the road around 10 pm and the driver's assistant told us to walk down this other dark road for about ten minutes and we'd see the guesthouses. We followed his directions and soon located a chalet to stay in. It seemed ok at first, because we were tired and were just happy to find a place so late at night. Upon further inspection, we determined it was the worst place we'd stayed in a long time. It was dirty, the curtains were torn, the screen had big holes in it, Zac killed a two inch roach in the bathroom, it didn't have a shower (the bidet hose was supposed to double as a shower), the bed sloped downward because two of the legs were broken, and we had no blankets or towels. It was so bad we made a movie of it with our digital camera. The next morning we paid twice as much to move to an aircon room, which was still crappy, but a little better. Zac also killed a two inch roach in this room.  (Click here for a video of our bungalow)

Despite our crappy lodgings, the beach was beautiful: clear water and few people. We could have stayed there a long time if we had a better/cheaper room.

The highlight of Cherating was taking a boat up a mangrove swamp and seeing two pythons and a viper coiled in the tree branches above our heads.