Sea Monkeys and Mountains

Last week Reuben and I went hiking to Turtle Beach. It's a beach located in the National Park which takes about an hour to get to. It's not such a bad hike. It's a long day if you hike to the beach and stay there all day, but the hike isn't hard.

This week we also went hiking, with some new-comers to Penang. But it wasn't enough to hike to Turtle Beach; we wanted to go farther. According to the map there was another beach, Teluk Kampi, about an hour past Turtle Beach. Ok, I thought, I can do this. It's only an hour. Oh.my.gosh. The map failed to show the contour lines that show that the hiking trail goes up a huge steep mountain, and then back down again. Ok maybe it wasn't a mountain, but it was really hard!! It was practically a vertical incline, from my opinion. I thought I was in good shape, but it turns out that I'm not. I was the one taking the walk of shame up to the group while everyone else was waiting for me at the top. But after almost hyperventilating and several encounters with some really large, thorny vines (which are very conveniently growing in just the right places when you need something to hold onto) we got to the beach. It was beautiful, and unlike Turtle Beach, there wasn't any sea jellies. As we were sitting their 'chillaxing' I was thinking about how I could survive the hike back and kinda stressing over it. These people walk really fast. Let's just say, I wasn't at all looking forward to it, or tomorrow morning when I wake up all sore. I said a little prayer asking God to help me somehow endure the looming mountain awaiting me upon return. And wouldn't you know, isn't God amazing, He totally answered my prayer (of course He would!) Somehow we got on a different trail which didn't go over the steep slope AND we made a shortcut from Turtle Beach, so we hiked back in no time. It wasn't bad at all. God made us get lost to make it easier on us.
These pictures are from Turtle Beach, last week. These monkeys are EVIL...just look in their eyes.