Damai beach

We deserved this place after the hard night at Bako. We wished we had stayed here for two nights instead of at Bako, but then we wouldn’t have had the contrast to appreciate this place.

Damai has two Holiday Inn resorts so we were expecting the area to be a bit touristy and possibly over the top. We stayed at a beautiful place called the Permai Rainforest Resort in a tree-top house in the rainforest overlooking the beach. And yes, it was as good as it sounds. We thought there would have to be something wrong with the place and that could be the food (there was no town we could get to so we were forced to eat at the resort), but no, the food was great too. Fresh juice, whole coconuts, exciting Asian soup and all from a cafe in the rainforest overlooking the beach.

We got up early to do a short trail in hope of seeing monkeys. OK, so once again we didn’t see any monkeys but we knew they were there…. big ones. We heard some crashing through the trees so we stayed very still waited for probably half an hour for them to reveal themselves. No such luck but we did see some pretty ferocious looking ants.

The tide at the beach had gone way out so the Asian tourists had even longer to laugh at our swim-wear as we walked out to the shallow water. They mostly liked swimming in jeans and t-shirts so even the most modest swimwear was going to make them roll-around laughing. Catching waves the evening before when the tide was high also made them laugh. What else is one supposed to do when at the beach?

The jungle pool was certainly refreshing after being in the hot water of the ocean. We couldn’t stay at the beach too long so retreated to the jungle pool where cool water collected in a man-made pool at the base of a waterfall.