We have a Garman GPS, brand new and supposedly very reliable. Two days ago we decided to find our nearest Cold Storage shop and entered in the co-ordinates. After driving for about 30 minutes we suddenly found ourselves on a road with signage only for “Woodlands”, and then lanes for cars, buses, motorbikes etc.  Turns out “Woodlands” is in Singapore and that we had been directed to the Customs post for those leaving Malaysia. I should warn you that at no point is there anything to indicate “Woodlands” is in Singapore, nor that you have passed your last chance to turn around and head back to JB. Since we don’t normally travel with passports, we had to go through to the Immigration Office, park up, explain what had happened and get an official chit which explained we had taken a wrong turn and that we should be allowed through a special tunnel, which would allow us back into Malaysia. Entering the tunnel (which has a barrier) involves attracting the attention of the ‘official’, crossing up to four lanes of cars and then waiting whilst he raises the barrier, the back end of your car poking out into the traffic. Not very pleasant. We still don’t understand what happened with the satnav, especially as it suddenly started announcing it was ‘recalculating, recalculating’ when we had followed its directions to the letter. Ah well …

A similar thing happened yesterday, driving to Desaru to scope out the beaches and, in particular, a resort named Pulai, of which we had heard mixed reviews but which we thought might be suitable for a weekend beach holiday. Desaru is about an hour’s drive from our flat, through thousands of acres of palm trees, planted to provide the ubiquitous palm oil, at the loss of native jungle and destruction of the eco-system. We took the E22, the toll express and found our way no problem, but the return journey involved several detours and brought us into Seri Alam a completely different route.

Either way, the public beach at Desaru is fine. Small huts sell beach toys, food and souvenirs and the parking is RM4 for a car. The sea is quite rough, the sand clean and ladies should be aware you will feel most uncomfortable  in a swimming  costume unless covered with a T shirt and make the costume a one-piece: most people on the beach were Moslems, none of the women swam and those of Chinese origin had the T shirts on. At the resort, on the other hand, bikinis were in evidence around the free-form pool and I believe it has a private beach. I’ll let you know after our trip there!

A standard double room at Pulai is RM300 (about £60) per night, including breakfast for two. The guy at Reception spoke passable English, but it really would be so much easier if I could speak Bahasa Malay too: motivation to get going with that! In addition, all the road signs are in Bahasa only. The restaurant is open-air and looks comfortable but, as I said, I shall report back at a later date.

Finally, Jantzen Hairdressers, first floor of Tebrau City, managed to chop my locks for RM45 (£9) without reducing me to tears, which was always the case in India. They clearly have much more experience of ladies with short hair and did a reasonable job. A friend used a hairdressers at Today’s Market and she seemed pleased enough too. I had the campest hairdresser ever, with the longest (clean) fingernails. They do things a little differently: dry cut followed by copious amounts of shampoo squeezed from a bottle, rubbed in, foaming, and then rinsed off at the end. I was left bemused but relieved!