RSS

Contact us

Wednesday 15 October 2008

Finding (the real) Nemo

Geordie Greig travels to an obscure Malaysian island to fulfil a child’s dream

Where do we find Nemo, apart from on the big screen? That was our holiday quest, and the answer was off an obscure island called Tenggol, 30km off the east coast of Malaysia. My children are all obsessed by Nemo, the cartoon orange fish now seen by more than a billion goggle-eyed children. Vulnerable, brave, cute and a survivor, he is sort of EveryGoldfish. Well, except that he isn’t. As we found out, he is really a clown anemone fish. Yes, that’s right, of course, you spotted n-e-m-o in the word anemone.

But before this all sounds too fishy, first things first, and that is a 12-hour flight to Kuala Lumpur on Malaysia Airlines. Unlike on BA where the cabin staff refuse to help you put your luggage above your seat for reasons of (their) health and (their) safety, the marvellously smiley Malays grabbed and lifted our heavy children’s bags up into place without even asking. A case of Far Eastern promise easily outgunning our increasingly litigious Western fear of simple common sense and courtesy. No Nemo in the flight film choices, Shrek 3 instead did the trick for the children for a good two hours before we all tried to drift off to sleep to avoid jetlag as we left at noon (BST) and arrived at 7.30 a.m. Malaysian time.

And so on to Terengganu airport on a 50-minute internal flight eastwards and the final frontier to finding Nemo. Richard from Hammersmith is our fit diving guide (well, OK, in my case, shallow snorkelling guide). My odyssey is to take us all of 12 feet under. Richard has a colour photographic chart of our quarry: the clown anemone fish. Forget the sergeant major fish, trumpet fishes, zebra fish, or even the more exotic types of shark, we told him. We were laser-focused on Nemo.

Or at least we were before our children’s lovely nanny projectile-vomited her breakfast (fresh mango) on to a hapless German tourist with his teenage girlfriend sitting in front of her. We were in the middle of the only properly stormy day recorded in August in Malaysia in the last 50 years. It usually pours only at night on Tenggol. Thunder and rollocking waves made two Japanese tourists turn green and lie horizontal on the boat while hearty Scandinavians scoffed and quoffed around us. All three of my children went very quiet on our hour-long sea voyage and eventually also turned green as we headed to snorkel paradise. And so on to our elusive quarry.

More articles from: Geordie Greig | this section

Print this article  |  Email to a friend  |  Permalink  |   Comment

Post this entry to:   del.icio.us | Digg | Newsvine | NowPublic | Reddit

Advertisement

Spectator Business | Apollo Magazine

Corporate | Advertising | Privacy | Terms

Spectator, 22 Old Queen Street, London, SW1H 9HP

All Articles and Content Copyright ©2008 by The Spectator | All Rights Reserved