Photo Challenge - Day 10

"Childhood Memory"

These photos were indeed a challenge.  It is very hard to photograph old photos in 1980s photo albums...

In 1983, I was 10 years old and we lived in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. During our time in KL we often went camping on the islands off the coast of Malaysia.  My absolute favourite trip was the time we camped on Pangkor Island.  On one side of the island there was a bunch of big resorts, the other side though just had a couple of thatched huts and was relatively untouched.  That's where we camped!  To get out to the island we loaded up a Malay fishing boat and hired the "Captain" to take us out to the island. Remember my fascination with pirates and how as kids we were all desperate to be attacked by "real" pirates... well, in the above photo, the pile of luggage you can see there, that is where we were supposed to hide ourselves if we were actually attacked!  Ha, those in charge (the parents) obviously had no idea!  Luckily, we never crossed paths with any real pirates, much to our bitter disappointment at the time though!

That is 10 year old me in the "kitchen" hut! 

Me, my brother and our friend Sean (his parents were with the American Embassy) exploring the lagoon set back from the beach.  We spent most of our holiday playing around this lagoon.

Fishing in the lagoon.  Tom (Sean's brother) at the front, my brother in the water and me at the back. Not sure where we got those rods from, I am guessing we made them.

There was a dead palm tree hanging over the water of the lagoon.  Somehow we scaled it and then dropped into the water.  I recall this as being fabulously fun, looking at this photo though I think I might have been a bit uncertain about the whole thing!

My brother looking much more confident!

We took a little inflatable Zodiac with us to explore and also to pick up fresh food and water.  I can remember snorkelling at this beach and finding lots of bits of old china that had washed up from shipwrecks.

A truly wonderful holiday and I am forever grateful to my parents that they had the courage and the trust to take us on a holiday like this and leave us to pretty much do as we pleased without any intervention.  Yes, we all nearly drowned... but I will save that story for another blog post.