It was the Muslim New Year last week, so we piled the kids into the car and took a trip to Desaru Beach, about one and a half hours’ drive away. The Visit Malaysia - Johor brochure (hardcopy, so you’ll just have to trust me on this) says:

Desaru boasts 25km of inviting beaches fringed by palms and casuarinas … The waters here are perfect for a relaxing swim, water-skiing and catamaran sailing.

THE GOOD: Oh man, they weren’t kidding when they said 25km of beach. It curves gracefully away in each direction, stretches of gold, with only one section directly in front of the public car park (entry fee RM3 per car) full of people. The rest of the 24.5km remains relatively clear, just begging for you to explore. The other thing I liked about Desaru (which I detest Australian beaches for) is that you can find actual shade under actual trees while still on the actual beach. In Australia, walking a beach is like being targeted by a cheerful laser in a desert, hellbent on giving you skin cancer. That’s why, despite the beautiful, blazing white and pristine sand, visiting Australian beaches holds no attraction for me any more.

The water at Desaru is a lovely temperature and, once you get past the line of “dumpies” (waves that dump rather than roll), the water is still shallow and — at least where we were swimming — free of rips. Just along the most frequently-parked portion of beach, is a hut plastered with Carlsberg signs that sells much-appreciated drinks. It’s open every day till 5:30pm and there are tables, chairs and umbrellas, so you can sit and enjoy your drink while watching the goings on.

Later in the afternoon, we tramped down the length of the beach and picked up a fantastic collection of sea shells and corals.

On our trip to Desaru, we offshot our original turn-off and ended up driving through the town of Saleng to get to the major junction at Kulai. Can I say, Saleng is a charming town? We liked driving through it so much that we deliberately “lost” ourselves on the way back, just so we could drive though Saleng again.

The other humorous bit was passing a town called “Tawar Air 1″, which had me reaching for the kamus (dictionary) that we always keep in the glove box.

“Tawar means tasteless,” I told J. “Tasteless Water One. Unfortunate name for a nice-looking town.”
“Maybe they meant neutral. Or good. As in ‘it doesn’t poison us’.”
“If they meant good, then it would be something like boleh. Boleh Air 1. But it isn’t. It’s Tawar Air 1. No, someone at this place must’ve thought the water sucked.”

Minutes later, we passed Tawar Air 2. Then directions to Tawar Air 3.

“Wow,” I said, “whomever explored this area really didn’t like the water very much.”

But I thought that explorer was perhaps going beyond descriptive — into catty — when we passed Tawar Air’s 4, 5 and 6. I’m sorry, Tasteless Waters. You all looked like cosy little towns to me. I’m sorry you had to get stuck with those names.

THE BAD: There are occasional signs along the road to Desaru highlighting “Caution! Accident Area”. Pity they didn’t put it along the entire damn road. In fact, every single road throughout Malaysia should be designated as an Accident Area. A lot of drivers are people who (seriously) should’ve failed their driving tests — driving at inappropriate speeds along bumpy roads, veering across double lines in the face of oncoming traffic, and overtaking across said lines, around corners and over hills. I wouldn’t mind so much, except what’s going to happen when they met a vehicle approaching in the opposite direction? For this reason, my tip, as the mother of two small children, is to try and stay in the middle of a traffic pack whenever possible. That way, if someone tries something stupid, it’s the car at the front that’s more likely to cop it.

The road itself, considering that Desaru is a major destination for locals and the occasional brave Singaporean, is also in pretty bad repair and could do with major rework. That explains one reason why people drive in the middle of the road — to avoid the patches-on-patches that turn mere driving into an exciting roller-coaster ride of adventure. And only one lane each way for much of the journey? C’mon, Department of Transport, what are you doing with your funds? Spending them all in the Klang Valley, I bet.

When we got to Desaru Beach, we found only one restaurant. In Malaysia, the land of a million food places???? Were they nuts????? And the restaurant didn’t even have everything on their menu. “No, sorry, no ikan (fish).” Which nuked half the menu there and then. “No, nasi lemak is finished already.” Which, at 11am, disappointed The Wast, who has grown to like the national dish. J ordered the beef burger. For some reason, the beef patties you buy here are a bright pink, even after being cooked. This is rather disconcerting, especially when the colour looks unnatural to begin with. And the reason why you can find 5kg bags (or 25kg buckets) of mayonnaise in the local supermarkets is that they use a fifth of it on every burger they make. I had the nasi goreng kampung, which is fried rice, village-style, with an egg on top. That means lots of itsy bitty chopped up chilli and anchovies (ikan bilis) mixed into the rice. What can I say? I’m a sucker for fried ikan bilis.

THE UGLY: Tourism Malaysia says:

Desaru is located 100 kilometres from Johor Bahru, and is a very popular destination for its clean beaches, excellent golf courses and unique attractions.

Hold on. Back up. Did Tourism Malaysia say “clean beaches“???? ‘Cos it ain’t. Oh, it’s long and it’s 100km from JB, and it’s fringed by trees. But, people, clean it most definitely isn’t. I saw plastic bread wrappers in the water, and bottles, plastic bags, and broken glass littering every metre of the beach. It got to the point where we were looking out for shards of glass more than sea shells.

I can say that some Malaysians have absolutely no sense of pride in their country if they so carelessly litter their own environment (and I believe that’s true) but, the problem is, it’s also a bigger Asian issue. My mother used to throw sweet wrappers out the car window until, one day, I stopped the car, reversed to the approximate position where she so thoughtlessly flung out the wrapper, got out and searched through the grass until I found similar litter. She was so embarrassed by my behaviour that she never again littered while I was driving her anywhere.

Oh, and before any Singaporeans start up about how their country is so clean, I’ve lived there. It isn’t. I got sick of having to dodge plastic bags of food being flung from apartment windows on my way to the swimming pool — used sanitary napkins, uneaten rice, cigarette butts, chewed chicken bones — when the rubbish chute was situated inside every apartment, next to the kitchen itself for Chrissakes! You actually have to walk further to get to the window! I tried growing herbs on the balcony until I started finding used tissues amongst the seedlings. And I know enough Malaysians who complain about how Singaporeans will use rubbish bins in their own country then, driving up through Malaysia, throw drink cans and the kitchen sink out their car windows. (Thus illustrating that punitive, financial penalties will only work so far. The only real way to permanently stop people from such behaviour may be to shame them into something better … not sure; still thinking this one through.) So, no, Singapore can’t claim any high ground whatsoever. Brunei, the richest little country in the region, is also a disgrace, with the amount of litter that’s thrown into the river around Bandar Seri Begawan. (I’ve seen it for myself.) And I don’t believe Indonesia or Thailand are much better.

And it’s a crying shame. Coming back to our day trip, Desaru is a great beach, looking out over the incredibly historic and romantic South China Sea. It’s gentle, picturesque, shady, with lots of room for everybody. And it’s also absolutely filthy. I dropped an email to the Johor branch of Tourism Malaysia, describing our experience and asking them to PLEASE clean up the place, including a few suggestions on how they may do this and leverage the local and business communities at the same time. Let’s see if anything happens.

DESARU BEACH RATING: I’m sorry to say, as it stands now, 4 out of 10.