Fitting in the Beach culture

Frenchy and I went to Rawa Island in Johor Malaysia over the weekend. The island is a 30minute speedboat ride away from Mersing and is basically a strip of beach on one side and a steep cliff on the other. It is a lovely island getaway that you could opt for when the fake Singapore beaches and view of the container ships just can't cut it any longer; a lovely way to destress and get away from the stress, noise and fast paced life in Singapore.

We spent most of the day snorkeling (of which I saw a grumpy nemo's face and laughed so much that I almost drowned), had great food, played scrabble by the beach and just relaxing on the pure sandy beach).

But a place like this was not for me to be honest. Despite being on an island in Malaysia, I was the minority there. To be honest, I was intimidated by the other Caucasians there and was lost in the myriad of languages that I could not understand.

And the beach culture - of body baring, drinking and partying is something completely alien to me. I was raised in a household where spaghetti tops and shorts were unacceptable, so bikinis were definitely a ticket to all day nagging session by mum. That doesn't mean I don't think women shouldn't wear bikinis for they should wear whatever they feel comfortable and happy in.

And for me, it was a body suit as we were snorkeling and I wanted to keep the stinging jellyfish off my skin. However, the looks of amusement and somewhat horror was evident in the faces of the size 6-10 long limbed women, tanning in the sun. I think the look says - "Size 16 women should honestly NOT be on the beach".

I was quite sad and so self conscious the entire time that I was embarrassed to go anywhere near the others. However it's not easy seeing that the place was so small, there was hardly anywhere to hide. :(

Ah, the perils of not fitting in the acceptable range of beauty eh?