A short ride to my volunteering opportunity and a chance to be selective over my last night of wild camping. Then I would spend a month in a floating house on the Sepang River. First, though, I had a chance to visit the turtle conservation centre in Masjid Tanah, just North of Melaka.
The centre is right on the water’s edge, just after the beach where the turtles come to bury their eggs. They also have a special area for the turtles to shelter from the sun, an educational section and a pool to rear turtles. There were few turtles in the pool, it was the wrong time of year.
Nothing better than a lovely sunset
A little cycle further, I would come across my spot for the night. I got to put my tent under a canopy and watch the sun setting whilst reading a book. The bonus was being able to get a shower as well. It was perfect for my last night’s wild camping in Malaysia and a kitten for company.
The next day was a quick ride via Port Dickson to my Workaway volunteering opportunity in Sepang. Because it was so short a distance, only 40km, I chose to stop in Port Dickson for a couple of coffees and to continue reading Digital Marketing for Dummies. I was going to help in the development of a strategy for marketing, content writing and SEO work to increase visibility.
After a short cycle, I was met by AiVee at the jetty and straight onto the floating house. It was an impressive place with the accommodation, places for the kayaks, kitchen and areas to just chill. Not cramped like I was expecting it to be. Just no WiFi. The hotspot from the phone worked ok but wouldn’t be good for large data (photo) uploads.
After getting settled in, Aivee took me into the local town for a look around and an area where I might be able to get some good WiFi for doing the work. We also discussed my ideas for content and for optimising the website for search engines. AiVee was happy with this and I would concrete my plans over the next couple of days.
Back to the grind
It was odd to be doing work which involved being back in front of a laptop for days and hours on end. I was hoping I would be able to get back into it. I was hoping to combine it with kayaking regularly and exploring the area in more detail. Even more so when I found out they have otters in the area and they come out to play around the house.
But first the work, I found out there was little work done before when it came to optimising the website for search engines. A recent redesign a couple of months ago made the site easier for customers but customers and content were not the heart of the website so it was difficult to read and find the information needed. Not selling what was on offer.
I then had a realisation of the amount of work I had to do. Slightly nervous because I haven’t done this work for a long time. It took a while to explain it all to AiVee and the amount of things I would need to change and the site needs to be looked at from a customer’s point of view and barriers to them need to be removed.
AiVee was also trying to promote the area a bit more as well because that would possibly bring more customers. So, I went in search of other businesses that I could be promoted in and around Sungai Pelek. This would form the basis of more content on the website.