Holiday Games

Club Med Cherating is all about sport, sport and sport. Oh, alright, and the odd cocktail ...

Club Med Cherating, four kilometres of pristine beach
Images: Club Med Cherating Beach

Awhile back a friend of mine came out with a startling admission. “I don’t actually like beach holidays,” he shrugged. “I just get bored.” Now, saying you don’t like beach holidays is like saying you don’t like oxygen. Everyone likes beach holidays ‒ it’s a vital part of being human. But this bloke didn’t. And I tend to agree with him.

You see, I’m one of those irritating people who can’t relax on holidays. I’m like a toddler who’s just downed a tall glass of potent cordial. While everyone else is sleeping in, I’m the pinhead punching out a soft-sand beach run. While everyone else is lounging by the pool or selecting the comfiest stool at the bar, I’m the blowhard paddling a kayak or puffing up some local mountain. Of course I can relax, but only once I’ve earned it. Then I’m all about bars and lounges and cold bottles of beer.

I don’t admit this with pride. I’m fully aware that this behaviour is at best odd, at worst unhealthy. I’m certain it would make psychologists frown and map me at the sharp end of some behavioural spectrum. But there it is. I can’t relax for the sake of it. I can’t spend days in the horizontal just because there are palm trees about; I can’t down pina coladas at breakfast just because the sun’s shining. I need to do something first.

For this reason I’d always assumed that a weeklong stint at a tropical Club Med represented my anti-holiday. I’d always guessed Club Med was some swanky Euro deal devoted to sloth and debauchery. In my mind’s eye I saw Yves and Laurent sprawled on banana lounges sipping toxic-coloured daiquiris and turning a deep shade of mahogany while they waited for Brigitte and Sophia to finish their Balinese massages and French manicures. To me, Club Med was nothing more than a stage for carcinogenic tans, flamboyant hairstyles and inappropriate swimwear.

Well, no actually. At least not by charter. The idea of Club Med was conjured 61 years ago by a muscular Belgian with the fabulous name of Gerard Blitz. Blitz was a diamond-

cutter by trade, an avowed socialist by persuasion and a water polo player by past-time. He’d just turned 30 when the Nazis invaded his homeland. He joined the French Resistance and, in his quiet moments, wondered at the ideological rifts that divided men. When the Nazis were finally shunted back east, Blitz began organising transit camps for returning Belgian soldiers. He saw how happy the young men were in the Spartan surrounds of the camps, how content they were expending energy, how impromptu football games brought them together. An idea took root in Blitz’s mind.

He began planning a holiday club devoted to breaking down barriers of class and nationality and race. He wanted a place where all the guests would call each other by their first names, where they’d eat at long communal tables, where they’d all muck down and wash the dishes afterwards. It was to be an exercise in equality. And the glue that would hold it all together? Sport. Blitz wanted his guests running about on a level playing field, bonding over sweat and exertion.

Club Med Cherating Beach-Rock Climbing
Image: Club Med Cherating Beach

In the summer of 1950 his idea finally sprouted. He hired 200 US Army surplus tents and set them up at Alcudia on the east coast of Majorca. He named it Club Med. Everything was included in the membership fee – big meals, endless bottles of wine and a packed itinerary of sport. It was, of course, a roaring success. Membership sold out immediately; 2300 members lived Blitz’s socialist ideals through food, wine and sport. Thousands more had to be turned away. The concept grew with a will. Before long, Club Med was announcing itself as the world’s largest sport club.

Well, if the gnarly old Blitz was still kicking about , he would’ve liked what he saw at Club Med Cherating Beach, on Malaysia’s east coast. If he stood on the beach he would’ve seen a typical tropical resort. Coconut palms and casuarinasshading rows of dark-stained suites built from local belau wood in the traditional Malay style: tall stilts, elaborate balconies and steep-pitched terracotta roofs. He might even have seen a troop of spider monkeys causing mischief on the roofs or a slack-bellied monitor lizard dragging itself across the lawn. No doubt the scene would’ve made the old trooper happy. “Pas mal, pas mal ... ” 

But if he’d hobbled across to the other side of the resort, the side that backs on to the jungle, then he would have really cracked a smile. Because over here, in the shade of the giant banyan trees, lies a sporting Graceland. There are tennis courts, a futsal pitch, a beach volleyball court. There’s a squash court, an archery gallery, a badminton court, a driving range. There’s a basketball court, a cardio room, a yoga studio, a putting green, a bocce court. There are three rock-climbing routes up a sheer limestone cliff, there’s a jungle trek for nature lovers looking to spot hornbills and gibbons, and there’s a brand new tree-top obstacle course for those inspired by the theatrics of the spider monkeys. Hell, there’s even a genuine circus trapeze with a protective net the size of a super-maxi sail. It’s a veritable institute of sport – with a well-stocked bar two minutes walk away.

“Tres bon!” old Blitz might’ve whispered. “Tres bon...”

Club Med Cherating Beach-Jungle Walking
Images: Club Med Cherating Beach

And as per Blitz’s original vision, it’s still all inclusive. Put your money on the table up front and you can lock your wallet in your room safe for the rest of the week. You can wander into any fitness class, any game, any contest without paying a cent; you can hire racquets, clubs, paddles, arrows, shuttlecocks without dropping a deposit; you can stagger up to any buffet counter and pile your plate as high as you like; you can saunter up to the bar and slam down a pre-breakfast martini if the fancy so takes you. It all goes back to Blitz’s charter of equality; breaking down barriers with food, drink and sport.Personally, my day starts with a sunrise yoga class, where a lissom Japanese instructor gently exhorts me to “stletch my toes”. After that, before the sun gets too high, I knock out a beach run along the four kilometre rind of sand that stretches from the manicured gardens of the resort to a ramshackle collection of fishing huts suspended on stilts above a tea-

coloured river. The tracks of giant sea turtles are still fresh in the sand.

The morning’s exertion qualifies me for an obscenely large breakfast, followed by a potent double-shot espresso. The coffee fires my legs and I’m back into the morning glare for a set of beach volleyball, some tightrope stalking on the tree-top challenge, a quick scaling of the limestone cliffs. I meet snap-happy Koreans, dreadlocked Senegalese, a girl from Balmain. Old Blitz would’ve been proud. By lunch I feel I’ve earned another elephantine serving of food followed by a glass or two of French rose. The wine loosens my fingers and in the afternoon breeze I turn my hand to the finesse sports: a quiver or two of archery, a game of bocce, a daring swing on the trapeze. I meet impeccably-mannered Indians, coffee-skinned Colombians, a bloke from Bankstown. How old Blitz would’ve applauded!

And then ‒ only then ‒ do I join my friends at the bar. I order a beer. A long cold Carlsberg. In a flared pilsener glass. With beads of condensation trickling down its sides. Gee, it tastes good. My friends, meanwhile, are onto the cocktails. They’ve got a look of glassy-eyed ecstasy about them. They’ve spent most of the day shuffling from the poolside lounges, to the bar, to the restaurant, and back to the lounges. They’re so relaxed they could just about melt. Would old Blitz have disapproved? Doubt it. After all, what’s more egalitarian than an open bar and a thirsty crowd?

Aaron Scott