Sunday, October 23, 2011

Malays-yah?

There’s something about the country of Malaysia that made me and everyone I traveled with talk like the three little pigs in the movie Shrek. It was pretty consistent theme throughout the trip.

Day One:
        We all met up after mass confusion of the customs clearing process and headed off the boat together around 9:30 AM. “We” means my travel group for this adventure: Nate, Cassie, Keara, Molly, and Heidi. It took us way too long to clear customs because everyone kept on jumping in front of us in line, which was slightly aggravating. We finally cleared customs after about an hour and a half and we headed straight for the airport. We got our tickets and we were all super hungry, so we grabbed food at the food court which was delicious. We got to our gate and ran into about 20 other SAS kids, we pretty much took up the entire back of the airplane. After a grueling, lengthy plane ride, (it was only about 20 minutes) we reached the beautiful island of Langkawi.
        We talked to the tourist center and got a few suggestions for areas to stay in. After consulting our lonely planet suggestions, we headed off in the direction of our hotel... which was less awesome and more expensive than we thought. We headed to another hotel... which was full. Our taxi driver took us to a motel which was right on the beach and reasonably cheap ($8 per night per person), so we did that and ran into Chris, Aria, Joel, Will, and Christine, who were living two rooms over from us.
        The eleven of us settled in and quickly headed out to the Seven Wells waterfall. It was about a half hour taxi ride, for which we actually got a large van that fit all of us. We got there and were told it was only a 10 minute walk uphill, but when we got to the mark it said “waterfall” to the left and “seven wells” upward, so we continued upward. We reached a small waterfall which looked awesome, but we continued our trek uphill because we didn’t think we had reached the top. About 1,000 meters uphill later, we ran into some french tourists who said that the top was essentially only a “train ends” sign, so we headed back down to the second waterfall we had come across, and we rode the waterfall like a water slide down the rocks. It was pretty awesome. Chris also discovered a smaller one which landed in this super deep, underwater cave thing which we dove down to the bottom of. (I felt like I was in a bad horror movie). After about an hour there, we headed down to the first waterfall, which was pretty amazing. We all stood directly underneath the waterfall and took a few pictures, but it was starting to get dark so we headed back to our hotel.
        After drying off and rinsing off, we walked around to find dinner and stopped at a Thai restaurant. We were serenaded with a man playing guitar as well as Joel joining him throughout dinner, which was pretty awesome. Dinner was pretty good, we all got different things and kind of shared with one another. I got an ice cream cone after for dessert which was awesome, and we all headed back to the room to get ready for the night. We headed out in different groups and a few of us wound up at this awesome bar that had live music and was right on the beach. We spent a while there drinking, enjoying the music, and enjoying one another company.
        A late night dip in the Indian Ocean seemed like a great idea, so we ran into some other SAS kids and went for a late night swim, which ended kind of terribly. Two friends got stung by jellyfish and had to go to the hospital after what felt like a really long time of running around figuring shit out. A few people went with them, and the rest of us hung out for a little bit and I finally went to bed around 2:30 AM.

Day Two:
        I woke up around 9:30 AM and went out for breakfast with Keara, Cassie, and Heidi. Everyone else was either sleeping or still at the hospital with everyone. We went to a place called the breakfast bar and I got toast plus banana pancakes. Once again, there was a person playing music in the background, although this time it was a ukulele. Cassie talked to him to ask about the jellyfish and what the appropriate reaction to a sting is. Turns out we did everything WRONG. Best cure: vanilla cake frosting (wether other flavors work or not, I’m not sure). Second best: vinegar. third best: Pee. Worst? Salt water. So soaking the girl in a shower for 40 minutes was just awful on our part. We then did some shopping around the town and met Acher, the awesome shop keep at a little hut outside of the breakfast bar. We also had an interesting incident with Cassie kind of losing her ATM card... but we said we wouldn’t really tell people all the details on that one :)
        We got back to our hotel and our friends weren’t back yet, so we were planning on going to lunch and then leaving them a note telling them we were going out for the day, but as luck would have it, they showed up right then! Aria and Will gave us a suggestion of a place to get food, but it was Indian food which we didn’t really want, so we got Chinese food instead! I had watermelon juice which was absolutely amazing. After lunch, seven of us decided to head to the caves which we heard were super awesome. We loaded into a taxi and headed out, for which most people fell asleep. When we arrived, I felt like I was in the movie “The Beach” with Leonardo Dicaprio (special thanks to Mark for introducing me to that film) The water was stunningly clear and the islands looked as if they had been painted onto a backdrop. We got onto a small boat and navigated our way through hundreds of feet of mangrove, through which we saw monkeys, fed eagles, and saw a small lizard gliding through the water (which looked a lot like an alligator). The first cave, crocodile cave, was named that way because the opening resembled a crocodile mouth, not because it was infested with crocodiles (much to my dismay). We saw a small gathering of bats which was pretty awesome, and a small taste of what was to come. Next, we headed to the BAT CAVE, which was precisely what it sounds like... a large cave filled with what seemed like thousands of bats. We navigated around in the dark and walked up a staircase which specifically told us not to and explored around that area. It was awesome! On the way back, our boat driver informed us that Thailand was only a 40 minute boat ride away, and we were able to see the mountains of the country which was pretty surreal, because Thailand is one of the places I want to go to most.
        Our original plan was to do a canopy walk thing, but we decided that it was a bit too expensive and that we could do canopy walks in Costa Rica, so we headed back to the hotel. Keara and I went to the duty free shop and bought an absurd amount of snacks for the ship, which are much needed. Once we got back to the hotel we all went out for dinner at the bar we had been to the night before. Most of us got burgers, which were quite a let down because they were chicken and we were all hoping for beef cheeseburgers. After that, I grabbed my laptop and went somewhere with wifi to pay off my credit card bills and figure out my shit for Vietnam. About 45 minutes after that, I went back to the hotel and found everyone hanging out on the beach playing kings cup and flinging cool light toys into the sky. I dropped off my laptop and joined everyone. A few of us went to a reggae bar so we could have some hookah and ran into roughly 10 SAS kids. We smoked hookah with the guy who worked there, Bhat, who was a member of the oldest living family of Malaysia (they’ve lived there over 2,000 years) I spent the night dancing with locals and SAS kids and smoking and drinking and just having an amazing, surreal time. We headed to the beach where there were fire dancers, and they let us try our hand at fire dancing. Certain people were much better than others, but I had SO much fun doing it. How many people can say they’ve fire danced on a beach in Malaysia? Not enough, that’s for sure. After that, we met a few guys from Lithuania and talked to them for a bit, where we came up with four rules of life in Malaysia:
Don’t play with fire
Meet Lithuanian men... in Malaysia
Lithuanian jokes aren’t bad... google translate is bad.
I am you because you are me... Ubuntu

       
Day Three:
        We woke up at 7:27 to catch our 7:30 taxi and made it there just a tiny bit late, which was pretty freaking impressive. We caught our flight back to Penang and arrived around 10 AM. After asking a tour guide where there was cheap and good food, we took two taxis and got slightly separated for a little while... but miraculously we were able to find each other! We had lunch together and Cassie, Molly and I decided to walk back to the ship, because it was only a 15 minute walk! So we stopped at a hotel with the coolest marble bathrooms ever, and a Coffee Bean for drinks (yes, Ana, I was thinking of you) Turns out that the brisk 15 minute walk was more like an hour or so, and Cassie had to catch a bus for a field program so we kind of sped walked the later half, kind of concerned we wouldn’t make it. We made it there just in time, and I grabbed my stuff from Nate who had graciously taken it to the ship for me. I chatted with Kamel and Adam for a bit, and then decided to head out on town on my own. I wanted to find a cheap market to spend the remainder of my ringgits, and I had vowed that I wouldn’t go to the mall... so I wound up at the mall eating McDonalds. I’m not really sure how that happened. I was unable to find the outdoor market that I had heard all about, so I guess I just kind of gave up! I took the bus back to the ship with Albers, Jess, and Joe and got randomly drug tested, which I passed with flying colors.


Malaysia was awesome, and Langkawi was paradise. I hope to go back some day and explore the other parts of the country, on the mainland and around other islands.

ALSO, October 28th is Danielle’s 22nd birthday, so bombard her with happy birthdays and other shenanigans.

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