Exciting Stuff

When I was Skyping Ondra in Langkawi he asked me a question to answer the next time we spoke: what's the most exciting thing I've done over here. I've been thinking about it, and although I've seen some amazing things, stayed with and met amazing people and eaten some pretty amazing stuff I wouldn't necessarily call much of what I've done "exciting". Then I went to the Perhentian islands... I arrived at D'Lagoon Chalet by speed boat and you could see from the boat the clarity of the turquise water, something I didn't have in Langkawi. There were lots of us on the boat when we left the mainland but by the time we reached the last stop - D'Lagoon, a tiny secluded lagoon with one chalet right at the very North of the smaller island - it was only me and a Finnish couple. I checked into the dorm for four nights (only three of us in the twelve-bed dorm, a little fuller than the ten-bed dorm in Kota Bharu I stayed in on my own, and here in Kota Terengganu I'm all alone in a five-bed dorm. Brilliant!), got changed into my swimming shorts, rented some snorkeling gear from the desk and took my first paddle in the lagoon.

With the bright sun shining down the water was as clear as anything. I wasn't expecting too much in the way of coral and wildlife, thinking most of it would have died from seeing all the skeletal debris on the shore, but after swimming out only a few metres it was obvious that the lagoon was very much alive. The colours of the fish and coral were quite spectacular and it really did feel like I'd entered an entirely different world. Even after looking down at this new world for hours I was still seeing new corals and new fish, getting up close to them and spending enough time to get to know their personalities: the territorial ones, the shy ones, the curious ones... and with my underwater camera I snapped away at it all.

I spent a long time in the waters around the islands, sometimes in the lagoon, sometimes off the beach the other side of the island and once off a beach on the other larger island after kayaking there. Over there there was even more coral, even more fish and two things I'd been looking forward to since arriving: turtles and sharks! During my good three hours in the water off this island I only saw one green turtle and although I saw plenty of black-tip reef sharks they were all juveniles. There are some big two metre-long ones that come to the beach a short walk from the lagoon for about an hour in the morning and although I tried to see them twice I'd failed both times.

I was talking to my dorm mate Steve from Northumbeland and a couple from Germany and Finland while we were eating some barbarqued squid they'd caught earlier about what the most exciting thing I'd done would be. I said that I wanted to see the big sharks just so that I could say I'd seen them, becuase that would definately be something I could catagorise as "exciting". But then they pointed out that seeing turtles & small sharks in the beautiful water, having monitor lizards running about the chalet freely on their way to and from the surrounding jungles, having geckos crawling about the dorm (one of which woke me up in the middle of the night as it clambered down the windowsill to the floor via my face), catching squid for supper (which I tried to do but didn't even get a bite!) and waking up to look out the window and finding yourself a mere twenty metres from the sea with only coconut trees, sand and hammocks in your way is all pretty exciting stuff. And they were right.

And when the excitment got too much, I found a hammock underneath the coconut trees and slept . Oh, and I wrote a song about lying in a hammock underneath the coconut trees, which the other guests and locals seemed to like when I sang it in one of the nighly sessions, accompanied by goat-skin drums and brass gongs. I'd have rathered steel drums and a couple of trumpets, but there we go. And on the last day, just to protect my back that had seen enough sun during all my time spent head-down in the water, I stayed in the common area and watched all five Harry Potters. Man, I love being able to do whatever I like!!

A Typical Conversation with a Malaysian

Malaysian (usually a guy, middle-aged with not much to do): Hi
Hedd: Hey
M: Where are you from?
H: I'm from Wales... (momentary pause to look for a reaction indicating he knows where it is) ...in the U.K. Do you know Wales?
M: Ahhh, Wales. Ryan Giggs, eh!
H: Yeah, Ryan Giggs.
M: They beat Azerbaijan. Got (insert next country to play Wales in the football world cup qualifiers) coming up (insert exact time and date), isn't it.
H: Yeah that's right
I used to at this point ask if he liked football but I realised the answer would obviously be yes, and of course it always was. So I changed it to:
H: Have you ever been to Wales or the UK?
M: No, I want to go though, maybe to London. There's this tour company that does trips to the UK and includes a premier league match with (insert which ever team he supports, either Man U, L'pool, Arsenal or Chelsea) so I might do that one day.
H: Do you travel often?
M: Not really, I've been to Indonesia once and China once but that's about it. So where are you going now?
Note that they never ask what I'm going to do where I actually am but rather they assume I want to get out of wherever I am as soon as I can and go somewhere else.
H: I'm here for a few days now, and then I'm off to (insert next destination). I'm in Malaysia for two and a half months all together actually.
M: Two and a half months! Long time lah. Alone?
H: Yeah. Well, I was staying with friends in China and Japan, I was in China for five weeks and Japan for two weeks, and I was staying with friends in KL but now I'm on my own.
M: Japan, eh? Expensive, no?
H: Well yeah, quite expensive, but not as bad as I thought it would be. Not as bad as the UK anyway.
M: UK expensive, is it?
H: Yeah, very expensive.
M: I see. Do you like Malaysian food?
H: Of course!
M: Not too spicy for you?
H: Nope, the spicier the better.
M: And what have you tried?
H: (Trying to remember the names of them all) Nasi Lemak, Ro...
M: You like Nasi Lemak?
H: ...Yep, umm, Roti Canai, bu...
M: You like Roti Canai?
H: Yep. My favourite thing here though is Ais Kacang, it...
M: Oh, you like Ais Kacang, do you? And what about durians, have you tried those?
H: Yeah, and I actually like them too!
M: Oh, you like Durians? You don't mind the smell?
H: No, it's not too bad. But I can't eat much of it becuase it's just so creamy.
M: Yes, very creamy. Best time to visit Malaysia for food, Ramadan. Best time.
H: Yeah, I like all the night markets and everything.
M: So it's not too hot for you?
H: No, it's OK. I like it hot, I just don't like the humidity. Hot and dry I like. It's not as bad here as it was in Shanghai when I got there though, there was a heat wave. Now that was really, really hot.
M: We only have two seasons here, see. Not like UK where you have four.
H: Hmm, although it doesn't feel like we have four these days, it's all just one long rainy season now. I mean, I remember when in the winter you'd always have snow and in the summer you'd always have sun but now you can have anything anytime mixed in with plenty of rain.
M: My friend, he's in (insert British university) says he laughs at the British when they come out to sunbathe even with just a little bit of sun.
H: Aye, they do, it can be freezing outside but they'll all be out in their bikinis with just a little bit of sun trying to get a tan.
M: I don't get it see, why do they want to get a tan? The girls in Malaysia try so hard not to get a tan.
H: I know, you see them walking i nthe street under the sun with these big umbrellas! I don't know, to look different I suppose, it's just fashionable. We try to get a tan to stand out and you tey not to get a tan to stand out. Same thing, really.
M: So two and a half months in Malaysia, you say. And then home?
H: No, then Indonesia for one and a half months and then home, just in time for Christmas.
M: Why such a long holiday?
H: It's a gap year. I finished college a few months ago and now I'm taking a year out and then I'll go to university next September.
M: Oh, next September. So you're in college now?
H: No, I finished college, now I'm taking a year out of education.
M: Why?
H: To travel and to have a break after thirteen years of education.
M: So you're in university now?
H: No, no, I'm not doing anything right now.
M: I don't get it.
H: So I see! It doesn't matter though.
M: So how old are you then?
H: Guess.
M: Umm, twenty-two.
H: No.
M: Twenty-three.
H: No, I'm eighteen.
M: Eighteen! Woah, so young! Hey, you'll have to be careful in Indonesia then.
H: Yeah, I've heard it's not as safe there as in Malaysia.
M: But you're a big man, you'll be fine! Are you going to Bali?
H: Yep, I'll have about two weeks there.
M: Oh, I love Bali!
H: Everyone here seems to love Bali.
M: Yeah, it's a good place. OK, I need to go. Good luck when Wales plays (insert team). I'll be watching it. Bye-bye!
H: See ya!

A Day of Firsts

OK, BIG gap between the last post and this one but I'll try to fill the gap when I can.

I arrived at Zackry's Guest House in a quiet corner of the island of Langkawi in the afternoon on the 2nd of September, having taken a boat from Kuala Kedah to Kuah and a taxi from there (there is no public transport on the island) to the guest house. I wanted to relax in Langkawi and the guest house seemed like the perfect place to do just that. And indeed it is. For the past week I haven't used a single alarm to wake me up, I've lied in, and when I have gotten up I've gone straight to the common area to switch on the TV and catch up with the news or to watch a DVD. The beach is just the other side of the road so when the sun shines I can head over for a dip in the sea or a nap on a lounger. And when the sun doesn't shine I can go and grab some fruit to eat from the stalls at the end of the road, try out some of the local sea food in one of the restaurants or go back to the guest house and chat with the other guys staying here over a game of cards or a beer (Langkawi is duty-free). Or just watch another DVD. So that's basically what I've been doing here since arriving. There isn't a lot to do on the island - there's a cable car to the top of a mountain, some waterfall called Seven Wells, an aquarium, a crocodile park, an eagle-feeding park and that's about it. So yesterday, my last full day on the island, I thought I'd actually do something and go beyond the couple-of-hundred-metre radius I'd confined myself to. That was my first first.

I decided to rent a bike - I was going to say that renting a bike was my second first since being away, but then I remembered we rented some bikes in Beijing - to go to Seven Wells. The journey wasn't too far, just one length of the island, but the bike only had one gear and so it took a good two hours to get there, past the two most popular beaches, past the airport and past the posh-looking marina. I bought a coke and some peanut biscuits, parked the bike, had a look at the map on a board at the bottom of the steps and proceeded up them. I didn't really know how far it would be - it was hard to tell from the map - but about half way up the steps I could feel my legs take the toll of the bike ride there and so sat down on a bench, ate my biscuits and took a rest by reading Seventh Uncle, a short story from a book of short stories by the English language Malaysian writer Chuah Guat Eng. When I finished the story I continued up and it didn't take long at all until I'd reached the top, supposedly at this place called Seven Wells. I'd heard it was a very beautiful place and that you could swim in the 'Wells', natural pools created as the river water collected in the rocks before it cascaded down the waterfall. There wasn't too much water in the pools themselves though and I thought - expecting something of Rheadr's or Rhiwagor's grandure - perhaps I hadn't got there yet. There was a sign by the pools, a strange-looking map that had two routes. The route to the right, through the jungle, had two 'swimming areas' along it and, having brought my swimming stuff and determined to go for a dip, ventured into the jungle. After a good while in there - maybe twenty or thirty minutes - following a half-beaten track often blocked by fallen rotted trees and still not finding any of these swimming areas I was thinking of heading back. I could, I suppose just go for a dip in the pools I'd just left. The track was getting less and less beaten and when I reached a stream - I thought maybe the sign of running water would mean I'd found it, but no - I decided I'd better head back now before I lost my way. I dipped my feet into the running stream to give them a cooling off and started back.

After clambering over some dead trees and ducking under hanging vines I made it back to the half-beaten track. I was wearing my sandals, as I have been every day since leaving bar three - and suddenly I felt something between the back of my right foot and the back strap of the sandal. It was a strange sort of feeling, as if I had an egg yoke stuck in there. I stood there, unstrapped my sandal and had a look to see what was making this strange feeling. This egg yoke wasn't a rich golden colour, it was black... and moving. It was a great big cluster of leeches, about four or five of them in one place, sucking away at my blood. I was pretty shocked, this was my first encounter with leeches. And then I noticed something I didn't really want to notice: it wasn't just this one little cluster on the back of my foot but they were everywhere on my foot! They were between my toes, on the top of my foot, even on the sole. Turns out dipping my feet in the stream was a bad move! I didn't know what to do. Should I leave them there to have their fill? How long would that take? Should I push them gently away from where they're attached or should I tug at them and yank them off? It turns out that what you're meant to do is either leave them for about 20 minutes by which time they'll be full and drop off or if you really want to gt them off then to prise your nail between their teeth and where they've attached and nudge them away. But I did want to get them off, and I didn't have any nails, so I proceeded to one-at-a-time grab hold of them and pull them off and throw them as far away as I could. Not an easy task, I'll tell you, because their jaws are so so strong and they keep wriggling and changing their size, and even if I did get them off my foot they more often than not then attached themselves to my thumb or index finger. Very very annoying! I eventually got them all off my right foot, about fifteen of them in all, maybe more. It also turns out that when they bite into you they excrete something that prevents the blood from clotting there and so my foot was now bleeding from left, right and centre, even gushing out in a couple of places. I didn't mind really, it didn't hurt at all and my feet have endured a lot over the times so why worry about having a few leech jaws stuck in there?! It did look pretty bad though, a foot and a hand both covered in blood and no sign of it stopping. The smell of it must have been attracting the leeches back from whence they came as I saw them crawling along the jungle floor from where I'd thrown them to (I expect most of them hadn't been thrown but instead let go of their own accord after trying to be violently shaken off my finger) and towards my feet again. I started along the path again and after about a hundred metres repeated the whole ordeal with my left foot. Every few hundred metres after that I kept checking each foot again, tugging at the ones I'd either missed before or had found their way back on. I exited the jungle and got back to the steps that lead up to Seven Wells and found a bench to sit down on for one last scourer just to make sure they were all gone. The state of my bloodied feet was quite comical, I thought, and so I took a picture or two to remember the experience - not a harmful one but not one I'm looking forward to having again. The handful of people going up and down the steps didn't quite see it the way I did and looked by in horror, asking if I was OK to walk, ect. Luckily one of them had some alcohol wipes so I could disinfect the bites and wipe it up. When I got to the bottom again I washed my hands and feet in the toilet, bought a cold coconut to drink and some Oreos to eat and watched the monkeys about the place having fun. They were scraping the used coconuts to get the last bit, making a racket playing on the corrugated steel roofs of the stalls, grooming each other incessantly, all good fun to watch. And then I biked back.

The anti-clotting spit the leeches had used was doing its job well and by the time I got back to Zackry's Guest House there were a good few streaks of red on my feet. But that could wait, first I wanted to eat the cold watermelon half I'd bought from round the corner and chat with the Scotsman and the Cornish couple (by far the commonest nationality I've seen traveling are Brits, followed by North Americans and Australians, then Dutch and German and then Scandinavian and French). Then I went online to check what damage leeches can actually do. They're quite fascinating little things, actually. I found out that their spit would wear off in a few more hours and that any viruses or bacteria they carry doesn't harm humans. Good news. The only problem is the obvious risk of infection, heightened by the fact that because I yanked them off I now have... wait, let me count... 10 little jaws stuck in my right foot and... 15 little jaws stuck in my left foot. Lovely! So after a shower I then did another first since coming here: I used my little First Aid kit I've been carrying around in my rucksack. And with a couple of disinfectant wipes (alcohol-free this time) and a couple of plasters to cover the bites where the spit was working very well my feet were looking in much better shape! Not that my feet are ever in a decent shape to begin with, but there we go. And then in my room I wrote out a Plygain-esque tune I'd just thought up, complete with pauses :D

All in all I've had an amazing time in Langkawi doing, apart from yesterday, basically nothing. This is my first time since last summer that I haven't either been around ACers or been busy sorting things out and so although I haven't seen anything of the island I think spending my time watching DVDs, writing a few long-overdue emails and splashing around in the sea has been time well spent. Maybe in hindsight I should have done that yesterday too! Today I'll be getting the ferry to Kuala Perlis and from there the night bus to Kota Bharu, and after a couple of days there off to some more paradise islands: The Perhentians!