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WARNING: This long entry written in 5 hours with trillions of pictures may induce hair-tearing seizures on a slow dial-up connection. You are advised to throw yourself off the nearest 13-storey building for possessing an ancient relic that serves no purpose other than suffocating yourself when loading picture-intensive sites like this author’s.

So we went for a Langkawi holiday vacation from the 10th up to the 13th January 2006. Obligatory list of the attendees:

- me!
- Suet Li
- Barry
- Jon
- Jessica
- Esther
- Andy
- Daniel

FIRST DAY – 10th January 2006
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Jon stayed at my house the previous night, and I didn’t exactly sleep that well either. Woke up at 5am for no apparent reason (only a handful hours of sleep obtained), played with my DS, woke Jon up at 6am and off we went to get ready.

Andy, Daniel, Jess and Esther arrived on time before 7am, as my dad were to fetch all of us to KLIA. We reached there at about 7.45am, and we were only supposed to be there 2 hours before our flight - at 11.25am. So we were 4 fucking hours earlier. -___- (We have no choice, you see, as my dad was working on a public hol and my dad was the only one who has a van big enough to fit a basketball team.)

On reaching the airport, we went for an early, big hearty breakfast sold at a big, hearty, outrageous prices at McDonald’s.

Our breakfast for each of us costs about RM10. Compared to a cheap-o nasi lemak we can easily get for about RM1-2 back home. Or bread. Or rice.

Most of us sipped hot coffee while Jon had his tea.

Esther was sitting down in the middle of everyone else to sort out her luggage.

More walking around, sitting around aimlessly while waiting for Suet & Barry to come.

Ditto above.

Esther pretended to be a supermodel advertising KLIA’s trolleys.

We were sitting near the glass wall/windows, overlooking airplanes and the morning sun.

Nothing beats waiting for 3-4 hours for absolutely nothing.

What a breathtaking view.

Obligatory group pic when you’ve nothing better to do. Andy’s the photographer.

Esther also bought David Beckham’s Instinct perfume for about RM115. SuetBarry finally arrived at near 10am.

Looking pretty happy there.

With so much time to kill, we sat around chatting and waiting.

At 45 minutes before 11.25am, we’re finally going in!

Must gempak posing a bit wan at the horizontal escalator.

At the waiting room. ‘twas gonna be my first flight ever in 17 years and 11 months, and I’m the virginal flyer.

That was our plane at the background, too bad it’s not an Airbus which would complement my first flying experience nicely.

Being a total jakun, pictures of whatever’s inside the mysterious ol’ plane are needed.

Before flight.

Not sure if MAS did this as well, but AirAsia always starts off their flight with safety demonstrations. Below, the series of pictures as snapped by Andy show how to wear the safety vest.

The first experience of flying was good, even though it felt slightly stuffy in the rather small and crowded Boeing. The vibrations and speed as the airplane sped off the runway, floated up in the air, looking at the terrains that looked so organised and tidy, the expanse of clouds… ahhhh.

It’s just soo nice.

Esther felt afraid as the plane began its descent, so she clutched on Andy’s hand very tightly. Picture was snapped to blackmail her.

Very afraid indeed.

Touchdown on Langkawi! Yay! Joy! To the world!

You will find out why it’s good to have a tax-free island.

After the usual checking out procedures, and collected our baggages, the Malay dude we were renting our car from approached Barry in a baju Melayu outfit. Yeah, it was Hari Raya Korban.

After much signing some documents and stuff like that, we were told that that the other Wira we were renting has air-con problems and we were advised to take the Nissan Sentra instead, which costed us RM100 per day as opposed to Wira’s RM80 per day. The extra RM20 isn’t that much of a difference.

With only two drivers, both Barry and I, we played rock-paper-bird (scissors is just too confusing) to determine who’d get to drive the Sentra for the first day. I won :D

Esther posing next to the Sentra despite not being able to sit in it anyway.

So we were divided into two batches with two available cars: Jon, Daniel and Andy followed me while Suet, Esther and Jess followed Barry.

We went in search of Perdana Beach Resort with Barry leading us, the place we were gonna stay at. Got lost a bit but with Jon’s amazing sense of direction and the ability to read an indescript free map we obtained, we reached the place in no time.

Not all Langkawi roads look like the one in this pic.

Stopping by for a bit after we got lost a little. Notice the Sentra’s cracked windscreen, heh.

While at first the place looked fairly shabby from the outside, the inside was decent. We dumped our bags, divided the rooms (SuetBarry took the master’s, Esther, Jess and Andy were to take the other room [there was a queen-sized bed and a single one] while Dan, Jon and I were to sleep outside) and went out immediately for lunch.

We went to Coco Beach Restaurant, as recommended by the receptionist of the resort we were staying at. Since it was a public hol, all other cheap Malay stalls were closed so the one we went to was supposed to be in between the cheap and expensive range.

Eating near the beach beneath the shades of trees is superb.

Jess and Esther ran excitedly for the beach; love this pic too. Jess unfortunately cut her leg on some rocks.

Deciding on what to eat.

A toast for Langkawi!

Ordered loads of stuffs - kangkung with chilli, black pepper beef, etc.

The food was nice but I didn’t really eat much. For some reason my chest felt funny ever since the AirAsia flight, like there was some compressed wind bulking up within my ribs. Jess gave me some pill for that built-up wind, and later back at our apartment, Esther gave me some ointment to rub my stomach on.

While recuperating on the sofa while the guys played PS2, a loud shrill shriek was heard followed by “Oh fuckfuckfuck” and we ran to the girls’ room. Esther was sitting on the floor holding her bottle of David Beckham’s Instinct, showed the clean cut of the bottle and the immense Beckham smell emanating from it.

Soo.. startedlah crying and all since she bought it for Adrian. I’ve never seen anyone cried that bad, and it’s hard for any of us - the guys especially - to do anything about it. Jess and Suet did the comforting.

Long story short, after making several phone calls to KLIA, we finally decided to only ask for a refund when we return to the airport on our last day. Esther calmed down too by then.

Played Winning Eleven 7 against Andy. Won 7-0 against him (XD) and finally ended at 9-1 when Daniel resumed it.

The girls and Barry went to swim at the swimming pool, and our unit had a nice view of said pool.

We went out at night in search of dinner and a good/cheap place to dine in, and finally settled on Lucky Restaurant after wandering around. Ordered dishes again like before.

Walked around in search of BBQ stuffs, but we bought several bottles of Corona and a lemon instead.

When we reached home, we watched the Korean horror movie The Wig which Daniel bought before leaving for Langkawi. We watched in utter darkness with lights off, and the worst part is, the rest insisted on having the scary blinking light of the verandah turned on (the light was broken).

It’s scary enough for Esther to recline behind Andy.

The show was alright until when they were about to reveal the truth, the bloody DVD skipped and blipped until it couldn’t be played. Bah.

At 1.30am when we almost slept off, Esther woke me and Daniel up to go to their room to discuss (Jon couldn’t be woken up as he slept earlier). At 2am, somehow Esther had a brilliant idea to dump the two-tier beds down (each bed, both the queen-sized and the single, has an extra mattress thingy). So in the end, at the Great Midnight Shift, we finally have two queen-sized mattresses and two single beds to lie down on in a single room.

Very fascinating. And crowded too.

From left to right, our sleeping positions were:

- Andy - Daniel - me - Esther - Jess - Jon -

Sleeping next to Daniel who slept next to Andy, I was woken up once by both of their loud snores, which, if you hear them at that time, was a funny alternating orchestra of snores.

SECOND DAY – 11th January 2006
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Was woken up at 8am ‘cause I was supposed to swim with Daniel and Jon (with Esther and Jess, whom both couldn’t wake up). Was feeling cold from the air-con, and seeing both Daniel and Jon jumping into the pool and later proclaiming the water was freezing put me off from swimming.

We went to the direction of the Cable Car (it was my turn to take the Wira) and stopped by at Petronas for a quick RM5 pump. As Petronas was situated near the yacht harbour, and there was KFC as well, we stopped by at KFC for lunch.

This was the view of the cable car from below.

Going to board it!

Posing in the cable car.

There was an unspoken stand-off between the girls during the cable car trip which would be left better undetailed, since the highlight of the entire trip lies in the beautiful, sunny Langkawi.

On the way up the cable car, the scenic view of everything else below was sooo.. serene. Mountains, lakes, beaches.. and the sunny weather.

At about 500-600 metres high from sea level. The wind was freaking strong that anyone thinner than I am can be blown right off. Very nice.

Another groupie with the timer mode.

Gempak siot.

Yet another group shot. The scenery is majestic. You’ve to be there to believe it.

And another!

Esther and Jess thought it’d be a good idea to lie down to enjoy the wind.

Andy’s hand was pointing at an imaginary nipple of the mountains’ boobs.

Another group pic using timer while in the descent of the cable car.

After finishing with our cable car trip, we went to Telaga Tujuh in thoughts of climbing it. The road was incredibly steep, at an angle of about 40 degrees (no joke) that not more than two minutes later, we were puffing and huffing like big, bad wolves. An ang moh who was on his way down, passed by Esther who was complaining and said, “It’s only 10 kilometres far!”

..

We gave up on our climbing ambitions and went to the waterfall instead.

What greeted us, other than the beautiful waterfall, was the sight of dozens of shirtless Malay rems crowding around at several spots of the ‘fall.

Perfect weather, perfect place.

Daniel and Jon did some spot of exploring. I couldn’t go far with my right ankle which gave troubles sporadically.

We decided to leave the waterfall after rems started oogling at Esther and one of them even took out their camera. Pathetic bastards.

We headed off to Pantai Kok instead, and after lazying about, we discovered the area was managed by the Soliano family (two of them joined the Malaysian Idol last year), whose entire family was musical. Apparently they managed the water ‘theme park’ in the afternoon and perform at hotels at night.

I don’t know all of their names, but they were very kind and generous to us.

We decided to go for kayaking! It was RM25 per person per kayak for an hour, but since it would be utterly tiring to kayak for an entire hour by ourselves, we split it 30 minutes for each pair and only needed to pay half the amount.

Jess felt tired halfway and changed with Andy instead. At the end of their time, the two kayaks (one with Esther and Andy, the other with Suet and Barry) raced for the shore. Barry’s kayak reached the shore first, and in Esther’s desperate attempt to win the silly race, stood on the kayak.

The kayak lost its balance, she toppled over into the water, and Andy, who was still sitting in the kayak, downed several gulps of fresh seawater.

The situation was hilarious.

We made friends with the Soliano’s dog, Winnie. She loves playing catch and swimming, so we obliged and threw a tiny ball and a disc for her. She’s very adorable and tame too.

We went to Kuah Town at night and went to a seafood restaurant to eat. It wasn’t that expensive either, with the 8 of us sharing a RM100.50 dinner.

After dinner we split into two cars in search of BBQ-related stuffs to purchase. That was when we bought our batch of vodkas and Kampais.

The booze was fucking cheap, and it really, really proves true that the booze was cheaper than water. A can of Carlsberg was only RM1.20 (could be lesser).

Driving in the dark on the way back can be pretty scary. The roads were freaking pitch black, there were no lights at all, and without using the high-lights I’m sure we would’ve driven straight into paddy fields. We got lost at one point after making wrong turns at roundabouts (even reached someone’s wooden house near the paddy fields, which, at that time, was really scary with the darkness), but with Jon the Great Map Reader, we reached home in one piece.

When we finally reached our apartment, we played the ‘I Never’ game to go with the small bottle of Absolut Vodka. Jon didn’t want to play and slept early, while Jess only played it through halfway.

If you don’t know the game, it works this way: You sit in a group with each having a glass of any alcoholic drink (Jess took the Coke instead). Someone will start off a statement beginning with ‘I Never’, for instance, “I never smoked weed before”, and if you have done said action, you drink a sip from your glass. And it goes round clockwise.

We learnt more about each other’s (dirty) secrets, things you wouldn’t tell normally to the person next to you. It was fun, a way to bond closer, and things told that night would remain between us alone.

When the guys were going for a round two of vodka+Coke, the girls still have quite a lot of their drink left which showed how.. not-so-innocent we were. Jess was the most innocent of the rest of us, and that made her so incredibly endearing. :)

The night ended with Andy trampling with me with a 2-2 in Winning Eleven 7 and more small dosages of cheap vodka, and he won the penalty shootout. It must’ve been the vodka.

Slept without brushing my teeth (forgot actually), and the next day Jess complained about my bad alcoholic breath.

THIRD DAY – 12th January 2006
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Was woken up at 7.30am to go to the morning market. *groans* Drove Suet, Esther, Jon and Andy to the market nearby our place, and we quickly chose a whole chicken for the BBQ later.

On reaching home, I slept again up to 11.30am.

We went off to Beras Terbakar to check out the place and for other BBQ-related items like the firestarter, and the like. After walking through stalls selling assorted items, we reached it.

It’s at someone’s house?

We were shocked to see the tiny piece of land that was fenced up and pronounced to be the site of the burnt rice. And all that was on that site were weeds and grass. Heh. Daniel gave the ‘L’ sign.

On closer inspection, we saw a bowl of burnt rice in a display case in front of the site. How completely fucking stupid. I can easily burn my rice and proclaim it to be the special, historical ‘burnt rice’. =___=

Also, next to the bowl of blackened rice was a donation box. Are we supposed to donate for a wonderful display of an idiotic bowl of burnt rice?

Dan and Andy mocking the area.

Also, guess where we ate lunch again?

You have three guesses. It has three letters for an acronym and has an old-looking man with white beard as the logo.

It’s KFC again, rofl.

We went to Petrosains which was next to KFC and played around a bit. The place wasn’t that bad.

They even have a windsurfing simulation thingy.

We went to the Kok Beach again to play around and BBQ there.

Jess playing catch with Winnie the Dogh.

Funnnn times.

Too obscene to be published in the media.

We also tried out the Flying Fish this time, a ride where you will be literally lifted up from the sea and experience the wind (and seawater) gushing to your face. It goes around the area several times and for RM15 only per person (we were given a discount), it was worth it.

Esther and Jess decided to try it first.

Daniel was to be the ‘stabiliser’ and he got to sit with the boatman. Lucky bugger!

Before flying off.

Looks fun.

Off they go!

Jon and I were to try it out next.

Followed by Daniel and Andy.

A pic of them being lifted up. The two were heavy (Andy the heaviest of the two) that it couldn’t be lifted up fully, and at several points, the Flying Fish was leaning dangerously to one side.

Leaning to one side. >__> Because their ride can hardly be lifted up, the two performed all sorts of hilarious actions while the ride was still going on, like turning around facing the sea when they weren’t supposed to, wave about, etcetc.

Jess and Jon happily watching their antics.

Andy and Daniel threw lots of sand towards Esther.

Esther wanted desperately to be buried, so we happily obliged to dig her own grave.

It first began with digging by hand which will take ages to finish if we continue that way.

Daniel had a stroke of brilliant idea.

Let the burial begin!

Lots of laughter and funny actions ensued.

Burial completed with two large, uneven breasts as requested.

She finally has a pear-shaped body with no engorged tummy - for once.

We finally lifted her up after leaving her alone for a while.

All this while Suet and Barry were BBQing together.

What beautiful, beautiful scenery. Daniel and I finally sat down at those reclining beach-seats, leaning back against it, sipping our glasses of Sprite Remix which Jess gave us, wind cooing softly at our faces and bodies, listening to music emanating from Daniel’s MP4 player, looking at the two man-made islands, the brilliant, shining sea reflecting light, the ships…

I told Daniel that that was enough to make the entire trip very nice and worthwhile. How often can you go lazying by a beautiful beach?

My only complain was the lack of waves because of the two man-made islands (Physics’ pembelauan crap), but other than that it was a nice, deserted beach and we have it all by ourselves. No rems were detected in this motherland of theirs.

The sun was about to set.

Me and Daniel.

The beautiful sunset! Finally caught it on our 2nd last day.

And then we jumped for joy. I felt euphoric at that mo’.

We continued our BBQ which stumbled problems, such as the overflaming of fire after we poured too much inflammable liquid on it.

Oh gawdddd the sky’s so soo pretty. This pic looks so gorgeous too.

The after effects of sun-setting.

After eating our barbecued food in the complete darkness save for the one light at the ‘stall’ of the Soliano’s (who kindly allowed us to use the place even when they have to leave and lock up the place), we cleaned up and went back to our apartment.

We played several card games with vodka+coke, then proceeded to play Fatal Frame III I brought. At that point, I was aware I was slurring out nonsense and overreacting than usual (might be semi-drunk, I don’t know) when encountering the myriad of horrific ghosts that appear suddenly out of nowhere. The chain reaction of screams from Jess and Esther was funny. XD

It was seriously scary to the point of Jon shutting his ears again like he did with The Wig. It was only after Andy encountered some eerie-looking-lady boss, and I fought it for him (“get away from me you fucking bitch”), and when we finally defeated her, we ran to a save point and turned on the lights again.

I drank two bottles of Corona with lemon and a Kampai (heavenllyyy), and could feel my head acting up. We watched European Gigolo up to 3.30am plus to diffuse the horrors we felt from playing/watching Fatal Frame III. Hilarious movie even if it was my second watch this time.

We finally slept at, what, 4am. Our last night. Sigh.

FOURTH DAY – 13th January 2006
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I forgot to snap pics of how our room looked like after The Great Midnight Shift, so here’s the pic after we rearranged it (messily).

I regretted not snapping the laid-down mattreses beforehand, to give all of you a look at how 6 of us squeezed into a single room.

Our living room (also rearranged, the table was moved out of the way in front of the telly).

Since we slept rather late last night, if not because of Andy who woke us up by shouting at the door “Wake up wei, 11.20 already!”, we would’ve went past the maximum checkout time at 12.30pm and be fined RM100. =___=

We drove to Kuah Town for lunch+shopping, and decided very quickly that we don’t want KFC after Andy suggested it. Instead.. we stopped by at a Langkawi shopping mall and ate at…

*jengjengjeng*

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KLG!!! The pirated KFC!

Holy fuck, they copied and ripped every single thing off KFC. KLG was supposedly a Thai language, but in Chinese from a newspaper clipping they proudly displayed, it was “kuai le gi” (happy chicken). Oh god ROFL.

Look at the packings, everything. From the french fries packet, to the burger wrappings. HAHAHHAHA. It was, of course, cheaper than KFC.

And the pathetic-looking playground. Look at the seats. So KFC-like. AHAHHAHAHHA.

We performed our last-minute shopping at the mall, but there weren’t anything of interest apart from the usual accessories. We went to the Langkawi Fair Trade mall thingy, and shopped there like anything with time against us.

Bought a cheap Bodyglove T-shirt (50% discount) for RM18, a 1 litre bottle of Absolut Vodka Blackurant for RM40 (it goes on sale in Subang for RM80+) and an accessory as a souvenir.

Reached the Langkawi airport just in time at 4.35pm (we have to be there 45 minutes before our flight, at 5.25pm).

The guys pushing the girls on the trolleys.

After all the checkpoints (they didn’t even bothered to look at our alcohol in our hand luggages, should’ve bought more than the one measly vodka bottle I bought =___=), we finally sat down at the waiting lounge. Only to be told our AirAsia flight was delayed (apparently that’s the norm with AirAsia). So we played cards to kill time.

NOOOO we’re returning home. Sigh.

Before boarding.

Almost managed to snap a pic of Daniel and Jon sleeping, but Jon woke up just in time.

Beautiful sunset view from the plane near KLIA.

The wind took on a shape as it passed by the aircraft’s wings. Rad.

We bought loads of stuffs over at Langkawi; Jess bought a packet of Dunhill cigs while Dan bought two packs of the same brand - he said that “buying cheap cigs for your dad is like cursing him to die faster”. lol. And between choosing an RM2+ Heineken and RM2+ mineral water, Esther chose the former. Duh, logic. Chocs and cigs were darned cheap as well.

Overall..it was a nice holiday we needed after SPM. And spending it with your friends is a complete bonus.

Oh, and there wasn’t a tsunami. The sea was a brilliant greenish-blue and Langkawi has the most perfect weather ever.

Missed not downing Esther (and ourselves) with more booze so that we can see her in her drunken state, “and start stripping off and go skinny-dipping in the pool” like Barry said. Regretted not purchasing more bottles of vodkas and Kampais.

The title of this entry, 99 Sinful Islands under the Sun, was a play on their tagline, 99 Magical Islands under the Sun. With all the cheap booze and cigs (and chocs!), how can it not be un-sinful?

Rempits can be found almost everywhere at every corner in large groups in their motorcycles, especially in Kuah Town. We’ve found the rempits’ motherland.

Daniel and Andy who both thought the trip would be boring (Daniel, as he doesn’t have any close friends there) thought otherwise after the trip ended. Dan told me it wasn’t that boring after all.

And as a forenote, Esther got her full refund of her David Beckham’s Instinct, and she could keep the extra perfume in the fizzy mineral bottle she kept the perfume in all the while. The joke was, whenever we entered our apartment and smelled the strong perfume, we said, “Oh, David Beckham’s here!”

As we board the airplane home, I felt a pang of sadness wondering when our next holidaying trip together would be, which Andy felt the same; wondering when we could go on a happy trip together with not a single care in the world. Of looking back at our insanity, our jokes, our laughters, our cries, our screams, our yells, our joys.. and the brilliant Kok Beach..

This Langkawi trip went through so much trouble and stumbling blocks since its planning stages right up to the execution of it. We had our fair share of arguments but..that don’t seem to matter anymore.

Reached home at 8.30pm, and went out again supposedly for a mamak session at 10pm. But due to Tanjung getting raided by MPSJ, we went to Asia Cafe instead - the ‘we’ being me, Jon, Andy, Esther, Jess, Suet and Kai Tzin all squeezed into my car. Reached home again at 1am.

The Langkawi trip could’ve been better, but with all we had experienced during the 4 days together, I had the time of our lives.