saigoheiki.com

This is going to be a pictorial post of my Langkawi trip that proceeded right after I completed the Thailand leg of my trip – meaning more pictures and pictures galore, and less walls of text (so WARNING: 58 PICTURES AHEAD). Also for the purposes of my own documentation, the days will still be counting off from when I left Satun – to demonstrate how long I have been away from home.

Day 26 – 29th December 2007

My boat took about an hour plus to reach Langkawi from Satun, and when it finally reached the pier at about 1pm Malaysian time, I was more than eager to drag my backpack out to set foot into Malaysia after 3 weeks plus of absence. As I did so and see the familiar eagle statue with “WELCOME TO LANGKAWI” and a sign indicating it being a duty-free island, I felt right at home – even as the immigration officer asked if I’m Thai (-___-), I presented my Malaysian passport and proudly declared enthusiastically, “Tak, aku orang Malaysia!”.

I phoned Ding on arrival, and he asked which pier I’m at as there seems to be 2. I was like “wtf isn’t there only 1 pier?” and after asking around, I got to know that I was at Kuah Pier, and promptly told him.

My friends arrived 20 minutes later in front of Starbucks, and as I quickly dumped my backpack of probably 12 kg+ into the boot of Heng’s Wira (containing Kai Tzin and Fang Chyuan), I told my friends that I’m hungry, and we went to nearby coffee shops for my quick lunch.

HAHAHA I shall not comment what Shawn was doing.

I ordered a plate of char kuey teow and when I placed it in my mouth, I kept gushing to the rest how I missed eating it and how palatally delightful it tasted. I know it might sound nothing to those who have been eating it on and off but seriously, after spending weeks of eating cheap street food of Laos and Thailand that didn’t exactly earn any gourmet points from me (all in the name of cutting costs), nothing could ever come close to our multicultural street food . I now truly understand Suet’s constant pining for Malaysian food.

Heng related a tale to me of how on the way to the Kuah Pier to fetch me, he was stopped by the police, and the infamously corrupted men in blue asked if he’s a permanent driver or P driver (the answer is P) – the rented Waja did not have any P stickers. Heng coolly lied his way off, “Mestilah bukan P bang!” or something similar, and without even checking if he was telling the truth, the police let him off.

I was then asked to drive instead.

So we walked around purchasing a few bottles of alcohol and then went off to my apartment, checked in, unloaded all our baggages and made the usual tagging “This is my room!” comment. Ah and the first thing we did was to plug in the PS2 that Wai Hong brought and play wtf.

Some racing game was on I reckon.

We recuperated by taking short naps, and at about 6pm we walked to the beach near my apartment.

A pleasant beach of the nearby hotel, albeit man-made I think.

We played football with Shawn’s.. beach ball. Extremely tiring. Two Malay dudes joined in for further fun, also probably secretly laughing at our inept stamina.

On playground wtf.

Relaxing on beach reclining chairs. Don’t know why we didn’t come to this place on our previous visit.

Hahahaha failed snapshot of us jumping.

This jumping pic damnnn nice (look at the sand we kicked off).

We returned to the apartment after that for further smoking endeavours WTF. Yes I tried it and didn’t like it.

Playing some PS2 games while waiting for everyone to finish showering – I kinda like the lighting in this picture.

Eating dinner at a seafood restaurant at Kuah Town.. at 9pm plus =.= I was hungry like hell (and also extremely hungry for some good ol’ Malaysian food, regardless of whether it’s seafood or not). The bill came at around RM180 WTF and we later realised it was due to some stupid fish we ordered that was 1.5kg and cost RM90 zzz. We didn’t exactly specify the weight that we want, and didn’t see them weighing the fish so it could’ve been a scam for all we know.

Drinking my Beerlao.

Cheers~

We spent the night watching an incredibly stupid Japanese horror movie titled Diet (Andy and Kai Tzin didn’t join us – Andy was sick and Kai Tzin wanted to sleep instead), which for the most part, contained elaborate scenes of the sky and a girl choosing her clothes for about 2 minutes and zoomed in shots of dinner on the table and various other painfully slow scenes. The only horror and gore it contained was at the end of the movie when said girl ate another guy up (it wasn’t shown) and.. suddenly the credits started rolling WTF.

The funniest part was that we fast forwarded the entire movie because it was that slow. Wasted 30 minutes of our life.

---

Day 27 – 30th December 2007

Rose up in the morning.. and we were variedly playing Soul Calibur 3 and some racing game on the PS2. Ate Maggi Mee in the cup for breakfast which we stockpiled the night before.

We had a late lunch of about 2pm at Jom Ikan Bakar near the airport which the rest recommended heavily as they ate it for lunch yesterday. They do it zhap fan style and because I forgot this crucial fact, the food I took ended up to be about RM8+.

We also wanted to sit the cable car up as some of the guys didn’t come with us on our previous trip, but Ding, on seeing the price, “RM25 ah what the hell” and well eventually on majority decision decided not to go up kiamsiap wtf. This picture is to prove that we’ve actually been to the cable car – at its base.

A group photo at that Berjaya village thingy near the cable car.

We then headed next to Telaga Tujuh, and as usual, who wants to hike all the way up to the real Telaga Tujuh wtf.

At the waterfall near the foot of Telaga Tujuh. Wai Hong’s expression is damn priceless.

The rest of us who were too lazy to jump into the water.

Kai Tzin snapped this photo wtf feeyoowit.

Nice tan. And bikini.

After a short splash about the waterfall, we went back to our apartment’s beach.

Kai Tzin’s leg.

Shawn’s beach ball and a few beer cans.

I somewhat like this pic.

Wanted to make a circle with our heads but failed lah.

Another group pic.

..we ate our KFC dinner when some of us went off to tapau it back to the apartment – we were just too goddamn lazy to move about. Oh KFC, idaman ku selalu wtf.

Kai Tzin, Ding, and I also watched about half of “Love is Cinta” on RTM1 because there wasn’t anything better on TV (no Astro) – interesting storyline really, and we later picked up a few Indonesian phrases to play around. Ie: “Gua Ryannn!” (Ryan pronounced as “rii-an” wtf)

Played some drinking games for booze-binging – the usual put-card-on-forehead game with a few tweaked rules, and the game 31 which I learned from a Japanese dude who travelled with me, Siew and Gopi in Vietnam.

There’s Sky Vodka, Asahi, Brandy, and Asti – nice variety (Shawn earlier told us on our first day that each of us have to sponsor a bottle liquor). Wai Hong can be seen collapsing in the background after about one glass.

Kai Tzin was very red.

Most of us were tipsy and considerably high at the end of it all – would’ve drunk more if we had more bottles but we didn’t. Heng especially was talking off his mouth.

Shawn opening a bottle of Asti.

---

Day 28 – 31th December 2007

Breakfast at about 11am – eating leftovers of KFC from the night before.

We lepaked at the apartment and popped in another DVD Ding and Wai Hong bought – a Korean movie. It was infinitely better than the preposterous Diet, but unfortunately, sucky English subtitles translated by the piraters didn’t make any remotest sense that we had to stop watching it.

We then watched another Japanese horror movie, Apartment 1309, which was at least slightly scarier and faster paced and has a faintly interesting storyline – but like nearly every Japanese horror movie, everyone dies wtf.

We were about to set off to the beach from the parking lot of my apartment when we couldn’t start Shawn’s car (a rented Sentra) – probably ran out of battery or something, and we had to waste more precious time to ring up the rental guy to bring in another car: another Wira.

Before we went to the beach, we went to McD’s at Billion to eat a very late lunch/early dinner.

On the way to Tanjung Rhu Beach at about 6pm – the towering trees accorded a peaceful, silently blissful atmosphere.

Sigh I can’t believe I forgot to snap a panorama pic, but the view was quite nice.

Lepaking at the beach.

“What the hell?” or something.

Fangki volunteered to be buried.

And to be abused..

..by multiple people.

Sinking in the ocean.

Story behind this picture:

The 5 of us: “Take picture of us ya!! Remember to zoom!”

Ding: “OK!”

-___-

Another picture of us dipping in the sea.

Daniel’s usual somersaulting on the beach.

We were walking along Kuah Town seeking good restaurants to dine at about 10pm when a lady approached us and gave us a flier of a Chinese restaurant which we just walked past a few minutes ago. And what did she tell us when we told her that it was empty? “No lah a lot of people eat there” ya righttt.

But the food was good though.

After asking the manager of the restaurant for a recommended place to hang out for New Year’s Eve, he suggested some reggae bars which we went to try.

Not under the effects of alcohol.

At the reggae bar (which was my first – the music wasn’t something I fancy and there were a lot of foreigners there). Some of us ordered beer, some of us had cocktails – mostly ‘girly drinks’ ranging from the Margarita to Bloody Mary.

And we had our countdown here at the reggae bar. >__> 2008 came anew and I spent the first second of the new year feeling slightly tipsy. Jon also phoned me to wish Happy New Year aww.

We left the reggae bar and went into a supermarket that was still open to purchase more bottles of alcohol – mostly light liquor such as flavoured vodka. The beach near my apartment was our next destination, and we drank.. and drank.. and drank.. and overcame with sleepiness, I kinda passed out sleeping on the beach chair. The following that happened were pieces of what I could vaguely recall and the rest who harped upon Fangki the Drunky wtf.

Fangki was completely drunk, and was said to be out of his normal character by spouting lots of nonsense and at one point even went to chat up with a Bulgarian man, and Heng had to drag him aside and apologise, “Sorry, my friend is drunk”.

That sole infamous (and incredibly dark) video of a drunk Fangki.

Only a drunkard would sleep on the sand.

Our colourful bottles of liquor we consumed.

I’ve no idea wth Shawn was attempting to do.

Smoking while being drunk wtf. “I show you how to smoke la Heng!”

Other things I remembered was having Shawn holding me up as I dazedly walk back to our apartment. Jumped onto a bed and that instantly knocked me out.

---

Day 29 – 1st January 2008

We woke up at about 9 or 10am or so with Heng already waken up playing the PS2, packed up, rearranged moved furniture and kept the towels we used to dry our feet wtf, checked out, and departed.

Lunch at Jom Ikan Bakar for the final time (yeah self-timer on a car).

At the Cuban Attitude shop that sells nothing but cigarettes and cigars and lighters and smoking pipes.

Choosing a cigar for Ding’s dad.

Another last minute alcohol shopping.

We also actually went to the Kuah Pier to lepak at its mall and at Starbucks. Didn’t do much there other than to while the time away, as our flight was at 10.45pm (IIRC) – I even slept on the couch as I was too tired.

Playing that Uno Stacko clone game.

Turning it into domino (which actually kinda failed).

Went back to the Kuah Town once more in search of a quick dinner as we were running late of the appointed 10pm – the time we had to return our cars. We were making some last minute chocolate shopping spree which took up a considerable amount of our time.

We settled for some Arabic restaurant – and ate Malaysian food as it was the cheapest LOL.

On the way to the airport (as well as to meet up with the rental guy), I received an SMS from AirAsia wtf, in verbatim:

URGENT! AirAsia Flight AK6299 from Langkawi to KUL on 01Jan08 is now retimed to 11.40pm(2340hrs). For more info please call 0386604343 or 60387754000.

So now we have even more time to kill.

We at first went to Starbucks of the airport for a place to sit down but 10 minutes later they told us they were closing. -__- Damn early wtf. It was also then that we later realised we didn’t purchase anything for Ryui Bynn yet as he was the one who fetched the rest to the airport (including Shawn’s sis), and later on as we touched down at LCCT he was supposed to fetch us as well.

So Shawn and Heng mad dashed with some of the Company money (as we called it, we collected a certain amount from everybody and declared it Company money for mostly eating and car rental purposes) and luckily found a duty shop that was just about to close – every shop in the airport was already closed by then. And they bought a RM15 miniature bottle of liquor. >_>

Final picture I snapped of us waiting at the airport, and of Langkawi itself.

Took a midnight flight (my first time!) back to LCCT.

---

Day 30 – 2nd January 2008

I think it was around 1.30am when Yen and Ryui Bynn arrived – I sat in Yen’s car as we travelled through the long straight highway all the way back to where we live.

We reached the all too familiar Subang Jaya, went to Taipan McDonald’s for supper (which had its electricity cut off for a while), and at about 3am, I finally reached home. Had to phone my brother to open the door as my mum had changed door and locks while I was away, and as I looked around my room, I found that even my bed has changed – but then there was only one thought on my mind, “I’m finally home.”

ただいま。

---

And that’s finally the end of it, after 30 days of not being in my own house, and exactly a month later, I’m finally done chronicling my journey across a splinter of the world.