Perjalanan Lebih

(More Travel)
We went to the night-market in Sri Iskandar on Wednesday, which was pretty fantastic. It was filled with stalls selling a vast variety of items (I bought a sweet dri-fit shirt). The majority of the people were selling food. Fresh, delicious, unfamiliar, food. I ended up buying several unknown fried things. I have a policy of buying food whose name I do not recognize whenever it is available. As usual, it worked out quite well. One turned out to be a fish roll, one some sort of chicken curry, and another was egg, onion and meat wrapped in some sort of bread stuff. I also bought some durian, which had been recommended to me as ‘smelly and disgusting.’ It was odoriferous  that’s for sure; I could smell it before I even entered the alley where the vendor was. The texture is something akin to thick mucus, and I didn't know if I liked the flavor at first, but after eating most of it, I decided that I did. A couple other guys in the dorm smelled it and came to join me in eating it. They were surprised to see me enjoying it, as most foreigners can't stand the flavor.
The purchase that made me the happiest, however, was three kilos of mangos. They are heavenly, and in twenty-four hours I ate almost half of them.

I spent all of Thursday traveling. Landon, Kevin, Berthold and I were joined by Evans, another student from South Sudan who grew up in Kenya and Uganda. We got up early to take a taxi to Ipoh, bus to K. Perlis and then ferry from there to Langkawi. The taxi was late, and the only bus to K. Perlis for the day was already full. Quick restructuring of plans ended with tickets to Butterworth, planning to bus from there to K. Perlis. That is what happened, but we had two hours at each stop (Ipoh, Butterworth, and K. Perlis), which allowed us to explore a bit. I found some pickled nutmeg that turned out to be quite good, much better than the mango I got on Pangkor.

The dried fruit I bought was not at all what I was expecting, it was tasty, but intensely salty. I could have drunk many liters of water, but that is not wise on long bus rides. A Muslim guy gave us some tracts which 'proved the validity of Islam.' I read through it and it was quite interesting, but I was honestly surprised at how impotent the argument was. I am sure there are better specimens out there.





While I waited in Kuala Perlis I wandered around a bit. The mudflats left by low tide was populated by weird one clawed crabs and mud skippers. There were also people out on the edge of the water collecting something, I'm not entirely sure what.

Our stops, combined with eight and a half hours of traveling meant that we reached Langkawi around 2130. Today is a public holiday, and apparently Langkawi is a popular destination. We spent an hour simply searching the town for an open room. We took a taxi from the jetty Pantai Cenang with a motley crew made up of two guys from Pakistan, one from India, a girl from England, and an incredibly friendly Aussie with dreads. I still have no idea how they found each other. Landon found a room around 2215, which had just been made available due to a cancellation.

I got up early Friday and went and wandered the beach for a while, watching the clouds and surf.

 It is a beautiful white sand beach, but very populated. Lots of Europeans and such running, walking, and standing around. Landon went scuba diving so Evan, Berthold, Kevin, and I walked around until we found some fruit pancakes to eat for breakfast. Afterwards Berthold and Evans went to the beach for a while and Kevin and I explored Pantai Cenang. It’s basically a tourist town, with nearly all the shops catering to that cause. It kind of disgusts me to know that I am contributing to the phenomenon of tourism instead of doing something useful with my time, but I certainly have enjoyed it.

Kevin on the rocks.

Kevin and I headed south along the shoreline around 1400, and wandered down the beach until we decided it would be wise to return for water and sunscreen, resolving to return the next day. We found some stupendous rocks, however, and took some pictures of each other on them.

Yeah, we're cool.

When we returned to town I tried to purchase bus tickets back to Ipoh for Monday, so that we would not encounter the same issues we had on the way to Langkawi. I discovered that I would need the passport numbers of all the passengers, so I postponed the process.

As evening fell, Landon and I ran to the next beach over to get a better view of the sunset, and hopefully one with fewer people. Sunset over the Indian Ocean was beautiful as always, and I sat on the rocks and just watched for a while.

We went to a restaurant for supper and waited 45 minutes before anyone came to take our order, and it was another 15 before we actually got food. After dark we wandered around town, stopping in at a weird resort of some sort that apparently aimed to recreate the ‘60s. It was pretty successful, at least based on the stereotypical image of the era. People sat in circles on the beach sand, lit by candles placed in holes, talking, laughing, drinking and smoking hookah. Others sat in trees or on roofs of nearby buildings watching the live band, which appeared to play a grand total of three chords.

We re-met the group we took the taxi with and chatted with them for a bit. Kevin and I took to the beach and walked to the far end through the incredibly fine white sand, made whiter by a nearly full moon. We went to bed early, exhausted from a day in the tropical sun.

Kevin and I rose before the sun Saturday morning, gathered essential supplies (water, sunscreen, cameras, and ice-cream for breakfast) and hit the beach. We ran most of the way to where we left off our adventure previously and sat for a while to eat our ice-cream and watch the sunrise.

After breakfast we proceeded with Island Trek II, the sequel to our adventures on Pangkor. From 0730 to 1230 we jumped, climbed and traversed the crumbly black basalt that lined the shore. My fivefingers provided incredible grip, and I was able to trace paths across and up faces that would have been impossible without them.

The rock was relatively soft so the movement of the waves has formed numerous caves along the coast. We followed a few of them back to their terminus, but none went more than 30 feet or so. One cave’s multiple exits made it a perfect pirate’s cave. Its sandy floor was exposed by the low tide, and we took a brief break in its shade. Another cave had a sleeping dragon in it; we could hear its heavy breathing and snoring before we could even see the entrance to its cave. I decided that I should probably go investigate and see if I could snatch any treasure, so I shimmied along the wall, clinging to whatever meager handholds I could find.

The opening narrowed as I went, and about the time my forearms gave out I was able let myself fall across the passageway and chimney traverse with my body almost horizontal.
I didn’t make it all the way into the dragons lair, because the walls of the passage began to slope such a way that I was unable to stick to them.
I made it back out the entrance without falling into the somewhat murky water, but my forearms were about to give up. If I had something like that to practice on I might actually get good at climbing.

Once we rounded the tip of the island, most of our path was in direct sun. The intensity of the solar radiation was astounding; it felt as though my skin was being incinerated if I was in the sun for more than a few minutes. Not wanting to be burned to a crisp, Kevin and I decided to spend as little time in the sun as possible. We would scramble over the rocks between spots of shade, and pause while out of the glare from the sky to plan our next assault.

The rock formations were incredible. The whole experience, with its natural amphitheaters, caves, ocean, jungle, islands, and monitor lizards made me think of all the places I see pictures of in National Geographic and wish I could go see myself. And now here I am.

(Photocred: Kevin)

I had glanced at a map before we set out, but I didn’t know where we would find ourselves after following the shoreline for a of couple hours. It turned out that we wandered in to the back of a resort. The construction workers on lunch break looked surprised and confused to see us emerge from the jungle. We pretended we knew what we were doing, and none of them said anything. The resort was quite nice and had a psychedelic boardwalk and a lovely pool.
Though signs indicated that the pool was for guests only, we thought they wouldn’t begrudge two weary travelers a cooling dip. The water felt amazing after trekking over rocks in the sun for hours, and we left cool and refreshed.

I contacted Landon to see what the rest of the group was up to. They had rented a car and were exploring the northern half of the island. Their discoveries included a couple waterfalls and the most beautiful beach he had ever seen. Kevin and I walked the couple kilometers back to town, completely satisfied with the ten kilometers that comprised Island Trek II. Around 1500 we found the rest of the group and headed to the north side of the island.

Our Ride (Photocred: Landon)

The bottom of one of the falls had a lovely, though somewhat difficult to navigate waterslide.(Photocred: Landon)

The other waterfall turned out to be only a trickle and the main part of the falls was completely dry. Our third stop was supposed to be the beach that they’d found earlier, but the security guard turned us away. Apparently it actually closed two and a half hours before the posted information indicated.
The third waterfall we visited, Durian Perangin, was my favorite. It was a 25 foot drop into a pool, and, better yet, it was climbable. The rock was smooth and wet, but I guess the flow was constant enough to prevent algal growth, so it wasn’t too slick. That said, it made me much more comfortable knowing that at any time I could peel off and drop into the pool below.

(Photocred: Landon)

We stuck around there until dark, planning to return the next morning. On the way back to Pantai Cenang we stopped at a night market in Kuah. I collected various foods from several vendors for a delicious and interesting supper.

I tried again to purchase bus tickets, now that I had all the necessary information, but was again foiled. Though the website stated that it accepted Visa cards, it rejected mine (and the others I tried) because they had not been issued by a bank in Malaysia. We decided that we would have to just go to the bus station hoping that there would be seats that were going in the direction we wished to. It seemed wise to head back Sunday night instead of Monday so that we would have more options and be less likely miss classes on Tuesday.

On Sunday morning we left our hotel around 0600 intending to drive to Tanjung Rhu to watch the sunrise, but on the way we decided to go back to Durian Perangin. The water was chilly but refreshing; I wish I could start every day by standing under a waterfall for twenty minutes.

Why yes, it is immensely refreshing to shower in a waterfall before breakfast.
(Photocred: Landon)

Once the sun was fully risen we went to Tanjung Rhu, the beach we had not been allowed into the evening before. It was beautiful.
Also, since it was a private beach, it was much less populated than many other places. We decided to swim to an island a little way out in the bay which looked like it would be fun to climb. Just before we left, however, Kevin was attacked by a little fish with some sort of nasty venom in its fin spines. The sting in his finger was extremely painful, and the pain spread up his arm to his chest and shoulder. He opted to wait on the beach while Landon, Berthold and I swam the half mile to the island. As I anticipated, it was much further than I expected, and we swam slowly knowing that we would have to swim back as well. The rock of the island was extremely rough. The lapping of the waves had made the surface approximately like the texture of the peaks that form when making whipped cream. But hard and sharp.

It wasn’t as bad farther above the water, and I was very tempted to make the climb to the top. I know that  I could have made it up, but one twenty foot traversal about twenty feet up the face was a little too much exposure for my liking. I could have swum around the island and found a different route, but I didn’t want to make Landon and Berthold wait that long for me. Instead I settled for climbing one of the large rocks that stuck out of the water and jumping (after checking that it was safe of course).

After lunch we took a boat tour through the mangroves. I was skeptical about it, preferring to explore on my own, but Landon was pretty excited about it so I went along with it. It turned out to be quite beautiful, especially the last bit which took us into the open sea with incredible views of geological formations on the many small islands.

We saw Mangroves

And Monkeys

Landon and Kevin on a boat

We stopped off at a secluded beach on one of the islands. Since we had the island to ourselves, I decided that clothing was unnecessary. It was great until I turned my back for a few seconds and my swimshorts vanished. Gone. I assumed that Landon had taken them because it didn’t seem possible for them to disappear so completely in the clear water. He had not, however, and our attempts to find them were fruitless. Fortunately for me, Landon had a spare pair of compression shorts that he let me wear for the remainder of the boat tour.

We had to drive back across the island to return the rental car so we stopped off at the waterfall again to rinse off all the saltiness. I wasn’t used to the clutch, and stalled the car in an intersection a few miles from our destination. It wouldn’t have been a bit deal (other than making me feel stupid for being unable to drive stick), but the battery, which had been struggling throughout the trip, gave up completely. Landon, Kevin and Berthold waited for a break in the traffic and pushed the car out of the intersection. When the way was clear they pushed the car up to speed, I popped the clutch and it started. Because of the minor inconvenience of battery failure, we got an even better deal on the rental.

Berthold decided to stay another two nights because his class schedule doesn’t require him back until Tuesday night. Kevin, Landon and I took a taxi to the jetty, hoping that there would be space on the ferry and bus that lay between us and home. The ferry was packed, but we got on and made it back to Kuala Perlis by 1930. The bus from there to Ipoh also had seats open, so we purchased tickets and walked around town for a while. We bought a watermelon and found a place to eat some supper. I found two things on the menu that I didn’t recognize, roti bakar and bihun badung, and ordered them. Roti bakar turned out to be bread with some coconut jam on it, but my bihun never showed up. I asked our waitress if it was coming and she apparently hadn’t caught that part of my order. She went to the kitchen and relayed my request, and we waited.

We waited for half an hour. Kevin and Landon finished their food, and it was nearly time to catch the bus and my food still hadn’t shown up, so we paid for the food we did get and headed to the bus. I still want to know what bihun badung is.

The bus left at 2100, and turned out to be nearly empty. We watched a movie for the first half of what was supposed to be a four and a half hour drive, and then tried to sleep. The frigidity of the AC, the noise of the bus, and the roughness of the road made sleep impossible for me. Around midnight we stopped at a bus station in some unknown town and just sat for nearly an hour. I’m not sure what was up with that, but it meant that we didn’t get back to UTP until 0330.

When we arrived I realized that I had left the keys to my room with Berthold, and my other pair was in Landon’s cupboard, the keys to which were locked in my room. And Kevin couldn’t find the keys to their room. Just when I thought I would get to spend another night sleeping on concrete, Kevin found his keys and Landon was able to extract mine from his cupboard without unlocking it. Effective security.

Since Monday is a holiday (some sultan's birthday or something), I slept for six hours and then began the process of sorting the 627 pictures I had taken over the weekend.

Closing thought: If you think you're having a bad day, just be glad that you aren't being crushed to death by a jellyfish.
(Photocred: Kevin)