Boat People

Hai. I'm sorry the posts have been coming in slowly lately...there's been (as always) a lot going on, and I've spent a great deal of time trying to rectify mistakes made by my dim-witted self. I hope you're all well, and thanks for tuning in *smiles*

If you remember correctly we're up north at the moment, hanging out in Penang. We've decided that since we're so close, we are going to yolo it across to the island of Langkawi - which is a MUST for Malaysia, a popular tourist hot spot and pretty much a beautiful sandy island. Why not, right?

Problem; if you're all half as smart as I think you are, then you'll see that as per the map, Langkawi lies in the middle of the ocean. Hence a different method of transport is required to actually get us there. After a complicated booking process with kind but not-terribly-great-English-speaking people, we were set for a boat at 8.30am the next morning. With tearful goodbyes we waved goodbye to the feral cats and stepped over all the sewerage in the gutters to get our sweet selves down to the jetty.

When I say 'boat' - I mean a literal boat. It was absolutely awful. Not some high class ferry or big people moving machine, but literally a moderate size boat, filled to the brim with as many people as possible. We had to 'jump' aboard, and we were queuing for ages with all the other backpackers and locals waiting to board.

Once aboard the atrocious boat - we were lucky enough to find seats, whilst others knelt and squatted or roughed it outside. The journey was 3.5 hours, and the ticket cost us around $6/$7 AUD. After a mere 10 minutes on the boat we could see why. It was like a theme park ride, kids. The going was SO ROUGH. The water was choppy, and our little boat splashed and bounced around for 3.5 solid hours. It was so rough water was coming up the sides of the windows, and for the most part of the journey we could have been in a submarine. There were points when it would tip to one side so severely I would grab Ann and Bridge in panic and they'd grab the life jackets. It was literally the first journey in which I'd made a conscious effort to note where the emergency exits were and mentally plan out how I'd go about opening them underwater.

It was also, surprise surprise, hot and sticky down under. We were all feeling a little off to begin with, but luckily we managed to stay sea-sick free for the journey. The smell of vomit perpetrated our nostrils from after 15 minutes in. After a mere half and hour we were all ready to call it quits. But there was no going back.

On the rare moments we could look out the windows, vomit flowed from the above decks past our seats and into the water. It was absolutely horrendous. Down under on our deck, there were bags and bags and BAGS for sea sickness and within an hour we were out of bags. One attentive cabin crew ended up strolling up and down the aisles passing them out like they were sweets. 70% of the passengers were sea sick. It was a violent journey. People coincidentally, - were violently ill.

Even if you had a strong stomach, you would be feeling queasy. In a trapped environment, surrounded by 100 others that were consistently vomiting (some would run past you to the toilet and you just didn't know if they were going to make it or spew on the floor next to you) it would quite a challenge to not hurl.

They also had some crappy movie playing (that cut out frequently and we bounced over the waves) which was the equivalent to a Malaysian style Jaws. Helpful.

We stepped off the boat in Langkawi all feeling a little violated, but we were alive and we weren't ill. grabbing our packs from the huge pile thrown together at the end of the boat, we shakily stepped onto the small pier and headed to our accommodation (The 'Sweet Inn' lel) to begin our time in Langkawi, hoping it would be more peaceful from now on.

After our first afternoon - I think that thought might prove to be true. The island is beautiful, there are lots of people around and the atmosphere is even more relaxed than Penang. It's even cheaper too...because there are no  government taxes here, winning. We wandered around for a bit, ate some local street food and then hit the beach for sunset. The streets are filled with little market-like stalls, and there are a lot of tourists that crowd the beaches; playing volleyball, swimming, using jet skis, and drinking on the sand. We ate dinner on the beach and shared a couple of local beers (that cost around 60 cents each - mental).

We may have started out as boat people, but the destination waiting for us on the other side was peaceful, rewarding and everything we had hoped for...which is more that can be said for others.