It’s been a week, so here’s a 700 word (7×100 words) catch up blog. I would apologise but you should know what I’m like by now!
Being London-born, Manchester-based girls, you probably wouldn’t expect boats to be our thing, but living in Sydney meant becoming accustomed to the ferries. So far on our trip, we’ve taken a boat to Gili, a boat back to Bali, and recently we took a boat from Penang to Langkawi. Tomorrow we will take another boat to Satun. (After that it’s buses all the way to Phuket, before we fly back to Sydney on the 15th).
The boats we’ve taken have ranged greatly in quality (despite being about the same price as one another)… The first was a small speed boat that stank of petrol (and not in a good way), there was barely any airflow, and everyone looked like they were going to throw up. The second was luxury in comparison: there were TVs with films that you could opt in to watching by using the noise-cancellation headphones. They brought around water and sweets and iced flannels (surprisingly lovely in the sticky humidity).
The one we took to Langkawi on Friday was somewhere in between, it was technically a ferry, the biggest of the boats so far, which meant that you didn’t feel the waves as much, but this also meant more people (namely small children). It was a much longer journey, at three and a half hours, and there was an obnoxiously loud film on that was actually really violent and totally inappropriate for said small children. We will see how tomorrow’s boat compares.
Other things I’ve learnt is that “leftovers rice” actually has a name! If I cook too much rice and have any left over meat I often just fry it up with onions, random veggies, egg and soy sauce. Turns out this is actually a dish here. ‘Leftovers rice’ is actually called Nasi Goreng. Also, we’ve found this amazingly cheap custard buns for breakfast which are MYR0.70 which is like 14p. There are definitely ways to cut corners if you want to budget, although, our budget hasn’t been too tight: we found out today this makes us ‘flash packers’.
Langkawi is a completely duty-free island which means that you can buy lots of goodies super cheap (I know airports are duty-free too, but I usually find them super expensive). Since Bethan and I both packed really light, we won’t be taking any such goodies back with us. I only ha a 7kg hang luggage bag, and her backpack is checked in, but is still only 10kg. It is, however, bursting at the seams. It’s more because we both have a 23kg luggage allowance for our flight back to England, and presently have cases that weigh around 30kg, so we know we already have to ditch a whole bunch of stuff when we’re back in Oz. A couple of my housemates asked me why I don’t just pay for extra baggage, but for the amount that you have to pay, I don’t think I own anything that valuable.
Tomorrow we head to our final destination on our great Asian tour: Thailand. We’re going to Krabi for 3 days and Phuket for a further 4. On our last day we’re going to a waterpark before our flight, because really we’re both just big kids.
Mainly, there’s not much to update you all on, we’ve spent a lot of time chilling at the beach here in Langkawi, and got up to see the sunset on day (this wasn’t at all intentional, for some reason both of us were wide awake around 5am). We also had time to check out Penang’s street art and very good coffee. We went on a hike to a place called Monkey Beach in Penang, that wouldn’t have been so bad if it wasn’t so hot. I’m not sure I’ve ever been so sweaty in all my life. There was a bit of the ‘path’ that had a rope that you had to grab on to- it was practically abseiling. I just felt sorry for the small French boy that was screaming and crying half way along. I could see why.
Less Than One Hundred 