Langkawi Island
Summary : Tummyache is the least of Steve's worries when we arrive at 'Langkawis largest mall' , he then almost loses his phone after making fun of his brother for losing his and then goes to see a giant eagle and a night market.
Had a pretty rough night's sleep , stomach ache overnight made me wake up a few times , 2am , 4am.. 8am....
Woke up at 10ish to my phone alarm , parents called shortly after and we headed to 'Langkawi Fair' , Langkawis largest mall , or so it claimed.
The ride took around 60 minutes , it was pretty much across island (our hotel is on west coast , Langkawi fair is on east coast near the dock). We entered the mall and was... shocked... to say the least.
Turns out Langkawis largest mall consists of about 20 shops and a food court of about 6 small shack things , 3 of which were open - the food looked... unheigenic.. for lack of better describing word.
Met some family friends or something or other and walked around some , went for lunch at McDonalds - how boring , but the food court was a potential flint to my potentially explosive bowels.
McD's here is actually somewhat expensive compared to the other foods here , still cheaper than McD's at home (big mac on its own is £1.20 or so , meal is £1.50) , i got a Big Mac meal with coke and then a 'Spicy chicken McDeluxe' which was basically a McChicken Sandwich but with chilli's in. They also do KFC style chicken , Oreo McFlurrys and some form of Chicken Curry thing - oh and they also do Bannana Pie's.
Went around the supermarket there and got some drinks for the fridge at the hotel, dad got a knife for cutting fruit and we also got some 'Red Bean Potong' which was like Ice lollies with a frozen shaft of red beans in the middle. Went outside , still raining. We then walked to Eagle Square , about 10 minutes away , I could describe what it looked like , but why bother when 2 pictures will suffice.
We then spent a few minutes looking off the pier into the water , spotting Jellyfish and a few carp or something , some local crab chilling on a rock enjoying the.. uh... whatever crabs enjoy.
I was feeling pretty crabby myself at this point , thirtysomething degrees and humid , mild stomachache and that feeling you get when you're not sure if you're thirsty or not...
We went into the dock centre place , where the boats come and depart from on the island, which reminds me , the picture of the toilet i took the other day? Go back to that for a second and see if you spot anything wrong other than that the toilet isnt there.
Spot it? Theres a hosepipe instead of tissue paper.
Malaysians charge you for using the toilets (which are filthy) and then motherfucking charge you for tissue paper as well! Purchasing power wise this basically means you have to pay 60p just to attempt at taking a shit , if you get lucky there will be a normal toilet with a seat , if not - get squattin'
The squat toilets also feature something rather contrasting to a U-bend , its a giant pipe which goes all the way down - my brother somehow managed to drop his (semi-expensive) phone down the toilet. Idiot.
View from outside the dock centre was rather nice , shame about the weather.
Parents went outside to try and book the snorkelling trip which will be happening on Friday now (afaik). Malaysia is basically racist , locals get a lower price than foreigners. Knowing this , my dad tried booking the trip and telling the people that we're all Malaysian citizens (we arent. at all.).
"yeah yeah , is all fine, just take your IC detail lah"
Malaysians all carry a special form of ID , an IC card - kinda like the British National Insurance (NI) Card i guess?
That plan spoiled then , no discount for us.
We went back to the Langkawi Fair (the shitty mall) and checked a booking agent there as well - at this point , unbeknown to me - i dropped my mobile in the shop.
Went downstairs afterwards and decided to get an ice cream , went into McDonalds again to get an Oreo McFlurry - at this point , i realised i had lost my phone. fuuuuuuuuu~ Panic ensued.
Thankfully i guess the ol' Warwick student brain kicked in and i realised i must have lost it in that booking agent shop - i ran back and found it square underneath the chair , just as well they didnt find it because the bastards would have kept it for sure (dont think they had ANY business that day other than our walking in - and then walking out because they were too expensive)
We then walked to the night market , which was ages away (like 25-35 mins walk or something ridiculous). Unfortunately i completely forgot to take any pictures here :<
The market stretched on down an entire road , shops were 50% food/snacks/juice and 50% everything else. I tried lots of weird foods which I hadn't even heard of before , including fried and battered Jackfruit , some sort of weird mini-pancake thing with kaya , some sort of folded sweet taco like thing with nuts in , a sweet-savoury omlette style thing , and probably one or two other things I can't remember , the variety of food there was amazing though - I could have easily just eaten dinner there by walking up and down and sampling the snacks.
We came back to the hotel after this and after using the toilet (equipped with a toilet bowl and some tissue paper) , we went out to explore our hotel a bit. The swimming pool seems pretty large , goes under and bridge and has a waterfall (shame about the rain) , the beachfront also looked very nice (shame about the rain) - we also spotted a woman running towards the sea in a bikini , it looked like she took off her clothes as she approached the water to go skinny dipping (shame about the darkness).
Dinner was at the hotel , we had the steamboat - im sure ive mentioned it before on this blog somewhere , its basically a cauldron of boiling soup and you add your own raw food to the pot and then when its cooked you take it out and eat it - add your own sauce to it and whatnot , the soup then becomes rather tasty as the meal goes on due to all the flavours of the meat/fish/seafood/noodles and so on.
A young girl came to the table and began doing what can only be described as a magic ritual of some kind , she would come with 4 bowls and set them down on the table at specific points... then come back to the table a few minutes later with 4 plates and set them face down... then 4 smaller bowls... then 4 cups... then 4 sauce dishes.... 3 plates... 3 teaspoons... 4 chopsticks... 4 soup spoons.... All the while shuffling the upside down plates and bowls slightly around on the table as if there was money or a dice under them or something.
Since when does steamboat require so many different bowls and plates :S
A platter of raw food was then presented to our table , fish , crab , prawns , noodles , beg , eggs , tofu and so on - quite an impressive amount - way too much for us to finish , all for 20 RM (an equivalent £4).
Thats it for today , Hope my stomachache is gone by tomorrow =(
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