Smoothness on the beach
Trip Start
May 06, 2007
1
159
166
Trip End
Jul 24, 2008
Pulau Perhentian,
Malaysia
Saturday, June 28, 2008
My first full day on the island I ran into Sonal, a British girl I had met in the Cameron Highlands. She invited me to hang out with her and Esther and Olivia, Scottish and Canadian girls who she had met the day before. The four of us ended up spending the rest of the week sunbathing, waiting for our food to arrive, drinking monkey juice, and giggling together. We discovered that only one of the restaurants on the island was even close to consistent and that getting food within a half-hour of ordering it meant that the kitchen was really fast. Even if we were the only people in the restaurant. One of the waiters in Lily's Restaurant became our favorite and we dubbed him "the hardest working man on the island" as he raced around to take people's orders and bring food out. He was even nice enough to bring us glasses with ice for our water after we only asked once (three times seemed to be the standard).
In addition to "the hardest working man on the island", we spent quite a bit of time laughing at the various other characters on the island. At the top of the list is creepy, bug-eyed, starer guy. He seemed to take a liking for Sonal and would stare at her with his eyes bugged out, his head bopping, and a cigarette hanging out of his lips. Classy. Olivia's impression of him was priceless. Then there was the Richard Branson wanna-be who we think worked at the dive shop. He wasn't nearly as scary as bug-eyed starer, but he seemed to appear everywhere we were (yes, it was a small island, but still). And we can't forget about scary smiley guy who seemed to have a perma-smile complete with teeth-whitening treatment. He tried to talk to us a couple of times, but we did our best to shoo him off. Umbrella strutter man was so into himself that he barely registered who he was taking money for the umbrellas from. I think Long Beach probably rivals Vilcabamba, Equador in the number of weirdos who seem to have made the island their home (though bug-eyed starer and umbrella strutter man are both locals).
Once the intense noon heat wore off a bit, we parked ourselves under the purple umbrellas (well, three of us did - Olivia oiled up and stayed in the sun) and spent most of the afternoon alternating between lying in the shade and taking a dip in the water. It was pretty tough work. I even managed to get only a slight sunburn that quickly turned into a bit of a tan so I don't look nearly as pasty as I usually do. At night we frequented Safety Stop, one of the three bars on the island, since they let us have a bit of influence on the music. When there was no rain, we sat on bamboo mats at tables on the beach. Safety Stop was where we discovered that even though the vodka says smoothness on the label it is anything but smooth. After a night of vodka and pineapple juice I couldn't even sit at the same table as someone drinking pineapple juice the next day. Much better than the paint-thinner vodka was the monkey juice rum. A vanilla rum that tasted very good when mixed into the Peanut M&M milkshakes. After one night of smoothness we stuck with the monkey juice. I had more late nights on the island than I've had over the last six months combined. One night we were out so late dancing on the beach that when it hit 6:30am and started to get light out, we decided to just wait up and see the sunrise. It was absolutely magnificent and well worth the complete exhaustion we all suffered from the next day.
The late nights wouldn't be so bad if we could sleep through the whole morning, but the heat didn't allow that. All electricity on the island is supplied via generators. Once daylight comes, the guest houses typically turn off the generators until around 7pm. The one at our guest house wasn't so consistent but usually turned off by 9am the latest. The room quickly became so swelteringly hot that we would wake up within a half-hour of the fan going off since it's quite difficult to sleep when dripping with sweat. At least it made the cold shower feel acceptable instead of icy. In addition to generators supplying the electricity, there is no hot water anywhere on the island, even in the one relatively expensive resort. By the end of the week I actually started looking forward to two cold showers a day. Though I never got to the point of looking forward to the mosquitoes or the sand-flies. These two insects made a pact to attack me as much as possible, leaving my legs looking like I was ridden with leprosy. Hopefully now that I'm off the island they'll go back to normal.
It was sad leaving the island and the girls, but after a week it was time to move on. Sonal had already left to head up to Thailand and Esther decided to stay another day or two until her cash ran out (there's no ATM on the island), but Olivia and I said our goodbyes and boarded a boat to the mainland, waving goodbye to paradise as we rode off and Olivia discovered just how much I dislike speedboats.
Comments
WOW
That place is simply gorgeous.