Duty Free Island #3

Trip Start Feb 25, 2006
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Trip End Jun 24, 2009


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Flag of Malaysia  ,
Sunday, August 3, 2008

Well, I've been to both Langkawi and Tioman already so that just leaves Labuan as the 3rd and final duty free island in Malaysia to visit. But Labuan is pretty much an unnecessary stop if you are looking for duty free goods like beer and chocolate. Borneo is full of Chinese run business that already don't pay taxes on alcohol so they can pass the savings on to their customers on the mainland. Like Brunei, Labuan is also an unnecessary stop as far as a destination. There is just about nothing to do on the island. We were going to just catch a ferry from Brunei to Labuan and continue on to KK, but C read the schedules wrong and we missed the last ferry to KK. So we got stuck there for a night. I didn't mind as I had wanted to check out the island anyway.

As nice as it is to turn off the brain and just follow someone else, after following C around for a month and a half, I realized why I have to lead and normally play tour guide. I don't do much planning, but I always like to do the research of how to get from point A to B so that I'm not stuck in the middle of nowhere with all my stuff trying to figure out what to do. The best thing about C is that she's very flexible and the little stuff doesn't seem to bother her. It's really no big deal to get stuck on a crappy little island. You can always make the best of the time you have and the place you have to do it. The other best thing about C is that money is not an object for her. We can always throw money at the situation. We rented a car to drive around the island and check out the "sights". Although there was nothing really to see except a giant chimney on the north end of the island and a spaceship looking mosque , it was fun to drive around the island. We got to the Western side of the island in time to watch the sunset, but C found some shells to play with and completely missed the sunset behind her. To each, their own.

We got back to town after dark and decided to have a nice seafood dinner. There's nothing like fresh seafood that's alive a minute before it gets cooked. How barbaric? I know. It's just one of my guilty pleasures. But if Curt Cobain is right, "it's OK to eat fish because fish don't have any feeling", I probably won't go to hell for this transgression.
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Comments

rcys
rcys on Dec 16, 2008 at 07:36AM

Re: sextuple objection!
Touchy, touchy aren't we? Well for this and all my entries, please read my disclaimer in the beginning of my profile of this online journal for your entertainment...'based loosely on facts and actual occurrences' There's no finger pointing, all my stories either make me and others look like an idiot or a clairvoyant rocket scientist based on which one sounds better for the story. I was willing to accept any consequence for whatever happened when I relinquished all control to you and did no planning at all. It's a huge compliment that I have that much confidence in you. I never looked at a schedule nor paid much more attention than making sure we were heading in the right direction towards KK.

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