Travel Diaries : Malaysia - Chapter 3

3. Langkawi Day 1

We booked an Uber from the airport to Tanjung Rhu Resort. This is the part I like the most when I tell people about the trip. I’m like ‘Yeah! I stayed at a beach resort!’. I feel rich every time I say that. The resort looked like something straight out of a luxury travel magazine… the white sandy beach, crystal clear water, beach lounge chairs with umbrellas, beach read books, white people sun bathing, women in bikinis spreading suntan lotions on exposed skin, a woman in a burkini with hardly any exposed skin accompanied (read ‘guarded’) by her husband, PDA by newlywed couples… all of it was fascinating. As we were being showed to our rooms I saw two French guys sitting in the balcony of their room lazing away in the afternoon enjoying a smoke whilst engaged in an intellectual conversation. Maybe they were talking about something inane but the combination of the lit cigarettes and French language made it look like they were discussing something like the rise of far-right parties in European politics.

The room was pretty awesome. The décor simple and tasteful. There was a TV but it had only one familiar channel, MTV Asia. We didn’t have much time to watch TV but the couple of times that I did, I came across an acoustic version of ‘Stay together’ by Noah Cyrus… “Nothing lasts forever, But wouldn't it be nice to stay together for the night?”. In the days that followed I have caught myself singing these lines many a time in the shower. Speaking of shower, there was a fuckin bathtub in the washroom. I wanted to give it a try but the thought of my naked ass touching the cold wet porcelain surface made me cringe. So I skipped it. Also, Suman spent a suspiciously long amount of time in the bathtub which was another reason I skipped it.

We kept our bags in the room and decided to go out and explore. We were still to figure out how we were going to get around the island. We thought it better to hire motorcycles. The resort staff at the reception were very helpful and they talked to a guy who rented motorcycles. We then went to his place where he promptly handed over two bikes and four helmets.

It was late afternoon and we were all hungry. We went around searching for some place nice but there weren’t any to be found anywhere near. After 20 minutes of searching we came across a small roadside shack. We sat down at one of the tables and looked at the menu. The only thing that looked familiar on that menu was some sort of noodles. We ordered for it. What was placed on our table five minutes later wasn’t at all appetizing. It was black in colour and looked horrible. It tasted dull and flavorless. We hardly ate half of it. It rained when we were on our way back to the resort and we were all drenched. It started to worry us that the rain and bad food might spoil our vacation.

It was around 7 in the evening when we came out of our rooms after a short nap. Thankfully, it had stopped raining by then. We decided to check out the famous Night market of langkawi. We knew from our internet research that it took place at different places on different days of the week. We were not sure where it was today. As luck would have it an employee at the resort knew a little bit of Hindi and he found us discussing this. He gave us directions to the place in Kuah where it was supposed to be on that day. It took us an hour to get there but it was worth the trouble. It was pretty amazing. Local vendors had set up makeshift stalls on either side of a narrow road for as far as one could see. All sorts of things were on sale… clothes, watches, sunglasses, wallets, handbags, trinkets, toys and a whole lot of other things, most of which were imitations of famous brands. The fake Adidas originals were tempting but I walked away. I now had two women to buy gifts for… mother and the soon-to-be fiancée. It was time to start practicing thriftiness.

We walked along the many stalls selling street food following the delicious smells from grills and sizzling frying pans on which pancakes and other local delicacies made of fish meat, chicken and mutton were being cooked with aromatic spices. There were meatballs, dumplings, springrolls, burgers and stir-fried steamed rice served with spicy curry. It was a culinary paradise and I was stuffed by the time we headed back. I made a mental note to try some of the things that were left out on the next day. I did buy a bracelet for the soon-to-be fiancée but I didn’t see anything that mom would potentially be interested in, and it was quite a dilemma for me thinking how my mother would interpret it if I showed up at her door with nothing for her but something for my future wife. The turf war would begin before the partition and I didn’t want to be a Mountbatten caught between Gandhi and Jinnah.

...to be continued