New neighbour
Access is via a rickety catamaran, affectionately known by the locals as The Vomit Comet and not without reason. Entertainment comes courtesy of some videos starring my arch nemesis Rhianna, and The Fast and the Furious 5. The incredulity of someone liking Vin Diesel enough to put him through four sequels is too much for me to comprehend at that hour of the morning and I fall mercifully asleep, awaking to Big Momma's House 8 1/2: This Time It's Personal.
At the jetty, I run into a brace of Geordies to split the cab fare with. The four of us trawl the hostel strip in front of the beach until they're satisfied they've found somewhere shady and grotty enough to feel like home. It is surrounded by disturbingly placid looking water buffalo. I stay silent for the haggling process. For the last 20 minutes I have not had to navigate/make a decision/given anything long term consideration and it's wonderful. It's odd how much you have to organise when you're travelling alone.
Gross indecency on Langkawi Beach
A compromise is reached, we have two cheap as chips rooms and I have a new roommate: Little Chrissy Two Towels. As the most petite of the trio, "My Geordie Chris" is, necessarily, the loudest. We hit the beach and that is the end of the time/space continuum. After this moment, I will meet people in cafes and bars and 'mongst the rollicking waves, and they will ask me how long I have been here and I will have no answer. I begin to measure time in the amount of mornings My Geordie has woken me at 5am, regaling tales of doomed romance and with mild retching in the sink. If I'm wearing the pink bikini top, that must indicate a 24hr drying period has elapsed. Another day has passed.
Russian Mermaid Massage available here
My Geordie is a glorious caricature of himself, but manages to subvert the genre by being fluent in Spanish, highly intelligent, and halfway through an anthropology degree. He has traveled the globe, knapsack in hand, and will not be the first of my holiday companions to extol the virtues of mushrooms and various psychotropic tribe-related experiences. But you can only polish a turd so much. Chris' Geordie roots belie him too well, and he is on an unending quest for Booze, either more of it or a cheaper version of it. He lives in the grip of the very real fear that at some point, the booze may run out, so it is best to have as much of it at hand as possible. I am the same myself about bananas in Sainsbury's, so I can relate.
Rich, my favourite, is gay-but-not-gay and dresses in the style of French Rivera Ken. He wears deck shoes without a trace of irony and generally looks more put together and co-ordinated than I do. I run into him most mornings, wandering up and down the strip, massive plastic bag of rambutans swinging from his arm (the arm that doesn't have the big pink neon watch on, that causes all of us to use him as our own personal speaking clock: "What's the gay time, there Rich?")
Sam, his traveling companion, takes an impressively instantaneous dislike to me, and does not address me directly for the duration of our acquaintance, except to contradict me or to point out when my joke has fallen flat. I wonder that the two are friends, given Rich's natural exuberance and Sam's incessant pedantry. They come bearing tales of monsoons in Laos, and a six day stretch spent in a bar watching Friends reruns. So there are worse places to be.
Sam, probably about to tell me I'm using the wrong level of exposure, and Rich, telling the time
I feel quite at home in Langkawi. It's nice to wonder up and down the strip in the mornings, chatting with my fantastically effeminate cafe owner (white jeans, tight white vest and black mesh waistcoat) who serves me delicious banana roti for breakfast and heavily sweetened ice cold milk. SmoothieMan names a Coke Float after me, because apparently no one has ever had the foresight to order one with raspberry ripple before. The Coconut Dudes chide me gently on my 2-a-day habit. Everyone calls me by name, or just remembers me as that girl who eats at strange times with the flower in her hair.
An Exciting Lake Triple Exclamation Mark (note that the question posed is purely rhetorical. We are never to find out why the lake not salty even it's near the sea).
The beautiful freshwater "Lake of the Pregnant Maiden". Supposed to be good for those you struggling to conceive. I spent a good 30minutes in here, so my fertility rate is now through the roof. Come and get me, boys.
The unfortunately rather Common-or Garden Bikinious Stealious Monkey.
Evening are spent drinking on the beach with a revolving cast of backpacking Eurotrash. There's Wolfgang, a Philippine we all thought was So Cool til he got a bit too drunk one night and started raging about "all the faggots in Cebu these days." A French couple desperate to hear every aspect of my amazing life in Tokyo. I act out the part of world-weary ex-pat a little too well. Then there's Trekkie Geek and his partner, Hippy Geek, who operate a tag-team system with which to communicate with me as, after all, I am from that most alien of planets, Planet Girl.
The only person I can make fall in love with me in Langkawi is Lio, the (female) owner of our lodgings. A few of us are playing a grueling blackjack tournament, when I start to get the feeling she is trying to help me win:
"So...your name is Jenny? I've always had a fantasy about being with a girl named Jenny." The boys' jaws drop predictably, and Lio and I flirt shamelessly for the rest of the game, until she twigs that my heart lies elsewhere, wherein she starts trying to help me lose.
Rich with Wolfgang, the homophobe.
Back at the ranch, My Geordie is on the verge of sealing the deal with Dee, a beautiful girl he has spent the last few days courting. Rich and Sam are Bangkok bound, and I have itchy feet again.
During our last meal together, the four of us stare hungrily at a group of young women at the neighboring table, though I suspect my reasons are different to theirs. I have not had a decent conversation with another girl for the entire holiday. I have only met Men. And you should never trust a woman who only has male friends. I know from previous experience that too long in the company of gentlemen will send me a little strange, and render me incapable of returning to my own people. It's not that I yearn to discuss pixies and rainbows and nail polish, but I do miss speaking my own language. I've always been very happy being bilingual (ooh err) but everything in moderation.
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