This side of paradise

The Perhentian Islands are the textbook tropical paradise boasted about in the holiday brochures. I sleep in a little dorm with a door that opens out onto a little beach lined with palm trees, a blue sky and a bluer sea. Hammocks and wooden swings and little tables and chairs made from tree stumps, marked out with chess boards. It's beautiful and peaceful and full of a few quiet, well behaved tourists and their oddly pacified children.



I soon discover that the Adonis has no practical skills. I half expect dryads to come and spin him a bed of gossamer silk, but instead I have to offer my help to pitch his very rudimentary tent.

I spend my days swimming, eating, snorkeling and reading. It is paradise; all clear turquoise waters, lying in twin hammocks at night discussing our place in the universe, moonrise and the rustle of waves meeting the shore.

I get up with the fish at 7 each day, both willingly and before breakfast, to watch the fish eat theirs. Floating over spectacular reefs with technicolour dreamcoat fish of every denomination feeding on the coral is my new favourite way to start the day. I feel like I'm on a TV show about snorkeling, hanging out with giant parrotfish, spotting rays and teasing schools of tiny silver fish, letting them circle around me in their thousands. I brace myself for the reef sharks, certain that they will sniff out my fear and find me first, but they are adorably small and cute, like the soft cuddly toy version of sharks in the aquarium giftshop. On my best morning I spot five, which probably means I saw two sharks several times. There are huge clam shells as big as my head, which sink me down when I try to pick them up, and legless blue/mauve jellyfish and purple corals. I find Nemo, then find him again and again, and wish he would play harder to get.



Behind our dorm are little jungle paths, leading off to still more deserted beaches, where giant sea turtles lurk (sightings: two, two different ones!) where no Starbucks or McDonalds will ever reach.

I become a creature of the water, eschewing the shower, because I am never out of the sea for more than a few hours at a time. My hair takes on the colour and consistency of straw. My feet and legs are covered with forgotten scrapes and gazes from the coral. I am a savage being that clambers over rocks barefoot and communes with monitor lizards and befriends the needle fish. Make up, jewellery, even clothing all seem to prosaic and tedious now.

I catch sight of myself in a mirror one day, and this strange, half wild savage creature stares back at me. Brilliant green eyes staring out of a dark brown face. A filthy gypsy tan, that makes me look dirty rather than healthy. I may start selling pegs from my bunk. I avoid the mirror from then on. I'm a little scared of the wild girl with the eyes of a child from a horror movie, whose imaginary friends make her do Bad Things, and who draws harrowing, violent pictures of family members at school.


My First Monitor Lizard. Harmless but terrifying dragons of the forest.

It is pleasant to look only upon beauty for a few days: the trees, the underwater world, the Adonis and the Hot French Dad, who makes eyes at me at breakfast each morning. I return the gaze happily, til one of his flaxen haired spawn comes bounding into view and drags him off for a game of chess.

I raid the communal bookshelf, finding scant amount of English books, confirming some of my worst fears about British people: that they do not travel, and when they do, they do not read. I manage to find some F. Scott Fitzgerald and from the laze of my hammock, let Anthony and Gloria fall unwisely in love, or something like it. Then I slum it with Push, by Gabourey Sidibe, which is basically Tess of the D'Ubervilles set in the 80s Bronx. If Alec gave Tess HIV.



In the evenings, James and I discuss our respective adoptive countries. We appear to both love n hate the same things about Korea and Japan, and neither of us see living there as a long term solution to our wanderlust.

He drifts off into talk of his time in the Moroccan Sahara, retreats he has been on, the joys of mushrooms, his adventures in northern India, living with sadhus and smoking charas. I'm yet to meet anyone on my travels who didn't have a more profound experience in India than I did, but I will persevere.

I wonder how long this existence can continue. It is a little too perfect. Any minute now, I expect one of the Hands in the kitchen to commit an immense crime of passion, and the sea will run red with blood like that scene in The Beach, and we will only have Leonardo DiCaprio to save us.

James is on the verge of becoming dull and I want to see what life is like on Long Beach, on the other side of the island, where I've heard talk of drinking and dancing in the evenings and beach bonfires.

Right before I leave, I snap a picture of the Adonis, and to my dismay, watch his features dissolve into a plebeian mass on camera. I try to keep the disappointment from my face. He will never make it as a Calvin Klein model. I wonder if he doesn't secretly know this. Oh, to be cursed with unphotogenic beauty! We all have our cross to bear.

The shrimp and the anenome

Taxi-boat-bus-taxi-boat. The Perhentian Islands can be reached using this method in just 16 short hours. Sleep is impossible on a suspension-free overly air conditioned Malaysian bus. I get through the night on Adam and Joe podcasts and chocochip cookies. At some point the driver is shaking me awake. It is 4am. We are at a petrol station in the middle of nowhere. It is pitch black.

I'm ushered into an unappealing, unlicensed minicab, and driven to the ferry office, which doesn't open for another 20 minutes, so I loiter in the darkness, alone and friendless, tired and confused. Then, suddenly, the sun rises, three hours too early: a man enters, nay; an Adonis, a movie star, a model, God's Gift, and probably the most beautiful man I have ever seen in Real Life.

I am not dreaming. He is apparently a fellow tourist, like me, but not like me because he is tall and slender and full of grace, has chocolate curls and deep, dark blue eyes and full, very red lips. He has long, slim, pianist's fingers, which he waves around theatrically when he finally speaks, in a soft, slow, controlled voice, so soft I have to ask him to repeat things.

He walks in beauty, like the night, but he is not a model, not even a part-time one, but an English teacher in Seoul, so we have that little common ground at least. I feel very far away from Little Chrissy Two Towels right now. Every thought and expression is carefully considered and selected. He is aware of his beauty, no doubt, but mature enough to be quite dismissive of it. I struggle not to mention it.

I put the age of this gilded youth at between 20 and 28, but apparently he is 33, further adding to my conviction that there is a portrait of him rotting away in an attic somewhere.

I am not worthy to gaze upon his exquisite visage. My very presence cheapens and tarnishes his beauty. This angel should be surrounded only by Aphrodite and handmaidens and wood nymphs. Instead, he gets a crumpled, sleep deprived, sunburnt Essex girl.

His body almost groans with intensity and sensitivity and depth of thought. Little birds probably help him get dressed in the morning. He is a perfect creature but, here I fail my readership - both of you - so completely Not My Type. He is too ethereal, not of this earth, slumming it with us mere mortals for a lost weekend on an tropical island. Rare is the sentence that escapes his lips that does not mention "the vibe". He is a little bit hippy and a lot bit spiritual.

We wait for dawn, or the boat the leave, and find that one brings about the other. I excuse myself and slip off to watch the sunrise alone. I can only gaze on one blindingly beautiful thing at a time.

I eye him skeptically as we board the boat. He has added a ethnic-looking scarf to his attire, successfully achieving that Libyan terrorist look. A little way into the conversation and I discover that God does not give with both hands: James is not funny.

He lacks that quintessential shot of venom cursing through his veins that would give his statements bite and substance. Just a hint of sarcasm would illuminate his soul and perfect lips. He has no sense of the ridiculous, no affection for the absurd. Life is to be taken Very Seriously Indeed. We chase a red sun as the boat speeds towards the island and I think about how irritating this is going to be, alone in a tropical paradise with an Adonis with one fatal, uncompromising flaw.

Languor in Langkawi

Langkawi, Malayan for "the island that murders time", is another 2 hr boat ride from Penang. This is where backpackers come to die, so why not do it on a duty free island in the company of Geordies.


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.

Forest and food

Today I put on my hiking havaianas to visit "the smallest national forest in Malaysia".

My companions are Pierre, a foxy French lawyer, and a Nikolaus, a young German student. The terrain is easy to begin with but quickly descends into dense, Conradian jungle.

We hike up hill and down dale for half an hour at a time, spilling out onto white deserted beaches just when we think we've lost the trail completely. Then, back into the dark, sweaty interior. My face looks like I just stuck it in a bucket of water, but after a while the incessant clambering becomes oddly exhilarating, and we start to do it at a run.

Impenetrable forest paths call for desperate measures

At our most desolate and thirsty, we stumble across a swarthy, dangerous looking man in a tin shack who sells me the best tasting water I've ever had. He has some rusty looking hammocks that we collapse into. We stay there a full exhausted hour. Over time, a dribble of tourists emerge from the forest into the sweatshine. Soon there is quite a collection of drained Eurotrash backpackers all along the beach. A group of vindictive Australians find a large beached jellyfish and begin taunting it. "Find a stiiick! Find a stiiiiiiiiiick!" shrieks the harridan ringleader. There is talk of commandeering a boat. I will pay anything to get away from these people.

Giftshop beverage of choice. It's like drinking a meadow, if you're interested. A really sugary meadow.

At last! A speed boat to freedom/the mainland/civilization is produced. As we ride away, the Head Australian is jabbing the jellyfish with a huge piece of driftwood. The group is swapping dubious looks. Even her friends are backing away from her now. I hope they eat her first.

Dangerous Forest Man's dwelling place.


Happier times

Back in Georgetown, we hit the Red Garden for dinner, a huge collection of hawker food stalls and pan piped music. Between the three of us, we consume about 4 dishes a piece, though I steer clear of the fried frogs. I do make room for the deep fried ice cream, however, which is so good I want to get a room with it.

Penang is one of the most famous places in Malaysia for food, and I think I made good. Their specialty is laksa, sour fish soup with noodles and a million other interchangeable ingredients. This one has pineapple, mint and chicken. Also on the menu is spicy satay, fried oyster omlette and hokkein mee, fried prawn noodles in a dark rich sauce. We eat/drink fresh coconuts for dessert.

I have fallen in love with the way Pierre pronounces the word "flip flop", but that is all. I feel drunk on food and it's wonderful. A quick stop at The Chocolate Emporium, where we sample 19 types of flavoured chocolate (avoid the durian), two very small beers and then, achingly, home.

Georgetown

Off to explore the rustic charms of Georgetown, Penang's captial and UNESCO certified World Heritage Site. Let's see if it lives up to the hype...

Loads of great Chinese temples

Damnit, they saw me coming...

When I am made a deity, I would very much like to be worshipped with iced gems, reese's peanut butter cups and kit kat chunkys, thankyouplease.

Get kicked out of a mosque pretty early on (I'm menstruating, I'm a woman, it's ramadam - it was never going to work), but I don't let this hold me back.

At another mosque, I'm welcomed in with open arms. A man in a Manchester United shirt dresses me in a long black cloak and wraps a scarf around my head, turning me into a shadow. A very hot shadow. Those things are not made from breathable fibres.

He gives me a quick tour and talks to me for ages about the tsunami in Japan, while sweat oozes and dribbles down my back. He's showing a lot more leg in his shorts than I am in my conservative temple-visiting skirt.

A rickshaw driver shaving in his wing mirror

Halfway through my Georgetown jaunt, I run into Tim at the Monna Lizza Cafe. He looks suitably sheepish, as you would if you saw the girl you'd thrown up in front of, after you tried to Jedi Mind Trick her into bed. He's drinking with two ex-pats who are pushing 60. I wonder if I should warn him about the dangers of succumbing to the empty flattery of older men. Instead I say nothing and remain the picture of diplomacy and tact.

The road to Penang

7 1/2 hours to kill on the train ride north, to the island of Penang.

Palm trees, farms, fields, lakes and more palm trees. When I tire of the scenery, I turn my attention to the movie playing on loop, a cut price Bradley Cooper affair. He and a sinewy-necked Kurt Russell are saving some pretty people from drowning on a big boat.

My Booker Prize Winnah takes a turn for the intriguing and ends with an interesting moral dilemma. I sleep. Eat a custard doughnut that tastes of nail polish remover. Listen to Joy Division and Kate Nash. Write my memoirs.

Eons pass, and then I'm off the icebox train and walking toward the ferry. The sun slaps me in the face. The heat wraps itself around my limbs and strangles them. I haven't had a conversation with anyone for about 24hrs.

I spend the evening drinking with a fellow lone traveller. Tim is interesting, intelligent and funny. He's also quite attractive and just the right side of 40. We have a good chat about the joys of solo travel, his dream to create his own compost toilet and all the books we disagree on. It's nice to talk with someone about the pleasures of solitude.

He tells me how every relationship he has had, including the one with his wife, has ended during holidays together, and now he travels alone. I point out the common denominator for him. He negs me a few times: I talk too much, am only interested in my own opinions, am "a little strange" etc. All true, but these are quirks rather than flaws, surely.

Inevitably, with every beer, I become less strange, and considerably more interesting to him. Sadly, he is one of those tedious men who thinks that he can merely tell a woman that she is intelligent and the shock of this flattery will send her hurtling into his arms. I restrain myself.

Finally, after the sixth beer, I become Beautiful. He lays a meaningful, and therefore meaningless, hand on my knee and stares at me for a long, long time. Silence. If he starts trying to read my palm, I decide I will leave. Seven beers: now, I have become Amazing.

While he is throwing up in the gutter outside the cafe, I think about all the brilliant, intelligent, amazing, kind, resourceful women I know. We do not not need to be told. I'm not sure how long he spends evacuating his stomach, but it's long enough for me to strike up conversation with the Nigerian guy behind me, ask about his holiday plans, what he thinks of Malaysia, how long his flight was, the connecting flight codes between Nigeria and Kualar Lumpar...

I leave Tim lurching in the road, and retire to bed.

It's not about sex

Today, I'm off to the Batu Caves with a Tantric yoga instructor. What could possibly go wrong.

In the morning, I wait patiently at the bathroom door for a go at the sink. HostelMan emerges, fresh from the shower, clad in his ubiquitous towel. He grunts at me and departs. The mirror reflects a puffy swollen eyelid, probably a glamorous tropical disease I caught off a parrot yesterday.



Yes, my eyes are closed, but look at the colour coordination.

I meet Mr Tantra the previous evening in a Chinatown street cafe. We discuss the caste system for British Asians, racism in Japan, the difference between Sprite and 7-Up; all the important issues. He spends most of the evening defending his profession. "Everyone thinks it's about Sex. It's not about Sex. It's all about Energy. You understand, Jenny, don't you?"


263 steps up

I get to see some revealing snaps of him in various poses on a beach at dawn, and some more comforting shots, fully clothed, during a class. He's overjoyed to hear I am Batu Cave-bound, and offers to accompany me and explain the unfathomable Hindu-ness of it all. I accept, because I think it will make a good story.


A monkey.


A monkey god.

I hope my leprosy-ridden eye will discourage his more amorous intentions. He shows up on time, on a motorbike, wearing a black cloth beret. I repress my amusement admirably (probably because it's painful to roll my eyes), and inform him of my No Motorbikes In Asia policy. He is crestfallen for only a moment, and soon we are on our way to the train station. We sit and wax mystical while we wait for the train. He keeps grabbing my hand and stroking the lines of my palm: "Interesting. Very interesting..." he trails off, smiling and looks away. I remind myself, not for the first time, that it is all about Energy.

When I look up, two men in National Geographic tshirts are taking our photo. Apparently Mr Tantra and I are to be the cover stars for their next issue on Ethnic Diversity in Malaysia.


Yay, more steps!

Outside the caves, we get some Indian food on a banana leaf plate and milky chocolate coffee in a tin cup. Tantra men eat with their hands, twirling the rice into the curry artistically with their fingers. Then we ascend the 8 bijillion steps to the top and the entrance of the cave. There are a lot of monkeys. I don't like monkeys anymore. In Malaysia, they run around stealing tourists' belongings, attacking small children unprovoked and having a tug of war with you over your bikini (I wasn't wearing it at the time). They are not like the monkeys in Disney.




Afterwards, I get some mehndi done, cos I'll never have the guts to get a real tattoo. It'll last 2-3 weeks, depending on how much I go swimming. As long as it fades before I go back home, although it's the least yukuza looking tattoo ever.


The finished article

YogaMan can't stop telling me how good the henna looks against my white, white skin. I can't get off the train and away from him fast enough. When I come back to Kualar Lumpur, I will come and stay with him won't I. And his parents. I reveal I am otherwise engaged for the evening. He looks crestfallen again. I'm given three goodbye kisses, three more than are necessary, and turn and flee into the night, my face wet from his mouth. I head for the shower.
Note: There are no pictures of YogaMan. I did not take any. This is because I want you to imagine a hot, young, lithe, bendy tantra master who fell helplessly and hopelessly in love with me and showed me his world, rather than a balding, slightly tedious, unattractive aging hippie. This is how I want to remember it too.