After a night in Penang and indulging in some amazing food (the best food in Malaysia by far, maybe even in Asia?) I got the ferry to Langkawi, a tropical, duty free island. This equated to more sun and alcohol than I had in months! I was going to spend New Years Eve here and have a great time whether my liver liked it or not.
I treated my time here like a holiday, I think I had about 10 days off work in the four and a half months I was in Cameron so I bloody deserved it. I decided not to be a tourist so no sight seeing, just beach and beer for a week. Met some great people in the hostel, everyone was there purposely for new year and were up for a party and we were a rather international crowd, Americans, Scots, Welsh, Hungarian, Dutch, Irish, the usual suspects of the travelling community minus the token Aussie which was strange, and I class Hungarians as 'the usual suspects' because you always have to have a random nationality in any group!
The drinking here was ridiculously cheap, a litre of Morgan's Spiced, Jack, Absolut, any decent spirit you could think of for a tenner or less. I can't think of anywhere in the world drink is this cheap when it's not knock off. After a few days of bumming about on the beach my tan was developing nicely, I'd nearly returned to my UK colour after so long in Cameron so to get the sun on my shoulders was pretty amazing! I won't bore you with drunken stories, but New Years Eve was pretty special. A load of people from the hostel went to the beach to watch the last sunset of the new year, armed with copious amounts of alcohol including some bottles of sparking wine for midnight, how very posh! We sat on the beach and attracted an ever increasing and diverse group of people and every hour we would toast to midnight somewhere else in the world until it was our turn. People were launching Chinese lanterns on the beach and the sky was full of them by midnight which looked beautiful and there were fireworks aplenty, this being Asia and all...
We counted down and popped our corks and went into the sea for midnight which was so cool. Last year I was dancing up and down Harebell Street in Liverpool, freezing my tits off with a car burning across the road and one year on I was on a tropical island with people I'd know for only a few days. Amazing. I tried to make it to sunrise but alas, it started raining and me and the Welsh girl I was with had attracted the attention of some locals who I wasn't getting a good vibe off so we went home about 7am after a great night on Pantai Cenang. A great way to see in the new year.
On the 3rd I hightailed it to KL and the journey was horrible, 7.45am I left my hostel, only arriving in KL and 9pm. After that nastiness I went straight up to the Rooftop Bar at Backpackers Travellers Inn, armed with a bottle of Jack and a desire to get it drunk before I left for Cambodia. I got absolutely twatted with the bar owner, Chris, and woke up in the dorm, on a top bunk (I wish there was a video of me climbing up there, the state I was in!) and seemed to be using my computer as a pillow. Good times...
No comments:
Post a Comment