Ooh Matron!

Carry on Doctor

Langkawi may 25-30

The trip to Langkawi was not too bad, but i had done my usual and gone out with a bang the night before.

I had met this bloke from New Zealand who was having a mid life crisis too, plus we also found some more bars, amongst other things...........so i finally got to bed at 4am and had to be up at half five.................

i was so close to just cancelling my trip and having a lay in and staying another day, but i forced myself up with the aid of the night porter. i bought him some cigarettes and asked him to come and kick my door down at 6am if i had not got up.

well i had not, and he did.

having a hangover and no sleep with 80% humidity and 90 degree heat on a bus for 5 hours is not fun i can tell you.

So i spent most of the bus trip sleeping with my head banging against the window and dribbling.

The trip consisted of 2 buses to the border, then an hour on the ferry to the island. As usual i had not booked anywhere, and did not even know the name of the part of the island i was going, which was based solely upon a drunken conversation with a dutch guy over a game of pool a couple of nights before.

Who needs lonely planet eh?

I met this couple on the ferry that had already booked a hotel. when they showed me where it was on their map, it looked similar to the drunken sketch i had on the back of a fag packet, so i shared a taxi with them.

its all a bit indiana jones if you think about it.

So we arrive at the hotel.

Oh dear.

Location wise it was unreal. It more or less had it's own beach at the end of the best bay in Langkawi, but quality wise, it was like something from a concentration camp.

They only had a family room available in the family block, which meant i was next door to half the population of Malaysia, as they share as many people to a room as they can. I only found out later that the dividing wall was made of paper and mosquitos.

But as usual, i was completely done in, and it was getting late, so i just took it and thought i would go sit at the bar on the beach and watch the sun set.

Bar??

No sir, we are muslim, no alcohol.........

Oh no, it is a Muslim country. I managed to find a restaurant a bit further down the beach that sold beer, so i sat and watched the sun set over the bay and the islands opposite, and it was very nice.

Then i checked in to my hammer house of horror film set and realised that if i had checked the bathroom with the light on i would have slept on the beach.........

So with a lot more bites than i went to bed with, i checked out at 8am and went to find another hotel.The first few i tried were all the same story, huge family rooms, but awful.

Then i saw a restaurant that looked nice and they had free wi-fi, so i went for some breakfast and checked my email. The woman who owned it reccomended a place a bit further down. It was not on the beach, but only on the other side of the road.It was brand new, air con, and tv.

Job done.

On my way back to the hell hole, i saw a bike rental place and he had one that looked like a harley, so ten quid later and i am roaring down the road like a hell's angel. I had the tattoo, (fading badly) the face hair, all i needed was a roadie and a bandana.

At the new hotel i met a really nice family who were on holiday, and came every year, so they knew all the places to go.The main sight on the island is the cable cars that take you to a floating walkway between two peaks, so off i headed.

The road to it was super dooper, lots of bends, sea on one side, monkeys all over the place, lizards, cattle running accross the road, trees fallen down and covering half the road etc.

When i got to the cable cars it was late in the afternoon, so i decided that rather than rush it, i would go back the next day. A decision i would later regret.

There was a place near the hotel that did Ayervurdic (i think that is how you spell it) massage. That is the one where the pour hot oil over your head.

So it was a bit pricey, but i had always fancied it.

As always i asked for a lady, as the one sat outside was very pretty, but instead i got her mate that would have easy got a job as one of the roly polys.

It was one of those massage tables that has a hole you put your face in, so you can pull as many faces as you want and no one can see you;

well just as well really..........

all i can say is that when she lept on top of me, literally, she jumped on the bed on top of me, it was like the scene from carry on doctor with kenneth williams and hatty jakes as matron.

"oh i say!" i shouted as i pulled various faces,

I prayed that this was actually part of the massage, and that she would keep her clothes on.

Luckily it was, and she did,

but i was glad when it was over.

On the way back i passed a seafood restaurant that had some fantastic tiger prawns swimming outside, so 10 minutes later and they were murdered and on my plate, and going down lovely with a glass of tiger beer.

Unfortunately i had read the menu wrong, and thought they were 18 Ringgit which is about 3 quid.

Yes they were 18 Ringgit,,,,,,,,,,but per 100 grams,,,,,,, and i had chosen the 3 that had won the heavyweight championship.

Oh dear.

luckily i had just enough on me.

Next day i woke up looking forward to a day of blasting around the island. I stopped off at my local cafe for brekkie and to check my emails, and as soon as i pulled up the bike it started lashing down.

Perfect timing i thought, by the time i finish brekkie that will be today's rain out of the way, and i will have all day at it.

As i started to decide what i was having for lunch on their menu, i realised that it was not a rainy season shower.

So i dashed over to the beach to a hotel that i knew served beer, and started to drown my bad fortune.

By 3 o clock it was all over, and the sun started cracking the flags, but i was now too hammered to go anywhere.

Typical.

So i spent the rest of the afternoon on the beach, and putting the world to rights with all the other crazy people at the bar.

Luckily i met this australian bloke that was more hammered than me, and when he paid his bar tab he actually paid for our table, so i had had free beer all afternoon.

Well, what with the sun and the beer and the humidity and heat, i got back to my room and sparked out.

Only problem was, the family at the hotel had invited me out to dinner with them all, as they were having a BBQ on the beach for their youngest son's birthday at 8 o clock.

Luckily i woke up minutes before and also they were running late. I had way too much food, then as soon as the kids went to bed they took me to another restaurant and we had bubble tea and even more food.

Well i was stuffed well and truly.

Next day i decided to go up the cable car first thing and then leave the island in the afternoon and go to my next destination which was the island of Penang.

I got to the cable cars at half nine, but they did not open til 10, so to kill some time drove a bit further up the road to see the waterfall. Only problem was there was someone shooting a movie scene there, so you could not get near it.

Oh well, so back to the cable cars, and just as i walk up to the window for a ticket they all closed and a big black cloud headed in from the sea.

whenever there is bad weather they close it all off.

Now what?i thought.

I had to check out at 12 and drop the bike back at the same time. It seemed silly to come all this way and not do the skywalk, so i decided to bite the bullet and to stay for another day and went and had some breakfast and hoped that the weather might clear in a couple of hours.

so some awful scrambled egg later and the clouds were still around and it was absolutely lashing it down.i went and asked at the info desk and they suggested i give them a call in 3 hours.....................

3 hours?

i could not handle 3 hours of bad food, so bit the bullet and zoomed off like a drowned rat.

Do you know how much a rain drop hurts at 50mph on bare skin?

It was like getting hit with gravel all the way home. So i decided my biking days were fading as fast as my tattoo, so i dropped the bike back and got a car instead.

It was a mean little thing, it looked like a disabled vehicle, only with a roof, and wheels the size of a shopping trolley..Just as i drove off the weather cleared, so i went and had a shower and then drove back to the cable cars which had nowopened.

At last.

I hate cable cars at the best of times, and this was a really long and high one. I calculate the longer the wire, the more likely it is to snap. Also the greater the drop, the more likely to die from the fall.

Well in my crazy mind, this had certain death written all over it.

So the trip up terrified me, but i had to keep quiet as the car was full. But then just as it got really high, the stupid russians sat opposite decided to stand up so they could take pictures through the sides, so it started rocking all over the place.

So as white as a sheet i arrive at the top.

It was like something from a James Bond movie.The suspended bridge was good, but then the weather started turning again and the wind got up, and i was amazed as to how much it started wobbling, right as i was in the middle.

I had seen everything, so was keen to get back down before it all got stopped again, so i had a car to myself, but as i got to the high bit, it was covered in cloud, so all i could see was a piece of wire dissapearing down in to some fog, as you will see from the video, i proper filled my pants.

After that i had a good blast all over the island as it is not very big.

On the way back i bumped in to the couple i had met on the ferry, so we went for a few beers at the reggae bar on the beach, but it got a bit too "far out man" when they all started jamming, and got out their guitars.

Plus i had not eaten all day, so the beer had gone straight to my head.

So i went and had a curry, and met a really nice girl on the opposite table who was travelling on her own as well.

But she was alert, and drinking water.

I was hammered, drinking beer, sweating profusely, slurring my words, and probably spilling curry down my front, so surprisingly she did not stay that long, so i decided to have an early night and watch the six million dollar man on channel 8. It was the one where he finds out his natural father was thought a coward, but clears his name. I could not see just how bad the acting was at the time, ha ha.

Bit of trivia for you then.............which of his eyes was bionic?

I have been really getting in to the original series of Mission Impossible as well. The other day it had the bloke from space 1999 as a special guest, jack landau i think is his name, please feel free to correct me if you know the answer.

I seem to have adopted a couple of lizards in my room. They are not very big and run all over the ceiling and walls. I keep leaving the door open for them to go, but then all the mosquitos come in. Well as long as they do not run all over my face when i am asleep i do not mind them. Plus they will eat all the creepy crawlys. They make a bit of a noise though.

Honestly, you do not know what you are missing.

Next installment..................Penang and the knackered honda take 2..............