The good people of Langkawi, Malaysia were thoroughly sick of me by the time I left. But, just as one should never count one’s chickens before they hatch, one should also not breathe a sigh of relief before the drunken Aussie is safely packed away on a plane to somewhere else.
I woke up early feeling fantastic, and headed down to the beach for a final swim at this island paradise before heading to the airport for my 1:30pm flight to Kuala Lumpur. When I got there, the sun was shining, the water was sparkling and delightful, and my waitress friend and her dopey husband were still in a foul mood.
After drying off and spending a very pleasant half hour sitting on a sun lounge reading a Joe Lansdale book, I went back to my room, packed my shit, dropped my bags at the front desk and then took one last stroll up the street to buy another bottle of vodka before leaving. I wouldn’t wanna get thirsty.
On the way back I was enjoying the sunshine and the peaceful ways of the little island, when I heard someone shouting and saw Sonjay running out of his shop and straight towards me. I couldn’t understand what he was saying, and from the look on his face he could’ve wanted to either shoot me or root me, so I piss-bolted back to my resort, grabbed my bags and tossed them into the back of a taxi, slammed the door and ordered the driver to gun it just as Sonjay reached the car. Despite being a fat little bloke who looked like he’d work up a sweat just thinking about going to the fridge for another can of Kingfisher, he kept up with the taxi for a good 100m, banging on my window and yelling at me. As we finally pulled away he fell to his knees in the dirt and I heart him scream, “I love yooooouuuuu!”
Sorry, Sonj.
A few minutes later I was at the shed optimistically known as Langkawi International Airport, and ready to check in. Tragically, my suitcase was slightly over the weight limit, requiring a repack. So I stepped to the side and started moving stuff from my suitcase to my backpack, while a bunch of burqa-wearing hardcore muslims stood around glaring at me. When I finally had it in order, I picked up my suitcase and immediately realised I hadn’t zipped it up, causing all my shit to fall out on the ground. But that’s not the worst bit. For the last few days I’d been collecting some of my beer cans because they look cool and are a great reminder of the monumental amount of piss I’ve been sinking. So about 20 empty beer cans spilled out along with my dirty undies, clanging on the floor right in front of about 50 people who reckon alcohol is the devil’s drink. Fuck. Me.
The flight to KL was uneventful enough, and soon I was at the shed that’s known as Kuala Lumpur Low Cost Terminal. Bloody hell, what a shithole of a place. I got on a bus that took me to the middle of nowhere, where I caught a fast train that wasn’t very fast at all to KL Sentral station and, after seeing a big sign for some fancy new Burger King vain-clogger, stopped in for a bite. I love traditional Asian cousine!
A short taxi ride through scenic downtown Kuala Lumpur – and it really is a nice place, with palms everywhere and snazzy buildings and lots of pretty girls - and I was at my home for the next three days, the Pacific Regency Suites. And it was bloody fantastic! My room was damn near the size of my house, with a gigantic king bed, kitchen, huge TV and absolutely massive bedroom. It made the place in Shanghai look like the place in Penang.
I took a quick stroll around town and it was pleasant, if a little sterile and surprisingly quiet. After travelling through a bunch of Chinese cities that were as busy as Penny Wong in a roomful of dildos, it was nice to have a little bit of space. It was getting a bit late, though, and I wanted to have a swim in the hotel’s rooftop pool, so I just grabbed some mixers for my vodka and headed back.
The pool was pretty cool, with an incredibly decent view over the city. At seven it shuts down and the whole place converts into what is supposedly a very nice nightclub, which I intended to check out later on, so I dried off and went back to my room for a quick drinkie.
Alright, so it was more like a half-litre bottle of vodka drinkie, and by the time I went back up to the club I was primed for a good night. Unfortunately, the Luna Bar was absolutely shithouse. There was thumping techno music, but no dancefloor. In fact, there was nowhere for anyone to congregate, forcing people to sit in individual booths in the darkness, meaning that chatting to strangers was completely out of the question. Good news for any single women in the place, bad news for me. I had a couple of overpriced cocktails (in beautiful plastic glasses!) and fiddled about with my phone (that’s not a euphemis for masturbation), then got the fuck out of there and back to my room. And when I paid, old mate cracked the shits ‘cos I didn’t leave a tip! They’re lucky I didn’t take a dump in their pool.
After that, it took me about 14 seconds to fall asleep, which is a good thing because I had a trek ahead of me the next day. Oh, bloody hell, did I have a trek in store!
I originally wrote this back in May, 2012. If I wasn’t so drunk right now, I’d remember the exact date. Giz a beer?
The Drunk and Jobless World Tour 