The long journey home Part One

I know, it’s been a while since I blogged about the Malaysia trip. Life has got in the way. Just a few more posts left to do, so I am hoping to reach the end by August. This one picks up from where I left off, on the idyllic island of Langkawi.

We didn’t have much time on Langkawi so I was grateful to have taken the time to connect with the place and really feel my presence there. All too soon we were embarking on our long trip home. We had elected to travel by land and sea rather than small planes and we needed to get back to Penang to catch a coach down to KL. But there wasn’t a ferry that would get us there in time so our trip back was rather more complicated: we were booked on a ferry to Kuala Kedah and a car would meet us there to drive us back down to Penang, either taking the ferry or going over the bridge. I was advised to ask him to take the ferry as it is so much more fun than the bridge.

So, first, a taxi from the beautiful Casa del Mar to the ferry port at Kuah. Another opportunity to see the island, which we would have missed if we had flown because the airport is right next to the hotel (not intrusive though, just interesting, I thought). The ferry port, like most things in Malaysia, at least outside KL, is reassuringly relaxed and laid back. We trundled our cases along, watching as travellers peeled off to board different ferries. We knew we had reached the right one because there was a chap standing by the gang plank yelling, ‘Kuala Kedah, Kuala Kedah!’ over and over.

Our seats were the best, at a table on a raised area right at the front. It was good to be able to spread out a bit and to write and meditate, but a pity that we couldn’t see out of any of the windows, except to catch a glimpse of sea going by. We discussed the fact that we had opted for the ferry in preference to flying, even though we knew, rationally, that ferries are much more likely to run into trouble. I tested this, much as one feels a sore tooth to see if it is still as bad. I imagined what would happen if we started to sink or ran into something. I just couldn’t muster up much fear. Ferries are real travelling for me – the clanging, the queueing, the setting off, it’s all part of a holiday. I have never been on a ferry for work, to get to school or because I needed to transfer between homes. It’s always been for fun and that is what it feels like.

We were the only European people on the ferry and I soon fell back into my teenage mode of forgetting that I am not Asian until I look in the mirror. I did feel rather exposed because all of the women, pretty much without exception, wore some sort of headscarf when we got this far North. It wasn’t uncomfortable really, just different, and reminded me of being a teenager and always being different from my Asian friends. Of course we were looked at, not so much because we were European I think as because we were an odd combination – a short middle aged woman with a tall long haired teenage boy. Not a usual mix for long distance travel!

Again I loved the breadth of experience that this type of travel afforded. We had arrived at luxury hotels in limousines, to be met on the steps and pampered during our stay, and now we were pulling our own luggage, navigating through crowds, managing Asian style lavatories and waiting in the sweltering heat. I am so glad that we covered all of the spectrum from high end luxury to feet-on-the-ground island hopping. It made the whole experience so much more real and varied.

We found our driver. He couldn’t miss us anyway, due to the unusual family makeup that I just mentioned. The roads weren’t terribly interesting although I continued to marvel at the quality of the highways compared with the dangerous single carriageway drives we used to brave from time to time. The journey was uneventful to start with, and then, on the highway, we suddenly heard hooting and sensed something very close at the driver’s side of the car. A motorbike got closer and closer and the driver opened his window, I assumed to shout at the biker to move away and not behave in such a reckless fashion. I was wrong. The biker appeared to be a friend of our driver. Once the window was down, the bike travelled alongside us, about a foot away, for some time while the two of them had a little catch up. Horrendously dangerous but, to someone familiar with the laid back Malaysian attitude, not totally unexpected. Luckily they finished the conversation without incident and all was ok as the bike moved away.

I had asked the driver if we could take the ferry rather than the bridge. I tried to put it simply and confirmed, in the Malaysian English that was coming back to me, ‘Can?’ ‘Can!’ replied the driver. Ok, I thought, that’s good, we’ll go on the ferry. The Teenager told me he didn’t think that the driver had understood my request. ‘No, it’s fine,’ I said. ‘He said “Can!”’ Well, the Teenager was right and I was wrong, again. Although I had thought I knew how to communicate with Malaysians who spoke little English, I was out of practice. I realised we were queueing for the bridge when the driver started to take photos of the traffic jam we were stuck in. We stayed stuck for ages, gradually inching closer to the bridge. I was, in fact, pleased to go on the bridge as it hadn’t existed when I lived there, and I had only ever flown to Penang. In fact, I had never before been as far North as Langkawi or Kuala Kedah, which is near to the Thai border. It was good to do some new things as well as well as revisiting the past.

Waiting for the coach

Finally we reached the mall in Penang where we would board our coach. We were able to leave our bags and explore the mall, having lunch and looking for book shops. It was an enjoyable slice of ordinary life in Malaysia. Not a tourist area, even for shopping, this was a place you’d go to if you lived there. It was so important for me to do things like that. To re-experience ordinary life in an ordinary way.

We were only a third of the way through our long journey back to Singapore; the next stage would be the coach to KL.