Lissa:
We left our Penang guesthouse at 7.30am (far too early for backpackers) and arrived at the Port just in time for the morning monsoon to come belting down. We huddled under a leaky marquee with 50 other tourists while the boat company sorted its stuff out. As it was time to board, the raim got heavier, we slithered onto the boat drenched but happy to be out of the rain. The ferry took off, and 15mins out of port the boat started rocking alot. 15mins later people started vomiting. Another 15mins later i started vomiting, up came my tropical fruit breakfast along with my anti-motion sickness pill (damn you travel doctor!). I tried to focus on the latest pirated Fast and the Furious movie, but Vin Diesels acting made me vomit into the wastebasket in front of me. With only another half hour of travel to go the kind ferry staff came round with vomit bags, much to the dismay of the passengers, too late the bathroom floors were covered in unused breakfasts and the wastebaskets were brimming with stomach lining. Not nice. We arrived in Langkawi and negotiated a cheap taxi ride to Cheng Beach. Our driver took us to an awesome guesthouse called Rainbow lodge. The rain started pounding down again when it was time to disembark. I admire the taxi drivers attempts at geting the van as close to the reception as possible, but it ended up making it worse as he parked underneath the leaky guttering of the buildng. Ross hauled our bags out and we relaxed and played some pool whilst our guesthouse owner (think Malaysian Steven Seagal, ponytail and all) rattled off a price for the room. when the rain calmed we took a look at our bungalows and accepted his price. Pretty sweet, $7.50NZD each for a double room with ensuite eeeeh. After settling in and drying off we wandered down to the beach for lunch and had an amazingly large Thai green curry (Langkawi is very close to Thailand so lots of Thai infused food, yum!). Explored the beach a bit and had some tiger beers down on the beach, beer here is cheap as Langkawi has been declared a duty free zone, this place gets better and better!
Next day, rolled out of bed, had breakfast and then it was off to do some wave jumping at the beach! oooh fun! all was going well until i felt an immense sting on my leg, i yelled, floated backwards but the thing (enormous jellyfish!) coiled a tentacle around my leg from my lower thigh to my ankle, i tried to pull it off then it got me again on my other leg. Panic stricken, screaming, crying and swearing like an irish sailor i managed to swim closer to shore and it let go. I don't know who was more frightened me, or the horror stricken looks on Mok and Ross' faces as they decided what was attacking me. The pain was like i had barb wire wrapped around my leg then wrenched out! eeeeeek! i swallowed quite alot of water trying to get out of the sea, and aux hauled me back up to the beach where i continued swearing. He ran off to get vinegar (not urine!) and came back with a sliver of lemon, that was just not going to cut it. I managed to hobble back to the guesthouse and pour vinegar over my leg. Started feeling good then i felt really ill, couldn't breathe properly and all the bones in my body were jangling around. A cool kiwi chick we just met gave me an anti-histamine and it felt alot better. For the rest of the day i was basically bed-ridden, felt like i'd been hit by a truck, damny jellyfish tried to paralyse me! Aux fed me icecreams and a massive chicken burger, the pain subsided and i was able to sleep most of it off. I woke up this morning and my leg is super swollen with small blisters running the length of my calf muscle. Never going into the sea again! ga!
Apart from the jellyfish and boatride Langkawi seems like an awesome place. I think we're going to be here for awhile :) Thai food for dinner me thinks! :)
