Pulau Langkawi

Finally, a job assignment that brings me somewhere decent!

A satellite installation at an island in Langkawi had failed for a couple of months already, and our usual contractors are too overbooked to service us, again. So it fell to me to head out there to fix it.

It's a tropical island with good beaches. So, I have no complaints.

But before I head to the airport, I had to go pick up some invoices from the office. Somehow, it didn't occur to my manager to hand them to me before I left the office the day before... So, on the way to the office, I got rear-ended by a Honda Prelude.

That damnable man was practically sleeping at the bloody wheel, cos he hit me with enough force to bump me a few feet forward into the back of a Kembara. It was morning rush hour traffic so he couldn't have been going too quickly, yet the impact wedged shut my boot, and crumpled up my bonnet.

Well, his radiator sprung a leak and his front took more damage than me, so that gave me some malicious comfort. The Prelude is not the most common car in KL, so parts will really cost him.


But my car was still driveable, but not safely so, as the buckled bonnet won't lock right and might pop up on the highway. This couldn't have happened at a worse time. Just before I need to get to KLIA, and back on Thursday, and there again on Friday, and back again on Sunday. That's a few hundred ringgit damage in cab fares...


Well, enough whining...

So I got to Langkawi, met the representative from our client at the jetty. And we took a 20min boat ride to Tuba Island, an idyllic place with a population of a few thousands. We were headed to the primary school there, which was the benefeciary of this company's community outreach, thus explaining why such a kampung school can have IT equipment and a satellite broadband subscription.

The school happened to be having a sports day. It's rather amusing to see their house names are Satria, Waja, Wira & Iswara. But this is Mahathir's home after all.


Managed to get the work done in an afternoon, which gave me almost 24hrs of time to kill. That's where I made the mistake of asking the cabbie to take me to a cheap and clean place. If I had realised that my accomodations would be charged directly to the client, I would have gone somewhere closer to a beach...

If I boozed, I might have had a great time with all the duty-free beer. But as it were, my only entertainment was munching pasar malam food and watching Robin Williams on TV.

Next day, I rented a bike from a nearby shop and went cycling. It was the crappiest bike I've every ridden. Ever. I estimated that I could make my way from one end of the island to the other in 1-1.5 hrs. That's where the nice beaches are, the west side.

Took me 2.5hrs to make the journey. Crappy equipment can really suck the fun out of your favourite activities. Like reading a bad book. Although I did make a few random stops and found some of the polluted fishing areas carefully kept hidden from tourists.

At the beach, I was only rewarded with the sight of one chick in bikinis. Only one. It wasn't yellow, but it was polka-dot.

Only had half an hour to swim before I had to take a cab to return the bike and get to the airport.


The cabbie is ex-army. We talked about scandals in the Malaysian military. About our Spitfires that we purchased from the British, and left to rust in Arizona before fencing them off again to some other suckers.


Managed to get back home in one piece.

Then unpacked.

And packed again for Sibu.