People Under The Stairs

March 23, 2010
Kota Bharu to Pulau Perhentian Kecil

I left for the airport mildly recovered from an uneasy few days in KL, not exactly sure what to expect. I hoped it would be good, and had heard great things about the Perhentian Islands, but was not holding my breath. What followed was a series of what can only be described as calamities, custom made for me. (I should note that I don't particularly like bugs or boats, and that I have a severe intolerance for assholes.)

Air Asia is very similar to Jet Blue: no first or business class, no meals, no frills. They don't even offer you complimentary water, hence allowing for relatively cheap fares across Asia and beyond. They encourage you to pre-book your meal online, since it's 20% cheaper and means you'll be served first, as well as guarantees you'll get what you want. My flight from KL to Kota Bharu was around 10:30 AM. Since I'd grown accustomed to eating meats, rice and noodles for breakfast, and there were no “breakfast” items on offer, I ordered the seemingly benign chicken satay. A record 4 minutes after takeoff, the flight attendant handed me my meal. In an ever astounding portrayal of the “no frills” model, my hands were scalded as she placed the piping hot e-z foil plate into them. They don't even use trays on Air Asia. A fishy odor tore through the cabin, and I couldn't help but wonder who on earth would order such a putrid dish in an enclosed space. Upon peeling back the lid of my meal, I sat with horror as the realization that it was my meal stinking up the joint materialized. My chicken skewers were wrapped in something I've not seen elsewhere in Asia: shrimp threads. I don't know exactly what they are or how they are made, but there were smelly heaps of them around food stalls in KL. Shrimpy chicken satay pushed aside, I figured the rice beneath was fine and put a forkful into my mouth. The immediate gagging response made me glance towards the barf bag in the seat pocket of the guy next to me, but I kept it together and forced it down. (I'd have spit it out, except napkins are a rare commodity in this part of the world. I suppose the Asians have mastered the art of not making a mess while we westerners are slovenly pigs. Either that or they just like to see us suffer.) Then I saw what appeared to be eyes staring back at me from my food. Indeed, these were millimeter sized eyes, some attached to centimeter long fish, some dislodged, dispersed throughout my rice. I thought they were flecks of black pepper at first. It was revolting. Besides chicken rice and roti canai, the food in Malaysia gets a resounding thumbs down.

The only reason white people fly to Kota Bharu is to get to the Perhentians. It's an hour long taxi ride from the airport to the ferry (or in my unlucky case, speedboat) dock, through farmland. None of the ride is highway, just twists, turns, villages, local roads. All of the white people on my flight disappeared before I could try and share a taxi with any of them, so I was riding solo. The thought crossed my mind that if something happened to me out here, I'd be screwed. Outside of the capital, (maybe in Penang, but certainly not where I was) people don't speak English. This was apparent when my driver managed to say something along the lines of “Me, mother, father, USA.”
“Oh, your parents live in the US?” I tried to make conversation.
“Yes.”
“What part? For how long?”
“Yes.”
“No, I mean where? New York? Los Angeles? Washington D.C.?”
“Yes.”
I stopped there. This guy did not know what the hell he was talking about. While I wasn't worried, per say, I would be relieved when we arrived at the ferry terminal.

Happy to see a few other white people, I planted myself next to another solo female traveler and chatted with her for awhile. She was Danish, was on business, reviewing a resort on the island I was not visiting (there are 2), said it was a nice place as she'd been before, and that I would probably have a good time. She wasn't ultra friendly, though, so my hopes of meeting her for dinner at her dive (as in diving, not low budget) resort were quickly squashed. There was German guy, who I talked to about a couple of places to stay, until his non-English speaking girlfriend grunted at me and ended our conversation. A couple of other Europeans rounded out the bunch as we were paraded over to the docks, where we proceeded to wait for another 45 minutes for the boat to arrive. And here's where things got interesting – or incensing, take your pick.

We, along with our luggage and some local family who materialized out of nowhere, were piled onto this rinky dink speedboat that comfortably sat 10. We were 12. Our bags, all of them heavy and large, were carried onto the boat by none other than ourselves (I've been on a lot of boats and you always at least hand the dude on the boat your pack, then get on it yourself. Not the case here. No help whatsoever, not even an outreached hand.). We were ordered to sit where they wanted us to, given life vests, asked our destination and off we went. I wasn't feeling too confident in our 2 skippers, who looked to be anywhere from the ages of 16-20. They both had a seedy look about them and spoke zero English, or at least pretended that was the case. The ride was approximately 30 minutes of hell. These little shit kids decided to gun it across the southern South China Sea at full throttle for the duration of the ride, no matter current or wave size. This meant unfortunately for those of us at the front of the boat, that as the vessel went airborne then mercilessly slapped down on the water's surface, you bounced off your chair only to land painfully. One guy hit his head on the roof. My neck cracked on one of the particularly hard landings and hurt for the next three days. Nobody spoke. Everybody looked terrified. I sat in a deadlocked stare with the boat kid who wasn't driving. He shot me a maniacal grin every time he saw me wince at a hard landing. Then he took out his knife and started playing with it, a move that made me start laughing uncontrollably (the German guy saw it; everybody else thought I was nuts). Unless he had pirate friends nearby (actually, probably a possibility in these waters), if he had tried to use that knife on anyone, we'd all have drowned him and his counterpart in seconds. Nobody was enjoying being fucked with, which is exactly what these kids were doing.

Once at the islands, we were greeted by a tiny skiff with a motor and had to do a mid-sea transfer (actually it was probably only 25 feet from shore, but still somewhat deep) since the speedboat couldn't or more likely wouldn't make it all the way to shore. I felt relieved to be getting off the ride from hell until I saw our 8 year old new driver allow 6 of us to throw our 30+ kilo packs into the 4 person boat, then instruct all of us to climb on board as well. He proceeded to speed us to shore not without making 2 unnecessary and completely arrogant turns that drenched us all to the bone, passport and cash included. Luckily' I'd lined my bags with plastic before leaving, so my packed clothes and electronics remained dry. He then demanded 2 ringets from each of us. We all started screaming at him that we'd paid already and were simply not paying anymore, but then I saw all his older cronies on the beach and knew I was stranded here unless I ponied up. We all relented. He anchored the boat just far enough from the shore that we all had to wade, with our bags held high, through waist deep water to the beach. Drenched, hot, sandy and uncomfortable with bags strapped to both my back and front, I was getting more pissed off by the second.

Luckily one of the places (my 4th or so choice) had a room. They are called chalets here, and they are anything but. This was a bungalow, alright, but it certainly did not resemble anything like the cute ones that line the shore in Ortley Beach. This was a non-air conditioned, no screen structure that had a double bed, a mosquito net, and a bathroom. No hot water and no power between the hours of 7AM and 7PM. I was too exhausted to lug my bags anywhere else, so I signed on for a single night hoping that I'd make it through, and that some other accommodation would become available the next day. I should mention that these islands are thick, dense jungle right up to the beach. That means critters. Not my strong suit.

The walls were made of rotting wood and the room was sweltering. While there were no screens, there were bars on the windows, so I opened them and hoped my stuff wouldn't be stolen. I spent a few hours on the beach, took a cold shower and went to the hotel restaurant for dinner. None of these chalets have TVs, so most guest houses play movies around dinner time. I had the privilege of watching some Samuel Jackson & Ed Harris cop flick that I don't think was even released in the States, then went back to my room with fear. On the porch was some giant thing that looked like a wrapped, stuffed lotus leaf. I stamped my foot and it revealed wings to be the size of my head and flew off. Terrified, I opened the door to the room. Next to the bed on the wall were 2 giant cockroaches, frozen by the light. They were too big for me to even try to kill them. I kept tapping the wall until they crawled inside of the rotting wood, which didn't make me feel exactly relaxed. There was what I think is called a stick bug on the wall, something that looked like a leaf, and a couple of small geckos. It was way too hot to shut the windows, so I cranked the fan as high as it would go, crawled under the mosquito net, doused myself in enough Deet to kill small animals and texted my friends in horror until I fell asleep, with the lights on.

I had heard odd noises throughout the night, in the roof and below the floor. I assumed they were rats, and actually prayed that they would not enter my sleeping chambers. When I awoke the next morning, I discovered and entire family (and I mean mom, dad, uncles, 6 kids and grandma and her cousin) was living under my bungalow. There were pots and pans hanging from the foundation, a make shift hot plate/fire cooking area, a bamboo mat in the dirt. No wonder it smelled of sewage, I had been sleeping above a communal out house. I attempted to descend the porch stairs to be stopped by a mother washing her naked child in the faucet placed there for me to wash the sand off my feet. I said good morning and she looked at me like I was an alien. I wondered if I'd dreamed that I actually paid money to sleep here? Not to mention who were these tremendously unfriendly people living under my bungalow? Thieves, no doubt. There was a ton of theft on the island because all the locals knew all visitors had a ton of cash, as there are no banks. I locked up all of my belongings as tightly as possible and even wrapped them in duct tape when I went out.

I was pretty aggravated and had not slept very well. I went to breakfast and asked where the path to the other, less crowded side of the island was. Just as I got to the part where the dirt road narrowed and headed into the jungle, I was paralyzed by a giant monitor lizard – probably 3 feet long including its tail and a face big enough to bite my foot off – crossing right in front of me. Those things bite and are nasty. I waited until I heard it rustling around in the underbrush a sufficient distance away, and hurried across the island, really hoping to find a better place to stay for the next week, preferably with no surprise neighbors.