Perhentian

Holiday Time
The Ramadan has come to an end two weeks ago, this was very beneficial for me in several ways. First of all, I was able to get pork meat again all over the city(happy days), all Mamaks (road restaurants) were open for business again and the best part is that the Raya(Festival of breaking the fast) would be celebrated, which comes with two days off. Because I’m not religious in any kind of way I didn’t have to spend my time praying, and because I don’t have any family in Kuala Lumpur I didn’t have to spend my time with celebrating Raya and eat myself sick for 4 days in a row.

Oke, so I had some time to spare, what to do with it? Hhhmmm, think think think, GOT IT!! Let’s go on a trip to one of the awesome islands that Malaysia has to offer. After some short research the preferences went out to Perhentian, a group of islands located at the east coast of Malaysia. Reviews were telling me that the sea was as blue as the purest blue eyes and the beach as white as an average citizen from Great Britain ‘PERFECT’. I shared the idea with my highly appreciated colleagues and two were willing to join me on this trip. My colleagues(highly appreciated) took care of the booking and figured out how to get there, the planning was almost perfect but there was one flaw. We didn’t manage to book a room on forehand, ‘Fuck it, we will sort this out when we get there(WARNING: ‘this way of thinking will get you in trouble’).

Mistake after Mistake after Mistake
Our flight(which was even cheaper than an average flight from Ryanair, VIVA LA Air Asia) would leave at 8.00AM on Thursday, we would leave home at 5.30. Because Wednesday was the last day before the Raya would start, some people working at MediaCliQ decided to have a couple of drinks to celebrate the holidays. Social as I am I didn’t want to let it rain on their parade and decided to join the mini party(Mistake 1). The beers tasted like God himself brew them(with all the knowledge he has gathered over the last 2000 years) and the shots like…. Nevermind they still tasted as disgusting as they always do. But I was totally caught in the momentum. When the pubs had enough of us they closed their doors.

Paul(highly appreciated colleague) had the idea to keep on going at his place. This idea resulted in me screaming ‘Alright lets go for it’(Mistake 2)!!!! We ended up at this place, drinking Bacardi, playing the guitar, singing songs and doing some evaluation about life itself. Perfect evening/night but time was ticking away. Before I even realized, it was 5.00AM’Dammit, I have to catch my flight’! I took a quick shower, grabbed some stuff which you take to a sunny beach(mistake 3) and went off to the airport. All went very smooth, even without sleep, and surround by a smell of alcohol, until I realized I forgot my towels(don’t gather your suitcase after a heavy night).

WAUW!!!
Arrived in Perhentian without towels I was amazed by the beauty of this island, the reviews didn’t lie. Water as blue as the purest blue eyes, a beach as white as the average British citizen, all of this surround by a green jungle. WAUWWWW!

Too bad this beautiful surrounding didn’t help me at all with the hangover that was starting to get through. The first thing we needed to do was get a place to sleep, this shouldn’t be too bad. We went from hotel to hotel to hotel and they all told us the same thing ‘Sorry we are fully booked till the end of August’. This made it very clear that a chance on a nice place to sleep was a luxury which wasn’t offered to us.


Plan B
Let’s go for plan B, We will sleep on the beach, that sounds awesome and is something that’s still on my bucketlist. We enjoyed our day on the beach, even though I slept have of the day, grabbed some food and chilled till the night kick in. We figured it all out, we would grab some beach seats, put them together, use the towels(not mine) for a bit of comfort and sleep on the beach. This plan worked out for about half an hour and them it started raining really really bad. There were no places for shelter on the beach at all except one diving shop that had a veranda in front of it. Because we were out of options we decided to sleep over there on the concrete. This was still alright even dough it was really cold(since I packed for a sunny beach) and we were sleeping on the concrete, at least we were dry. But as I told before, the beach is surround with an amazing jungle, this amazing jungle comes in a full package including komodo dragons, snakes, mosquitoes and cats apparently. This knowledge doesn’t make the sleeping more comfortable. Lucky for us we only got confronted with cats and a shit load of mosquitoes. Too bad the mosquitoes were enough to make the night unbearable, I’ve heard BBBBBBBBZZZZZZZZZzzzzz the whole night and for every mosquito I killed(mistake 4) his whole family came back to take revenge. I’ve been scratching for two weeks thanks to that night. That night I decided to torture every mosquito that comes in my way by burning them or by drowning them from now on till the end of my days.
In the end we survived the night without being eaten by komodo dragons or being strangled by snakes, not too bad.

A helping hand
The second day it rained the whole day and I was still cold because I’ve packed for a sunny beach. We decided to go back to the main land to grab a hotel over there or to reschedule the flight and go home. But then God decided he messed around with us for far too long and gave a helping hand.
Three Italians came to us for a quick chat and they told us that they were leaving but still had their room. They asked us if we were willing to take over their room. ‘YES of course, for you guys we are willing to do this’. YESYESYES, we had a room and could finally enjoy the last two days of our holiday even dough the weather wasn’t that sunny as expected, I’ve enjoyed every minute after we had a room.

Some travel advice
- Don’t drink before you go on holiday, just go home
- Keep sleeping on the beach as a second option, but make sure you have a room to run back too.
- Talk with Italians
- Don’t say YOLO to much because the guy above will test you.
- Kill every mosquito that comes in your way

ByeBye ;-)

Yours Truly,


Robert