Lankawiiiiiiiii

After 2 years I find myself again on Kao San Road sipping a Singha beer. Although Bankok isn't my favorite place it still feels good to come back to a familiar place. Knowing where you will eat and what you will need. Knowing the guesthouse you stay at. Knowing how to get around etc... I won't be here for long though since my group will arrive tomorrow. Yes, the backbacking life and freedom will be over for a few weeks.

After a brief visit to the Cameron highlands where the weather was cool and rainy and we did some walks and visits to a tea plantation, we decided that we'd had enough of the cold weater and were desperately in for some beach time again. We was still Nina, Sonia and me. Clive stayed behind in Cameron highlands. We traveled up North East to Lankawi, a tax free island just before Thailand.

Coincidence brought us to a chalet right next to the reggea bar, about the only place to go out at night on Cenang beach. Almost every night there was a band playing reggea and other music and on the first night we already got to know most band members and started to feel a bit like locals. We soon would become half locals because in the nine days that we stayed on Lankawi we spent nearly all evenings in the same bar, except for the nights that the band was playing on another beach. Most nights we stayed up till sometime between 2 and 6 am, at least that's me, Nina and Sonia broke the records by staying up till sometimes 7 or 8 or even not going to sleep. Since I don't like to sleep in in the mornings I was always up before 9 or 10 and after a week I started to get really tired. Now I am recuperating from a heavy 9 days of partying.

During the day we sometimes hung out on the beach right in front of the chalets, or we rented motorbikes and toured around the island to some nice pools and waterfalls and some great beaches. Thanks to Nina and her Australian army connection, we also got to know the Aseania resort. A more fancy place with a swimmimg pool and more important, a bar in the swimmimg pool. Some afternoons we sat there and drank the nice coctails that Oen (Owen) made us. We got to know Oen through Rachel and Debbie from England and Northern Ireland whom we became friends with and partied with. During the second part of our stay Sonia left us to go to New Zealand and after Debbie left, Rachel moved in with us in our, by then, cockroach infested chalet. Luckily we didn't spend too much time in there.

To make things short, it was a fantastic 9 days on Lankawi. I met great people and had lot of fun in the reggea bar. I felt that is was enough though and time to leave.

Now it's time for another Singa!