Day 15 (14/04/08): Kota Bharu, Malaysia
Fabian had left the day before, so I spent the lasty night in the bungalow by myself. There are no ATM's on the island, so my last night was also my quietest, as I had no money to spend on anything. I was sad to be saying goodbye to my home of the last week, but all travellers in the area are making a beeline for the Thai Island of Koh Phangan. The full moon was approaching, and on the night of the full moon Phangan hosts the biggest beach party in the world, in excess of 20 000 people! And that is where we were all headed.
I caught the boat back to the mainland with a Canadian called Anna, who I had met a few days before. Back on the mainland, we unsuccesfully waited for the bus, before catching a taxi to the main town of Kota Bharu. Now that we were out of the sand, I tried to have a healing session for my toes. Several of my toes had raw abrasions, where ill fitting snorkelling flippers had rubbed them raw. They wounds weren't healing on the island, as they were always wet and covered in sand. I went to a pharmacy and got some bandaids, cleaned all the wounds, disinfected them and covered them up.
There isn't much to do in Kota Bharu, so Anna and I met up with an English girl, Siona who we met at the bus stop and was staying at the same hostel. We walked down to the night market and I ate some very good barbequed meat on a stick. We all felt like a beer, but finding a beer in a heavily muslim town can be quite hard. We kept our eyes open for a chinese restaurant, the standard souce of beer. We eneded up finding not only a chinese restaurant, but also a very nice lounge bar as well, complete with couches, disco ball and a dart board! What started as a quiet beer, turned into several and we had a great time just chatting about all sorts of things. The bar started to fill up, all middle aged chinese businessmen, and we noticed that the waitresses, all Chinese girls, were very friendly to the customers. So friendly in fact, that we soon realised that the girls were selling more than just beer to the old chinese men... We felt left out, because we were getting none of the attention all the other bar patrons were. Maybe it was because Anna and Siona were the only female customers in the place.
About midnight we went downstairs and got some food to soak up the beer. We chatted to a Japanese guy we had met at the bus stop, and he told us how we had been travelling for the last fifteen years or so, and didn't want to go back to Japan. His english was very good, and it turns out he even lived in Christchurch for a year!
We walked back to our hostel in the early hours of the morning, very happy that we had managed to create a great night out of nothing!
Fabian had left the day before, so I spent the lasty night in the bungalow by myself. There are no ATM's on the island, so my last night was also my quietest, as I had no money to spend on anything. I was sad to be saying goodbye to my home of the last week, but all travellers in the area are making a beeline for the Thai Island of Koh Phangan. The full moon was approaching, and on the night of the full moon Phangan hosts the biggest beach party in the world, in excess of 20 000 people! And that is where we were all headed.
I caught the boat back to the mainland with a Canadian called Anna, who I had met a few days before. Back on the mainland, we unsuccesfully waited for the bus, before catching a taxi to the main town of Kota Bharu. Now that we were out of the sand, I tried to have a healing session for my toes. Several of my toes had raw abrasions, where ill fitting snorkelling flippers had rubbed them raw. They wounds weren't healing on the island, as they were always wet and covered in sand. I went to a pharmacy and got some bandaids, cleaned all the wounds, disinfected them and covered them up.There isn't much to do in Kota Bharu, so Anna and I met up with an English girl, Siona who we met at the bus stop and was staying at the same hostel. We walked down to the night market and I ate some very good barbequed meat on a stick. We all felt like a beer, but finding a beer in a heavily muslim town can be quite hard. We kept our eyes open for a chinese restaurant, the standard souce of beer. We eneded up finding not only a chinese restaurant, but also a very nice lounge bar as well, complete with couches, disco ball and a dart board! What started as a quiet beer, turned into several and we had a great time just chatting about all sorts of things. The bar started to fill up, all middle aged chinese businessmen, and we noticed that the waitresses, all Chinese girls, were very friendly to the customers. So friendly in fact, that we soon realised that the girls were selling more than just beer to the old chinese men... We felt left out, because we were getting none of the attention all the other bar patrons were. Maybe it was because Anna and Siona were the only female customers in the place.
About midnight we went downstairs and got some food to soak up the beer. We chatted to a Japanese guy we had met at the bus stop, and he told us how we had been travelling for the last fifteen years or so, and didn't want to go back to Japan. His english was very good, and it turns out he even lived in Christchurch for a year!We walked back to our hostel in the early hours of the morning, very happy that we had managed to create a great night out of nothing!
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