Guess what? At the very same moment as now, the time I write this post, two weeks ago, I was laying on a hammock at Batu Ferringhi, Penang, Malaysia. Simply enjoy a breeze of fresh air from the fan, while listening to my Cousin A talks with an Italian guy, and two other Koreans.

I was on vacation!

But! before I told you about my first day in Malaysia, let’s start from the day before.

I was at my aunt’s, trying as hard as I could to finish half of project report for a competition, so I could send it to my friend to finish the other half.  Then after that try to sleep as comfy as I could, since I’m about to embark a very special journey.

The next day, April 16^th 2013, was the start of my first adventure in 2013. It’s my first time stepping my foot in neighbor country, Malaysia. Plus, It’s also my first trip with my Cousin A alone. No parents, no aunts, no friends, no tour guide, no tour participants, just the two of us; backpacking.

But at that night, I was really immersed on the report so I can’t really prepare the trip as I planned.  While I normally check everything once again at the night before. This time I can’t. Same thing happen with my Cousin A; trying to finish her work before this 1-week vacation.

Good news is we already booked flights months before and hostels weeks before. The essentials are secured, but other than that, we’re open to any possibilities. So here we are, two young ladies, embark a journey with countless uncertainty.

 

DAY 1 -  from Surabaya to Penang

Well, our flight to KL was at 2 pm, so we decided that going to the airport at 11am would be just right, since it takes about 35 to 45 minutes to reach the airport from our aunt’s home.

All my bags are packed and secured, camera charged and wrapped inside the camera bag, my ducil doll is wrapped inside a ziploc and vacuumed. Basically my preparation are finished, all I need to do is cutting some stickers which is I’m thinking of bringing to Malaysia and probably give away to some people I met on the way, or simply stick it somewhere, just to left some proof of existence.

*left : ducil inside a ziploc + vacuum. right : sticker design*

Taxi called and came at 11, we were leaving to the airport. Everything went quite smooth, except at the middle of the highway my Cousin A suddenly said, “ I think I left our Malaysian Ringgit at my other backpack at home! ”  D*MN, we’re doomed! How could we survive a week in Malaysia without any money in hand? Sing or dance on the road to earn money? Or put ourselves inside a cartoon box ? Good news is that we still have enough time to go back home. So, to secure our flight, we decided to split up, I will do the check-in for both of us, and Cousin A, will ride the taxi back home and then bring back the money + pommelo + breads.

Our flight to KL went fast and smooth. The sky was really blue and the cloud was misty (?). The cloud looks like a cotton candy that left outside for a long-long time; it’s not fluffy at all.

*view from the sky. left : land from above. right : clouds… somehow looks like snow isn’t it?*

Stepping foot on KL for the first, I was following my Cousin A from behind. Until suddenly “Snap!”, my Cousin A said her sandals was broken, and that’s because I’m step on it, which is until this day, I can’t understand how and when I step on her sandals because I don’t feel like stepping on anything other than the ground itself. But let’s just believe her story for now.

*the ‘sandal dendeng kiri’ is officially dead (dendeng: beef jerky, kiri: left, so sandal dendeng kiri means : left beef jerky sandals)*

 

Hungry and exhausted after unexpected event before and after the flight. My Cousin A is longing for Indian food. So, she ordered some food and lassi for us to share.

*Yaaay! My first Indian food ever. Mango lassi was nice, masala lassi was terrible for me, luckily the food is also nice. It’s only that the portion is a little bit to big for me (smaller portion please (><”)!).*

Few hours after that, we’re off to Penang. But, just before boarding to the plane, the stewardess actually stopped me and said, “Do you have another ticket?”. And I said , “What? This is the ticket and it has my name on it. What do you mean by another ticket?”. It turns out that the ticket that I give to the previous officer, and eventually got ripped off was the ticket for my return trip.

Disaster ! It was a mistake, but it turns out not really fatal, since I’m actually have the ticket and, I have another copies of the return ticket, which is I eventually didn’t fly back from Penang to KL using plane but we will use bus from Cameron highland.

Long short story, our peculiar day is not end yet. Arrived at Penang, we planned to take the bus to Batu Ferringhi. However the bus takes 2 hours from airport to our lodge. So, if we take the bus,  by the time we arrived at the lodge it was probably midnight already. In the end we decided to take some private taxi, which cost us 10 times more expensive.

On the way to our hostel, we have some small talks with the driver. It turns out that he actually used to work in Korea for few years. He said the pay was good, he actually wants to stay there longer but his wife asked him to come back.  He actually reminds me a bit about my Korean days. I wasn’t there for work but I have a lot of friend who actually works there, so I know how good the pay is, especially when the currency was high.  Fuuuh~ He remind me how I miss korea, and all the people who blabbering in Korean to me.

Forty five minutes later, we arrived safely at our first lodge which is ‘Lazyboys Guest House‘.

* top left : mural on the side of hostel. top right : me and ducil on the hammock. bottom from left to right: alley, our room, lobby, our bathroom inside our room *

It was a cozy hostel near Batu Ferringhi night market. We stayed at a room with double bed and bathroom inside. The price was very reasonable and we liked it. It’s only that we don’t get any breakfast and there’s no sink inside the bathroom so we have to use the shower for rinsing the mouth and toothbrush after brushing teeth (it turns out that the sink is actually outside, not really far from our room).

So we don’t do much of adventure that night. We only walked around the night market; grab some quick snack and then talks with others at the hostels.

Well actually my Cousin A is the one who talks with them, especially because they talks about American/ European stuff which I don’t really understand. Even though two of them is actually Korean guys, but they were educated in America.

So that day, I became a quiet listener. Until I feel sleepy enough, and decided to go to bed.

To be continued on day 2… Stay tune!