After finally making it to KL, I was dead tired. In my haste to make a speedy departure from Thailand, I had accidentally left my passport at the reception desk in the hotel at
Raiely Beach. Maybe it was because I hadn't been getting enough sleep. Maybe it was because I was hungover. Maybe it was because I smoked the last of my stash that morning so I didn't have anything on me when I did the boarder crossing into Malaysia. I don't know. But when I got near the boarder I figured out what I'd done and was not exactly pleased with myself. My friend Nick Ritchie who I hadn't seen in over three years had booked me my own suite in a five star resort through his company free of charge in
Kuala Lumpur and I was going to miss out. To top everything off, I'd made friends on the bus with two lovely British girls who were on the way to KL and the whole time I was bragging about my accommodation and how my friend and I would love to go to dinner with them that evening. Sometimes life just isn't fair.
When I finally got to KL two days later, (oh yeah, Matt took my passport six hours north with him to the island of
Koh Pa
Ngan and then mailed it to the boarder town which is why it took so long,) I felt like shit. I snapped off a few quick photos of myself in front of the twin towers and the needle to make it look like I'd really got the KL "tourist experience" and then I hopped on a bus to the town of
Kuantan which is on the east-coast of peninsular Malaysia to meet Nick.
Ladies and gentleman, this........is Nick Ritchie! I have known Ritchie for years, we attended the same summer camp and clawed our way up the staff ranks together. He is a gem. This is his massage chair which he spends most of his time in when he's at home. I was told to be especially honored because normally he doesn't wear anything at all when in this chair. Thanks Ritchie.
And this is his pad.
It's okay......... I guess.
This is Ritchie's beach. He has been living here for two years and assured me that one day he would actually visit the beach.
This is his pool.........is there a lot of money in the oil business or something?!? Ritchie is the manager for a Canadian owned oil company. I'd be lying if I could give you a complete job description but the gist of it is he's in charge of all the pipe coating for the lines that are run out in this area of the world. While I realized that Ritchie did still have a job to do for the first three days of the week, I really didn't give a shit and made him take me out every night. When we got back from our little outings, I would pass out on the couch and nick would flop into his bed. A couple of hours later, Ritchie would get up, shower, usually puke in the toilet, and then leave for work. He was a lot more fun at night. Right before he was about to head out the door and drive to the office, I'd usually drop a comment somewhere along the lines of, "Would you shut the fuck up?!? I'm trying to sleep!!!!" Or I'd do something like roll over on the couch, stumble into his room, flop myself down on HIS bed, throw on a porno movie and scream at the top of my lungs, "have a GREAT day at work buddy!" Like I said, Ritchie was more fun at night. We spent the majority of our evenings at this one little strip where we'd get wasted with his pipeline crew, (some of which looked like they ate thumb tacks for lack of anything better to do,) and usually ended up at a fast food joint before calling it a night. My favorite memory was when after about a dozen beers Ritchie threw up off the balcony of this one bar and then proceeded to drive us home in the company car. We made a quick stop at
McDonalds as Nick was a might peckish and 50
ringget later, (that's around $40 US,) we
lugged a garbage bag full of
McCrap up the stairs to his apartment.
We'd ordered every sandwich on the menu because Ritchie insisted that I tried the Malaysian
McDick's sandwiches to better culture myself. Also 20
McNuggets, two large orders of fries and two fountain pops. It would have been three fountain pops but I accidentally spilt one all over the hood of his car as I was getting out in the parking garage.The next morning even before I opened my eyes I knew I had the '
ol McStomach Ache. Thankfully I'd removed most of the debris and put it on the other side of the room the night before because I knew if I rolled over and got a whiff of that shit there would be an additional six combo meals for the maid to scrape up off the floor. The maid by the way, was none to impressed with me when I opened the door at about nine that morning scratching my ass, wearing only my boxers and smelling like a deep fryer. Ritchie decided to give her Saturday off anyway as we felt it was time to cause havoc elsewhere for awhile.
On Thursday morning we threw some stuff in a bag and piled into the car.
Road trip baby, YEAH!!!
We had decided earlier that week to head down the coast to the town of
Mersing and catch the ferry over to
Tioman Island.
Mersing is like Hollywood........only not.
The boat ride was pretty uneventful. There were no girls on the ship and the air-conditioning system was set to "make snow" so we just hung out on the bow with the captain and the crew.
And took pictures of our gorgeous selves.
After we got to the island we had a quick bite to eat and then it was time to do some scuba diving!
Ritchie was all excited because a friend of his from work had given him all of his dive gear because he didn't use it anymore. Here's Ritchie checking his dive watch. A dive watch is a device that begins to operate the second it hits the water. It helps you time your dives and shows you things like depth and water temperature. Ritchie was absolutely enthralled by this device and would refer to it constantly throughout the trip whether he was wearing it at the time or not.
After we went over a few quick instructions and a brief run over the hand signals it was time to plunge into the deep.
Sweet!
Ritchie also managed to get a hold of a dive camera and between our sense of mischief and total lack of attention span we had an amazing time!
Here's me enjoying a breath of fresh air underwater!
Ritchie checks his dive watch.
Look! A sea spider!
Ritchie checks his dive watch.
A huge school of fish!!
Ritchie checks his dive watch.
Time for me to take a swim. And to contemplate how to drown Ritchie without the instructor noticing....
Ritchie was signaling me for something here. It probably had something to do with his fucking dive watch.
After a few dives we were back on the boat and headed to shore.
These things were all over the island and helped keep the stray cat population in check. The only bad thing was that once in awhile a half-eaten cat would get away and occasionally it looked like someone was filming a remake of "Pet Cemetery" under your table while you were eating at a restaurant.
I had been so wrapped up in the momentum of travelling that I forgot to focus on the little details once in awhile, like funnelling beer.
Nick had the record that night, under three seconds! That's the "
Shanonator" on the right. He was the dive master who was really cool until he started drinking and then he became a dick. You know those people who live on far away remote places, sleazily hit on girls, don't let the government know they're there, and probably are outrunning a rape charge back in their home country? Yeah, well this is what they look like at about forty-five years of age. I'm a strong believer in karma though, and when it comes back to haunt you it does so with a vengeance. The second night we were there he got hammered and ended up hooking up with this chick who looked like an extra from "Dawn of the Dead." I think my favorite quote from Shane was the following:
"I haven't been able to make it home for the last four years so this year my mom's paying for my ticket....." (then he looks at Rob, Nick, and I and says with enthusiasm,"..........RETURN!" Note: If my mother is paying for my ticket home for Christmas when I'm forty-five years of age please kill me.
This was the crew of people we partied with at night. That's Paula and Maja from Sweden and Alex from England. The first time we saw Team Sweden was the previous afternoon when they came into the Internet shack to use the computers but they were all busy. A couple of hours later it was dark out and we happened to see them hanging outside their guesthouse as we were biking by. I screamed out, "INTERNET'S FREE!!!" They jumped up with a start and had no idea who we were even though we'd secretly been eye-humping them all over the island. We biked down the path laughing out loud and promised ourselves to commence proper introductions the following morning. This night was a lot of fun, here are experpts from my two favorite conversations.
Ritchie: "Do you have Swedish Berries in Sweden?"
Maja: "What?"
Ritchie: "Do you know what Swedish Berries are?"
Maja: "No."
Ritchie: "They're delicious."
Crabby Bitch: "HEY!!! Don't throw your cigarette buts on the beach! Don't you know that one cigarette but can kill up to ten turtles?!?"
Nelson: "So you're saying if we ever have a turtle problem in Canada then I should just take up smoking??"
Crabby Bitch: "That's not funny!!! Those our MY turtles!" And he, (points at Ritchie,) shouldn't kill them!"
Nelson: "Yeah, but don't get so excited. When you consider how much oil his company dumps in the oceans each year then really those ten turtles are just a drop in the bucket aren't they?"
She left the bar at that point. Nothing pisses me off more than some eco-friendly, smart-ass, hypocritical tourist who runs out of money and decides to "be one of the locals" by getting a job for a few months. Just because your loud and broke, it does not grant you the god given right to claim that you grew up in the third world. It's called reality whitey, get used to it.
Apparently Ritchie claims these ladies are coming to spend a few nights with him in Kauntan............I would be lying if I said I didn't want to at least film it from a nearby closet.
We didn't want to over exert ourselves so the next day we decided to cancel the diving session when Ritchie's friend Rob arrived and to go deep sea fishing instead.
We didn't catch anything except a couple of red snappers in short-shorts.
This is the bait. It helped me get my line so tangled with Ritchie's that we couldn't fish for half an hour.
This is why Nick Ritchie and I our such good friends. Look closely at that picture folks.
Finally, it was time to say good bye to Tioman.
Nick and I were easily the most recognized/hated people on the island by this point so we felt our job was done and our presence was known. You could almost hear the whole island sigh with relief as our boat pulled away form the harbour.
Rob, Ritchie, and I parted ways at the boat terminal. Ritchie said he was going to church on Monday and that he was going to start concentrating on work and not drink so much. I told him to stop being such a pussy. He also said he had never been more glad to be rid of someone than me but I think he might have been at leat partly kidding. I caught a bus down to Singapore to finish the last leg of my trip and my final country!
