Thanksgiving on Langkawi

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Well, after more than a few months with people, I find myself alone again this week (a little lonely, but it's also some good soul-searching time). This is just a short interlude before my friend Stacy from New York meets me in southern Thailand on Monday, the 2nd for 2 weeks.

Malaysia has been a tad disappointing after the rest of Southeast Asia. Perhaps it is the fact that it is Ramadan right now and the pace of life is slower in the day and consists essentially family-oriented eating extravaganzas at night. Perhaps that it is that Malaysia is a strange mix of Muslim and Western, developed and undeveloped and hurting for the tourist dollar. I'm not sure what makes it so uninteresting, but I feel like it doesn't put it's own cultural foot forward and it's hard to get a sense of it all. Together with Ingrid and partly with Alexandra, we hit Malacca, Kuala Lumpur and then Penang.

I left Penang on Saturday on the ferry for Langkawi (we stayed at the old Eastern & Oriental hotel -- a treat with it's sense of history and all the major 19th and 20th century world travellers who stayed there. Langkawi is a beautiful little Palm-tree covered island, but rather quiet, again. It is a tad more expensive than Thailand and the waters are not quite so clear, but I'm on a beautiful white sand beach and can't believe I'm actually complaining here! There are less facilities for the independent tourist -- I can't find a bookstore anywhere and am about to -- horror of horrors -- run out of reading material when all there is to do is lay out in the sun and read. I rented a scooter one day and took in the sights. (I was so desperate for reading material that I snuck into an upscale resort for lunch and sort of illicitly book exchanged 3 of my books for 2 of theirs, but they ended up with more than I took, so I felt OK about it as I think that's what guests were able to do anyway.) I did find the local beach bum bar, and with the duty-free status of the island, beer is about 80 cents a pop. That was the good, but I seem to be the only woman travelling alone here and turned into the hit among the local Malaysian long-haired surfer boy crowd. They seemed to turn up everywhere I was(breakfast, dinner, wanna rent a jetski? island hopping today?, etc.) and thus I checked out of my down-scale bungalow and headed for a more upscale resort a little outside of Cenang beach. I also wanted more to do and this place offered it -- cable TV, minibar, a pool, and phone in the room.

So for Thanksgiving dinner I had Kway Teow -- a local, pad-thai-type dish with noodles, hot peppers, chicken and shrimp and a good, cold Tiger beer. Thankfully, I was able to call the fam, get them to call me back and have nice long conversations for the first time in a while. I only started missing the big pig-out fest when I heard Mom making her stuffing on one call and that Chelsea was finishing up her crumbly apple pie on another. MMMmmm!

Happy holidays everyone. I can't believe my trip is coming into the home strech -- only 2 1/2 months left, but still the rest of Thailand, New Zealand and Fiji at least to go.