The Langkawi Scavenger Hunt - Telaga Harbour, Langkawi, Kedah State, Malaysia
Harmonie
Don and Anne Myers
Wed 9 Feb 2011 14:43
|
06:22.034S 99:41.096E
Oh the joy of provisioning the boat in a foreign country with
unfamiliar products, unfamiliar currency, scary rental cars, incomprehensible
parking rules, and bits and pieces of what's needed scattered over ten stores in
three towns connected by roads requiring one to drive on the wrong side, with
motorcycles and scooters zooming at you from all directions. The
whole thing made us a little teary-eyed over thoughts of
Wal-mart.
After dabbing our eyes, we got down to business. We
allotted ourselves one day to get the provisioning done once the boat was moved
from point A (Rebak Marina on tiny Rebak Island) to point B (Telaga Harbour
Marina on large Langkawi Island). Just one day to rent a car
and dash around the island to collect stuff, leaving enough time to stop
off at the customs, harbour master and immigration offices in the Langkawi town
of Kuah to check out of Malaysia. Doesn't sound like much, but in this
land of slow moving bureaucracy, long lunch hours, and tiny Chinese and
Malaysian shops with a strange aversion to proper signage -
all located in obscure spots around the island - we were worried
about the time.
So, here we go...
Move the boat from point A to point B.
On January 21, a short week after arriving back in Malaysia
from snowy Syracuse, we left Rebak Marina and puttered the quick five miles
to Telaga Harbour Marina on the west coast of Langkawi Island. We made
this move because provisioning the boat at Rebak requires
several extra steps - loading everything onto the small Rebak Island
Resort ferry, and then unloading it at the other end. Not so terrible, but
add to that the embarrassment of loading and unloading cases of wine and beer in
front of slightly scandalized and very Muslim resort guests (more than a
few completely covered in burkas), and well, we decided it was easier to
move the boat to a more convenient location.
 This is the very lovely, and nearly brand-new (rebuilt
after it was flattened in the 2004 tsunami) Telaga Harbour
Marina.  Rent a car.
We don't exactly know why, but every time we rent a car on the
island of Langkawi, it ends up being the personal property of one of the women
working in the marina office. This time, we were handed the keys to this
little number. It's not exactly what we would have chosen for a day of
provisioning given the shortage of storage space, but hey, it was only
about $18 for the day plus $5 for gas, and it required positively no
paperwork. We love rental cars with no paperwork - not even a license
viewing was necessary. After Don squeezed himself behind the 3/4-size
wheel, and I moved the still-wet toothbrush and tube of toothpaste off the
passenger seat, covered the wet splotch with a bag and shoved the kids
flip-flops and ladies shoes out of the way, we were
off.  Stop 1 - PL Soon Huat Supermarket.
Rumored to carry some imported goods not found elsewhere,
we decided this was the best place to start. Four cases of beer, a case of
tonic, a case of water, seven packages of tortillas, several bags of frozen
shrimp, New Zealand hamburger and a prized two kilo block of New
Zealand cheddar cheese later, and we decided we'd better zoom back to the
marina to drop the stuff off since the car was pretty much full and the
frozen meat was melting in the 95F heat. Not a bad haul for our first
stop, especially considering the general lack of organization and mounds of
clutter Don had to negotiate the shopping cart around. After paying with
cash (no credit cards accepted), we mashed everything into our go-kart car
and zoomed back to the marina (as much as you can zoom in a go-kart car,
driving on the wrong side of the road through small towns and on narrow
curvy roads through mountain foothills). Stop 2 - Clear out of Malaysia
After dumping the stuff purchased so far on the
boat, we decided it was probably best if we drove straight to Kuah to clear
out of the country before the bureaucrats decided it was time for lunch.
Lucky for us, we made it with ten minutes to spare, and cleared customs, the
harbour master and immigration with no trouble.
Stop 3 - Billion Duty Free
While Don hovered outside with the car because the parking
rules at this particular 'mall' (a collection of stores arranged in some
semblance of mall-ishness) are incomprehensible, I scurried in, in search of
cheap booze. I found it. There are definitely advantages to keeping
the boat in a duty-free place like Langkawi where the good vodka is
$10/liter.
Stop 4 - Billion Duty Free Supermarket
Same 'mall' as above. I scurried in, this time after
fruit juice, cereal, paper and cleaning products. Done.
 Stop 5 - Pastry Pro
Ahhhhh....things started getting really interesting.
This little gem of a 'store' (really a mini warehouse) houses everything you
might want to buy for the purpose of baking. From the outside, the place
looks like a small office with desks and filing cabinets filling the
window. Once inside, we were whisked to the back where all
the impossible to find baking ingredients are stacked on metal shelves in a
cooled walk-in storage room. It felt like we were doing a
drug deal back there instead of our much more innocent purchase (cash
only, please) of walnuts, chocolate chips and dried apricots in bulk.
They had everything except plain flour. Go
figure.  Stop 6 - PL Soon Huat Warehouse
More commonly (and lovingly) known to boaters as, "The
Warehouse". Presumably owned by the same Chinese family that runs the PL
Soon Huat Supermarket and several other Langkawi-based PL Soon Huat retail
outlets, The Warehouse is exactly that - a warehouse. It services all
the PL Soon Huat stores, but with the added benefit of selling wine and
spirits direct to consumers like us at warehouse prices. Above is a
picture of the general warehouse and the check out counter where I was paying
our wine bill (cash only, please). The wine is kept in a super-secret,
semi-cooled room off to the side. The path to the wine room winds
around stacks of booze and lower-priced wine, and ends at a
huge sliding steel door. Roll the door back and turn on the lights,
and pow! you are faced with floor-to-ceiling stacks of wine cases assembled
in no apparent order. Wow. We knew what to expect this time around
since we had done a recognizance run the week before, but it was still
overwhelming. Wines are in mis-matched boxes, prices are not marked, and a
French white is stacked next to a Chilean red - or sometimes in the same
box. Enter the Chinese wine lady. She generally keeps all the wine
prices and locations in her head (although she did refer to the computer when it
came time to pay the bill), and is a general fount of knowledge when it comes to
wine and what we might like. Not so different from the Penang Tea Girl, we
thought. She asked what we liked and how much we wanted to spend and
proceeded to make recommendations, which allowed us to pick out
four mixed cases of wine in record time. Being careful to charge
us no more than what we specified as our top limit per bottle, almost every wine
was a, "special price" accompanied by "I give you a discount, hey?" (she
had definitely spent a lot of time in Australia, based on the accent).
Yup, The Warehouse - definitely high on our list of scavenger hunt
stops.  Stop 7 - McPhee's
Or McThieves as some boaters call it - but when they have what
you desperately want, the price becomes almost irrelevant. Another tiny
office-front shop like Pastry Pro, McPhee's is run by a Muslim Malay family who
imports very, very hard to find produce, frozen meats, berries, cheeses and
other processed foods from Australia. As you can see in the
picture above, their stock is slim, but precious. On the shelves are
crackers, good pasta, olive oil, yogurt mix; in the walk-in fridge, avocados,
lettuces and twenty varieties of cheese; and in the three chest freezers,
berries and meat.  We chose 15 packages of yogurt mix, a kilo of frozen
raspberries and what chicken they had (a few packages of thighs and
drumsticks). While we paid (cash only, please), the store clerk
asked where we were going, when we would be back, and then surprised us by
saying, "I wish I could travel the world like you do! Instead, I am stuck
here!". Surprising, because most of the Muslim women we interact with
are quiet, appear timid and not outspoken at all. We're not sure whether
this is a cultural thing or an inter-cultural thing (meaning they don't
say much to foreigners). I'm sure we'll see the McPhee's girl
again during our next Langkawi Scavenger Hunt in preparation for Season
Five in the fall.  Stop 8 - Lucky Frozen
As opposed to Unlucky Frozen? Not sure. Anyway,
this is the place for frozen Australian beef. Another office-front shop
with one small freezer and a back room. We ordered and received eight
frozen sirloin steaks and after paying (cash only, please) at the desk, we were
on our way - Scavenger Hunt complete.  Unloading the go-kart car back at the
marina. Eight stops and eight hours later, we returned the go-kart to
its rightful owner and spent the next several hours stowing everything in
its rightful place on board. We sank a bit on the waterline, but
nothing like we were when we left Darwin last year stuffed to the gills.
After all, we are only going 150ish miles to Thailand and back this season, and
you can buy just about anything in Thailand....just not at Malaysian duty-free
scavenger hunt prices.
Next up - off to Thailand.
Anne |