Pehrentian Islands

Im actually back from the Perhentians.
What is it with islands and everybody being asocial?
Not that I spent 4 days alone in a corner, but still.
Somehow people barely nod to eachother.
My explanation is this: you find yourself at a place where tourists form 98 percent of the population. The meager 2 percent of locals are tending shops and serving you food. Maybe you're lucky enough to have a fishing village somewhere. And they're clever enough to stay the fuck away from the beaches turned into diving factories. And still. The Pehrentian islands aren't what I expected. Far less developped than Koh Tao (Thailand) or Utila (Honduras). That precarious stadium where the only roads are the sandbays between chalets and infinite blue liquid. Paths cross the island, with lizards the size of this keyboard to keep you company. This and the locals are still nice. They barely try to rip you off because they probably don't feel ripped off by foreigners. Yet. Hmm, where does all my anger come from. I had a great time on the island. Oh right, why people are asocial. Because the main beach is simply filled with foreigners, that you don't feel like a traveller in a far away country. You feel at home and you start acting like it. The way I don't talk to strangers in my city. Not on the train, not on the beach. Whereas when you find yourself in some hole called Penang and you're barely blending into the local Chinatown and nobody's paying any attention to you (thus continously nearly-hitting you with their car) and you're the only white guy sweating more water than you remember drinking; when you are and you see another white person and the salty lakes underneath their armpits bares ressemblence, then you nod and you smile and you ask where they're from or headed and if they're hungry and what they think of the local food. And they might be your next travel companion at least until your paths fork and you go on to new adventures.

And that's why Im more than happy to spend my days underwater on diving islands where you cant talk to eachother anyway (if you'd want to) and the fish are more interesting than the loser with his baseball hat waiting for the full moon party to start up in Thailand.
So I dived. Three times actually. The first dive was clumsy and I had trouble finding the right buyoncy and keeping my mask from filling up and stuff. But we still saw plenty of fish and eels and stingrays and even a small catshark taking a nap underneath a rock. The second dive was way better and I managed to use my oxygen sparsely and we spent 56 awesome minutes breathing in, breathing out, breathing in... your brain shifts a couple of gears down. You still have thoughts, but they barely ricochet somewhere far, far in the distant synapses that form your consciousness. It's like your always present thinking self is bypassed and the thoughts going back and fourth skip your own person. The way your stomach digests food without your attention. You think:
Fish.
There.
Up.
More up.
Left.
Breathe.
Equalize ears.
Further away, you hear bits of your own voice. Something like Did I... key to... left money... later.
It doesn't matter.
You're floating and everything is in its right place and the perfect soundtrack to this moment is eternal nothingness the way Buddha must have hummed it underneath the Banyan tree.
Ok back to reality. I dived a third time to a ship wreck. That was great too. Many more fishes. More corals. Bamboo sharks. Still haven't seen turtles. People go snorkeling and they see turtles. Guess I'll snorkel next time. Hopefully up north in Vietnam.

Amd now I'm in Penang. Another island but the way Singapore is an island. Just a big city that happens to be surrounded with far from paradisiac beaches. One big chinatown with a small district called little india. Little India inside China. Sounds like Nostradamus's prediction for the year 2066. The future isn't bright. The future is too spicy for me to digest and yes I went for a Mc Donalds this afternoon. Because there isn't something called the code of ethics for travellers. And nothing says you HAVE to eat local food for 35 days straight. The same way nothing says you HAVE to be growing your own brand of mushrooms between your toes. And you SURELY dont HAVE to climb Mount Kinabalu with Havanianas. So I had McDonalds. A local hamburger actually, called the Grilled Chicken Rollover and you can't find it in the Netherlands so I guess I tasted the local culture just the same as last nights chicken tandoori that kept me awake in my dorm bed wondering if spicy food really keeps mosquitos away or if its just another travellers legend. The bites on my left earlobe say its a big pile of camel's crap.

Anyway my iPod is recharged and I bought this great book called The book of the dice and I'd ready to face the 22 hour train ride to Bangkok even though I couldnt find anybody crazy enough to be headed the same way I was (without stops) and I should load my bag with food too. But the book. The book from the same author that fucked up my mind with The Dice man. The idea to start living your life randomly, dictated by the two little cubes already famous in casinos. Now a weapon against confined lives of routined encounters with daily matters. People, it doesn't take a flight to Singapore for that. Dice men, rise and lead the way to higher whims.

Umpf

Tal