International Relationships

As you can tell from previous posts, my sister and I left the city of Kuala Lumpur one weekend and went to the beach. The island is called Penang, and it was amazing. The water was not a magical blue or anything, but the weather was cool, and we were at a resort that overlooked the horizon. We were relaxed, young, generally good looking, and with much free time.

After various hand stand contests and bed jumping, my sister, her roommate, and I decide to be a tad more adventurous than 12 year olds and do some water sports. Meg, my sister's roommate, confidently chooses wake-boarding even though my sister and I wanted to do the banana boat. The banana boat is a wonderful thing because it requires no skill. Here is what it would look like:

No, we wake board, and it looked mostly like this:

It is actually a more interesting story than just sucking. It is a story of the Malaysian people and Americans acting like asses. The three of us excitedly sign up for our ride and, stupidly, pay for it in advance. We flirt with the half naked workers of various levels of attractiveness for laughs, and order a few more beers for the boat ride. The workers ask us for beers, and we honestly promise them a round if they make sure we have a good time.

We then suit up in our life vests and walk toward the boat beers in hand. The workers set up the boat and then tell us NOT to get on right away. We chat excitedly while the workers do something else. After about 10 min we ask why we are waiting. They laugh, say "No problem", and tell us to take a swim while we wait. 10 more min pass, and we notice them setting up the parasail. We say "We didn't sign up for the parasail." They laugh and say "No problem". We then get annoyed. We return to the water, and then get yelled at for swimming. We are confused because they told us to swim. We notice that they are setting up the boat to parasail people who came after us. We are pissed because they did not tell us, nor did they warn us. We look like idiots floating in out vests drinking our beers.

At this point a rather attractive worker with out a shirt. He tells us that we will get double time because we waited so long. We honestly didn't care about the wait; we just hated not being told what was going on, so we agree and sit on the sand watching people parasail. It was kind of nice.

We then wake board after waiting about an hour. My sister sucked. Meg was awesome. I sucked. They then turn to the shore. We all demand that we get our full time, and argue that we get half time. Honestly they wanted to go in before our regular time was up. I, from the middle of the water, shout that I will get my full time. They give us one more attempt. Then they leave me in the middle of the water, and drive the boat into shore. I am floating about 40 yards out with a wake board attached to my feet feeling well- I was feeling abandoned.

I awkwardly swim to the shore, and the boat is setting up for more parasailors; I only assume that is the big ticket water sport. Meg argues with the people that we were supposed to get half time. She gives up. I, with my loud teacher voice, bellow that they left me in the middle of the water. It was embarrassing for all around. Needless to say, we got half of our money back.

Americans are ass holes, and Malaysians have terrible customer service. If you travel to that country know this: they hate loud noises. Yelling will get you anything!