This is an old post that was sitting around unfinished for a long time. It’s still unfinished. Posting it anyway.

I’m sitting in Kuala Lumpur International Airport. My girlfriend is sound asleep, headphones on, mouth adorably ajar. We’re waiting for our flight to Penang. Diagonally away from me, a white couple lie in their sleeping bags, also asleep. They look sleep deprived. They remind me of boys becoming men in the jungles of Tekong.

The couple wakes. The girlfriend mentioned earlier: moments like these are trying and tiring and all you want is home, but you look back on them as the best moments of your life. My mind drifts back to field camp. It’s 10:52 am. We still have 4.5 hours to our next flight.

It’s interesting, the idea of sleeping in an airport. I find myself thinking about what it’s like to sleep in airports all around the world. What we think, when we see someone sleeping in an airport. What an airport even is, really. Airports, train stations. They’re nodes of transit, little (well- not so little) hives of bustling activity. An airport isn’t really an example of “life as usual” for the average person on Earth- except maybe for those that work in them, and for a few hardcore travellers. For most average folk, it’s somewhere you go once in a while. Special occasions. The occasion is made special by the travelling. (Elaborate later you stupid cock)

We catch some sleep, get some rest. We drink some delicious smoothies at Boost Juice Bar. It was amazing, the perfect fill-you-up without getting bloated and making you feel super healthy and ready to take on the world! Or just sucky Air Asia boarding. The smoothies were also a bitch to drink while smoking because they made me feel guilty. (Such a juxtaposition of healthy and unhealthy! Life and death! Good and evil!)

We learn plenty about each other, although writing this now I can’t remember what exactly that was. (That’s funny, isn’t it?) Crazy craziness in the morning. (OH RIGHT.) Her doing the important stuff. How our minds work, how we function as a team, what our life together would be like. I want to marry this woman! I love who I am around her, and who I want to be when I am around her.

People are so friendly! Well, not everybody, but nobody’s particularly rude or nasty, and there’s enough friendliness to keep people happy. It’s self-reinforcing, sustainable, good, ideal. It feels fantastic to interact with strangers, to help them and to receive help in return. Life-affirming.

We met other travellers, too. A german guy with a Mongolian girlfriend. Reggae bar. Modified carrot cake. Friendly roadside stalls. MUFC burger. Bookstores. Chulia Heritage Hotel.

Toy Museum. Horseriding at Batu Ferrenghi- Rambo the Horse! The food, the gorgeous sunset.

Meeting David/Davud. Getting a massage in Batu Ferrenghi from a 22 year old German guy who came to Penang on a scholarship. Didn’t expect the massage to be good, but it was absolutely fantastic. Book and cover, etc. We had a fun chat throughout. His dad’s Muslim, and worked in the Embassy, his mum’s Christian, and a kindergarten teacher. His sister is a non-religious freethinker who owns a cafe. He plays video games but not World of Warcraft. “You spend so many hours to get a sword, you know?” No real friends!  He told us about men who tried to get jiggy with him. “Oh, you are gay?” to the Saudi man who asked for a blowjob while his wife was waiting outside. A gay Greek man.

We then put our feet inside a little fish farm sorta thing, and had the fish eat away the dead skin. It was incredibly ticklish and unsettling at first, but once we got used to it, it felt fantastic. There was a cute little girl who tried it too, and we had fun encouraging her. Little indian boy doing fantastic henna for people.

Missing the last bus, sharing a taxi with a Bangladeshi man who worked in a hotel. Had an interesting conversation with him about his past, his family, his work experience. Thoughts about how these people are normally kind of invisible to us, but h

Breakfast at Hotel Mingood.

Sleeping in each other’s arms for four nights in a row. Morning breath and crusty eyes. Can you please come and watch me bathe cos I’m scared of the creepy bathroom? Instant noodles, tomyam. Movies in bed with kokokrunch and milo. taking silly photos and doing whatever the fuck we wanted (like skipping all the tourist attractions). Damn good food! Beer in the random Chinese pub with Rachel the singer.