101 Challenges:

Location: Langkawi - Malaysia

Today we started and completed the Rice Revelations Challenge. At about 07:15am (otherwise known as silly o’clock) this morning, we pulled ourselves from our beds and, after a very quick fried eggs with toast and a coffee breakfast, we headed off to meet with Mark and get the challenge underway.

8am (not as silly as silly-o’clock but still bloody early when you’re on your holidays) and we found ourselves at the doors of the Laman Padi rice fields and at the disposal of the lovely Nor Farni who’s the manageress of the place.

She explained all the procedures of rice making and the history and traditions etc… we took as much of this in as we could before Lindsay inadvertently shouted that he wanted to have a go on the Water Buffalo.

With education time rudely cut short, Nor Fani took us out into the fields and we met the Rice People – them who make rice – and what a bunch of amazingly friendly and chirpy and chatty folks they were.

So… to cut a long story short, we attempted to plough some fields, planted some saplings out of line with the beautifully straight saplings the workers had placed, cut and thrashed some grown plants, sieved the padi, and grinded out some lovely white rice. Even though it was all educational – we had the time of our lives. Great fun, and God surely must be looking down at us with a smile – knowing that we’ve just put food in to someone’s belly. Maybe yours?

Apparently, the price of rice has risen 40% since March the 5th this year. After we buggered up 3 or 4 fields, expect it to rise another 3% over the next 3 months in Malaysia alone. Whoops.

Noon-time came and with it, so too did our arrival at Langkawi airport. After a very nervous pre-departure wait, Lindsay finally boarded our 3rd Air Asia flight in the last 2 weeks – holding tightly on to his older brother's hand.

Today’s in-flight music was mainly Pink – Get the Party Started and some more up-beat funky tunes. We sped down the runway and in typical 7-year-old-girly fashion, as soon as the front wheel of our 737 left the ground, Lindsay began screaming and sweating and jumping about. Very embarrassing for all.

There were a few judders on the initial incline but nothing out of the ordinary in Lee’s opinion (and the opinion of every other person on board) but to Lindsay…………………………………

About 18 minutes into the flight, whilst we were cruising in between the soft and snowy white and puffy cute clouds over the North-West of Malaysia we did indeed hit a bout of turbulence. Emphasis on the word “a”.

The stunning air-stweardesses were handing Lee  a cup of coffee when the plane hit a massive rock in the skies. There was a deafening thud and the plane jumped and fell about 50 feet in half a second. Everything went flying and Lindsay threw himself into the foetus position (for some reason this makes everything ok) across the three seats he had to himself – no one would ever dare to put themselves through the unnecessary torture of sitting next to the pathetic, child-like, sweating oaf. Here’s a plane. Oooooooh;

Lee was then given a cloth by the still standing, still serving and still smiling hostesses and after a little dry up of his fold-away table, he sat back to continue reading his lovely in-flight magazine.

Lindsay ran to the toilet – this is surely the safest place to be when a) the plane’s jumping about the skies – he’d have more room to bounce around and could extend his arms and legs to afford a more stable and secure position, and b) he’s about to p*ss and crap himself.

45 minutes after take-off and we landed safely in Kuala Lumpur. Lee remained inside the airport to collect our luggage whilst Lindsay ran out of it quicker than light itself for some prayer-time and fresh air.

We hopped onto a bus to KL central and for only 9RM each (£1.50) we enjoyed a 50 minute smooth and relaxing, grounded road trip to the city centre. As we were walking along the hustly and bustly streets looking for a room for the night, we were approached by a lovely lady who mis-sold us a great little room in the heart of KL. For only 80RM between us we were offered a fantastic twin room with air-conditioning, hot water, laundry, breakfast included, linen/towel/shower gel provided, internet access, cable tv on an LCD screen and amongst another 472 things, a dvd collection. Brilliant!

Unfortunately though, the hot water was a communal toilet/shower room, the laundry we never had the time to try, the internet access wasn’t installed yet, the lcd cable tv was in a shared living room and the dvd collection consisted of Dream Girls or Sex and the City. Naturally, we said yes to this abode for the evening and handed over the requested figure of cash – Dream Girls… we could watch that on repeat for weeks and still get mentally and physically excited.

In all fairness to the Paradiso (116B Jalan Bukit Bintang 55100) bed and breakfast hotel/motel/guesthouse/hostel? the staff were absolutely fantastic and the linen/towel/shower gel were just divine.