It is really quite some place. But what is it? Freddie's place isn't really a resort as that implies swimming pools and massages and wall to wall Bob Marley songs. No Freddie's is a collection of bamboo based bungalows nestled into a cliff side with a path leading to white sand and a windswept beach. More about that soon.
It took a sort of long and short time to get here though. My school was closed on Friday for part of the Chinese New Year holiday, but Lexi's wasn't. That left me with the main job for that day of packing stuff and buying new school trainers for Trixie. Her feet, herself, her older hairy brother and I set off to do that and succeeded relatively easily at the second shop. Our biggest challenge of the outing though was what to do with the posh car-key that we found on the ground outside Mont Kiara Plaza. We thought for a while and dithered. There was a police station across the road and so we instantly decided not to hand the key in there. That very office was one of the places I went to to try to pay a traffic fine and was met with a look of such incredulity and confusion that I left quickly. No, this was not a matter for the police. Our dithering continued until one of the parking attendants from 1 Mont Kiara Mall
came over and offered to look after it, as his booth was in a prominent position in front of that mall. That seemed like the best plan. Just in case the owner of a missing key is reading this the key clearly belonged to a Kia and had a small torch attached to it.
Packing complete we all set off this morning after an all too brief and slightly fitful sleep. The alarm had been set for 4.00am. The fear of oversleeping and missing all the planned connections always results in a bit of sleep anxiety with the end result being that you tend to sleep the best and deepest five minutes before the alarm goes off.
A key part of Lawrence early mornings is listening to the podcast of The Archers and today was no different. Lexi and I were both delighted that Pat effectively threw Ursula out of the Bridge Farm shop into the wintery weather. However the big question of where Rob is still remains.
Our booked taxi arrived right on cue and departed with us all in it smack on 5.00am. We arrived at the always bustling KLIA2 just before 6.00am, did the necessaries, then discovered that we had around an hour and a half to wait for our flight. It would have been Sod's law that if we had taken a bit longer to get up or slept for longer, to cut out some of the waiting then something would have gone wrong. So we had some calming down time and coffee time.
The 0755 flight to Banda Aceh all went well, but it did have a terribly rushed feeling as the crew charged around trying to serve pre-booked breakfasts and clear everything away in just 1.5 hours. My chicken curry breakfast went down well. It then took ages to get through immigration. Last year Indonesia removed the US$35 entrance ch.., sorry, visa on arrival fee, for people from non ASEAN nations. That has sped up things a bit, but only marginally. It still took an age to photograph us all and stamp our passports. Brsexiteers note: is this one of the things that you yearn to see happening at British borders?
Fortunately I had arranged some transfers with Freddie of Freddie's place and waiting for us at the airport was a lanky, smiling bloke clutching a piece of A4 paper on which was written "Robin." In a scene reminiscent of all good actions films he greeted us all with "With have very little time, Mr Robin, follow me quickly please." I accepted this statement at face value and once in his taxi we roared off at a speed that seemed to demonstrate exactly how little time we had. He would have made a terrible immigration officer roaring through the streets at 120km/p/h apologising for the lack of power in his car. Credit to the bloke: he did get us to the ferry on time, despite receiving a phone call to say that the ferry wanted to leave early so could we hurry up? Bless him, he did hurry up. His mate was at the port and presented us with tickets, which an official then took an age to tear before we boarded and set off. Are official
Indonesian uniforms infused with slow release sleeping draughts that reduce the wearers speed to glacial?
Nearly an hour later we arrived in Sanung port, on Pulau Weh, where we were collected by another taxi driver who this time drove at a speed that the ticket tearer and customs official would have approved of. Twenty minutes later we arrived.
Feeling like we had been through the wringer we greeted Freddie, a charming South African host and spent the next hour or so in our bungalows slowing down, or at least trying to reduce our average speed.
Before sampling lunch of fried noodles or fried rice and juices we had a quick listen to the opening of The Kermode and Mayo Film
Review podcast, another of the essential listens. For any non Wittertainment listeners this following section will make little sense, but the best thing to do would be to listen to the show from 20th January and 27th January on a the BBC five live website and also swot up on the code of conduct too. Moving on then Edwin's email to Messers Mayo and Kermode was read out by their bad selves to much amusement from the pair of esteemed doctors. They particularly liked the picture that the lad painted of consternation on his form tutor's face when Edwin handed him a packet of soft white rolls. The Good Doctors have advised the Mr Davies of Kuala Lumpur to write to them again to try to clear up the confusion. Needless to say Edwin was delighted to have had his email read out and chuckled over by a cinema critic and a broadcasting great.
After dining, and still seeking to slow our speed we had a walk and explore around the area before a rest and then dinner. Freddie had told us that dinner was a buffet arrangement at 7.30pm, so we agreed and smack on 7.30 we arrived in the sea view dining area to be faced with some of the best food I have ever munched through. Mushroom soup, fresh calamari and with sweet chilli sauce, tuna steaks served with mango salsa, cheesed and garlicky potatoes, rice, salad, tofu bean sprouts and an amazing sauce too. And followed by chocolate cake. The tuna had come from a 32kg beast from the local market, which Rupert who is also 32kg, but not a beast, particularly enjoyed. All this grub was a special value price of 65,000 rupiah per head, around £4.50. We will be having dinner here again.