What Ho Chaps
14 December 2020
Stuart Letton
Remember our impotent, liquid Viagra fuelled outboard?
Well, we decided maybe we should get it looked at. Not in a Stuart kind of way; where, in an effort to fix some failed part or other I give said part a long and withering glare. Usually to no avail. Instead, I was going to pay, heaven forbid, an expert to look at it.
Our chosen engine medic had done a good job for one of the other cruisers, so, with a sound recommendation, we arranged to meet the mechanics on Kuah beach. We had to meet on the beach as the outboard is so heavy, any attempt to lift it is surely hastening a trip to the hernia clinic. Quite frankly, I’ve no idea how you lift it off the dinghy by man power alone without incurring bodily harm. In the end, it took three of us to get it off the dinghy, up the beach and onto the truck. The thing is, Honda put a wee handle on it as if you could lift it like a shopping bag. Their idea of a joke I guess.
Anyway, Honda despatched, we jumped in a Grab, Asia’s answer to Uber, and headed for the 99 Degrees South Golf Club for their advertised Christmas Fair.
Well, it was like stepping back in time, either twelve months or six decades.
The “golf club” was obviously where the UK ex-pats, or Border Rats as they’re otherwise known, gather for their afternoon Tiffin and G&Ts. Not that I ever been to one but from what I’ve read some of the “chaps” from the British Foreign Office circa 1930 or perhaps the Raj would have felt quite at home.
There was also a strange mind set in place with masks and social distancing nowhere to be seen. Plenty of mwaw mwaw, girly air kissing and manly hugs and folk not giving a fiddle-de-di
about that simply too boring disease that awful man Trump keeps going on about.
We felt like we’d landed in a scene from Downton Abbey. And about as comfortable.
We had a quick drink and left what might well become known as a Langkawi hot spot. And not for its night life.
Funny thing us, given it was an ex-Pat hang out we never met anyone who used to be called Pat.