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I left Hua Hin at 9.15pm on the Thursday night and arrived in Hat Yai about 8am. On the way just before Surat Thani we had to go through about 3km of water caused by the major floods in the area. On the bus I also found out that the train would still not go all the way to Hat Yai for a number of days. After a little bit of searching I found a minibus direct from the bus station to the pier just out of Satun. Unfortunately I had bought a combined minibus and boat ticket so I ended up having to wait at the ferry terminal for about 3 hours to catch my boat. The crossing was very smooth and just over an hour later I was in Langkawi, Malaysia.

I shared a taxi to the main beach of Cenang with a couple of Swedish girls and quickly found a room at a cheap guesthouse. That evening I caught up with a very good friend of mine, Sheikh who I had worked with 10 years before in Ireland. The next day Sheikh and his cousins picked me up and we went to a waterfall on the other side of the island. There wasn’t a great deal of water falling but it was very refreshing to go in for a swim. On the way there we stopped off at Sheikh’s new restaurant which is located in the exclusive marina area, filled with multimillion dollar yachts. We stopped and got some local takeaway and then headed back to Sheikhs to eat and meet his wife and 2 month old daughter. Later on we hit some bars where I got absolutely smashed and ended up riding home with my head hanging out the car window. Sunday was a writeoff.

On Monday I changed guesthouses and met up with Nij and Thomas who I had met the previous couple of days through Sheikh. They were off to another waterfall and the cable car with a German girl Natasha and asked me to join them. First stop was Seven Wells waterfall which was very impressive even though it didn’t have a great deal of water . We enjoyed the spectacular cable car ride up the mountain which had great views of the island. At the top there is a curved bridge that is a little nerve racking to cross but offers further views. After this we headed for the crocodile farm which offered a couple of small interactive shows. There was a huge croc there that the trainers proceeded to walk over, lie on, and stick there arm into its mouth. Then we headed back to Sheikhs restaurant for dinner where I had a burger with the best meat I have tasted in a long time.

Thursday Nij, a couple of English girls, a local guy, and I hired a car and went to a couple of other beautiful beaches on the other side of the island. The first beach we went to was Pasir Tengkorak which was great for swimming with very clear water, soft sand, and no jellyfish (which can be a problem at Cenang beach).

On Friday Natasha, Nij, and myself went on an island hopping tour in the morning. We had a very nice boat ride to the first island where you could swim in the freshwater lake. Then we saw a lot of eagles swooping down to pick up some food that the boatmen threw in the water, and lastly we went to a very nice small beach for a swim before returning back to Langkawi for lunch.

I had imagined that Langkawi would be full of beach resorts and quite built up, but actually it is still quite undeveloped with plenty of forested areas and only a handful of places away from the Cenang beach area. It was also great for me to hang out with Sheikh and a few of the locals. I spent a total of 9 days there just relaxing and enjoying the laid back atmosphere compared to a lot of the Thai tourist areas and would love to come back in the near future.

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