From the Cameron Highands to Langkawi in 10 hours

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Greetings from the tropical island of Langkawi in the very north-west of Malaysia!

Our last day in the Cameron Highlands consisted of very little owing to a severe lack of sleep the night before. Mosquitoes invaded our room at the Cameronian Inn and poor Glynn came off the worst with in excess of 20 bites covering his body, 5 of which were on his face alone. I was a little luckier bite-wise with only about 6 or 7 to call my own but neither of us slept all night. Needless to say that the notion of a jungle walk to end our time in the mountains wasn't a wise one. We were both grumpy and irritable and to top it off, we had run out of afterbite!

The Cameronian Inn will go down as one of our least favourite hostels in Asia. Every morning we were woken early by the sound of scraping plastic chairs which the staff insisted on placing outside our room to dry blankets on. Why they couldn't lift the damn things is beyond me. Mosquitoes aside, we also slept badly every night on the uncomfortable foam mattress. The electric sockets only worked on 1 of the 4 days we were there so we couldn't charge our batteries before we left and it was hard work trying to order breakfast as no-one was ever around to take your order. Even when we tried to pay for our room the night before we left, we had to ask a number of times for them to make up the bill. Add all that together and you'll understand why we didn't feel remotely guilty that they undercharged us by about 20 MYR.

Travelling to Langkawi was a pretty straightforward affair despite having to change transport a lot. Our bus left Tanah Rata at 8am and took us as far as Ipoh on the old road. It was a VIP bus for the first 2 hours of our epic journey but in Ipoh, we had to settle for a standard coach. Thankfully there was hardly anyone on the bus to our next changeover point, Alor Setar, so we commandeered a couple of seats each. I even laid out fully for a doze at one point with my legs on the spare seats across the aisle. It took 4.5 hours to reach Alor Setar, where the landscape had changed dramatically from the mountainous interior to paddyfield covered flatlands.

At the bus station we had a choice of waiting 40 minutes for a local bus (2 Ringgit each) to take us to the jetty in Kuah Kedah or we could pay 14 MYR for a taxi (they originally quoted 15 but then we saw the real price stated on the board, cheecky buggers!). It was hot and we were still exhausted from our lack of sleep so into the taxi we jumped.

To our surprise, the ferry port was really modern and a far cry from the fishing boat experience of Ko Samet. For 18 MYR we each got a seat on a large, crowded hi-speed passenger boat full of Muslim women in headscarves and Chinese men with knackered old sportsbags. We zipped across the water for over one and a half hours during which time we were treated to some rather surprising on-board entertainment in the form of a 2003 WWF Judgement Day wrestling video. Glynn sat completely rapt, not in the tv show but in the bizarre sight of all these Muslim and Chinese people glued unblinkingly to the screen. The world is a most unpredictable place!

Arriving in Langkawi ferry terminal was like arriving at the airport. It was modern and clean and just like a shopping mall. Our guesthouse owner, Zackry, was there to meet us outside Starbucks (is nowhere sacred?) and drove us across this bigger-than-expected island for the last 30 minutes of our long trip. We arrived at Zackry's Guesthouse at 6pm and after a brief wander up and down the road outside in search of food, we tucked in to some cup noodles and promptly fell asleep!

Just before I finish this blog, I hope you will all join me in wishing Glynn's dad, Keith, a belated Happy Birthday. We hope you had a lovely day. Sorry for not phoning yet - we promise to call soon!

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