Advertisement
Published: March 28th 2009
Edit Blog Post
Langkawi - Malaysia.
We arrived during sunrise over Langkawi, very pretty and similar, although not as spectacular, as Halong Bay. It was a scorching day- 34 degrees. We had thought we had booked a fantastic island hopping tour to go on- supposed paradise beaches, simple surrounds and plenty of snorkelling. However, we went into our little pile of excursion tickets to find we had not got around to actually booking it! Gutted, we wanted to see the fishes!
Never mind, as we approached it looked a very pretty place and thought it would be nice to do our own thing. We had to wait for all those tour people to get off first and it was 9;30 before they put on the shuttle buses for us ‘do it aloners’. It was soooo hot as we arrived in the nearest town which its name escapes me. The bus stopped outside their largest shop- usual par for the course! We popped in and saw its nice products, but all too expensive.
We decided just to have a slow paced day and slowly walked down the main street which I thought was quite quaint, Murdo felt it was like a Toremalenas. One
horrid feature was its underground sewers which had big drain tops opening up in the footpath. So every few feet a strong smell wafted passed and up the nostrils.
The people were very friendly and helpful. The street was full of taverna’s, small touristy trinket shops and massage parlours. Not too busy as we were there out of their usual season.
I had thought for us to tackle the amazing perpendicular cable car they have reaching their mountain. Murdo on reflection had a gut feeling that this trip may not go as planned, as he felt my extreme fear of heights may just provide us with an unsavoury incidence. I couldn’t argue with a mans instinct and we opted to walk down the beach instead.
The beach looked lovely with its white sand. It must have had a recent storm as there was a lot of natural debris scattered over it. The usual beachy water sports adorned it, we were going to sample its delights but didn’t want to get all wet and salty so early on in the day! So we pressed on.
We were rapidly coming to the end of this small town and wondered what we
were going to get up to for the day. It was far too hot to just laze on the beach all day. Just as we got to its end we came across the Laman Padi rice museum. We thought oh well this will pass an hour! We went into this deserted place which on first sight looked very colourful and well organised institute. Well…..it was one of our better ideas as it proved to be a wonderful experience. We sat down to cool off after our wee stroll and were then approached by the tour guide. Oh no we thought, too hot to be bothered being herded around. What a misjudged feeling that turned out to be. He was polite, informative and enthusiastic. He took us around every inch of the place and taught us a part of their rich heritage and culture. Not only did we learn where rice came from, we tasted the delights of many fresh herbs that were growing there, sampled fruits we never had heard of, I had a coconut body scrub and Aloe Vera wash- both straight off the plants! I even had coconut earrings made for me. The water buffalo were cool- literally
-as they wallowed in their mud.
We decided to stay there for lunch and treated ourselves to a big slap up of a meal. I had Tai duck-which was supposed to be only a half portion but turned out to be the equivalent of about 4 back home portions! Never mind I ate it all up! Murdo had a chicken curry and we shared the best plate of fried rice we had ever eaten. Pudding followed to finally immobilise us. We had to sit for a while, then it was an effort to do the scorchio walk back to the town and beach. Couldn’t face the beach scene now, so opted to try out their aquarium. It was sparse but refreshingly cool. Penguins were funny, but the seal appeared a little disturbed!!
We got the shuttle bus back and followed by a long rest in our air conditioned room. Missed dinner. Crawled into bed early. Yet another satisfying day.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.089s; Tpl: 0.015s; cc: 15; qc: 47; dbt: 0.0455s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb