Please Sir, come and look at my shop, you are first customer..... very lucky.

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After the marathon journey to Koh Lipe, we were pleased that it was just a direct boat from there to Langkawi. After getting settling into the hostel we'd booked in the Pan Tai Cenang area, we headed out to explore the local area. We were only about 20 meters from the beach which was handy, just a short walk through some buildings and restaurants and you were there. The beach was OK, it's separated by a massive rocky outcrop and this side wasn't too busy with its vast dark sand. The water had a darkness to its colour too. We managed to find an English tea house on the Main Street which we thought would be fun try so far from home. Decked out in tea towels and china plates bearing English locations and the Royal Family, British flags... you know.... All the usual items you'd usually find in an English tea house, someone once told me stereo types are based on fact. On the Main Street, amongst the usual restaurants and tat shops are the 'tax free' shops, well two tax free shops, one is a large shop containing what seems like everything you can ever imagine and the other is a sports shop. Not sure if the brand items were genuine article but what interested us most was all the chocolate they had (standard), we treated ourselves to a, I'm going to say 'small' bag of little Diam bars. Also along the front street they had a mini cinema which advertised itself as a 6D experience, you choose from a selection of short animated films and it's basically like a simulator you'd find at an amusement park. We doned our 3D glasses and strapped ourselves in. We'd chosen a horror based story which was about as scary as Tom and Jerry. With air being blown at you, the chair rocking about, things hitting you on the back of the leg it was hard to become immersed in it all, especially when my iPhone has more realistic graphics. The girls seemed to enjoy it so if the harem's happy..........

We heard there was some amazing snorkelling at Pulau Payer Marine park. This is not far offshore so a quick bus ride to the port and a 45 minute boat and you are there. It's well set up and it draws a lot of people so it's good they've managed to keep it in a good condition. The snorkelling was amazing and there's so much sea life there, including reef sharks.... and quite a few of them. I still can't used to seeing sharks so close up without having a slight quiver of fear. It's a full day trip so food was also provided, which was basic but decent. Although there was a lot of people there, a majority went no further than knee deep. Although there was plenty of fish swimming around you at that depth, all the good stuff was further out at about 2 or 3 meters depth so it didn't feel crowded at all. This place was well worth the visit. With Jen's help, Amana got involved too. Between us we'll make a snorkeler out of her! It's a long day and very tiring but they request you wear a life vest which saves energy and stops you getting sun burnt. Still didn't stop us having an early night!

There's also an aquarium here, it's quite a small one but it was still fun to visit. The highlight was the penguins, I think we spent far too long in this section but they usually the most fun to watch. You get to see them from below in one of those underwater tunnels then also see them on their makeshift rocks. One particular little feathered fella seemed to have lost his confidence and made several attempts at diving into he water, only to pull out at the last second. When he eventually made it into the water he got a big cheer for us, we probably got strange looks at that moment. In another section of the underwater tunnel there's lots and large Rays, small sharks and other assorted large fish. This was cool watching them glide over your head.

We also explored the beach on the other side of the rocky outcrop. This beach was a lot busier with lots of parasailing, Jetskis and beachside bars. Jen and I tried going for a swim but it didn't feel this safe with all the activity from the motorised vehicles.

Langkawi didn't leave that much of an impression on me, I don't think it's the sort of place to come to when you are trying to keep to a budget. I've seen there are very nice resorts on the island and if you spent that extra money it probably would of been a different experience. But that's not the sort of trip we were on.

The next stop was Kualalumpa and getting there was via a bumpy boat then a luxury bus. It took around 11 hours in total. The boat was quite big, it probably fit about 100 people in total, we managed to get some seating in the front section of the boat. It wasn't until later when we realised that our section was mainly women and children, not sure if this was coincidence or cultural but it sure was noisy, to paraphrase Jen Martin "It's like a chicken coup in here with all these women clucking on". Not sure if this was casual sexism or that, like someone told me, stereotypes are based on fact? Arrived in KL early evening and only had the next day to explore before we flew the next day after that. We'd left a couple of the harem behind in Langkawi so it was just me, Jen and Amana. The 2 main things we wanted to see were the Petronas Towers and China town. But before all that we had the local area to explore the local area, the hostel we chose had a great location which was about 5 minutes walk from food street, across the road from a shopping mall (we made a quick h and m dash) and next to the bus stop for the free bus that took you around the centre of KL. Well we hadn't had any tea yet so we so headed straight to food street, which was a long street was food stalls and seating on the street from all areas of SE Asia. It's decked out with lanterns so it gives it a real Asian feel. The food was great too. The next morning was an early start as we wanted to make sure we fit everything in.

First stop was China Town and believe it or not we got there too early and it wasn't even open! After a quick explore around extravagant underground tunnels and complexes all connecting each sky scraper to the next we go to the Petronas towers district. We also thought we'd squeeze in the visit to the Petronas Towers but as we found out, it's not something you can just walk into, as you have to book slots to visit. We were lucky that we had turned up early enough for there to be slots available that evening. But it's probably best to book a visit a day in advance. After that we headed back to China Town. The main draw of China Town is the daily market selling, mainly, copies of most things you can imagine. The girls were looking to get their hand on some 'premium' handbags. It can get pretty intense with people trying to get you to look at their stuff but I was prepared, as I wasn't looking to buy anything I just told people I was just following 'these two' meaning Jen and Amana. They soon stopped bothering me. We thought we'd lost Jen for a few minutes only to find her in the shop behind a stall where they kept the better quality bags. We were relieved to see her as we were about to ring the insurers and initiate kidnap protocol. You could tell immediately that the quality was much better than the stall out the front, but they were also a lot more expensive and kept in a room in which you had to enter a code into a keypad to get in. Still cheaper than the real thing but still too much for us. We left empty handed. There's some nice little restaurants around that area too so we tucked into some lovely Chinese food.

The Petronas Towers are the 8th tallest towers in the world and are well worth a visit. We got to see the city after dark which is what we wanted, so we were lucky. It's such a great view from up so high and to see the city lights at night was spectacular. You get about 15 minutes on the bridge connecting the two towers and them about 30 minutes at the top floor viewing deck. From up there it seems like the city stretches out forever.

KL is modern and developed in comparison to other SE Asian city's we've seen and you can tell with the caliber of shops (Prada, Gucci etc..) there are that there is money in Malaysia. But to be fair we did only see a small section of KL, which was the centre, which is where the money is in any city. This was a flying visit to Malaysia but it was for both for our and Amana's traveling benefit. It was a very bittersweet time saying good bye to Amana, after our adventures together but knowing that the next stop was to see Jen's Mub and Dad in a five star hotel made it easier!!!!

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Photos

A Temple near China Town
KL