The Langkawi Island Tour

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Undeterred by our failure to get on the cable car yesterday, we set off nice and early this morning in our teeny hire car to try again and were pleased to see sunny, dry skies. The road to the cable car is peppered with interesting scenery so every so often I would get Glynn to pull over somewhere and we'd go off for a little wander. We found long, golden sandy beaches far away from all the hotels and sheltered from the roadside by lines of palm trees with cattle grazing contentedly beneath. There were rice paddies, lighthouses, interesting bridges and a marina full of posh yachts waiting to be discovered, all of which I'm sure most tourists drive straight past.

Eventually we found ourselves back at the cable car complex for the thrid time only to find out that the damn thing wasn't running sue to technical difficulties! We waited it out for over an hour just in case it got fixed quickly but to no avail. not wanting to waste another day's worth of car hire, we jumped back in and made our way to the Crocodile Farm. It was much bigger than we expected and for 15 Ringgit, we found ourselves surrounded by these fearsome creatures at every twist and turn. There were loads of different enclosures containing crocs of different species, many of which had soem form of birth defect. A large number of smaller crocodiles had little or no tail which we first thought might have been the result of the owners cutting off the tails for making handbags (there's a croc skin souvenir shop on the way out). There was also a larger croc that had a massively deformed jaw that was all curled up - he would certainly never have survived in the wild.

The highlight of our visit to the crocodile farm was the live show where some of the keepers performed daredevil stunts with some truly enormous snappers. This included lying down on the crocodile's back, kissing the croc's nose and even placing a hand inside the crocodile's mouth. It wasn't just the crocodiles' size and ferocity that was scary but the fact that even at over 7 feet long, these beasts can move so fast.

Next on our grand island tour was a visit to the Black Sand Beach. It was just as the name suggests - a truly black sandy beach on the north coast of the island. It would have been a really stunning sight had it not been for the giant cement factory at the far end of the bay but it was still worth a visit. We were about to take a walk along the beach when Glynn noticed that bad weather was setting in up in the mountains. We were still hoping to go on the cable car if it was working again so we piled back into the car and sped back across the island to the Oriental Village.

This time our luck was in. The cable car was up and running plus the top of the peak looked relatively cloud free. We quickly got our tickets (25 RM each) and plonked ourselves down in the next available gondola. All this happened so fast in fact, that I didn't have time to notice just how high and how steep the cable car was going to go until we were halfway up! The ride was incredible, taking us high above the treetops and affording us views of the bright blue bays in the distance. As we made our way higher and higher, the were soon traversing an almost vertical cliff face. It was awesome. The car arrived at the first viewing platform which happened to be closed for maintenance so we just rode up to the next level, which steered us off in an L-shape to the next peak.

Once at the second stage viewing platform, the view was breathtaking. A bit of cloud had rolled in during our 14 minute ascent but we could still see for miles and miles. One of the main attractions at the top though was the state of the art suspension bridge that spanned a massive cavern between two peaks. The bridge was possibly the most amazing piece of engineering I have ever seen, second only to the cable car we had just been on. As we walked across the bridge, it felt quite springy underfoot and I didn't appreciate the numerous people who thought it would be funny to jump up and down on the bridge to see how much they could get it to bounce!

The whole wonderful experience was topped off with the journey back down in the cable car that was equally terrifying as it was mesmerising for how high up we were (and how far we could theoretically drop!). I think it has to be my most favourite place in Malaysia so far and I doubt we will ever see a view like that again short of engaging in some serious mountaineering!

On the way back to the hostel we went beer shopping again before taking the hire car back. We rounded off our wonderful day out with a long walk along the beach although the sunset wasn't particularly good this evening. What we were shocked to find on the beach though was the amount of crap that had been washed up following yesterday's stormy weather. Aside from the masses of driftwood, seaweed and bits of fishing net there were hundreds of barnacle-encrusted flipflops, plastic bottles and all sorts of man-made goods that had no business being in the sea. I joked to Glynn that I could easily have opened a shop selling mismatched shoes just from combing the beach today! Further along the shore we discovered the remains of a huge jellyfish that was easily as big as a tyre and looked like a squashed upside-down wedding cake. It was really eerie and from that moment on, Glynn and I made a solemn vow not to go swimming in the sea the next day as we had intended!!

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