The great 17 night chill-out on langkawi

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Saturday 10th February

Arrived yesterday morning from Sydney via Kuala Lumpur airport here in Langkawi. The worst part for us out of our whole itinerary was that we had almost a 5 hour stopover waiting for our connecting flights in KL airport. Firstly though, our flight from Sydney came in 45 minutes earlier and so this increased our stopover time even further….aaarrggh. I guess everyone else on the flight were happy though. One bit of advice though for anyone flying over Indonesia. Due to the severe storms out there that is killing people on the ground, we have hit bad turbulence twice in three weeks, so if you’re travelling anytime soon, make a mental note of this little hiccup.
What made this time go by relatively quickly though was the use of Malaysian Airlines Golden lounge where complimentary snacks and a whole array of drinks are laid on…including the use of some very comfy chairs. The place was virtually empty so this was great to relax in. We soon boarded our langkawi flight and to our surprise upon landing, our three suitcases came off first so we were soon on our way to the hotel. Another tip…we tried getting some cash out of the cash machine in the airport and also in Kuah town but it wouldn’t give us any. For almost an hour we were beginning to panic thinking we would be skint. However, when you put your card in the machine, it asks which account you want money from and we kept choosing ‘savings account’. It doesn’t seem to like this so on the next time we chose ‘current account’ and sure enough out popped the Malaysian Ringgits…phew. A 10 mile taxi ride here is costing the equivalent of about £3 which is fab. We had planned on hiring a car but after these prices, it’ll be taxis for us.

Last night we popped over the road for some headache tablets for Tracey to a convenience store where they were marked up at .30c a strip ( very cheap ). When we got to the till we were charged double….60c a strip! When we enquired the shopkeeper said, oh that’s the old price. Hmmmm….even we’re not that stupid to know prices don’t go up 100%. Okay, okay Mrs.Shop-keeper, you have just missed out on 3 weeks worth of business for all our conveniences. Pity really, as there is a cheaper shop less than 50 yards away and they’re very friendly so we won’t be stepping foot in your shop again. And just for the record, the shop that ripped us off is on the opposite side of the road from ‘The Holiday Villa’ and is called ‘Tourist need shoppe’. Well guys, if you stay on the same side of the Holiday Villa and turn left out of the hotel you will come across the souvenir shop that sells everything she does including ice-creams and snacks, chocolate, crisps etc. Beers are around 30p per can and Coca Cola even cheaper.

Early evening, we did a webcam chat with the family back in the UK again which was good. Picture speed was pretty fast and virtually instant with the broadband connection here at The Holiday Villa. One word of warning though, try to use the wireless internet as late as possible in the evening as less people use it and it becomes much faster.

Later on we visited the night market in the main town and bought a couple of watches and Tracey bought some shoes. It was a good atmosphere as this is where all the locals shop for their fruit and veg and a whole array of unusual fruits are for sale here most of which we’ve never seen before. There are also many stalls that sell Malaysian foods that are cooked in front of you and the cost of it, you just wouldn’t believe. Personally we gave it a miss, but for the adventurous you could probably stuff yourself silly for less than £1.
After the market we took a taxi up to a restaurant recommended to us called ‘The Orchid Ria’ which serves the large tiger prawns. When we say large, forget what you see in the UK or even the rest of the world, as these things can be anything up to 11 or 12 inches long. However, the ones last night were about 9 inches long, so Graham had just the five with some salad and chips and went down very well with a couple of beers.

Sunday 11th Feb

Got up and had breakfast across the road from our hotel at ‘The Cactus’ bar/restaurant. For both of us it came to around £2.80 which included coffee and orange juices. Tracey had the pancakes with maple syrup ( very tasty indeed ) and I opted for fried eggs on toast.
After this had settled, we grabbed some towels and went to our ‘private’ beach called ‘Pantai Tengah’ which residents of the hotel use without being bothered by people trying to sell you things like they did when we were in Thailand a few years ago. Today again is very hot and we could only manage a couple of hours down at the beach, but as you can see from the photos, its virtually deserted and you can have a huge section of beach to yourself as other holidaymakers say in their travel blogs about Langkawi. It really is as beautiful as it looks on the photos.
There is a restaurant nearby called ‘The Lighthouse’ which has a prime spot overlooking the beach and we’ve been told it is the place to go to watch the sun go down so we may have some dinner up there tonight.
11th February

Being away on holiday for so long has brought its ‘little complications’. One thing we have encountered is our laundry and so here on Langkawi we are running out of clothes so off we went to the local laundry place…unlike any back in the UK. We sort of knew it was going to be cheap judging by what others have written about it in their own travel blogs but until you see it for your own eyes its hard to believe! Anyway, we took our 3 full large carrier bags along and got it weighed ( as this determines how much you pay to have it cleaned and dried by the launderette staff the same day ). It weighed just over 7 kg and cost us £4, which has saved me making Tracey stand over the bathroom sink all day washing and ironing spoiling her full day which would’ve made me feel a little bit guilty. In fact, thinking about it, she hasn’t done anything all holiday, no cooking or cleaning…so maybe it’d have been good to have her do something….haha.

We went to ‘The Lighthouse’ restaurant hoping for a nice romantic meal watching the sun go down. When we got there, there were 3 staff and just 3 tables were full. We had to wait over 10 minutes for them to take our drinks order and when it came to wanting a second drink soon after we were waiting over 20 minutes for us to try and catch their eye. Cheekily, they have the nerve to charge a 10% service charge which you do not mind paying if they are regularly visiting tables checking on customers. Anyway, after waiting so long for another drink, we gave up, paid the bill and left. We had planned on eating here but maybe we would have been waiting over an hour for our food to arrive. As we were walking near ‘Underwater World’ at Pantai Cenang, a passing cyclist handed us a leaflet for a nearby Indian restaurant called ‘Papadam’, so we decided to give it a go. Lets just say we weren’t disappointed with both the service and the food. We both went for the chicken tikka massalla and its as near as you’re going to get in taste to that back home with proper chicken breast unlike you get in some restaurants out here.

13th Feb

Some strange goings on yesterday here on Langkawi in the form of a ‘UFO’. Around 2pm Graham spotted an object in the sky, about 2000 ft high hovering somewhere near the airport. Okay, okay I know what you are all thinking…it’ll be an aeroplane or helicopter. Lets put it this way: We were watching it ‘hovering’ in the same location for a good ten minutes before we decided to pop back to the room for the camera and camcorder. This is how long it was in the same location for as it gave us enough time to take several photos of it and also film it. Even with the zoom on our camera it hasn’t been able to identify it properly but it was there for almost 20 minutes in total if not longer. Unfortunately even by studying the photo on our laptop and zooming in on it further we still can’t make out what it is as it doesn’t resemble a plane or a helicopter. It did occasionally move about slowly across a small section of the sky but then eventually disappeared behind the hotel. If anyone wants the photo emailing to see it clearer, drop us a message / email and we'll get it to you.
Later on we went shopping at the Kuah town jetty point and picked up 200 cigarettes for about £2.50 which has to be bargain of the week so far. SO FREDA, IF YOU'RE READING THIS, WE GOT YOU SOME !
Once again it has been so hot here its near impossible to walk anywhere without flip-flops on including the sand.


15 February

Yesterday we went on an organised trip to Pulau Payar marine park, also known as ‘Langkawi Coral. We arrived by air-conditioned catamaran and berthed at a large floating platform out in the Andaman Sea in the middle of nowhere but adjoining one of the small uninhabited islands. After a briefing we grabbed our swimming masks and got into the warm clear sea only to be surrounded by thousands of fish of all sizes. Tracey got in first and I started to throw bread in to get them to swim around her. Within seconds she was surrounded by them and started panicking as they were brushing against her body trying to feed from the bread I had lobbed in! Unfortunately, I continued throwing more bread in so even more fish engulfed her as this is what I thought she was shouting to me. It wasn’t until a short time later that what she was actually saying was ‘Don’t throw anymore in’….ooops..sorry Tracey, I didn’t hear you properly with all the excitement. Okay, so I did actually hear her correctly the first time but thought it’d be funny to keep throwing it in. Needless to say, a little while later she got her own back on me and I must admit it wasn’t very funny.
After lunch, we then went to watch them feed some reef sharks nearby and Tracey got into the water to be near them which was great.

Today we visited Langkawi ‘Underwater World’, which is basically an aquarium here on the island. There are many breeds of fish, shark and turtles to be seen along with other creatures including penguins, otters and a wonderful collection of shells from around the world. For me, the highlight of the place was an Anaconda snake which appeared relatively lively in his enclosure and perhaps was as long as 12 feet long and perhaps had a girth of around 28”.
We were fortunate enough to be in the right time at the right place as it was feeding time in the shark/stingray tank and a diver got in to feed them along with the giant turtles that live in the same large tank.
One disappointment with Underwater world is the 3-D theatre. We waited for our allocated time with anticipation and upon entering we were handed some 3-D glasses. It’s a large room which resembles a cinema and so we sat down while the ‘film’ started. It was basically a 10 minute cartoon and not like we expected we had hoped to see, like actual 3-D images that had been filmed underwater. Instead this thing was a joke and can only be compared to a pirated version of ‘Finding Nemo’ with child-like animation. We can only find fault with this and overall the visit was quite good and worth the 38 Ringgit entry cost.
Oh, and also there is a cafe in the place and we were very tempted by the cakes on display, gateux, cream cakes etc. We were just about to order them until we realised they were crawling with ants and spiders in the chilled display cabinet, so be aware of this!

At the entrance to our hotel is a large sign stating 'No Durian please'. This refers to the south-east Asian fruit that is known to be smelly. At the night market last week we came across it and it certainly has a smell of its own for sure, although according to the internet, many people find it to have a fragrant smell...personally we have to disagree.
We came across some carrier-bag thieving monkeys yesterday while on a trip doing the island hopping thing on the boats. After arriving at the jetty point at the lake of the pregnant maiden, we were'nt informed by our tour rep from a company called 'Tour East' that there would be many steps to climb to get there. Instead we had to wait at the bottom and then eventually caught a boat back and returned to our hotel because the walking was just too much for Graham's back. So if anyone is planning any trips out here, be careful if you have walking difficulties as our tour rep did not warn us of this even though we told her about his bad back and limited walking.

21st February

We had a great day out yesterday at the Langkawi cablecar ride to the north-west of the island. We knew perhaps visibility wasn't great judging by the odd misty cloud that shrouded the mountain top, but it didn't deter us from taking the ride up to the summit. Once we got there, we were almost immediately blanketed in the low cloud hovering around the mountain peak but within seconds this disappeared, then reappeared every so often. We managed to get some great photos as well as the photos of the floating clouds. After taking one look at all the steps to and from the suspension bridge at the summit, Graham decided to leave it while Tracey made the trek downhill. She regretted it afterwards as her facial expression perhaps shows in the photo from climbing the steps back uphill later...tee-hee.
We also popped into the airport to see if we could book a flight up to Bangkok ( as Air Asia now fly Langkawi-Bangkok 3 times a week ) for a couple of days. Unfortunately, they have had to cancel the service until the 27th February I think they said, so that rules out this for us. Never mind, guess we'll have more time at the beach to unwind even further!

later on yesterday evening, we were lucky enough to spot a mini-tornado forming above the beach at Pantai Cenang although the photo here doesn't do it justice. No damage was caused as it soon fizzled out again. We saw one of these at Phuket out at sea a few years ago, so its no surprise we saw one here, especially if you sit and watch cloud movements and you understand the basics of how tornados form ( cool air moving across warmer air in the opposite direction ).

Today we were in the sea when Graham felt something on his foot. He lifted it up only to find a small starfish had grabbed his toes. Anyway, we very carefully took a photo and put him back where he belongs.

TUESDAY 27th FEBRUARY

We left Langkawi on Friday for a couple of reasons. Firstly, we were getting tired of getting up at the crack of dawn to beat fellow holidaymakers to go and 'reserve' the sunbeds around the pool and beach by placing towels on them. Unfortunately we too were dragged into this silly little game fellow Europeans play otherwise we would have had nowhere to sit / lie and sunbathe every day. On top of this, hygiene at The Holiday Villa leaves a lot to be desired, especially when it comes to finding cockroaches in your room and bathroom exiting via cracks in walls and plugholes and sink overflow. The duty manager and general manager seem to find this funny and say it is natural to have cockroaches as we are in a tropical climate. Funny really, because all the holidays we have spent in Thailand we have never come across a single one. Nor have we come across any during our time in the hotel in K.L.
Anyway, we then decided to hop on a flight back to K.L., then fly up to Phuket for a couple of days. This was all going swimmingly until we arrived in K.L. airport hotel where we checked for Phuket accommodation. We were simply expecting to walk in one of our two favourite hotels on the island, The Patong Resort and The Patong Beach hotel. Unbelievably, ALL hotels are full on the island and so it was now pointless flying there only to find we would have had to sleep on a beach somehwhere. Our perfect holiday was now slipping into slight disarray. The island is at peak season at the moment, but coupled with this is the fact it is currently Chinese New Year and people are here to celebrate. Okay, so we had to make the best of the situation and decided to head back into K.L. for a couple more days and to the hotel we stayed in originally at the start of our trip, The Hotel Equatorial....HOORAY...they had a room and so off we went.
We've just had three nights here and it seems to have flown by. We have encountered one small problem though and this is our baggage limit for flying home. Even with 30kg each we seem to be over this by 7kg and we wanted to do some more shopping while in K.L. at the large malls here. We checked with Malaysian Airlines and they want an incredible £25 per kg over our allowance. After speaking to the hotel secretary in our business centre, we've been able to ship up to 25kg for just over £100 with DHL so we've gone for that. In total we have packed a box full of clothing and it comes to 20kg so its already on its way back to the UK and now enables us to do some more shopping on our last day here in this manic city !
Later this evening we hop on our flight to return home to the UK. This has been one fantastic holiday that is unlikely ever to be beaten. We are talking now about returning to Australia in two years to do it all again. Thanks everyone for reading about our travels.....Graham and Tracey x x

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Photos

You can't beat the old 'Health and safety at work act 1974
Note his colleague isn't supporting the flimsy chair on the roof

Remember this Iain? The famous Malta drink we had in Africa that time !
I bought this just so I could reminice about the time we had in The Gambia. After all...you don't expect me to buy this stuff just for the taste would you...yukkk.

Petrified tourist diver
A second after this photo was taken, we realised what she was flapping about....a large Barracuda was swimming around her...quite funny really !

Tea by the beach....again
its still nice to be having tea by the beach, but I could muder chips 'n gravy

Graham at the marine park
Slightly anxious at feeding the swarming fish

Turtles lazing around
Notice how he his stood on his partners' head !

Comments

[Iain Fergie]

Just surfed in
Thanks for the post card. Your generosity shown by thinking about our insignificant little herd when you're on the hols of a lifetime is not lost on us. We've got you on 'favourites' so the kids can check on your progress daily. Enjoy!!!!!!!!!!! speak soon 'The Fergies'

[Iain]

Yep I remember........
Funny..Twas just last Sunday we were looking at the photo's from that hol. one pic stood out for me, it encapsulated 'Malta' to a tee. it was one of me laid prostrate on the 'animations' stage, not daring to move an inch because of what that bloody drink had done to my insides. Ah the memories!!!!!