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Published: August 6th 2007
Cenang beach. Beautiful
Very nice! (said in the voice of Borat!)Our journey from Krabi to Langkawi was another nightmare one. We were collected from our guesthouse at 6am, crammed into a minibus and driven around the Krabi area picking random people up. The minibus, which was meant to hold 10 people, ended up holding 12 people plus their luggage. It was pretty uncomfortable, as these minibuses aren't made for foreigners and their long legs, but we put the MP3 on and tried to sleep with our heads lolling around everywhere - no head-rests! In his wisdom, the minibus driver had decided not to fix the suspension, he obviously thought it would be more fun for the passengers to bump around and bang their heads on the ceiling every time he drove over a pebble!
Part way through the journey we stopped in the middle of a dual carriageway in Hat Yai. For those who don't know Hat Yai is bomb central in Southern Thailand for Muslim insurgents. It was at this point, with traffic whizzing around us that the bus driver decided to evict us from the bus, dumping our backpacks on the road, shoving money in our hand (at least he did that much) and pointed us to the
Donna at the Seven Falls
it was too cold to swim in them, although Neil tried everything he could to get Donna into the pools...Your skin looks dirty...do it for the blog...the water will take 10 years off you....is that a 200 ringgit note in that there pool! bus station, said something in Thai (which a nearby moto driver translated for us as we didn't understand!) and kept pointing at the bus station saying 'rot fai fah' (station in Thai). It appears he had decided not to take us to Satun so we could catch our ferry to Langkawi after all, he had decided we could get on another minibus. We quickly grabbed our rucksacks, which by now cars, buses and lorries were swerving to avoid and headed to the bus station hoping that everything would be ok!
Everyone at Hat Yai was so friendly and helpful, they were more than willing to help a couple of dazed and sleepy foreigners who had been abandoned out of the blue on a dual carriageway...maybe it was a several times a day occurrence for them!? We found our new minibus, paid the money and settled in for the next ride of a lifetime! Minibuses in Asia are a wonderful thing, there is such a great network which links major (and minor) places and they are very cheap too. We have often wondered why things like this don't run in the UK as they seem to be a lot more
efficient than the public transport system! We wondered this for all of 10 minutes until our new minibus started taking us all around the world, dropping kids off at their boarding schools, going down back lanes to drop chickens and parcels off, you know just like the local bus in the UK would do! In the meantime 1pm came and we were beginning to worry that we would miss the ferry. But we arrived at Satun port with 10 minutes to sort out our tickets...well we had to hand over a mysterious envelope to the ticket lady in exchange for our tickets; we then had to wait for the Thai Immigration to do their stuff...this time we even got a smile, but that's of course because we were leaving!
The ferry ride was very smooth, so smooth that we could manage to demolish a huge packet of crisps and some rice cakes, our first food of the day without feeling sick. Arriving into Langkawi we were greeted with emerald green water and we began to get a good feeling about the place. After a friendly conversation with a taxi driver (and this didn't involve Donna telling him to f**k
off for a change, it really was a friendly conversation!) and stopping off at an ATM to get money to last us for our time at Cenang beach (oh no, there's no ATM there????!) we got a taxi to Cenang as there were no public buses running...our good feeling was slowly but surely disappearing!
We arrived at Cenang beach and Neil was left with the bags while Donna went to find the lodgings for the next few days. While Donna was gone Neil managed to have several conversations with nice old women, who sat with him and seemed delighted that he was British! Donna eventually found a nice bungalow...we couldn't afford one right on the beach (these were 120 ringgits, roughly £18) it was back from the beach with it's own bathroom and a dodgy TV which gave Neil two very big electric shocks but it was only 50 ringgits (£7). The women that ran the placed though were very miserable and demanded that we pay every day, or our room would not be cleaned and seemed to look on us as an inconvenience rather than a paying customer.
We soon headed down to the beach and it
took our breath away. WOW, what a beach...it was so wide, clean and the sand was powdery white, such a difference from Thailand's beaches! It was deserted and the water was so clean, we were so taken aback by this beach, we took loads of pictures, as you can see! It seems that the Malaysians are very conservation minded when it comes to their natural 'assets'! We also soon learnt that every Malaysian spoke perfect English...we know this is due to the fact that Britain colonised Malaysia and it only got it's independence 50 years ago, but it was a pleasant surprise and a change to the Thais.
Our previous impression of Langkawi (just based on things we had read) had been of a 5 star Kuoni tourist resort with not much in the way for budget travellers. We found it to be the opposite, with prices comparable to Thailand for most things, 50p for draft beer and £2 for a meal for the two of us. Best of all, in 1986 Langkawi was declared a duty free island so we lost no time in hunting out the duty free shop! We were not disappointed...there was Cadbury's chocolate, Mars
bars and VODKA!!! We bought a litre bottle of Smirnoff vodka for 23 ringgits (£3.50) and loads of chocolate to satisfy Neil's cravings...the galaxy chocolate that Donna's parents had brought only 3 weeks earlier was a distant memory and he was beginning to pine for the chocolatey goodness! We also discovered a fantastic canned pineapple juice which tasted just like freshly squeezed juice which was a bargain at 17p...we were really beginning to like Langkawi.
Our days seemed to just merge into each other, we spent each day lazing on the beach, strolling around and eating delicious Indian food or satay for tea and drinking vodkas on our bungalow's balcony. We originally only planned to spend three days on Langkawi and ended up staying nine! Cenang beach was so laid back and we were two of around ten tourists there, we were enjoying the beach, the perfect weather and meeting the friendly people. Malaysia in general surprised us with the open selling of alcohol and that there was no tension with non-Muslim women not wearing headscarves or even going topless on Cenang beach. Several women were going topless on the beach and the locals just ignored them and went
about their business as usual.
On our second to last day we decided to hire a motorbike...looking smart in our 'not for use on a motorbike' helmets (but we couldn't figure out what else they would be used for?) we set off to do a loop of the island and to take in some of the sights. Our first stop was the Harbour Point Complex and marina which looked remarkably like Hartlepool marina (apart from the mountains in the background!). This was an essential stop as we needed to refuel, but with no idea what petrol the bike took or how much we wanted - there was a sign saying pay before you fill - it was up to Donna to play the dumb blonde with the serving assistants. Our next stop, with Donna on the back of the bike attempting to read a map with no scale in between making Wallace and Gromit faces when the wind blew to make Neil laugh, was the Seven Falls. These were weird waterfalls with big pancake shaped rocks which you had to hike up 500 steps to get to. We were stuck at the bottom initially as it decided to tip
Neil on Cenang beach
I'm singing in the sun...just singing in the sun.... it down with rain, and when we finally made it to the top (with memories of the Inca Trail popping into our heads) we were, to be honest, a little uninspired...we took the obligatory photo and left! We completed the loop of the island, visiting several beaches...at one of the beaches Donna decided she wanted to try and ride the motorbike and Neil has since vowed she will never be let near a motorbike again! It started off ok, but it soon went horribly wrong when she tried to break AND pull back on the accelerator at the same time. Result - Donna flies off the bike, bike falls to the floor and Donna fractures her big toe. Never ever again, the driving will be left to Neil in future!
We finished our island tour in Kuah Town where there were even more duty free shops with piles of chocolatey goodness, we even found Cadbury's hazelnut bars (just like hazelnut whirls) and Neil yet again was in heaven! We took advantage of cheap Stolichnaya vodka this time at 19 ringgit a litre (£2.80!!) and even bought a bottle of French wine, as a treat, well it was only £1.50.
Harbour Point Marina
or is it Hartlepool?! That night we had a mini feast with chocolate and wine...not a good combination but we didn't care!
We had fully planned to go over to the East coast of Malaysia to the Perhentian islands, but from reading various blogs we decided it would be too expensive as it was coming into high season there. So we decided to head to Penang, then Kuala Lumpur to see what else Malaysia had to offer.
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