Back in the M to the A to the L to the A. you get the picture.

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Greetings! You are reaching us here today on the Malaysian island of Langkawi, near the Thai border. Like Tioman, it's a duty free island, but as we actually don't drink much nowadays, and neither of us smoke, at least we can get er.... cheap perfume?! It's a lot more built up than we imagined but has a nice, relaxed feel to it, and a nice beach where we are staying. It's nice coming back to Malayisa, its comforting to be familiar with the food, (Thai food was uber tasty though!), bits of the language, stuff like that. We're hoping to hire a moped (cheaper than two normal bikes!) tomorrow and have an explore round the island. Today so far we have just had a beach day (something we haven't really done since Bali!) and had some amazing mashed potato, mozzerella and baked beans (I had a tummy ache so needed normal food!!)

We've just arrived from the Thai island of Koh Lanta, which was our only stop in our Thai island exploration phase.. mainly cos we couldn't actually get anywhere else once we got there!! It being monsoon season, most boats stop running and to get to any other island we would have had to charter a long tail for a rather hefty sum! We stayed at 2 places on the island, firstly at a rather luxurious place with a swimming pool (!) and tv (!) and fridge (!). It was nice, but the shower head didn't stay on so we had warm (!) showers under a trickling tap. But one can't have everything!! There was a restaurant in the resort but none others for miles. Lots of nice lookg places but unfortunately 80% of facilities on the island were closed for the season so food and shelter were rather dispersed!!

We rented out a moped on our second day and had an explore of the island. We drove past a guy leading an elephant (got a video as we drove past) and went up to a viewpoint were we could see the small islands off the coast. We also went along the coast and saw some beautiful isolated beaches. Unfortunately our poor little moped coudln't handle some of the hills once the road started to get a little bumpier and Ben, ever the chivalrous gentleman, let me walk up the hills while he rode the bike. Sod! We stopped at one beach which was deserted apart from some fishermen at the far end, but still had 3 or so bungalow outfits amongst the trees. Hard to imagine what the place would be like on season!

Then the monsoon hit! We had began to think it was a pack of lies and the Thai idea of a monsoon was the occasional shower.. but all I can say is, a lot of rain fell on us!! Pretty spectacular to see, but it did keep ups inside for a few days.

Second place we stayed was a bunch of bungalows that were decorated with shells and coconuts, pretty incredible really! Someone had spent a lot of time on the place, we even had a sink! The toilet was particularly special, with stirngs of coral hanging from the ceiling.

We had a long journey to Langkawi, incluyding going on a crazy local bus that played music videos VERY LOUD! We also had a high speed moped ride to catch the ferry in time (in fact it didn't leave for another half an hour!!!)

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