Chapter 9: Pualu Langkawi

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May 19 - May 26

Satun --> Puala Langkawi

The Langkawi island is the largest in the Langkawi archipelago, which consists of 99 islands (this number goes up to 105 during low tide) and, after being granted tax free status, the second busiest island in Malaysia. It is also the region's very popular tourist destination. Second busiest island or not, it still was very quiet (low season anyone?), which worked only to our advantage.

The nearly 3km long beach, on the south east tip of the island were we settled, was pure magic. With white sand underneath your feet, palm trees behind your back, sea in front of you and mountains in the distance it felt like one of those places that fall into category of "I feel like I'm at the end of the world". The beach road was lined with stalls selling handicrafts and all the usual tourist souvenirs but we didn't find it very interesting. Also tax free status seemed only as an excuse to stock humongous amounts of chocolate, more than anyone could ever buy let alone eat.

We spent six weeks in Thailand so at the end of your stay we pretty much took things for granted. We knew more or less how things worked and knew what to expect and how to get around. Entering Malaysia and we were back to square one. The most obvious cue was different dress cod, with women covering their heads. Malaysia is a Muslim country but it's way less orthodox than, let say, Egypt and nobody seemed to mind women sporting short sleeved tops and working shoulder to shoulder with men. Still, being greeted by a group of young ladies all wearing black scarves on their heads and standing behind counter in the local McDonald was a pure Kodak moment.

Although most of the time it was barely noticeable Malaysia is still a Muslim country, and once in a while we were reminded about that. Like the time we saw a public ad saying that it's a criminal offence to be seeing somebody for a longer period of time without being married. Luckily nobody tipped the police off about Beata and me!

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