Alor Setar and Langkawi

---

Suzanne here...

Rather than go straight to Langkawi from Taiping we decided to see a little more of Malaysia and stop off at Alor Setar. The bus took us as far as Butterworth, and another bus was due to leave for Alor Setar in about 15 minutes, so we arrived at about noon. We'd passed an ok looking hotel on the bus so made our way there. Once inside it was a bit grotty but for some reason, now I don't know why, we decided to stay. We just wanted to get out and look at the town, and reasoned it was only one night. We dumped our stuff and hit the town. Hmm. I don't want to be over critical, but there really isn't a lot in Alor Setar for the tourist. We went to the gallery, um... slightly, well, 'amateur' shall we say. We went to a museum. If you are a real royalist you may enjoy seeing old golf balls and mobile phones belonging to the sultan and his family I suppose. We tried to go up the tower, the lift was broken. We headed for the shopping centre. Anyone remember what the old Bullring in Birmingham was like before they demolished it? We were so desparate for somthing to do that we ended up going to see Tron Legacy at the cinema. Oh dear, we were right to give it a miss before, it was very poor. It was enough to drive us to drink, even though we'd decided to have a 'dry' night. However it seems that alcohol is almost impossible to come by in Alor Setar. Possibly because everyone would be in a constant state of drunkenness for want of anything else to do. (I know, I know, it's because of the Islamic influence... but still).

Back to the hotel. By now, and I won't beat around the bush, we realised it was a total shit-hole. The room was shabby and grubby. The bathroom was flooded and constantly dripping on our heads. We headed out for some food and ended up at... Pizza Hut. It seemed one of the only places to eat, and was rammed. Our order took forever. We were just glad to have an excuse to sit there and not in our room.

Eventually fell asleep that night, feeling a sense of unease. Woke up the next morning to find, surprise suprise, a nice collection of bed-bug bites. It was the last straw. We gathered up our stuff and practically ran to the bus stop.

Unfortunately I've wiped the name of the hotel from my memory in horror - but I think there is only one hotel in the 'Komplex Raja Medan' - AVOID.

We caught the ferry to Langkawi with some relief. It was Christmas Eve (yes, our blog is a couple of weeks behind!) and we'd allowed ourselves a bit of luxury over the Christmas period. Originally we'd booked a villa, but they cancelled our booking at the last minute due to 'unavoidable circumstances'. Humph. Anyway, they booked us into the Langkawi Lagoon Resort. A bit more expensive, but at least they paid the difference. The only problem is it was a bit isolated, we'd wanted somewhere where you could walk to shops and restaurants. No matter, we were not going to get a better offer this close to Christmas. In anticipation of our isolation, we stocked up at the duty free shop at the port before getting a taxi to the hotel. Langkawi is a duty free island so a small beer that costs £1.50 in the supermarket on the mainland costs 30p on Langkawi. We stocked up on beer, wine, vodka, and I even got some Strongbow, hurrah! Yes, we were only staying for three days, but it was Christmas....

Arrived at the posh and gleaming hotel hot and grubby. Insisted on taking our own luggage up (felt a slight twinge of embarrassment when the guy on the door picked up and handed us our clanking box of booze). Couldn't wait to get in the shower. As soon as we were through the door we stripped and stuck our clothes in hot soapy water in case any stray bedbugs had hitched a lift. The room was lovely, luxury not just after the horror of Alor Setar, but in it's own right. We got clean, settled in, then went down for a look around. The beach was small but clean, the pool a decent size. It all looked rather nice and posh for two skanky backpackers. As we suspected we were a little trapped, it would take a taxi to get anywhere, so we decided to have dinner in one of the hotel restaurants. It was ok, not out of this world. It was a little frustrating that we couldn't have a glass of wine with our meal as it was a halal kitchen. You had to order alcohol outside which seemed a bit odd. Lucky that we'd stocked up really. On our way back to our room we paused by the Christmas tree, feeling a bit sad to be so far from family and friends. We whiled away the rest of Christmas eve drinking vodka and orange, playing cards, listening to our MP3 player and enjoying our lovely room.

Christmas Day was nice - once we stopped thinking of it in terms of what we would have been doing at home, and just enjoyed lazing on the beach. Christmas dinner was a little disappointing, another of the onsite restaurants with so-so food and no alcohol. We had another boozy and fun evening back at our room though. On Boxing Day we lazed about again for most of the day before deciding we really should get off our bums. So we took a taxi to Pantai Cenang. Not a lot there, but dinner at Red Tomato was a joy, much better (and cheaper) than at the hotel, and at last with wine!

I'd recommend Langkawi. For us, as we were there for such a short time, and after travelling so much, just relaxing was enough. If we were there for longer we'd have had to have hired a car though, as public transport is pretty much non-existent.

On the last day our ferry didn't leave until 5.15pm, so we took advantage of the resort for one last day. We did pick up a bottle of rum before we left, taking advantage of the duty-free price while we could. It's been such a relaxing stop. Back to backpacker life from now on though.

---