We arrive in Langkawi after quite a nice ferry journey compared to what we were used to!.....though this time we had seat numbers which seemed to have sat us separately from all the other passengers (which im guessing were locals) strange but hey, the seats were comfy and no sickness so we were happy!! Getting off the boat we made our way to immigration to get stamped into our next part of the trip..... Malaysia!! We were greeted to the usual shouts of 'taxi!' 'taxi!' (nothing different from Thailand as yet!) so we bartered for a price and we jumped in.....after telling the driver the name of our hostel a number of times we were sure he knew where it was.....Jen poked matt and said I'm sure we've just gone past it. Having confidence he knew where he was going we kept quiet until we saw a huge hotel complex up in front called 'Baron Hotel' this didn't seem right! After telling the driver one more time the name of our place was 'Baron Motel', which Jens sister Nic booked up for us as our Xmas pressie! We were finally able to flop onto a bed after being picked up at 7am...and going from a mini van to a bus....onto a boat then a taxi.....a shower was on the cards! feeling refreshed we headed out into the night for food...
The next day we decided to explore, first stop was the mahusive eagle....nothing much to say about that apart from how big it was! However on the long walk back to our place we spotted one hell of a lizard! Matt tried chasing it to get a photo but it soon went running up a nearby tree....I mean who wouldn't if they had Matt chasing after ya! Ha!
Then it was onto the duty free shops!! Oh yes, cheap alcohol...after a search of finding the cheapest we finally got our hands on some vodka!
You may be glad to hear that we managed to get our washing done too! Woop....4 bags of damp smelling clothes were now freshly cleaned and ironed all for the amount of £3...bargain! We were like kids at Christmas...
Kuah didn't seem to have much else to offer apart from the duty free....so we decided to go on another boat trip!
It was a 9am pick up so we waited.....and waited......and waited.....half an hour later our minivan arrived, so we hopped in and literally 2 minutes from where we were standing we were dropped off at the jetty, ha!! Anyways, we jumped into the boat....which was full of malaysians....and off we went to yet another island, Bares Basah Island in fact! It was just like any other island....though we were treated to some entertainment by some of the monkeys that were wandering about. Just chilling by the sea we suddenly heard this French bloke shouting and chasing after a monkey, hahaha...which is funny in itself! We soon realized the monkey had stolen the French blokes crisps from his bag (which he left open whilst taking a photo of himself) and was just sitting there tucking into them....funniest thing we had seen!
Getting back on the boat we were taken to a spot to do some eagle feeding....not that we actually fed them we just got to watch as they swooped down to get their food...onto island number 2, Dayang Bunting Marble....where about 100m from the sea was fresh water swimming! No dodgy tasting salt water, bonus....but lots of malaysians swimming fully clothed...hmmm...after about an hour we were back on the boat and headed to dry land....getting off we were offered a transfer back to our place, they seemed offended when we told them we'd take the 5 minute walk back!
Our time in Kuah was over, and we headed to Pantai Chenang where the good beach of Langkawi was....so we dropped our bags off and headed for that direction. Only to be met with waves crashing in at the shore with a beach barely to be seen! Next best option was a bar with a beer....and this was where we stayed for the next few hours....night came and we were on the hunt for some cheap food! After checking out a number of tourist ridden places we headed for a Nasi Kandar.....plastic tables and chairs with street food vendors at each side....we chose our food and got stuck in. It was THE best Indian we had ever had!! Rice, curry and naan with drinks all coming to less than £5 for 2 people...enough said! Feeling rather full we headed back to where we knew the beer was cheap....down a small little alleyway and out onto the beach, Little Lylias was the place to be.
Chilling outside our little bungalow was what had to be done the next day....we soon got chatting to our neighbours, David and Jacobine....who were sharing a room and had only met each other a few hours ago getting off the ferry.....we decided to see what the night had in store for us, so we checked out Babylon...another bar located on the beach. About half an hour passed and the bars were closing up.....it was 1am after all!
We all grabbed some breakfast and hired out some scooters for the day....consulting the map we were sure we knew where we were heading....up to the cable car and waterfall which seemed to be the only attraction in Langkawi. After a not So hairy scooter ride this time (Matt was finally getting used to this scooter lark!) we grabbed our tickets, when we were told about the 50 min wait to get onto the cable car....great!
We finally reached the end and got into the cable car.....800m later and we were at the top with views overlooking Langkawi...which was in total 99 islands. After a few photos we headed back down and made our way to the waterfall....which looked amazing from the bottom! But for some reason we decided to head to the top....this consisted of hundreds and hundreds of steps!! We finally reached the top and decided waterfalls where much better to look at from the bottom! We then caught on to some local kids using a smaller waterfall as a slide into a rock pool...so Matt soon had his swimming shorts on and got in on the action....Jacobine was soon to follow. After some persuasion David was up next.....then Jens turn....it was awesome! Just letting the water take you down into the water pool was an experience....making sure we got enough photos we dried off and made our way back down which was a lot easier than going up! By the time we had reached the bottom a grey cloud was on it's way over....we quickly put our helmets on and jumped back onto our scooters to out run the storm....hail stones then started bouncing off us!! We soon managed to leave it behind us though ....and we were back to drop off the scooters in time. For the 3rd night running we ate at the Nasi Kandar....you can never have enough Indian food! We then took our new found friends to our new fave place for a beer.....6 beers later and we headed back for the night!
Dry mouth and a bit of a dodgy stomach we were on the move to our next place....we grabbed some breakfast and got a taxi back to Kuah to catch the ferry to Georgetown, Penang...and after hearing the horror stories of the boat ride a few days ago on the way over...it was something we were not looking forward too....