The next leg of our journey was to take us out of Thailand and into Malaysia (well not mainland Malaysia as such but Langkawi island). We departed Koh Lanta at too-early o’clock by minivan, spending the next hour or so driving around various resorts gradually filling all the empty seats with people. Eventually we headed for the pier for the first crossing on the car ferry, then sped across Koh Lanta Noi (the smaller, undeveloped and mangrove-covered island) to the next car ferry to the mainland. Our driver was less than enthusiastic about the early start and his somewhat rally-esque driving style reflected this! After about 45 mins we stopped at a random house by the side of the road, our driver hopped in the back and a new driver took his place – obviously he’d done his work for the day! The journey ended with us all being dropped at a tour operator in Trang where we had a few minutes to freshen up before commencing the next leg. The tour office in Koh Lanta didn’t go into too much (or any) detail as to how we actually got to Langkawi but the next form of transport was a pleasant surprise – a taxi! It looked like it had driven straight out of the set of Starsky and Hutch – a late ‘70’s Toyota Crown complete with super-sprung red velour seats! We hopped in the back and cruised in style down the coast towards the town of Satun, then onwards to the boat pier. As we headed South, the Muslim influence was more and more noticeable – more headscarves, less Wats (Buddhist temples) and more golden-topped Mosques. We also passed a number of gatherings of locals in dusty squares dotted amongst the forest, all crowded round about a number of hanging cages with songbirds tweeting away inside – we think it was some kind of bird-based X-Factor! Anyway, our taxi journey was so rapid (maybe because we’d been transported back in time) that we made the early ferry – result! We whizzed (I say whizzed, it was more like crawled but anything’s rapid compared to the Russian border crossing!) through immigration, hopped on the 160-seater fibreglass hulk and set sail for Malaysia!
A sunny morning on the ferry
A quick snap of picturesque (!) Trang
Excited to be in the back of the retro taxi
Think our ride was slightly more comfortable than this chap’s
One songbird and three spectators travelling in style to the sing-off!
The boat was actually surprisingly rapid, plus we had the pleasure of watching Pirates Of The Carribean in Malay whilst we sliced through the waves toward our destination. We arrived at the pier in Kuah in Langkawi about half an hour early - everything seemed to be going smoothly. A little too smoothly, it turned out! When passing through Malay immigration, we noticed that the Thai official at Satun had stamped my passport OK but had forgotten to give Fran an exit stamp – shoddy admin! Fortunately after a bit of sweet-talking, the big boss of the immigration department believed our story and let us into Malaysia – we didn’t fancy returning to Thailand to sort out one tiny stamp! Once through immigration we grabbed a bit of lunch at the first place we saw - a bizarre place called Kenny Rogers’ Roasters (great for lard-filled jacket potatoes accompanied by Kenny Rogers’ horrendous crooning on the stereo) – then hopped in a taxi to our guesthouse.
Our rocketship
Farewell Thailand!
Hello Malaysia!
Looks like I have more hair on my chin than my head – awesome!
Road leading from our guesthouse
We were greeted by the charismatic and ever-friendly Dee, who runs the Pondok Keladi guesthouse with his partner Mark. Dee, a Malay chap originally from the mainland, studied at Bristol Uni a few years ago and lived in Bridgwater for a number of years so we chatted about Exeter and the South-West for quite a while! It also turns out his favourite place in the UK is Marlow and one of his friends got married in . Mark had attended Aylesbury Grammar School which was the boys school opposite Fran’s girls’ school, Aylesbury High– small world! Anyway, once we’d checked in we went straight out and set about exploring the island. First stop was Pantai Tengah beach – a pretty glorious stretch of golden sand looking out at a few of the smaller uninhabited islands in the Langkawi archipelago. We thought it best to put our thoughts down in the sand – see below!
My thoughts exactly!
View from the beach over Pulau Rebak Besar island – not too shabby either!
Cool eagle-like rainbow cloud formation – weirrrd!
The following day we checked out another of Langkawi’s attractions – another beach! Pantai Cenang beach is flanked by a very slightly tacky tourist high street, however the beach itself is attractive, lined with cheapish eateries and some not-so-cheap bungalow resorts (not made from bamboo this time!). Pretty much every watersport was available somewhere down the beach, however on a traveller budget we made do with some inexpensive chilling out on the beach and the odd swim! We did splash out on a beer though as, with Langkawi being a duty free island, it was seriously cheap! Paddington enjoyed a fair few glugs of Tiger as you can see below. In the evening, Dee and Mark invited us to join them at a local expat eatery for some particularly tasty Western fare! Though a bit pricier than our usual £3 meal, my humongous Ozzie Burger was worth every ringgit!!!
Pantai Cengah beach
A peculiar piece of driftwood sticking out of the beach
Yellow Cafe on Pantai Cengah
Paddington drinking like a true Brit!
Our third day on the island was an action-packed one. Dee had invited us to join him at the yoga class he attends at the local beach. I haven’t done yoga for ages (and even then I was pretty rubbish) and Fran was the same so we wobbled our way through the session but came out the other side having thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and stretched things that haven’t been stretched for quite a while!!! I made the mistake of taking my camera – the instructor took some particularly embarrassing photos of us while we weren’t looking / able to look, a few of which appear below! After yoga we went about arranging our new favourite form of traveller transport for the next couple of days – the vastly underpowered moped! We burned rubber up and down the mountainous island roads that day to visit the Langkawi cable car, battling the wind and rain en route; unfortunately said wind and rain stopped the cable car from operating – doh! All was not lost however as we headed instead to the Telaga Tujuh (Seven Wells) waterfalls for a dip. The ascent to the top of the ninety-metre waterfall was pretty gruelling, however it was worth it for the icy dip at the end, made even more special by the presence of a whole family of Macaque monkeys! One of the monkeys was having a whale of a time playing with a flip flop he’d appropriated from an unsuspecting tourist – we tied our bag to a log to prevent that from disappearing too!
Fran restoring her chi
Thankfully you can’t see our expressions of agony!
The mountains of the interior, viewed from the slightly bizarre ‘Oriental Village’ tourist village
Rich on another mean machine
Going for a dip
Monkey Monkey Monkey!
Monkey laughs in the face of danger
Beardy and Fran + waterfall
Our fourth day saw us starting our half marathon / marathon training proper (pretty draining in this heat, or at least that’s what I’m blaming my poor performance on!) and doing a near complete lap of the island on the moped, stopping off at the stunning Tanjung Rhu beach in the North of the island. This was a spectacular beach which lived up to the hype – small and almost untouched with shiny white sand and mangrove trees, with a far-reaching view all the way out to Ko Phi Phi in Thailand. We spent the afternoon frazzling on the beach with a few other tourists from around the globe. Langkawi is a popular destination with Arab tourists and it was nice to see people from all denominations enjoying the same simple pleasures of sun, sea and sand. It was a little surprising to see women going for a dip in a full burka but each to their own – at least it offered protection from the blazing sun! We made our way back before sunset as we were invited by a friend of Dee and Mark’s to a ‘Burger Party’ – we definitely weren’t going to turn down a free feed! The food was delicious and we had a lovely evening chatting to the other guests, most of whom were expats working in Langkawi, who made us feel very welcome indeed. The host also had five tiny and incredibly cute kittens who had been abandoned at the roadside – it was hard to resist taking a few with us in our rucksacks!
Koh Phi Phi in the distance from Tanjung Rhu beach
Beach aerobics at Tanjung Rhu
Evening stroll along the sand bar
More runs and some essential washing / travel admin (and a tiny bit more relaxing on the beach) filled our penultimate day on the island before we set off for Penang today. We caught the 2:30pm ferry from Kuah pier and after a very slightly stomach churning 3 and a half hours on the boat we arrived at Georgetown, the capital of Penang. We’ll hopefully pick up the blog baton in a few days and let you know what it’s like – looks awesome so far!
Love Rich and Fran
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