Langkawi

The minibus which had picked us up from the hotel took us barely as far as the end of the road where we were loaded onto a second minibus which would hopefully take us a little further. This was not to be our only bus change as not far out of town we pulled into a tiny road off the motorway and were bundled into our third minibus of the morning.

The bus soon pulled up in a town which we took to be the port where we would get on our boat over to the Malaysian island of Langkawi. However, it was in fact just an opportunity for the driver to stop for an hour to chat to his mates. We were a little confused when we were told to leave our bags in the bus and return in an hour, so we chose to go only as far as the nearest restaurant for breakfast, while keeping the bus in sight. An hour later, during which the driver had a bit of a chat and a smoke, we left completely oblivious to why we had stopped other than to please our driver. I'd like to have been able to say we were taken straight to the port and that was it, but of course the trip wouldn't be complete without yet another minibus change. We were taken only a short way out of town, to a tourist office, where we moved our bags to our fourth minibus of the day.

Earlier in the trip we had been given a sealed envelope and were told to give it to someone at the port. The tourist office didn't look much like a port so when the lady from the office tried to take it from us we put up quite a stern resistance despite not knowing what was actually in it. It turned out this was her fee for getting us the final leg to the port so she wasn’t too pleased when we tried to keep it. Eventually, however we made it to the port.

On arrival we were shown into a tiny office, which for some reason I thought the trolley would fit in so spent a good bit of time wedging it in the door, where a nice lady took our passports and prepped our border crossing for us. All we needed to do was show our faces at the immigration office on the way past. We made our way, while enjoying more luggage trolleys, to the queue for our ferry. Somehow we seemed to ignore the queue and barged almost straight to the front before realising, although the locals seemed unbothered so we just stayed there. The boat was uneventful and we were met at the other end by a taxi driver who took us from the town of Kuah to Pentai Cenang, via a currency exchange office, where the budget hotels seemed to live.

We hadn’t booked ahead and just planned to have a wander and find somewhere, however the area was bigger than we realised and walking the length of the one road everything was based on with our bag, and in the midday heat, would have destroyed us. Leaving Linz to recover with the bags I headed off to check out one of the cheapest hotels we could see. It was a dive. It could be easily likened to a prison considering its metal framed rusty beds and the padlock on the door rather than a traditional keyhole. My report when arriving back at Linz was much more detailed so unsurprisingly we moved on. This time I left Linz, again with the bags, to check out a hotel called The Gecko however I never found it but instead found one we ended up staying in. The rooms were massive including a bedroom, a bathroom, a kitchen and a living room all for £6 each which included use of the hotel’s swimming pool. It seemed I was blinded by the prospect of a swimming pool so failed to notice that this place was also a dive. It too had padlocks. I never found out the name of the hotel, but Linz was convinced it was attached to the restaurant next door so we just referred to it by the name of the restaurant. The only reason I thought we were linking the hotel and the eatery was because we needed a name to put on our motorbike rental form and the restaurant was in sight at the time.

I suggested that we had hired a motorbike but it seemed Malaysia had less trust in us than Vietnam so in fact we were only allowed a scooter. We headed south from our hotel and soon reached the tip of the island. I was pleased to get this far as Langkawi was presenting us with a new challenge; traffic. All we found south of us was a fake Hard Rock Cafe so we headed back towards the hotel and found somewhere for dinner. On the walk back we found somewhere to catch the second half of Newcastle v Chelsea and Steven Taylor’s 92^nd minute equaliser. The bar staff and I had a good celebration although I think they were more happy for me than Newcastle claiming an unlikely point. We headed back to the room and realised we had missed our chance to use the swimming pool – the only good thing about the hotel.

The second day we hoped to head north to ride the cable car up to the highest point on the island, but rain thwarted our plans. I found the nearest poncho shop hoping a pounds worth of plastic could help us out but it only achieved two things; flapped in the wind and made me look like a dick. In addition to these issues my helmet did nothing to prevent me getting rain in my face which was surprisingly painful. We soon shelved plans of the cable car and headed into a small shopping centre where I could buy my traditional souvenir shot glass. We stayed longer than planned and by the time we came out the rain had passed so we headed off.

As you can see, I look like a dick...

The cable car is located in the Oriental Village which is a bunch of tourist based shops and activities grouped together around a small pond. At first it seems like a pleasant place but when you start paying attention you realise the shops are terrible, there are few food options and the nice pond is in fact ruined by the presence of swan shaped pedalos. This wasn’t such as issue at first as we only came here for the cable car, but we soon found out it was temporarily closed due to bad weather. We killed time by visiting the village’s animal attractions. First up was a chance to feed some deer, who were quite capable of walking though gaps in their enclosures, followed by stroking some albino rabbits which were kept so badly they looked rather unhappy. As you can probably tell we weren’t too impressed. We also got some lunch where somehow the village managed to demean itself even further by showing Big Momma’s House 2 on the TV. Eventually, however, we made it up the cable car where our hour long motorbike trip was justified. Not just as we got to watch an Indian woman completely freaking in our carriage.

Being eaten by a cloud

The view from the top was very impressive and we could see back along the coast to our area of the island as well as towards the northern end of Langkawi. Our view was only temporary though as a cloud decided to sit on top of us for a while and we could barely see the other side of the observation deck. There was also a rather noteworthy bridge built at the top of this mountain which allowed access to more viewing decks which we wandered along as the cloud had eventually lifted. We took a second cable car to a view point slightly higher before heading back down into the village and then back to Pentai Cenang.

A brief gap in the clouds looking back towards Pentai Cenang

Today was our four year anniversary and we both agreed that it was not to be spent in the grotty hotel we had had the night before so we spent a while trying to find a more pricey one as a bit of a treat. Apparently our trip to the Oriental Village wasn’t good enough for an anniversary. Maybe a swan ride would have helped? We found the Sunset Beach Resort with its own private beach and the nicest rooms we had stayed in by far so splashed out £20 each and moved in. Given the fancy nature of the place I do wish we hadn't arrived on a bright red scooter. The night before we had spotted a particularly posh looking restaurant so, for the second time, opted to drop some serious money and indulge for the evening. Best Peking duck ever.



A very happy Linz



We returned to the hotel before realising we were leaving for Kuala Lumpur the next day and still didn't have ferry or bus tickets. Consequently I mounted the chopper and headed into the night and soon enough I found a tourist office and had purchased a couple of tickets to get us to the capital city. On the way back it started to rain and seeing as I had ripped my poncho off me the previous day, due to hating it, I was soon back at the resort mildly damp.

The next morning we just planned on utilizing the hotel’s section of private beach to lounge the day away but unfortunately were lacking beach towels or the ability to have showers after swimming in the sea. However, the staff were so nice they lent us towels and even let us use their showers despite having checked out. Having seen one tiny jellyfish earlier in our travels, the mere sight of a “Beware of Jellyfish” sign was enough to put Linz off going in the sea but I enjoyed it and we both had a good time on the beach. Annoyingly it began to rain so we packed up and headed off to find some lunch to wait for the sun to remerge. Conveniently it did and we saw out the day on the beach until we were due to be picked up by our bus to the port.

Before this could be done I had to head out solo again to fill the scooter up with fuel and return it to the shop. I had been given instructions but somehow found myself in someone’s drive way so, having completed a perfect seven-point turn, retreated and returned to one we had passed the previous day quite a distance away. Of course it started raining again and I was restricted to so few miles per hour I felt I wouldn’t have been surprised to have been overtaken by a passing cow. My failings continued as I possess zero knowledge of the workings of a Malaysian petrol stations so soon found myself questioning anyone I could find. Eventually however, the bike was filled up and returned to the shop.

We were expecting to be picked up by the customary mini bus however it turned out the lady herself who I had bought our tickets from appeared at the hotel in her own car. I'm not sure what it was but it was the quirkiest little thing I ever seen filled up with all kinds of knick-knacks from cartoon ornaments to scatter cushions. She dropped us off at the port and we headed back to the mainland on the same ferry we had left it. There was little to report from the journey except the woman next to us was stroking a living bird in a small string bag. You probably have questions but I can’t answer them.

We reached the mainland around 10pm to find everything was closed and there was no one around to ask where the bus station was. Our first problem was we hadn’t eaten in a while and had to take our malaria pills with food or else suffer a similar fate to the one suffered in Hanoi. Conveniently we stumbled across a KFC and we could use our need to take our pills with food as an excuse to enjoy some fast food. However, I'm not sure upgrading to a large meal was entirely necessary.

Hanging around the bus terminal

I left Linz enjoying her chicken and went in search of the bus terminal which I found relatively easily so we made it to the station in good time for our overnight bus. The bus was one of the most comfortable we’ve had so far as our position, directly behind the driver, meant there was no one in front of us to recline into our space. In fact there was only one other person on the entire bus. Annoyingly we stopped every few hundred meters it seemed for the first hour making it harder for us to sleep but we did manage to entertain ourselves for a while with Malaysian shop signs. A favourite being a shop very keen to advertise it’s “24 Hour Jam” service. We later picked up enough local language to understand what was actually going on and establish that Malaysians don’t in fact find themselves waking up at three in the morning with an overwhelming desire for jam.