Langkawi Island

1-4.2.2012

After a long relaxing week at Tonsai, I wasn't actually in a good state of mind to travel. So you can imagine how pissed I was at myself waking up 5 hours after my boat was gone. Having only one day left in my visa, I had left myself few choices. I hired a private car to take me to Satun to meet Antti and take the boat to Langkawi island, Malaysia. Not gonna tell you how much I paid. Suffice to say, I will not repeat that mistake.

Anyhow, as I arrived to Satun, Antti had booked us in what I can only describe as one of the coolest hotels I have ever seen! Ang Yee's Guesthouse Art Café was the name. It is run by a retired local climbing instructor 🙂 Can't believe I don't have any pictures from there but it was more like tastefully unique artsy getaway of sorts. Antti, if you are reading this, would you mind sending some pictures to add?

After good night's sleep, we took an open-type minibus to the pier…

…where we jumped on a boat to Langkawi, Malaysia! It was around 3 h ride.

Checked in a cheap resort-style guesthouse (sidebusiness for a laundry service apparently) and this is what was waiting for us. Look at the size of the bugger!

Long day. Sunset. Beer.

Picked up motorbikes (big ones this time) for two days. Plan was to roam about the island and see some stuff. Which we did!

Huge amount of small crabs and various critters in these muds. Facinating!

Took a dip midway to somewhere. No-one in a mile's sight. Until, after walking on the beach for a while, some douche came waving us off. Apparently we'd stumbled upon Four Seasons resort, even though there was no way to tell it.

Life is not so bad sometimes

Uuno Turhapuro

Fetching my new slipper that got away. My old ones I lost in Tonsai.

Next up was the Seven Wells waterfalls that offered a well needed refreshment after climbing couple hundred stairs on a side of a mountain. Sweating and panting we sat under this waterfall. Splash!

Views were not bad either, BTW

Then out of the blue, we ran into these guys again! The day before we hired a ride from the Langkawi pier to the beach with Manuel and Bysi. Byron ’Bysi’ I actually first met in Hanoi, Vietnam in December! Manuela was a new acquaintance for now 🙂

They say you shouldn't sit in sweet, still water. But we desperately needed the “coolth” of the wells, even if it meant risking parasites.

Had some fun with underwater photography 😛

Bysi

Manuela

Manuel

Watersliding fun at the Seven Wells waterfalls!

Nothing quite beats the natures own waterslides.

Afterwards we decided to go see the “black sands” because it sounded cool! What a let-down 😦 only barely visible dark particles of apparent volcanic origin among the regular sand. No biggie.

Time to hit the tax-free (yeah, Langkawi is tax-free and thus almost the only place for cheep booze in Malaysia) and score the absolutely cheapest Bombay Sapphire Gin I have ever seen! It was 14e for one litre 😛 as the small supermarket nearby had no tonic, we settled for bitter lemon, which turned out a great alternative!

After hours we watched the legendary movie “Leaving Las Vegas” and got inspired by a scene where Nicholas Cage drinks beer underwater (1:47 on the next video)

The rest you can guess…:)

That's how it's done!

Second day on the bikes we left a little late due to our morning “excercises” at the pool and went to the Gunung Raya mountain.

The views along the way were just excellent!

On the top there was a satellite station (that looked like a bunker) and a resort (!) with no guests.

Scouting the views on the way down of Gunung Raya mountain.

Trying to find a place to drink beer out of sight, not to upset anyone…

On the way back got caught in a massive rain. It was actually nice as we didn't have anywhere to be 🙂

Oh, one of the best ever mutton curries was served in this restaurant (tomatoes was the name, if memory serves). Also the cheese roti was to die for!

More about food when we reach Penang, the centre melting pot for food in Malaysia.