Langkawi Island, Malaysia

Lankawi is an archipelago of 100ish islands found on the west coast of Malaysia close to Thailand. It is also the name of the biggest island (which is fairly big, apparently about 187 square miles, so smaller than most Hawaiian islands you'd visit, but big enough to make getting around troublesome).


To get there, we flew AirAsia from KL. So we did some stuff in reverse to get back to KLIA2 (Kuala Lumpur International Airport 2...electric boogaloo)--one stop back down the train to KL Sentral station, and from there onto a bus to the airport. Went pretty smoothly, except the door to the bus area is small and camouflaged so we passed it a few times.

At the airport, we used a kiosk to print the boarding passes, ate some McDonalds in the airport, sat around a bunch waiting for the airplane, etc. I mostly watched youtube vids on my phone, though I probably should've been writing blogs!

Flight was 1 hour. Landed at...2 pm I think and quickly found a taxi to Zachry Guesthouse, where we are staying. We checked in and then set out on a walk to the nearby attractions...mostly shopping stalls, restaurants, a couple beaches, and the Underwater World aquarium. We spotted many different types of cuisine beyond the usual Malaysian/Chinese/Thai/Indian options--for instance a Mexican place which piqued our curiosity, so we stopped there for food.

Food Review

I had a veggie burrito (which was actually two small burritos) and Christian had chicken tacos. The ingredients were academically correct, but overall the flavor was not quite on point for authentic mexican (as expected). Christian described his tacos as "bland other than the spiciness, with taco bell-esque shells. My burritos were spicy, included avocado and sour cream, as well as lima beans for some reason, with a flour tortilla that probably wasn't home-made. Overall: good food, not very mexican though.

We've done a lot of walking here because the main beach & stuff is about a mile away. We walked back to the hostel and then asked how to get to the closer beach, which was only 5 mins walk. Sadly, although that beach was pretty empty of people, it had a fair amount of garbage lying around. We ended up walking along the beach as far as we could, and then cutting inland to find ourselves pretty close to the central hub area near the aquarium. 

So we went around the rocky cliffs separating the beaches and cut over to the more popular beach, which was cleaner. There we sat and watched the waves as the sun sank behind clouds on the horizon.

On the way back we went to a turkish restaurant and had some Doner Kebab. Yum. They used something like a tortilla as the bread/wrap thing instead of a thicker pice of pita bread or whatever is normal, but it was good.

Then we slept.

Tuesday the 16th

We woke up and headed out around 9:00ish. Nothing is really open that early, but McDonalds by the aquarium is apparently 24 hour! We had breakfast there, and got to witness some kind of management meeting with video visual aids and slideshows going on behind us. So now I'm an expert McD's manager.

After chillin there, we went to the aquarium. It was pretty cool, but not a big aquarium. They had two penguin exhibits with 40 or so penguins each, and we saw feeding time at one of them. Obviously there were a lot of fish elsewhere. Crabs. Jellyfish. Rays. The usual.

We left and thought we'd hit up a bar/cafe on the beach, but for some reason it was closed on tuesdays. So we went to a more upscale looking place called The Cliff...and about that time we saw that a storm was brewing out on the water. We went to the bar in the cliff and had a beer as they dropped down all the bamboo...uh...coverings across what was otherwise an open air bar. The wind whipped up.

We decided to just make this our home for a while.

We had food, had a few more drinks, and admired the primal power of the storm--the sea below us crashing on rocks, rain pelting down all around the building, visibility across the beach getting lower and lower as clouds of rain fell. Very exciting stuff. Christian decided maybe it was time to buy an umbrella.

After several hours we decided to leave, and conveniently the rain was letting up, so we went and did some shopping. Christian went shopping, actually, because I bought nothing. Once all the souvenirs were acuired, as well as the sunglasses and umbrella that Christian needed, we headed back to home base...it rained on the walk, and I got wet, but who cares, I didn't have any electronics on me.

Later, we went back to that turkish place. Yum again.

Sadly, we really didn't take many pictures on this island...but if I write enough it'll be almost like 1 picture according to the classical conversion rate, so let's keep going:

Wednesday the 17th

Today! I caught up! This morning we gathered at the reception desk for an "Island Hopping" tour. A car picked us up, as well as two girls from Zachry who were travelling together, one from Singapore, the other from England/Germany. We drove south to a little dock area, where we waited around until someone told us to get on a boat. In total the boat was occupied by us two, plus the 2 girls, plus a young Malaysian couple, and an Indian...family probably (three adult men, one woman, and a little girl). 

And off we went, skipping across the waves in the motorboat. The waves were minuscule, otherwise these boats would've had trouble, and the worst I can say for the boat ride was that it was occasionally bumpy with kind of hard seats. But it was a pleasure to skim over the water among the islands. We pulled up alongside one large island and saw the "Pregnant Maiden" which is a couple hills on an island that vaguely resemble a supine pregnant woman (head, breasts, pregnant belly). 

Then we docked up at the island to go see the lake. There's a very large freshwater lake inside the island--pretty weird! It was a very minor hike on a paved and staircase-d walkway to get into the lake, and there we could swim off of the floating plastic dock things, or spend money on little paddle boats and kayaks. I went for a swim, Christian just dipped his toes. We hung out with the two girls a lot because they had a watch and we didn't, so they knew when to go back to the boat!

According to a sign, the lake used to be a huge cave that collapsed inward, creating a bowl shape that filled with fresh water because there was no outlet to the sea. 

When the time came we went back down the path and got back on the boat and zoomed away. This time we dodged around some islands to find ourselves in a little cove area where a bunch of eagles flew around eating chicken that was thrown into the water by other boats. Our boat driver also threw a cup of chicken chunks,and we lingered there to watch birds swoop down and scoop up meat off the water. 

I believe these were White-bellied Sea Eagles, which look like someone mashed-up a seagull and a bald eagle. There were dozens of the things flying around, Langkawi is quite proud of their eagles. You'll find them on shirts all over the place here. 

And as a last stop on the tour, we went to a beach. There were plenty of other people there, but it was still fun to chill in the warm water, sit in the sun (or the shade, desperately trying not to burn (and failing ultimately)), and even observe the varied people and cultures touring the islands. Lots of Indians and Southeast Asians.

When the time came, we climbed back onto the boat and skipped off toward the starting dock. When we at last got back to Zachry, we were pretty tired and hungry. We showered and then walked down and tried some random cafe place. It was kinda disappointing, but that's just the luck of the draw with these things. 

We kept walking for a while and had an iced coffee, before deciding to just head back here to Zachry to rest, and now I'm writing this huge blog with no pictures because we didn't take any. Sorry.

Oh, and while I was writing this another brief storm blew in, this time with thunder and lightning! It's over now. We figure when we get hungry we'll go try that beach-side place again and maybe catch the sunset or something. 

There's a lot more to do on Langkawi, like big nature tours, Waterfalls, a cool Sky bridge, and we're just not gonna do any of that because we are tired and getting around the island is too hard and expensive.

Anyway, tomorrow our island adventures take us into Thailand. We'll be flying to Krabi, which is on the coast of Thailand, and then the next day we take a ferry to Ko Phi Phi where we'll be for a while.

That's the plan. Tune in next time to see if that works out!