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Langkawi
Entry 30 of 33 | show all | print this entry |
For those who dont know Langkawi is an island at the very top of Malaysia on the west coast right on the boarder of Thailand - you can actually see Thailand from the island. Its also a duty free island, not that is has much to do with anything, but a lot of islands off the mainland are this way.
My arrival went smoothly until I got to where i was trying to go (pentai Cenang - pronounced che-nang - which was the main beach on Langkawi). I didnt know that I arrived at the very beginning of a 3 day water festival, so the place was packed! Also I was following the lonely planet to try and find a guest house that doesnt exist. This place was full of hotels, and no guest houses or hostels, and seeing as it was really hot and I had all my bags, I wasnt in the mood to go walking. I went into the first hotel I could find called Nadias Inn and enquried about a room. 150 ringgit per night~! ouch... guest houses charge somewhere in the region of 30 - 50 ringgit per night, albeit they arent as nice. Im not sure how, but I managed to bargain it down to 100 riniggit per night and thought that it would just have to do. After all it was only 2 nights and I was looking forward to having my own room for once so I could sort out all my stuff.
Walking around there were stalls everywhere with food, and all sorts and music playing everywhere. The beach was busy with action and games everywhere, and it was full of malaysians. I was expecting to see more westerners here, but there were almost none to be found which I found a little odd. Maybe I was just used to Thailand. Also I could figure out that there was a festival happening, but I had no clue as to why it was a water festival?! There really wasnt a lot to do with water here, apart from the fact it was on a beach, and it was nothing like the water festival in Thailand where everyone goes mental with water pistols, water bombs, buckets, hoses... or anything that can project water at another person. With the whole festival being in malay, and with lots of malaysians everywhere I felt a little out of place.
Later that night I went down to the beach looking for a place to have a beer, and with a strong muslim influence here there wernt too many places that sold alcohol. I found one not after too long and this is where I met a scottish guy and a swiss guy to have a beer with. Later a german girl, welsh girl and aussie girl joined us so we had scotland, switzerland, wales, germany, australia and new zealand all represented at the one table... Very international I must say. It was weird having just one of every nationality there. The night consisted mostly of drinking and crazy conversations until we all decided to mission to sanbar.. supposed do sound like samba - the spanish dance. It was a funky lil bar with everything being made from wood, but had nothing to do with spanish dancing! It was a bit of a crazy night, but I tried to have an early night as I had booked and paid for 2 dives the next day! I SOOO didnt end up going to bed early though. I ended up waking up t5he next day with about 5 mins to get ready, and the van that was picking me up calling me to ask where I was.. Whoops.
The dives were to be on an island about 1 hour fast ferry ride away called pulau payer.. or payer island.. which is a marine park and is supposed to be a good dive location. The first site was at a site called coral gardens and it had a spectacular amount of hard and soft coral with lots of different colours. I managed to see all sorts of marine life including sharks, lion fish, a moray eel, some big mackral, and a few barracuda. Lunch was on the island and was complete with a fish / shark feeding show which was cool as! They threw dead fish into the water as food and the fish went nuts, and every now and then they would all dissappear from the food with a moment to follow a shark would come in and gulp the food in one go. There was a large resident baracuda, rounghly about 1.5 - 1.8 metres, there too which did the same thing from time to time... it was cool to watch.
The second dive was at a second nearby island, and I didnt find it quite as good. The current was a little bit stronger and visibility not as good. We did manage to see parts of a wreck however as well as a few large baracuda along with some of the usual corals and things.
Back on the main island of Langkawi I was due to meet up with the gang again from last night, only this time we gained an extra sweedish and english girl - so we managed to keep the maximum level of representatives from every country at 1. This time it was a few drinks on the beach in amongst the festival they were having. They had a big stage set up on the beach with singers and entertainers on the stage. The music was nothing that anyone I know would be terribly interested in however, and the entertainment was all in malay, so understanding was a little out of the question. Nonetheless the australian member of our group managed to get very drunk and said she wanted to dance on the stage. Low and behold about 5 mins later we saw her on the big screen!! Those crazy Australians!! I have no idea how she managed to do it, AND not get kicked off either, but it was very funny to watch!
After having enough of drinking our vodka of our leaking paper cups I managed to get some plastic ones in attempt to find some kerosene (and some plastic cups) to do some fire twirling..... plastic cups I could get, but no kerosene.. :( so no fire twirling for me. We then decided to mission it to another bar down the beach called reggae bar.. and reggae music they played.. funny enough~! It would have been a perfect place to take over the sound man and play some fat freddy's... which I explained to the sweedish girl, and to my surprise she had their album and already loved them to death.. but its hard not to. The whole evening was awesome and ended in another late one and a headache the next morning. I have to say though... if it wasnt for the people i'd met in Langkawi it would have been a pretty boring trip. :P
The next morning I was due to fly out, and this is where some of the trouble started. At the time booking my flights, all that time ago in Melbourne, I was a little tired and stressed from work and it was late at night, and I accidently didnt allow enough time between my connecting flights in KL to Kota Bharu, so I was going to miss one of them for sure. I tried to change either of them, but tht wouldnt work either. Long story short I went to the airport and ended up purchasing a ticket with Malaysian air instead and it worked out to be the same as fixing everything up with air asia - only with malaysia I got to go to the new flash KLIA (Kuala Lumpur International Airport - domestic terminal), and they transfered my baggage for me to my other flight (which air asia wouldnt do) AND not only did they have a higher baggage allowance, they didnt charge me any excess baggage charges too.. so that made me much happier. :D
Soooo.. now im on my way to the Perhentian Islands... I have heard some good things about this place and im excited!
Once again for photos please go to.. http://picasaweb.google.com/mrphillipthomas/20080403Langkawi
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