Travel Photography | 57. Wonders of Langkawi Island
After a long relaxing week at Tonsai, I wasn't actually in a good state of mind to travel.
Let me explain.
The last night we partied a "tad" too hard resulting in me waking up on the floor of my bungalow with a phone full of messages from my worried friend Antti whom I was supposed to meet in Satun to depart for Langkawi the very next day.
So you can maybe imagine how pissed I was at myself waking up 5 hours after my boat was gone. Having only one day left on 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. If memory serves, the ride cost me something around 200€.
Suffice to say, I will not be repeating that mistake anytime soon.
This is a story of what happened in my life 1-4.2.2012.
As I arrived at Satun, Antti had booked us in what I can only describe as one of the coolest hostels I have ever seen! Ang Yee's Guesthouse Art Café was the name. It was run by a retired local climbing instructor.
I can't believe I don't have any pictures from inside there but it was more like tastefully unique artsy getaway of sorts.
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 guest house (side business 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. The plan was to roam about the island and see some stuff. Which we did!
A huge amount of small crabs and various critters in these muds. Fascinating!
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, I guess.
Fetching my new slipper that got away. My old ones I lost in Tonsai if you can believe it.
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, just saying.
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 ?
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 cheap booze in Malaysia) and score the absolutely cheapest Bombay Sapphire Gin I have ever seen! It was 14€ 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 (briefly shown in the next trailer)
The rest you can guess…:)
That's how it's done!
On the second day on the bikes, we left a little late due to our morning “exercises” 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 :P
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.
Thanks for reading!
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(First published 04/02/2012 at LiveJournal)
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