Langkawi Island

We strolled through Malay immigration on Langkawi Island with such ease that we didn’t actually get looked at, scanned, stamped or given a visa. Once ‘through’ I though it didn’t feel right to not have anything official to say we have actually entered the country so we went back to ‘Immigration’ and it took a while to explain that we have just come from Thailand, (and not we want to go to Thailand) and that we need a stamp. We were then presented with the most pathetic of stamps in our passports. We were amused by the sheer laxidasical attitude everyone seemed to have. Anyway, Langkawi is the most north island on the west coast of peninsula Malaysia. We decided to take this route into Malaysia mainly because we wanted to rest on a beach for a while, but also to avoid the troubles in the most northern states of Malaysia that borders the troubled southern states of Thailand. Although nothing serious has happened for a year or so, we would have rather not risked it.

From Langkawi onwards we needed to plan day by day because the Christmas and New Year period is so busy and accommodation was booking up fast. It was the first time on this trip we thought further than the next night and it took two full afternoons and evenings pouring over Lonely Planet guides, maps and the internet to get from the 18 December 2010 to 13 January 2011 planned and accommodation booked with contingency plans as well just in case! Planning this much took a lot of patience and effort; another reason why we were so looking forward to just chilling by the beach!

So for 4 days that is exactly what we did. We stayed in a cute little guesthouse just up from the beach and the main tourist strip so it was quiet and had everything we needed. The most exercise we did was walk 10 minutes to the beach, find a bed, lye on it, read, swim and eat. It was fabulous to get back into my book and just relax and not have to think about where we’re going next. The beach was beautiful. It is 2km long, very white and very shallow which meant you could swim out for miles and still touch the seabed. During the day, the beach was super quiet with only Western tourists scattered along it. Come 5/6pm when the sun was much weaker and starting to set, local and Muslim people would come out and the beach was suddenly rammed full of people swimming and picnicking. I can only guess that it is because they don’t want to get tanned by the sun and ruin all the hard work they have put in to whitening their skin with all sorts of nasty products that should just be banned.

Considering we were staying near the main tourist strip with all the tacky souvenir shops, there was a surprisingly broad selection of restaurants. We ate very well while we were there and we have had some of the best food of the trip so far. Arabic style wraps, chicken satay, coconut crusted calamari, mango chicken, mango duck and curry – yum. Langkawi hasn’t quite gotten so developed yet, which meant no highrise chain hotels or annoying touts - bliss. The highest building for miles was four floors and even that was surrounded by trees so it didn’t look blindingly obvious, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it gets to be more developed in 10 years’ time because it’s the most beautiful beach I have seen in South East Asia so far.

We could have happily spent 2 weeks there but we needed to move on so after cycling back across the island to the ferry port, we took a boat to another Malay island, the biggest of them all, called Penang, where we would spent Christmas.

The left view from my sunbed



The right view from my sunbed