Langkawi.

Up at 6.00 this morning ready to set off for the airport for our flight to Langkawi. The taxi (Grab) to the airport cost 52.5 Ringet which is about £10.50. For a 45 minute ride I don’t think that’s bad really. If you were in a cab in the UK for 45 minutes I dread to think what it would cost! Check in was all pretty painless and we soon found ourselves waiting in the departure lounge seated not far from an Indian family whose kids, two boys primarily, seemed to be having a contest to see who could whinge the loudest. Before entering the departure lounge we had eaten breakfast in a cafe and sitting there looking around I was struck by the notion of how far we’ve fallen behind in the UK. Here we are in a small regional Malaysian airport and while it’s nothing spectacular, it’s just nice! The ceiling in the area we were in was covered in small lights which, had it been dark would have looked like the sky at night! If you look upwards at Birmingham airport all you’ll see are missing panels and grimey pipes and ducting that you’re really not meant to see. I’ve often wondered what a foreign visitors first impression must be when they arrive in Birmingham and the first thing they see is our dump of an airport!

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking, todays flight will be delayed by 15 minutes due to technical difficulties.” That’s just what you want to hear when you’re sat on the runway with a huge propellor just outside your window. We were actually delayed by 40 minutes in the end and took off at about 11.10 am. Whatever the technical difficulty was it obviously didn’t amount to anything serious but I have to say I found it slightly disconcerting having that large propellor whizzing around right outside my window.

It’s been a good few years since I flew in a plane with propellors but it got us there safely and without incident of any kind, landing at about 12.15. We walked down the steps of the plane and across the tarmac into the terminal building where we immediately found the luggage carousel. Imagine our surprise when, literally within a minute our two bags appeared! I could hardly believe it. Langkawi, score 1, Birmingham score 0! We grabbed the bags and headed for the exit. Already waiting for us outside was our pre arranged driver ready to take us to the hotel. Once again I was dumbfounded by the efficiency of this place. I know it’s quite a small airport  but I would never have expected to be able to say, that within five minutes of the plane landing we were in a car on the way to the hotel. Unbelievable but good!😃

The hotel was roughly a 15 minute drive away and the driver used the time to tell us all about Langkawi. He was very nice and also very knowledgeable but unfortunately we both found it quite difficult to understand a lot of what he was saying. He pointed out one place which he strongly recommended that we should go to eat and it actually consisted of about 3 or 4 tables set out at the side of the road and someone cooking in a parked van! This all seemed to be in the middle of nowhere and I would estimate it to be  at least a half  hour walk from the hotel. I somehow couldn’t imagine us going out of our way to try and find it. I should add that the entire journey was accompanied by pouring rain!

Arriving at the hotel we walked into the reception to find a nice seating area and a very charming and helpful young lady on reception who checked us in and then informed us that the room wouldn’t be ready for 20 minutes or so. We were invited to have a refreshing cold drink while we waited. The drink was in a small glass urn (tea urn?) and I couldn’t help noticing the small framed information sheet alongside informing us of the drink’s health benefits. It seems the drink is brewed from a fusion of Organic Frangipani Flowers. Frangipani is the name of the hotel and they place small Frangipani flowers on the bed in your room by way of a greeting. All very lovely but looking at the urn I couldn’t help it reminding me of a huge urine sample. The taste was a bit nondescript really but thanks to the accompanying sign, we now know we don’t have to worry about Swollen feet, boils or better yet, Gonorrhea! Now that’s definitely an unexpected bonus.

Having checked in we went to the room. Nice room, air conditioning, telly with a crap picture which most likely won’t get switched on again and a big fan directly over the bed which always makes me wonder what would happen if it fell off whilst spinning at full tilt? Better not to dwell too much on thoughts like that. So the hotel has a slightly rundown feel to it like it’s all seen better days but it’s situated right on a glorious beach which is about a minutes walk out of the room and we both agreed it’s very nice thanks to it’s location and decided we preferred to think of it as rustic rather than run down. Unfortunately as we settled into the room and unpacked, it continued to absolutely chuck it down with rain. The fact that there is an umbrella provided in the room made me wonder if this downpour was more of a regular thing than they let on? Happily it stopped raining in plenty of time for us to go and explore the local area. We walked up the road looking for somewhere to eat and ended up walking about two kilometres to a place that we had seen online called Cba Restaurant which had excellent reviews on Trip Advisor. We were there at about 6.15 and they didn’t start serving food until 7.00 so we booked a table on the beach for 7.00 and had a stroll on the beach to kill the time before we could eat. Cutting a long story short we had a magical evening at a table at the very edge of the beach, watching what should have been the sunset except for the bank of cloud which snuffed out the colour in the sky. Nevertheless still a beautiful location, wonderful food and lovely service!

Afterwards we walked back to the hotel mooching around the shops along the way. It’s a lot like any seaside place in as much as, a lot of the shops are full of cheap junk! Happy to say our first night in Langkawi was a great success and looking forward to seeing more of the island in the coming days.

On our first full day in Langkawi we decided to go to the cable car which takes you up the mountain for supposedly breathtaking views of the island. The cable car apparently takes you a total distance of 2.1 very steep Kilometres and an altitude of 708 meters which doesn’t sound like a lot to me but felt like we were up in the heavens. I had been looking forward to this trip for days since we had booked to come to Langkawi so I couldn’t help but be slightly let down when it turned out that, while the rest of the island appeared to be bathed in glorious sunshine the mountain was shrouded in cloud which precluded any kind of successful photography. Also I hadn’t anticipated there being quite as many people (with their legions of kids). There were the usual hordes of people taking selfies with a thick fog as a backdrop, very impressive! Anyone who’s read any of my previous blogs will know all about my love of the Japanese. While we had waited in the queue for  tickets for the cable car we were behind a Japanese couple. Now I know a lot of the Japanese like to wear face masks presumably to protect themselves against pollution but this girl had what looked like a baseball cap but with press studs around the edge to which was attached what I can only describe as a kind of pelmet which covered her entire head and shoulders. On top of all that she had on, a pair of large round sunglasses with a pink chrome look so you couldn’t even see her eyes! As we stood in line we eventually reach a point where you are obliged to have your photo taken against a green background so that they then impose you against a backdrop of the cable car and the mountain. Who wants a photo taken against a false background? The Japanese girl had her photo taken with the full head covering which looked bloody ridiculous to me. I know you could say, maybe she has some kind of medical condition to justify the cover up but I suspect it’s just to maintain that milky white complexion that the Japanese seem to value so much! Anyway, I found the whole thing extraordinarily irritating beyond all reason and had to fight the impulse to snatch the thing off and give her a good slap! There you go, yet another Victor Meldrew moment!

After the disappointment of the cloudy mountain and the views that never were, we got a taxi back to the hotel and spent the rest of the day on the beach. Lynne and I had a good laugh while swimming in the sea with me showing off all my swimming skills (nonexistant ). I can honestly say I’ve never experienced sea as warm as this. It’s almost warm enough to compare with bath water. The only problem was that after half an hour of being beat up by the occasional big waves you inexplicably find your shorts pockets full of sand as if some subliminal force is preparing to dispose of your body by attaching weights wherever possible! As someone who for years has shied away from beach holidays because I thought them totally boring I have to confess I thoroughly enjoyed the time we spent in the water messing about like a couple of kids at play.

The above image was taken at the far end of the beach simply because I like the run off of water on the rocks immediately after a wave has hit. I took quite a few photos at this spot and this was the only one I liked enough to share. Most of the others had distractions like people paragliding in the background and as I was using something like a one second exposure they were just weird blurs in the sky. It would have taken a lot of work in photoshop to make them worth sharing but I couldn’t be bothered!

Later in the evening we walked out to eat and got about 300 yards before deciding on a restaurant closer to the hotel. This was a place called The Red Sky Restaurant. It was a bit quiet and I had my doubts, needlessly as it turned out as the food was delicious and the service excellent, which to be fair, seems to be the case everywhere we go in Malaysia! The red sky reference is I imagine because Langkawi is renowned for it’s colourful sunsets. Typically, there hasn’t been anything approaching a sunset since we arrived. I’d like nothing better than to set up and photograph a red sunset but there always seems to be a bank of cloud which blots out any colour in the sky. Even when we sat in the restaurant on the beach having a romantic candle lit dinner on the first night, there was no colour, just cloud blocking the sun on the horizon! Never mind, as always the weather is the one thing we can never dictate and probably just as well really or someone like Donald Trump would most likely want to find a way to weaponise it! On that cheery note I think I’ll call this a blog and put an end to the waffle for now.