25 July 2008 - Langkawi

It should have took 8 hours to reach Langkawi from Krabi but it took 12. 2 people were half an hour late for the bus in the morning and to make it worse we had the miserablist bus driver in Thailand. Because the bus was late leaving we missed the 1 o'clock ferry and had to wait for the last ferry at 4 o'clock. Langkawi is 1 hour ahead of Thailand and we also had a new currency to get used to : Ringgit. We got a taxi from the ferry port to Cenang beach (the most popular beach on the island) to find somewhere to stay. We were lucky enough to find a hut on the beach front with a lovely sea view for only 10 pound a night. It also had air conditioning and a fridge which was good.

We hired a car for the day to explore some of the island. The car was tiny, it had an 800 cc engine and when we got in the front seats and moved them so we could fit our legs in there was no room in the back!! The petrol was cheap, we put 5 pound of fuel in and it filled over half the tank!! We visited one of Langkawi's most popular attractions the cable car. We have been on a few cable cars in the past year but this one was the highest by far. I was petrified. I don't think i will ever enjoy going in them. Once at the top the highest viewing platform is 720 m above sea level. The views were amazing. There was also a suspension bridge that you could walk on to get to another view point. The bridge was a huge construction and it made you wonder how on earth they built it where it was. The whole structure moved in the wind and i didn't like it one bit so Karl went over and got those pictures!! After the cable cars we visited 3 beaches, pantai pasir teng korak, pantai kok and pantai tanjung rhu. They were all lovely but our favourite was pasir teng korak. It had pure white sands and a beautiful turquoise water. The only thing you had to be careful of was the cheeky monkeys that lived on the beach. While we were having a swim a group of them stole some food from a woman sitting under a tree, they can be quite intimidating when they are in a group.

Langkawi is a chilled out island. There are plenty of restaurants and a few bars but no real nightlife. Our favourite bars were Debbie's Irish Bar, Little Lylia's and Babylon which were on the beach.

We enjoyed our 10 day stay but it didn't have the same feel to it as Thailand. Unfortunately we had as much rain as we did sun but at least we got to see the island at it's best when the sun did come out!!

The time has come to head back to Thailand, Koh Lanta was next.