Langkawi - Island of Legends

Hold On!
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Now we can see the island in the bright sun shine rather than the pitch black evening, we know we have picked a beautiful place to stay for a few days.  The Motel is right on the beach - literally, and what a beautiful beach it is.

Most of the people who were hogging the hotel rooms last night have checked out and the place is quite quiet.  The beach is almost deserted and very beautiful.  We decided to spend a day getting our bearings just strolled around the place.

we saw lots of monkeys and 2 HUGE monitor lizzards basking in the sun on the side of the road

Amazing sunsets on Langkawi
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The prices here in Malaysia are obviously higher than Thailand but that has been the pattern on our trip in general - started in China with the lowest prices we have seen and steaderly good more and more expensive - maybe we are being prepared for Singapore!

On day 2 we decided to hire a car (originally we were going to hire 2 motorbikes but the sky looks like its going to rain so decided to go for comfort).  The cars are only 60 ringett to hire for 24 hours which is under a tenner so not bad at all.  We stuck 30 ringetts worth of fuel in and off we went.

Our 'wheels' - a Proton Saga
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First stop was the Oriental Village near Baru Bay which is where we stayed when we visited Langkawi 3 years ago.  The village is actually a purpose built 'duty free' and gift centre which I have to say always reminds me of Eldorado (the really bad soap opera).

The village also serves at the base for the cable car which takes you up to 700m above sea level.  Last time I went on this cable car I was absolutely terrified but this time I was a lot calmer.  The cloud base covered the top of the mountain which meant that we didn't get much of a view but it was amazing to pass through the cloud in the cable car - watching the car in front pass through was quite frightening though!

No jokes about the family resemblance please!
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When we left the Oriental Village we had a drive North to try and see the beach at the very posh hotel 'The Datai' but it was not to be - Private property - keep out or else!  However it was worth the drive as we saw lots of monkeys and 2 HUGE monitor lizzards basking in the sun on the side of the road - amazing.

Later we stopped for lunch at a road side cafe and ordered 2 bowls of vegetable soup.  Moments later two bowls of vegetable soup arrived - complete with a egg and chicken - different!

Spooky cable car in the mist
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Finally we made a quick stop at Kuah Town (Langkawi's main town) to pick up some shopping and then back to our hotel.

We have saw some fantastic sunsets in Langkawi - just beautiful!

Our experience of Langkawi is that the food etc is generally on the expensive side (by Malay standards) but the drinks are extremely cheap.  The average price for a beer is around 3 ringitts compared to 10 ringetts in other Malay states.