Langkawi

More stories from Langkawi.

Some of you have asked me about writing up more of our adventures, so I will try to answer everybody’s questions.

Yes there were other New Zealanders there, there was another couple, Van and Jan, from Waitomo, who arrived on the same plane as us, and left on the same day we did, we were even taken in the same transfer vehicle. We ran into each other quite often and it was nice to hear our own accent among all the foreign tongues, but we didn’t do any sightseeing together as they were very together; enjoying each others company, just as we were, so we didn’t intrude. We did however have the last big fish banquet together on the last night, on separate tables, but close, and we kept visiting each other to remark on the lovely prawns and the smallness of the tiny clams and mussels or the way the salmon was cooked etc, spurring each other on to eat considerably more than we might of. Certainly, it was a lovely, enjoyable meal.

There were several from England, one from Rumania, South Africa, Portugal, Austria, Kuala Lumpur, Pakistan, Japan, China and a number from Australia, as well as all the Saudi Arabian and other Arabs, dressed quite differently, from countries I didn’t find the name of, naturally we didn’t speak with even a quarter of the people in the 500 chalets. Many families had children with them.

Every day we used to watch in amazement as a Saudi family left their chalet further down the mountain, for breakfast in the lobby restaurant, on the shuttle, There was a man and 3 adult women plus an old lady plus at least 2 small children about 7 or 8 years old. As their chalet was the same as ours we wondered where they all slept; as our chalet had only a large king-size bed and a small divan daybed, we sort of figured it was the Arab sheik with his 3 wives in one bed, mother-in-law and kids in the divan!

Monkey attack.

Erle and I drove our wee rental car up toward the Seven Wells Waterfalls, then had to climb up a million steps up a mountain to get to where the lowest part of the waterfall was, going up to the top was out of the question! We found it very nice and cool and peaceful at the rock pools. Well worth the climb, wish we had brought our swimming suits; we almost had the place to ourselves, as it was too steep for most of the people who start out walking. On the way down I photographed the two monkeys grooming each other on the path, these monkeys followed us right down to the icecream stall at the car park. We sat and ate a lovely icecream beneath a shady tree and those monkeys rushed at me to steal my icecream and may well have got it, though I moved quickly out of the way, but the stall owner quickly got out her shanghai and hurled a stone at them. Apparently these monkeys frequently manage to steal people’s icecreams, but not mine!

One of the shuttle drivers told us of a Monkey called George who learned to knock on the door of the mountain chalets, when the resident opened the door, George was in like a shot, straight to the refrigerator. He would quickly open the door and take all the cashew nuts and chips from the mini bar, then sit in the corner and eat the lot. Which is why there is a lock on the cupboard where the fridge is kept! His brilliant brainwave didn’t do him any good long time, apparently the management had to shoot George in the end, as he couldn’t be stopped from his naughty behaviour any other way. Yes, there were snakes in the jungle, we only saw a python that was the pet of one of the locals, but I know there were also adders too. We did see a big black scorpion in the jungle and gave it a wide berth, and a large monitor lizard high up a tree.

Malay Cats.

As we walked each evening to the Oriental Village for our dinner we stopped off to speak with a girl who lived there, who owned a lovely ginger cat called Long he looked similar to our lovely Burmese cats and we couldn’t resist making friends with him, normally I wouldn’t touch an animal when overseas, (Years ago, I saw a girl who had been bitten by a rabid dog in India, who needed nasty injections in her stomach everyday. That put me off animals even domestic ones when overseas.) Long was a very nice cat, we never even asked his mistress’s name, but she chatted to us each night. Most Malayan cats have short twisted tails, but Long’s tail was nice and straight, we were told the monkeys bite the cats tails off, haha, but I don’t believe that story. The resort had many feral ex domestic cats running in the jungle eating all the small birds, which is why there weren’t many.

What else is there to do in Langkawi?

Heaps of things we only scratched the surface of all the things one could do, lots of water sports for instance, we watched a chap going para-waterskiing using a parachute behind a speedboat – far too dangerous for us!

There was a cable car very near our resort but as I am scared of heights I couldn’t bring myself to go up it, when I heard there was a long swing bridge up at the top to be walked over to get to the downward flight, I knew I wouldn’t be going up there. Someone would have had to blindfold me then carry me across the bridge; even then I am not sure I would make it.

Also an elephant was giving rides to people but I have had many elephant rides so didn’t do that, Erle didn’t want to really.

There is a snake sanctuary, but one snake is more than sufficient for us.

We would of liked to have gone out in a boat, island hopping or fishing, mangrove tripping and Eagle feeding or just sightseeing, but we were too worried about finance when we had the chance. Also I couldn’t budge them on the prices, these fellows were not into bargaining, and I had an appointment to go on a jungle trek, to see the flying Lemurs, birds, flowers and other interesting things with a naturalist that afternoon, so we didn’t bother trying very hard. But basically we did most everything we wished too. There is also a nice big mountain you can drive up usually but with all that torrential rain we had the roads became closed, I am told there was a wonderful view from up there, just as from the cable car, but, I wouldn’t have seen anything there as my eyes would have been tightly closed.