Langkawi

We got the ferry from Penang to Butterworth, a bus to Alor Setar, a rickety old public bus to the ferry port and finally a very fast boat to Kuah jetty, Langkawi. As the boat got closer to Langkawi the view of all the islands was amazing and we could see a huge statue of an eagle too. Langkawi is an archipelago of 99 Islands in the Andaman Sea. During the taxi ride to the hotel in Pentai Cenang, we were all captivated by the beauty of the island as well as how empty it seemed. We dropped off our bags, hired a car, and set off to look around. We suddenly saw lots of monkeys in a small parking area at the side of the road and stopped to watch them. The baby ones were sooooo gorgeous. There was an empty car parked up with the window half open and it wasn’t long before we were all giggling as one of the monkeys climbed in whilst another was checking himself out in the wing mirror. Then Mum shouted ‘look!’ and we saw a massive lizard just strolling along at the side of us.
We only had the car for the first couple of days so the next day we set off early to explore as many places as we could. The first stop was the Seven Wells Waterfall, known locally as Telaga Tujuh. We were walking up the very steep road when an Australian man asked us if we wanted to see a scorpion, which we of course did, and it was enormous. We continued walking up the road towards some steps and 367 of them later we reached the top of the waterfall inside the rainforest. We saw the most beautiful monkey ever sitting in a tree by the edge of the waterfall. Mum said it looked like Gizmo off Gremlins. We called at a few more places and then headed for the Crocodile Farm. We hadn’t gone far before Mum and Stuart decided we had seen enough and were leaving. All the crocodiles were badly deformed, some very badly, and it was horrible to see animals in such bad condition. We all felt sad for them. Next we headed for the highest waterfall in Langkawi, where we all had a sip of the fresh mountain water. Then it was Laman Padi, a rice museum, where we learnt about how rice is grown and the history of it. We also got to have a go at grinding some into rice flour. Finally we finished off with a walk round Oriental Village, where we got to go into some enclosures to feed and play with some deer then some rabbits. Then we got to see a tiger really close up, it was great and we all loved it there.
We had intended to spend our last couple of days in Langkawi at the beach; however the weather had other ideas. It is monsoon season here, which has been made clear over the last 2 days, so we have been stuck in the hotel for a lot of the day. This has also meant we have missed out on the island hopping which we were all really looking forward to, especially the eagle feeding part. We have still had some time to play in the white sand though, building some of the volcanoes and things we saw earlier in the trip, and had a few quick paddles in the turquoise water. Tomorrow we leave for Koh Samui where hopefully we’ll be able to spend much more time on the beach.