Langkawi

Malaysia

April 2007

MALAYSIA - LANGKAWI

As we flew down in to Langkawi, Sarah got quite excited as this was the first proper tropical looking Island we’d been to on our trip. Lush green hills, golden beaches and clear turquoise waters. The picture of paradise that we’ve all seen on the Lilt adverts. The totally tropical taste! Lilt!

It has such a laid back feel, with minimal traffic and hassle but we soon learnt that this place had a temper. Every day we witnessed at least one very exciting thunderstorm complete with more bolt and fork lightening. It takes a brave or stupid man to be swimming in the large pool whilst one of these goes overhead. I couldn’t resist. It’s a weird feeling when you are in a swimming pool and then it rains. It feels all wrong. You are already wet, but you still have the urge to put up your umbrella.

We stayed in a very nice hotel, complete with spa, tennis, gym and they provided a great beach side barbecue complete with band. One evening we signed up for the Batik painting lessons and it was good fun. You choose a canvass on which the teacher has already drawn a picture with some kind of oil or wax, and you basically use coloured inks to fill the gaps, much like painting by numbers. Sarah painted some pretty flowers whilst I opted for the cool looking gecko. After that we took a wonder out the front of the hotel to watch the rain. Right by the decorative pond we could hear much noise and croaking so we sat for a while and soon found the source. A couple of large frogs or toads where on the wall, making quite a racket. On closer inspection you could see their throats swell up to half of its body size as it let out this glorious ‘Rebbitt’!

Next day, Sarah’s shoulder had recovered from the bowling in Melacca so we tried our hand at tennis. I would love to tell you that we skill fully sent that ball back and forth with Agassi style finesse but to be blunt…. We were crap! After an hour of fetching the ball from over the fence, another storm approach and we saw that as a sign to stop kidding ourselves and retire.

On our last day we walked on the beach in the morning, watching the crazy kids parachute from the back of speed boats, whilst we observed the hundreds of small translucent crabs that zipped around underfoot.

That afternoon we felt the need to leave the hotel complex so paid a visit to the Islands Aquarium. It was pretty good. Please just check out our photos, as we are so happy with some of these beautiful shots. (Also check out our Vancouver aquarium shots if you didn’t do that back at the start of the trip.) David Attenbrough, tuh!