Day 9 - Don’t look down

Alan is writing the blog tonight. Sarah is commenting in red.

Our first night on Langkawi Island was spent in extreme heat as our air conditioner wasn’t blowing any cool air at all. But we managed to get some sleep anyway. We reported the problem to reception and they said that you have to pull the plug out at the wall and plug it in again and it will work.  Yes, it does, but for only 30 minutes so I guess one of us isn’t going to get much sleep tonight. We will tell them about this again tomorrow.  We are paying enough money … the air con should work.

Muffin Head, the cat who calls our hut home, spent the night sleeping on a chair and didn’t disturb us until she heard us talking in the morning at which point she joined us on the bed. We found out later in the day that she is actually a he and his name is Mr T. We’re still calling him Muffin Head though. We ate our breakfast which the staff had put in our fridge the evening before while we were out at dinner, before we headed out at about 11am.

It’s nice having our own car for a change instead of having to rely on taxis. We drove north, trying our best to understand the Malaysian signposts and the very inadequate and not to scale map that we have. With not too much trouble we found our way to the Langkawi cable car, one of the islands premier attractions. The cost was less than $A10 each and there was no wait to get on it. The trip up the mountain gave us spectacular views back down over the Oriental Village and out over the water. Sarah hates looking down and I hate looking up. We arrived at the first viewing platform and took a few photos before getting back on the cable car to the top. It’s 705 metres above the sea below us, and the cable car was on a 42 degree grade at it’s steepest point.

  

We took more photos from the top and then began to walk down to the bridge, which you’ll see in a photo or two.

Part of the way down Sarah decided that the climb back up would be too difficult so she waited for me at the top while I went down to the bridge by myself. The views weren’t really any better from there and the walk back up the broken and uneven concrete/stone stairs was not easy, plus the concrete slabs on the bridge moved whenever you stepped on them so it was probably a good thing that Sarah stayed up top. Brilliant decision I say.

When we got back down to the Oriental Village it was time for a drink because we both had sweat pouring out of us.

There was a sign for free entry to their animal farm so we went and had a look around there. The sum total of their animals was 5 deer and 1 rabbit. Best zoo ever! A couple more photos around the place and then we headed back to the car. We did see some more rabbits and a few ducks on the way out. I was feeling rather sick by this time; probably a combination of the heat and having drunk 600ml of Groovy Grape soft drink too quickly. The air conditioning in the car made me feel a lot better.

We continued our journey toward the northern coast of the island and passed by the Crocodile Farm. We had been warned that it’s the worst tourist attraction ever, so we went straight on by. There was not a single car in the car park. We found a couple of nice looking beaches and stopped to take some photos. Unfortunately some of them are spoiled by  rubbish which either washes up on the beach or gets left there by tourists. There were a number of people at Pasir Tengkorak Beach, many of whom were having bbqs. Is that what they were having?  Smelt like burnt plastic to me.

     
We drove back down the road a little way until we saw the turn off for Temurun Waterfall. We pulled into the car park but thought better of getting out to hike an unknown distance to the waterfall as the place was completely deserted apart from one guy just sitting there in his car watching. Better to be safe. We’ll go back there tomorrow.

We followed the road northeast, passing by the cement factory. We didn’t stop despite it being marked as a place of interest on our map. We drove to the end of the road when we came to the Tanjung Rhu Resort. It’s very secluded and pretty and we walked through the woods next to the resort until we reached the beach to take some more photos. The resort pool looked very inviting indeed but we thought there were probably a few too many guests lazing around there to risk a quick dip.

It was mid afternoon by now so we came back to the hotel to cool off in the pool for a while before going out to dinner. Dip in the pool for Alan, after his nap with the cat. 

There were no satay skewers or ice water on offer for us today. They must be for new arrivals only. The plan was to find a nice Thai restaurant for dinner but that is easier said than done around here so we ended up at an Italian restaurant instead. Obviously Malaysians are good Italian cooks because the food really was delicious.

Back to the hotel and time for one last dip in the pool while the sun was setting and now we’ve retired to our room for the night. Muffin Head is somewhere in here with us.

And I took some photos of the sunset at the hotel, as well as some photos of the other residents here.

One thing we failed to mention is the bathroom here.  The shower is in a shower room which also houses the toilet.  The water flows directly from the shower through the floorboards to a section of rocks piled up under the floor,  Also, the toilet seems to be just sitting there and it moves every time you sit down on it.  I’m afraid to lean too far to one side in case it falls over.

Tomorrow we’ll explore the rest of the island.