Langkawi - The miracle of beaches and eagles and god bless the duty free island

Probably half of you out there would have known my annoying presence online has peacefully disappeared couple of days. Then on friday nite you saw this Miux came online with a personal msg saying "i'm back".

So here you go, the complete photo journey from 19th Dec till 22nd Dec on the heavenly island.

Day Zero, 19th Dec 2006
The journey doesn't officially start yet,due the reason that a boring bus ride aint included! We took the nite bus rite, knowing the fact it would take us bout 6-7 hours to Kuala Perlis. Trust me, there's nothin fun bout stting down for hours and hours while survivng thru the cold air condition. Especially for someone who didnt bring any jacket,overcoat or whatsoever.

A good example will be Sweet Yee all rolled up. I think thats bout 15 mins after the bus started moving

Thats Sin Yee havin fun with the camera and takin spontaneous pics. Yeah, i do look bored in the pic

Esther Wong would probably love to hear this...tht i have to admit Alor Setar is beautiful. Especially the bright stars of the night sky. Nopes, no pics since it would have just turned out to be dark meaningless pics.
Haha, yes...the rest of the 5 fellas (Sin Yee, Sweet Yee, Ken, E-von and Perli) were sleeping comfortably (or not?). Told ya that i'm bored and I can sleep =)

Day One, 20th Dec 2006
After 6-7 hours of butt-numbing in the bus, finally arrived at the Kuala Perlis jetty. Its a shabby dull place. Was bout 6.30am or so?

Anyway, there came this guy asking me whether have we gotten our bus tix home. So yeah, why not since we're searching for a better timing to get back home. After gettin the tix, found out that he's more than a bus tix seller. He was offering vehicle rental, resort accommodation and tour packages. You name it, they have it. With a better price. Somehow things got a lil skeptical towards everything that he has to offer. Imagine puttin like 10%-20% deposit on these guys where there's only catalogues and pics for ur eyes. Oh yeah, they were like just setting up a table and start pulling ppl in for their 'deals'.

Heck with it, probably there are loads more on the island itself. So lets just leave and get on the ferry.

Ferry ride...no comment. Watched a lame movie bout police and illegal racers during the ride.

Wee~~ After a darned 8 hours journey, I CAN SEE THE ISLAND FOR ONCE
Did u see that? No, wasnt talking bout the scenery. Its the huge sign board!
"Selamat Datang Ke Langkawi...Pulau BEBAS CUKAI"
Haha, i love the duty free idea more than anything else. Everyone was so delighted to see that.

...And the other side of the jetty

The jetty was a pretty decent one i must say. Kinda like an airport. Nice shops and stuffs...u'll get the idea. So was having breakfast at this mamak stall inside the jetty building while waiting
for Joyce And Gerard(they drove up north and took a different ferry to meet us). Had this terrible roti canai which i called it roti hangus. One of the worst roti i ever eaten. Lol. I'm always mean anyway =)

Anyway, the entire group was completed. So its bout time to start searching for a car. Hmm....8 ppl? So its either 2 cars or a van. Being budget travellers we are, obviously we'll go for a van. Hehe
The whole jetty area are swamped by all those car rental fellas. In a very desperate measure as well, by all means to get u to rent their car.

Finally Gerard got a decent deal on a van. Yay, we get to leave and start moving around. But sumhow, driving a van seemed rather ambitious. We thought its just another ordinary manual vehicle

*enters into first gear*
*accelerates*
*van stalled*
Gerard: "I havent even let go of the clutch yet!!"

Somehow by stalling at each traffic light did get us as far as a couple of kilometers.
I dunno why, but it wasnt wise at all to sit at the 'highest' seat in the van
Yeah, i couldnt keep my head straight throughout the period i'm in the van.

Guess what? The van finally decided to play dead and stall for the last time. We're trapped in the middle of the street during a stop at a traffic light. After like tryin to start up the van for like 15 times...gave up and had the urgency to contact the guy(rental dude).

There we are, stucked inside a hot vehicle with nothin to do but to crap and take pics.
Exhibit A:
E-von got bored of waving cars to overtake us. Apparently KFC doesnt open tht early =(

Yay! After a series of attempt from us...we got a clear shot of perli
One of the failed attempts. Oh, hi joyce!
A bunch of 'hot' fellas like cookies baked in an oven

2 cops in a kancil car came by and asked us to push the ca aside. Now why didnt we do tht earlier? I think we were just too lazy to do. Hehe

Thats our darned van btw

So the conclusion of this incident? The guy came with 10 bucks petrol to refill it, start up the van and we drove back to the jetty.
It is wiser for us to get 2 auto Wira's afterall. Lol. For all the trouble.

Checked into the hotel...The Best Star Hotel at Pantai Cenang . Sounded like a junk food brand. Didnt think that it actually existed. We were told by someone that the rating of this hotel is no star. We can see why. There's aint any facilities beside the chalet-like rooms. RM120 per nite for a family room, guess we cant complain much. Hehe.
Oh yeah, we had to walk across the street to get to the beach. Such location they had.

So our every first itinerary of the day will be...going for the cable car ride!
If you asked me, i didnt know cable car was part of the attraction in Langkawi.
Oh well, here it goes
...few mins later
And things ppl do inside a cable car...snap pics of themselves after the scenery seemed a lil dull

One of the spontaneous shots
She's so gonna kill me for posting this =D


After a few more mins later

They were talking bout my 'happening' pose by pointing at the camera. Perli didnt really have a clue, so i showed it. Lol. I'm sure Sin Yee and E-von see it all the time. Cant really outstretch my arm all the way...might poke the two tourists besides us. Haha.
Bout to reach the peak
Barely able to snap any nice shots, the clouds covered almost everything. Wow, such thick fog-like clouds...lets take more pics =S
The last pole/tower before the peak
Tryin to take the gondola with the rest of them in it
...till they actually realise it
Yeah...the pics are real crappy. Cant do much, knowin the cam couldnt adjust to it.
So the peak has like 2 overlooking stations. each on both side of the cable station.
This was one of it
When we were at the peak, we noticed somethin. That we dressed up for the wrong place. Everyone were having long sleeve and jackets on while we're like ready for some beach party. Lol

Need more explanation?
So here's all the pics we've taken at the top

Can see the lil boat on the sea there? Guess not...the boat look even smaller in the pic
The other station


Photography 101: Sunlight does make a huge difference to ur photos =)Cant quite understand how those mini lines appear in the pics

(Looks like a volcano btw)
Me: Eh Perli, why ur looking at somewhere else while everyone looking at the same direction?
Perli: Coz i was looking at someone hot there
Me: I dont remember seeing anyone else there
[creepy music]

Check out the fog directly in front of Gerard. *Gasp*
Aint the best weather that time as it was already drizzling

Was running back to the cable car station when we felt the rain is gettin heavier. Then they found this huge teddy place.
Aww...aint it sweet?
Joyce: Eh Miu Kee, give me your cam...since u all got a few cams there
Me: Huh? What?
Joyce: [Took my cam and hurried me into the gondola]

They wanted to take a group pic and i found that there's like 10 pics of the same poses! Joyce told me its their attempt to get a perfect shot.Haha
This is the last and best shot.

As we reached back down, we went to the mini rabbit petting area nearby. Not to mention, every step you take will land on rabbit droppings.
Its like eating her hand off
For once i was animal friendly...for 10 mins. =P
See how fat and well-fed they are. Must be a paradise for em'

So around the area was this nice location settings with olden looking buildings.
Apparently this is where they shot Anna and the King movie. Didnt watch the movie, so wasnt surprised if its done here...or should i say i dont really care. Lol.

One of the few bridges we took pic with
Dont ask why we did that. Haha. And i have no idea what they were doin at tht time behind my back
A self posing pic
..till the fellas at the back wasnt happy and wanted another shot =D
Everyone loves takin pictures. Even at the police station hut
Oh yeah, the reason we wore all beach-like clothes was cause we were preparing to go to the waterfalls. But then it rained,so all back to the hotel. Potong stim =P

Before the trip, Sin Yee found an info bout the pasar malam at Kuah town every Wednesday. So that became our nite plan. Apparently every shop closes early in this place! I think everyone in the pasar malam were packing up after we finished our dinner in a local stall.

Day Two, 21st Dec 2006
Rise and shine, its our island hopping day! Drove to a nearby tiny jetty area near our hotel bout 9.30am.

Hop on to the speed boat peeps

It was a real bumpy boat ride...passing each wave hurts my butt an inch more. And whats not with Pearly and E-von shouting after each 'major' wave. I lost count and its thru out the entire journey in the boat.
It wouldnt be called a speed boat if it wasnt for it speed rite? =)

Pics during the boat ride:

Cant quite remember which resort was that


Our very first stop/location will be this cave...a bat cave i suppose. Saw those small fellas hanging at the top with guanos everywhere. Eeeww

From outside to the inside

From inside to outside
Actually its just a small crack within the cliff. I cant see the big deal bout it. Hehe
Since we're there,lets take the pics with erm...the cave. Yeah, part of the cave



Then we went on and see the pregnant maiden island. What was the name of it again? Let me create 1 then....Pulau Wanita Mengandung. The wonder of Bm translation =)
All i got was a bunch of blurry pics of a series of mountains. If the shape is true...the maiden looks like a short lady with a 6 months baby in her and an oversized knee...and a small head too.

Its kinda boring, so we shall go to the next location. It was some tasik. Tasik Dayang Bunting? Eh...dayang bunting could be the name of the pregnant island place. Oh well, was never good with names =P

So this Tasik place has a huge lake(duh...) where ppl are makin money as tourist attraction. Banana boat, those paddling thingy etc.


Our latest foot photography:For a banana boat we never paid for...since we only pose with it

Perli: A nice V-shape pic with somethin annoying in the middle ruining it.

I was makin the pic better k! =P
Loads of monkeys around this area
The drop off and pick up point for the tasik place

Next stop: Eagle feeding area.
Nah, we dont feed the eagles...someone else just throw all the raw chicken meat on the surface. All we do is pathetically tryin to snap a nice shot of the eagle. Obviously we couldnt lah. lol

Notice how small it appears in the pic

Then there's this nearby mangrove/swamp area

And proudly present to u, the speed boat driver who took us around!! =P

Hmm, where did we go next. Oh yeah, some nice beach. Nopes, dunno the name as well.
As usual, we found darn lot of disgusting dead jelly fish on the washed-up shores
But nice beach tho..somehow the sand there are much more smooth and soft

An unused jetty nearby
On second thoughts... maybe there are still ppl using it. Oh well...moving on to the next and final stop.
This place is rather unusual actually. Its like an outcasted rock island. According to the driver, ppl were once mining the stones on the island...brown-granite looking rocks everywhere


The perli who wanna be stucked in the boat...but came down anyway. Haha
With Ken Wayne
Reenacting back the scene where ppl were mining

Gerard's own scene of Casino Royale. lol...said by himself
Woohoo...i bet non of u can surf on the water....WITHOUT any surfboard!
My tong heung

A pic taken by Sin Yee, she puts the title of this pic as 'Lonely'. But it looks just like another episode of Lost to me
Another sesat miner on the island

Thats it! The end of our island hopping tour. That probably took us bout 4 hours. It was fun tho...apart from the nasty sunburns.

Spent our afternoon hanging out around Kuah Town, gettin chocs and liquor. Nothin could be cheaper than those 2 items on the island. I love tax free chocs =P
Even my 1.5 liter mineral water cost more than a can of beer!
As i said...i wont live past 25 if i kept on living on this island for a few years. Haha

In the evening, we were playin at the beach...where we played the banana boat finally. Haha.
All of us just bring 11 bucks each to the beach side..makin it impossible for the banana boat fellas to charge us more than that. Lol.
It was a 15 mins ride....upon the request from most of us, they want to be turn turtle at the end of the ride. It was a wise choice...coz it was friggin cold!Having all the cold breeze blowing strongly on us.

While swimming...
E-von: Eh, i scared of jellyfish lah! [Ran off from the sea and went shopping with Pearly]
Sweet Yee: What are we doin here anyway?

Lol, i guess swimming wasnt the most fun thing to do at tht time

At nite, we would wanna chill out, so we went to this Irish Pub. Heck, it was filled with all the foreigners! So we sorta looked out of place. Oh well, so we just got ourselves nice liquor drinks and few of them with mocktails.

As the Bluff and heart attack game we played was gettin a lil dull after a while...a huge bearded man came and asked for our deck of cards. I thought he wanted back the cards for himself.
Then he started showing magic tricks for us...gawd knows what reason, half of the time i kena from him for the tricks. So basically he was like showing us a trick...went back to sit down, then after like 10 mins or so, he came back with another trick again. lol

Among the tricks were 2 card monte, oil and water, ace separation,match stick disappearance, string untangling, paper illusion etc.

Yeah, i just remembered, his name was Colin. Looks like some Harley Davidson guy...nah, more like drunken santa. And i look drunk and wasted in the pic! So thts the effect of a beer and pure vodka. lol

Even Joyce started whacking me for no reason...after she drank the Russian milk cocktail. Haha

All were laughing and acting like crazy fellas on way back to the hotel....we didnt drive. Safety first. lol
it was like mid nite i think...then we went to the beach side at nite. It was sorta dark and scary tho....despite the fact tht its really cooling and windy out there.
And lastly there was the memorable malam pantai berbintang. Probably the best of everything. =)

Day Three, 22nd Dec 2006
Everyone woke up pretty blurry...must be lack of sleep and too much laughter
We do need to start moving fast as our car rental last us till like 11 or so.

A glimpse of how our room looks like
...and thts E-von with her beloved bear. Haha


A last visit to Pantai Cenang before we go

On our way to Kuah town, we stopped by the air strips and have a look at the surroundings

Alrite, we just gave back the car...and what else can we do?
Probably one more place left us to go, and could be the first attraction for every tourist but we made it as our last stop.
Its the big ass eagle at the jetty area

A series of poses in front of the eagle
The bear really followed us wherever we go


Me pointing to the arse hole of the eagle. Wahahah
One last view of Langkawi

So thats it!! Its been one heck of a crazy and fun trip with those fellas =)
One of the best i shall say.
And i wont be elaborating on the bus and ferry ride home. Its just too boring and long =P

And finally, guess what Pearly made for us for xmas?

Yeap, its the seashell pringles thingy she collected from the beach side. Cool eh? Its very sweet and thoughtful of her to do tht =) Thanks yo. I like it alot.
Btw...she didnt make tht santa hat, it was mine. Lol. Just puttin it as a background

Cheers ppl! Have a great year 2007!