Episode one of my grad trip is to Langkawi! Hooray for finally graduating from university! Four of us went together, and we booked our flights with Tigerair since there was a promotion. I guess part of the reason for going Malaysia was also to take advantage of the exchange rate. We got 2.695 MYR for 1 SGD ;)
We stayed at the 5-star resort at Meritus Pelangi Beach Resort & Spa, which is right beside the Cenang beach, the main beach in Langkawi. The resort is super big, and probably will take you 20 minutes to walk from one side to the other.
My mum wanted something nice, that's why we booked a 5-star resort even though it was quite expensive (about S$250 per night)! We were choosing among 3 different resorts, which included Meritus, Berjaya Langkawi Resort, and another one at Kuah (forgot which one lol!) Think we made the right choice because Meritus' location is really the best. Berjaya is near the Panorama Langkawi (cable car) and Kok Beach, and has really beautiful water houses. However, the location is very far from the Cenang Beach (about 30 min drive) and Kuah Town (50 min drive), so unless you're planning to stay there the whole time, I don't think it's such a great choice. As for the one at Kuah, I guess it's gonna be quite boring because the town is really quite small and not many shops are open at night. Also, the entire Langkawi is pretty damn unoccupied, compared to other places like Phuket and Bali, so imagine what Kuah is like?
Our room was very spacious, with a big bathroom and nice balcony facing the lake. There were some monitor lizards in the lake and lots of fish, so pretty interesting to look at! I also really liked that a lot of trees had pretty blossoms. The resort had great facilities, including 2 swimming pools, gym, table tennis, squash courts, mini golf, etc.
We departed from Singapore at 1.30pm and arrived at 3pm. Took a short taxi ride (20MYR) to the resort and rested for a while. We decided to visit the Underwater World and Penguin Watch first since they were only about 5 min drive from our resort. It was quite small, but still pretty nice to see! Penguins are so cute :D
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We spent about 1 hour there, then headed to Kuah Town for dinner, which was about 25 min away. I guess the only way to get around Langkawi is via a taxi/rented car, so it was pretty reassuring that the taxi drivers charged standardised prices for each destination. We considered renting a car, but it cost 180MYR a day and that doesn't include the petrol.
I was looking for a specific restaurant, called Teo Restaurant, because I saw it in a blog post and the food looked VERY good. I actually screenshot the googlemaps for the location of the restaurant but the driver wasn't too sure, so he just drove us along that road. And guess what, when we passed by, uncle randomly and coincidentally pointed out that 'that restaurants looks good', and it was exactly what I was looking for :P
We reached at about 6.30pm and it was already half occupied. We waited quite a long time for our food because we arrived just after a huge table of 10 and the restaurant always finishes serving one table before the next.
The food was really good. I especially loved the butter prawns (the prawns were humongous!) and 宫保鱿鱼. Lc liked the lala a lot (think we got the 姜葱 flavour). We ordered so much seafood but it only cost 248MYR, and the bulk of it was because of the 2 huge butter prawns that were 90+MYR!
We left the restaurant with satisfied bellies. Took a brief stroll along the street and peeked inside the only shopping mall we came across. There was nothing inside. LOL. We headed back to the hotel via a cab.
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13th May 2015
I woke up the latest at 9+am :P We walked to a nearby bakery for breakfast. I shared a cake with mum and had another sausage bread, but the sausage was somehow not nice :/ We planned to spend the day at Panorama Langkawi and if time allowed, take a spin around the 2 waterfalls. We cabbed to the Oriental Village, which was at the foot of the mountains, but were told that the cable car was closed for maintenance, which only happens once every month! OMG! It was a very hot day, and we took half an hour to get there, so it was really too unfortunate! Well, we could only walk around the village and take some photos so that the trip wasn't totally wasted.
The girl who told us about the maintenance advised us to go for an island hopping tour, which would start at 2pm. We actually planned to do it on the next day, but guess there was no choice but to shift our schedule a bit. After paying the deposit, we headed back to Cenang beach, and had KFC for lunch :P I love the Thai sauce! Wish Singapore had it.
A van came to our hotel to fetch us to the jetty for the boat tour. It was a small boat, accommodating a total of 8 adults and 1 kid. The whole ride was a bit scary and rocky, especially since one of lc's friends got severely injured after his boat capsized at Langkawi. Glad that I made it out alive. I saw online that some people went for Jet Ski Island Hopping?! I'm pretty sure that would have been a lot scarier and more dangerous. I don't think I'll ever be adventurous enough to try it.
The first stop of the island hopping was at Dayang Bunting, where the famous Pregnant Maiden Lake was located. The boatman stopped in the middle of the sea and showed us why it was given the name Pregnant Maiden, and it turns out that the mountain looked like a pregnant woman lying flat.
Not sure why, but he suddenly demanded that each of us pay him 1 MYR in order to visit the island. Obviously we refused because the cost of the tour (40MYR) should have been all inclusive. In the end he had no choice but to get us to the island. We were given 1 hour to roam around and take a swim in the lake, but it was the worst 1 hour for me.
It was VERY HOT and HUMID, so I was feeling extremely sticky and irritated. As we walked towards the forest, I saw some crabs in the mud! Some of them had strange colours, like these 2 below. And only after I returned home and looked at the photos did I realise that the red one only has 1 claw? Interesting!
Anyway, back to the horrible journey to the lake, we had to walk about 5-10min up and then down the hill to get to the lake. It started out well, because it was a lot cooler in the forest than out in the sun. But as we started descending towards the lake, A LOT of monkeys appeared and started running around. I can't describe how much I hate them when they're out in the wild. In Bali one of them robbed my slipper and refused to give it back, and only did so after biting 3 holes and getting a sweet in exchange. Big bullies! So I was having trouble getting down to the lake because they were getting too close to me on the stairs, and ended up running around crying for help -.-
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| You can see the pregnant maiden in the background. |
Our next stop was Singa Besar, where our boat stopped on the sea again, allowing us to take a close look at the dozens of eagles flying around. I guess they were hunting for fish? I think you could feed them as well, although I wouldn't want to try that.
After about 10 min, we continued to our third and last stop, the Beras Basah island. The waters there were very very clear, and it's supposedly a great snorkeling spot. We sat around and chatted while waiting for the 1 hour to pass by, since we didn't bring our swim wear. My mum stood around in the shallow waters for a while since she could never resist the temptations of the ocean.
Lc and I headed back to the jetty early for the comfort of the shade. I sat on the steps, looking at a few crabs crawling around and schools of fishes enjoying the shade as well.
Our tour ended at about 6pm. I felt really relieved back on the ground. We decided to have dinner at the Orkid Ria Seafood Restaurant (真浪花园海鲜) near our villa due to the numerous recommendations online. However, we were quite disappointed with the food as it was obviously subpar, even though the price was similar to Teo Restaurant. The octopus was totally hard, the prawns were dry, the salted egg crab tasted of milk not egg, etc.
The only thing I loved was my pineapple juice... And also that they showed us our orders and their prices before cooking them.
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14th May 2015
Lc wanted to do parasailing so we woke up earlier to do it before the sun went crazy. It was 60 MYR, a lot cheaper than Phuket (800-1000 Baht). We were a little too early, because the wind wasn't strong enough at 10am. They initially told us that we had to wait till 10.30am, but luckily after a few minutes the wind started showing. They drove us to the other side of the beach where it was more deserted. Lc said they didn't allow enough time for his harness to be worn properly so after he flew up, it got stuck in his crotch and the journey wasn't too comfortable.
As you know, when you fly up, one of the guys will follow you up in case of any emergencies. Usually, they would also use a harness for safety reasons, obviously. BUT, this guy was really like a monkey?! He just ran behind lc and then grabbed onto the strings without any kind of protection, and he just stayed in that position for a few minutes before landing? :O
We went back to the villa for a swim! It was a cloudy day so at least we didn't get sunburnt. We had lunch at subway, then headed to the Panorama Langkawi for the second time. The ticket for cable car included a short 3D movie that lasted about 5 minutes... And it was quite lame.
The cable car ride was super worth the price, because the mountain was way too tall and steep to be climbed. And yes, it was a lot longer than the Sentosa cable car journey :P There were some cabins with glass floor, so if you are in for some thrills, you could try it... I think I might get a heart attack inside haha.
The view was amazing! The ocean was so blue and you could see the bands of light and dark blue intersecting each other. The temperature clearly dropped at such high altitude. The cable car ride was divided into 3 sections, so you could alight along the way for pictures.
The highlight of the ride was of course the skybridge, located at the 3rd station. It was not easy to get to the bridge as we had to descend very steep slopes. The walkway was very narrow, and it took about 8 minutes to get to the bridge. You would probably see some elderly panting and stopping along the way. Uncle gave up after 2 minutes I guess because his knee couldn't take the strain, so he went up to the platform to wait for us.
The bridge was a little bit shaky due to the wind, but generally felt quite secure haha. We spammed photos and went back up. Climbing up was a lot easier than down, because at least I knew I wouldn't slip and roll off the side of the mountain...
Uncle and mum wanted to have dinner at Teo Restaurant again, so we took a taxi to Kuah Town. As it was quite early, we went to the Eagle Square first to see the iconic eagle statue. That area was surprisingly nice and looked more well-developed, unlike the rest of the island that was pretty run-down.
I don't know how people took photos with the eagle because it was so huge and you would need to stand pretty far away to encapsulate the whole thing into your picture? Anyway, it was too sunny so we didn't walk up to the statue to check it out. Went to the nearby mall for a drink before heading to the restaurant for dinner.
We arrived too early at 5.30pm. Apparently they only opened at 6pm. We had to wait around for them to set the place up. We ordered a lot again!! Mostly the same stuff, except the crabs (we wanted to eat normal crabs but they only had 花蟹) and the butter prawns, which we substituted with a plate of small prawns, 3 for each person. BUT they turned out to be pretty big prawns... And none of them wanted to eat the prawn heads due to various considerations and I ended up eating like 10 heads -.-
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| Oh yeah I really liked the 琵琶鸭! |
15 May 2015
We had instant noodle for breakfast. Went to check out the leisure room (which the receptionist pronounced as laser room lol). Played darts and table tennis for a while. I suck at darts :P Checked out at 12pm, and had Nasi Lemak (with big drumstick) at Old Town White Coffee. We wanted to get a massage before our flight, but forgot that they had to pray on Fridays... We had to wait till 2.30pm for the masseuse. I got a 50 min back, neck, head (basically upper body) massage for 80 MYR.
It was a fun trip! But I really hated the heat. It felt like I was living in an oven. Looking forward to Hokkaido! :)
It was a fun trip! But I really hated the heat. It felt like I was living in an oven. Looking forward to Hokkaido! :)
