Langkawi - Part 2

As mentioned in "Langkawi - Part 1" not all our time was spent around the hotel. We also went on some sight-seeing trips.

Elk's Street's day usually began with some fruit in the hotel room as a light breakfast, followed by some time in the pool. Around 10.00 a.m. the sun was sufficiently high that the pool was no longer in the shade, so it was time to move on. Breakfast was normally across the road at the Cactus open-air restaurant. This was for reasons of cost. The hotel operated with western price levels and by crossing the road, food prices dropped by three-quarters. The Cactus food was ok, but slow, slow, slow!

We ended up booking all our trips through the same tour operator, Tour Link Holidays Sdn Bhd, who provided a good, reliable service. We didn't really take any of the ready-made packages but negotiated trips to those sights we wanted to see. Since our group was large enough to need its own minibus, this was no problem. The only disappointment was the restaurant Yunic Tan, the boss, recommended - not good enough for our Penang-based experts! (Penang is the home of the world's best Malaysian food and every Penangite is a food expert.) Yunic's own restaurant, Xin An Vegetarian Café, where we stopped on our way to the ferry back to the mainland, was, however, very good. The vegetarian in our group was pleased and the food was good enough that the meat eaters had nothing to complain about either.

Our first trip was to the Langkawi Cable Car. We set off rather late, so when we got there, the queues were very long. Our driver didn't have any of his mates in the queue, so we just had to wait and stand in line. Kuan got the task of queueing while the rest of us took a look around the "Oriental Village".

In my eyes, this had the architectural flair of Sainsbury's but I'm not one for shopping. There was a building with a geological exhibition, which was quite interesting, a bored-looking, tethered eagle was there to have its photo taken with tourists, and the village was set around a village pond. Feeding the fish helped keep the children occupied while Kuan was queueing.

Thomas, Henry and Jia-Yen feeding the fishes.

The cable cars.

It was quite windy so the ride was more exciting than some people anticipated!

Jia-Qi enjoying the ride.

The group at the Top Station (Jia-Yen, Thomas, Hwei-Ming, Po-Po, Kuan, Jia-Qi, Henry). Note the wind-swept hairstyles.

Having got down safely, we had ice-creams before getting back into the minivan. The next stop was a craft centre. The children got to try their hand at batik painting. They were sufficiently enthusiastic to be there long enough to complete the painting. I decided we'd buy the work, so now we have a nice souvenir. The wax outline was done by the experts and the children filled in the spaces between the lines.

Henry getting instruction and starting off the project.


Thomas and Jia-Yen continuing the work.

Jia-Yen was a natural talent at batik artwork and she was allowed to work on a large painting destined for sale.

Jia-Yen hard at work.

After the Craft Centre we headed to Kuah for an early dinner.

The next day's trip was labelled a mangrove riverboat cruise with eagle feeding and a visit to a bat's cave. The minivan dropped us off at Tanjung Rhu, where we picked up the riverboat.

For readers wishing to splash out and looking for a quiet place to relax, the Tanjung Rhu Resort comes highly recommended. Unfortunately, like The Datai and The Andaman, the other top-class hotels on Langkawi, it's out of Elk's Street's reach. But on an earlier visit the Chairman did get fish and chips from The Andaman - but that's another story.

Speeding down the river.

Once in the right place, the boatman revved his engine to attract the attention of the eagles, a sort of dinner bell, and then he threw some chicken bits overboard. The eagles swooped down to pick them off the surface of the water; a very impressive sight. Getting a photo was quite a challenge, the eagles are fast and my old digital camera very slow. Below, one eagle that got caught.

A "Lang" from Langkawi.

We then continued onward through the mangrove to the bat cave. The bats were hanging from the roof of the cave having their afternoon naps. After a visit to another cave, we were taken to a small fish farm, where the brave could have their thumbs sucked by a stingray, before exiting the mangrove and taking the sea route back to Tanjung Rhu.

A typical mangrove forest.


A mangrove monkey.


The exit from the bat cave; best attempted before high water.

Our stay in Langkawi was very short, only 3 nights, so there was no more time for further trips. There are many other things to do.

The next day, the minivan came to take us to the ferry terminal and our journey back to the mainland.

Group portrait in front of the vegetarian restaurant. (Thomas, Hwei-Ming, Henry, Yunic (tour guide), Kuan, Jia-Qi, Po-Po, Jia-Yen)

The symbol of Langkawi is the eagle and here to finish this report is a photo of the eagle statue at Eagle Square in Kuah, taken from the ferry terminal.

Langkawi - Part 1

One of the first highlights of the holiday was a 4-day family trip to the island of Langkawi. The trip was partly arranged from Finland, with the Chairman in charge. The first problem was finding a suitable place to stay. After hours of internet surfing, calls to relatives and much deliberation, the choice was narrowed down to two - the Frangipani Resort and Holiday Villa. The latter got the nod as it was considerably cheaper.

The group heading out to Langkawi consisted of Peter, Hwei-Ming, Henry,Thomas, Po-Po, Kuan, Jia-Qi and Jia-Yen. Unfortunately, Jia-Jun couldn't join us as he didn't get permission from the doctor following his latest operation.

Elk's Street and the Sungai Petani gang set off by bus to Alor Setar, where they were met by Kuan and a friend. After a lunch of Wan Tan Mee, Kari Mee and, one of Henry's favourites, chicken feet, it was off to Kuala Kedah to catch the high-speed ferry to Langkawi. Below a few photos.

Waiting at the Kuala Kedah ferry terminal.

Jia-Qi and Hwei-Ming on the ferry to Langkawi.


The ferry moored at Kuah Jetty, Langkawi.

We were met at the jetty by a minibus driver to take us to the hotel on the other side of the island.

Henry and Thomas with the bus driver. Note the name of the group.

Once in the hotel, people started making use of the facilities, as can be seen below.

Thomas, Jia-Yen, and Henry enjoying an ice-cream by the pool.


Jia-Qi doing the same.


Po-Po on the balcony of her hotel room.


In the hotel swimming pool. From left to right Peter, Henry, Jia-Qi, Kuan and Po-Po.


Thomas in the swimming pool. He cannot quite swim yet but is almost there. Apart from a small deep area, the swimming pool was 1.2m deep, so pretty safe for children.

The hotel is situated on Cenang beach (Pantai Cenang) which is west facing, allowing people to watch the sun set over the water.

The setting sun seen from Cenang Pantai.

Thomas on the beach with a thunderstorm approaching.

Collecting cockles on the beach (Henry, Jia-Qi and Kuan).


Building sandcastles on the beach (Hwei-Ming).

But not all the time was spent lounging around the hotel. For further information about what we did, read Part 2.

In Sungai Petani

We were met at Penang Airport by Leong, who took us to Sungai Petani, Kedah, our base for the holiday. Below a few photos.

Thomas not overly impressed with his first encounter with the local food. (Wan Tan Mee at the hawker place in Air Itam, Penang.)

The clock tower in Sungai Petani town.

One of the trucks that Uncle Leong sells. Tuah is a Chinese truck made for the Malaysian market.



On the river Petani.


Henry with the shopkeeper of the mini-market in Taman Meranti. Our regular morning trip to the mini-market was to buy The Star and 20 cents worth of sweets.

Kedah is known as the rice bowl of Malaysia. Below some evidence.

A typical rice field.

The rice close-up.

Although we didn't go there this time, Elk's Street can recommend a visit to the Muzium Padi in Alor Setar, if anyone is passing through and wants to know more about rice cultivation.

A young boy helping out selling fruit at Sungai Petani Central Market.

The final photo is for all the schoolchildren.

A Malaysian school bus.

On the topic of school and for those of you who worry about such things, the little boys missed the last 9 days of the school year but were given homework to do during the holiday. The work was duly done, although more enthusiastically by some than by others!

Outward Bound

Elk's Street has safely returned from its journey to the Far East. Here, as promised, is a brief report and some, probably far too many, photos. Since the trip was quite a long one, the report will be published in parts.

With work having to be done up to the last minute, Elk's Street left home on 5th December in two contingents. After staying overnight in Tapiola, the journey proper started early on Finnish Independence Day (luckily the president hadn't invited any of us to the ball, the climax of the Finnish social year!) Below a few photos:

The travellers waiting at Helsinki-Vantaa airport.

Hwei-Ming and Thomas on the Finnair flight to Frankfurt.

Peter and Henry on the same flight.

The little boys resting at Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA).


Thomas at the entrance to the plane to Penang. He looks surprisingly fresh considering he had only slept a few hours.

Despite a few problems with airports - the check-in at Helsinki wanted to send our luggage only to Kuala Lumpur and not Penang (moral: look carefully at the luggage sticker being fixed to your cases) and transit at Frankfurt was unclear and complicated (moral: don't transit at airports where the only 'information' is from some kind of computer kiosk) - the journey went very well.