Brilliantly Beautiful Langkawi

From Georgetown is takes almost 3 hours by ferry to get to the island of Langkawi and this was where Kallie and I headed in the early hours of last Sunday. Langkawi is an area consisting of 99 islands at high tide and 104 islands at low tide. The largest itself, Pulau Langkawi is where most people stay. We stayed at Cenang Beach where the majority of budget friendly accommodation is located. Cenang beach is about 20 min away from Kuah, the port town and costs fixed price of $8 by taxi.

Another good thing to know about Langkawi is that it is a duty free island, meaning cheap alcohol, chocolates and various other duty free items such as perfume are readily available for a very cheap price.

Honestly I wasn’t expecting to much from Langkawi. I had heard that it was a tourist haven and party place. Not really what I was looking for, but honestly I was pleasantly surprised. There was a lot less tourism there than I had originally expected. Though finding cheap accommodation isn’t the easiest thing. So if there is anyone out there wanting to start a hostel somewhere, there is definitely opportunities in Langkawi.

While Cenang beach is beautiful there are much nicer beaches around the island, easily accessible by scooters of car. There was 3 of us that rented s car together for $50 for the day and spent a day touring the island on our own, which turned out to be a great idea. The first stop was an oriental village which was about a 20min drive from Cenang.

Also within the oriental village is the access point to the skylift that takes you to the top of the highest point in Langkawi. From the top there is a spectacular 360 view of the islands, showing off the turquoise water and forested areas. Definitely worth the trip to the top. We were actually very lucky when we went because just as we were coming down we watched a mist envelop the summit preventing any view from the top.

After our decent back into the oriental village we continued our drive around the island stopping at two different beaches to swim and play frisbee. At the first beach we stopped at we had the entire stretch of sand to ourselves, with a beautiful view of the ocean and a few islands. The water was incredibly warm.

To get to the second beach we had to drive all the way to the North East corner of the island and pass through a security gate regulating the amount of people allowed on the beach at a single time. This beach was one of the most beautiful I have been to, but also had a few more visitors than the previous beach.

After returning the car, we all went out for a late dinner in Cenang and spent the final hours of the evening lounging in hammock chairs sipping wine with a view of the beach.

The second day we spent in Langkawi was fairly lazy. After sampling the Cenang famous scones with clotted cream and jam we had a look at the enormous duty free shop on the main street and decided to get a makeshift paperbox cooler and create our own bar in a box to take to the beach with us. We spent the entirety of the afternoon sitting on the beach, swimming and drinking. We watched the sunset, showered and went out for more food. We had the best curry soup I have ever tasted!

My two traveling companions moved on to Thailand the next day and I was left to my own devices. Needless to say I was incredibly lazy. Did nothing but read, watch the Australian Open Tennis and eat. I of course went for a swim and watched the sunset again before having a relatively early night.

I’m now back in Georgetown for my final day in Malaysia. Tomorrow I move on to Suamtra in Indonesia. I look forward to my upcoming adventures.

And guess what?

I finally made it! All caught up!