A.S.I.A: All Day, All, Night

May 4, 2010

Langkawi, Malaysia

Despite it being our last day on Langkawi (oh, how we wished we’d had more time) we took full advantage of the morning sun down by the pool. Around lunch time we had At come pick us up and he agreed to take us on a half day tour of the island before we had to catch our flight back to Kuala Lumpur. It was the perfect way to end our stay as At drove us to many sites and was able to give us the lowdown on the history and life on the island.

Langkawi Cable Car

1st Stop: Batik. Langkawi is known for its very talented and traditional Batik artistry. We visited a Batik center where we got to watch the artists in action; basically Batik is the art of using cloth, wax and dye to create beautiful designs and motifs. An artist will use a small brush or pen to put wax on the cloth and then dye the visible fabric. In the end you are left with a painting like any other except it’s embedded in the cloth and is visible on both sides unlike paint and brush. We spent a good amount of time in the shop sifting through Batik paintings, clothes, sheets, etc. I had never heard of it before coming to Malaysia so it was really interesting to see it firsthand.

Langkawi Sky Bridge

2nd Stop: The Langkawi cable car. We hopped into our little cable car and made the 2km ascent up the side of Gunung (mount) Machinchang. It’s a bit daunting going up that high as there are points as you’re swinging in the breeze above the jungle at seemingly 90 degrees. Once you’ve made it to the top you climb onto the first observation desk and take in the sheer vastness of Burau Bay and the rest of the island. A short trek leads you up to the even higher second observation deck where you are even more surprised by all that lays ahead—I read online that some of the land in the distance is actually the South of Thailand! The highlight of the trip though was probably the sky bridge which is one of the world’s longest cable suspension bridges. As you walk along this bridge, which is literally hanging in the air, suspended between two mountain peaks (at over 2000 feet), you can feel the wind swaying you back and forth. It’s definitely not for those with acrophobia or vertigo, but the view is stunning and worth getting over your fears for! It’s like a layer cake as you look out and the blue sky meets the deep green jungle which rests gently upon the sea. Wow. Our descent was kind of scary as you are now looking straight down at the jungle below rather than up at the mountain top, but we thankfully made it down safely where At was waiting to take us to Stop #3.



View from the top of Gunung Machinchang

3rd Stop: Krafts Center. No it’s not a center sponsored by Kraft, but rather the way the Bahasa Malay language spells ‘craft’ (one of the words our racist taxi driver in KL was describing.) Here we spent a bit of time perusing the stalls and booths of all the artisans and typical paraphernalia—it seemed to be more geared toward tourists and as such we didn’t really come across anything original. We decided instead to head out and have At take us to one more stop before the airport.

4th Stop: ‘Black Sand’ beach. I use quotations, because the black sand beach was about 4ft x 4ft. It actually just looked a bit dirty as opposed to something unique. At told us, though, that the beach is unique, because the black sand isn’t the result of volcanic activity, as is the case in most of the world, but rather iron oxide. So, I guess we can check ‘see iron oxide black sand beach’ of our bucket list :) It was so nice to see the other parts of the island and At was very proud to show us around.



Black Sand Beach

5th Stop: Langkawi airport. We said our goodbyes and made our way inside the little airport. Realizing we weren’t allowed to bring liquid on the plane with us we decided we need to do something about our extra beverages. Not wanting to offend anyone, keep in mind it’s Muslim, Mom went to Starbucks and got some cups for us and we speedily finished up what we had. We dined at Malaysia’s finest for dinner, Kenny Rogers, which we thought was hilarious; in the middle of this small island off the coast of Malaysia we were eating greasy spoon American cooking. What a treat!

6th and 7th Stops: KLCC/KLIA: Being the ‘experienced’ traveler I am, I convinced Mom and Sue that we didn’t need to book a hotel for the night, because we could just get one near the hotel when we landed. That’ll teach me. We landed at KLCC and hopped in a taxi to the hotel we looked up online where the proceeded to look at us like we were crazy for not having a reservation and informing us that the hotel was hosting a convention and all the rooms were filled. Great. They were nice enough to call the discount hotel next to KLCC (which we found out was also full) and then offer us a spot on their free shuttle to KLIA (the int’l airport where they said was open for 24hrs and had a hotel attached.) Our hopes were soon dashed as the airport’s cheapest room was a couple hundred dollars which wasn’t worth it at that point-it was after 11pm and we had a departure at 7am.

Being savvy as we are, we wove our way through the other travelers who had either chosen or were forced to stay over at the airport and plopped down at the 24hr McDonald’s. We got some food and Mom and Soup got their coffee and we made the group decision to just stay awake all night. I felt horribly that I’d gotten us into this situation, but I lucked out that I was travelling with such easygoing people (I mean how many moms are willing to do something like that?!) Good thing they have such good experience with all nighters due to their nursing and the three of us ended up having a great night talking and laughing. There were definitely a couple of lulls in which we debated catching a quick cat nap, but it was nothing a good story or refill of coffee couldn’t cure. 5am finally rolled around and it was time to make our way to check-in at the other airport for our flight back to Thailand. Selamat tinggal Malaysia!