Malaysia Part 2: Langkawi

We got to Kuala Lumpur from Shanghai late Monday night so we decided to stay the night and take an hour flight to Langkawi in the morning. We spent the first two days of our Malaysia trip on the beach on Langkawi Island. Words cannot express the serene beauty of this place. We stayed on Cenang Beach, which is only an 18 RM ($4.50) taxi ride from the airport. We stopped into a couple of hotels before settling with Shirin Guesthouse for 50 RM (about $12) for the night, right next to the beach! Shirin Guesthouse has a nice feel of nature outside. The room is simple: a big bed, air-conditioning, and a shower (although no hot water in our particular room), just the necessities! The place is run by an Iranian man and his Japanese wife, who are as sweet as they are entertaining. After a nap we came out to sign in and they offered us a welcome drink! We were hungry so we wanted to get out and have lunch, but it took a little while to tell that to the owner, who was enthusiastically engaging us in political debate. We finally found a way out and had a great lunch before relaxing on the beach for the rest of the day.

One of the many cats at the hostel, Monica:

Our room:

At night we went to the Tuesday night market nearby, which I highly recommend. There was great food with a decent amount of vegetarian options. I had flat ,stir-fried noodles (kuay teow) and some little pastries filled with sweet corn, pineapple, coconut milk, and more. Delicious!

We then took a taxi to Kuah Town, but didn't see much to do once we were there. We walked around for a bit then went back to Cenang Beach. We found a bar on the beach called Babylon that had a reggae band and hookah, so we hung out there for a while. We even met two nice Korean girls.

On Thursday we went to the Langkawi Cable Car that goes up about 700 meters. For only 30 RM (about $7.50) you can ride the gondola up and see a gorgeous view of mountains, ocean and sky. There is also a recently built observatory deck that provides a unique look of the lush trees, ocean and mountains below. We saw some hiking trails and explored a bit, but the climbs were steep, so we headed up to the gondola after a short walk.

Near the cable car, you can meet Zanah for free and even take pictures for a small donation:

Then we took a taxi back to Cenang beach and rented a jet-ski. It was fun! After about an hour at the beach we went back to Shirin Guesthouse (they were kind enough to store our bags for free), changed clothes, and got a ride to the airport. A 1 hour plane ride later and we were back in Kuala Lumpur. We took a taxi to our hostel in Chinatown and met up with some friends. We shared a room with them and woke up at about 6am to make it to our bus stop for the jungle trek!

View from one of the restaurants on Cenang Beach:

There are so many flavors of Pringles here: