May 29th, Day 4 - Return with Lots of Chocolates and Lifetime's First Ever Sunburn

On the last morning, we slept ourselves silly till late. When we're done cleaning up, it's already almost 11:00. We checked out of the room and hoisted everything in the car. Then we went around to look for breakfast. We settled for one of the Chinese stalls in town near to our hotel. The food was not nice and it was quite expensive. Tien made a verdict of our stay at Langkawi:"It's very difficult to find food!". LOL~ I agree.

After breakfast, we took a walk around town visiting all the duty-free shops. I don't know how much we spent but we spent a lot on chocolates for our own enjoyment and also for souvenir. However, our shopping only took us up to about 12:00 and our flight is at 17:00 in the afternoon. So we took a drive around the Island.

The only pictures I took this day were of a beautiful drive up Tanjung Rhu, which were lined on both sides with pine trees. We drove up North from Kuah Town along Ayer Hangat up to Tanjung Rhu, then came back down and turned East to the very far end to Datai, and then (because the Petrol tank is looking quite empty) down South towards the airport.

We arrived at the airport at about 15:00, so we returned the car, and went to lunch. The airport lunch at the upstairs food court was very disappointing. The food was way way below par, and the promised wifi was not functioning. More chocolates after lunch as we waited for check-in counter to be opened. We checked-in almost as soon as the counter was opened and went into the boarding hall to wait for our departure. Sadly, the flight was delayed again, though not very much.

At about 19:00, we arrived in LCCT and with that, I conclude the Langkawi travel log. We had fun, indeed. :)

May 28th, Day 3 - Sandy Beaches and Not so Much More of Langkawi Island

Island hopping day!!! Woohoo~~ This is where the fun is, LOL. This is a day when we surprised ourselves, by being ready to go around 8:00 in the morning! Breakfast was a non-failing McDonald's meal and we're ready to have fun!


During the Island hopping tour, we got a boat with two families and a couple. That is the guy who drove our boat. I have no idea how he got into frame. Anyway, the speedboat ride was exciting, and the wind ruffled up our hair so badly they would not untangle for all we try. I had my hand out to feel the seawater hitting my hand. It was painful, and calming, at the same time. This is solid proof that I'm a daughter to the sea. LOL~ We hopped from Beras Bakar Island to eagle feeding to a stupid unfinished fish farm (that cost us an extra RM5/head) to Dayang Bunting Island. Lots of water, lots of sunshine... Hence the sun-burn (a very bad one, might I say...) LOL~

Beras Basah Island is known to be one of the better preserved islands in Langkawi. Its beaches white and long, though not very wide, are littered with shells and corals. However, the island houses some aggressive apes who runs amok at the sight of anything bag-like. They tried to snatch our bags, which were left under a tree. After saving them in time, Shing chose to hang hers one a branch, while Tien chose to leave hers on the beach and safe guard it personally nearby. I took a shot, and liked it enough.




Eagle feeding was disappointing, as our boat driver did not even take the initiative to prepare eagle feed for us to throw. He just parked the boat near-by while we watched passengers of the other boats throw bits and pieces of dead fish at the sea and waited for the eagle to swoop down for its share. Then, we were again disappointed by the unfinished fish farm which the boat driver took us to after charging us RM5/head. Shing chose to release a little of her frustration by over-feeding the fish. She took handfuls of the feed and threw them in the cages a handful at a time, all the while laughing. Tien and I laughed with her. LOL~ Dayang Bunting Island visit consists of a long walk (practically a hike) and some nice cold water dipping (just our feet) at the lake. All in all, a tour not worth every cent, but as long as we had fun, right?


It was 13:00 when we got back to Jetty Point. So we had lunch (Tien had a chicken rice at a failed Malay restaurant and Shing and I had a Kenny Roger's meal each) and went back to the hotel to wash up. By this time, I've already felt the sting of the sun burn. The girls didn't feel the sting yet, because they wore sunscreen, but they are already complaining of getting darker. This is my first ever sun-burn of this lifetime, and I now know the pain. LOL~ Aleo vera gel helped a great deal in cooling down the patch on my left shoulder.

In the afternoon, we drove up north of the island to check out a few tourist spots, some great disappointments while some were just on par. The hot springs were just icky wells of hot water, with algae clearly visible and lots of on-going construction. But it looks like it's going somewhere, maybe we just got here on wrong timing. The Peringin Waterfall was a far drive, but looks promising as a good spot. Although, we are kind of tired so we did not hike all the way, just across the draw-bridge and up to the first tiny waterfall. Lastly, we got to the Black Sand Beach a little too early at about 16:00. So we only got to cam-whore a little because the west-setting sun is shining right into our faces. We did not wait for sun-set as I've suggested.




From the Black Sand Beach, we decided to hit Pantai Cenang to take a look at all those shops that we missed and find something for dinner along that stretch. I got myself another Cookie Monster's shirt in the first shop we went in (because I saw the shirt in the window). Later, we had dinner at one of the Thai-Chinese style restaurant, during which I suggested we race for sun-set at the Cenang Beach instead.

We made it just in time, and had a hell of a time. Cenang Beach was wider than the Beras Bakar Island, and was perfectly facing west. However, we did not catch a sunset on film because the sky wasn't clear for the sunset, so we just ran around the beach taking pictures. Tien especially liked the Sunset mode of my camera and requested many shots. But I spend most of the time taking signature shots that do not involve a human model.



Then, it was back to the hotel and reluctantly to bed because we're leaving in the next day.

May 27th, Day 2 - Up the Mountain, Down the Sea and Heaven on Earth

On day 2, it's rise and shine early in the morning. We got ourselves ready to leave by about 9. We went to the Jetty Point looking for breakfast and found KFC and a local staff that pissed me off big time. She was downright rude, gave a face while we decided our order. Well, hello, your breakfast menu isn't really that appealing. Granted, we could've chose something else. Anyway, after breakfast we went to book an Island hopping tour for ourselves on the next morning.

Then, as planned, we moved to the east side of the Island for a decided cable car experience. We killed a lot of film (literally) up there. Langkawi is a nice beautiful place. Quoting Tien, "Malaysia is not bad... Not bad at all..." LOL~ And I almost forgot that Langkawi's view from the cable car station includes a very nice smiley faced bay. :)



After the ride (and some rest from all the walking and jumping and cam-whoring), it was noon and a little too hot to walk around the Oriental Village below, which looked to us like Souvenir-cum-Rip-Off-Village to us. So we boarded the car and drove down to the Underwater World down Pantai Cenang. Along the way, we saw shops and restaurants that we vowed to take a look/taste off some time. The Underwater World of Langkawi houses various marine as well as land animals. The focus of the day (to us, at least) was of course, the penguins! Don't the lovely creatures just looked like they jumped out of the "Surf's Up" movie? Check the movie out, if you've never heard of it.

After looking at the penguins, we went to a chocolate and coffee house advertised on the free map we got from the airport because it says "Free Tasting" on it. It was petite, and we encountered some special chocolates and spent some hard-earned money. I absolutely fell in love with the almonds coated with green tea chocolate, and they costed me a fortune, about RM50 for 200 grams or something like that.

After that shopping spree, we were a little tired so we went back to the hotel for a little rest. At about 6, we decided to go out again, to catch a glimpse and some film of the Eagle monument in natural daylight. When we got there, though, Shing and Tien went a little too far cam-whoring themselves at the Square, so when we got to the Eagle monument, it was again, dusk. We laughed at that, but cam-whored on.

Later, we went for a seafood dinner in town before going back to the hotel for a good night sleep to a big early morning on the next.

May 26th, Day 1 - Langkawi, the duty-free Island

Initial plans for a mid-year vacation with friends in Bangkok was downgraded due to the political unrest. After a full three-months worth of worrying and airline website stalking, we're finally given the opportunity to alter our flight ticket destination last Saturday without penalty charges. By then, most flight destinations were too expensive to fly to. Hence, forfeiting near RM500 of our initial bookings, Shing, Tien and I are set to enjoy a 4D3N vacation in Langkawi, accomodation not included. We spent the last weekend working through all the alterations and hotel researching. Finally, we booked our stay with Azio Hotel in Kuah Town over the phone. After that, we put the matter to the back of our minds so we can efficiently work through the last minute work to guarantee a guilt-free vacation. May 25th, Day 0, was spent packing, loitering, running errands, more packing, more loitering, driving to Shing's house and waiting for Tien. By the time Tien arrives, it was near midnight. We went for supper and some catching up. Then we went home to sleep anticipating the coming morning.

By the time we all woke up (separately) and got cleaned and groomed to bright-eyes-bushy-tail standards, it was mid-day. We went to lunch and some-last minute shopping at Mid Valley Megamall because Tien had to discard her facial cleanser at the Changi Airport following orders to obey the liquid hand-carrying regulations. After that we went back to pick up our luggage and took a train to KL central for the bus to LCCT. We were about 15 minutes late when we arrived at the airport. The self check-in kiosk would not check us in and the staffed check-in counters were closed. We went to the customer service counter and the guy there explained that the self check-in kiosk closes one hour before departure time. He then offered to check us in if we did not have any check-in luggage, with a warning: "Actually this is not allowed, but because your flight is not set for boarding yet, so I'm doing you a favour." Yaada, yaada, yaada... I'm not impressed by your "helpfulness" because the airline you work for pissed me off not only once, and that's just considering this trip alone. Of course I didn't tell him that. Of course I smiled and said thank you before rushing off to the departure gate with my friends.

But guess what? Our flight was delayed near an hour, without annoucement! The truth is, smiles and thank you's don't get you anywhere. And again, I wish to say thank you to the everyone can fly low cost airline. We really can fly, we just can't be guaranteed to fly with 100% satisfaction. But then again, why do we keep coming back to pay for more disappointment? If you don't already know the answer to that question, let me rub it in for you real hard: Because money is everything, dumbo! It's everything to us consumers, so why do we assume it's any different to the service providers?

The girls were hungry so they ordered food on board, which were charged separately. I noticed the difference between the food pictured in the menu and the food they send to your orders, but I forgot check if it says "Illustration shown are for promotion purposes only. Actual products may vary (ya, that means the appearance in texture and portion size)." in extra small print. Ah, whatever, we did get to Langkawi airport in one piece anyway.

We got a free copy of a map to the island, and rented a car with one of those shouting people at the arrival hall. Then, we drove about 20km in about 15 minutes to Kuah Town to find our hotel. I forgot to copy the hotel address and telephone number and only rememberred the rough location of the hotel. Tien thought I was really brave. Shing got tired of my driving-and-looking-around strategy and decided to enquire at one of the shops. The shop owner never heard of our hotel, but suggested that a new hotel is opened just behind his shop. We went around the block to find that the new hotel was indeed the hotel we were looking for.

After settling in, with a RM20/day extra charge for the extra person in a room meant for two, and a little cleaning up, we went out. There was a night market just outside our hotel, so we went to have a look. We ended up having our dinner there, eating bits and pieces around the market. Shing and Tien each bought a pair of glasses at the night market. Then, we went to the Azio duty-free shop just downstairs of the hotel, which we believed is owned by the same people. I suggested we have a drink at night because alcohol is dirt cheap on this duty-free island, so we picked a 5% vodka cocktail each because the two girls weren't very good at drinking.

At about 20:00, we decided to go see the eagle monument at Lang Square. We spent some time taking documentary photographs and acting stupid to the camera before returning to our room, which was a 5-10 minutes drive.

After taking turns to shower, we played a little (more photographs) with the vodka bottles and finally started drinking some time after midnight. Shing and I downed the whole bottle, but Tien only had a few sips. The two of them were feeling "warm" after a short while, and we kidded around until we finally dozed off.

May 1st - Singapore, the Oriental Pearl

Ah, My goodness! The last post was in March? Where did the time go?

Time is never enough, and it does seem that the things that most urgently require your attention is almost always work-related. *Shrug*

This space is reserved for the post regarding my trip to Singapore, which will be updated soon *wink* (I hope).

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Oh, my goodness! How can it be the end of June already? Well, since we're at it, better do it. Here's the travel log of my trip to Singapore with Shing and Sze, visiting Tien, which I have only a vague memory of what happened.

Here's a summary, photos following: We started our journey in the afternoon of April 30th, with me driving down to Johor. We arrived in Skudai at about 20:00, and parked my car at my sister's house. We went to dinner with her, and she drove us across the border and into Singapore, right up to Bishan station. We met Tien and she guided us back to her house.

We went to sleep and woke up in the morning, ready to leave the house at about 10:00. Tien took us to breakfast at the "very special" Mos Burger, where I had my first rice burger, with unagi. Mm-mmmmm... good! Then we took the MRT to Orchard (I think), then Bugis, then (City Hall). We shopped, met Jiun, met Shing's colleague, met another Shing's colleague, had dinner, walked... all day. And the best buy is a Cookie Monster's shirt on Bugis Street. :)

Then we went back to Tien's house. We slept and we woke up. We readied and we went out, breakfast was McDonald's and then we took the MRT and the bus to cross the border back to Malaysia. At the City Square in JB, we shopped and walked and lunched at Kim Gary. Then, Shing, Sze and I took a cab to Jusco where we met my sister and my car. Then I drove all the way back to KL again, ending a perfect weekend getaway.

Photos next: