Langkawi, Malaysia

We chose to spend four days in Langkawi as it was purported to be the best place for beaches, snorkeling, SCUBA, and the like. Well, the beaches are beautiful, but, like Penang, they were also home to jellyfish. BIG disappointment. The snorkeling was also disappointing because you had to take a boat to another small island and spend the entire day there. Since this is not practical with two small children, no snorkeling was done on this trip. We had to content ourselves with doing other touristy things.

We arrived at our hotel and checked into our cute little cabana. I, the idealistic romantic, thought this was going to be sweetly ideal. This proved to be oh so naive our first night. I heard this odd noise, like a duck being strangled, from the bathroom. A giant tokay gecko had invaded! (click on the link to listen to the call, and HERE for a picture) I spent the night being awakened every so often by this thing and terrified of what might crawl into bed with me. (I found out after we returned home that that particular gecko is known as the pitbull of geckos.) Plus, the unbelievably loud live band blasting till 1 AM did not help. The next morning we changed from a cabana to one of the villa rooms, which was inside a brick building and away from the music, and I slept much better the remaining nights.

cute cabana; not so cute invaders!

The next morning, after the room change, we drove over to Oriental Village, which is mostly a bunch of souvenir shops, but also has the Langkawi Cable Car, a highly recommended activity. On the way there, we passed by some natives and had a good long look! We saw many more around the island during our few days here.

sign about 50 feet past the monkeys

We arrived at the 'village' and purchased our tickets to go up. I've been on several cable cars, some quite long, but never one that has the incline this one did!

This was taken near the beginning of our ascent. We went straight up, then over left. You can squint and see the tiny specks just over the left edge of the mountain; those are cable cars!

There were great views of beautiful water and lush mountains from the top; my pictures just do not do it justice!

that tiny white speck is a boat

One of the coolest things we did: ride an elephant. I expected such a big animal to have a smoother ride, but it was rather jarring, and bony! I had to hold on very tight.

Lassa

They also have deer and rabbits we pet and fed, and even a tiger you can pet and feed! I really wanted to do that, but it cost a good deal of ringgit, so I had to pass.

We finished up our evening with a sunset dinner cruise on the river, perfected by the use of a hotel babysitter!