Langkawi

After a smooth ferry trip from Koh Lipe we arrived in Langkawi and had an immigration process that was just as smooth as the ferry ride. This was by the way the first time we entered a new country by something other than a plane. We stayed at the Cenang beach and used the first three days just to relax and plan our trip through Malaysia because we did not prepare anything beforehand.
Fun fact 1: during those days we also started publishing this Find Penguins blog so yeah, it took us more than five months to get started, and kudos to you for reading five months worth of travel blog.
Fun fact 2: “Langkawi” means “Eagles’ Island” and you can indeed spot many eagles almost everywhere on the island.

While Langkawi looks very similar to the Islands in Thailand which we have just visited, it still felt different and it was noticeable that we were in a different country. Malaysia is the first islamic country we visited and when we arrived, Ramadan was still going on for a few days so there were frequent prayers over loudspeakers and fireworks at night. And we found that at least on Langkawi, people seem to be quite into chocolate as there are many shops just selling chocolate including some familiar brands like Ovomaltine, Wernli, Kägi, Toblerone, and Lindt.

And then came the day where nothing went according to plan… We moved to a new hotel just around the corner, which did not provide wifi in the room, and then followed our plan to go to the Langkawi cable car, which we checked should have regular opening hours according to their website. But once we arrived there around 10am we found out that they would only open at 12:30. Not such a big deal as there were at least very few other visitors leaving some hope for short waiting times. In the meantime, we could eat and drink something and use the rest of the time to continue booking our Malaysia trip. But once we made it back to the entrance area, we were shocked to find a huge crowd, various long cues, and zero or false information about how and where to get tickets or where to cue. After one hour of cuing, we made it to a ticket counter where we were informed that we could get tickets for a cable car ride no earlier than 3:30pm. Since we did not want to wait another two hours, we decided to take a taxi back to our hotel. We then rented a scooter for the coming two days and used it to go to a nice restaurant on the beach to use their wifi to continue booking our Malaysia trip. Once we were there, a couple asked us if they could join us at our table. It immediately turned out that they were from Switzerland and instead of booking our trip, we spent our time until sunset talking to them.

On our second last day we used our scooter to explore the island a bit. We first went up to Pantai Rekreasi Kastam beach and Pantai Tanjung Rhu beach in the north of the island. The latter is where one of our helmets got stolen from our bike (they were not locked but we still did not expect that). On we went with one helmet toward the Datarang Lang eagle statue and Maha Tower in the south of the island. On our way we were looking for a store that sells motorcycle helmets but they are all closed due to the national Hari Raya Aidilfitri Holiday. But at the end of the day, we made it back to the scooter rental to get a new helmet. We had to pay 60MYR (12CHF) for the missing one. What a steal! (pun intended). And speaking of good deals, gas in Malaysia costs only 2.05 MYR (0.40CHF) per liter.

On our last day, we finally made it up the Langkawi cable car, this time with pre-booked tickets and no lines at all. (See our “Langkawi - Cable Car” footprint about this)
On our way back, we bought some Wernli Guetzli (because why not), returned our scooter, got our luggage from the hotel, and went to the airport to get to our next destination. At this point, it has been a while since we boarded our last plane but we were kind of forced to this time because they cancelled the ferry service to our next destination a few years ago.

Cafés and Restaurants around Cenang Beach:
- Smiling Buffalo Café for Breakfast (beautiful location)
- Marii Café Langkawi (cute café)
- Restaurant Local Food (very good and traditional)
- Sufra Restaurant (delicious Indian food)
- Hidden Langkawi (nice spot for sunset and food right at the beach)Read more