With some domestic flights within Malaysia priced at less than $10 a piece we realized we could cover a good amount of ground over our 10-day holiday. For the next 4 months we daydreamed about our Malaysian vacation and our first stop, Langkawi.
Langkawi
The small island off the west coast of Malaysia was the first stop on our mini-tour of Malaysia. After work on the 23rd, we had a bit of time to eat and pack up and then we were off to Sinnonhyeon Station and its' excellent rapid train service to the airport via Gimpo. When we saw our plane we were so surprised at how close together the seats were! This really was a low-cost airline. Luckily, no one ever sat in the third seat in our row so we were able to lay down and get a little rest on our overnight flight. In all, the trip was about 6.5 hours. We landed in Kuala Lumpur and grabbed a coffee while we waited for our quick flight to Langkawi a few hours later. When I saw that Reeses peanut butter cups were for sale at the airport duty free shop I knew we were in a good place.We took a cheap taxi from the airport to our resort, Green Village, in Pantai Tengah. We were greeted by absolutely no one at the front desk and waited around for a few minutes for someone to notice our arrival. We were taken through a pretty courtyard, past an attractive pool and shown to our shitty room. We sighed, took a nap and then wandered to the beach.
It was so, so nice. Seoul hasn't been too cold this winter, but it is consistently around 0 degrees or a little less. The air in Langkawi felt like a warm hug from the vacation gods. It was 30 degrees, and it stayed that way for our whole trip.
Shitty hotel room, just big enough for the bed and one suitcase. No TV channels and wi-fi internet that worked for about 3 minutes a day. We've stayed in way too many awesome love motels to put up with crap like this for more money.
Luckily, right across the road from our resort was a much nicer resort, right on the beach. This place, the Frangipani, became our daytime hotel for the rest of our stay. Everyday, we'd get some drinks or fresh fruit at the fruit stand next door and cross over to the Frangipani. We blended right in and nobody cared that we were there. The pool was amazing, the hot tub was even better, the view was breathtaking, and the whole place was quiet and conducive to afternoons of lazy reading and sleeping.
Mel relaxing at the Frangipani. We could never have afforded to stay here, but it was fun to pretend that we belonged.
The day after we arrived was Christmas Day. It was certainly different from any Christmas I'd ever experienced. We started the morning by brewing some coffee and opening presents while listening to Christmas music. Mel got me an alarm clock with wheels that makes a hideous noise when the alarm goes off and then drives itself off the nightstand. I love it. I got her a stuffed drumstick and a massage at a spa next to our resort. Then, we played skip bo, had a shitty free breakfast at our hotel and headed to the Frangipani to relax.
In the afternoon, Mel had her massage and then we went to a British pub called Debbie's Place where we had booked a table for Christmas dinner. We'd only paid about $20/each so we weren't expecting much. Since we'd already paid a deposit I half-expected to show up and find that the place was closed. Instead, my cynical ass was seated to a table with our names on it, Christmas crackers, a glass of wine and the above amazing turkey dinner. It was fantastic, right down to the slice of luncheon chicken and the brussel sprouts pushed to the side of the plate. I never thought we could get a traditional turkey dinner for our Langkawi Christmas, but this meal really made my night. We were given a geletin/cake/fruit dessert and another complimentary glass of wine before finding our way back to our hotel.
Around this time we started to try and get our Skype connection up and running. We'd been busy so we hadn't realized how bad the wifi sevice at our resort was. We'd booked the place specifically because they had wifi and we knew we'd want to use it on Christmas day to speak with our families. What a disappointment! We tried to get it working for over an hour and the staff at the hotel showed no interest in helping us at all. In a pathetic showing of Christmas communication we used the hotel PC to chat on Facebook with my Mom and brother and e-mail Mel's parents. It was the best we could do and was pretty disappointing after an otherwise awesome Christmas. We tried to lift our spirits with a warm nighttime swim in our hotel pool, but nothing would prepare us for how pissed off we'd find ourselves that night. The Russians in the room next to us sat in front of our front door screaming into a cellphone until 2am, and then the resort's night club kept the music pounding until 3:30am. The night club, which no one went to, kept us up every night until we left Langkawi. I would urge anyone considering a stay at this place to think twice.
The next day we decided we would rent scooters and see some of the island. Since I'm the only one with a license that isn't expired, I tried first. When I almost drove into a ditch on my first try the guy at the rental agency said maybe it wouldn't be safe for me to rent the scooter and I had to agree. It was Mel's turn to try. She has a lot more experience driving than me and I knew she could handle it. We went to another rental agency. The exchange went something like this:MEL: Hi, I'd like to rent a scooter.
EMPLOYEE: Do you have a passport?
MEL: No, but I do have an expired Canadian drivers license.
EMPLOYEE: It's 50RM. Is red color OK for you, sir?
Mel made it a little farther in her attempt to tame the scooter, but the result was the same. The rental agency lady had her hand over her mouth as she watched Mel try to make her way up the street. "It is not good idea," she said. And we had to agree.
Instead, we got Mai Tais and hired a driver. For 4 hours he drove us wherever we wanted to go for $10/hour. I was starting to love how cheap Malaysia was. Mel really wanted to go to the Langkawi cable car, so we went there first. We bought our tickets and then saw the line- it was longer than any line I'd ever seen at Disney World. For a cable car. OH, and also, they confiscated our water before we entered the line and the temperature was 40 degrees that day. We tried to stick with it, but after 30 minutes we'd only made it 1/3 of the way through the line and were starting to get the spins from heat exhaustion. We quit that bitch and headed straight to the first convenience store for some water when we realized a line the same size probably waited for us at the top of the hill when we wanted to come back down. I took a picture of the cable car from the bottom of the hill, for your enjoyment (above).
Since it was so hot, we decided to go hiking. Our smiley driver took us to the base of a hill we could hike to go to the Seven Wells waterfall. What we didn't know was that wild monkeys live on the hill. Hungry, wild monkeys. PS: the hike was about 25 minutes straight up and almost killed the two of us.
The waterfall was excellent- though it was more of a place to swim (there were seven wells, get it?) than a waterfall. We swam for a bit, which felt excellent, and admired the view of the stupid cable car to our right. Oh, and after swimming there I developed a mean rash on my back that itched like crazy for the rest of the trip. Thought you'd like to know.
We pretty much spent the next two days straight at the Frangipani swimming and sunbathing in the day. We'd learned our lesson from the cable car and agreed not to have anymore hard sightseeing days. This down time was wonderful, and the only thing we had to think about was what amazing food we'd eat each day and what drinks we'd buy for our funny cooler at our mart each night. The beach strip was full of Thai, Indian, Chinese and Western restaurants and we never had a single bad meal. Everything was so delicious.
I read three books in five days on Langkawi. So relaxing.
On our last night, we went to a little permanent market set up off the main beach area, Pantai Cenang. Here, we realized that Langkawi is a little hotbed of rip-off designer merchandise. I picked up some shorts and Mel got a few sundresses but we really went crazy at the fake bag store. $80 later we walked out with: a Jimmy Choo bag, a Burberry bag, a Prada bookbag, Gucci sunglasses, a Louis Vuitton messenger bag, an Adidas gym bag, an Ana Sui wallet and a Hugo Boss wallet. It's fake as hell, but it was fun.
It would be criminal to write a blog about our stay in Langkawi and not mention Big C. Big C is the rooster with me in the above picture. He lived at our resort and woke us up every morning when the sun rose. This was after the nightclub kept us up until 3am, mind you. But he was such a good guy, how could we not love Big C, anyway?
We knew we wanted to get something to eat before our flight and when we saw Kenny Rogers' chicken restaurant I knew exactly where we had to go. It wasn't really that great, Kenny.Penang
Our hotel room was so much nicer than the craphole in Langkawi! It was like your typical, western-style hotel room which is all we wanted at this point. Cozy bed= check. Bathtub= check. NO NIGHTCLUBS= check.
After landing in Penang we took a taxi to our hotel. At $8 for a 45 minute drive it was better than trying to figure out a new bus system to get ourselves there, and as an added bonus the cabbie had the radio tuned to an English radio station that seemed to only play songs by former American Idol contestants. As we drove past palm trees, tropical hideaways and Swastika Society buildings we were treated to classic music by Lee DeWyze, David Cook and even random contestants like Katherine McPhee. Idols, if you career isn't taking off in the states, you can always move to Penang where you're sure to be loved.
Our hotel room was so much nicer than the craphole in Langkawi! It was like your typical, western-style hotel room which is all we wanted at this point. Cozy bed= check. Bathtub= check. NO NIGHTCLUBS= check.
Sea view= check!!! We enjoyed this balcony everyday... it was very nice.
On our first night in Penang we took a bus into Georgetown and just got off at a random point and walked around. We went to a Buddhist temple and just generally took in the cool architecture of the city. I would love to live in the house in the photo above.
All the streets seemed to have this shabby European quality about them that just seemed so charming after a year and a half of touring large Asian cities. I could live here.
Another sign that I could live here: there's an A&W! Now, I'm not exactly obsessed with A&W like I am with Arby's or anything, but it was nice to have a mozza burger and a root beer at a mall we found later that night. But A&W could not prepare me for what I saw in the grocery store at that same mall. I present to you, the top 5 reasons why Korean supermarkets have nothing on Malaysian grocery stores:
Lays AND Ruffles chips!!!!!
Chip dip!!!
Turkeys!
Lean Cuisines!!!!!!!
Readily available root beer!Not pictured: sour cream, frozen pizzas, Ben & Jerry's ice cream, Quaker granola bars, sweet & sour sauce,taco kits, and and AND SO MUCH MORE. It was like being at home. I was getting dizzy so we had to leave. I bought some chips and dip, and well, you know how the rest of the night went. Zexy.
The next day we went into Georgetown again, and did some sightseeing. First we went to the Leong San Tong Khoo Kongsi temple, which was used to film the movie "Anna & the King". It looked like every other temple I've ever seen.
Kapitan Keling Mosque. I'd never been to a Mosque before... pretty cool building.
The colors of Little India.
Next, we went to see the clan Jetties, where locals live in colorful, traditional huts on the sea.
We decided to get a taxi to Tesco, because we'd already accumulated so much stuff that we needed to buy another suitcase. This had been the plan all along because we had to throw out two suitcases when we left Taiwan due to baggage restrictions, but we will need them again when we go back to Canada. A perfectly nice $30 suitcase in tow, we bought SO MANY amazing groceries, toothpastes, deoderants and soaps to bring back to Korea with us. We don't really want for anything in Seoul, but it's nice to treat yourself to some things you miss when you get the chance.
That night we took a twisty-turny bus to a night market in Batu Ferrenghi, a beachy area 20 minutes past our hotel. The market was pretty big but didn't really sell anything we were interested in. The food looked pretty amazing, though, as all food in Malaysia seems to. We hung out under a palm tree on the beach for a while, before heading back to the hotel for the night.
Taking the bus into Georgetown, we'd noticed a few bridal shops that Mel wanted to check out. Korea is not the place to buy your gown, and one that she ordered online proved to be a bust. She tried on a few dresses in each shop but nothing looked right. Malaysian dresses are so gawdy! Too much lace, too many beads, too much everything. Since she didn't find anything interesting, we headed back to our hotel to spend the afternoon relaxing by the water.
Unfortunately, it started pouring after about an hour. It rained on and off for hours, and since this was New Years Eve we were worried that we wouldn't get to see the fireworks we'd planned to. It cleared up, though, but since we wound up leaving a bit late we couldn't get to the Fort Cornwallis fireworks show that we'd meant to see. Instead, we wound up at a busy party by the sea wall, where the mall (the one with the A&W) had a concert, food market and fireworks going on. It was pretty cool- we got some fruit, shaved ice, chicken skewers and coconut milk (PASS!) and then watched not 1, but 3 fireworks shows that exploded along the waterfront.
That night the buses in Penang were supposed to be running until 2am, so we decided to take advantage of this since getting a taxi back to the hotel was impossible. Our bus ran every 7 minutes, so we figured it would be no problem. Well, after ONE HOUR of waiting along with a group of also-impatient tourists and annoying locals kids with a bullhorn, no bus had shown up. We'd seen buses on the other side of the road so we knew one would come eventually... right? Well, at 1am this bus with blacked-out windows showed up, a guy got off and started shouting and everyone lined up for his bus. A local guy told us we should get on. By all rights, this choice should have resulted in our murders, but instead we just got our long-awaited ride home. Instead of charging 2RM like the city bus, these "pirates" charged 3RM (90 cents)- what a racket!- and they cackled like sinister super-villains as our pirate bus drove us home. We laughed the whole drive home at these characters. They made our night. Happy New Year!Kuala Lumpur
The next morning we got up around 8am, ate a lousy free buffet breakfast, and headed to the airport for our flight to Kuala Lumpur. From KL airport, we took a bus into the city and then a taxi to our hotel. Our room wasn't ready so we left our bags, went to the mall across the road for something to eat, and then took the monorail to see the Petronas Twin Towers.
They were really big, industrial and very cool looking. There was a mall inside, and since we were hot as hell, we shopped around a bit. I was starting to understand why everyone says there's nothing to do in KL but shop. There's something like 50 malls in the city and prices average $5-10 for the clothes. It's pretty amazing. You could totally have a shopping holiday there, and I could have spent the whole time in Top Man. *swoon*
Inside the mall where Mel finally found the perfect wedding dress. It's beautiful. We can't wait for this summer!
Next, we went to Jalan Alor, KL's famous food street. We were hoping to flit about from stall to stall trying all the hawker food, but most places were set up as proper outdoor restaurants and since we were hungry, that's how we wound up eating.
Lemon chicken, greens and fried rice. A nice meal for our last night of vacation.
After going back to the MALL again, we headed back to our hotel. The room was so small- just large enough for a bed and our two suitcases, but it was clean and conveniently located. Unfortunately, our only window offered a view of the laundry room and it was pretty loud in the morning. At least the garden area was nice, so we played cards and had a few gloriously non-Korean beers before bed.
The next morning we took a taxi to the KL airport- the world's most confusing airport!!!!- and lined up to check-in for our flight. At two hours before take-off, the line was almost out the door and exactly ONE clerk was working to check people in. ONE. We waited in line for 90 minutes and they were calling a final boarding call for our flight while we were still waiting in line. With a hundred people behind us in line we knew the flight would be delayed, and it was, by an hour. Airasia's cheap prices allowed us to travel where we did, but let it be known that they are truly a crappy airline to travel with.
ANYWAY, this was one of the best and certainly most relaxing trips we've ever taken. The food was amazing, the prices were cheap and the culture was interesting. I'd recommend Malaysia to anybody. And even though Korea feels a little extra-cold right now, there's enough yummy food in my cupboards right now to warm my seoul for a long time.
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