The Travelling Life of Silvan Colani
January 2009 - Langkawi
I expected Langkawi – where we headed for a short Chinese New Year break - to be mostly quiet and boring and I was not to be disappointed: Malaysia just isn’t Thailand or the Philippines! They’ve got the sun and the sea, but they just don’t have the same flair. But as I said, that’s what we expected and - after a hectic year like 2008 – exactly what we needed!
Our resort – the Tanjung Rhu at the beach of the same name – also fit the bill: quiet and boring. For sure, it was fancy enough with not one but two very nice pools and big rooms with a huge bed to roll around in. But stuck in the north-eastern corner of the island there is no life outside of the resort (other than the nearby Four Season) and you end up eating in the resort all the time, which is fine but overpriced. The beach – as you can see from the pictures – is as white as they come, but the sand is by no means as fine as Boracay and although this is the Andaman Sea, the water is rather murky due to a muddy seabed. With guests thus hanging out by the pool instead and no locals in sight, the beach is deserted for most of the day thus adding to the lifeless atmosphere.
Trying to add a bit of excitement to a quiet holiday, we rented a Peugeot 206 Convertible for the day. With over 116,000kms on the clock and an automatic gearbox better suited to a moped we set out to explore the island. The roads are excellent (apparently Langkawi was the home of former Prime Minister Mahathir and therefore received plenty of infrastructure funding during his term) but there isn’t much too see on the island.
Our first stop was a crocodile farm which turned out to be surprisingly exciting. I always remember the crocs in the Zurich zoo which would lie completely still in the water and wouldn’t move no matter how many coins you’d throw at them as well as a visit to another crocodile farm many years back which was incredibly boring. Here, however, the crocs were very animated and the feeding by the ‘bridge on the pond’ turned into a real frenzy. The reptiles were grunting, jumping and fighting for the food which made you wonder about the insanity of the keeper who held them at bay with nothing but a stick.
From the crocs we headed to the cable car, which takes you to a 700m vantage point. Apparently its one of the steepest rides in the world and I was pleased to see that it was built by a Swiss-Austrian consortium and not the Chinese. What we failed to anticipate was an hour-long wait to board the gondola.
Further along our tour we headed into the two main towns on the island, but they were both rather deserted. Maybe it was because of Chinese New Year, but I cannot imagine much activity during other times.
For dinner we headed to the Gulai House, an open-air restaurant that is part of the Datai Hotel. This was an excellent choice as its Malay and Indian cuisine was excellent.
Back at our own resort we spent the days doing nothing but reading and lazing in the sun. Not bad for a change, but I seriously couldn’t do it for too long…
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