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Finally out of the cold of a Sydney winter where it rarely gets above 20'C
I stay with friends at a town called Jitra fairly close to the Thai border. After a day to recover from the rigors of an 8 hour flight We drove down to Kuala Perlis to catch the ferry to Langkawi. Langkawi is an island just off the Thai coast but part of the Malaysian state of Kedah. The temperature was a balmy 32'C - well, actually it is always 32'C
I have only been to Langkawi once before and that was many years ago so it was nice to spend 5 days there.
Langkawi is named after the eagle that lives here, apparently the name is actually Kawi but it is a peculiarity of Bahasa that the name of the island has Lang in front of it.
Did all the touristy things like the Cable Car and the 3D Museum.
A boat rip round the islands and the rivers seeing bats, rain forest and mangroves. Not terribly exciting as we have all that in Australia but what we don't have is monkeys that swim out to the boat for food - this was really exciting.
At one point the eagles were swooping down for fish stirred up by the boat.
Mahsuri's grave - legend has it that the island's relative poverty was due to a curse left when they killed Mahsuri. The time of the curse is up so the island will now prosper (?)
My favourite thing in Malaysia is the food. The Malay hawkers stalls are everywhere and food is cheap, spicy and delicious. This meal was from a restaurant that specialises in seafood.
Anyway in a few days will cross the Thai border and catch the night sleeper from Hat Yai to Hue Hin for a few days of sea food and Thai hospitality
Sorry about the photos but I have an extremely old camera with me. Actually my old Galaxy S4 phone takes better pictures but them's the breaks.
Just to show how I risk my life to bring you these adventures here is one of the tourist craft upside down after capsizing at high speed apparently one of the passengers ignored the instructions about moving from one side of the boat to the other and it flipped over.
Personally I wonder how long this can go on because these boats travel at extremely high speeds and create a terrific wash. This is fine in the open ocean but in the rivers you can see the damage they are doing to the mangrove banks (not to mention the danger to customers). I am pretty sure that in Australian waterways they would be restricted to 5 or 15kph.
Also I forget the type of monkey they are other than they have "long tailed" in the name. They need to swim because there is not much food on the trees in the mangroves so they live on soft shelled crabs. I suspect these don't bother as they probably make a good living off the tourist boats
Also I forget the type of monkey they are other than they have "long tailed" in the name. They need to swim because there is not much food on the trees in the mangroves so they live on soft shelled crabs. I suspect these don't bother as they probably make a good living off the tourist boats