12th August
2017. Final Day.
Please click on the links below
to read the rest of the Langkawi Holiday Experience!
As mentioned in my last post, the
final day was mainly dedicated for shopping. I had to buy some chocolates and a
few kain batik for my mom. We had all
agreed to buy everything we needed at Haji Ismail Group (HIG) Complex.
That morning, we had breakfast at
the same place we went the day before. It was close, the food was nice and the
price was reasonable – couldn’t find any reason to eat somewhere else. After
breakfast, we took one final stroll along the Chenang beach located behind the
rows of shops. The iconic Langkawi Beach Sign was located there so we wanted to
check it out.
As we were walking along the
beach, I noticed that it was quite a long beach. The sands was also more dense
or compacted compared to the beach at Pulau Beras Basah. Ocasionally, we
stumbled upon some litters such as plastic bags, water bottles and even old
torn up clothes. Since the beach was located so close to the rows of shops, along
with many chalets and hotels built along it, I assumed it would be quite
challenging to manage the litter or waste disposal there. We can always
complain and finger point towards the local authorities for not doing a better
job managing this kind of issue, but we also need to look at ourselves and
reflect. “Do we throw out our rubbish in the bins provided?” “Do we tell our
kids to pick up the litter they threw on the ground?” “Do we even confront the
people that crumpled their receipt papers and chuck it on the floor whenever we
see one?” So, I think we all need to be responsible for this. Most
importantly, we need to change ourselves first and help others change too.
Okay, why on earth I am preaching all of this? LOL.
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| Litter spotted immediately :( |
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| Final moments at Chenang Beach |
As I was saying, we wanted to see
the Langkawi Beach Sign. It was located at the other end of where we started
walking. Even though we weren’t in a hurry, the distance towards the board was
approximately one kilometre long, thus we felt a bit demotivated to walk till
the end. Our pace too, gotten slower. Yun and I were in front of the pack and
once in a while we looked back and saw Kamil, Zi and Syuk taking photos. At one
point, they even stopped walking.
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| Happy Kamil |
Yun and I were getting closer to
the sign so we speeded up the pace and got as close as we wanted to sign. I
couldn’t get it how I didn’t notice this from afar; but once I got very close
to the sign only then I realised that the Langkawi Beach Sign was incomplete.
Some of the components were missing. I even tried guessing what the sign actually
says. I was disappointed. Langkawi is one of Malaysia’s most famous tourist
spots. And the Langkawi Beach Sign to me, should be as iconic as the Hollywood
Sign to LA. I hope by now they have gotten the sign fixed.
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| Dear oh dear :( |
After having our last Langkawi
beach moment, we decided to check – out of our motel. But I had to make a quick
stop at the men’s room first. We left the beach and crossed back to Chenang
Mall. At the mall, I asked a security guard (non-local) there to direct me to
the toilet. I couldn’t understand a word he was saying. I couldn’t hold it any
much longer. I hurried and searched for somebody else that could help me. I met
one person, and he told me that there were no toilets at the mall. I was like “Are freaking
you kidding me? So where do you guys go to take a leak? Cross to the ocean and
do it?”
Luckily this lady heard me arguing with that man and she told
me where the toilets were. So, I ran to the toilet and went in. I saw a couple
of cleaners preparing to clean. As I was trying to get into one of the toilets,
one of them stopped me. He wouldn’t let me in! He told me to use the toilet
upstairs. Only God knew how much I wanted to urinate on him that moment LOL.
That guy could have just let me use it for 30 seconds then I would have been
done. Have you ever faced with a similar moron-sabotaging-your-pee-moment and
then you tend to get mad at everything and everyone around you? I even thought
of giving up and rushed to a corner somewhere to pee! Haha!
I rushed upstairs. But, the issue
then was I couldn’t find where the toilet were! Then I saw a guy - who I
eventually found out was working as the toilet entry fee collector (is that the
proper term for it? Haha) and showed me where the direction to the toilets.
Once I knew where they were, I ran like crazy but whilst running I heard that
guy kept on calling me. I then shouted; “What?!” He answered; “RM
1, Sir!” Seriously??? So I just replied back; “I can’t hold it any longer,
but I swear I’ll pay you once I am done!” Geez all that drama I had to
go through to do the number one.
Once I was done, I met with my
friends that were having drinks and desserts at a bakery: The Loaf. As we were
talking I learned from Syuk that The Loaf was established by the fourth Prime
Minister of Malaysia, Tun Mahathir Mohamad.
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After all that drama, we got back
to our motel. We changed and pack everything and checked out from Sweet Inn
Motel. For the price we paid and the location the motel was located, we thought
it was pretty decent. So, if you want to know more about the motel (location,
booking etc), please read
here.
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| We actually stopped by at Pantai Tanjung Rhu before heading to HIG Complex to have some quick photos taken |
We then made our way to Haji Ismail Group (HIG) Complex. As we were driving there, it started pouring rain. Heavily! Thank God it didn’t rain like that the day before while we were enjoying the island hopping activity. We also wanted to get lunch first. We didn’t have any specific restaurant we wanted to head to. So Kamil suggested we go and eat at the food court in front of Haji Ismail Group (HIG) Complex. I thought that was a good idea as we had ample of choices to choose from – crucial as we are all picky eaters!
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| The HIG Complex |
The stalls at the food court
offered a few selections – from nasi
campur, nasi ayam, ayam penyet to desserts such as cendol. At the food court, I was
tempted with the variety of gravies at this one Malay stall. As I was about to
pick up a plate, there was this voice inside of my head telling me to keep
looking till the end of the food court. So, that was exactly what I did. At the
end of the food court, at the very last stall where the customers were not as
many as the rest of the stalls, was a stall called Restoran Haji Ali. Certainly
that voice in my head was my imaginary nasi
kandar Guru LOL. Like I said, there were not many people buying from them,
so I thought their nasi kandar
probably weren’t that great. But, that didn’t affect me so I decided to try it
out anyways!
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| Restoran Haji Ali |
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| My love for these will never fade LOL |
I ordered my usual whenever I go
to a nasi kandar joint. “Nasi
lebih, kuah lebih, ayam seketul!”
– “Extra rice, extra gravy and a piece of chicken!” But this
time, I also felt like having a ball of begedil
– a sort of deep fried potato patty. My plate was mounted with awesomeness.
I just hoped the taste wouldn’t disappoint me. The price was RM 7.50 only! So
cheap! With that large cut of chicken and begedil,
I thought it could easily be RM 10. Then, the moment of truth; the taste.
It was amazing! So good! I really
enjoyed it! Plenty, cheap and delicious! I certainly recommend for others to
try it. I was quite surprise to see it was not packed with customers. Probably
I didn’t come during their peak hours.
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| With you, my life is complete! Haha |
After we finished our lunch, I
went to look for some kain batik for
my mom. My mom made it very specific to me not to buy the ones imprinted with
animal characters. I needed advice on this. So I asked Yun to help me out. We
managed to get 3 pretty kain batik
for RM 45.
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Now, came the main event! Chocooollllaaaaaattteeeeeess
shhhhhooopppiiinngggggg! And we were excited! Haha! Before I continue
writing this, I wanted to note here that my budget for chocolates shopping was
RM 200, max! I had to buy a few for my girlfriend and a couple more for my
family – my family is not that crazy over chocolates. So, RM 200 at a duty-free
shop? I thought I would be just fine and enough.
So once we entered the shop, I
could say that 80% of the customers were focusing on the chocolates. Half of
the shop was displayed with chocolates only! So many types! So many brands! So
many people! So many potential diabetics LOL! I felt like I was in a chocolate
maze or something. The chocolates were stacked here and there. With the large varieties
available, I found it quite time consuming finding the ones I needed. I was
like on a treasure hunt on a gameshow (but for this case I needed to pay for
the prize LOL). I prayed hard not to trip onto the stack of chocolates and
create a mess. That’d be embarrassing.
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| Chocolates <3 |
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| More chocolates <3 <3 |
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| Yes! More and more chocolates! <3 <3 <3 |
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| Kit Kats! |
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| The moment this photo was taken I dreamed to have a secret cabinet built in my house to stash these. No joke. |
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| Yun looked a bit confused. I know Yun, it was certainly a tough decision to pick what to buy |
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| I wasn't sure why Zi was hugging the chocolate bar, but her trolley was just in front of her. Or was she just in love with the chocolate that much? |
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| No, we're not in a bookstore. Haha |
One by one I managed to get
everything on my list – with a few more that I had ‘accidentally’ attracted to.
Haha! I spent roughly around half an hour to get everything in my cart. It was
close to full but I thought I had gotten enough of everything. So I headed to
the counter to pay. As I was unloading my chocolates I started to realise I might
have bought more than I should have. The cashier then started to scan the tags
and up and up the price went. It was about to reach RM 200 (my budget) but the
cashier was nowhere near done! I started to get worried. From that moment I
just knew, damage had been done. I couldn’t go back LOL. Guys, don’t be like me
– please properly calculate the total of your items before heading to the
counter!
Please click on the links below to read the rest of the Langkawi Holiday Experience!
The chocolates were totalled up
to RM 308. I only had about RM 300 in my wallet! I was RM 8 short! I remembered
before entering the shop I noticed a few ATM machines were placed just next to
the entrance. I guessed the management had anticipated this kind of issue would
happen LOL. Luckily there was no one else queuing behind me so, I said to the
cashier; “Would it be okay for you to wait for a minute and let me withdraw some
money?” He just nodded with a cheeky smirk on his face – I think he was
judging me; “Poor guy. You don’t have enough money with you.” Haha!
Finally, I paid everything and
walked out of the shop feeling embarrassed (for not bringing enough money
earlier), guilty (for buying more than RM 300 worth of chocolates) and
disappointed (that I spent over my budget). Then I looked at all the chocolates
inside my bags and all those negative feelings turned to a smile and I felt
happy! Who cares about embarrassment, guilt and disappointment? I was happy
damn it!
Chocolates = Love = Happy. LOL.
Well, apparently I wasn’t the
only one who went overboard with the chocolates shopping. Zi and Syuk bought a
lot as well! But kudos to Kamil and Yun. They both managed to control their
temptations and just bought the amount they had initially planned for.
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| The time I vowed not to buy anymore chocolate for at least 6 months LOL |
By the time we were all done with
the shopping, the rain had also stopped. So before getting poorer (LOL) we left
Haji Ismail Group (HIG) Complex and made our way to the Eagle Square (Dataran Lang) to take photos at one of
the most visited Langkawi attractions: The Big Eagle. But before that we made a
quick stop at Masjid Al-Hana to perform our prayers.
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We had saved to visit this site
as the last stop as we thought not only it would be convenient for Syuk and Zi
to take the ferry back to Penang from Kuah Jetty (very close to the Eagle
Square) later on, but also it would be the perfect spot to conclude our amazing
holiday in Langkawi.
Once we arrived, we managed to
secure a parking spot without any trouble. The place was not as crowded as I
expected – there were a lot, but not too many. The situation must be very
different if we went during the school holidays.
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| The entrance |
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| There's the eagle! |
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| Sexy butt, eh, nice view, I meant. |
The eagle was huge! Looking at it
reminded me of our trip to Pulau Singa Besar when we saw some eagles flying
over our boat. It was so cool! – Check out the post
here.
We spent about an hour there and
took as many photos as possible. It was however impossible to get the perfect
photo in front of the Eagle – you’d always get photobombed by other people
taking selfies there!
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| Pretty cool! |
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| From another angle |
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| That 5 seconds when no one was near the LANGKAWI letters |
After that, it was time to say
goodbye to Zi and Syuk as we dropped them off at the jetty. It was quite sad.
Wish they could have stayed a little bit longer.
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Our flight back to KL was scheduled
at night (10 pm). Kamil, Yun and I didn’t know what to do and where to go
before our flight. It suddenly rained again and heavily! To kill some time we
decided to have some drinks at Langkawi Parade – Thanks, Yun, for treating us
the drinks! After that we dropped off our rental car and took a Grab car to KFC
– we thought it’d be best to have an early dinner – we learned from our mistake
(DO NOT EXPECT ANY NASI LEMAK DURING THE
FLIGHT! LOL).
There was a long queue at the
counter at KFC. It was taking forever for us to get served. I think we had
spent more than half an hour for our turn. Estimating the time we had to eat,
the journey to the airport and the time for us to pray and all, we realised we
needed to eat fast. Really fast! I ate my meal in less than 5 minutes. Imagine
that – a piece of chicken, a Zinger burger and fries in less than 5 minutes!
We then took another Grab car to
the airport. As we were heading there, I was feeling a wee bit worried that I
might have exceeded the luggage’s 30 kg weight limit – because my chocolates were
a lot! Seriously they were heavy, plus I had bought other stuff as well. But
luckily when we checked at the airport, it was way below the limit. Phewww!
We were tired and Yun and I
complained that we still needed to drive back to our houses once we arrived in
KL. I was hoping I wouldn’t fall asleep while driving hehehe. To make things
worse, or flight was delayed. Goodness! But that bought us some more time to
chat and talk about stuff. And then after about an hour long of waiting, it was
finally time for us to fly back to KL and marked the end of our Langkawi
Holiday!
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| ~ Goodbye Langkawi ~ |
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| The products that I bought at the gamat store |
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| My chocolate consumption for one year LOL |
The Langkawi Holiday was such an amazing experience. I really enjoyed the time we had there. There’s nothing better than spending time with my friends exploring the island and doing activities together! The unplanned trip turned to be a great one! I wanted to say thanks to all of my friends whom had made this trip so much fun! Thanks for the all the help, contributions, treats and the memories! Hoping there will be another fun trip for us to go together! Hopefully, soon!
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| Travel buddies! :) |
Please click on the links below
to read the rest of the Langkawi Holiday Experience!
