Langkawi Holiday Day 1, Part 1.

Langkawi Holiday

Langkawi Holiday 

This year has been quite a difficult year for me. I got busy with work and some personal issues were just getting the best out of me. I wanted to go on a trip somewhere I could chill out and relax, rewarding myself a little bit and have a little some fun. So, with a few of my friends, I decided to go and have a vacation to the Langkawi Islands.

I wanted a stress-free holiday – hoping by then, all major projects were completed as supposedly, most of the work on those projects should be over by end of July. Unfortunately there were a few incomplete bits and pieces and had to be scheduled till I got back from the trip. Luckily, this minor setback didn’t slow my excitement down for the Langkawi Holiday!

10^th August 2017. Day 1, Part 1.

The plan was for Kamil, Yun and I to take a flight to Langkawi and meet up with Zi and Syuk there, as both of them decided to take the ferry to Langkawi from the Jeti Kuala Perlis. We booked our flight tickets with Malaysia Airlines and it cost us RM 147 per return ticket.

MAS <3

The day prior the trip, I was struggling to complete as much work as I could. I stayed back at the office quite late and was stressed out as I still had not packed my luggage - in fact I was not even sure where I kept my luggage bag. Also, since my parents were out of town, I needed to run a few errands - feeding the cats, doing some laundries etc, you know, a stay-at-home dad stuff :P.

After getting the most important bits done at the office, I went off home and finally attended to my errands and started packing. It took a lot longer than I had expected and was only ready for bed at around 2 am. I was so tired from the long day I had at work and I just laughed at myself knowing that I need to wake up by 4 am (yes, just a couple of hours of sleep) to catch my early flight to Langkawi. I might have even cried myself to sleep that night JK.

After a short sleep, I woke up figuring I’d still be tired and all grumpy. But in fact, I felt great and hyped up for the trip. I certainly got my holiday mode on! I then went to Yun’s and picked her up and we headed to Kamil’s. Kamil then drove us to Putrajaya Sentral. From there we took the train to KLIA. The one way ERL ticket cost us RM 9.60 – pretty reasonable I guess.

At the airport, as soon after we finished praying Fajr prayer, we had a little discussion whether to get something to eat before the flight. I wasn’t really hungry at that time but I thought it would be a good idea to have a snack or something – the last time I ate was at 5.40 pm, the day before! But none of us really initiated to buy anything, as per our usual motto – One Does, Others Follow. Or for this case; One Starves, Others Starve! In a short while we were to regret that decision. I’ll get to that in a bit.

Even though it was going to be a 3 days and 2 nights’ trip, Yun and I each brought a big luggage bag. This was because since we would be flying with Malaysia Airlines, we wanted to take the opportunity of the 30 kg weight limit. My bag was undoubtedly more or less 70% empty – I was no fool, I was just prepared, well prepared. I could predict my future on the trip. I imagined I would be bringing home lots and lots of chocolate bars! So before our flight, we contacted Zi and Syuk, discussing on the type of car for us to rent while we’re there – since they both would be the ones arriving first, they’d be handling all the renting procedures. I snapped a photo of our luggage and they simply decided that a small car wouldn’t do. So they proceeded and rented the new edition of Toyota Vios – 3 days of rental for RM 200.

Our luggage for 3 days LOL

No padlocks? No problem :P

As we were about to board the plane, we suddenly gotten hungry LOL. I informed Kamil and Yun that I believed we weren’t entitled to any meal during the flight. Plus the duration of our flight would be less than an hour. So I presumed we would only be getting a drink and a small packet of salted peanuts. We were getting sleepy and hungry at the same time – one of the most unfortunate situations to be in. For this particular case, it had caused Kamil to become delusional. He firmly believed we were going to be served nasi lemak on the plane. As unlikely that to happen, I was really hoping he was right though LOL. Since the three of us were all fatigued, hungry and deprived of sleep, we thought it would be best to get some rest and dose off a little during the flight so we would be reenergized when we land in Langkawi. But nope, that didn’t happen. We ended up talking the entire time while eating peanuts (yeah, that’s right, no nasi lemak, Kamil you one hungry liar! Haha). But all in all we had a good flight and safely landed and couldn’t wait to meet up with Zi and Syuk and hoping to get breakfast ASAP.

 Langkawi International Airport. Safely landed.

After reunited with Zi and Syuk at the airport, we begged them to take us for breakfast – by then I was almost 15 hours without any proper meal! We were lucky that Syuk was quite familiar with the way around Langkawi and that moment our lives were highly depended on her. She didn’t hesitate and immediately took us to a restaurant – we later found out the both of them were hungry too, so their lives were at stake too!

Our ride for 3 days

Note: before the trip I had anticipated that the meals in Langkawi would be a bit on the pricey side.

At the restaurant I piled up my plate with some big scoops of nasi lemak and a piece of ayam masak merah. I was surprised to be charged RM5.50 for the meal. I thought it would be at least RM7. The nasi lemak was good! And spicy too! Such a satisfying breakfast and so cheap as well! I was a happy bloke J

Please tell me why is this board placed this way?

Veggies!

Now we're talking!

Heavenly!

Also note that, before the trip, we had not decided on a fixed itinerary. That’s right - the holiday that we were all looking forward to was basically, unplanned LOL. So, after breakfast, we suggested which places we could visit and what activities we could do. But somehow that morning, after our heavy breakfast – let me stress this out; HEAVY breakfast plus with very little sleep and after went through a long flight (okay this one I over exaggerated – I was tired FGS!), we agreed to go to Telaga Tujuh and hike a bit (a bit? Hmmm). I’d been there a few years back and only hiked to the first stop (not till the wells of Telaga Tujuh). I knew how high it was going to be for us to hike all the way to the wells. But they all seemed excited about it and I just followed the plan.

On our way there we stopped at Telaga Harbour Park at Petronas Quay Pantai Kok, simply because we wanted to check out the awesome yachts at the harbour. The Petronas petrol station there is unique too. It kind of looked like it was influenced by Islamic architecture or something as it was constructed with a dome on top. Unique indeed! 

Petronas Quay

Opposite of the deck

Love this view!

The view from the deck was awesome! We spent about 30 minutes taking photos before continuing our journey to Telaga Tujuh.

The entrance to take us to Telaga Tujuh

We arrived at the bottom hill of Telaga Tujuh, parked our car (RM 2) and began our hike. It was going okay initially, and we could choose to walk up the stairs or on the tarred road – but it was a wee bit slippery so we chose the stairs. The first quarter of us climbing up the stairs was quite pleasant. Not many people were around and we were climbing in a good pace. Bear in mind, our bellies were full and we were tired plus Zi was not feeling well that particular day.

Thta's right. Just feed me instead :P

''It's going to be a quick and easy hike!" - I said.

As we reached the first point, we either had the options whether to visit the waterfalls at that point, or continue climbing up till the wells. We did have another option by the way – to go back down to our car but they’d killed me if I suggested that LOL. The point to the wells seemed pretty reachable for me and not that far off. I thought it would be an easy climb and I encouraged for us all to continue. Reaching the final quarter of the hike, I was already sweating and gasping for air. I might have thought we made a mistake continuing our journey up. Yun, on the other hand, was really impressive! She didn’t show any sign of slowing down. That little athlete was way up in front leading us to the wells.

"This is not a quick and easy hike! - I said thirty minutes later LOL

We then finally reached the Telaga Tujuh wells! The view from up there was phenomenal! The hike was worth it! The place was still not crowded yet and we took that opportunity to get some photos taken (mostly by Kamil as he had the best camera on his phone – a blessing and curse for him at the same time). After countless number of photos taken, Yun finally had some great shots that she ended updating her profile photo on social media later that night! They were indeed great photos!  I offered to take photos of them as well but later on I was struck with the fact that I was not talented enough L. 

Machinchang Peak? Errrr no thanks! Haha

We rested for a little bit while enjoying the calm environment up there. I was sweating and felt like taking a quick dip in the cool water! Tempted, but I didn’t have any additional shorts to swim with.

Breathtaking! 

My jeans and my Stan Smith. Should've worn something else.

The hanging bridge at Telaga Tujuh. We had this all to ourselves as we were there pretty early

After about an hour the place started to get crowded and it was getting hotter too. So we decided to head down. Yun wanted to make a ‘quick stop’ at the waterfall at the first point. When we reached there, it was already congested. Mostly by tourists. 

The waterfall 

Kamil told us he wanted to have a quick swim. I thought he was just messing with us. Like me, he came unprepared and only wore jeans and a shirt. But then he really did get himself soaking in the river and started dipping around here and there, with his jeans and belt still worn! To be frank I was a bit envious of him at that moment. But I just didn’t want to go through all the hassle of changing clothes once I got down to the car.

"Give me a thumbs up if you think it was a dumb idea to keep your belt on?" LOL Just kidding, Kamil

The rest of us took some more photos and some tourists even asked me to take photos of them. I believed they made the wrong decision of asking me to do so. Don’t get me wrong, I was friendly as ever but as I had stressed earlier; I do not take photos well. I would constantly get one of my fingers in the lens and the angle of the photos would be just all weird. The result of my photo taking abilities would always shock everyone - not in a good way, trust me LOL.

After having enough fun up there, we headed down and stopped by at one of the stalls for a quick drink - coconut drink and sodas. Syuk told me that the public toilet there was a complete nightmare! I had a few complaints during this trip, and my first complaint would be regarding the public toilets. The management and users of these public toilets should be aware that the toilets are shared properties. We all need to manage/use the toilets as we would manage/use at our own toilets at home – HYGIENE, people! HYGIENE! I tried my best to keep everything inside of me that moment haha.

As we were sipping our drinks, we started planning on what we should be doing next. We were not allowed to check-in to our motel rooms for another couple of hours. So, we decided to have lunch first and agreed to eat somewhere close to the motel – located in Chenang.

As we were driving to Chenang we noticed that we were actually passing along Pantai Kok and we just couldn’t resist the absolute beauty of that beach! The hot sunny weather, the blue water, clean sands and nicely distributed of coconut trees were phenomenal! We had to stop by and enjoy that beach for a while. To be frank, I was a bit blown away. I am not a huge fan of the beach but I think I could go there every day for the rest of my life and would never get bored of its beauty. Definitely one of the highlights of the trip!

Pantai Kok :)

:)

Me being naughty :P

Beach is not our thing. But just wished you were here with me <3

After tonnes of photos captured, we left the beautiful Pantai Kok and drove off to get lunch. We stopped at a restaurant that serves nasi campur (rice and gravy). It was a Siam restaurant and even though there were quite a wide spread of gravies, I was a bit unfamiliar with them. I spent about 5 minutes to choose on what to eat. We were hungry and had no idea where else to get lunch nearby. So I just took whatever I thought would taste good.

We had lunch here

Look at Yun. I think even she was confused on what to pick to eat hehe

In the end, lunch was okay, I guess. Not awful, but certainly not the best. I wouldn’t recommend the restaurant to other Malaysian tourists though. I couldn’t remember the exact price but it was a bit pricey as well (RM 7 – RM 9 for some rice and a piece of chicken). A little bit more expensive compared to a similar meal in Kuala Lumpur. But, I shouldn’t complain much. After all, like I said, it was not … totally awful.

After we had our lunch, it was finally the time we could check in to our motel rooms. We were a bit beaten from the day we had so far and I especially, just wanted to get a little bit of nap so badly!

To be continued in Part 2 …