9th December - Langkawi

Monday 9^th December

Langkawi is such a beautiful island. For a start, we saw a real live sunset last night - our first one for very many weeks.  It has just been too hazy and polluted to see anything of the sort until now…

We are also in a very nice anchorage, very close to a resort cleverly disguised as a fairytale castle.

We can’t turn our wonderful fans on – not enough power, without marina resources.  But there was just a faint zephyr of cool breeze coming through the hatch, so we were not too unhappy, and we slept very well indeed until it was time to get up and MOVING.

Things to do! 

Monkeys casually making use of the roadway

Pete found a shop at the marina where he spent a very happy few minutes, while I read an exceedingly dirty book I found at the bookswap shelf.  Oh dear why do people feel the need to squash khaki-coloured food between the pages of random novels??

Then we went down to the ferry terminal to find the harbourmaster, so we could clear in to the province, and a customs official, who stared very intently at our papers.

The ferry terminal was absolutely heaving with people, all of them wheeling hugely laden trolleys full of STUFF.  Langkawi is a duty free island; people come her to buy…this and that…

We had lunch at a cheap & cheerful Indian restaurant, with Denis and Etiennette, then walked back up to the marina, where yet another very frilly bus was waiting for us.

This is our second last day of the Malaysian Rally.  We had an excellent tour of things we would never have though to go and see.  

Gamelan musicians

Firstly Mahsuri’s Tomb, where they played gamelan music, very solemnly, and there were many dioramas of Mahsuri’s sad story.  (More re this maybe one day…suffice it to say her very unjust execution caused Langkawi to suffer SEVEN generations of torment, via wind, weather, pestilence.)

Mahsuri's impossibly handsome husband who unfortunately was not on hand to save her from her grisly fate

Pete met up with Phil, from SV Libertad (USA) and was delighted to find yet another Tilley hat wearer.

Our next stop was truly sensational  the Galeria Perdana.  Save up, come to Langkawi, and go to this amazing gallery!!  It was created by ex-Prime Minister Mahatir, and is a most lavish building FULL of gifts received by the Malaysian government during his long term of office.  We were gobsmacked, and highly impressed.

Part of just one of the amazing ceilings

The building itself is lavish and glorious.

And the gifts, beautifully curated are just magical.

My favourite was a lapis lazuli sculpture, from Chile.

But I loved these delicate marble bowls (from…not sure…)

And this enormous fish!

Not to mention the cars…there were many, but this one was so lovely:

We didn’t have long enough there, and we all had to be dragged out and forced back into the buses to go to our next destination – some rather suspect-looking hot springs.  It was actually mildly pleasant, to sit around in the shade with our feet in the gently bubbling water, stirring up lumps of what we hoped was rusty lichen.

Last destination – a large rice museum.  Or…we could eschew the rice museum and walk down a little alleyway to a beach.

A beautiful white sandy beach!  With little restaurants and bars, selling very cheap beer, wine, spirits…

Pete made some new German friends, at present crewing for Kristophe on SV Eva.  I practiced a bit of German on them but really, my main recollection of German involves songs, so I sang Seeman for them, and Morgen* and they were highly amused and joined in.

He also met some cool dudes, who shouted at him, Pete, how ya goin’ mate, all right?  (They suspected he was Australian and asked me for his name.)

At seven we went back to the rice paddies, to a lovely open restaurant, where we had a beautiful Malaysian buffet feast, and were entertained by six very happy dancers, full of smiles and gusto.

Sazli was there, with his wife and three delightful young Sazlis:

Marian (SV Avanta) and I sat on the stage.   I am including this photo to prove I was there...Pete thinks this blog is TOO much about him; but...I am the one with the camera!

We are now back on 2XS.  It is 11pm and I am going to see if my modem behaves as well as it did yesterday.

Here’s hoping!

*German hit songs of the sixties, by, apparently, Freddy!  We learned them at school in far-away Tasmania.