We took a short taxi ride from the hotel and just missed the ferry. It was one of those situations where you could actually see the ferry pulling out of the port! Not to worry though, at least we could relax and get a decent breakfast while waiting until 1:30pm for the next one, which we were certain not to miss!
Landing at Langkawi after immigration you are confronted by loads of taxi drivers and guides asking you a thousand questions about “where you’re staying”, “what your plans” are and how you should “do some Island hopping” … I mean, we’ve just landed on this one!
As always we tell them we’re fine and are all booked up with both a lift and a hotel, which of course is a lie but we hate being rushed into accepting a taxi, hotel or tour without sussing out the scene first. So we just got some coffee and cakes and sat down at a table and watched the port clear of our fellow travellers while going through our guide book and planning our next move.
Finally we decided to go to Cenang beach and find a place to stay. We were told it was “low season” so werent too worried about finding anywhere “cheap” to stay. The first place we tried (the Melati Motel) was a little expensive at 75Ringgits (15GBP) so we went off to find something a little cheaper. We were a little dismayed to find the next two places we tried had no rooms available! The horror!! We started to feel the incessant heat and the sweat started to pour down as we soon found out it was still in “High season”!
After trying several more places we eventually went back to the first place, The Melati Motel,and booked up for the night on the agreement that they moved us into a beach fronted appartment in the morning. I’m sure they could sense our desperation!
Settled in, we took a stroll (more relaxed now!) and explored the beach, some places to eat and some bars. I was particularly looking forward to sampling the very cheap beer on offer, until I found out that it was mainly Carlsberg, skol (strange choice!), Heineken or tins of Tiger - I guess you can’t have everything, I was being spoiled in Thailand with the lovely cold Singha! Still at 2Ringgits a pop you can’t really argue!
The next day we moved on to a different place to stay, mainly as the Melati Motel upped the price for the beach apartment overnight to 100 Ringgits. Eventually we found a lovely Motel on the much quieter Tenang beach15 minutes walk away. And not only cheaper at 59 Ringgits but a hell of a lot cleaner, with a power shower and proper western style toilets! How you miss the simple things in life - if youve ever been forced to use the Asian style squat toilets you’ll be nodding along with me now!
Again settled in, we explored our new surroundings. The beach was much closer and it was all less touristy with more local foodhalls at the prices we like!
We were about to take a dip in the sea, whch was lovelly and warm, when a lady just got stung by a Jelly fish. Her calf was covered in red and white spots that looked a lot like our mozzie bites only bigger and very painful! So we backed away from the sea and took a stroll instead, looking at all the Jelly fish. There were loads of them everywhere, some huge but most about the size of a melon. Lovely beach but the Jelly fish spoiled it a bit.
Next we went to hire a scooter but unfortunately being too honest with our lack of experience they wouldnt let us have one so we hired a car instead and took off to the other side of the Island to check out the Bat cave. It turned out that you couldnt just go to see the bat cave you had to take a two hour tour that included The Bat Cave, a floating fish farm, a Crocodile cave, Eagle feeding and a short trip out on the open sea.
Out of all of it the Eagle feeding was the best. The boat man threw in some chicken skins, twirled them around with the out board motor then sat back and watched as around 50 Eagles started swooping down for the chicken skins. It really was amazing to see so many of these birds having a good feed.
The worst bit of the tour was the Crocodile cave. It wasnt until we were through the cave, which in itself was only about 20yards long, and after several questions from Sandra about “wheres the crocs..?” that the boat man revealed there werent actually any crocodiles in or near the cave. In fact, there never has been! I wish I had taken a photo of Sandras face!!
Later we were talking to some other tour guides and they suggested we take a boat tour to see the Bat caves etc… when they mentioned the Crocodile cave we had a lengthy discussion, instigated by Sandra, about why, if theres no Crocodiles, is it called “Crocodile Cave” - we still don’t know!
Next up we went to see some waterfalls. Apart from not much water flowing down, these were both pretty good. Mainly for the much needed exercise. We had to walk up a very steep set of steps, which after a few months of doing minimal exercise we thoroughly enjoyed! At the top there was a lovely refreshing pool where we were able to have a dip. We then took another climb up to The Seven Wells. I think this was the top of the waterfall? The climb was longer and steeper than the first one but we relished feeling ‘the burn’ as we passed a group of Italians on the way up, they were doing more talking than walking 
At the top there were indeed 7 wells and we had another dip. The water was colder and more refreshing. Much needed after the climb up. Suddenly we saw loads of monkeys coming towards us. They looked quite small and cute and where gray in colour but I’ve got to say it, we were a tad scared! We decided the best tactic would be to ignore them and try and concentrate on the view. Where were those Italians?? I half turned my head expecting to see the monkeys right behind us but they had jumped into the bins by the side and were just looking for food. Or maybe they just wanted to play with the tin cans they threw out of the bin, anyway the main thing was they werent going to pick on us! Suddenly they all scurried off into the trees as the Italians had made it up to the top. Phew, we relaxed and tried to act cool, still having a dip in the pool! On reflection It was a shame we didnt watch the monkeys more but hey we’re just stoopid tourists and still very green with free range mammals!
On the way back down we noticed the monkeys again and this time we tried to be less frightened. It was quite amazing to see how many monkeys there were. At the top there had been just around 5 of them but now we could see them in every tree and a lot more were on the ground walking to the edge of the palf we were on. Back at the bottom we spotted two monkeys sitting calmly in a tree when all of a sudden one of them atacked the other and for the next few minutes they were jumping from branch to branch and tree to tree chasing each other. It looked quite viscious, but not knowing much about the monkey world they could have been playing? It was very cool though to see them jump across the palf we were on, they were very close to our heads and we were covered in falling leaves and branches a they dissappeared into the woods.
On the drive back we found a lovely place to eat. Very nice noodles again, with fried squid, all very very fresh! One thing’s for sure we’ll never go hungry on this trip! Thus ended a nice tour of Langkawi. We’re off to Kuala Lumpur in the morning.