a meander back to Blighty

...and so to Langkawi. Don't get us wrong, and bear with us, but somehow it all seems and feels a bit like, well a bit like a holiday!
As nobody will be reading this anymore, there's seems little point carrying on - but we'll persevere! We stayed in a couple of different places, including a nice cabin right next to the beach for a couple of nights.
We also managed to stay in a place for a whole week - it almost seemed like we'd settled down and had stopped travelling - when we arrived at this particular place we were told there was a slight 'problem' caused by the previous occupant. Whatever the 'problem' was it required the purchase of a new mattress. Although we really didn't need the intimate details when we were lying on the brand new mattress a few hours later and enjoying the fresh smell of bleach coming from the bathroom and in fact the whole room, we couldn't help but muse at what had actually happened in that room during the previous 24 hours: We moved to another room the following day.
Our other accommodation included an interesting little place, a way back from the beach where the crack between the walls in the corner of the bathroom wall was so big you could see daylight through it!

Very welcoming place though and the owner even brought a brand new fridge for the few nights we were staying there. The last place we stayed in was a little apartment again set back from the beach but owned by one of the resorts.
Being a bit further back from the beach resulted in us being entertained by the sound of frogs in the fields next to the road to the Langkawi nightlife. Talking of the Langkawi nightlife, the very same road was crossed one night by several water buffalo as we were on our way out in the dusk. As soon as they had crossed the road, they couldn't wait to get a little closer to each other and seemed to playing piggy back, or that's what it looked like in the dark.
When we could drag ourselves away from the beach and the gorgeous sunsets, we hired a car for a couple of days. We had asked for a big car as Margaret & Lloyd were coming to join us on our trip, er holiday and we wanted to pick them up at the airport. It still looked a little Mr Magoo car to us though.

We had been in the car for about half an hour when we stopped at a waterfall where we learned the meaning of Forest.

When we got back in the car it seemed to struggle to start, but when we stopped in Kuah it wouldn't start at all. However, after about an hours walk around a strange public park we managed to fire it up and head back to the rental shop to swap it.

The new car really was another Mr Magoo car though – so small in fact that Helen stayed at the accommodation when David went to pick up Margaret, Lloyd and the suitcases – it was a sensible and necessary decision.
In Mr Magoo 2 we did get out and about on the island and visited a couple of other places of interest, but the most staggering was the cable car and suspension bridge. These are true feats of engineering and give amazing views of the island. We did also catch a glimpse of mainland Thailand from the tower at the top of Langkawi's highest mountain too.

When we dropped the car back off with Margaret & Lloyd there really wasn't much more to do than relax on the beach, catch up and socialise. It really was an odd, but brilliant experience welcoming familiar faces onto our trip – the socialising was big – in fact there appeared to be several 'tired' faces the following morning (and afternoon).

We also saw another familiar, welcome face when we were just wandering down the strip on our last afternoon – fellow overlander to Oz, Natalie Fitzgerald.

It was then great to catch up and exchange travelling gossip for an hour or so.
We also thought Debbie Ruddy had made an appearance when we patronised Debbies Irish Bar – not sure what the 'one hand wonder' by-line is though Debbie?

The nightlife was good and we managed to become regulars in a few places, but one of our favourites was on the beach, watching all the para gliders as the sun set and served the odd beer or several from a local who was the spitting image of one of the band members of Run DMC – if you ever get to Langkawi check out Rafii's for yourself and see if you agree.

Back to Penang, where we had a brief one night stopover on our way out to Oz.
One afternoon whilst wandering over to the shoreline on Gurney Drive we are looking out to sea when David spots what he initially thinks is a snake in the water. Helen then also spots it and it's come to the shore line, but it's then clear it's not a snake at all. There's a local girl nearby so David asks her what it is and she replies 'it's like a small crocodile' – we couldn't have put it better ourselves – not sure it was though (but don't let the Chronicle & Echo know though, eh Tim?)
We hired another moped for a couple of days to get a bit further around the island – David got to play moped dominoes in a 'ped park. Neither of us would recommend it though and David ended up with a couple of purple toes - when they stopped bleeding. We did have more successful trips with it though and managed to get to the National Park to do a couple of what were quite challenging walks in the humidity of the jungle. Whilst walking down to Turtle Beach one day, the noises in the jungle were incredible and we saw, to quote the lady earlier another one of those 'small crocodile's. There were also plenty of (other) lizards, colourful butterflies and, when we arrived at the beach turtle tracks in the sand – but sadly no turtles to see whilst we were there. On a more positive note though, there were no leeches either! We did see plenty of monkeys though on both our visits and, perhaps unsurprisingly, on the aptly named Monkey Beach itself – if only those turtles could have been as obliging.

We also managed to get to Penang Hill to visit an impressive Hindu temple and mosque, but sadly for us at this time, the funicular is currently under refurbishment, so we didn't get to see some of the better views. We were told there was a footpath to climb to the top but we couldn't find it (although due to the humidity to be honest we didn't actually look that hard).

Malay cuisine is excellent and we visited many cheap but very tasty open kitchens in Batu Ferringhi, Gurney Drive and George Town itself with some interesting items on the menu – but the vegetable samosas from one particular street vendor must get a special mention as we frequented his stall on an almost daily basis during our stay. Being the old romantics that we are, we also broke with our own tradition over the past ten years of NOT going out on Valentines – thankfully it appeared to be just a normal night our restaurant of choice on the 14th, the prices normal and only one red rose in sight.