Holiday in Malaysia

page three of four

In summer 2008, Tracey, Joshua and I had a holiday in Malaysia as guests of my friends Eamonn and Judy. Here are the diary and photos of a tremendous two weeks.

23 May - 6 June 2006

Sunday 1 June

We hired a car today so we could explore the island. First we went to the Oriental Village and Joshua had his picture taken with an eagle on his arm, and Jushua and Judy had a go on a rifle range.

Next we headed for the crocodile farm and were lucky enough to be there during the feeding. I wouldn’t fancy being the guy throwing fish at them; some of the crocs were less than a metre from him as he stood beside the pool.

After that, we went to a waterfall and swam in the pool at the base. We tried swimming towards the fall itself but the current was too strong and forced us back.

Eamonn had work on Monday so had to fly back tonight, so we dropped him off at the airport and then drove back to the hotel before going out for a drink and something to eat. Tracey tried lobster for the first time in her life.

Monday 2 June

We still had the hire car, so we did some more exploring of the island, but first we returned to the Oriental Village, where this time Tracey and I also had our picture taken with the eagle.

Then we went up on the cable car. I remembered from my last visit, that this was a lovely view but at first we could see nothing because the top of the mountain was in a cloud, but after a while the cloud cleared and we saw some cracking views of the island.

We then walked down a path through the jungle and over the hanging bridge, just as it started raining. It was pouring it down by the time we got to the other side of the bridge, but we decided to carry on walking along the path thinking we were heading for the next station down on the cable car run, but in fact we were doubling back on ourselves and walking back under the bridge we’d just crossed. We couldn’t tell because as said this was a path through jungle and we couldn’t see the sky. We then had to walk back up the steps to the top station were we appeared soaking and exhausted.

Only then did we discover all the tourists had gone and just the guards were left. They’d closed it because of the bad weather. Thankfully the cable car was still running and they took us down. Tracey joked on the way down that it would be embarrassing if they closed it completely as soon as we got there because they were keeping it running just for us. And as our car arrived at the bottom station, the whole thing ground to a halt. They had kept it running just to get the three of us down.

I’d damaged one of my teeth, so after the cable car fun we headed for the main city on Langkawi. This is called Kuah and is famous for the large statue of an eagle on the front. So, after I’d done the dentist bit (patch up job – will need doing properly when I get home and meanwhile I have to eat only on the right side of my mouth), we went to take pictures of each other standing in front of the eagle.

We were quite tired by the time we got back to the hotel so we just showered and went for a drink and something to eat before bed, but not before Joshua and I had our photo taken with this thing:

Tuesday 3 June

We started our last day in Langkawi by swimming in the sea. We then went round Underwater World, an indoor aquarium split into different sections for freshwater, marine and tropical rainforest.

We all had our pictures taken with snakes round our necks (again); Tracey seems to be overcoming her fear of snakes.

After an abortive attempt to find a restaurant away from our favourite bit of the island, we returned to the Submarine Bar for some relaxation by the sea before flying back to KL. We were all pretty tired, especially given our plane was cancelled and we were moved to a late night one. But Joshua was allowed to see the inside of teh cockpit.

Wednesday 4 June

After last night’s late arrival, we had a latish start to today, so we didn’t do a lot. We took Joshua for his third rabies jab and then spent an afternoon shopping and drinking tea.

In the evening, we took Eamonn (our host) out for a meal as a thank you for putting up with us. He took us to a Mexican restaurant. I had a couple of bottles of Corona (a Mexican beer) and then a lovely German wheat beer, the name of which I can’t remember. Tracey had a couple of glasses of wine and then her first ever Marguerita and was giggly drunk as a result.

The food was lovely and the staff really friendly, lending us sombreros for photographs etc.

Part one

Part two

Part four

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