One son off ..

Langkawi. An island of legends and old wives' tales. I used to like Langkawi for its simplicity, undeveloped, slow paced life. We used to take the young boys then to Langkawi twice or three times a year back in the "90s. This was because Noor's brother was there so we had an apartment to stay. Yet, we usually went to stay at the chalets or resorts by the beach as we came here for the sea. I loved Langkawi for its Book Village (it's closed now) and the Galleria Perdana (Tun Mahathir's collection of gifts when he was the Prime Minister). Since I am not a shopaholic, I only buy chocolates for friends. It has a comfortable memory for me.

I last went to Langkawi 3 years ago for MUET briefing. What a journey !!!! Filled with drama, fears and prayers ... :-DD))) It was raining and the winds were strong thus, the sea was rough with strong waves. The ferry was small and claustrophobic. We, most of us made the journey at the same time, on that ferry were already worried of being sea-sick. Halfway across the Straits of Malacca in the rough weather, the engine of the ferry spluttered and went quiet. It was right dead in the middle of nowhere !! There were loud gasps, fears and most of us just prayed hard that somehow the engine would come to life. After almost 20 minutes, it spluttered again and again and roared to life. We heaved a huge sigh of relief and prayed that we would arrive at Langkawi in one piece. We finally reached the jetty dizzy, nauseous and just glad that we had our feet planted on solid ground. The briefing that night was in a daze and most of us were cursing the people who organised to conduct the briefing here in the first place. Whose bright idea was this????? ;-{{   Sufficed to say that it was the first and last time we had any briefing there. :-D))  

Akmal would be doing his 3 months internship at Langkawi Underwater World. It was a good excuse to go to Langkawi again especially for the other 2 boys too since they had not been there since they were kids. We did not discuss of going there at all. I thought I would take leave and just sent him off at Kuala Kedah jetty. Noor did not say anything and neither did we discuss about going. So, it was a surprise to all of us when he suddenly announced that we would all be going to Langkawi. We all complied. :-)  Thus, on Saturday morning we left Alor Setar for Langkawi. Noor had earlier arranged for car rental and booked a place to stay near the Langkawi Underwater World.

What we did not expect was the unusual large crowd of people going to Langkawi. We decided to depart from Kuala Perlis as it would be a shorter journey of 45 minutes instead of the 90 minutes from Kuala Kedah jetty. When we reached Kuah, Langkawi city centre, I asked the friendly car rental guy about the huge crowd. He also said it was an unsusal amount of local visitors. Maybe because they were having family day or just organising trips before the fasting month. We saw groups of people with Johor Corporation T-shirts, a large group of ladies, university buses parked near the Kuala Perlis jetty meant university students and others. It was crowded with people that I wished we had gone at another quieter time for some peace.

The unusual large crowd at Kuala Perlis jetty

Our double decked ferry - My Msster. It was full which meant about 645 passengers excluding the crew members.

The passengers disembarking the ferry at Kuah jetty

Queueing to buy return ferry tickets for Sunday

 So, we took our rental car for the 2 days stay. We took whatever was available since they also had run out of decent cars. Anything is good enough as long as we had the freedom of our own transport. We headed to Pantai Cenang to our motel. It was blazing and scorching hot and I was feeling the heat. Once we checked in at about noon, I was already fast asleep. :-))  We had booked 2 rooms and all of us decided on a nap ....

Akmal, in the ferry, looking pensive and eager to embark on a new adventure ...