Prior to actually going on this trip, I had actually never heard of Langkawi before (oops), though now, having been there, I don't understand why this isn't coming up as a travel / lifestyle YouTuber hot spot. The place is SUPER affordable, and is chock-full of all kinds of beach-y activities and fresh, stupidly affordable seafood.So, obviously, in true vacation spirit, our family hit up just about everything that we could within the span of 3 days.
Let's get started, shall we? :)
The map pictured on the left is the "island map" that was in the Langkawi airport. Filled with all kinds of icons and information to give arriving tourists a general idea of the island.
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Langkawi
This first part is actually from the Singapore airport. lol XD
Do you recognize the Asian lady in the watch ad? Yes, that's right. It's Liu YiFei / Crystal Liu who will be starring in live-action Mulan! If you haven't read my two cents about that decision, check it out here :)
Liu YiFei and Cate Blanchett in ads. USA, can we please get this mainstreamed here?
I actually recognize people in ads! lol
Our family stayed at a seaside resort-ish location, which was quite cool, except that you could only swim in the pool, not the sea that you could see from your room. Sad :(
view of the building where our room was
view just past the pool, this was a cool view in it of itself, but then when the tide came in, the whole thing was covered in water, so that was very interesting to watch
they even had the chocolatey breakfast cereal of my childhood here!
I haven't had this thing in like...10 years!
I shamelessly ate 2 bowls lol XD
something you may not see in an American resort, they had signs on the ceiling to direct their predominantly Muslim population in the direction of which they were to pray
group photo outside of the resort office building
the resort staff and family also evidently live there...? we weren't sure lol
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Fooding
The main thing Langkawi has going for it as far as food was typically summed up in one word: "Wonderland". This outdoor restaurant is SO popular during meal time, you either show up early and line up to get in, or you have to call in to have a table reserved lest you be stuck with a 1 hour (or longer) wait.
full house, evidently like this ALL THE TIME, EVERY DAY.
Fried prawns (large shrimp, also what the UK and British colonies typically just call shrimp), seafood fried rice, and CA-LA-MA-RI. OMG.
These were SO GOOD, SO FRESH, and as you can see in just a second...SO CHEAP!!
Can you even process how cheap this meal is?
We ate an INSANE amount of seafood, and the number you see there, RM 140.30, is the number in USD we would have paid if we were to eat this same meal here.
However, we were in Langkawi, so when you convert our receipt to USD, divide that number by 3.
Yep. That's right. You heard me.
The juice was a blend of (I think...?) apple and pear juices?
Freshly squeezed. YUM.
I ate SO. MUCH. CALAMARI on this trip, I loved every second, and I still want to eat more.
You would think eating that much would satiate you for life, but NO.
You would be wrong. You can't have too much calamari. Let's just settle that here.
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Jet-Skiing and Langkawi Wildlife
So, I've never actually been jet-skiing before and given my general actually capable of making me break out in a cold sweat fear of deep water (and not being able to see what's under me), I didn't want to overthink it because I had actually kind of decided years ago that jet-skiing looked fun and that I wanted to try it.
Langkawi is literally the paradise of water sports, so when Mum managed to find us a good deal to go jet-skiing (we had paid for a 2.5 hr package, but another couple was going to go on the trip as well and had paid for the 3 hr package, so the owner of the company told us to keep quiet about the price difference and we'd get a cheeky 30 min extra for free), I didn't want to stress myself out into saying no.
1) Demonic monkeys. I don't care what anyone says, I was attacked and yelled at by Malaysian monkeys as a child and I hate them with a passion. Yes, I realize that I was born in the year of the monkey, but whatever.
2) Fishies! Lots of them! Of all colors and sizes! There was apparently a giant barracuda under the dock that we could try to find, but frankly, I don't want to find something like that when I'm in the water with him. *cold sweat
3) An island that we had to "pull over to" (oh, don't mind me as I pull over to a freaking ISLAND) because Mum ran into a plastic bag in the ocean and it got caught in her engine so they had to pull us over to take it out had a large cliff face that you could kind of go down certain sections of had crabs and little snails all over it.
Ash and I discovered the snails on accident...by stepping on their pointy little shells with bare feet.
Ouch < Oops in this case hehe :P
The crabs were cracking us up because they'd hide in the rocks, scurry out and attempt to cross whatever rock they were trying to cross, only to get swept into the ocean by a wave crashing up towards us. lol XD We stood there cheering on the crabs for a while haha XD
this island is currently left alone as a haven for eagles
there were at least 3 different species there.
just look at them all! O_O
1. beach (the one we "accidentally" pulled over at
2. pieces of coral, which while depressing that it's dead, was cool to find all the same
3. in the area called Hill of the Maiden or something, where the hills, if looked at a certain way, look like a pregnant woman lying down. The echoes in the area were cool too :)
Mum was having a little TOO much fun in my opinion, having been jet-skiing before and completely disregarding my fears of deep water and basically sabotaged me several times, almost causing me to flip over. On the one hand, the guides had explicitly told us not to flip the machines to avoid complications in getting back, which annoyed me in the professional sense in that Mum was completely ignoring them. And on the other, by far the most annoying part of the jet-ski trip, was that while I realize she was having fun, but it was at MY expense, which was not cool.
I won't share the specifics here (you can ask me later), but if your version of having fun means that you're completely disregarding someone else's genuine fears and anxieties, that's not okay. Just don't do it. Makes you seem like a jerk, and yes, this was my mother, and yes, I told her more than once that I wasn't cool with it.
Don't be a jerk, guys.
Just putting that out there.
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Parasailing
I'm not going to elaborate, but Ash wanted to do it. Mum was heavily pushing the "once in a lifetime" thing and my serious fear of heights wanted to kill me when I said, "FINE. Let's just get this over with." We were up there for ten minutes, which was plenty long enough for me, though Ash said she wanted to be there longer. #nope
The time going up and coming down was spent with my eyes shut, trying not to die. Ash was cheering and kicking her legs around enthusiastically, which made us swing around and I wanted to kill her multiple times. At one point, she was like, "Jie! Look! Isn't this awesome?" and I was like "STOP TELLING ME TO LOOK!"
Once we were UP there though (no feeling of going up or down, just kind of coasting), I felt okay enough to at least take a peak. Saw a jellyfish, which given that I saw it from that high up, meant BIG jellyfish. The view WAS gorgeous, but then we started coming back down and I was done with my adventure at that point.
We landed on the boat and Mum was like, "So? How was it? Was it fun? Will you do it again?" Ash responded with something along the lines of "yes, wow, it was awesome, and yes" and I was kind of like "my life is done, my brain hates me, I'm pretty sure I'm sunburnt now, thank you for letting us try this, but HECK NO."
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I'm not really sure what caused it, maybe it was the 3 hours on the jet ski or the 10 minutes being abnormally close and exposed to sunlight, but Ash and I had a horrendous sunburn for the following week. We were red as lobsters, sensitive to literally EVERYTHING we came into contact with, and in so much pain...
All in all, it was a very special adventure, all packed into one day, and I am quite proud of myself for actually being brave enough to stick it out and go through with it. Thanks, Mum, for being generous with your $$ and paying for us to experience these things!
And thank YOU all, for reading this and for joining me in my adventures.
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