Ting's Side of the Langkawi Story

Hello!

Been a while since I last wrote. I was just reading Julien's post "The Eagle Stone" and I decided I should share a few other memorable moments about the short holiday for me that Julien had not mentioned.

First thing we did when we arrived was hit the beach. I love the beach, and I'm not sure if it was the same for Julien, but I really wanted to check if the sand was fine and the water was clear. The result - It was AWESOME! As Julien had mentioned, we didn't do much the first day we arrived. So we just strolled the beach, enjoying each other's company. This is what life is about - I was thinking to myself. We were lucky enough to enjoy a great sunset as well. Unfortunately, I think Julien was a tad too hungry.

So we adjourned for dinner.

After dinner, we took the binoculars to the beach and star-gazed. It was just amazing the number of stars in the sky. It was as though God had taken the best diamonds in the world, and just scattered them across the black velvet sky. Julien claims the best place to star gaze was Scotland in the winter when the sky is clear (which is rare...very rare). This I got to see. That was day one.

Day 2, we spent the whole day at the beach sun tanning and swimming. At one point, Julien was asking me if I felt stingy all over. I had told him that he had too wide an imagination. We both took a closer look at the water and realised that there were tiny jellyfish everywhere! Little brown ones that looked like bubbles, and the common translucent ones. Lucky for us, they were too tiny to really hurt us, but we were really careful after. I am glad to announce that I got a new shade of tan in 30mins. Julien, well, he was all purple, especially on the legs since he had remembered to pour thick layers of sunblock on every other part of his body, except his legs.

The third day was the highlight for me. We did activities that brought me back to days of my childhood! My parents used to take my sisters and I to the water falls in Kota Tinggi, Malaysia, and I loved it! For those who have not swam in one (yes you can swim in it), the water is really cold! Like swimming in ice water which is GREAT since the weather here in the tropics can get unbearably hot hoT HOT at times. I had noticed that there were a few waterfalls in Langkawi on the map we had taken at the airport and I was eager to see them. Day 3 was "Project Waterfall". The objective was to go waterfall hopping. I had got it all planned out in my head as we were riding out: "1-2 hours max and then on to the next" was what I had told myself in my head. I knew we had to climb to get there.. I just didn't know it would be that steep a climb. The thing about waterfalls is it's best if you can go up to the very top because I believe the water there is freshest. Just getting to the first level was a challenge already. I don't know how long we had to climb but it seemed like a long time... my legs were already starting to cramp up BEFORE we even got to the first well. But when we got there, it was all worth it.

Just looking at the first level made me want to adventure up to the other levels. I was sure it would get better. Needless to say, that gruelling climb outweighed my enthusiasm, and I was more than grateful when we had finally reached the second level. It's one of those things where you reach the top of what you had thought was a really long flight of stairs, only to realise you were at the bottom of the second flight of stairs! I cannot remember how many such sets of stairs we had to climb to reach the second well. There is a Chinese saying that goes "First bitter, then sweet" - Directly translated, it refers to certain situations and circumstances in life where we need to go through tough times, before it gets easier and we enjoy the fruits of our labour. I couldn't have found a more appropriate description for this occasion.

Julien enjoyed himself quite a bit too. Who can resist the water falls?!

By the time we swam about a little, and did some tanning, it was already mid day, and looking at how majestic this waterfall was, we couldn't wait to experience the second one we had in mind to visit. The climb up to the second one was a lot harder than the first one we visited. Maybe also because we were pretty tired out from the first climb already. The huge steps were roughly cut out from the existing stones from the natural formations, and they were pretty slippery too. It looked like these steps were cut out for giants!! I felt like a 3 year old learning to climb steps for the first time.

We were supposed to see this:

We saw this:

I cannot further express my disappointment.

I was happy enough that we still managed to spend the better part of the day in the seven wells, and even have Julien experience his first swim at a water fall.

The ride back was nice too. Past few times we rode by this area close to the hotel, we saw many cars parked but didn't know why they were parked there. So with the bike, we decided to stop and snoop a little. To our surprise, we had realised that even though these private hotel establishments had somewhat robbed the locals of their very right to their own beaches, since they bought over these beaches, the locals had found a part of the same beach with a better view to rendezvous at FREE OF CHARGE.

We had discovered a palm sized jellyfish that the local kids had taken an interest to as well. Even the adults came round after a while. Haha.

Julien and I both had sore scalps (i'm not exaggerating) after. So sore I thought it was bleeding at first, like it was sore from a cut or something. We had realised only later that our scalps had been sunburnt! What an eventful day!

The rest of the holiday went past like a breeze... short but rejuvenating.

My thoughts bring me to the last day where if I had a seperate blog about it, I would title it "Men are Big Boys". A picture paints a thousand words... it can't be more appropriate for this..

Ok, I'll be fair and say we both had fun on the swings. It's fun to be kids again!!! I think we're all too grown up sometimes we forget to be kids. Oh! See that brown skirt i have on in that picture. That's the nice tube dress I bought at the flea market which I discovered can be worn as a skirt too! Very Bohemian!!!

That's all for now.. Till the next post!!! By the way, there are many nice post card like pictures of Langkawi that we have posted on our Picasa album for your viewing pleasure. =)