Howdy all, hoping today’s post finds you well. Last year I spent a week in Langkawi, an island off the north-west cost of Malaysia, actually super close to Thailand. I finally decided to stop some where for a week to relax, booked a five-star resort and just chill. A bit. Lovely pool, a couple of restaurants, huge room, on the beach.

Do you think I spent a whole week just in the resort? No, of course I didn’t. There’s a bit to do for the tourist on Langkawi, and you can’t hold me down to one single resort! I get board within 24-48 hours! But I did get in SOME R n’ R.

Langkawi is, pretty much, a tourist island I guess but plenty of people do live there. It sees a lot of international tourists from around the world and I was able to fly direct from Singapore to Langkawi on Air Asia, so it’s big enough to warrant direct international flights. With around 100,000 people living on the island, mostly Malay and Muslim, it’s an interesting place and quite different to the islands of Thailand which can be pretty much ‘anything goes’, Langkawi is certainly more conservative, which is not a bad thing.

I stayed at Pelangi Beach Resort, which appealed to a mix of foreign tourists including many (possibly the majority) from India and the Middle East. It meant the restaurants have a real mix of cuisines. The island itself isn’t small, and there are different areas you can stay. We were just outside the main town on the island, Pentai Cenang. We would visit waterfalls and gondola rides, which we used Uber to reach which was inexpensive and handy – 20-30 minute drives. Maybe a fraction more.

Pentai Cenang is a town that’s not up to much but has a bunch of restaurants, a lot as you might imagine that are seafood restaurants, and it has a small mall, altogether too many souvenir shops, a duty free plaza attached to Underwater World (the main attraction of the town, an aquarium), oh and it has a Subway which seems somewhat out of place too. The beach there is actually a pretty nice beach with a wide stretch of sand between town and sea.

Underwater World is a decent aquarium, not massive but bigger than I was expecting, with plenty of sea life to gawk at, as well as bird life – flamingos too if you can believe it! They even offer you the chance to pose for a photo with a snake around your neck, if that takes your fancy.

In the north-west corner of the island you can find your way to the island’s highlights. Firstly there is a short but steep walk that takes you to some really pretty falls known as ‘Telaga Tujuh’. You hike the short way up to the top of the falls where you can swim or paddle in the pools there, walk out on a walkway over the top of the falls and enjoy the views of this mountainous island.

Not too far, in fact we walked to it, from the Telaga Tujuh Waterfalls is this little touristy spot where you take the impressive cable car, the Sky Cab, up to the top of overlooking mountain. It’s pretty impressive, and contains the world’s steepest incline in a cable car. Or so they said. It clearly looks very steep when you are at the bottom and whilst you are going up.

There’s a second section to the ride. After you get off (and they force you off) the cable car at the midway point, but on top of the cliffs you see from below, you take another (actually it’s technically the same) cable car across to the next peak.

From here you can visit the Langkawi Skybridge. It’s a curved bridge with some spectacular views where everyone takes their photos and there are a couple of glass spots where you can look down under the bridge. It’s pretty cool but it is what it is too, not the most amazing thing you’ll ever see. You can do a little walk from the cable car to it and back, that’s very steep though. There’s this sort of ‘lift’ – called ‘Skyglide’ – that slowly goes up and down the steep hill. You pay for it, I bought the ticket then walked down (return ticket) and waited patiently to take the lift back up.

A combined ticket Cable Car and Skybridge is 60 Malaysian Ringgit, around $20AUD or $13USD, so not a bad price at all.

Another thing that you might want to check out is the Coconut Kingdom. It’s in the north of the island but a little way from Telaga Tujuh or the Skybridge – closer to Crocodile Adventureland which I will cover in another blog. It’s basically this lovely little spot hidden inside a plantation of coconut trees and rubber tree plants.

It’s designed as an ‘Instagram’ place, full of spots to take your photos in love hearts, swings, tents and so forth. I didn’t mind it to be honest, not my kind of place but I still enjoyed it as I was the only visitor there at the time and had the place to myself!

Thanks for joining me today and seeing a little of what Langkawi has to offer the tourist! I have a couple more blogs on Langkawi to cover Crocodile Adventureland and the Mangrove Tour I did on the last day, so keep your eye out for those! Take care wherever you are in the world, and May the Journey Never End!