On the 9th May 2011, I spent the day travelling with a couple of buses from Ko Lanta South to Satun via Trang. I spent the night in Satun (which I wouldn’t particularly recommend doing unless you have to, though the night market is pretty good) and caught the first ferry to the duty free island of Langkawi in Malaysia the following morning.
Langkawi is a pretty large island (it means ‘strong eagle’ in Malay, the eagle is the island symbol) on the Adaman Sea, pretty developed, though with several protected areas of nature as well.
I stayed at the Gecko Guesthouse on Pantai Cenang, probably one of the cheapest options for backpackers and was glad to like the atmosphere immediately as well as the other people staying there.
The beach seemed nice enough, though again pretty developed: resorts, paragliding, water scooters, banana boats, etc.
Unfortunately the weather started turning bad just after I arrived, skies clouding over around noon and raining soon afterwards. I tried cycling to the cable car one day with Crystal, a girl I met at the guesthouse, we almost got there but it was really overcast, couldn’t see the top of the hill anymore and it started raining heavily so we gave up and hitched a ride back to Cenang beach.
On the plus side, we had a good party the night before. It was Bobby’s birthday, one of the staff from the guesthouse, so we partied at the guesthouse first, then at the Babylon Beach bar, and ended at the only bar club sort of place, The Sumba. A fun night.
I then met Jean-Roch, a cool French traveler who usually hitch-hikes everywhere. He was heading to Georgetown, Penang in the morning. Given the weather was bad and he sold me the fun of hitch hiking, I joined him for the ride.
