Langkawi Day 2

12 Sep 2010 (Sun):

After a good night sleep, we woke up refreshed & rejuvenated. We got dressed & went down to have our breakfast. Nothing much; more of a simple fare like porridge, fried rice, mee goreng, bread, baked beans & potato wedges. Plus coffee/tea & orange juice.

The 1st destination of the day was suppose to be the Underwater World. Quoted: "If u have never been to the Underwater World, you have never been to Langkawi". Or just like: " If you have never been up the Great Wall, you have never been to China".

Well, thanks to the GPS, we got lost & make big circles 3 times ard the island. Due to some areas of Langkawi being remote areas, the GPS cannot received any signal & thus a breakdown. This breakdown caused us to continue driving onwards but in actual fact, we were suppose to turn at certain roundabouts or turnings.

We ended up at Kilim Mangrove Tour jetty instead since we saw a sign indicating Kilim Mangrove Geoforest Park. We parked the car & walked up to the ticket counter. For a 1 hour boat tour, it cost RM200 & for a 2 hours, it cost RM300 & so forth. Each boat can take up to 8 passengers.

We saw a couple enquiring abt the 2 hours boat ride & we thought of approaching them to see whtr they were interested to share so as to cut down the cost. Alas, their guide came up to them & took RM300 to pay to the ticketing staff. So we proceeded with our own tour & paid RM300 for our very own boat. Heh!

The 1st stop was the fish farm where the guide introduced to us all the various marine creatures they have & demostrated some feeding methods. ( see below video). We walked ard each pond & learned abt the type of marine creatures there. Hmm, i see people from Jordan, UAE, Pakistan, Yemen, etc..

Lionel feeding the fish, with bread wrapped ard his little finger.

Feeding the stingrays.

Fish "shooting" water to get the bread. Its one of their skills. You have to pay attention closely to the tiny droplets of water the fishes "shoot". The white piece of bread is sticking onto the vertical stilt

Next is the eagle feeding area. The boat took us to the middle of the river where we saw many eagles flying ard. The boatman brought out a bucket full of chicken pieces & threw up high in the air. Whoosh! The eagles came flying down one by one, glided across the waters & picked up the pieces one by one. (caught on video too).

We cruise ard the Andaman Sea as well, the wind blowing in our faces; perfect day to be at sea ( sounds familiar? quoted from "The Little Mermaid")

Last stop, the Kelawar Cave aka Bat Cave. We disembarked from the boat and walked up along the boardwalk into the dark caves. It was so dark and at certain points, you got to bend really low to walk across. The uncle behind me kindly shone his torch up at the caves, bright enough for me to take a shot of the bats.

If you looked at the black circle, against the orange light, you can actually see tiny black spots perched on the ceiling. Those were bats. We were not allowed to use flash lights.

2 hours flew past in a flash & its the end of the tour. We returned back to mainland at approx 12.15pm. We sat back in our car & browsed thru the map, trying to decide where to have our lunch. Our next destination would be the UnderWater World so we thought of having lunch near the area. Hb spotted a Lan Kwai Fong Restuarant, located just opp the UWW on the map, so we headed over.

Lunch at LKF was not all that fanstastic. We had 2 sets of fried rice & 1 set of lamb chop rice. It comes with veggies, soup, drinks & dessert of the day. Total paid: RM52.50. Do you think its worth the $$? If u said no, i agreed with you. And they cheated us of 2 plates of desserts. We ordered 3 sets of meal, so we shd get 3 plates of muffins but we only got 1 plate. :(

After lunch, we went over to UWW. Admission was at RM38/A & RM28/C for foreigners. Total waste of time & $$. The place was not like what i though it would be. Again one of the recommended place of interest in Langkawi. What turned out was that there were individual glass tanks housing different species, thats all!! At the end of it all, there was a bigger tank housing some bigger marine creatures together. The more interesting things to look at were the penguins. They consisted of the Rockhopper & the African penguins.

Next stop, the Oriental Village. Another dead town. There were practically no one around, set aside for some tourists here & there. Most people were gathered at the base of the cable car station, queueing up to buy tickets. Other than that, the whole village was empty. We brought some snacks from a small provision store & the storekeeper told us, lucky enough, we get to see half the stores opened, otherwise, most of the stores were always closed.

You can see from the above photo that there really isnt anyone about. Actually, i also dun know what's there to marvel about at this place, but since i came across a website indicating that this is a must-see place, i came for the sake of it. Haiz!

The kids had an enjoyable time at the animal garden, feeding the rabbits.

We decided against joining the queue for the cable car, so we went towards the Seven Wells Waterfall. In Malay, its called Telaga Tujuh Waterfalls. The waters slides from 1 pool into another, cascading 90m down into the seventh pool. We climbed up some 500 plus steps, only to arrive at the lowest pool. For the more adventurous, you can still go upwards. But for us, this was enough. The kids were eager to enter the pool & we saw some people already basking under the setting sun, wearing their swim suit & splashing about.

I did not pack the kids' swimsuits as this was a there & then decision, so what to do, they went in naked. Haha! After spending about 1.5 hrs up there, yes, we stayed that long, it was time to go downhill. What happened to me next was - i was in tremendous pain right from my ankles upwards to my knees. In other words, i was not able to walk or run cos i cld feel my muscles "pulling" and that was very painful. I had to hobble slowly & finally made my way down.

That night, i had hb gave me a massage, trying to ease the pain. We made our way for dinner back at Kuah Town. Again, we sourced thru my printouts & found a recommended place for dinner -Yong Leong Restuarant ( YL Restoran). We had buttered prawns, sauteed pork ribs, home-made tofu with specialty sauce & seafood soup. Total bill: RM71.80 including rice & drinks.

We shopped at Langkawi Fair Shopping Complex & had some fries/apple pie at MacDonalds for supper. Most of the shops were closed. I believed its either late or the people were still celebrating Hari Raya. Hb bought some DVDs again, like Alvin & The Chipmunks 2, G-Force, Karate Kid & a few others.

Thereafter, we returned back to the hotel. The kids were still wide awake, so we gave them a warm shower, pamper them with their milk, had some little games & soon, they fell fast asleep. :)

Tomorrow's itinerary:

Wildlife Park/Bird Paradise

Mardi Agrotechnology Park aka Fruit Farm

Langkawi Fish Farm Restaurant

Eagle Square