Pulau Langawi: Welcome to Vampire Island

During the two weeks I had been bouncing around Malaysia, one place kept coming up in conversations with fellow backpackers. It was a small island in the middle of the Andaman Sea, where the beaches are beautiful and the drinks are cheap. Everyone I met had either been or was on their way to Pulau Langkawi. I followed suit, traveling via the three hour ferry from Penang.

Upon my arrival and throughout my two day stay, I learned a couple of things that I feel I should share.

First, this is an island with no means of public transportation. They have approximately 65,000 residents, probably a couple of thousand tourists and zero buses so your best bet upon getting off the ferry is to befriend the first backpacker you see. Odds are that they too are heading to Pantai Cenang, the main strip of beach and therefore you can split an overpriced taxi.

Secondly, once you get settled in, changed into your swimsuit and get to the beach in search of sun and fun, know that it will be a mostly solitary pursuit.  For reasons that no one was adequately able to explain, there are no people on this, the most popular beach on the island.  There are lounge chairs, bars, restaurants, things that indicate that people are expected but in my time there, there were very few signs of life.

Once the sun begins to set, this mystery only deepens. A German backpacker I'd met and I were sitting on the sand, having a couple of beers and watching as mother nature did her thing.  At first, it was just the two of us, chatting and comparing travel notes.

But then I looked around and noticed that the bar behind us was full, the neighboring bars were picking up and suddenly there were more people walking on the sand then I had seen all day. As far as I am concerned, there is only one conclusion that can be drawn from this.  Pulau Langkawi is home to the undead. They fear the sun, worship the night yet make it out in time for happy hour.

Third observation:  The mangrove tour advertised by all the agencies is totally worth it.  I forget the name of the operator I used but they all promise more of less the same things:  a visit to a bat cave, feeding of eagles and monkeys (not to each other, these are two separate events),  a photo stop at the Kilim Geo Park (which is not something to be underestimated when over half the passengers on board are wielding selfie sticks), a stop at Fossil Island where the guide points out 480 million year old fossils, a floating fish farm which probably not coincidentally is where lunch is served,  Crocodile Cave (spoiler alert: there are no crocs, just a rock that looks like one) and a beach stop where you get a chance to swim around in pretty murky water.

My favorite stop is the one I have no decent photos of.  It was the bat cave which, true to its name, was chock full o'bats.     Along with the rest of Langkawi's inhabitants, they sleep all day and are active only at night, which means we saw lots of sleeping bats.  We were instructed not to use flash to not disturb their sleep and correctly so.  This was good for the bats, shitty for the photos.

This could have been a separate observation but I am throwing it in here.  To their detriment, the tour operators of Langkawi have egregiously misnamed this tour.  While it is true that at one point, you do cruise past some mangroves, there is not a lot that is exciting about mangroves.  Sure, they are pretty and there tend to be birds, but I feel like I have done some version of the mangrove tour in at least a half dozen countries.  On the other hand, there is only one place where I have done a tour of karst islands.  These are limestone isles shaped throughout millennia by wind and sea into all kinds of cool formations.  That was in Ha Long Bay in Vietnam.  You know where else they have these islands?  In Kilim Karst Geoforest Park.  It's even in the name!! Why don't they call it a karst tour?  If I had been offered a choice of a mangrove tour or a more expensive karst tour, I would have opted for the latter...even though it is the same exact tour.

I saw a nasty looking sea slug.  Others saw a high priced delicacy.  I'm just happy I'm a vegetarian.

Don't those eyes just say "I'm so over this having to puff up for the tourists shit..."

Eagle Feeding

Q:  Will nut-loving monkeys swim out and board boats full of tourists?  A: Yup

Observation #4:  If you think there are a lot of people out for the sunset, hang out a bit longer.

After the tour, I met up with my German friend again.   We grabbed a spot on the sand at a bar promising "fire dancers".  It was maybe 10pm when the pyro show kicked off.  By this time, the place was so packed that we had to zealously guard our little tatami mats from the drunken hoards.  This same beach that lay abandoned all day was going off.  This was the Langkawi I'd been hearing about all month.  

I got to take it all in for a couple of hours but had to leave while the party was still in full swing.  For one, I did not know what was the feeding time for these undead but figured I should be safely indoors whenever the dinner bell rang and, more importantly, I had a 6am flight that would be taking me to a very special place...country #100.