Year of the Snake

Thursday was our last full day in Langkawi. Dad had a full plate getting things ready for Tami and the instructor Valma to take over the boat, so after getting things packed, then killing time catching up on some interwebs, Crys, Rio and I decided to go catch a snack down at the Jetty. With a Baskin Robbins, a Starbucks, several interesting stores and extremely cool air conditioning, the Jetty was becoming a standard destination for us to walk down to when bored. Since it also doubled as the primary port for people arriving on Langkawi by ferry, it was also a great place to people watch.

Random observation: many of the malls we visited in Malaysia, this one included, had Power Wheels cars for kids to play on. Strange.   

Random observation 2: Like most public places in Malaysia and Thailand, you have to pay to use the toilet. Paper is also extra and you pick it up at the front. Strange and often annoying. 

As many of you may know, 2/10 marks Chinese New Year. This is a huge holiday in both Malaysia and Thailand. Everywhere we went was decorated in red and gold, and we were given quite a few oranges, which apparently are good luck symbols. This is the year of the Snake, which happens to be Crys's sign in the Chinese zodiac. She likes to point out thar due to her sunburn, she was also spending the new year shedding like a snake. 

The snake played another prominent role in our final full day, as the three of us decided to walk down to the Giant Eagle statue marking the port entrance of Langkawi, just outside the Jetty. 

As we walked around it, we came across a local guy with a very large constrictor snake. He offered to let us pose with it for a photo for 5 ringets, which was roughly $1.50 or so. I thought it would be fun so I paid him. I really didn't think Crys would get close to it, but despite her very vocal opposition (and threats to me) she gave into the guy's good hearted "is no problem" statements and allowed herself to be photographed with the giant snake.  The guy was hilarious and we probably spent half an hour with him and the snake. 

Rio took several pics for us, but wasn't about to let the guy get the snake within ten feet of her.  I laughed when the guy told her "is no problem!" As he tried to get her to walk over and told him that as far as she was concerned "is big problem". 

We finally returned for our last eve on the Silke, finishing the eve up hanging out with everyone, eating Lebanese take out and chatting together. Good finish to our tropical isle trip. 

Videos

So I did a few videos while I was over there, but the extremely slow interwebs connection I had available meant that I couldn't upload any of them. Instead I've compiled them into one long clip for your viewing enjoyment.

Back in the real world

Quick note for those who don't follow on Twitter or Facebook, we did make it safely back to the real world. Obviously though, there is far more to discuss about this trip. I have a couple of more posts written already and I'm working diligently to document our last few days of travel. I also plan to go in and edit some our pics and put them in an online album for all to see. Keep checking in, there will be more soon!

Do Go Chasing Waterfalls

We woke up yesterday to our second to last day in Malaysia.  After a slow moving morning we wondered up to the Jetty mall and got some food with everyone, returning to Kenny Rogers, which has pretty good chicken and sides. Dad was still focused on getting the boat in complete working order for the class that will be taking it when we leave, so some of the rest of us decided to go check out one of the local waterfalls that Tami and Rio knew of. So five us us piled into a small rented car and took off. The drive was very pretty but very warm. We were experiencing another triple digit day, but noticed the temp slowly falling downwards as we left town and started heading up one of the local mountainsides. The drive was full of jungle views, local housing, and random cows and water buffalo scattered along the side of the road. When we finally reached the end of the road we had been driving on, we found ourselves looking at a couple of little tourist style shops leading up to a pathway going further up the mountain. Immediately it was clear that the temperature here was far more comfortable than it had been below. We followed the path into a beautiful scene that looked to take some Japanese inspiration. There was a meandering stream cascading down the mountain, between a rock staircase on one side and a broken up bridge crisscrossing to and along the other. Beautiful flowers and Japanese inspired rock coverings were scattered about. 

We continued following the path ever upwards, which traced along the stream’s pathway. It finally ended at a waterfall that looked to be around thirty foot or so in height. Massively tall then trees surrounded us, and looking back behind us gave a beautiful view of the valley below. It was a great place to cool down and spend some time. 

  Before we had left, Crys had joked that she may have to “fall in” to the water when we arrived to cool down. Once we arrived she did decide to wade in a ways with Tami and the others, and unfortunately within a couple of steps hit a slick spot and plopped down into the water. While very refreshing, it definitely wasn’t planned. Good thing she had thought ahead and packed some extra ‘just in case’ clothes. We spent a couple of hours hanging out there enjoying the cool water and beautiful view before deciding to roam back down the mountainside. 

About halfway down, we came across a place that sold young coconuts. Tami had been in the mood for some coconut water, so we stopped in and had some fresh. It was a little warm, but reasonably tasty drink, as they took fresh coconuts, cut off the top with a machete, then stick a straw in it and give it to you.

We got back to the boat around sunset and Rio, Crys and I decided that it would be a good to finish up the night with a swim in the pool that overlooks the boats. It was warm water, but still refreshing with the night air. A good finish to the night. 

Back in Langkawi

I don’t know that I have said this yet, but Langkawi apparently translates roughly to “Eagle’s Roost”. There are absolutely beautiful red clay colored eagles floating all around the island. I don’t think I’ve ever seen them that color in real life though I have seen them in paintings before. There is a big statue of one such colored eagle in the harbor coming into the main port. Taking photos of that was among the few noteworthy events of our first day back in Langkawi.

    Barb and Tami had taken a women’s sailing course last year, and they had agreed to have the instructor come out and teach the course again this year on their boat. She was set to arrive on the fifth, our first day back in Malaysia, so Barb and Dad were busy getting things ready for her arrival. The boat also had developed a few tech issues that needed to be corrected prior to it being turned over to them when we leave. This meant most everyone else was occupied for the day. This worked out pretty well, as Crys and I were both a bit sunburned and completely exhausted, so a day off was certainly in order. We walked down to the Jetty mall/port down the street from us and had some breakfast. Crys wanted some tylenol so we tried searching it out. There was a 7/11 in the jetty mall that seemed to have basic things like that so we wandered over there. Turns out that it had pregnancy tests, but no aspirin. One would think there would be a higher demand for the aspirin, but what do I know? Anyway, we remembered that the mall further down the street had a Guardian, which is the local equivalent of a pharmacy, so we wandered up the street to it. It’s actually a reasonably cool mall with many interesting shops, so we wound up spending a good portion of the day hanging out there. We did some more shopping, then stopped in at the Hidden Recipe and ate some tasty lunch. I decided to go with a ‘western’ meal of fish and chips, thinking rightfully that the fish should be pretty good. Crys went with a more traditional meal of local fried rice and skewers of satay (meat grilled in a peanut sauce). While different from the Indonesian version she’s used to, she said it too was very tasty. 

   We returned to the yacht club to discover that the day was quickly turning into one of the hottest since we’d been here. It capped out for some time at around 101F, and was fairly miserable outside. Since the boat doesn’t have its cover back on, it too didn’t cool down too much, so we decided to head up to the covered clubhouse where the shade and a normal breeze tends to drop the temp some twenty+ degrees and spend the heat of the day catching up a bit on the interwebs. We returned in time to meet up with the others on their way to Wonderland again, the place where we had the tasty snapper and other foods the other night. We got pretty much the same meal as last time (why mess with something good?) before returning to shower and crash for the eve. 

Catching Up

Okay, I’m way behind in this thing. Let’s start with about three days ago when we spent the day snorkeling. A Snorkel made all the difference for Crys in swimming, making it far easier for her to swim between the boat and shore. We spent most of the morning, and then a few hours in the eve in the water, hiding out in the boat during the heat of the day to avoid as much sunburn as possible. It helped, but still didn’t keep us from getting a bit more sun. Crys especially found all new places to turn red in. 

   The water itself was good, though not great visibility. Dad felt it was probably the worst he had seen there. That being said we could see he bottom at around 35 ft or so, so this was definitely not horrible. We saw a lot of parrot fish, some absolutely stunning sunfish, a few angel fish, some sea cucumbers, many extremely colorful clams and more. There was a ton of sponges, many grown larger than cars, some brain coral, and a little branching coral. I was surprised how little of the branching coral there was to see. 

  For our evening dive we took the zodiac to the northern part of the island, where the water was a bit clearer and the sponges and brain coral more prolific. There were even a handful of sea anemone about, which meant we got to see some clownfish playing within it. 

 I did come across a sad sight on our evening dive. About a forty or fifty square foot area existed near the shore that had become a coral graveyard. The ground was blanketed with bleached coral, including mounds and mounds of shattered branch coral. I don’t know if it’s a global warming issue or an obnoxious fisherman who decided dynamite near the shoreline was a good way to collect fish, but whatever it was it was fairly thorough. There were only a few spots of small sponges and one or two clams still living in the entire area. Who knows how beautiful that little spot was a few years back. Hopefully over time it recovers. 

After another night with beautiful stars and little in the way of modernity we let loose of of our moor and set sail once more for Koh Lipi. Prior to setting sail, Barbara had pulled a couple of pillows out on the front deck to lay on. They were the big square pillows that resembled seat cushions, which made them comfy on deck. The issue came when we set sail and Barbara forgot to stow them away. After we had gotten to the open sea I heard someone call out that we “lost a pillow”. I looked over the edge of the boat, and sure enough, there was one of them floating by the boat. Dad began trying to turn the Cat around and I grabbed the long expanding hooked pole that I had grown accustom to using when grabbing moorings and headed for the back of the boat. Barbara pointed out that there was no place to hook the pillow, being flat cushions, but I was reasonably certain I could pull it in anyway if we could get within ten foot of them. I did, however, start thinking of alternatives as well. The pillow looked like it wasn’t going to sink anytime soon, which gave us time if we needed it. The zodiac would have been a pain to get out. We were in the open sea, so I wasn’t sure how the currents were. However, having been in the water the day before I knew the water was a good temp. There was a float on a long rope next to me, so figured worst case scenario, if I couldn’t get the pillow back on board with the hooked pole I could tie the float off, dive in with it, grab the pillow and have them pull me back (or pull myself back along the rope). Seemed like a feasible plan. As it happened, I didn’t need it. Dad got the Silkie within about six feet of the pillow, and I was able to drag the pillow close enough to pick it up. I then turned and looked back at the water and realized my feasible plan would have gotten me in a lot of trouble had I followed through with it. Floating just about a foot or so behind where I pulled the pillow out of the water was a one square foot box jellyfish. There’s little doubt that if I had jumped in after that pillow I would have come into contact with that thing, and my understanding is that is not a nice sting to deal with. I don’t know if these are as bad as the Aussie variety, which paralyzes the heart and lungs for about five minutes, but I really didn’t care to find out. The rest of the short trip passed without issue.When we arrived at Koh Lipe we found that all of the moors were taken save two in exceedingly shallow water. Since Dad is (thankfully) hesitant to drop anchor in coral rich areas, we hung out until the dive boats began leaving, then took one of the newly available moors and took off for the beach. 

   From there we lowered the Zodiac back in and wandered up to the beach and walked back the path to the favored breakfast spot for some more Thai Pancakes. I tried a Lemon Coconut this time as well as the Lemon Banana from last time. The Coconut luckily wasn’t out this time (or “finished” as the locals say.... “Sorry, coconut is finished.”) so I got to try it. Truthfully it turned out not to be as good as the Lemon Banana, though it certainly wasn’t bad. 

  Afterwards Dad and Barb wanted to get another massage. Crys was wary once more of a massage since her sunburn was newly worsened, so we instead spent the hour roaming about the island’s shops. 

I picked up a couple of more articles of local clothing, and we did our best to avoid the sun as much as possible (a neat trick on a tropical island) before finally all joining back up, checking out of the country and heading back to the Silkie. 

From there we dropped our last mooring, raised the sails and headed back to Langkawi. The sail created a nice bit of shade on the front of the boat, leaving a very nice place to spend much of the trip. Dad picked the pace up, wanting to get back to dock while the tide was still high enough to get in. The trip therefore lasted only about five hours or so, and was relatively peaceful and uneventful. We pulled in just as the sun was starting to set among the islands, pulled the boat in, and worked to get it tied off and hooked back up. 

    If you think parking a car is tricky, try parking a yacht. Turns out the floaty tied to the rope that I considered using to rescue the pillow was actually a fender meant to be quickly dropped down between the boat and anything it might be about to bump into. Getting the large catamaran into a docking berth only a few foot wider than it is without allowing it to bump into either side was an interesting feat. With a good amount of team work between Tami and Rio on the docs and the rest of us on the yacht we finally succeeded, though. We then tied it off, reconnected the power, and set about catching up with Tami and Rio on their few days away and discussing our adventures. We then wandered up to the club house and took some long over due showers. They have the tall shower heads that mimic rain up there, and after only being able to rinse off a bit over the past three days here and there, a good long shower with soap and shampoo felt amazingly good. 

A Wee Bit Behind

Okay, I'm a bit behind in my blogging. Been a busy and exhausting few days. When Wish is from about four days ago. Since then we've spent a day snorkeling, travelled back to Koh Lipe, made it back to Langkawi, done a bit of walking about the island, shopping, and some more tasty local food. I'll try and get details of all of this up soon. In the mean time, know everyone is doing well, though Crys and I are both a bit sunburned (her more so than me) and exhausted. Glad I have a few days off before I go back to work. I'll need a vacation from this vacation ;)
   We're down to the final 4 days. While I'll be glad to get back home, There's definitely a ton of stuff here I still want to do!