Malaysia Part I: Langkawi

For Chinese New Year we have a week off of school so most exchange students take that opportunity to travel. Malaysia wasn’t on my list of places to go, but we wanted to go somewhere that celebrated Chinese New Years well, since we felt a bit like we would be missing out on this occasion by leaving Hong Kong.

But boy, Malaysia was amazing. I couldn’t have asked for a better time there. I started in Langkawi, with 3 girls; Ashley, Alyssa and Kate. Langkawi is an island on the North West coast of the peninsula, a one hour boat ride away from Thailand. Ahhh Langkawi… <3 We were so excited to be there, it was SO hot. 30 degrees AT NIGHT hot.

The first night, when we arrived, we decided to walk along the beach, and it was amazing, there were crabs EVERYWHERE. Just zipping past us with every step we took. It was kind of scary actually, because it was night and we couldn’t really see very well. But we could see tones of holes in the ground where the crabs would come out of! Then we headed off to a beach bar, the famous “Jam Rock”, where there was a live band playing reggae music, the BEST jams!!! “Don’t worry, about a thing, cause every little thing, is gonna be alright!” It was so amazing… we also watched the stars on the beach, just a perfect first night.

Our hostel was really cool, one of the highlights of Langkawi. We met awesome travelers, most of them travelling on their own which are the most interesting people you can meet. Also the guy that was in charge of the hostel brought us to a store on our last day and helped us cook a Malaysian meal, which he called “survival cooking”… Still not sure what he meant by that. But it was delicious! Shrimp curry. Beer was super cheap at the hostel, the common room was super chill, though sometimes weird animal noises and bugs would show up haha but it’s part of the experience.

We did island hopping, which was beautiful… the water was SO BLUE! And the scenery was magnificent! One of the islands was full of monkeys, I took so many pictures and videos of them, one of them drinking out of a soda can! I will see if I can post that one. We also took a cable car up a mountain where we could see the whole west coast of the island, that was amazing! I actually took a nap on the beach and that was sooo nice… Just the sounds of the waves hitting the beach, I couldn’t believe I was there.. It was perfect… I remember us saying at some point, “I would have never imagined myself here, in Langkawi, one year ago.” It was so true. It was so unreal being there.

Our last night the reggae band from the first night came and played at our hostel. That was the funnest night I think. We sang and danced (I have very embarrassing videos that will never be shared on the internet…), and we even convinced the owner of the hostel who was probably in his 60’s to join us to a bar afterwards! Such a good time. Langkawi has my heart. I recommend it for anyone looking for places in Asia to travel. It was just perfect. Not too touristy. It had only one main strip where all the shops and restaurants were, it was wonderful.

#Langkawi #Malaysia #Asia #Travel