Langkawi, Malaysia
We began our travels by flying from Sydney, Australia, to Langkawi, Malaysia.
We figured that Malaysia would provide a gentle transition from the peace and order of a Western country to the frenzy and chaos of South-East Asia.
On our first day, we meet a cat, and try Malaysian Milo ais (iced Milo). It’s a national passion!
We are sitting on plastic chairs at yet another plastic-covered table, drinking iced Milo from beer mugs. This is just how they roll in Malaysia. Along the side of the road, awnings are built out from what mostly look like people’s homes, and under the awnings, people gather to chat, eat street food, play cards, and drink Milo.
This particular establishment is special, because it actually serves pork. (Malaysia is a Mulsim country, but with significant Chinese and Indian minorities.) We had BBQ pork buns and pork dim sims for afternoon tea – just like home …
If you want pork in Malaysia, look for a place where the signs have Chinese ideograms …
On our second day, we were introduced to kaya, Malaysian coconut jam. And hotel buffet breakfasts in Asia …
Yesterday, one of the offerings on the breakfast buffet was chicken porridge, with condiments that included shallots and black beans. Today, the porridge is fish flavoured. I had thought I would try the chicken porridge today, but for some reason, when I saw it was fish instead, I decided against it. Maybe I am still traumatised from the “laksa” yesterday, which seemed to be just noodles and half an egg in fish sauce soup. I’ll see what the flavour is tomorrow, but since it’s our last morning here tomorrow I will probably be brave and try it, even if it is fish flavoured.
I am particularly pleased that the breakfast buffet includes a green salad – lots of cos lettuce, carrot, capsicum, tomato and cucumber is a great way to wake the digestion. For some reason, here in Malaysia they scoop the seeds out of the cucumber, so it is just the curves of white flesh in the salad. It’s particularly odd that they do that, when they don’t even bother to take the bones out of chicken before chopping it into pieces for a curry …
And on our third and final day in Langkawi, we finally set foot on our first tropical beach!
Yesterday afternoon we found our first beach – it was small and rocky, and had cloudy harbour water, but it had white sand and palm trees, so it qualified as a tropical beach.
We were walking through CHOGM Park to the ferry terminal to find out about tickets to Penang. We have decided that Georgetown sounds like a better place to spend a few days meeting other travellers, because there aren’t many here in Kuah Town …
Image credit: Wikimedia commons