Tuesday 22 January 2008

Westin Hotel Langkawi Malaysia


Great hotel, beautiful scenery, really hot (34deg), but you can tell you're in a muslim country because the alcohol, particularly wine is very expensive, approx 40pounds per bottle! As you know, Ian and I like a drink or four, so in the interests of the budget spinning out a bit further, we've taken this opportunity to cut down, and even cut out !!! Good news is we both feel so much better for it!! Honestly!! We've even taken to returning to the gym for about an hour each day, and doing lengths of the pool!!

Today we went on a trip to see some of the natural wonders of Langkawi- saw thousands of stupified fruit bats, disturbed by flash lights in a 400 million year old cave, fed wild monkeys with the peanuts we had left!, saw limestone cliffs and mountains that tumbled down to dense mangrove swamps and zoomed up and down sea-water inlets in a high-powered long-tail boat. But the highlight had to be seeing beautiful sea-eagles and red-coloured eagles (Babu, the guide gave them a name but I couldn't make it out in his strong Indian-Malay accent). Soaring and diving near the boat, they were a wonderful sight. But even they were fed chicken skin by our guide. Later went to see sting-rays, massive groupers, archer fish(which spit at their prey to drop them into the water) and horseshoe crabs, all caught by local fisherman and kept in large fish farm style enclosures, so that tourists can come to pay and gawp at them. It seems like even in this Kilim Geopark they have no qualms about feeding wild animals, if a living has to be made.

Nevertheless an interesting tour with a small group of Chinese Malay, Indian Malay and South Africans, whose company only added to the interesting day. Travel certainly does broaden the mind.

Anyway off for a glass of wine- notice I said glass and not bottle!

More Malay- Seripatan na banda - Please move my sunshade a little more to the left.

No Gracian, ni dan bang bang - No,make mine a glass of water, thankyou!


Adios amigos, any chance of you tearing your poor little selves away from work to send a comment!!!!

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

I don't actually believe you've gone away I think you are hiding in your house not wanting any visitors. The photos so far could have been taken from any travel brochure. Let's have some more inventive photography like the two towers sitting in the palm of Ian's outstretched hand.

Anonymous said...

Pops - Marks and Spencers trading at 431p - not a bad buy!

Im thinking anonymous is Colin?

I've had an exciting day looking at the tax implications of dissolution without liquidation of a French company. Not at all envious of your adventures...well at least i have several bottles of CHEAP (well free actually cos Alma's not drinking before the marathon and she got them in - need drinking, dont want them to go off!) wine at home.

Boat show was good, we went on the biggest yacht - 90ft speed boat, just a snip at £3.5m. Baz said "wasn't as good as he thought it would be" - that boy has VERY high standards.

Later I took him and his South African bird :) to my favourite Thai restaurant - his feedback "wasn't bad". Glad i never waste my time buying you any presents!

Anyway the boat was impressive - Dad, the toilets were beautiful, think you would have really enjoyed sticking your head down them. There were twin sinks in the Master bedroom!

Alma said she preferred the speed boats to the sailing boats so we will be using her for an anchor next time we are out in Majorca!

Sunday i bankrupt myself buying boring stuff from Homebase. Mum ive got a Yuka plant but lost the label which told me how to look after it - any ideas? Its soo cute!

Anyway, probably should do some work. Grand Marnier - when you leave a comment select "Nickname" and enter your name - this avoids signing-in :)

Anonymous said...

I agree with Col. We want proof your actually there and this isn't a big con.

Lazy swines grabbing photoraphs off the net. It's just not the same if it hasn't got your ugly mugs in it.

I do have a photo of the loo pop, I can't add it, so you'll have to check it out when you get back.

Oh, good blog ma ;)

Anonymous said...

Forgot to mention. The reason why it's more difficult to add comments is because there's no prompt to remind people of your updates (as Col did in Majorca) so we have to keep checking in on your webpage. Now if you can get it to send out a mail everytime you update, that would be clever. Can you do that smarty pants!?

Anonymous said...

Great to hear from all of you - do grandparents need help with accessing blog?Who is this anonymous and spooner?Will give advice on plant care on our return

Anonymous said...

Well done on doing so well in your exams, Laura. I totally agree with your suggestion of using Alma as an anchor, I don't think she understands the complex argument of wind over diesel!! Not much use as an anchor though- far too skinny!!!

Anonymous said...

Well done on doing so well in your exams, Laura. I totally agree with your suggestion of using Alma as an anchor, I don't think she understands the complex argument of wind over diesel!! Not much use as an anchor though- far too skinny!!!

Anonymous said...

Alright muppets! Finally remembered to write on this! So...wat have i got to say...:/ Uni is going well, lots of work..fun! Ive started the netball team, so trying to do some proper exercise!
Photos look pretty nice, well done.