Clearing customs was a breeze with about 6 counters opened. While waiting for the bags to be loaded on the conveyor belts, one can drop by the many car rental companies booths located a stone's throw away. Be warned that although the companies are different entities, the staff of the companies are on very good terms with each other so pitting one co against another co isn't a good idea. I was offered the rental of a honda city at RM330 for three days (5pm Fri to 5pm Mon) which 1 of the co claimed was at a 50% discount. However, I thought that it was still beyond my budget of RM100 a day so I looked around some more and after haggling for half an hour and being offered a variety of cars (rejected all the proton cars esp the waja because that isn't fuel efficient), I settled for an automatic Mitsubishi Colt at RM270 for three days. Below is a picture of the car. Driving it took some getting used to because it was the gear was located next to the wiper stick (my hand kept dropping to the empty space in front hah) and the hand brake was next to the brake pedal. The interior of the car is rather cramped though I must say (the backs of the front seats almost touched the back seats).
I had wanted to rent a GPS to go long with the car initially but the car rental staff were quick to assure me that the roads in Langkawi are very easy to navigate and there are sign boards along the road for all the touristy places. And true enough, it was very easy to drive around Langkawi to get to the attractions marked out on the tourist maps. The roads are all one lane (in each direction) and I saw police road blocks every single day I was out. Maybe it is because Langkawi is one of the two duty-free places in Msia (the other is Labuan) so liquor and cigars are dirt cheap or maybe the crime rate is so low that there isn't much else for the police to do.
I'd booked a room at Bayview Langkawi for less than SGD80 a night. The hotel is located at the far end of Kuah Town but with a rental car, the hotel location isn't a problem. In any case, the hotel is next to Plaza Langkawi which is a rather dismal shopping mall with nothing very much. There are many shop houses selling hawker food, silk clothes and local products around the hotel. The Slog Reviews: 8.5/10. Alright, this hotel isn't luxurious but it is decent enough. Clean, spacious, with a mini fridge, safe, coffee-making facilities, a bathtub and a TV (not LCD or Plasma) with some cable chanels like cinemax. Truely value for money, especially since the price of the room included a pretty nice buffet breakfast. The picture below is a pic of the breakfast area.
The reason why I would recommend this hotel is because of the excellent customer service provided by the staff. When my flight was cancelled, I called the hotel to ask for a change in dates and they not only agreed to let me change dates without any cost but even called me from Malaysia to confirm the change. The counter-staff are polite and speak English so checking in and out went very smoothly. The picture below is of a normal standard room on the 9th floor.
I had a choice between booking a sea-facing room and a hill-facing room which is slightly cheaper. Figuring that I wouldn't be in the room very much if at all, I'd picked the hill-facing room. The picture below is the view from my room (the windows cannot be opened but the rooms do not smell stale.)
After leaving our bags in our respective rooms, we took the Colt for a spin to catch the sunset at the beach along the way to Tanjong Rhu as suggested by the car rental staff. This is a picture of the stretch of public beach which we stopped at.
This beach is a sea-shell collector's heaven. There are many types of pretty and almost perfectly formed shells littered along the entire stretch of beach. Despite my resolve not to collect stuff that I don't need, I ended up picking quite a few sea-shells to take home.
A picture below of the sunset from the beach. We couldn't really see the sun go down because of one of the islands but I still enjoyed the beauty of the skies changing color. There were a few families playing on the beaches and little kids swimming in the sea. A peaceful place indeed.
The next stop was the night market which was 5 mins away on the other side of the roundabout. The night markets in Langkawi are held at different locations on the different days of the week. We had intended to go to the one at Kuah Town on Saturday but since we were around the area, we went to this night market instead. Parking was a bit of a hassle because of the number of cars parked along the side of the roads so we parked a fair bit away and walked back. The night market on Friday consist of stalls lining two sides of a lane/road per the picture below (I took this picture from the "entrance" to the night market.)
As you can see from the picture below, most of the stalls at the night market sell food. All types of food. I took this picture because I'd never seen such huge woks/cooking pots before. If not for the fact that we were going for seafood later, I would have tried out the noodles for they looked so delicious.
This is the first time I'd ever seen ketam goreng. Ketam means crab in Malay and Goreng means fried. It didn't look very tempting though despite the color and I didn't dare to try it besides because one never knows how fresh/stale the food is if it has been deep-fried.
The only thing that I ended up buying and eating from the night market was the pulut durian. Unfortunately it wasn't the durian season in Langkawi so I didn't manage to get any of my beloved fruit despite walking through the entire market. This was the closest to satisfying my urges. Pulut durian consist of a single fleshy durian seed on top of sticky rice and warm coconut milk poured over the mixture. Yes, a rich warm calorie-concoction but it was good! Maybe it's because I like durians anyway but durians, coconut milk and sticky rice...that combo is something I'll like to replicate in Singapore again on my own.
After the night market, we went to the renowned Orkid Ria along Pantai Cenang for our dinner. Parking again was an issue as most of the lots were taken up even as late as 8.30pm. The restaurant was crowded and we had to take a queue number. This restaurant is ranked number 11 by tripadvisor.
While waiting for a table, we had to stand around the entrance of the restaurant. Some of the restaurant's selection of seafood are laid out there (to attract tourists). The tiger prawns are almost as huge as the lobsters and this is the first time I've seen lobsters priced at the same price as tiger prawns too!
Because of the Pulut Durian I'd stuffed myself with and because the lobsters and tiger prawns were dead (and therefore not as fresh as caught live from the tanks), we decided to have fried soft shell crab, beancurd, sambal kangkong and butter prawns. While the drinks were served relatively quickly, we had to wait a good 40 mins before the food came. It wouldn't have been so bad if the food was good, but it was not and they gave me prawns in egg instead of butter prawns. The Slog Reviews: -1/10. This must have been one of the worst meals I'd ever eaten overseas. The person who reviewed this place as a tourist trap is absolutely right on. The softshell crabs were flour-like lumps that were so hard and tasteless that it didn't feel like I was eating softshell crabs and I left 7/8 of the dish untouched. It was that bad and an absolute waste of money. The kangkong was below mediocre leaving no taste at all in one's mouth, the beancurd was a soggy mess and the prawns did not taste fresh at all. In fact, the flesh of the prawns were so far from firm that they were just mushy tastless meat in the shells. What an absolutely waste of time and money! I'll bet that the people who have reviewed Orchid Ria and thought that it was a great place to go to must have never eaten before at Hua Hing Restaurant at Sedco Square in Kota Kinabalu! I do not agree that Orchid Ria at Pantai Cenang in Langkawi is the best seafood restaurant in Langkawi and think it nothing more than a tourist trap.
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