Langkawi

Spent eight days on the Island called Langkawi mainly hanging out, renting motorbikes and driving around with them and meeting some cool people.
Here's a set coming in with the ferry from Satun:




The island is a big tourist attraction, because of it's status as a tax free island. Well, basically you'd want to go there for the cheap beer and cigarets, which in other parts of Malaysia are quite a bit more expensive.
You get nice views in many spots of the island, but its really so big that you have to rent something to get around. There is no public transport and so visiting the islands numerous sites might get costly with a taxi.
Osan taking a reflection pic:

The seven wells waterfall was quite nice, but I might go there after the rainy season to see it pouring down with full power:
Got my first experience of a natural waterslide:
Some views from around the island:

The guy who runs the bar of the guesthouse wanted to charge me 50c for hot water for my coffee, so I was driven to improvise: !D
On the morning I had to return my bike I decided to wake up early and go see the sunrise. This is how it turned out:

Along the way I found an abandoed viewpoint:


The Oriental Village:


In many ways Langkawi is very nice, but you can't help getting the feeling that it's built for the tourist and thus has a plastic feeling to it. Luckily, when I was there it was low season..
Going up the mountain with the cable car:





The beach where I stayed, Pantai Cenang:

Langkawi has interesting geological features. The rock formations were at times so interesting for me to just stare down on them for several minutes:

A!
Well actually I'm more of an autonomist, but the A works as well for it !)
From Langkawi I headed onwards to pulau Penang and Georgetown, from which I will hopefully do an entry from Bali, where I'll be flying tomorrow(the 17th of April). Currently I'm Located in Singapore at the campus of NUS.
See you later! I'm off!

Down to Ko Lipe

Five of us: Jusu, Juuso, Megumi, Georgia and me decided to hitchhike to Lipe and took a local pickup bus to the bridge connecting to the mainland and started our venture from there.
Riding southwards untill dark and a bit beyond we ended up infront a motel in which we then shared a room.
Eating at a restaurant beside the place I ended up spending the evening chatting and drinking with the owner of the joint and locals spending their earnings there. It was extremely nice meeting these wonderful people.
The next day after a short ride we went infront of a shop at a crossing to snack something, but got treated with a free meal and ice coffees. These people even arranged for a ride forward. Obiviously they did'nt understand why we were hichhiking and arranged a ride to the busstation of Trang where we then we decided to take a bus to save time and to make shure the three of us made a visa run to Kuala Perlis from Satun in time to be on Lipe for the wedding of the owners of Karma Bar next day.
Jusu and Meg stepped off the bus in Pak Bara to arrive on Lipe the next morning from there. We didn't make it to Malesia for our visa that day, but around dinner we made a plan for doing the run early next morning.
Turned out this was a success and we visited the immigration office in Kuala Perlis next morning by paying a total of 1200 baht for a longtail there and back for the three of us. Luckily the scedule of the Lipe-ferry had changed to a later departure -othervise we would've barely made it. I bought an open roundticket for a 1000b(one way 550).
A fishing boat with Ko Tarutao on the background:
Here's Lipe:
So we arrived on Lipe right on time on the day of the wedding. Found a nice camp for us to stay for the first two nights:


The wedding was great. The peak was all these people doing fireshows. Lots of people. Free drinks. Fireworks. Flying lanterns.


The day after the wedding Jusu and Juuso went exploring and found an empty bungalow and the old police station, where a dane called Lars was staying.
He'd gotten permission to stay there through a police he'd met in Satun and went to Lipe with. The boys decided to stay in the empty bungalow they'd found, but I was so fascinated by this policestation I went straight there and got to know Lars and he introduced Me to the commanding leutenant of the army base just beside the base and I got permission for all of us to stay in the house(for free I might add).
The view from my window:
On the next day the guys also moved in and Jusu made another one of his can stoves(mark 3).
Communal cooking:
Now we had the biggest bungalow on the island with working toilets and a citchen. We could take a shower by a well just beside the house. We even had electricity: Because the soldiers wanted light to take showers after sunset, they'd installed a spotlight on the outer wall of the house, so there was a plug. The only thing missing was a source of drinkingwater which was also found by Jusu at a constructionyard nearby. The island pumped water from ko Adang, the neighbouring island and the workers had installed a waterfilter to really purify the allready drinkable water(I'd been drinking the unfiltered water before this and it was ok). So by carrying these 15l bottles from the constructionyard we got it made. We could cook communal food and live without financial strain. Free everything!
The view from the porch:
This old house felt so good that I decided to start writing this booklet of mine there. After this decision I had the second encounter with this entity and suprisingly enough I was able to write about 30 pages the following days. So I really felt like I'm finally realizing all this urge to create something. Wonderful feeling.
Lipe is a pretty tiny island and it was fun exploring it. I made several trips to cover the shores and different jungletrails that led you around the island.

Trying to reach the western peak proved to be a serious adventure though. I started off along the shore thinking that it would probably be a nice hike like the one I'd wandered around the eastern end of the island. Well, it proved to be a bit harder than that. The cliffs got steeper and steeper and after some kinda hazardous climbing I had an idea to go into the jungle: "It's bound to be easier". Well turned out that there was no path up in the jungle. So there were all these vines to trip on and they gave me some nasty scratches along the way. Well this wasn't actually the nastiest thing around. It proved to be ants. The island is full of these yellow/orange quite big ants that gine you a nasty sting if they decide to attack you. And boy did they attack. There was no way avoiding them. Usually ants just explore you and bite only if they feel threatened or something, but these I guess felt threatened from the very moment of making aqaintance..
With some determination I managed to get to the western cape and took a picture of it:I decided to scram along the northern shores "It has to be easier" I thought again. Well.. After I'd tried to climb up into the jungle from several different locations I tried to climb up this place where you had to grab a bush to go up. I did and a stream of ants strolled down my arm. I'm lucky I didn't fall down. Finally I found a way into the jungle and after about an hour of the jungle experience once again(the ants were really omnipresent) I found a path leading back. Now I have a taste of what people, who get lost in the jungle might feel like. Not that I was lost -there was just only one way out.



Snorkling is also the thing to do over here. It was the firs time to really experience a coral reef and theunderwater cities of waterlife.
Most memorable was seeing about a dozen big barracudas feasting on a swarm of fish one day.




Before I left I was invited to make a campingtrip into the neighbouring islands. The deal was 300b a day all included. Got 600b poorer, but I wanted to see some of the Ko Tarutao national park before I left. There were nine of us. Nice people.
Joe and Win catch some fish:
We headed to Ko Rawi:
Fresh water on Rawi: If I'd do it again I'd probably like to just arrange a ride to an island and a pickup after a few days. You'd get more contact with the uninhabited island. It's really different from just being on an empty beach somewhere. I really enjoyed the trip.


So after 20 days on Lipe it was time to move on. First a night in Satun and then Pulau Langkawi the next morning, where I still am while writing this post. So WOW! I'm up to date!
Later!