Langkawi – Driving a scooter for the first time

From Georgetown, we went to Langkawi Island, about which Malaysia has always hustled with Thailand. It has now some autonomy and earns money mainly from duty-free shops. But we did not care about cheap alcohol, cigarettes or electronics, but rather a nature.

The journey was easy considering local conditions. From Georgetown, there is a ferry to the mainland several times in an hour, from the harbour in Butterworth city the buses depart to Kuala Perlis for 19 MYR. We were not sure how easy we could find the harbour in the Kuala Perlis, but eventually, it was a few meters from the bus stop. In Malaysia, they don’t give you the address of the bus stop, so you have to hope that the bus will drop you at some good location and you will catch your connection. We arrived at a luxury speedboat that brought us to Kuah for 17 MYR in 70 minutes. Both of us were on such a luxurious boat for the first time so we felt like on a plane. We looked at the video with safety instructions and sailed.

We arrived in Kuahu quite hungry and we ended up in McDonald’s. In the Czech Republic we eat there just rarely, but on the road, we sometimes appreciate a place, where we can pay with a credit card and the offer and prices are relatively clear. After the diner we just found our guest house and went to bed, because we had a lot of plans for the next day.

We wanted to rent a scooter in the morning and drive through a part of the island. In Langkawi, they have canceled the public transportation, and there are only a few Grab and Uber cars running apart from the overpriced taxi. In the morning we woke up feeling like we slept well and ready to go. Yes, we slept really well, we only slept until 10:30, because in a windowless room without the lights on, there is the same darkness at 4:00 and 10:30.

Never mind, we’ll go later. We prepared and set out for the city. We walked through the center and we didn’t find an open scooter rental. We know that there are a lot of shops in the muslim states closed on Friday, but we did not expect in Langkawi that almost everything will be closed.

We got back to our guest house, where the owner offered us to rent us the scooter already in the evening. She drove us to the rental place of her friend, where we gave them our passports, Czech driving licence and started to negotiate the details. Maybe it’s good to tell that we had never driven a scooter and in Malaysia, they drive on the left side. The man was a little bit nervous, but it looked that he is going to rent it to us. He showed Diana what is necessary to know and gave her the scooter to try it. Then he said that the scooter is new and he doesn’t want it to rent it to some beginners. So we took our documents and went to search for another rental office.

We went to the harbour, where we finally found the rental service, where they rent us a scooter and helmets for 35 MYR. They showed us and we headed to the next adventure. Just an information, in Malaysia even 7 years old children drive a scooter, so evidently, it is not that complicated.

We had the scooter rented for 24 hours, so we split the trip into two days. The first day, we went to explore the north part of the island, where there are many nice beaches, one even with black sand. That was the first time I swam in the Indian ocean and in the evening we went back to Kuahu. Langwaki has one big advantage, it is small enough to visit a local night market, which moves during the week all around the island. You can find the information about the market on the internet, every year the days and places change. The night markets are the best places to taste the local specialities. We bough cups made of rice flour filled with some beans and pineapple and we continued to Kuahu.

The next day we went to the bulls farm. We went according to the map which we got in our guest house, we thought we were going well, but suddenly we saw an airport that we should not have passed at all. We have found out that local maps do not match the current numbering of roads. There are about 5 bigger towns and a few tourist attractions in Langkawi, so we did not even think that we would get lost and go over half of the island. We switched to the navigation in our phones and we finally got a good direction.

Thanks to our detour, we stopped at the beaches on the West Coast first, because they were all along the way. Originally, we were supposed to get to them in the evenings, but we decided to turn our itinerary completely. We went swimming and we continued. Another goal was the waterfalls 7 Wells, which are the largest and allegedly the most beautiful on the island. We parked down in the parking lot, paid 1 MYR for parking and headed for the waterfall. We walked about 500 steps uphill and saw waterfalls. I can honestly say that we were not amazed because we both had seen much nicer and bigger waterfalls elsewhere in the world. The tourists bathed at the waterfall, but we had our swimsuits in the scooter, so we just took some pictures and drive farther.

The golden peak of the day was supposed to be the buffalo’s farm where we did not arrive in the morning. We have now started navigating to the right hills. We arrived at a hidden farm where we were the only tourist. The lady working on the farm took us a tour for 7 MYR. We learned a lot of interesting information about buffalo breeding and we could also feed them. We also wanted to taste buffalo milk products. In a small restaurant at the farm, we chose toast with mozzarella and tomato for 8 MYR, chocolate and mango ice cream for 3 MYR. We all enjoyed it all, so we can recommend a visit to the farm.

In the afternoon we returned to Kuah, we returned the scooter, and across a small park, we went to our guest house. Make sure that you do not miss the harbour park, it is very nice, it has a very limited opening time. The next morning we said goodbye to Malaysia and set off for 35 MYR to nearby Thailand.

Tips:

• Do not miss the Buffalo Park!
• From Friday to Sunday, there is an island full of tourists from Thailand and Mainland Malaysia who go to Langkawi to buy cheap alcohol and other things from duty-free shops.
• Explore the beaches on different sides of the island, each side has something specific.The airport is on the opposite side of the island’s capital city if you don’t want to pay for the expensive taxi go to Langkawi, not Kuahu.

Have you ever tasted buffalo milk products? Did you like it?