Crossing the border to Langkawi

It was a beautiful, hot Tuesday when we packed our bags and headed to the beach.. though today was not the day to just lay there. No, it was time to go to the immigration so we could say our goodbyes to Thailand and hello to Malaysia.

We had booked our ferry tickets the day before from the company called Bu-ngha and paid 750 tbh each. We had read that bookings should happen at least the day before and before 6 pm. So with the tickets we went to check in, handed our passports and sat by the immigration to wait for them to call us by our names. After some time the moment came and we went to get our stamps and noticed that we didn't get our passports back just yet.. scary, but we figured (hoped) that we'll get them back on the ferry. Then after some more waiting we got to hop on a longtail boat and got a lift to the ferry. Koh Lipe does not have a pier so wear a pair of flip-flops and shorter pants so you won't get too wet when entering or leaving the island ☺️.

The trip to Langkawi took about 1,5 hours and the Malay immigration was quick and easy. Before we noticed we were sitting in a taxi, the local driver was speaking some Finnish to us and again we saw some monkeys on the street :) We stayed in Pondok Keladi Guest House. The lovely and funny host Dee lives also on the property with his partner and they were always ready to help. I was expecting some formal check in but no! Dee was so laidback and was immediately ready to show us around the property and also the nearby areas with his car. And there were even complimentary water and beer waiting for us in the fridge.. what a wonderful welcome :) The place is located approximately 1-1,5km from the beachfront and from the shops and restaurants. Dee had also rental scooters available (30 MYR per day) so it was easy to walk or drive to the busier area. After settling in we headed to search for the ATM and food. We found this small chain restaurant, I don't think you've heard of them.. umm it's called McDonald's 😁 Our food was mad cheap! I took a triple cheeseburger meal and it was 3€ (15.5 MYR). Whoa! I also learned quickly that Langkawi is like Åland for the Finn's.. tax free. So cheap beer, tobacco and parfume are available. The chocolate is also tax free and we did find this magical place which advertised to have chocolate from all over the world! Omg I got emotional just from the thought of chocolate and even more so when I thought that I might find some Finnish Fazerin sinistä (Fazer Blue (?)) from the shop.. I know myself and I am sure that I would have started weeping if I have found the best chocolate there is from there.. But this time I was out of luck unfortunately :( But! I do have one bar of Fazer Blue with me but I am saving it for 6th of December because it's a big day for Finland, celebrating 100 years of independence ❤️

Pondok Keladi

Fear factor

We were chilling in the common area of the guesthouse on our first day at Langkawi when we noticed monkeys like 10 meters from us.. they were climbing on trees and getting closer to us.. luckily Dee's dogs scare them away. Then when I went back in to our room, noticed some droppings on the bedside table.. quick Google search taught me that it could be gecko feces and it could get us ill. Gecko droppings contains salmonella and when inhaled.. well you get salmonella also. I was horrified. Then, just when we were heading out to eat, the thunder started booming.. and like that wasn't enough the toilet stopped flushing! "Omg!!!"

I guess it's good to clarify that I  am scared of monkeys, bugs, getting ill, bacteria and for example.. thunder. I like safety and cleanliness.. This night it felt like many of my fears were coming true and I was way out of my comfort zone, again! I was panicking. Luckily I am fortunate enough to have an amazing boyfriend who understands me and Matias said we could have dinner at the guesthouse (guesthouse has a shared kitchen and offers toast, eggs, noodles and coffee for free) and just chill at our room (our gecko poo room 😂). I got the immidiate fear out of my system and started soon to make jokes already about the dirty monkeys and the evening went nicely. We ended up to stay in this place for three nights because,  i dont know, it still felt like a good and safe place to stay.

Cruising around Langkawi

The second day we rented a scooter and went to the cable car which was around 17km away from Pondok Kelodi and Cenang beach. When we got to the cable car park, we saw that this was actually a big touristic place with different kinds of tax-free shops and fun things to do. We bought  the basic package which included the cable car ride and entrance to SkyDome, SkyRex and 3D arts museum. It cost us 55 MYR (11€) per person. The cable car ride was actually scary! Scarier than the one in Barcelona! If I understood correctly, the Langkawi one is the steepest in the world and it sure felt like it! :) A good experience! After getting back to the ground level we headed to the SkyDome where we watched some short films. It was ok but nothing spectacular. After that we went to the SkyRex which had a cart that fits around 30 passengers. We got 3D glasses and sat down with some scared Malay girls :D The cart rolled to an area with 180 degrees screens and some kind of platform that allowed the cart to move and all of a suddent we were a part of Jurassic Park type of a ride where the Tyrannosaurus tried to eat us! Fun ride and it definitely exceeded my expectations :) The 3D arts museum was cool too. A big place filled with 3D art that you could photograph yourself with. Here's some examples:

Later that night we ended up in a Korean restaurant called Haroo. It was top rated on TripAdvisor. The atmosphere was nice and the lady who was waitering us was absolutely wonderful! We ordered kimchi and she was in awe like "how do YOU Europeans know kimchi and how do you dare to order it?" It was out of ordinary I guess! She was happy that we knew their traditional dish and that we ordered and ate it :) We highly recommend this restaurant :) (I must add that it was thundering again but I found some courage somewhere and hopped on the scooter still.. a personal win for me :))

Our purpose was to stay in Langkawi for two nights and take a ferry to Penang but Dee said that we should think about the flying possibility also. So we checked the prices and found a very cheap Air Asia flight so that's what we booked. We paid 266 MYR with the value package (including 20kg luggage and a meal). We could have gotten it a little cheaper without the package and with 15kg luggage allowance but we hadn't tested how much our backpacks weight before buying the tickets.

On the third day on the island we hopped on the scooter again and went to Kuah to see the famous eagle statue and then back to Cenang beach to walk and wander around. We were surprised how many jellyfish we saw there! We didn't see any in Thailand so that was strange. After some wandering around we were heading back to the main street from the beach. I tried so hard to watch my step but then.. it happened. I stepped on to something sharp and started bleeding a lot from my heel. An old Malay man came to say that I have to push the blood out first rather than stop the bleeding. He was sure it was a rusty nail that I had stepped on to.. I figured it was a rock or a piece of sharp plastic.. either way I was not happy. Shit! (Ja paljon muita kirosanoja..) The man also said that I needed "a shot" and he wasn't taking about tequila alright.. but I had my latest tetanus shot on September so I was confused should I go see a doc or not. We went back to the guesthouse and I started my Google search.. Dee called his medical friend and he said that because my tetanus is ok, I don't need to worry.. well.. I worried. Again thanks to Whatsapp, I asked help from home and got the "ok" from there also and was able to breathe again. Just some Dettol cleaning liquid there and some bandaid and I was good to go. On Friday I felt that it really was time to get out of this island and see what else Malaysia has to offer. Off to Penang we went! Hopefully we (I)  have less scarier times ahead..

- Sini

Langkawi riders

The eagle 

Our route so far

A travel gem in the Andaman Sea - Koh Mook

If you have to define a paradise I don't think there is just one right answer. For me it's a small place with fine white sand on a beautiful beach, palm trees and sunshine and it's somewhere secluded and not too touristy. When our ferry took us to Koh Mook I instantly felt like I could stay there for a longer time even before we got to our bungalow and that this place fits my definition of a paradise perfectly. There were small restaurants and travel agencies next to the pier but you could instantly tell that tourism hasn't affected the infrastructure too much yet.

Arriving to the tropical paradise

Quiet streets of Koh Mook

Everything is basically within walking distance in Koh Mook. When you arrive to the pier there is a taxi service (motorbikes with carts) which costs 50thb per person and takes you anywhere on the island. We opted to walk and see the area as we go. Thailand is called the land of smiles and in Koh Mook it really holds true. Local people were always smiling and greeting regardless if you ate at the restaurant next to theirs and they were being nice and helpful without trying to sell anything or benefit some other way. When we were in Phuket and Phi Phi it could get annoying when there's constantly someone trying to sell you something, probably even talking your own language a bit ("Terve, mitä kuuluu?!"). There those famous smiles feel sometimes forced.

On the first day we went to look around after checking in to Village Garden Bungalows. We bumped into a nice bar on the beach (De Tara Beach Resort's bar) and had the place entirely to ourselves if you don't count the little snake that we saw a moment earlier. After some refreshments we made our way to Farang Beach on the other side of the island to have some late lunch. On the way we saw an adorable (and the only?) village and the nature was beautiful as well. Enjoying a good and cheap meal while the sun was getting down and the waves were hitting the beach gently was just perfect and one of those moments you look back to many times in the future. It can't get much better than this but our dinner in Yummy Restaurant later on made it a bit better still. A seafood hotplate served in a flavorful coconutty sauce was a wonderful way to end our first day in Mook.

De Tara's bar

Views from the road to Farang Beach 

Beautiful nature of Koh Mook

Farang Beach sunset

On the second day we did a snorkeling trip around the island including a visit to the Emerald Cave. Basically there's only a small opening and you swim through it and after a little less than 100 meters in the darkness the daylight starts to show and you arrive on this small beach. Our guide had a small flashlight with him but the cave is still really dark. Steep rock walls surround the beach and the story goes that pirates hid their treasures there a long time ago... The cave was definitely worth a visit and we saw lots of different fish while snorkeling so I really recommend doing the trip. We stopped in various locations and the guide was snorkeling with us and showing us best places to spot fish. The whole trip took us 3 hours and it was 1200thb for the boat regardless of how many people attended.

Next day we found a great place to eat breakfast (Sugar's Coffee & Restaurant) right next to a quiet beach with some beautiful scenery. We could have just sat there for hours. Later we headed to De Tara's bar for drinks and from there we took a walk on the beach around the sharp peninsula. There's an expensive resort there but the beach is free to wander around. Other than that we were just chilling the rest of the day, just as you should once in paradise :)

Getting to Koh Mook 

You can get to Koh Mook and the neighboring islands Koh Ngai and Koh Kradan either from Koh Lanta or from the mainland through Trang. Many travel agencies sell the ferry or speedboat tickets and they should also include the transport from the hotel to the pier. Our tickets from Koh Lanta cost us 600tbh per person and we bought them straight from our own hotel's travel agent.

Also remember to bring cash, there are no ATMs on the island. Some places change money though. 

The entrance to the Emerald Cave 

On the other side of the cave

Plenty of life under the surface 

A starfish

Breakfast at Sugar's Coffee 

Bumpy ride to Koh Lipe with Sunburn Express 

You can get from Koh Mook to Koh Lipe either by a speedboat or with a ferry. The high season in Thailand is just getting started so right now there's only the speedboat option. So we got the tickets for it (1300tbh per person) the previous day and woke up early so we had time to go to Sugar's Coffee again. We had a pick up at 10 am and the motorbike taxi took us to the pier. The speedboat was supposed to leave at 11.00. We waited. And waited. And then... we waited some more. This is quite common in Southeast Asia and you should try to just stay calm, because the conception of time is, umm, somewhat different here than in many western countries. Luckily our speedboat was only one hour behind the schedule and at noon we left Koh Mook behind us. I would definitely like to get back there and visit Koh Ngai and Koh Kradan also  someday. There were seats inside but we stayed in the front enjoying the sun. Our plan was to stay there for half an hour or so and after that get in the shade. But as the boat flew through the waves and the wind cooled us down we kind of forgot our plan.. And got, unsurprisingly, little sunburned. The ride was bumpy and fun though. 

We stayed in Koh Lipe for two nights but there's not much to tell about it. There should be some nice snorkeling and diving opportunities but we didn't take any trips there. Other than that it felt similar to Koh Phi Phi, tourists filling the walking street and restaurants selling western dishes and playing western music (if you do stay here try pizza or burgers at Elephant). All in all an ok place to visit but I would not want to stay there longer.

- Matias 

Waiting for the speedboat 

Our route so far