With a three-hour but very quiet ride on the speedboat, our first – with backpackers typically very popular – real island hopping begins. So far, we have always postponed it, simply because it usually involves a lot of time but also money, just to lie on the beach and snorkel a bit.
And after a short taxi ride and a bit of confusion until we checked in at the right hotel, we are now on the beach and it is the 24th of December, the Christmas Eve. If you have ever wondered where Christmas haters (to whom we * do not * count) can spend Christmas without the typical western total sonication of songs, consumption and lighting, we now have an answer. On an Asian island with mainly Muslim inhabitants and at that time mainly Asian tourists. Although not completely erased, the Christmas spirit is very discreet. The highest of the feelings is a “Merry XMas” sign in some boutiques and every 10th beach bar plays every now and then a Christmas song. And if that is still too much, then the “absurdity of the situation becomes aware of” Let it snow “in a beach bar at 35 ° C, at least we could not resist a spontaneous laughter
When we then have a 20-year-old veiled Muslim wants “Merry Christmas”, let’s remember how nice it is when religions just live together peacefully.
Langkawi itself is a very pleasant first island stop. Not too small to be able to do anything except the beach, but small enough that after three days you have seen the most interesting spots and can travel on with a clear conscience. We hire a scooter for two days and drive all over the island – finally real Asian feeling
. Our personal highlight is the ride on the scooter to the highest mountain of the island (823m) (Gunung Raya), because only very few tourists get lost here and there are tons of animals on the way, especially macaques and spectacles. Especially the latter with their huge eyes, we could probably watch for hours without getting bored. Besides some beaches and temples, we visit “the” tourist highlight of the island, the ride with a gondola to the so-called SkyBridge. Even if the weather lets us down a bit and it is very cloudy, the view of the island and its beaches is breathtaking. In addition, we manage by a stupid coincidence to overtake the entire queue in front of the gondola, which saves us 30 minutes waiting. The nice supervisors of the gondolas try this namely always as busy with 6 people and so it happens that we switch fast enough. One of the ladies walks with walkie-talkie and two raised fingers through the “Express-Line” we are passing, she grabs us and leads us past the queue to the gondola, where a 4-headed Indian family is standing we sit in it. If you know that before, you can probably handle this situation very well, because even at the later departure we see that happen several times.
After three days we have enough of the island, but also a bit of Malaysia, and we move a bit further to the open sea and especially to Thailand to our next island “Koh Lipe” …