Langkawi

We hopped on our favorite airline, AirAsia, for the last leg of our trip to the northwest Malaysian island of Langkawi. We arrived just in time to get the girls down for bed. Josie and I headed out while Tim stayed in the room. Quite a different place from the bustling island of Phuket, this place was desolate, and seemed almost scary at night. There were a few open air restaurants and a couple of convenience stores across the street, all with very few people in them for only 9:00 at night.

As the following picture shows, it's just our hotel and lots of natural beauty.

We found Langkawi to have a charm all of its own. It was a very relaxing, get-away-from-everything beach island. It was very laid back. Fortunately, it had very good food.

The restaurants did have frozen fruit drinks, but more like with snow cone flavoring than the fresh fruit of Thailand. Of course the girls still enjoyed them!

Have we ever mentioned Tally likes rice. She is the crazy rice eater. The other day she was in the middle of her hamburger and heard the word rice. She put her burger down and started looking for her favorite food!

We hit the beach the next morning, to find a peaceful area to play in the water and sand. The hotel is on right on the beach, but has a very nice pool too. We were quite surprised at how many people opt to just hang out at the pool. We established our own routine, in the morning go play on the beach, go eat lunch, Tally takes a nap with one person in the room with her, and then the others head to the pool. How relaxing to play in the sun, I almost had the thought maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to live someone warm until we spent one day touring the island. If you aren’t in your swimming suit in the water, it is too dang hot! So never mind that thought (Tim's still working on Morgan on that point).

We came home with a bag full of shells, both girls loved gathering them. Thankfully Tally liked to gather them and then throw them back in the ocean.

Here are a few pics of the little swimmers. Tally was very brave (another word for crazy?) around the pool. She had no fear. We could go under the water with her and she would come back up and giggle. She would get to the edge of the pool and just jump in. We tried to install some fear by letting her bob for a few seconds....nope once she was rescued she just laughed and giggled with water dripping off her. So we just always had to be ready for her to just jump in.

Adayla was much more cautious, but really loved her floating swimming suit. We loved it too, since we didn't have to carry her the whole time! She would swim and kick all day (and of course sleep really well at night). We couldn't help but share her pics of "Daddy's little Swimmer." She would go and go and Tim taught her to say, "water get out of my way" and she would kick and swim!

I must add a picture of the pool bum Josie. She would just hang out on the side of the pool for hours! The water was warm and the sun was bright. She is now one tan girl! She was very helpful the whole time, but she was still able to sneak in quite of bit of relaxation!

So if you are looking for a party head to Phuket Thailand and if you are looking for quiet time with just you and a few others on the beach head to Langkawi Malaysia.

Two more pictures from the beach/hotel. Langkawai has a diverse vacationing crowd, with lots of Germans (go figure, they're everywhere) and other Northern Europeans, Asians, and Middle Easterners. Langkawi is a popular spot for vacationing honeymooners from Saudi Arabia.

It was eye-catching to see someone on the beach wearing a full black abaya (robe) and face veil. It was even more eye-catching to see a lady wearing this on a jet ski. We show these pictures to share a glimpse of how different cultures enjoy the same things. Even though we may be different in some ways, we have so many things in common in other ways. All part of this Olmsted Scholarship, to see and experience so many different cultures.