Langkawi

20th March 2014 After a very short journey overnight up the coast we arrived with the dawn at the Malaysian Island of Palau Langkawi. After centuries, when nothing more has happened here than a few pirates using it as a hideout, the sleepy Island has been designated to be a major tourist destination.

So as the lights came up on another day we found ourselves on the set of a postcard. In the beautiful bay of Langkawi, surrounded by Islands breaking through the still waters in all directions like the coils of a sleeping dragon….

Yuk!  enough of that, after breakfast we set off to tour the Islands in a high speed boat. Yes!! These were all driven by Malays answer to Jeremy Clarkson and only seemed to have the two speeds, Flat Out and Flat Stop…Boys and their toys!!!

After 30 minutes bouncing along  and passing the odd boat, we finally came to our destination…

A small island on the other side of  “The Island of the pregnant lady”…who you can still see her today. (above) The story goes that a beautiful girl was accused of adultery, found guilty and sentenced to death. She was then stabbed with a kris (a Malay dagger) but only white blood flowed showing her of innocence and with her dying words, cursed Langkawi for seven generations.

Meanwhile, we pulled up to the jetty and alighted quickly and easily onto the substantial concrete quay where everything had been planned down to the last little detail except one…the height of the tide.

So, clambering ashore, found that only a few locals were there to meet us, begging, asking for food and trying to pick pockets.

Nether the less, we marched determinedly into the interior and up the forest trail watched only by one chap sitting in the branches.

Finally we got to Tasik Dayang Bunting or Lake of the Pregnant Maiden. (What is it with all these pregnant women?) which was a very very deep freshwater lake where locals come when they want to get pregnant.

Throwing all caution aside, I jumped in only to find that I had forgotten to take my glasses off and these were now at the bottom of a green lake. Furthermore, I was not pregnant.

Later, we returned towards the ship and dropped off at a beach for a quick siesta. Then onwards to the Aurora.

And that ended our time in Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia for we head off now due East to Sri Lanka.

All the cities in this part of the world impressed me with their buildings and ambitions, the vigour of the people and the way everyone looks forward in life, tomorrow will be better.

There is also great discrepancies between rich and poor and other than in Singapore, a terrible, terrible attitude to rubbish which can only come back and cause problems in the future. This is a beautiful part of the world now inhabited by a throwaway society. Most people, do not it seems, know or care what the rubbish is doing to the environment.

Even the beach at Langkawi, labelled by the Malaysian Government as the new ECO tourist centre, was, when turning around strewn with rubbish. (See above) It’s not from the tourists, because we have all been trained, it’s from the locals.

On the Motorway the other day, going to Kuala Lumpur, we passed a bright blue river. The reason it was bright blue was, because of the water bottles floating in it which had just been thrown away onto the ground. When the rains came a day before us, they got washed away and into the rivers ,until you can’t see the water for the blue bottles on top. It was an incredible sight.

So I leave with mixed emotions, I am glad to have seen it now, not later, for I fear for the future for the environment here without the local governments looking after it.