MAGICAL MALAYSIA

Mary Foyle 03 December 2013
What a holiday! We arrived into Kuala Lumpur Airport on 3rd Dec to catch our connecting flight to the island of Langkawi. We landed late in the evening and headed to our beautiful hotel The Danna. The hotel is small – only 125 rooms and consequently, the service was very personal and at all times we were greeted by name. There was a marina right beside the hotel with a collection of excellent restaurants at very reasonable prices.

The first day or two were quite dull and with a fair bit of rain – the end of the rainy season. However, the weather picked up on the third day and just got better and better as it headed towards the dry sunny season. We hired a small car to explore the island – very reasonable price of €25.00 per day including insurance. The roads in Langkawi are good and they drive on the left hand side of the road which was a bonus. We headed to the main town of Kuah and spent a couple of hours wandering round the port and shops. Langkawi is a duty free island and so there were some great bargains to be had.

The following day we took the cable car to Langkawi’s second highest peak. The cable car ride is the steepest on earth and climbs 708m. The views at the top were amazing. Langkawi consists of over 100 small islands most of which are covered by rainforest. The normal price for the cable car ride is approx €6.00 per person. However, when we arrived, there was a queue of over 2 hours for tickets. We opted for the express pass which cost €25.00 per person and we did not have any wait at all. The price included a bottle of water and the guided walk through the rainforest between the top and middle stations.

There were lots of other tours available including snorkelling and diving, nature walks, bird watching, jungle trekking, island hopping, jet-ski tours visiting 8 islands, a mangrove tour as well as day cruises and sunset dinner cruises. You would never be bored. We hired a private boat for a short tour of 3 islands. The first island had a fresh water lake and we hired pedal boats there, the next island had great birdlife the eagle being the main inhabitant and on the 3rd island, we stopped off at a beautiful beach and enjoyed a swim.

All too soon our holiday in Langkawi finished and we headed to Kuala Lumpur. We were only spending 1 night here and this was primarily for shopping. We stayed at Traders Hotel – an excellent 4 star hotel in the heart of Kuala Lumpur and right in front of the iconic Petronas Towers. We headed straight for the nearby shopping malls which were connected to the hotel by a sky bridge – a fabulous walkway up high and away from the horrendous downtown traffic. Most of the Malls here are high end with the best of designer clothes and prices to match and they also house all the big UK chain stores. As it was Christmas, the Malls and streets were decorated magnificently and it was so strange to find such a Christmassy atmosphere in such a hot country! After a bit of wandering round and soaking up the atmosphere, we headed to Chinatown and this is where the real bargains were. All leather fake Prada, Gucci, Mulberry, Jimmy Choo bags and any other designers you would care to mention were a steal – we bargained hard and managed to get a couple for €20 - €25.00. There was lots of other merchandise on offer and we were thrilled to get all our Christmas shopping done – guess what everyone got for Christmas!

We finished our holiday by flying back to London on Malaysia Airlines fabulous A380 aircraft. I had booked our economy seats in the upstairs cabin and it was a lovely experience away from the hustle and bustle of downstairs.

We will definitely return to Malaysia and see the sights in Kuala Lumpur the next time along with some other island.