Langkawi and The Danna Hotel

A couple of weeks ago, Joe and I flew out of Subang airport in KL for the first time.  It was close and so convenient that we decided to go on another trip.  Our 31st anniversary just happened to be coming up, so that was a perfect excuse to head to Langkawi!  

 A short 1 1/4 hour flight, and here we were!  I looked at Trip Advisor to find a hotel.  The Danna was rated #1, so that is where we stayed.  Good choice!  This was the view from our room.

The view from my pool lounge chair

I have never taken a picture of a hotel bathroom, but how nice is this?  The bathroom was open to the outdoors, with a very nice fountain.

I just wanted to show you where Langkawi is.  See how close it is to Thailand?  More on that later.  And if you look south of it, that is the island of Penang, where I was two weeks ago.

We arrived in Langkawi on Thursday, late afternoon.  Joe and I spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening by the pool.  The next morning we headed to the cable cars, which take you to the Sky Bridge!  That is our destination, all covered by clouds.  By the way, it was a short taxi ride from The Danna.

These three nice Malaysian ladies were our cable car companions.  You need to ride two cable cars to get to the top.  One of these ladies went no further than the first stop.  Caution: this excursion is not for those afraid of heights! 

Clouds above and below

There were beautiful views everywhere we looked.  Langkawi is made up of 104 islands.  Here are a few.  We had to be a bit patient for the clouds to clear up so we could see.

"The Longest Free Span and Curved Bridge in the World".  Completed in 2004, this suspended bridge is built on top of Machinchang mountain.  Accessible from the Top [cable car] Station, the bridge is suspended from a 82 meter high single pylon.  And it sways in the wind.  If you are planning to see the bridge, make sure it is open.  It is closed to visitors when it is too windy.

Great views all around!!

There was some climbing involved, so wear comfortable shoes.  It seems like I say this a lot, but I always see women wearing high heels on these excursions.  We were lucky to be here at an uncrowded time, and this was an experience not-to-be-missed!

Back at The Danna, it was beach and pool time.  I have stayed in my share of nice hotels, but I have never had a sunglasses-cleaning service!  At 1:00 every afternoon, Windi, or one of his co-workers, will clean your sunglasses or reading glasses.  At 2:00 you get a fruit ice, 3:00 a cold towel, and at 4:00 a snack.  The service overall was outstanding!  Many of the staff called us by name.  By the way, Joe and I are known as Mr. and Mrs. Hol-mes over here.  Two syllables.  

The beach at The Danna.  This was my only disappointment of the weekend.  The water was not as clean as I would have liked.  I was reminded that the ocean on the eastern coast of Malaysia is a lot clearer than that on the western coast. 

But we still enjoyed a very nice walk on the beach.

Interesting trees with the soil around the roots eroded away.  I have never seen such small pine cones.

After our walk, hammock time.

Another beach option.  We pretty much had the beach to ourselves.  I believe this is the beginning of monsoon season, though we had wonderful weather most of our stay.

We had a delicious dinner at the hotel.  Then a glass of wine and live music in the lounge.  Side note: while the hotel was not inexpensive, we found the food and drink prices very reasonable.  One of the reasons for that is that all of Langkawi is duty free!

On Saturday morning, we took a mangrove boat tour.  I took this picture while waiting at the dock for the tour to start.

First stop on the tour was this bat cave.  Because of the tide, we actually had to wade to this point.

Bats.  I actually could have done without the bat cave.

Mangrove trees.  Fact:  Langkawi was the first island to be affected by the 2004 tsunami.  Three things protected the islands from destruction.  First, the ocean around Langkawi is relatively shallow.  Second, the tsunami hit during low tide.  And third, the mangroves helped protect the islands.

Jerome, our very knowledgeable guide.

We made several stops along the trip to get a close look at a viper snake, a boa constrictor, blue kingfisher birds, some dingoes (or wild dogs), and a monitor lizard.

As we got closer to this building, we very clearly heard birds.  You can't see them, but there were swallows flying to the left of the roof.  There is a microphone on the roof, amplifying the swallows' sounds.  This then attracts more swallows.  The birds fly inside though a hole in the roof.  They build nests in this concrete building, and the nests are harvested for bird nest soup, a Chinese delicacy.  It is a booming business in southeast Asia.

Thai fishing boat.  Langkawi is really more Thai than Malaysian.

Thai fishing boat, house and farm

Floating fish farm

We all had lunch at this floating restaurant!

Tom Yum soup and fried rice, a simple Thai meal.  And our canned soda of choice.  :)  I love prawns, or shrimp, but I don't often order them.  I did here, and I knew what to expect-- the whole head and eyes.  

After lunch we went by the eagle feeding ground.  There are spots where the eagles are fed to attract them so tourists can get a close-up view.  Jerome did not approve.  The chicken fed to the eagles contain growth hormones that cause birth defects.  The two types of eagles found in this area are the White-Bellied Fish Eagles and the Brahminy Kites.  These were the Kites.

The boat then went at high speed and we got a closer look at some of the surrounding islands.  Beautiful.  So ended our mangrove boat tour.  A great tour!!

I had asked Jerome for the best spot to see the sunset.  Our hotel was not it.  He said the best spot was  airport road.  Sure enough, we saw people parked all along the road by the airport.  Many had a picnic supper and were waiting for the sun to set.  We were actually driving to the second best spot-- The Cliff Restaurant.  I took this blurry picture of a rice paddy, the first one I have seen.  I wasn't fast enough to get a picture of the water buffalo we saw resting in the water.

Here is Cenang Beach, about a 25-minute taxi ride from The Danna.  This is one of Langkawi's most popular beaches.  It was packed!  Not nearly as relaxing as The Danna's private beach, but the scenery was spectacular!

Where we ate dinner.  Very good and reasonable.  We actually got a free glass of wine with our entrees.  I have never seen that before.

The reason we left our very comfy pool to drive across the island.  I took these pictures of the sunset, but the pictures do not do justice to the beauty of this whole area.

Wonderful weekend!  And being so close, we will definitely come back!!

Penang, Malaysia!

If you want to go to university in the US, you most likely need to take the SAT, or Scholastic Aptitude Test.  It it a very important exam, one my kids signed up for weeks ago and have been preparing for.  It was this past Saturday.  But on Wednesday night, Austin told us that he was accidentally signed up for the test in Penang, not KL!!  The mistake was made by College Board, not Austin.  He made me include that.  :) (Penang is a five-hour drive from KL.)  So what to do?  Savannah had to stay in KL, but Joe, Austin, and I made a quick trip to Penang!

Although it is normally a five-hour drive to Penang, we have heard stories of it taking 8-9 hours on a holiday weekend.  And of course it was a holiday last weekend.   I decided we would fly.  I booked a flight on Firefly airline.  Gotta say, the name just doesn't inspire a lot of confidence!  We flew out of Subang airport in KL.  It is closer than KLIA, and easier than flying Air Asia out of KLIA2.  The whole flying experience was smooth and convenient!

We arrived in Penang on Friday afternoon.  Austin rested and studied at the hotel while Joe and I explored historic Georgetown.  Now I should explain that Penang is an island off the coast of Malaysia.  There are several towns, with Georgetown being the largest.  And it is so historical that a whole section of Georgetown was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2008.

Penang was founded in 1786 by Captain Francis Light, a trader for the British East India Company.  He built Fort Cornwallis, where Joe is standing.

This is the Queen Victoria Memorial Clocktower.  It was built to commemorate her 60th year as queen.  It leans to one side due to bombing nearby during WWII.

I enjoyed looking around Penang and seeing the history.  But what I really enjoyed was walking the streets of old Georgetown, soaking in the atmosphere and especially the street art.  There is a lot of street art!  I just now found a map of the art in the area. I will certainly take it with me if I visit Georgetown again.  If you would like a map of the art in the area, click here.

This was a very interesting collection of metal art attached to the walls of old buildings.  The pictures and text described historical significance of certain spots, such as the spot where the shoe designer Jimmy Choo began his career.  The brochure in the link above said there are 24 such sculptures in place now, with another 18 in progress.  This one described this alley as 'Chicken Alley', once used by poulterers.

This sculpture describe the rickshaws.  Our driver told us that when he was a boy in Penang, his family would use rickshaws as common transport.  Now they are only for tourists.

I was so interested in this area, that we went twice.  No, Joe didn't do any quick costume changes!  :)

Another type of common street art in Georgetown is the murals painted on the walls.  They even sold t-shirts depicting several scenes in the area.

The real thing!  I think this one was my favorite.  I liked the red door and the layers of wall around it. These paintings were done by Lithuanian artist Ernest Zacharevic.  He painted these in 2012, and unfortunately they are not holding up to the elements very well.

The little boy on the left is holding on to his dinosaur.  Really!  You just can't barely see it anymore.

Joe is giving this boy a helping hand.

I had no interest in waiting in this long line to have my picture taken with this mural, charming as it is.  I thought the better picture was that of the long line.  As I said, it was a four-day weekend in Malaysia, and I think half of KL decided to visit Penang!!

Tourists going for a ride.

Street musician.  He was raising money for charity.

I am still wondering just what praying material is!

A look at the street and crowds.

Incense burner in front of the Yap family temple.

Sunset view from the lounge/pool area on top of our hotel.  

We stayed at the 'g' hotel.  I went on Hotels.com and typed in Penang.  Which if you remember, has several towns.  I got a list of about 20 available hotels, with only about 5 that I would consider.  There was a line at the bottom of the display saying:  There are 174 more hotels in Penang but they have no availability on your dates.  I was lucky to find this hotel!  By the way, it was pretty nice.

I wasn't too disappointed that Austin had to be in Penang.  I had been wanting to go there for some time.  And, I just so happen to be in the middle of this book, The Gift of Rain: A Novel, by Tan Twan Eng.  This book at been recommended to me by several people.  It is set in Penang, and describes the life of a Chinese-English young man as he survives the Japanese invasion during WWII.  If you live in Malaysia or SE Asia, you must read this book!  And if you don't, read it anyways.  It is very good so far.

Anyways, the author vividly describes various areas in Penang.  Penang Hill has been mentioned several times.  It has a funicular train that goes to the top of the hill.  Many wealthy British residents lived at the top of the hill.  I really wanted to ride the train to the top and view some of the old mansions.  But, apparently so did about 3000 other people.  We had a limited time for sightseeing, while Austin was taking the SAT test.  I took this picture, and then we left.

We hired a car and driver from the hotel for the day.  That is very reasonable to do in Asia.  It cost us 50 ringgitt, or about $14 an hour.  It sure beat having to find our way around town and find a place to park!

This is where I really wanted to go-- the Khoo clan house!  Before reading GOR, I had never heard of a clan house.  But the main character is part of this clan, and his grandfather takes him to this very house.  Side note: about 60% of Penang citizens are of Chinese descent.

I will use the author's words to describe what this is:

"He explained to me the significance of a clan association.  Each Chinese belonged to a clan, usually either by reason of the village he came from or, more commonly, through his family name.  Such associations were common where the Chinese had transplanted themselves, and were formed to provide protection for their members, to resolve disputes, and to act as welfare organizations."

The museum's picture of the temple was much better than mine.

We entered a passageway covered by the top floor of a wooden shop and came out into the bright sunshine in a granite-cobbled yard.  In the center was a building that looked as if it had been transported from the deepest, densest pages of Chinese myth.  "That looks amazing," I told him.  "What is it?"  "The Leong San thong Dragon Mountain Hall Temple, built by the clan association of the Khoo."

The tiered roof of the temple were turned up at the corners, like the tufts of a Sikh's mustache, and clusters of carvings, and statues-- dragons, phoenixes, maidens, heroes, gods, goddesses, fairies, sages, animals, trees, palaces-- looked over us...

This information was displayed in the museum.  I remember being told in Bangkok that the movie Anna and the King was banned from all of Thailand.  The officials deemed it too inaccurate to allow in the country.  That also meant that no filming could take place in Thailand.  Some of the movie was filmed at this very Khoo clan complex.

After living in Oman for two years, I always find mosques interesting.

We had a little more time to kill while waiting for Austin to finish.  We rode around to the northern part of Penang, and visited this public beach.  Just in time to photograph these parasailers!

Austin was taking his test at the Dalat International School.  It just so happens to sit right at the ocean.  Those roofs are actually classrooms at a lower level.  Great views!

So ended our short, but packed 24 hours in Penang!  The above beach pictures might seem nice, but the better beaches are said to be in Langkawi, Malaysia.  That is the location of our next trip!  Stay tuned!