Ko Lipe and Langkawi

Ko Lipe to Langkawi

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ko_Lipe

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langkawi

View from the shore in Ko Lipe

We left Ko Phi Phi at 9:30am on our 2.5 hour boat ride to Ko Lipe.  The water couldn’t have been more flat calm as I relaxed on the bow of the boat, listening to some great music and soaking up the sun as the captain raced through the inland waterways at over 60 MPH.  

Our boat prior to boarding

Everyone has had those moments in life when you just sit back and say to yourself, how can life get any better than this, this moment is perfect.  These moments don’t come often for a lot of people, including myself, but as I sat there, listening to some of my favorite Eagles tracks, I caught the eyes of one of the two Swedish girls sitting on the bow with me and we both just smiled.  I assume she too, was having an incredible time being exactly where we were at this exact time.  The whole situation was just so incredible that I actually couldn’t help but just laugh to myself, how can I possibly be doing this.  A truly special moment.

Inland waterways

Before long, we arrived at the island of Ko Lipe.  It wasn’t in any of the guidebooks that we had read and frankly, I’d never even heard of it.  It’ a very small, white sandy beach haven which has just recently began to develop into a place that people want to go.  So far, the water in Ko Lipe was more clear than anything I’d ever seen, I physically can’t comprehend water being more blue and more clear.

Once ashore we began walking around checking in at different places to stay for just the one night.  After about 3-4 spots, we settled on a nice, clean room with just a fan for around $12.  We spent the day exploring what the island had to offer, swimming in the ocean and also laying down for naps.  Napping has become something I’ve grown quite fond of.  I grow tired easily here as my body is definitely not used to the high heat and humidity as well as the 12 hours per day of activity.  We woke up late, went out for a small bite to eat and meandered through the various walking streets at night that had tons of various items for sale. 

The small local boy and myself enjoyed playing with the swordfish!

After a full nights rest, we we’re up again early to make it to our boat with enough time to fill out necessary immigration paperwork since we were now leaving Thailand and headed for Langkawi, which is an island in Malaysia.  There were fewer people on this speedboat, which made it nice and roomy.  Unfortunately, this boat ride was much different than the previous one as the ocean was feeding us 3-4ft swells throughout our passage.  Needless to say, we weren’t sitting on the bow this time.

While on the boat, the crew handed back our passports that we’d given them earlier in order to process their documents.  A guy handed me a passport which ended up belonging to another US citizen sitting behind me.  He quickly corrected his mistake but it was odd to see another person from the states on the boat.  Throughout our entire trip, I’ve come across a total of 5 other US citizens, obviously the way we speak is very easy to pick up on.  Towards the end of the boat ride, I noticed the guy with the US passport standing up taking pictures so I turned around and asked him where he was from.  He told me New York and I told him we were from Seattle.  He said he had done a job out in Moses Lake the year before so I probed deeper, asking him what kind of work he did.  He mentioned he worked on a solar plant out there and I asked if he by chance worked for a company called Matrix.  He responded that he worked for the company that employed that company.  I asked him if he had heard of my Dad, Scott Pickering, to which he replied, “your shitting me, your Pick’s son!”  While he didn’t know my Dad personally, he would exchange work related emails from time to time but knew many of the people my father worked with quite well.  What a small world!

We pulled into port in Langkawi and on the advice of Mr. Spelling, the US guy, told the taxi driver to take us a place called Petang beach, where all the young crowd apparently stayed.  After a quick stop through another immigration checkpoint, we arrived at our destination and went on a walk to find proper accommodations.  After a few stops, he decided to stay at the Malibi Hotel, a nice beachfront bungalow for a modest $40 US per night.  The staff showed us to our room and we quickly ratcheted up the air conditioning and settled into our place we’d call home for 2 nights. 

We spent the entire day walking around to different shops and I even purchased some Malaria pills after reading how terrible the sickness could be.  At my doctor in Seattle, he told me I would have to pay around $400 for a 3 month supply of Doxycycline, I declined and after speaking with several people throughout my travels thus far, thought I’d be fine without it.  I asked a local pharmacy how much for Doxycycline here and they told me a 3 months supply was only $18, so I said why not. 

Caleb and I stumbled across Malaysia’s largest aquarium about a mile from our hotel.   I hadn’t been to one since I was a small child and welcomed the opportunity to look at some cool marine life.  It ended up being rather impressive with exhibits of various penguins, sea otters, sharks, stingrays, and fish that I didn’t know could get so large. 

After a few hours, Caleb and I headed out of the aquarium and entered a nearby Duty Free store.  We had been told that the entire island was duty free and decided to get a few bottles of alcohol between us.  For how cheap everything in most of Southeast Asia is, alcohol really isn’t any cheaper than a good happy hour in Seattle.  At the duty free however, I could pick up a liter of Captain Morgan for $11 versus well over $25 in Seattle for the same quantity.   We headed out for dinner then decided to stay in that night since we were planning on waking up early to rent motorcycles to tour the island. 

We finally got to the rental place around 11:00 am the next morning and snagged some 110cc manually shifting bikes for $10 for a 24-hour period.  Having been completely screwed by the guy in Ko Tao, we decided to take photographs of all the damage on each bike before leaving the parking lot.  The guy looked puzzled that we were doing this so we explained what had happened with the last rental place.  He assured us, that’s a Thailand thing and its not how it works in Malaysia, they don’t even hold your passport.  Regardless, we had adopted the trust no one approach. 

First off, it’s worth mentioning that coming from the places we’d visited in Thailand to Malaysia felt like we went 30 years into the future.  The roads were much nicer, much larger, and there was a much greater amount of infrastructure.  The distance around the entire island was about 70 miles and so map in hand, we headed off.  I find riding thus far in these countries really exciting.  If there are traffic laws, no one obeys them and they aren’t enforced.  People on motorbikes just bob and weave through traffic, sometimes driving into oncoming traffic for long stretches of road for god knows what reason.  The whole situation definitely makes you be 100% alert at all times but a few near misses, some last minute swerves to avoid a pile-up, all gets your adrenaline going and makes it fun!

One of the places we stopped along the way was a giant crocodile farm.  We had noticed some signage in a few spots and thought it would be worth a look.  As we walked through it, we couldn’t tell if it was supposed to be a sanctuary or if this was all for commercial exploitation but these animals couldn’t have appeared to be enjoying themselves any less.  There were dozens and dozens of different species of crocodile there from small babies to ones that measured well over 15ft in length.  It was definitely a sight to see and we were glad we stopped by.

Caleb with the croc!

We slowly took the rest of the day winding through some lush highland areas, stopping by a few posh resorts to grab a drink and walked through a few Malaysian shopping districts to pick up some light linen shirts.  By the time we had made it back to our place and dropped off the bikes, it was late and we were exhausted so while Caleb caught up on some emails, I caught up on some sleep after I walked to the beach in front of our bungalow to snap a few sunset shots.

I woke up around 11pm and Caleb was itching to go out to experience some Malaysian nightlife.  After asking some locals where the hotspot was, we found ourselves walking to a beach bar called Babylon where some live reggae music was blaring.  We each grabbed a drink and I walked around in search of someone to converse with.  I settled on a young lady sitting by herself and soon struck up a conversation with the Polish girl.  After a few minutes, we were joined by her boyfriend, (wonderful), and soon I found myself talking with him as well.  I noticed he had an American accent so we started talking about where each other were from.  I said I lived in Seattle and he said, “Wow, small world, I went to Washington State University!”  I couldn’t believe it.  This was only the 7^th US citizen I’d met on my trip and he went to the same college I did during the same time.

It turns out, after he finished his Masters Degree at WSU, he got a software engineering gig in Texas that he excelled at.  He worked for several years, bought a house, started heading towards a normal life when in 2009 he made a drastic change.  He told me he sold his house, sold nearly all his possessions minus an old pickup truck that’s at his folks house, then purchased an older 40ft sailboat and began a sailing trip.  Three years later and a lap around the world, he’s sitting at this bar with me and a Polish girl he met 6 months earlier that loved what he was doing and jumped on the adventure with him. Wild!

Caleb joined the conversation for a little while but soon, he was noticeably “sleepy” and he left for bed around 1:30.   The bar soon closed and the three of us headed to another spot the couple knew of that didn’t close called 1812.  Once inside, I talked/bribed one of the staff members there to let me hook my Iphone up to the speakers so I could play my music and within moments, I had turned this English Pub into an Eagles tribute bar.  Fantastic!  I sat at a table with the couple I had just met as well as a local Malaysian guy and two dudes from Sweden.  We sat around and talked about American television, movies, and music for hours.  I told the Malaysian guy who’s name was Lesley Anthony (I’m pretty confident not his birth name) where we were headed to next and he insisted I take down his phone number so I could call him when I got to Penang.  He said everyone knew him there, just walk into town and say “Lesley sent me”.   I asked if I needed to use his last name and he said no.  He was the man there.  I reassured him that Penang was the second largest city in Malaysia at almost 750,000 people and I wasn’t sure his plan would work.  Fast forward 5 minutes and Lesley Anthony was face down unconscious on the table, I assumed perhaps he may have been lying to me…..

The next morning I woke up around noon, not feeling quite 100% from my previous evenings festivities.  Caleb and I packed up our things, checked out and jumped into a taxi headed for the ferry terminal.  Our next stop would be Georgetown, on the Island of Penang, a large metropolitan area, which would be a drastic contrast to all the we’d previously encountered.  Wonder how much it would cost me to take the boat below instead of the ferry!  Onward we go!!