Langkawi Getaway Day1 (Part 1 of 2)

Teet-teet-teet-teet.......! It is 3:45am and my alarm is blaring away. I quickly leap off my bed and switch it off before it wakes the whole neighborhood. Today is my getaway trip to Langkawi with some "jovial" friends. Despite of being sleep deprived, I drag myself to the wash room and freshen up.

It is 4:20am when I'm all set to leave my house. The early morning air felt so cool and refreshing. It has been a while since I last enjoyed it... (partially drunk don't count). I followed my GPS direction to Casendra's house to pick her up (she and her mum to be precise). The journey took 35 minutes and we were exchanging good mornings by 5:00am. Load up and off to FaiTh's house, the gathering point. We gave FaiTh a heads up call while we are on our way just to make sure we don't catch her on her pajamas.

FaiTh's dad is a cool and silent man. He is watering his plant (yes, 5 o'clock in the morning) while we are waiting for FaiTh to get ready.... "Fai Th" 啦... We departed a little late but still manage to reach LCCT around 6am, thanks to FaiTh's dad. She claimed that he is an F1 driver and I will not question that after our ride to the airport.

Annie arrived shortly after us and I proceed to check-in. Two counters are open but one of it was hogged by a family having some ticketing problem. The other line was quite long but our petit F1 daughter managed to over-take and cut into the hugh gap between the first and second position. Luckily our check-in was swift as the person behind us is showing sign of agitation. Sorry..... we honestly thought that they are not queuing due to the big gap infront.

Breakfast time! Went over to McD and found Annie and her bf getting ready to pay at the counter. We quickly slot in our orders together with theirs. Once again, the person behind us is not very pleased with that. This time the process is much longer and Casie and I have to pretend nothing happens and avoid looking behind us. Sweat......

We boarded the plane around 7:10am. A colourful plane indeed with the "AMAZING" word painted in rainbow colours. I doze off right after take off. All I can remember is FaiTh talking non stop (too tired to understand a word). She is a real chatter box...

Arrived at Langkawi around.... oops, forgot to note the time. Raise and shine. Ms chatterbox met her friend while we are preparing to disembark the plane. What a small small world. They throw some....errr.....alot of hugs and wish each other happy vacation before parting separate ways. We head for the information counter to grab a copy of the tourist maps and some tour package information. At the same time, we got hook up by the car rental counter offering Nissan Sentra or Honda City for RM90 per day. We took the Nissan as it is bigger for there are 5 of us.

Our rented car. Don't forget to buy K.T.M. 4D! Hahaha....

Perfect wheather with clear blue sky. Lets go catch some fresh air up Gunung Cincang! Wait..... before that, lets confirm our accomodation first. FaiTh make a few phone calls but it seems that they do not know what booking we are talking about!? OMG... better make a trip to AB Motel to clear things up. After a quick check of our rented car and topping up RM50 petrol, we headed straight to AB Motel.... Not exactly straight as we are trying to read the map. Fortunately, Casendra brought her Garmin Nuvi. That saved us some headache.

The motel has quite a view at Cenang beach. We unload our stuffs into our motel room and grab some bottled water before continuing our adventure at the cable car and sky bridge.

View of Pantai Cenang from AB Motel rooms

The drive to the cable car is slow paced. I am not used to driving at 60KM/h when the road in front is clear. I overtook a few cars in front of us and got a good lecture from all the ladies in the car. "你现在很赶时间吗！？". OK, my bad...... Luckily they allowed me to overtake the 2 horse riding men which we encounter near Berjaya Resort..... Phew....! I almost thought that we will be seeing sunset from the sky bridge.....

When turning into the cable car parking, FaiTh notice an old banner saying it is closed for maintenance. Please tell us the banner is obsolete..... we pray in our heart. Our spirit dented when the guard told us the cable car and sky bridge is closed until 6 September 2010.... Argh......! What a bad start....

We got over our disappointment and proceed to the next attraction nearby, the Seven Wells Waterfall. The waterfall cannot be reach by car and we have to park our car at the desinated parking area at the base of the hill. Cow dung is everywhere when we got down from our car... smell the fresh air, boy? breath it in..... (yeah, it stinks quite bad). Annie spotted some dung beetle hard at work and these yellow eyed insects soon became the victim of paparazzi.

Celebrity of the day - The dung beetle

The climb up to the waterfall is supposed to be a walk in the back yard. Annie is our Tarzan Jane. She briefly stroll up the stairs with no effort. FaiTh is obviously gasping for air with Casie and mum trailing behind. We could hear the waterfall gushing down from far. The waterfall is beautiful even in this dry season with the flow so calm and relaxing. We took off our shoes and soothe our feet in the cold stream but Casie's mum is too afraid to join us in the water.

Stairs guarded by the monkeys

The calm waterfall

Eventhough the current is slow, I almost slip on the slippery rocks. Added a small wound to my left foot... my poor little left foot, always being a victim of my injuries. The journey uphill continues after our foot bath to the Seven Wells located few hundreds stair-step above the waterfall. Our chatter box is complaining non-stop that her legs are aching and she is completing her exercise quota for a whole year.....come on, even the eldest member in our group don't whine that much.

The Seven Wells are so so only with a closed down viewing tower due to lack of maintenance. We are not able to spot all seven of them from where we stand. It is disappointing that we cannot have a sight from the viewing tower. We stop to take some wind and kill the fatigue while Tarzan Jane scout around the vicinity. She really looks like she has come home.....climbing rocks, crossing rivers, wondering into woods, etc, etc.

Seven Wells

Up stream

Annie's scouting result

It is around noon when we finally got Tarzan Jane out of the woods and start our descend. Hunger is starting to kick in due to the "heavy" exercise earlier. Going down hill is far more relaxed and FaiTh even have sufficient stamina to sing 三个字 along the way.... at least it sounded slightly better than her grumbling about her aching legs....

Everyone is exhausted upon reaching the foot of the hill. The sun is extremely hot and we have a sudden urge to have ice-cream. Each of us took one and FaiTh paid for it, amounting to RM9. As we are enjoying the refreshment in front of the stall, a family of Hong Kong tourist approached us to ask about the Seven Wells. They are concern if their kids will be able to make it to the top. Frankly, I worried more for them than for their kids.... probably they are using their kids as an excuse.... cover macho ma.....

Casendra managed to con the Hong Kong family up the hill by showing them some professionally angled photos of the waterfall from her camera. I was silent throughout the 5 minutes coversation between the Hongkies and the ladies in my pack..... wondering how these Hongkie ladies maintain their body shape. Four kids on ground and the curves are still mesmerizing.....

The "fresh" air of cow dung once again fill my nostril when we approach our car. The parking attendant (which is noway to be seen earlier) rush to us to collect the parking fee. The damage is RM2 plus almost stepping on a cow dung... Could they please at least sweep the dungs out the area for crying out loud sake! I wouldn't feel too bad departing with my RM2 if they do that.

We got into our Sentra before deciding where to have lunch. Annie hurt her foot when getting into the car by kicking and breaking the glove compartment.... ok ok, its already broken before that and the fall off part is what Annie kicked on. Off we go to hunt for food...

[More pictures in Casendra and FaiTh's blog]