Coming from Langkawi we reached Koh Lipe by speedboat.
For this we needed to handout our passports at the pier in Malaysia to some kind of tour-operator and fill out Thai immigration form. But nothing to worry about, as we got back our passport at arrival in Koh Lipe, Thailand.
First impression on the island was, whoa … clear waters. It definitely looks like the TV-ads for the white italian nougat-balls. The island is situated in an Thai National Park, where there is basically “some” limitations on tourism. Which makes Koh Lipe substantially more expensive than other Thai islands. But having a closer look, the area is not maintained in a way you would expect. Garbage gets burned, Longtail boats everywhere damaging underwater life, way too much tourism with way too less sanitary installations. But in Koh Lipe all the bad stuff is better hidden.
We spent 3 nights in Langkawi, an island next to Thai border. Should have been a duty-free paradise, but checking the prices for liquor showed not substantial cheaper prices. So no partying and getting drunk for us 😉
Exiting the pier where our boat from Georgetown embarked, we’ve seen a lot of malaysian people waiting for their ships. The taxi-driver told us, the 2-month school vacation started, this also explained the high-season prices for our hotel.
One day we hired a scooter to get to a nicer beach in the north, where we also spotted some “dusky leaf monkeys”, a species endangered in Southeast Asia.
Besides that, nothing important to be mentioned on Langkawi.
After getting the connection flight from Kuala Lumpur we finally arrived in George Town, both still in pain. The hotel-staff at Victoria Garden Hotel was superfriendly and made our stay as enyoyable as possible.
George Town is the capital of Penang island, which is a province of Malaysia, is UNESCO World Heritage and earns this title. In difference to Singapure or Kuala Lumpur, George Town did not follow the path of “modernism” and maintained most of its colonial buildings from pre-war era. In addition it has a large chinese and indian population, which makes it easy going from Chinatown to Little India in a few steps, just follow your nose for five-spices fragrance or the smell of cumin-based curries. Naturally this makes George Town the streetfood capital and i can tell you i enjoyed it by every bite.
My 2 euro vegetarian Thali Plate, It was delicious.
A good challenge for us was also to find all the street-art/graffiti all over George Town – we simply loved this town as it has so much to discover with all your senses.
For sure we also visited the botanical garden of George Town, seeing us encountered by lots of monkeys – somehow aggressive in their way of demanding food.
Cannonball fruit treeMonkey rubbing the fruits to get to the kernel
Afte coming back from Gilli Air with its colorful sealife and laid-back mentality, we’ve been striken hard by the “full power” of tourism in Bali.
We stayed 4 nights in Nusa Dua on the eastside of the central Bali tourismus area. Surrounded by western 4/5-star resorts, we found a small hotel “Kaniya Bali” where we spent our days by the pool simply doin nothing.
The beachfronts there were blocked by the big resorts, so we hired a scooter in search of some hidden beaches accessible for the public. Those what we found, were not great, just muddy, shallow waters with lots of plastic and no shades and vegetation.
Nusa Dua beachYou don’t want to swim in hereAnother cruiseship bringing the next ~ 2000 guests.
So we moved on to go nearby Kuta on the westside. We expected the worst, as we remembered an australian TV-show informing about “hordes of australian teenagers choosing Kuta for their Springbreak”.
Luckily it wasn’t that bad, seems the scholars returned already.
The beaches were nicer than Nusa Dua, but we spent again the time by the pool planning our next stop , going to Georgetown on Penang island.
I finally decided driven by multiple requests of shadi to have a haircut. I found a trustworthy barber capable of enough english and he startet his work. In the end he gave me a complimentary head-massage. I was expecting some goodies, as only cutting my isolated hairs would have been way too easy money. Here’s the result i’m satisfied with it.
Before, ewok style isn’t it…… and after. Handsomeness at its purest.
Besides the wonderful Gilli Air i was quite disappointed by Bali:
Indonesian Food: quite bland.
indonesian Beer: switched to Carlsberg, no more to say.
Indonesian Beaches: private beaches of the top-resorts might be nice, but not the public ones.
In addition both of us had some health issues: Shadi got diarrhea coming from chicken sausage and i had some kidney/back pain.
Luckily but tired we boarded our flight from Denpasar to Georgetown over Kuala Lumpur.
Poor shadi trying to find some sleep while waiting for connection flight at Kuala Lumpur. Gorgeous couple, ain’t we ?
Seems that Bali is not our island of gods or we made the gods angry.
