College Visit To Langkawi Island, Kedah, Malaysia

A boat jetty at Kuah,Langkawi.

Two weeks ago (27 April 2012), my husband and I went to Langkawi Island, accompanying my students from Community College to do their entrepreneur activities there. The activities, simliar to the famous ' The Apperentice ' where the students need to sell their innovative products to tourist, finished on the first day of our visit. The second and third day, we round the island and took a few photos for my blog.

Langkawi Baron Seaside Restaurant

Langkawi sea water is not as clear as any of East Coast Island's. Most of Langkawi beaches have a murky water except a few at north part of Langkawi. The colour of the water is greenish, unlike Perhentian Island which is blueish. The beaches at north part of Langkawi have  clear greenish water and some parts are very beautiful like Pasir Tengkorak Beach, Datai Beach, Teluk Yu beach, Pasir Hitam beach and Tanjung Rhu beach. The further north you go, the clearer the water and you may reach Ko Lipe dan Terutao National Park, Thailand. These two islands can be seen from Langkawi very clearly. Langkawi is nearer to this two islands than Malaysia . As everybody know, this two island  and many others from Thailand have  very clear blue water, just like Perhentian's.

Sunset at Cenang Beach

It was quite late in the evening when we arrived at Cenang Beach. Our students have finished selling their products and we saw them walking along Pantai Cenang road to their accomodations. We went to the beach instead. Cenang Beach is the most famous beach in Langkawi. This beach is famous for water sports like parasailing, water scooter and banana boat. The water is rather murky but the waves is strong and the wind is very refreshing . The strong wind helps to push parasails up to the air. The sand is white in colour but not as clean as that of Perhentian's. The casuarina leaves scattered on the ground, so as the plastic, the bottles and tetrapaks, yet nobody cares. There are also many chalets and hotels, they built them so close to each other that we barely find any access to the beach. From the road, we barely see the beach and most of the tourists went to the beach through the private access inside the hotels and chalets area. 

A spiral 'mengkuang' at Cenang Beach

We saw this odd looking mengkuang tree on our way back. They make it look so nice by trimming the leaves. It looks like spiral staircase.

The famous 'happening' Cenang Beach with many watersport activities.

I managed to capture the last photo of Cenang Beach overlooking the whole beach area. I like this beach for one reason: the visitors are 'well dressed'....

Talking about the beach, ( well... I'm the beach lover)... You cannot get all the nice elements come together at one beach. You want a crystal clear blue water, where you can swim or kayaking happily, then there will be no refreshing strong wind included in the 'pakage'. Somemore the weather must be hot and the sun must shines very brightly and you will get burned by the ray. If you want a windy beach, where the refreshing wind blows non stop, and you feel like flying?  Yes you may get it with a strong waves and murky water. The former suitable for snokelling, kayaking and swimming, the latter suitable for parasailing, surfing and many other activities.

Black Sand Beach

On the second day, it started rains early in the morning. I felt very lazy to go out and I watched TV until 11.00 am. My husband pushed me to dress up and do the planned activity: round island by bike. I quite disagree because I was sure that we will get wet. However, when we leave our room, the sun started shining behind the cloud and the rain stopped.

Our first destination is Black Sand Beach. Look at the photo, do you sea the beach colour? It looks white but under the thin layer of sand, the soil is very black. Its due to the type of sediment from granite, I can't remember the name. There's only two place in this world that has this type of sand. This beach and the other one I cant remember it's name, but it's not located at Asia continent.

The Black sand beach: Overlooking Tarutaao Island (National Park) Thailand

Eventhough the sand is black, the water is quite clear. We nearly swim here but change out mind later for some reasons. Later we went further north to the famous Pasir Tengkorak Beach ( Skull Sand Beach). The name is very eerie, yet many visitors hanging around, playing happily. The beach is the cleanest public beach in Langkawi and the water is pristine clear. I salute the team who takes care of the beauty of the beach. I saw them sweeping and cleaning the place. The time we reached  the place, the rain started dropping.

Skull Sand Beach, Langkawi

The water is superb..

'Tarzan swing' - the nature gift.

Skull Sand Beach is actually a protected rainforest area that has a campsite. This place is taken care by the campsite team. It has facilities like washroom and a few chalet mean for camp facilitator. There's no tourist staying here. People comes and go back daily. This is a real nice place. This place is pristine jungle and you can hear sound of birds chirping, insect and monkey.  There's many hanging root that old enough and you can even sway on it. The water is actually very blue but the gloomy and cloudy day vanished the colour.

After that, we continued our journey to Kuah using the north route and we reached to this boat parking area. Rich Langkawian own the boats and I my husband was really attracted and planned to buy one... (lol) I think this is a dream that will remain a dream.

Snorkeling at Payar Island, Langkawi Marine Park

On The third day, we went to Payar Island. At this time our students have already gone back to college. We stayed for another one day.

Payar Island consist of 3 island under Langkawi Marine Park. These islands are famous with its marine life, infact it has the most marine species in Malaysia. It takes about 1 hour 30 minutes by boat from Langkawi to Payar. The water is clear greenish colour and there's a lot of fish including human sized reef sharks. The fish is so 'friendly', they surround you when you snorkel. There's one species, like to follow me, when I look at them, they look at me back, staring me. Maybe they asked for food. Actually, it's prohibited to feed the fishes. The reason is, once you feed them, they will crowd you in a second. At that time, the bigger size fish, normally reef shark  the predator, will also come to eat the fishes, if they failed to get the fish, they will get your hand. I interviewed a few life guard, they showed me their injured finger. All due to the shark feeding activity, once allowed and promoted, but later was banned by the authorities.

The fishes can be seen clearly..

That evening we went home and reach Langkawi at 5.00 o'clock. After having our tea, we went shopping at Kuah, Langkawi. Langkawi is famous for local because it's a duty free zone and you can buy anything at the unbelievable cheap price. The chocolates are awesome. You can also get dishes and cutleries from all over the world. On our way back to hotel, we saw this unknown object, the size of a boat and looks like a cabin with the opening on top. My husband suggested that this might be a long time ago submarine.

a long time ago submarine??

One of the Baron Hotel.

The last fascinating view was this flag painted hotel, namely Baron. Doesn't it looks nice? The next time I go to langkawi, this must be my place to stay..

Bye, salaammm..