Day Ten: A Boy and His Scooter

Day Ten

Today I'm in: Pantai Cenang, Langkawi, Malaysia

As I mentioned yesterday, today I rented a motor scooter - only 35 ringgit (or about $12) for the day - so I could explore more of the island beyond the one corner I'm staying on.  I've never driven a scooter before and was a little nervous, but it turned out to be a lot of fun.  The hardest part was having to pretend I knew what I was doing at the rental place so they wouldn't change their mind.  I hurt my credibility a little bit when I squealed the tires leaving the shop, but by then they couldn't come after me! 

I was glad I had the scooter because Langkawi is a pretty big island.  The hotels and resorts are concentrated in a few corners and in between there's a lot of driving.  I drove through a pretty amazing landscape of rice paddies, limestone peaks covered in jungle vegetation, twisting roads along hillsides above the ocean, banana plantations, and one enormous but not-so-nice-looking Lafarge cement factory (Cemex case, anyone?)  On a two-wheeled vehicle you feel every bump in the road and every temperature change, and you see and hear things that go completely unnoticed in a car.  It's a pretty cool way to get around.  

Being out in the fresh air has its advantages, but when it starts raining, it's not much fun.  Unfortunately, this afternoon Langkawi got hit by four thundershowers.  The first one came while I was climbing at Durian Perangin (see below), so I was able to head for a picnic shelter, but I was on the road for storms two and three.  I quickly pulled onto a side street during storm #2 and hid under someone's front porch for about 15 minutes (I hope they don't mind) and only got a little bit wet.  Storm #3 hit a lot more suddenly - it had been cloudy for an hour or two, then I felt a few drops, and then the sky opened up as though someone had turned on a tap directly above Langkawi.  I wasn't far from Pantai Cenang and originally thought I could make it home, but after about a minute of driving in the downpour I had to pull into a gas station, where I spent almost a half-hour watching the rain beat down.

Despite the rain I was able to visit a few places on the 'must see' list for Langkawi.  The first was Telaga Tejuh, or Seven Wells, a series of mountain pools on the side of Gunung Machinchang, one of the mountains that forms the island.  Getting up there required hoofing it up more than 600 steps (left) but at the top I found the pools, all connected by little channels of rushing water that were smooth and swift enough to slide down, like a natural waterslide.  As long as you stayed clear of the cable fence where the water then plunged over an extremely steep cliff, it was a lot of fun, and the view across the jungle to the ocean was pretty spectacular as well. 

Next I drove out to a beach that my guidebook described as amazing, but when I arrived I was disappointed to find that a new resort has been built there and access to the beach is restricted to hotel guests only.  So I headed back inland and up a foggy mountainside to Durian Perangin, another series of waterfalls, this time coming down the side of Gunung Raya, the island's highest point.  A thunderstorm hit while I was there, so I had to spend some time hiding out in a picnic shelter, but the best part was having the entire place to myself.  Except for a few vendors down in the parking lot, it was deserted, which made for a great experience.

After completing my circuit of the island with a drive through Kuah, the main town (which is where most residents live and which has almost nothing for a tourist to see) I headed for dinner in Pantai Tengah.  Thunderstorm #4 hit just as I was locking up the bike outside the restaurant, and I got to listen to the rain while I tried out some beef rendang, a Malaysian curry made with coconut milk and lots of chili peppers.  

My number one scooter tip for anyone thinking of trying it - don't apply sunscreen and then drive without washing your hands.  Trying to operate a motorized vehicle, that accelerates by twisting a handle, with greasy hands is not easy or fun.  Also, note to Malaysian women drivers - a headscarf and a helmet are not the same thing.  Protect your heads.

Tomorrow's my last day on Langkawi - I leave around 3pm - so the next blog entry will be coming to you all from Bangkok, where I'm spending the night before flying to northern Thailand.  I've only been here for three days, but this is one of the longer stops of my trip, and so it feels like I've been here awhile.  Taiwan (just over a week ago) feels like much longer ago than that!  It's crazy to think there are still two months and two more continents ahead of me.