Pulau Langkor

We have travelled from Cameron Highlands to our next destination – Pulau Langkor. It’s a tiny island, 3km by 9km off the west coast of Malaysia, surrounded by beaches and covered in jungle. To get to PL, we took a bus to Ipoh and then spent a couple hours in a dingy bus station waiting for our transfer to Lumut where we would then catch a ferry.  The bus ride, although not as spectacular as our arrival to Tanah Rata, was still pretty splendid as the road curved through ancient mountains covered in jungle and tea plantations. Every once in awhile you could see huge patches of red soil cascading down the mountains where a mudslide had ripped its way through the trees. Many of our fellow passengers slept or stared straight ahead as we travelled out of the highlands down to the highway below while I couldn’t close my eyes, afraid I’d miss something. Even the highway offered us a view of limestone hills.

Ipoh, a largish city, didn’t appeal to us at all and we decided not to return there for a visit. The wait at the bus station was fairly uneventful. When we entered the station, salespeople began shouting at us in Malay, trying to get our business. Stations around the waiting area house several different companies each offering different routes, buses, and prices, which means competition and usually a decent price to be found. Unfortunately for us, there was only one company offering a route to Lumut so our bus wasn’t as nice as the others, but it did have air conditioning and in this heat, you definitely want that. Lunch at the station consisted of apples, strawberries and a cup of corn purchased from a vendor (yes, they had fresh corn sold in a cup for about 65 cents).

I should tell you about the bathrooms. Luckily, I’m accustomed to them from my Korea days and visiting China and Thailand so they didn’t catch me off guard.  First of all, you have to pay to use the public facilities - 10 cents CAD so it isn’t much – extra for toilet paper so I’ve learned to always go into washrooms with my own paper.  Typically you can find a Western style toilet in one of the stalls but the rest are usually squat toilets. You would think that using a Western toilet would be the way to go but when there is a seat (because there isn’t always), it is always wet.  As you may already know, toilet paper isn’t something that everyone uses in Asia – every stall has a hose with running water or a water filled bucket with ladle so instead of paper, one cleans with water, and I guess, drip dries???  Washrooms here are not a nice place – there are sinks to wash your hands and sometimes soap but it’s a rare washroom that provides something to dry your hands with.  It pays to have short hair – I’ve used my hair a lot to dry my hands on.

Our bus ride to Lumut was okay, not a lot to see.  The ferry was a mere 3 minute walk from the bus station and we didn’t have long to wait – maybe 10 minutes. 20 minutes later, we were at the town of Pangkor on our little island. We took a cab to our little resort and voila, here we are.

Our room is on the third floor, the one with the towels on the railing.

This is a treat for us – swimming pool, balcony, open air lobby with free wifi, and a nice clean dry bathroom. It isn’t on the beach exactly, but the beach is across the road, so it isn’t far. Unlike resorts in the Caribbean, the ones in Malaysia do not include food or drinks.

On arrival, we went for a swim in the pool and were astonished at how warm the water was from the hot sun, it felt like bath water.  We dried ourselves on the lounge chairs and watched small blue birds skim the water of the pool for a drink. Later, we went for a walk to a restaurant on the beach for a meal of fish.  Our view for dinner was a bay of sparkling blue water, setting sun, tiny Giam Island, and not a soul on the beach.

Across the water I noticed a wooden building with tables and chairs along the water so I asked the server if it was a resort or a restaurant. He laughed, telling us a story of a couple who walked over to the building, planted themselves at a table and asked the first person who walked by for 2 Tigers (the local beer here in Malaysia); embarrassing because the building was actually a Buddhist temple.

On the walk back, we stood and watched 20 to 30 monkeys (macaques) make their way along some wires across the road – little babies would play and fall off the wire landing safely on a branch of leaves. Two monkeys stopped midway and began grooming each other forcing all the other monkeys to jump or climb over them. Some stopped and stared at us, a bit disconcerting because monkeys can suddenly turn vicious as I discovered the following day…

Day 2 and 3

Our morning started slow and lazy. We had breakfast at the hotel restaurant and lounged about surfing and reading. We had a nice chat with the manager of the property who told us of his own visit to Canada and Niagara Falls and how in a few weeks, he was on his way to Mongolia and Russia for a vacation.  He is originally from Taiping, Malaysia and when he retired the owners of the resort asked him to manage it. He lives on the property with his family.

Back in our room, we were excited to discover a monkey sitting on our balcony and of course, had to take a photo of it. Shortly after, it disappeared over the side.

 I went out and peered over the edge to find the monkey one floor below staring up at me. As soon as we made eye contact, it hissed and moved quickly, and I mean quickly, towards me. Believe me, I bee-lined it back into the room and watched it safely through the glass. It sat on the balcony railing, just a few feet away, hissing at me; quite territorial. I kept worrying it would steal our clothing that was drying on the railing but it was disinterested.  Later in the pool, a fellow tourist told us about seeing a woman just down the street, run out of her shop screaming as a monkey chased her, apparently after the teabag she had in her hand. Yes, they are cute but one must be wary around them.

I did some reading on monkeys and how to avoid confrontations with them. For one thing, you should not smile at them or show your teeth as they see this as a form of aggression. Do not play tug-‘o-war with them – if they pull on something, give it to them. They will probably lose interest and drop it soon anyways. Monkeys have a keen sense of smell and can smell food even if in an unopened package so be careful when carrying snacks around monkeys.

The place around here is fairly deserted because it’s low season – many villas and guesthouses and restaurants are sitting empty. We picked a good time to come; the beach is deserted and I honestly can’t imagine being here when it’s busy. However, this does mean limited eating spots – there is the resort kitchen that’s open for breakfast and lunch and then a restaurant down the street for dinner, and two on the beach for lunch and dinner.  The prices are not the cheapest compared to the rest of Malaysia but are still cheaper than eating out in Canada.

Ian found there were too many choices for dinner and couldn’t decide what to eat.

Usually it’s me who can’t decide and Ian has to wait while I try to make up my mind. This time, I knew exactly what I wanted: grilled fish and iced lemon tea, similar to the lemon tea I had in the Cameron Highlands only with lots of ice. Malays drink water out of the tap, but we’ve been buying bottled water. We have however been brushing our teeth with tap water and have had ice – which we won’t be doing when we leave Malaysia. I was surprised to hear it was local barracuda that I was eating, a first for me.

There are lots of interesting noises here: during the day the Hornbills make loud calls to each other, monkeys scream at each other when angry, and insects can be deafening.  Hornbills often travel in pairs, and this particular Hornbill was sitting on the railing of the lobby hoping for some fruit.

For dinner day 3, I decided to try the crab, here is a photo of me before I received my meal – I was pretty content.

Then I got my crab and what a mistake I made ordering that! It arrived covered in some sort of red chile sauce. Imagine the mess when you have to grab onto the crab, in your hands, in order to crack the shell to get at the meat! I had sauce everywhere including my shirt and couldn’t pick up my drink or a fork because my hands were covered in this hot red sauce. I was not impressed and quite miserable when I was done. In retrospect, I should have gotten Ian to take a photo of me AFTER eating that thing.

Day 4

Today we decided to be a little more motivated and rented motorbikes to tour the island. We started off at 10:30am on our tiny automatic 90 cc bikes – Ian looked huge on his, considering at home he drives a 750. It took me awhile to get my confidence back – it’s been awhile, but it got easier as we went. The roads are something else and I wish I could have stopped to take a photo of them. They are very steep with sharp curves, some almost at 90 degrees and at times, narrow down to a bike lane width so vans coming the other way are forced into your lane. It’s impossible to go fast. I think we got up to, maybe 65km on a short stretch of straight road. While driving, you have to keep an eye out for pedestrians, other motorbikes passing you in your lane, monkeys, dogs, and goats.

The photos below are from the tip of the island. One reveals a village built out on the water.

On the east coast, we drove through the fishing village of Sungei Pinang Kecil making a brief stop at an Indian temple built around a tree. I got this photo of the village from there -

In the Indian temple were two white horses that one would find on a carousel. I haven’t quite figured out the scoop on these temples, can’t find it in my research. Remember that temple I asked the server about? Well, Ian and I paid it a visit and found statues of Donald Duck, a rat, a mermaid and a turtle – very cartoon-like – displayed around the property of temple…see for yourself.

I am at a loss as to the significance.   

We continued around the island, with frequent stops, in about an hour. Ian wanted to tackle the challenging roads again so we did that, making our way around half the island and then back again over the same roads but in the opposite direction. Gotta say, it was a blast.

Day 5

Last day looks like rain, rain, and more rain, but we don’t care. We’re quite happy to sit here in the open lobby chilling. Perhaps we’d feel different if this was one day in only a few that we had for a vacation, but when you have a full year ahead of you, who cares?

Tomorrow is travel day – taxi, ferry, bus, ferry, taxi – all to get to Georgetown, Malaysia’s second largest city found on Pulau Penang, an island off the west coast and just south of Thailand.