Firstly, apologies that this next blog has taken a while to come through. We’ve been busy enjoying ourselves!
I was advised by a far more experienced travelling mum, Jenny Lynn of @travelynnfamily, that I would need a break following the busy weeks leading up to us leaving and so to get us to a beach soon after arriving in Malaysia. It would be an opportunity to continue with some onward plans without the distractions of daily life back at home. So Langkawi was meant to be our chilled beach time….
We stayed at the Meritus Pelangi Beach Resort and Spa and as soon as we arrived I knew that I should have had us staying there for longer but better to be left wanting more than to be spoilt with too much of a good thing right!? (I may also use this excuse as to why our blog posts are so irregular 😉 It’s so easy to lose track of time whilst traveling!)
We completely chilled out and it was definitely what was needed. I type this now that we’ve moved on and I can appreciate the value in that pause for breath.
We were so laid back in fact that we neglected to fully enjoy the beautiful stretch of beach that the hotel overlooks and I forgot that I was meant to be using the time to make onward plans! Ah well, I obviously needed the shutdown time.
Having time to catch up with people at home was also what we did here. Don’t you just love WhatsApp!!??
The boys spent hours playing in the hotel pools and made up games with other kids also. There were also great activities for the kids put on by the free onsite kids club such as batik painting, cooking and henna tattoos, meaning that it was very easy for me to lay back, listen to an audiobook, watch the world go by and even have a spell in the spa. Some friends at home clubbed together and gave me some Malaysian Ringgit as a gift which I promised to use on a spa treatment (we’ve visited one or two together) so thank you girls. I’m sorry that you couldn’t join me this time but it was very much enjoyed 🙂
Only on two occasions did we leave the hotel. The first was to walk along the beach to enjoy a delicious and cheap lunch at a nearby beachfront cafe. We picked up some fresh coconuts on our return and it was bliss.
Then on our last day we went on a boat excursion to the mangroves on the north of the island. The boat tour was far better then I had expected and our guide was a lot of fun. It was a bit of a melee as we arrived to the jetty, with small groups of tourists from a variety of hotels taking tours with a variety of providers, but after 30 mins or so we set off and had an interesting, tasty, thrilling and thoroughly enjoyable 4 hours or so exploring the mangroves and bat caves. On our return we had a delicious lunch on a floating restaurant/fish farm, before heading out into the Andaman Sea then finally setting down at a beautiful beach. Unfortunately I didn’t know about the last bit and so hadn’t packed the boys swim gear. Rookie error. I was not popular. My motto as always is; nobody died, so….
First lesson on travelling with kids. If you’re going anywhere near water, take swimwear and towels (not allowed back on the bus in wet clothes or we’d have had a dip). We enjoyed fresh mango smoothies whilst sitting on the beach instead. It’s a tough life 🙂
I had looked at booking this excursion through Klook before leaving the UK but didn’t get round to it. Whilst there I compared the hotels prices to arrange it and they were actually a lot cheaper than Klook plus the quality and variety of meal you were served depended on the deal your provider had agreed with the operator. Ours was excellent with lots of dishes and flexibility which was helpful as Alfie is completely vegetarian.
We met a few other groups from our hotel who were also on the trip and it was nice for me to chat with other adults for a change!
In Langkawi we got our first taste of the wildlife that we’d hoped to see on our travels. Wandering the resort we saw monitor lizards, macaques and lots of chatty and cheeky myna birds. On the excursion we saw eagles, snakes and bats as well as lots of macaques in the mangroves. We were told that the name Langkawi comes from Malay words for eagle and rock.
Alfie has ASD and doesn’t always express himself well, particularly with pain. Whilst we were in KL he had had a persistent cough and that continued during our stay in Langkawi. He then also started to cover his ear with his hand. He later said that some water had got in and not come out. As we got ready to move on to our next stop I was in watch and wait mode…
A group of Irish men who had asked Alfie to take their picture, gave us in exchange some recommendations of where to head to in George Town, Penang. We waved goodbye to beautiful Langkawi and headed south to Pilau Penang, on the look out for Love Lane!
Milo and her boys 