Langkawi: Underwater World and Cable Car

Langkawi Island is just a 45 minutes ferry ride from Kuala Perlis, while Kuala Perlis is just a 10 minutes drive from Kangar. So as an orang Kangar, there’s no reason for me not to visit Langkawi.

For Perlis people, they think of Langkawi as a place to buy cheap alcohols and cigarettes because Langkawi is one of the duty-free regions in Malaysia. A bottle of branded vodka costs less than RM50 there, a Toyota Vios is only around RM50k. See how the government of Malaysia made us suffer with the sky high tax rates.

Oi ! Apa lu cakap?!

Oops… sorry Pak Lah. The government of Malaysia is the best government in the entire human history. We rakyat are very very satisfied under your leadership. (I don’t want to get into troubles you know)

When me and Amy arrived at Langkawi, we rented a car to go around Langkawi. We got ourselves a map and started driving around to look for interesting places. As soon as I was trying to find the exit to drive out of the Kuah town, I made a mistake.

Our rented car - Proton Wira Aeroback manual, metallic green

I was looking around for road signs and didn’t pay enough attention on the road, I accidentally ran through a red light and nearly crashed into other cars. Luckily the other cars made way for me or else it could have been an accident.

As I felt lucky for myself after avoiding a stupid accident, I suddenly saw two traffic policemen standing just 100 meters in front of me. Needless to say, I was stopped by them. I rolled down the car window and looked at them as if I felt sorry. I know that they wanted duit kopi so here’s how the conversation went between me and one of the policemen:

Police: “Aiyo, lu tau tak tadi itu lampu merah?”

Leong: “Soli la encik, I tourist ma, tak tau jalan, so accidentally langgar itu lampu merah.”

Police: “Kalau ini saman hor, tige ratus ringgit tau?”

Leong: “Wah… tige ratus ringgit ar? Mahal lah encik…”

Police: “So sekarang macam mana mau settle?” (This is the official hint used by all policemen in Malaysia when they are prepared to receive bribe)

Leong: “Settle sini boleh tak encik?” (And this is the official hint used by Malaysian when they are preparing to bribe the police)

Police: “Boleh… mesti boleh punye… Berapa lu mau settle?”

Leong: “Encik I student lagi la, tige puluh ringgit boleh tak?”

Police: “Woi… mana boleh… standard punye price lima puluh ringgit.”

Bribe also got standard price, police these days really are professionals. Don’t want to waste my time and spoil my mood during this Langkawi trip, I quickly slipped a 50 Ringgit note to him. He then kept the money into his pocket very fast and smooth, just like a professional policeman.

Very true

I then carried on with my journey to the first destination, the Langkawi Underwater World. I’ve always wanted to revisit the place because the last time I went was 4 years ago and the place was still new with nothing much to see.

The Langkawi Underwater World was not as big as Singapore’s but it still worth a second visit.

Not quite the best angle because I lazy to walk to the front

I am not familiar with all those underwater creatures’ names. I can only differentiate those creatures as small fish, big fish, beautiful fish, weird fish, sotong (octopus), crabs, and prawns. There were penguins inside the Underwater World but all of the penguins hid inside their caves so I only managed to take one after I used maximum zoom of my camera.

Maximum digital zoom plus shaking hands = blur photo

I got my new camera just 2 days before my Langkawi trip so I still not familiar with it at that time. Some pictures maybe blurry, I am so soli.

Steve Irwin killer

Sotong

Weird fish

Beautiful fish

Big fish

Tortoise doing yoga

To be honest, there’s thousands of species of underwater creatures in Langkawi Underwater World, when you see so many fishes swimming around in the aquariums for hours, you will ki siao.

Trying to find the way to Cable Car

So we decided to head for another place: the Langkawi Cable Car.

The Langkawi Cable Car main attraction is a 20 minutes cable car ride up to the Gunung Machincang viewing platforms. At 708 meters above sea level, you can have a 360 degree panaromic views of the Langkawi islands, Kedah and southern Thailand as well as nice views of the Langkawi mountains, all from the viewing platforms on top of Gunung Machincang.

The cable cars are just like the cable cars in Genting Highlands, but this one in Langkawi is different. This cable car system won quite a few awards locally and internationally:

Endorsed by the MALAYSIA BOOK OF RECORDS for ‘The Longest Free Span Single Rope Cable Car – Total in Length – 919.5 meter’ and ‘One of the Steepest Gradient in the World – 42 degree’

PRIX ACIER AWARDS 2005 for ‘Outstanding construction, architectural quality & technical proficiency of steel works’

And…

FOOTBRIDGE AWARDS 2005 - ‘Winner for Technology LONGEST SPAN’

I’ve no idea what those awards means, maybe when you sit inside their cable car your buttocks can shit gold.

On the way up to the viewing platform

Anyway, the view on top of the mountain was just amazing, I can sit there for hours just to enjoy the views.

According to the leaflets, the temperature was 5 degrees cooler than lowlands but I didn’t realize any difference because I still sweated like hell. Maybe it’s those damn global warming effects again.

5 degree less than lowlands? Don't hao siao me

There’s also a curved suspension bridge just beside the viewing platform which I found it interesting. The bridge was curved and it linked one peak of the mountain to another. The pylon that holds the bridge is 82 meters in height and the foundation is built 605 meter above sea level.

Looking down from the bridge

It’s quite scary to walk so high up across the valley but the view was just spectacular. However, whenever there’s strong wind, I sensed that the bridge was shaking a little bit. No wonder the management will close down the bridge during bad weather.

These are only some of the places I visited in Langkawi, I will post up other places when I got the time. Settle?