Langkawi – Near Disaster

So we left Vietnam looking for some downtime. We decided to checkout Langkawi, Malaysia, an island in the Andaman Sea near the border between Malaysia and Thailand. We knew it would be a tourist spot, what with it being an island, with beaches, and all of that, but Ellen was still recovering from her sinus cold, and we were just tired from we’d been doing.

We headed to the airport early, 5:00 a.m. for a 7:30 flight to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Our ever-optimistic hotelier Tommy said it was so early we’d make it easy to the airport, and we’d fly through ticketing…NOT.

We did finally make it through, even though we ran/walked our way to the gate, but we made it.

We had not planned on it being the second day of Ramadan. Most of the Muslim restaurants were closed. Nothing happens when the fast is being broken in the evening.

We finally made it to the White Lodge, a two-star hotel that was more than adequate for our needs.

That night, we went to a nearby resort for dinner. It really might have been Puerto Vallarta. Pool, pool bar, sunset…

The next morning, Ellen was feeling a bit better, but wanted to take it easy by the pool. I, on the other hand, woke up with acute gastro enteritis. The bathroom and I became very well acquainted. By the next day, I was feeling much better, though we still took it easy.

Langkawi is a tourist destination. It seems like they get many guests from Singapore, India, and China. Being in Malaysia, there are a ton of Indian and Chinese restaurants. As a tourist destination, they’ve created various activities to separate visitors from their money. One such place is the SkyCab, SkyBridge, SkyGlide, Skyetc. venue.

Having just experience a cable car in Sapa, we decided to check it out. Fortunately we were forewarned not to puke in the Grab on the way.

We opted for the VIP car, with a glass floor.

We got up there, then needed to take a funicular down to the SkyBridge, which is the largest single curved suspension bridge in the world. Talk about marketing…

Anyhow, clouds came in, then it started to downpour. We ended up heading back down and back to the hotel.

On the way down, we shared out car with a couple from Kazakhstan. She was from Korea, but they seemed to be speaking Russian.

We made it back to the hotel when I noticed my phone was not in my pocket. Terror ensued. We were leaving the next morning.

Fortunately the Grab receipt came to my email with instructions on what to do when and item is missing. Simply go to the history in the Grab app on your phone, and chat with the driver.

This is made much more difficult when the driver has the phone. We tried calling the phone on WhatsApp, but no answer. Eventually, we called another Grab driver, he sent a blast to a WhatsApp group, No response.

I did a google search to find my phone, but it had it in Oregon, undoubtedly due to our VPN.

We submitted a ticket with Grab, but heard nothing.

Finally, I remembered our phones have a “FindMyDevice” app. It seemed to use our eSim card to locate the phone, on the opposite end of the island, 40 minutes away. So at 9:00 p.m. we booked another Grab to go to a place that was showing on the app, but not Google Maps, so we didn’t know exactly where it was. We drove there, and I got out of the car trying to make the phone ring. Heard nothing.

We saw a man walk out to the road and stopped to chat with him. After a bit, he realized we were good people, and pointed to his house. He went in and got the driver. He immediately unlocked the car and got the phone. The volume had been turned off.

Needless to say, I had a stiff glass of wine that night.

This morning we got up and had a light breakfast at a place next door to the hotel.

Then off we jetted to Georgetown, Penang. The Langkawi airport and flight was a joy. We finally arrived at the Bayview Hotel Penang on the 15th floor with a view to the water. Went out to “Two Frenchies,” a fabulous French restaurant. Ellen had the beef bourguignon and I had a cassoulet. Phew.