Malaysia 2024

Wednesday6November

We leave the island of Penang by the smaller of the two bridges, the Jambatan Pulau Pinang.

Completed in 1985, it was one of the first bridges to use a cable-stayed design in Southeast Asia.

The highway leads us north of the country towards the island of Langkawi, not far from the border with Thailand. Who says highway, says rest area. In Malaysia, it is the hawkers who take care of it. These multiple small restaurants share a common space where travelers can eat. For us, it will be a coffee served directly from the coffee pot to the glass...  

Unlike Penang, the island is not connected to the mainland by a bridge. We must therefore take the ferry abandoning our car in a closed hangar, because no boat carrying cars was available. Our boarding takes place in Kuala Kedah.

Phew, no, it is not these fishing boats that will take us.  

Installation with or without window.

Barely two hours later, we arrive at Kuah where we pick up a small rental car that will accompany us for the next two days.

Lunch in a kopitiam in Kedah.

It will be a Nasi Lemak for me, the Malaysian national dish.

After leaving our luggage in our new Airbnb, we start exploring the island starting with this small beach of Pantai Kok.

Back to the car and bam! Impossible to restart. Our new car wants to know nothing!   No more battery! We whatsapp the agency and the boss offers to send her brother and another identical car. Which was said, was done. The brother restarted the car with jumper cables, and left us his car!  

Return to the apartment of the Perdana Beach Resort and its swimming pool...  

Dinner will be in the street Jalan Lapangan Terbang between two restaurants. The first for a kind of kebab and the second for dessert.  

And the chef prepares in front of the customer a specialty of the island, a kind of sweet "Roti Canai". He allows me to film for the demonstration.

It is a kind of very thin crepe batter in which the chef adds an ingredient chosen by the customer. For me, it will be Nutella (for lack of chocolate).

And here is the result with a small bowl of condensed milk! Excellent!  

We finish the evening with a little night walk in the street Jalan Pantai Chenang.

Thursday7November

New day in Langkawi. We are going to take a tour of the beaches neighboring the hotel.

We are on a narrow road that penetrates into the sea for 2 km long to protect the coast from erosion by serving as breakwaters. The whole is extended by 4 other kilometers forming a complete dike protecting the entire airport placed right next to it.

In the distance, we discern our activity of the day. High up in the mountains, the cable car cabins of the Langkawi SkyCab overlook Mount Machincang. We will be there later!

The large parking lots are not full. Lucky us!

First step, go all the way up!  

Below, it's the "Oriental Village" with a "theme park" atmosphere. We will come back to it later.

For now, we take the gondolas to reach Mount Machincang.

As we go along, the pretty panorama appears.

Here we are arrived. We distinguish in the distance, the dike where we were earlier.

The attractions of the place are not limited to the cable car. An eagle's nest awaits us suspended above the void...  

Crab-eating macaques are not only temple guardians. They are everywhere tourists go in droves...  

The other flagship attraction, the SkyWalk. We will have to take gondolas again to go there.

And here we are in the eagle's nest ("Eagle's Nest"). It is on a fully glazed surface that you will have to move to approach the raptor's eggs... So that the continuous flow of tourists does not wear out the glass too quickly, you must first take overshoes.

And here I am, like Harry Potter, levitating 300 meters above the ground.

A piece of shell is missing, and no chick on the horizon. He must have taken flight and left the nest for good.  

The view is as beautiful under the feet as in front...

In the mouth of the eagle

I thought I saw a big tiger  

There is not only a tiger and an eagle here... Dinosaurs try to invade the area...  

Doesn't look very mean this dinosaur...

The skybridge.

We take a cable car again to reach the Skybridge.

Short walk to reach the bridge.

And here is the Skybridge. This pedestrian bridge measures 125 meters long and is suspended from a single pylon. It was inaugurated in 2005.

The pylon is 81 meters high.

Multitudes of islets extend Langkawi.

And meanwhile, it's grooming, it's grooming...  

Padlock hearts grow really well at this altitude...  

The Skybridge seen from the sky.

Come on, I think we enjoyed the place well. All that remains is to retrace our steps down.

And hop. Smooth arrival at the park village.

The rest will be much more playful, with the different 3D attractions of the Langkawi Geoparc, starting with the Sky Dome with the SkyRex and BoBoiBoy!  

We continue with the very amusing "3D Art Langkawi".

Here, large frescoes on a human scale cover entire rooms. A point on the ground tells you where to stand to take the photo and it will be up to the visitor to integrate like magic into the scene...    

Tilt your head to return the ground to its original placement...  

Einstein didn't just put particles in bottles...  

3 PM! It is high time to eat. It will be with a Nasi Ayam, that is to say a chicken rice.

We take the car and reach the waterfalls of Seven Wells (Telaga Tujuh in Malay). We are welcomed by a dusky langur (Trachypithecus obscurus). This monkey, recognizable by its large white circles around the eyes, is arboreal and feeds mainly on leaves.

A strangler fig (Ficus benghalensis)?

After the artificial attractions, here are the natural ones of Telaga Tujuh.

We now enter the jungle of the "Machinchang Cambrian Geoforest Park".

We follow the river to the "blue pool".

Enchanting little corner with one of the "small" waterfalls of Telaga Tujuh.

And here is another much larger one...  

Back to the car! We have one hour left before sunset! Let's go find it on a beach before its night.  

We don't look very far, we are on the same beach as this morning. And while a cloud pours its surplus water, our star begins slowly to be hidden by the horizon.  

Street dinner with a satay and its good dose of skewers.   Tomorrow morning, we leave the island and the descent south will begin!