Today was the last day of the Relaxed Yoga Retreat. Neti Kriya? No dramas. Pranayama? Pretty good. Meditation? So-so. Yoga? Fantastic as always. The retreat finished about 10.30am and after breakfast (those awesome cream cheese and cranberry buns from The Loaf and an iced coffee in a can) and a swim, I set off to buy a dry bag.
Dry bags are all the rage here. Basically, they come in a variety of capacities from 5L up and are splash proof and float. You're better not to submerge them, but if you drop your dry bag off a boat, a) it will float and b) your phone and camera won't end up in Davy Jones' locker. Plus, they're great when it rains.
I found a purple (of course) dry bag in 5L capacity for about $13 AUD. A bargain indeed, considering it would be at least $50 back in Melbourne, plus I'm doing a lot of outdoorsy activities for the next few days in between the next yoga retreat and flying out next Sunday, so I need to keep my stuff dry.
Having spent so much time hanging out on a yoga mat, it was time to get out and about. I saw quite a bit of Langkawi when I was here last year - cable car, seven wells waterfall, black sand beach, kuah town, eagle square - etc. However, given that I've turned into a bit of a sandal-wearing, eco-friendly, semi-vegetarian, recycling creative freak since my last trip, it was time to get out into nature.
Gunung Raya in the background (hidden by clouds), the other big mountain.
I have two days off until the next retreat starts on Tuesday evening, so today I had a Nature Cycling Tour booked with Dev's adventures. I got a RM20 discount for booking today's tour and tomorrow's tour together. Awesome!
At 3.15pm I was picked up at the "resort" in a tour shuttle van (Bas Persiaran, Malay for tour bus) and taken to the drop zone - a bicycle rental shop near Pantai Kok, just over the pink bridge. Here I met Khirien, my guide for the day, who informed me that I was the only one booked so I had him all to myself!
Being a white man, I wanted a bike helmet. I've seen the way people (i.e. tourists) drive on this Island and it scares the bejeesus out of me. I'm not worried about the locals, it's the flipping idiots from overseas (mostly eastern and northern Europe) zipping around on scooters with scant regard for the safety of other road users, let alone themselves. After a few failed attempts, I Macguyver'd a helmet on and after a test loop on my trusty Raleigh 21 speed "Mountain Bike" we set off in search of paddy fields, afternoon tea and Gamat.
A word on Gamat or sea cucumber in English. Langkawi has a cottage industry in Gamat products. Basically, this stuff is made into creams (krim), balms (bam), liquid Gamat and liniments. There's a small stall back towards the pink bridge so we popped in. Gamat sellers basically promise that Gamat will heal whatever ails you and as Khirien is also a bit of a gym junkie, he helped me select a bottle of liniment krim, perfect for rubbing on sore muscles.
In hindsight, I should have asked if there is a cooling Krim Gamat for sore butts from seriously uncomfortable bike saddles. Having not spent four hours on a bike for a while and totally forgetting to bring my bike shorts, I was in a fair whack of discomfort by the end of the tour. But more on that later!
We rode off down the road, headed under and around the pink bridge off the main road and over to the first stop - Mahatir's marketplace. Or, what remains of it. Basically the former PM of Malaysia, Tun Dr. Mahathir bin Mohamad, had some amazing plans for Langkawi. His Government setup an organisation to develop Langkawi into something of a Tourist Paradise and built a marketplace (totally defunct), jogging tracks that almost nobody uses, a bunch of other stuff and declared Langkawi a duty free island. If you want booze and chocolates at cheap prices, Langkawi is the place to go.
Sadly, the marketplace never got off the ground and is just an empty shell, which is a massive shame as it's a good size, in an okay location and has lots of potential.
We rode on down to the main road, crossed over and followed a river path, where I saw a real Malaysian waterbed, in it's natural habitat
Over a small bridge and into the paddy fields we pedalled. We passed a herd of Water Buffalo and their best bird mates, the Cattle Egret.
We were rolling along another trail when I decided it was photo time after spotting three cute calves just chilling in the paddy. I was taking their photo, minding my own business and enjoying the serenity.
A white calf who was hanging out 50 feet away, chewing his cud, decided he wanted his photo taken too. So, he literally walked over and into the shot. Cows on Langkawi are sacred too, like in India, so they can pretty much do whatever the heck they like - including photobombing. As soon as he came over, two of the other calves started walking off!
Clearly white calf and I knew each other in a past life, because this little guy just wouldn't let up. He even started to follow me out of the paddy, so Khirien and I got the heck out, pronto!
About ten minutes down the road we found a kampung village and stopped to admire their orchards and vegetable gardens, plus some slightly odd housing architecture. Many of these houses have had "extensions" and despite being as fiscally challenged as can be, they all have satellite TV. The assortment of fruit and vegetables includes tapioca, mangoes, pineapple, tamarind, lemongrass, cilli (chillies), rambutan, various spices and condiments. I've never seen a tamarind tree before, so Khirien gave me the rundown. I thought it looked a bit like a Kowhai tree in NZ, all it needed was yellow flowers and a couple of Tui!
With regards to the interesting architecture, when a family wishes to move house in the kampung, they call 100 or so of their closest mates and they literally cut the house up, stick it on a lori and roll on to the next destinasi. It's a peaceful place and was nice just lurking and admiring the agriculture. I saw this nice uncle, sitting under a tree, just chillin':
Around the corner we stopped for two reasons. One was because of the Muslim Cemetery. When a family member dies, they are buried here with a little pottery urn on top of the ground. The family then plants a frangipani tree on top. This is beautiful.
The second reason was a rundown on Rambutan (these are nowhere near ripe), lemongrass and Neem trees. These Rambutan will be ready to eat in a few months, but it's interesting seeing them unripe and on a tree. I've only ever seen ripe ones in markets around Malaysia (Ipoh, KL, Kota Kinabalu), so this was cool.
Malay families in the kampung plant lemongrass bushes to keep mosquitos away. It mostly works, and it turns out that lemongrass is used to make citronella. Yay, I learnt something new today!
Better yet, I learnt all sorts of cool facts about the Neem tree. Native to India, it is used to cure chicken pox, made into soap, used in a wide range of beauty products...AND...if you see a neem branch hanging on someone's front door in Langkawi, don't go in - somebody has chicken pox!
We turned out of the kampung and onto another main road. We rode on until we found a classic example of a taxi driver's house. Basically, taxi drivers on the island earn more than doctors. How? Commissions. You hire a taxi driver and ask him to take you somewhere for shopping, lunch, crafts, etc. Chances are, wherever he takes you, he will be paid commission - similar to Bali, it could be up to 30%. The more you shop, the more he earns. Prices get jacked up to cover it, of course. Nothing illegal, but a bit shifty.
That's why they have the flashiest houses on the island, next to Mahathir's compound which he basically never leaves when he's on the island as he's not too popular with some of the locals.
A little further on we pulled over so Khirien could show me a cotton tree. The cotton tree has large brown pods, which if you pop them open out comes cotton fluff! Wicked!
A few more minutes down the road, we pulled over again as the traffic was crazy and there were school kids in uniforms everywhere. Langkawi has it's weekend on Friday and Saturday, so the kids were finishing school for the day today on Sunday, the first day of the working and school week. After what seemed like an eternity, we crossed the road and arrived at a roadside stall that I was told made the best iced lemon tea on the island.
Khirien wasn't kidding. I drank two lemon iced teas, two iced coffees and washed it down with a wholemeal chapati. The uncle who runs the stand used to make roti but he switched to chapati. His wife makes the drinks and she's awesome too. It was so hot and I was so thirsty that the drinks went in and never came out...LOL.
Back on the bikes, we headed past the entrance to the Buffalo farm (I'll go there on the next trip, I promise, but I will need to rent a car) and down the road to where some intriguing birds nests were hanging from a house. I can't remember the name of the bird, but the nests have trapdoors so that if a snake gets in, Mama bird can grab the eggs and flee out a trapdoor. Pretty cool!
We passed a sugar factory and more paddy fields before crossing the road and following another trail full of potholes. A few km down the trail it turned into a road with some pretty flash houses sitting in the paddy. I learned that they belong to expats who mostly run local restaurants. Western houses in a paddy field? Oddly juxtaposed, but the views are incredible. I also saw this lovely tree spider, so had to take it's photo.
Up the road a little further, we pulled over as there was a large black Drongo bird - a Greater Racket-Tailed Drongo to be precise. I'm not sure how well you can see his rather unique tail with weird feathery bits hanging from either side of the bottom of his tail (kind of like little brooms!) but google can sort that out for you.
Back on the grass, Khirien was playing with Mimosa plants, showing me how they close when tapped lightly. I found a plant and managed to get two leaves to close at once. Score, direct hit!
Back on the bikes and after some lovely potholes, the trail became awfully familiar. We were back in photobombing calf territory, but we'd done a big loop so I was able to avoid him. We crossed back over the funny blue bridge, headed back along the river and up to the main road. But, not before I took a few parting shots of the paddy fields with Gunung Raya in the background.
After several minutes of waiting, Khirien shot across the road on his bike and I was following, but stupidly lost my nerve. The huge traffic gap he'd selected in between what seemed like every motosikal on the island passing by had closed. I finally saw a gap but a van nearly collected me from literally out of nowhere. After seven or eight recitations of my "cycling on Langkawi on a strange bike" mantra of "shiiiiiit!" I was over the main road and back on the road past the defunct market to the pink bridge. After another kilometre or so, I had to pull over and give my butt a break. LOL.
The tour was nearly over. The sun was starting to drop and the mosquitos were preparing to get up. We rode on, under the pink bridge and past a random boat that was parked underneath the bridge. Back on the main road, we had to dodge tourists in rental cars, passing Ikan Bakar (grilled or BBQ fish) roadside stands, the Gamat shop and several potholes.
We soon arrived back at the bike shop and the tour was over. Boo. I had a great afternoon and Khirien is a fantastic guide! I'd do this tour again, but with bike shorts on (LOL). I'd probably go in the morning next time as well, so I could see rubber tapping in action.
After bidding Khirien farewell, the driver took me back to Cenang. I got changed and headed off to find something to eat. I wandered up and down Jalan Pantai Cenang, trying to find something decent. I had a RM1 ice cream cone at McDonalds then settled on chicken chop with salad and fries from Nasi Kandar Tomato, washed down with an iced coffee and iced lemon tea for about $4 AUD.
And now here I am, back at the hotel and prepping for a big day of Mangrove Boat Touring tomorrow! Bring it on!
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