Asia Trip: Langkawi, Malaysia

Although we arrived in Langkawi, Malaysia early in the morning we took it pretty easy and didn't leave the ship until lunchtime. We headed out to the shopping strip at 12:30 on the ship's shuttle service. On the strip we stopped at McDonald's to attempt to get WiFi (no luck, but the ice cream made getting lunch less urgent), picked up Malaysian currency for the next few days, and then walked out to look for lunch. 

We ended up stopping at a nice, open restaurant and splitting prawn pad thai, a chicken cashew curry (with a red sauce, not as good as in Phang Nga) and green papaya salad. The restaurant had a cat that begged for food in a very charismatic manner (but got nothing from us). 

We took our time walking back to the shuttle, and stopped by the stunning beach. It was a great, inexpensive, afternoon outing. We were back in our stateroom washing off the sand and humidity by 3:15. The beaches so lovely, and the cost of food so reasonable that Langkawi made it on to our list of future vacation destinations.

Asia Trip: Phuket, Thailand

Our ship docked in Phuket, Thailand early in the morning, but we actually spent the day in the adjacent province Phang Nga. It was nearly a 2 hour trip by bus across the island of Phuket to the mainland (joined by a short bridge). There was plenty of time for our guide to tell us about customs of Thailand and how he lost his job as a coconut harvester because they have trained monkeys to harvest coconuts. We drove past rubber plantations, and it was interesting to see that they plant pineapple in the rows between the young rubber trees so that the plantation is producing something before the rubber can be tapped.

We switched over to a long tourist boat at the pier in Phang Na bay, then spent a few hours on the water touring the islands.

We boated through a limestone cave, and took a few pictures of the island used in James Bond, "The man with the golden gun".

We then stopped at a fishing village held up on stilts in the water. The guide and the material for the tour called it the "Muslim fishing village" because all the people who live there are Muslim. They clearly cater to tourists - one side of the village is restaurants with piers for the long tour boats. Through the restaurants, there are shops selling all sorts of souvenirs (pashminas, shell or pearl jewellery, ice cream bars).

Then we boated back to the pier for a tasty buffet lunch. Particularly good was the chicken cashew stir fry. There were also fresh lychees and other (hairy) berries to sample.