Click on the panorama above to enlarge
At times, Langkawi seems like one money making scheme after another. Although the island is 478 square kilometers and it’s filled to the brim with tourists, public transportation is conspicuously absent. Instead, visitors can use the over-priced taxis governed by one hell of a well-organized taxi mafia.
Pantai Cenang too overdeveloped? Want to get out and explore the island and you don’t feel like shelling out a ton of dough on taxis? Just join an expensive, cookie-cutter island hopping tour. Or how about a $60 snorkeling tour? (Are you people serious? Is this Monte Carlo?)
No, in the spirit of independent travel (and thriftiness) Thomas and I, armed with a map, decided to rent a motorbike and drive around the island on our own. First stop, the bay at the base of that stunning karst ridge that I showed in my last posting.
We wound our away along the well-paved streets past gas stations, hotels, a couple of attractive rice fields, the airport, a police academy, a mall, and some apartment buildings until we came to Pantai Kok, which seemed refreshingly green and impressively undeveloped. We parked our bike and wandered down to the beach for a swim.
Being the grandchild of the renowned world traveler and celebrated adventuress, Grandma Mary, I always have to see what lies around the next bend. I strolled along the beach past some bungalows to a series of boulders extending out into the ocean. Working my way up onto the the smooth boulders, I continued to work my way around the bend. (I should mention here that climbing boulders to get to an unknown destination is also a trait I share with my grandma, who injured herself climbing a waterfall in her sixties.)
And there it was. Certainly the most Continue…