I woke up as usual and after I said my Suboh I sat down to think what the best thing to do that morning was. Obviously we had to check out from Awana Porto Malai and check in into the other resort. The problem was in between that we were limited by time and distance as to what we can effectively do. To go to somewhere far meant we had to rush back to check out and waited for about two to three hours before we could check in into that other resort. My options were firstly to ask for a late checkout say around 2pm so that I could do a bit more things and we could check in immediately after we check out. Or just go out now and risk it and hoping that we cold check in into the other resort earlier. So I called the reception to ask for a late check out and it was denied conclusively as they were expecting a capacity that day. With that it was option two for us. I woke everyone up to get ready to go out. Having had the breakfast at the hotel yesterday we decided we had enough and went out straight away to have a Langkawi breakfast at the stall on the way out to Cenang. On the way out I called the resort to enquire if the bungalow was ready for us to check in and if not what time we could do it. I was told by the keeper around 1300. So it was not too bad which meant I had just few hours to kill before we could check in.
Nothing special about the breakfast, only that in the whole of Pantai Cenang at least the price of nasi lemak bungkus was standardized to RM1.00 with standard codes written on the bungkusan to indicate what kind of nasi lemak it is. SB would mean Sambal Bilis, SU for sambal udang, SS for sambal sotong and so on. I ordered omelet just to see what I would be served with. What came was our normal telur dadar goreng like we normally have at home.
We left as soon as we had finished our breakfast and drove towards Padang Mat Sirat. My intention was to visit and check out all the art and batik outlets within the vicinity. If I could not find that many I also wanted to explore the area to see what else were there we could enjoy. Despite driving the beat-up Wira I was within the Mat Sirat area within minutes. I drove towards Pisang Art Village first but it was still not opened when we arrived there. Taking a cue from that I drove ahead passing the already harvested paddy fields. It was nice scenery of Langkawi farming area so I stopped the car to take few photographs. To kill time I drove further around the area until in the end I decided to explore the area near Pantai Kok fishing village. As I was passing through I could see one batik shop was opening and made a mental note to stop there on the way out. As we had plan to go to the cable car the next day I stopped halfway to turn back to shoot some of the fishermen’s boats harbored there. I have always a soft spot for that kind of scenery.
As I intended we stopped at the just opened Batik Shop. When we were at the entrance they were just about to get ready and advised us to come in a few minutes. So I told them if that was the case we would not be coming at all as we had limited time. With that answer they relented and allowed us to come in to browse. The reason for me to be there was for just one thing, the batik paintings. The others were left to explore the shop on their own. In the end I settled for a medium piece batik painting. Satisfied, we proceeded back to Pisang Art Village.
Pisang Art Village was worth the wait. We explored the arts and enjoyed ourselves there. Unfortunately for me and fortunately for my wife there wasn’t any art that I like enough to buy. But Mar, I was paying of course, bought small pieces of batik chanting, according to her, as presents for her teachers and Fatah. We were at the place long enough until there wasn’t anymore interesting things to see or observe. I drove towards Cenang and decided to have our lunch along the way.
The bungalow was huge there were 5 rooms and each room was designed and equipped like a hotel business suite. Baqir and Kak Cik took one room each on the ground floor, Kakak and Mar the second room on the upper floor and of course Sam and I the master bedroom leaving one room at the ground floor unoccupied. The living and kitchen were huge as well so much so the three days we were there we did not know what to do with the entire space. We relaxed a bit to enjoy the place and then went out again. This time we drove towards Cultural and Craft Centre at Teluk Yu. The reason was that Sam saw a banner that there was something going on there. We were there in no time and indeed they have a sale fair or something there and we explored the placed. All the local crafts were there on sale as well as a number of demonstrations to local games, cooking as well as crafts. Truthfully, we have been there before and we have seen most of them but in the hope to be surprised we went with the flow. Most of us got excited with the bargain, Mar with the games and arts demonstrations and me the batik painting. In the end I came out of the place with three pieces of canting batik painting. I was lucky as they were at bargain prices. My advice to everyone is that if you want to buy batik painting at a cheaper price checkout this place first.
At around 1730 we left the place with no specific direction in mind. I just drove on towards Padang Mat Sirat hoping to stumble into something interesting to stop and see. Unfortunately it was ‘been there and done that’ for all of us and with that my instinct maneuvered me to the direction of Kuah Town where there would be a Pasar Malam that evening. Since there was still a bit of daylight when we arrived we window shopped a bit. We bought few things, chocolates and stuff just not to be too time consuming the last two days shopping in Langkawi. There wasn’t much to buy anyway. Once the sun started to set and with the early night started to creep in I parked the car closer to the Pasar Malam area and we walked there. Judging from what we could see Kuah Town Pasar Malam was the main Pasar Malam in the island.
We walked the length of the Pasar Malam identifying the food of our choice along the way when we turned back we started to stop at each places to buy them. It was like any other Pasar Malam albeit slightly different kind of food. With everyone’s favourite purchased we decided to head back to the resort. Once back we unpacked our food and had a feast down at the big dining table. The resort was at Cenang Beach and we had planned the day before to check out the night life on Cenang road as we saw it was quiet a ‘happening’ place at night. After we have taken our bath we were out with the intention to walk the length of Cenang Road. Being a tourist there was easy and the attraction was not bad. However I was a bit sad. I was sad to see the beach front properties were turned into something like the Ferringhi Beach in Penang and became too commercialize with the only consideration was to get everyone visiting their places to have the ‘baddest’ party or drinking session. I knew 100% of the beach fronts properties were used to be owned by the Malays of Langkawi. Luckily it was not a total lost though and I sincerely hope the land owners would preserve certain novelty about the beach area. Change they must but please do not forget our values.
Halfway through Mar started to complain that she was tired and asked me to carry her. I knew she was and sleepy too but I refuse to carry her and forced her to walk. Hey, I was not being cruel to my daughter. I just wanted her to see a bit more and then walk back to the resort. In the end all of us had had a long day and ready to rest. After we bought a couple of bottled water we walked back. Baqir was not happy though as he could not find any bootleg DVD on the Island.
With the huge space for everyone we retracted quietly into our own wonderland.
Our photos for day there are here.
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