Langkawi is a small island in Malaysia. It is famous for it's pristine beaches, turquoise blue water and white sand. This is a sparsely populated island with amazing nature. This is not too expensive and a scenic place to travel in budget. I feel many people don't know about this place, but trust me you would never repent your decision if you go there. This is a serene,but beautiful Island.
Best time to travel: May-August, Jan-Feb are peek tourist season.
We travelled in June. It rained a little then. But, it did not stop us from exploring the island.
How to reach: As it's an island, there are two ways to reach here, via flight or via water. I chose flight as that's more convenient. It is connected with many flights from Kualalumpur. We had booked our flights well in advance in Malindo air. It takes hardly an hour to reach from KL to Langkawi. Tickets will be cheaper if you book in prior. We paid around ₹4k per person for to and fro travel from KL.
Budget: This is a budget destination, we spent around 900RM(15k INR) for travel and food there for almost 3 and half days. We had already booked our hotel. One can choose the hotel as per their own budget.
We booked our hotel through travel agent and hence got a hotel in the middle of nowhere. The only advantage; it was near the airport. But it is always better to book a hotel at Cenang area or Kuah town. These are the only areas where you will find people. Trust me, unlike India there are empty roads and areas where you will not find a single soul for long distances.
Mode of communication: It is better to rent a motor bike and explore the place by your own. You can get bike in 25-35 RM per day plus some deposit. We paid 50RM for deposit. Petrol is very cheap here, 2.5RM per litre. They have Grab cab operating in Langkawi and of course the local taxis, which we didn't try for.
Activity booking: Like other tourist areas, one can find many tour operators here. Better not to check in the malls and try for the roadside ones. You can bargain with them too.
Day 1-:
Langkawi cable car->Sky bridge-> 3d art museum
After reaching hotel, we dropped our luggage in the luggage room as our room wasn't ready by then and went out looking for a bike rental shop. After walking for around 1.5km, we found a shop, otherwise there was even noone on the road to ask for help. We found it little weird, as in India you will hardly find a place where there are no people. Anyway, we found a good man there, who said his friend has a bike rental shop and he called up his friend. The shop owner came and picked us up from that place and took us to his shop. Then we took a bike and headed towards the Cable car and Sky bridge. Then we got tickets for Cable car, Sky Rex(7D kind experience), Sky dome (Planetarium kind) and 3d art museum. They are selling all these in package. The place was too crowded. There was a long queue for the cable car. It took us long time to reach the top. From there we walked till the sky bridge. The view from the sky bridge was amazing.It was worth climbing the steps for. It was very scenic while coming back in the cable car. We could see a waterfall in the hills and we were moving between the clouds. This is a must try activity in Langkawi. Then there was 3d art museum, where one could take some funny pics. There was a waterfall nearby i.e. Seven Wells Waterfall, which we could have visited, but we were kinda tired we had our flight early in the morning. So, we skipped that and started back for the hotel. It was already evening anyway. We stopped by on a beach on the roadside, which was beautiful and there were 3-4 people. Guys, can you imagine a beach with 3-4 people in India. I guess not. Better visit Langkawi.😉 It was evening and after evening you will not find people anywhere apart from the main localities like Cenang. We headed straight back to hotel and slept early as we were dead tired.
Island hopping tour-> Under water world-> Cenang beach-> Tengah beach
For this day we had booked the Island hopping tour before. This is a must try activity when you are in Langkawi. They offer package tour with pick up and drop from the hotel. So we were picked from the hotel and taken to the pier. They took us to 2 islands. In the 1st island, there was a lake which was formed by rain water as the limestones from the hill was washed off gradually creating a space for the rain water to be stored. It was a beautiful lake with beautiful scenery around. They had boating and swimming options in the lake as well. After spending sometime there, we came back. Then they showed us eagle feeding, as you find eagles in large numbers in Langkawi. The next stop was another island with white sand and turquoise blue water. It was a beautiful island. We had some time to spend there. Then we came back to hotel and headed towards Cenang. We went to Under water world here, which is located at Cenang beach side. This was my first time visit to such a place and hence I enjoyed it. The exit of this place leads to a duty free shopping place, from where we got chocolates. Our next visit was of course Cenang beach, the best beach of Langkawi. We also visited Tengah beach, where very few people were there. We booked our mangrove forest tour for the next day, spent the evening at the beach and came back.
Mangrove tour-> Tanjung Ruh beach-> Kuah town-> Eagle square-> Taman Lagenda Park-> Cenang beach
In the morning, we were picked for the mangrove tour and dropped near the pier. From the pier, initially we were taken to fish farming area. Here they showed us horseshoe crab, Sting Ray, leopard Shark, Puffer fish and variety of crazy fishes. It was fun. You can feed and touch the fishes too. Next was monkey feeding. Here I gotto know that monkeys could be carnivores too. They eat crabs there. The monkeys swam and came into our boat. First the alpha male should be fed and then the others, else he would attack. Our guide (Abu) was a very nice guy. He explained us everything. Then we saw eagle feeding, crocodile cave and went towards the Mangrove area. There we saw many crabs, snakes, insects,and monitor lizards. It was all under Kilim Geo forest park. Next stop was bat cave. Here we went inside the cave and saw many bats hanging from the roof. They were all sleeping as it was day time. Next was my favourite, the dolphins. We could see many dolphins swimming next to our boat. It was really a wonderful experience. Then we were back to Tanjung Ruh beach, which is one of the famous beaches in Langkawi. The beach was beautiful, clean water, spent some time there and were dropped back to hotel. Then without wasting our time, we headed towards Kuah town, where they have the famous Langkawi landmark, the eagle statue. The roads were almost empty and very clean. At first we went to the Folklore theme park. They call it Taman Lagenda. the It was just a big park for jogging. We found a beach front there , but again it was empty, spent some time there and headed to the Eagle square. It's a jetty. We took some nice clicks there and came back to Cenang beach as we had some time left. We sat for sometime at the beach and took a walk there and then we called it a day.
Gunung Raya-> Local beach
This was the day when we had to leave. But before that, we wanted to take a visit to Gunung Raya. It's a hill. So we got up little early and started our journey to the hill top. The ride was enjoyable, but unfortunately the watch tower on the top was closed that day. The view from the top was really good. We could see scorpions and snakes crossing the road and there was a small waterfall on the road too. Very scenic and beautiful ride. Then we went to one more beach on the roadside. This was beautiful too and with no people again. I am telling you..you want to have some alone time at the beach, visit Langkawi for sure. After this we headed back to the hotel for checkout and we left for the airport. It was really a memorable trip.
One can try water sports, diving and snorkeling here. There is a Marine park situated 30km south of Langkawi, which is 45 mins away form Kuah jetty by speed boat. They have colourful corals filled in the Marine park. But, some permission is needed to explore the same. We didn't try this.
