Langkawi and Koh Lipe - this Chistmas climbing to the first spot on the bests'..

On Langkawi we stayed at the Malibest resort, recommended by Viks and Harry, my friend in KL too - it was okay, nothing special but close to the beach and 30 EUR for a night; apart from the huge amount of mozzies we had to deal with it was fine.

After a failed try to get some coffee from Viva Italia in the morning - the "Indian juice" was close to disgusting... - had some nice breakfast at the Tomato place, and then hit the roads of Langkawi on a bike... well, scooter, to be more specific. We cruised to the north side of the island, eventually found the Black Sand beach, had some coconut water at a beautiful spot further up north, ran around, cought a bit of a rainshower to cool down; and then couldnt resist a thai dinner in the eve, even though Thailand was only a day away.

My memories of how far I had to go 2 years ago failed me when planning the morning and we ended up at the pier waaaay to early before the boat departure time - it was an 8.30am departure that we arrived for at 7.45, and we didnt leave until 9.45 - rather annoying.... but then, a few hours later we reached Koh Lipe, and put a smile on both our faces that didnt disappear until we had to leave for Phuket 3 days later.

Here are the some of the photos Dave took - yes I am having my camera with me from now on, too... :) - just so that you know what I am talking about if you havent been on Koh Lipe yet..



Varin Beach resort was home for the 3 days: 1800 THB for a night including breakfast - 45 EUR, a newly built bungalow with AC, clean and sweet, the breakfast nice enough that kept us going until 3-4pm every day.

The beach on this island is exactly what I remembered: the most beautiful of all the places I have been to. Needless to say, it was the company that made these few days absolutely mindblowing, and the island was the second biggest part of it of course: just picture perfect, warm sea so clean its hard to believe, white sand, palmtrees, simply magical. After spending the whole day at the beach, had a few JDandCokes, and then hit another beachbar for a few more on Christmas eve, had a pad thai just because we could, sent a lantern to all of you with our best wishes, swam and snorkelled during the days, walked around, read a book on the porch, watched a movie as part of the afternoon nap, played frisbe on the beach with Ken, 12 year-old from Thailand, had killer longislandiceteas at Naomi's Monkeybar, laughed and laughed some more and hoped the magic would never end.... :D I was really considering just staying there until all my money ran out, but common sense won, left Koh Lipe with Tigerlinetravel.com, heading to Phuket on the 27th...

Next up is Koh Tao for NYE/day and then back to Phuket for January with all kinds of new excitements, such as cooking class and thai massage class and kitesurfing and yoga and beach and sunshine and diving..... aaaaaahhhh so very sweet... :)