*The North of the island is more remote, quieter, cleaner, greener and just beautiful*

The next 19 days we spent on the main island of Langkawi in the north-western Malaysian island group of Langkawi, north of Penang, very close to Thailand. We hoped to finally enjoy the beach and the ocean water.

*Cosmo and Passion Fruit Daiquiri, what a perfect combination*

But our main goals were:

a) finding the answer to whether we will continue applying for a Malaysian MM2H visa and live the expat life or consider other options; and;

b) work on this blog website, so that we would no longer need to post on Facebook or send separate emails with text and photos to all our friends and family who do not use social media.

We also wanted to preserve our memories from the beginning of our journey and that took a considerable amount of time and effort putting together. Rainy days were perfect work days so we were happy rain or shine.

*The sunsets on the Tanjung Rhu beach were a painter’s palette of colors*

We decided to split our stay on Langkawi to 6-7 days at three different locations on the island. One quiet beach area, one rainforest area, and a busy one close to a scuba center.

*We loved the Tanjung Rhu beach on the north of the island with fewer tourists*

*Randy enjoyed strolling along the shoreline barefoot*

Without discussing it a whole lot, one day at the same time we both knew intuitively the answer to the first question.

Malaysia is a tropical first-world country with very friendly people, excellent technology and excellent food. As nice and exciting as Malaysia is for us, we don’t want to own property here, which was one of the new MM2H Visa requirements. On top of that, current Malaysian policy would prevent us from selling that purchased property for 10 years!

That felt wrong to us. But it is the main condition for the MM2H visa that would allow us to stay longer than 3 months at a time. First, we were tempted as we would have liked to own a property, as we no longer have a home, and because of many other things, like using this country as a hub while visiting surrounding countries and areas. But 10 years? No!

*Randy really enjoyed his Passion Fruit Daiquiris and sunsets*

By traveling in hotels for the last four months (and for 12 months in 2004/05), we re-discovered that we like the freedom of not having to be somewhere and be able to change our mind where to go on a whim. We still don’t want to be just travelers anymore; I’m done with sight-seeing special places; we still want to feel and get to know how the people in other countries are living by being right there and for a longer time.

That’s not that easy, we realize now, as every country has their own visa restrictions, and that was not part of our original planning (as we had first thought to stay 1-2 years in Malaysia with the old visa requirements). Also, we want a certain standard of living that might collide with our cultural integration idea. We are aware of that. And also, we do like nice hotels (that come with a gym). It will be interesting to find out how this is gonna go.

So, we will not be expats (settling down somewhere), but nomads. Fine.

Retired nomads ———> on a pacific peregrination!

Back to Langkawi: Our first location was in the North of the island, a bit remote. To say it right away, it was our favorite spot on the island. Beautiful setting, right on the beach, with a huge pool. We like to possibly work out every day a bit, and for me that is swimming laps. This pool was 50m long, and so empty. With a bar for lunch snacks.

Most exciting yet was the billiard pub, which we took advantage of everyday after 5pm playing some pool.

*At Tanjung Rhu, you really felt like you had the bay all to yourself*

Finally we were in the ocean! No waves though, as several front laying islands created calm water in the bay, but there were no jellyfish warnings and we enjoyed the different feel of the water, before going back to the pool. What can I say - it was a little piece of heaven. Oh, and the food was really good.

Here in the North of the island we hired a bird watching guide for one morning and familiarized us with local birds.

*A couple of Oriental Pied Hornbills in front of their nest in the tree cavity*

First time we saw rice growing in paddies.

*Each little plant has just a few rice kernels*

*Once they turn yellow, they are ready to harvest. Nowadays big machines harvest the rice*

*Flocks of birds in the rice paddies enjoying the ripe rice kernels*

Another day we took a boat tour through the mangroves of the smaller islands in the vicinity

*Mangroves right and left; the water is murkey as close by are some swimming houses, fish farms and restaurants and a lot, a lot of stuff lands in the water*

*Quite a few monkey groups live in the mangroves*

The wind and the ocean air, the view onto the endless blue-green waters: what a pleasure!

*Barefoot on a boat with wind blowing the hair askew, what a joy*

Although we had a great time on Langkawi, we got the feeling that the island had seen better days. Quite a few shops and restaurants were permanently closed, some residential construction was abandoned in the middle of being built, while others were going up, a lot of the many hotels we walked by looked like they were not kept up anymore. A similar feeling that we had on the north shore of Penang a month earlier.

Our second location on Langkawi was on a hill with steep slopes, in houses with your own pool, surrounded by tall vegetation and lots of birds and monkeys.

*We loved our view and the sound of the birds and cicadas in the mornings and evenings*

When it rained, it was very cozy inside.

*No better place to have some rainy days*

*What could be better than your own private pool?*

This local hotel company is marketing itself as sustainable, with two restaurants, one Japanese and the other one Vegan. Both were very good. We toured their farm further inland where they are growing their own vegetables and fruits, and keeping chicken with acceptable size space for roaming. For us it was interesting to see all the new fruits, that we ate over the last weeks, to identify them and see them growing on their trees.

Here, their master chef spent the whole afternoon with us and together we cooked a 4-course typical Malayan meal - lots of fun! And so delicious!

*Finally we did some cooking again after so many months!*

We cooked:

Baby Spinach Salad with Bunga Kantan (ginger flower bud)

Terung Berlado (Eggplant with Chilli)

Masak Lemak Bottlegourd with Tempeh

Fried Tempura Mushroom

Sweet Banana Porridge

*The blue rice is the result of cooking rice with a lot of edible blue flowers!*

*Our third location was close to the main town of the island, with lots of small food and souvenir stands. Lots of roaming, non aggressive dogs*

The last location did not excite us, as it was a huge hotel complex, nice pools, but the food lacked flavor and above all: red flags - no going into the sea! There was a huge storm with a lot of flooding not far away, between Thailand and Northern Malaysia, that might have had something to do with it. Yet, that was disappointing. The scuba company put us off every day - visibility was not more that 2 meter (=6 ft) underwater - no thanks!

Alright, our next chance to scuba dive just has to wait until next year.

Langkawi

First impressions of Taipei

Penang Again

Pacific Peregrination