Michael Batson

The chatty and helpful lady at the Penang Tourist Office by the dockside sold me my ticket to Langkawi. “Be sure to arrive at least 30 minutes before sailing” she said “and ask the bus driver to drop you here outside the door, not at the bus stop, which is someway down the road.” I did and he did. All Penang’s modern bus fleet, air-conditioned and well organized circle the clock tower, a present to Penang to commemorate the diamond jubilee of Queen Victoria’s rule, in timely fashion.

Everyday two fast ferries leave for Langkawi, one at 8.15 via the snorkeling island and the other (mine) direct. Despite several calls for the first sailing one Arab family missed their sailing.

The fast ferries are a kind of sealed speed boat with worryingly, a single entrance. Emergency exits four forward that I could see, are secured by a series of bolts, which must be unscrewed by hand in the advent of an emergency. Fine, except that the crew was thin on the ground and to get to any exit in a crisis meant climbing over passengers, assuming everyone stayed calm, which would be highly unlikely.

Walking down the one and only street in Langkawi’s main tourist destination Pandai Chenang or Chenang Beach, I found a woman bearing down on me. She held out an open book, which I correctly took to be a copy of the Lonely Planet guide to Southeast Asia, their biggest seller, almost as an offering.

“Do you speak English, you look like you do,” she enquired. “Are you English, you kinda sound like … Australian then? Oh, New Zealand is it? I always get those two mixed up.”

I guess that’s better than “What’s the difference anyway” as a statement not a question.

“Have you seen any of these?” she ran her finger down the page of guesthouses that the doyen of guide books had seen fit to mention in their “bible” for travelers.

I said I hadn’t come across any of them. I’d only been in town less than a day, but had already looked around and as there was just the one street, I was pretty sure I’d have seen them.

“But it’s the latest version,” she said, sounding disappointed, if not a little surprised Lonely Planet had come up short, I wasn’t in the least. I offered to show her a couple of bargains I’d come across the day before after I’d come back from the ATM.

“Is there one?” she asked. “Lonely Planet says there isn’t.”

I assured her not to believe everything she reads in Lonely Planet as true.

It's annoying to see backpackers walking down the street in some town somewhere not looking where they are going or what is happening around them because their nose is buried in Lonely Planet, like it’s some form of hard copy GPS. Lonely Planet and other guide books all have their uses, but they’re hardly infallible, and sometimes try just doing it for yourselves can be more rewarding.

Julie, as she introduced herself, and partner Danny had been on the road for eight months. They were looking for a budget place. They had a small income from their house and had been through India, so were used to “roughing it”. I pointed them in the direction of a couple of places I’d seen after the ATM, which does exist, contrary to Lonely Planet’s advice, latest version or not.

They’d arrived in Malaysia from the Philippines, which they hated, or at least she did. “Guns everywhere Michael, every shop or business had armed guards. You don’t have armed guards because there is not problem, you have them because there ARE problems.”

She hated the food there, “Crap, mostly stews, unless you wanted to go upmarket for Western food.” Julie told me she had started eating burgers for breakfast. “I’m 44, and I’ve never done that in my life,” she said, “I had to get out.” She told me they wanted to relax.

Danny looked like a middle-aged surfer, and seemed happy enough lazing about on the beach, so I guess after their ordeal they were in the right place.

My neighbour turned out be called Mike also, a Malay Tamil who until 6 days ago had been working as a chef in one of the local Thai restaurants. He’d been living in the room next door for 6 years but was now trying to secure work in the UK for a rich old gent. On a Malaysian passport he said a visa wouldn’t be a problem, so he was waiting to hear back so he could plan his next move.

Mid-year is the low season forLangkawi. Malaysians like coming to the island for its duty-free status. Weekend breaks are common and the ferry terminal in town is a hive of activity. Customs x-ray all baggage on the way out – twice, once before you leave and again after arrival at Penang, but don’t bother for anything on the way in.

The best way to see the island is to hire a motorbike or a car. I circled the island twice, going in both directions, until the end of the muffler hung off. “Kaput” said the man who stopped to see if I was alright, and confirmed by two employees of the local resort golf course. I proceeded back with caution, least the derelict piece interfere with the back wheel and catapult me headlong down the roadway, at the mercy of wild monkeys haunting the roadsides or the local crocodile farm.

The roads are good. Rice is grown on the island, and the farming mechanized. There is good educational infrastructure with large two and three-story school buildings at regular intervals, all painted shades of orange.

The island has a brand new waste disposal plant on its northern side, and a large cement factory, the latter not what you’d expect to see on a tropical resort, but then concrete for all those hotels has to come from somewhere. Employment there would offset all the service workers cleaning up after the tourists, and making their beds.

The wearing of motorcycle helmets or motosikal in Malay is compulsory though plenty seem happy to risk the 300 ringgit fine if caught by the police for abusing the rule. Wearing a helmet must present problems for the Muslim women who wear their hair in pony tails under their headdress, as this would prevent actually getting the thing on.

There are a lot of police on the island. A large training facility is located near the airport. Everyday I’d see the recruits out on the parade ground in the morning heat, all lined up and looking very military like. There’s also a large naval facility on the way into town. I don’t know what the navy pays its staff but they put them up in very nice looking apartments across the road, all brand new. I saw jet fighters, F-18 Hornets, landing at the airport.

The island is quite mountainous with the highest peaks at several hundred metres. A gondola runs between the two highest of them all, when you can see it through the clouds. There are all the usual water distractions to be had; paragliding, island-hopping, jet skiing, snorkeling, or just lazing about.

The island has a noticeable Thai presence. Ferries make daily trips to Phuket and the islands in-between. Boat and bus passage can be had to Krabi and Koh Samui and points, despite what the guide books tell you about border closures and trouble in the south preventing cross-border entry.

English is widely spoken with Malaysians easily switching from one to the other. One guide book said primary school was compulsory but beyond those years education was voluntary. The young waitress in my breakfast bar said that this was not so. Education she told me was entirely voluntary, so it would seem possible that for whatever reason some Malaysians may never go to school at all.

Rain was never far away and when it came it thundered down, driving the builders off the new hotel complex next door. The owners, fronted by a gentle woman, were expanding and would have quite a little empire for themselves, about a hundred-odd rooms bringing about $4000 per night during the high season.

One of their longer term guests was a middle-aged American, who hogged the prime table in their Wi-Fi zone. He told me he was trying to buy property in Malaysia a task fraught with difficulties, upon which he did not elaborate. When he was not on the internet, he and the woman discussed the world’s financial crisis, though he did most of the talking.

Langkawi is a nice place to spend some time, if the beach thing is your style, or you just want to do nothing. Just don’t believe everything you read in the guide books.