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