Kuala Lumpur and Langkawai

Kuala Lumpur - what can I say?


It's everything that Chennai isn't. Clean, orderly, has drainage and pavements, parks, portable water, reliable electricity, cinemas showing English language movies and the two most important reasons for us going........ Starbucks and SHOPS!!!!!!

Underneath the Petronas Towers that you see below is a huge shopping center full of 6 layers of shops, bars, cafes, cinemas, a concert hall, science park and lifts to wizz you up 30 odd floors to the sky bridge, which is the bit straddling the two towers.

This was the view at night from our hotel room - which was simply gorgeous.

I'm not ashamed to say that I lived in this shopping mall and the equally amazing Pavillion shopping mall for 3 days. The very first thing we did upon arrival was get tickets for High School Musical 3 which the girls simply loved. I got such a kick out of doing something that would be so normal back in the West but is really difficult to do for kids in Chennai when the dominant film language is Tamil. Your lucky if there is a suitable English movie every 3 months or so. So we did all the normal stuff that you do every week back in the U.K. but don't get the opportunity in Chennai.

We shall return to K.L. another time and poke our noses outside the hotel and malls and see something more of the city next time. I did ask Mr Maddog if fancied commuting ;-)

Langkawai

Our arrival at the tiny airport in Langkawai which was a bit like something from that series in the 70's - Fantasy Island?

6.30 p.m. we arrived at the hotel, 7pm we were sat at the beach bar having sundowners looking at this..........and breathe.......bliss.


The view from our hotel rooms - if this was India what would be missing from this scene?

Half the population using the beach as their local toilet.

One of the other nice things about getting away was being able to hire a car and DRIVE again and do sightseeing en famillie without a driver in tow. Here we are climbing an incredibly steep cable car up to the hills.

We made our way over to the other side of the Island to the Yacht Club to check out the boats and have lunch all happy and relaxed...

Well, while it lasted!



Baby Maddog #3 with her Auntie Margot (Also a Chennaitie Expat from Scotland) and me strolling along a clean beach.

One of the things we like about the hotel was it's supposed water sports but unfortunately the kit was poorly maintained and while Mr Maddog and our friend Bob (Our other Chennaitie expat friend) were sailing the backstay broke and the mast fell down . I had been out sailing myself with the girls only 10 mins before, we all had a lucky escape. It took a lot of persuasion to get the guys on the beach to rescue them! They didn't even possess any binoculars, I found the guys on the water 1/2 a mile out to sea on my long zoom lens. Tut, tut.

So, the next day Bob hired this.... I yelled for dear life, Bob lost his hearing. The girls and Mr Maddog loved it. I'm definitely more a wind powered kind of girl!