Iluvcruising2

Thanks for posting these videos and photos. We will be visiting Malta in September, so this thread is very useful!

Glad you found it useful. Have a great cruise.

Yes, "Higher Ground", that's exactly what we want to do in Langkawi. Do you happen to know the reasonable cab fare from the port to the cable car? I understand that we should buy the more expensive tickets for the shorter line. If we skip the middle station, do we just stay inside the cable car?

This link may be useful.

http://www.langkawi-online.com/pages/getting-here/taxi_fare.php

The award citation is worth a read.

“The Panorama Bridge in Langkawi is a courageous, strongly expressive piece of construction, which integrates sensitively with nature. The support structure is distinctively detached from the topography and together with the stunning curved walk-way, the concept ideally responds to the stringent requirements posed when opening a protected nature-reserve to tourism. The demanding steel structure has been designed meticulously and demonstrates the great potential of steel as a building material for such exceptional architectural projects with highest quality requirements. The jury acknowledges that the complex space-frame is built-up from standard steel profiles and -parts. The impressively precise and efficient planning, fabrication and installation under difficult externally imposed conditions reflects the highest performance of the involved planners and contractors.”

Well, having been there, I do think that it is worthy of the award. A tourist taking a photo. This photo shows you the width of the bridge.

The view of the top station from the bridge. Basking in the sun.

The solitary metal piece holding up the entire bridge, using a system of steel cables. The support structure is built at an angle to the ground. Fascinating.

The view, from the platform at the far end of the bridge.

Yes, the bridge is curved. Cool design, I like it.

Another view of the bridge as we head back to the top station, for the cable car ride back down. Yes, Langkawi can be proud of this bridge as well as the cable car. It was an awesome morning.

They started this locks thingy on the bridge. Very nice. Not many locks at this stage but I think the numbers will grow over time.

Now we head to the Sky Bridge. How to get there from the Top station? Two options. One is to walk, which turns out to be quite difficult and winding. The cost is an extra 5RM. Another option is to take an Inclinator, which looks like an elevator. The additional cost is 15RM. We chose the Inclinator. Take note that your ticket from the base station is only for the cable car, and it does not cover this Inclinator and Sky Bridge.

Here is a video of the Inclinator experience. The ride takes about 2 minutes each way. It is basically a lift to bring you own to the Sky Bridge but it is at an incline because of the landscape.

[YOUTUBE]Ri0ETb28WK0[/YOUTUBE]

At the platform for the Sky Bridge, after taking the Inclinator from the Top station to this platform.

The Langkawi Sky Bridge is definitely one of the island's highlights. If you are doing the cable car, remember to budget enough time for the Sky Bridge too. It is a 410foot curved walkway above Mount Mat Cinchang.

The Sky Bridge is supported by a single metal piece, built at an angle. I guess this is a designer steel bridge. The bridge won the Swiss Steel Design Award in 2005. This award is given by the Swiss Institute of Steel Construction.

At the top. This sign indicates that this is the birthplace of Malaysia.

The views from the mountain top.

From the top station, we could see the Sky Bridge, a curved bridge. We would be heading there shortly.

The geology was fascinating. Many peaks and sheer drops.

Looking out into the horizon.

Langkawi SkyCab Top Station.

That looks really steep. Apparently, this is the steepest cable car in the world, so claimed the Malaysians. If somebody knows of another cable car set-up that is even steeper, please let me know.

The plan was to take the cable car to the middle station, then the top station, then view the SkyBridge and come back down. In this first video, I am in the cable car heading up, towards the middle station. Very, very steep.

[YOUTUBE]kqG0bJ2fNQU[/YOUTUBE]

At the middle station, we got off the cable car to check out the views. If you were in a hurry to get to the top, you could decide to stay in the cable car instead of getting off. This was taken at the middle station.

Great view of Langkawi from here. Even better from the top station.

Here is a video of the ride from the middle to the top station, followed by some views from the platform on the peak. Good weather, albeit windy. Awesome views. God's creation shouts out to me!

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The top station, where the cable cars make a roundabout and head back down again. I wonder how many trips a cable car makes in a day.

I can see the middle station (far left) and top station, where I am now, on the right. See the cables.

The open walkways at the top looked rather new. Good day to be up here. Beautiful views all around.

And now, for more sight-seeing. Today, we head to the Cable Car, Panorama Langkawi. This is the website of the attraction - http://www.panoramalangkawi.com/

From our hotel, it would take about 40 minutes (depending on traffic). Here is a signpost to the place, still 21km away. I recall this signpost was near Hotel Bayview, well at least not soon after we left.

The roads were in a good condition and generally clear, at least when we were travelling. The driver did say that Langkawi could get very busy, but it didn't felt too busy when we were there.

Continuing the journey.

We arrive at the Oriental Village, which leads to the cable car.

It says Oriental Village, Cable Car. A rather rustic looking entrance!

These were the ticket prices

The flight time was quite short, only 1hr 20minutes, approx. Now the fun started. We had pre-booked our meals, however, it looked like a large number of pax also pre-booked their meals and turned out that the service was very slow. There appeared to be a large group of pax on the plane, travelling together. Many of them also pre-booked meals.

The pilot had announced the start of descent, yet we hadn't gotten our food! Then, the cabin crew (4 of them) started to dish out the pre-booked food more and more rapidly, even as the plane was descending. It turned out that we ended up eating our meals right through descent and landing! Is this normal? Well, I got the entire experience on video, and you can watch it to believe it.

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Some stills. I spotted this very long bridge from the air.

Later on, I learnt that this was either the Penang bridge or the Penang Second Bridge (the latter bridge is longer). Not sure which one this is.

By the time I got my meal, we were already very close to landing.

This is how the Bukhara Chicken Briyani looked like. The taste wasn't bad.

Upon landing, the plane quickly taxi-ed to the terminal and I saw this Malaysian Airlines jet that had just pushed back.

This was a small airport, no aerobridge.

The plane was slightly late in arrival, but the disembarkation of passengers and our embarkation was relatively quick. In this video, I show you part 1 of the flight. We had to taxi for a very long while before take-off. During the taxi, I saw the upcoming Terminal 4, which is about 70% completed. I think Terminal 4 will open in 2017. Once we took off, I could see a large piece of land being cleared. This should be the site of the future Terminal 5. Here is the video.

[YOUTUBE]0lZ0Zmfc0Bk[/YOUTUBE]

Some still photos. From my seat, I could see the ground crew loading hold luggage.

Airasia imprint on the seat in front of me. They have black leather seats.

The menu is very attractive and slick. The prices are ok (all in malaysian ringgit).

You can save some money if you pre-book.

When I saw this plane coming in, I thought I had spotted a new Airline. Turns out to be an AirAsia aircraft, but in a 'Turn Back Crime' livery. Not sure what this livery was about, but it made for a good picture.

Spotted this FlyScoot aircraft as we were taxi-ing. Distinctive tail, however, this particular aircraft had plenty of red spots.

We fly AirAsia from Singapore to Langkawi, Malaysia. AirAsia is a very large budget carrier, owned by Tony Fernandez of Malaysia. It has been a stunning success, however, it was hit by a crash last year when AirAsia Flight 8501 crashed, presumably due to bad weather and some pilot error.

Anyway, putting that aside, we still fly with AirAsia. The flight was from Singapore Changi Terminal 1. Check in was smooth and we got into the restricted area of Terminal 1 very quickly. I explored the terminal and found an outdoor cactus garden that I didn't know existed. This is a video of the place, which is near the Burger King.

[YOUTUBE]T1TtCl2vobo[/YOUTUBE]

Here are some pictures. The cactus garden was outdoors.

The pub in the garden. Didn't see anybody drinking, but this was in the morning. Probably more people in the evening.

This cactus was labelled the 'rose cactus'.

This was the smoking area. The cactus garden was divided into smoking and non-smoking areas.

Back to the pub area, you could sit on these high chairs and get a view of the gates. Several Emirates aircraft.

Alright, now let's move on to the exciting flight. I've flown with AirAsia to Bangkok before, but this is the first time I'm flying on AirAsia to a destination in Malaysia. When I got to the gate, the plane hadn't arrived.

Welcome to Business class travel and I hope you enjoy your flight.

If you have the chance, try Singapore Airlines Business class some day. :)

I didn't find the Victoria Harbour Light show to be that spectacular. Well, perhaps that is just me. Here is the first five minutes of the show.

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Victoria Peak was pretty neat, the views are very good on a clear day.

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The Star Ferry was definitely worth taking.

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Great photos, thank you. They bring back happy memories of our holiday in Langkawi - we did the forest park trip as well.

Awesome. Where did you stay? Unfortunately this time round, I didn't stay at a fancy resort. Maybe next time!

Thank you for your posts.

 

Keith

Glad you enjoyed it.

Thanks, Iluvcruising2, for sharing your photos and video! Always enjoy the background music.:)

Thanks for your note! More videos on the way.

Some more photos from the night market experience. Some cooked noodles and rice.

This is called Yong Tau Hu. You choose your items and they cook it there and then for you. Seemed rather popular!

How the night market looks like. Just one street, stores on both side.

Some sort of sausages, I think.

Kebabs.

Selling iced sugared drinks.

Now, after some sightseeing, how about a night market? This night market was in Kuah (the commercial center of Langkawi), about a 400M walk from the hotel I stayed in. Here is a video of some of the scenes from the night market.

[YOUTUBE]yhIFsg01YBw[/YOUTUBE]

Some pictures to follow. This is one end of the night market. We will walk to the other end and back.

Fresh fruits. Love the colours.

Selling pizza and donuts. Slice of pizza for RM2 and donut for RM1.50

They even sold perfumes.

Burgers for 2RM.

This store was rather popular. Sea coconut. I didn't try it though.

Many tourists want to stay at MBS for the experience, and that infinity pool.

Next we visited a fish farm.

They even had a mini drinks store on board, obviously set up for tourists.

Very rustic place. Everything felt stable but just be careful when walking around the fish tanks.

This is low tide.

After we go out to the open sea, we see this sign. Like Hollywood of sorts?

The geology is quite amazing indeed.

Bats are flying mammals. They need to hang. Their legs are too small to support their weight for long. In the video, you can hear the guide explain to us the hierarchy of the bats in the cave, depending on where they hang. I have no idea whether he was telling us the scientific truth as I am no bat expert.

Mangrove. This was low tide. All the roots are clearly visible.

Along the way, we noticed a good number of boats which carried women that were completely veiled up in black. Turned out that they were from Saudi Arabia, which I understand practices a very conservative form of Islam, hence the requirement for their women to dress this way in public. This video offers some glimpses.

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Our guide told us that Langkawi was a very popular destination for couples from Saudi Arabia to visit, especially for their honeymoon. Here is an example.

Entire family, including baby on a pram.

Of course, there were Caucasian tourists as well, like this party.

One highlight of my trip was the boat ride at the Kilim Karst Geoforest Park, featuring breathtaking landscapes of nearly vertical hills, of various shapes and sizes, as well as a mangrove area. We took a 2 hour boat-ride and saw very interesting sights, including a bat cave (not flesh-eating, don't worry), and a fish farm.

Here are two videos, before I proceed to some still pictures.

Video 1 - we start our ride on a small boat, and visit a bat cave.

[YOUTUBE]qMLZs4RPtXE[/YOUTUBE]

Video 2 - we continue the ride, to see a fish farm, another cave and go out to the open sea.

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Here are some still pictures. The main entrance. This place was about a 20 minute ride by car from our hotel.

Boats lined up, waiting for passengers. Each boat can take 12.

More boats. We were here in the afternoon and it was pretty hot. Our guide told us that usually people will come in the morning, when it is cooler.

Closer look at the boat.

We got off at a jetty quite near the start point, for the bat cave.

Gua Kelawar. Kelawar means bat. Gua means cave. This is Malay.

For one of our dinners, we went to a place which sold good local seafood near the hotel. I think the distance was less than 1km. The place was called Wonderland seafood. Apparently, this place was quite famous. A rustic place to eat. Here is the video.

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Here are some pictures. From outside.

Al Fresco style seating. Natural ventilation.

Picture of the menu. From the online reviews, they all said that the food was reasonably priced. Beer was about 4RM per can.

Some beer, as we decide what to eat.

Fried calamari. Pretty nice.

The steamed fish was very good too.

I just returned from Langkawi not too long ago for a very brief trip. Sharing some photos and videos.

I stayed at Bayview Hotel, which is located at the Town Center. This is the view from my room, which was on the 10th floor.

I made a video of the room (a standard room), which was quite big. Rather dated but comfortable nonetheless. Good value, no doubt.

[YOUTUBE]9btrlCFUQaA[/YOUTUBE]

From my room, I could see these shophouses which had eateries and shops. So I explore the nearby vicinity of the hotel and come across this eating place called Domino's restaurant, not to be confused with the Dominos pizza chain.

The prices looked reasonable and I was just looking for a quick bite. So I ended up with this pasta and some iced coffee. It was a very hot day!

Here is a video of the place. Other than myself, only 2 other patrons. No worries, the waiter spoke good English.

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And I walked around Kuah town center some more and entered an alcohol shop as well as a shop selling chocolates and other 'duty free' stuff.

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This was how the hotel looked like in the evening.

This was a local eating house (coffee shop) along the same road, again rather near the hotel.

Thanks for the review!

Glad it was useful for you. Thanks for your feedback.

Yes, thank you! As we prepare to stop in Malta, this was a great video guide. Thanks!

Glad this was useful. Have a great trip!