Back in Malaysia: Langkawi

Langkawi is on the west coast of Malaysia on the top, pretty much opposite the Perhentians on the other side, and you can go there directly by ferry from Thailand. We didn't get to see very much of the island, since taxis are fairly expensive, as is renting your own car. Nadine was outraged when I told her that the muslims there expect their women to always walk behind them and never do the talking. So we (mostly) did it the other way around, which i happily agreed to, because it was fairly confusing for them, and spreading confusion is always fun! ;-)

This cat from our guesthouse had 24 toes, 6 on each foot!

Nadine, an optician who had just decided to go back to school after her vacation for her "Abitur", is a really sweet and pretty special girl and never ceased to surprise me with not-very-common talents (e.g. drumming, wrestling (!), playing chess). However, English wasn't one of them, so we practised every day, and I feel it improved quite a bit during that time, since she's a quick learner. But only when her "attention light" is on, which seems to happen fairly random! ;-)

(Click for animation! 8)

We did go to the Underwater World on Langkawi, which is quite expensive but really amazing and worth every Sen (Sen is the Malaysian Cent). Just when we thought "is this it?" when reaching some restaurant that looked like it was leading to the exit we had actually just entered the REALLY amazing aquariums. They have hundreds of different species there, ranging from penguins to seals to crustaceans to sharks to sea dragons. Basically everything interesting living in the sea can be found there, some of the aquariums are even built like a tunnel, it's very highly recommended!

I call this the "Airbrush shark", looks like some badly airbrushed haunted house façade from the fair..


Sea dragons must be among the strangest creatures on this planet

We usually hung out on the beach at night watching the great sunset and chatting, one night we built our own "Jurassic Park" by making dinosaur footprints in the sand - fun!
After I helped her move her departure flight ten days later we went back to Thailand on the fourth day. She desperately wanted to go back to Phi Phi (She'd been there twice before already as well!), and I really didn't want to go as I was fed up with it and would've much rather have gone to Kho Tao, which I haven't seen yet. But you know how some women are when they've really got their mind set on something - you just don't stand a chance! ;-)