Back from Thailand it was the turn of the owners of the boat to go travelling for a while. The owners of two other boats were also going to travel overland to Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. I now had three boats to look after, the boat i was one needed the generator running for at least three hours every day, the second boat only needed the engine starting and running once a week and the third boat didn’t need anything apart from making sure it didn’t dissappear off into the distance.
Langkawi is a duty free island of Malaysia, there are copius amounts of liquor and chocolate shops, i have never seen so many bars of Toblerone and boxes of Ferrero Rocher in my life !!
The majority of tourists here are Malaysians but as with most places now an increasing amount of Russians are travelling. I thought i would get out and about and see a bit more of the island so i hired a car for a while. I got a tiny little Daihatsu which was so small that when i pressed the brake pedal i touched the accelerator at the same time, not what you need when you haven’t driven a car for 10 months !! The car was going to come in handy as i had to get some diesel for the skipper, unfortunately it was over 200 litres and i could only get 2 cans in the little boot. I went for a drive around the island and up to the north west corner where there was a cable car ride, apparantly one of the steepest climbs of any cable car. Only cost 6 pounds to go up with some spectacular views across the other islands nearby.
There was another attraction to see but sadly closed for maintenace, the Sky Bridge, this was an impressive bridge joing the tops of two peaks. It was a curved bridge with a central support to one side, looked impressive but i later found out it had been closed for over two years. In true Asian fashion things get built and then not really maintained and fall into dissrepair. It was then i remembered that i had to go back down the steepest cable car ride, wonder how much maintence that had had in its lifetime. I stopped off at a few beaches and grabbed some fish and chips and a cold beer at the Scarborough fish and chip shop. A great view and a great end to the day.
On the way back i went to the gas station to start fillinv up with diesel, it was then i found out that i could only buy 30 litres of diesel per day as it was subsidised. With over 200 litres of diesel to buy this was going to take a little time, i found three garages in close proximity so would go round each one buying 30 litres at a time. I would do the little circuit again in the morning before dropping the car back, unfortunately one of the other boats needed some diesel cans filling too, bother !!