Pentai Cenang

Langawki has taken a beating with international border closures during the Covid. Locals say visitor numbers have  fallen  by more than 70% , this has a significant impact as tourism accounts for almost 90% of the island's economy.

We are certainly seeing this as we walked to the little beach village to check out the shops and find some fresh fruit to buy. It is extremely quiet, the beach pretty much deserted and the usual jet ski and paragliding vendors nowhere to be seen as there's just no customers for them.

Very little traffic in a street that would normally be clogged with scooters, cars and shoppers.

Lots of shops shut.

How the shops selling beach balls and straw hats survive is beyond me.

Even the marketing strategy for this restaurant couldn't save them, see pic below.

It's so quiet the Langkawi dogs just lay down in the middle of the road and the odd car drives around the dogs.

The cat in the picture below sleeping on shop entrance mat was in cat dreamland -  it's paws and whiskers were moving at a rate of knots while it was sound asleep in the heat.

We found fresh coconuts and melons for sale! Coconut about NZ$3.50 and melon about NZ$5.70 which is jolly good!

Construction sites that were put on hold are slowly cranking up. We saw the big Park Royal beachfront hotel complex site active while many of the smaller building sites we passed looked deserted and shut down.  You have to hope they employ locals. I wonder if they will fill these mega hotels once completed?   While international travel has only recently restarted there are  few Western tourists that we can see. With cheap flights within Asia perhaps their target market is domestic tourisim?

What has flourished through Covid is the lush vegetation that has crept across paths and walkways and it's gorgeous!

Some of the smells are divine and their jasmine here is the biggest I've seen.

Butterfly picture fail as they move so quickly. Will try again tomorrow as they are so beautiful.

Check out the size of the Fan Palm!

Lovely to see the little street shrines to the gods here and there.

Langkawi Island

30 km off the west coast of mainland Malaysia lies an archipelago of over 100 islands  - the Langawki islands.

We landed at the little Langawki airport on the biggest island, walked across the tarmac and found our way to a little family run villa near the beach.

We are staying at a place about two streets back from the  beach and it has only half a dozen small standalone villas and a salt water pool. Behind the villa are lush fields and jungle, it's lovely and quiet.

 It's pretty humid here so straight into the pool - bliss.  After a swim we took a walk down to a large beach front resort and had a cold drink overlooking the water. 

Compared to last time we were here the resort appeared deserted to us.  The barman said today was busy!  We don't it mind it being quiet but it must be so heartbreaking for the locals who rely on the tourists for work. On our walk we noticed how quiet the road was, it's normally busy with tourists on scooters or groups  walking to the beach but it was so quiet. Many hotels and restaurants haven't made it through Covid and the workers have  returned to their home villages. 

The plants here in the tropical climate are beautiful. There was a fantastic big butterfly on the yellow floral plant but I wasn't quick enough to get a photo, mañana

Penang last day

Short and sweet today -  general walkabout in the back lanes of George Town.

Exploring the little back lanes we came upon the only hand made Joss Stick maker in Malaysia.

The business was started by Beng Chuan on the left in the picture above, who continued making the joss sticks until he passed away at 93 two years ago. His son, in the picture above, Chin Po and his wife continue the business. 

We had a lovely chat, learning about the different woods and scents used. Today they were making incense that is used in Catholic churches across Malaysia. They use only natural ingredients, sandalwood, teja tree powder, sawdust, frankincense resin and water, kneading and moulding the dough by hand.

They start early so that the heat of the day sets the joss sticks. People travel from all over Malaysia to attend workshops and learn the craft so that it is not lost. 

With the museum and gallery being closed for construction, we heard of an art gallery in an old bus depot and being curious we trekked across town to check it out. 

There looked to be a series of artists galleries around a green space, unfortunately all were shut. We got to enjoy some of the murals so all was not lost. 

We enjoyed wandering the back streets. Just a few observations, we've seen  very few people smoke which is interesting considering cigarettes are so cheap here. There are very few dogs as pets which is such a contrast to all the doggies in San Francisco where we saw doggies of all shapes and sizes, some even being pushed in prams. Hardly any electric/hybrid cars although we've seen a couple of electric scooters. Alcohol is highly taxed here so there are not that many pubs as such, although there are swanky late night cocktail bars I believe. A lot of the young girls are covered head to toe with just their faces showing and they smile so sweetly as we pass in the street. Tourism looks to have taken a big hit with Covid impacts. Locals tell us there are far fewer Western tourists and domestic travel is slow to pick up. 

Batu Ferrenghi

Time to have a break  from the hustle and bustle of George Town. We took the local bus to the top of the island to the small beach side village of Batu Ferrenghi.

It's always a good  taking the local bus. It's stops in out of the way places, you get to see parts of the town/village you would miss if you were on a rental car trip from point A to B and at RM1.40 (NZ$0.50) for a 50 minute trip it's economical too and it had killer AC :)

The beach is pretty much fronted with  large resort hotels, think Marriott, Golden Sands....all have private beach resorts as part of their property but there are still paths for the locals to access the beach thank goodness.

You can take a paraglide trip if that takes your fancy or just relax with a good book.

The entire area seemed very quiet and hardly anyone around and many food places not open. Some resorts obviously haven't made it through the Covid lockdown and border closure to tourists.

On the bus back you can get the perspective of George Town and it's many high rise apartment buildings that border the gorgeous old heritage buildings - it's quite a contrast.

There's many newer apartment towers and a lot of building sites that appear to have been sitting unfinished through Covid.

There are plenty of older blocks that are beginning to look worse for wear.  

Having built up an appetite we sought out a dish we loved a few years back, Squid Ink Aglio Olio with chili oil and grilled tomatoes. Lucky we chanced  seeing if this dish was still on the menu at our hotel restaurant today,  the waiter said they were closed tomorrow which just happens to be our last day on Penang. It was as delicious as we remembered and we even had the same waiter!

We also happened to be walking past Emily Darling cake shop in the heat of the late afternoon and feeling hot we naturally had an AC break, and a wee cake, and soaked up the atmosphere.

A lovely day and being at the beach today made us look forward to our time on Langkawi in a few days - bring on the swimming!  It will be so quiet compared to George Town - were looking forward to it :)