Honeymoon: Langkawi, Malaysia - Part 2

By the afternoon Gaffa was feeling a bit better - thanks to the coconut water, the tablets from the resort doctor and some TLC from me hahaha.

That night we dressed up and had a romantic private dinner on the beach. We had picked a Malaysian style banquet and were seated at a secluded part of the beach watching the sun set over the ocean. It was just beautiful!! We even had our own waiter. They'd decorated the table with shells, candles and napkins folded into 2 birds kissing.

We started off with a few entrees: salad, a meat dish, soup and a cocktail. Then the main was a buffet of various Malaysian dishes of various meats, fish and vegetables, so much food that we couldn't finish it. Then there was dessert still to come! All the food was just so delicious, we felt so bad leaving so much on our plates. During our dinner the resort band came down to the beach and sang to us, it was so cool. They were really good - see my Instagram for a snippet of action! We ended the night in a food coma but still managed a big breakfast in the morning haha.

The hotel has a reef conservation section that are trying to rebuild the coral from the tsunami that hit a few years ago. We went down to the site and helped them out for a few hours removing the algae from their pond so that coral could grow in the best environment. They have a few students there that are studying from local universities helping out also. Guests can do snorkeling tours there and also volunteer to help with the other activities that are required to be done each day to maintain and rebuild the underwater ecosystem. It's a really good program and one of the reasons why we chose The Andaman Resort to stay at.

Later that day, I went for a facial while Gaffa sat overlooking the ocean reading the Tomorrow series on his iPad. The spa had a promotion where you received stamps for every x amount of MYR that you spent there. Once you collected enough stamps you were entitled to a free treatment.

That night we had dinner at the Japanese restaurant. It was a bit expensive for the size of the dishes, probably our least favorite restaurant; but still nice food. You can choose from teppanyaki or a la carte menu. At the end they gave me a grasshopper made from banana leaf. It was so cool, but I didn't pack it in my suitcase. Afterwards we went to the bar for some drinks while watching the band sing a few songs.

They next morning we booked a session of parasailing. The company sent a car to pick us up from the hotel and drove us to the beach. We signed the usual forms then boarded the boat which drove us out into the Andaman Sea for our 10 minutes of parasailing. We were asked if we wanted to be dipped into the water at the end of our session, and how much we wanted to get wet: feet, legs, nose... As you may have guessed, Gaffa and I opted for the extreme.

There were 2 other couples on the boat with us, so they were able to take some photos for us. Unfortunately, my phone died so I only have 1 photo saved. However the experience was awesome. We were hanging in the air by a harness, overlooking the beautiful ocean, being dragged along by a multicolored parachute attached to a boat. Gaffa had his GoPro attached to his hand so we got it all on video. At the end we were waiting for out dip in the water, hoping to get wet. But alas, we only got our legs wet. We both lent forward to try and get our noses wet. When we were pulled back up in the air I spent the rest of the time sitting in the harness with a major wedgie. But still was a lot of fun.

On our final full day we went shopping. Langkawi is known for its duty free shopping. Mainly perfume, alcohol (Gaffa went crazy with Glennorangie scotch) and  chocolate (Daim & Bueno). We came back to the hotel with enough to fill our extra 6kg of luggage we needed to reach our max limit, plus more.

Our last dinner at the hotel was at Tepian Laut. We had a drink in the bar first then headed to our table to watch the sun set. The food at Tepian Laut was probably one of my favourite places. It was similar to the private beach dinner we had - Malaysian style. We ordered 3 courses and a few cocktails. A great end to our week of luxury. We were so sad to leave the resort, not just because of amazing room but also because the people were so nice and attentive. We promised we'd be back again, but we'll be staying in the basic room... Unless we get upgraded again hahaha.

Honeymoon: Langkawi, Malaysia - Part 1

It's been a while since I actually wrote this. But I've been reluctant to post because I was waiting for my phone to hopefully be fixed so I could add some photos. But alas, phone is completely dead and photos are gone... So have a read anyway of the second week of our amazing honeymoon :)

After a quick overnight stay in KL we were back at KLIA2 again for another Air Asia flight to Langkawi, which is on the western side on mainland peninsula Malaysia in the Andaman Sea - very close to Thailand. We'd chosen this island for the 'luxury' part of our honeymoon and booked a jacuzzi room in the 5 star Andaman Resort for 5 nights.

Upon arriving at the airport we enjoyed a Starbucks drink while waiting for our driver. About 40mins later we arrived at the resort and were greeted by the sound of a beating drum and walked through the grand lobby. When we checked in we were advised that we'd been upgraded to another room! The second best rooms at the resort: the executive suite, to be exact!! Woohoo, our smiles got bigger as we were escorted down the north wing to our room 139 the Rapala Suite.

The lady took us through all the amenities of the room including our own private pool, outdoor rain shower, lounge area, amazing bathroom and complimentary mini bar. We were in heaven! We decided to unpack all our clothes into the wardrobe and then headed out to book in some spa treatments and dinner reservations for the next 5 days.

The spa at the Andaman has received a few awards for some of their treatments. They are a bit on the pricey side - what you'd expect for a 5 star resort - but yolo, we booked in a massage and body scrub each.

For dinner we wanted to try all the restaurants they had at the resort. So the first night we booked a table at Jala, which is their famous seafood restaurant. The next night we had a reservation at Tepian Laut, then a private romantic dinner on the beach for our monthly anniversary, Japanese the night after and we left the last night open to go back to our favourite restaurant.

We decided to take advantage of the gym facilities and did an intense workout and enjoyed a dip in our private pool before dinner.

Jala restaurant is al fresco dining, with a sandy floor and massive menus lit by a clip on reading light. You can order off the menu or choose your own fresh fish and choose how it's cooked and with sauce and sides. Gaffa and I went all out, 3 course meal with a bottle of wine. We chose a snapper fish steamed in banana leaf with a variety of spicy dipping sauces. The fish was amazing and paired nicely with the sauces and the white wine Gaffa chose. Tummies full, we headed back to our room after a visit to the shoe concierge to use an air hose to blow the sand off our feet before putting our shoes back on.

The next morning we woke for some more delicious food at the buffet breakfast. Pancakes, waffles, eggs anyway you want, an array of breads and pastries, fresh fruit, Malay, Indian, western food.... We filled up enough to skip lunch every day we were there!

Then it was massage time!!! We took the golf buggy up the hill to the day spa and were greeted with a sweet drink and cold towels. After filling in some forms and enjoying the view over the Andaman we walked up to another room with 2 massage beds. We each enjoyed a relaxing massage, and the a soothing body scrub. Ahhhh pure bliss! I think afterwards we were so chilled out that we returned to our room and collapsed on the sun lounges outside and had an afternoon znooze!

Unfortunately I woke to Gaffa not feeling very well. He was vomiting and spending a lot of time on the toilet... We postponed our dinner reservation at Tepian Laut and I ordered room service. We had an early night's sleep which was a bit restless for my poor hubby. The next morning he visited the resort doctor who gave him a lot of tablets to take to help with the vomiting, diahrea, bloating, stomach cramps and dehydration... ;(

We spent an hour or so relaxing by the pool and ordered a fresh coconut for some well needed rehydration. I went on the slippery slide and practiced my handstands in the water while Gaffa watched and laughed.

We then decided to visit the cable car, which gives you an amazing view of Langkawi and the surround sea. The weather was overcast but no rain and the lines were short. We went all the way to the top and had a relaxing day, enough for Gaffa to recover.

When we got back to the hotel, there was a fresh coconut waiting for Gaffa from the hotel, sending him wishes to get well soon. How thoughtful!! The staff at the hotel are so attentive.

Until next time.... Look out for the next post starting with our private romantic dinner on the beach :) :)

Honeymoon: Perhentian Island, Malaysia

Hello ETD readers! Apologies again for the lack of posts but another good reason is that we've been on our honeymoon. So look out for some exciting travel and dive posts coming up! You might even be so lucky to read a post by Gaffa, if I can convince him to write one about the diving we did on our honeymoon.... I'm sure I won't have to try very hard ;)

Anywho, we were married in December 2013 and 6.5 months later we left for our belated honeymoon. Initially we were wanting to go to Hawaii but money and time didn't work in our favour so we found somewhere closer and a bit cheaper. We decided on 5 nights of diving and 5 nights of relaxing and the "real" honeymoon. When I say "real" honeymoon, I'm talking the typical tropical 5* resort, some luxury and splurging, relaxing and chilling out. Isn't that what most people do on their honeymoon??!

So we found Malaysia to be able to provide both diving and beach luxury. We initially booked to dive in Sipadan and stay on the oil rig dive resort on the east side of Malaysia near Borneo & Philippines but a few days before we left we were told by some friends that there were some terrorist activities going on in Sabah and the Australian Government Smart Traveller website advised to avoid travel to that area. A bit stressed out, we had to reorganise the first part of our trip, rebook flights, accommodation and find a new diving location. I don't know how we did it, but team WinGaz worked it all out in the end and it turned out pefectly!! :)

Say hello to Perhentian Island. I think this place is a hidden gem. Even some of the locals didn't know where Perhentian was! (Maybe we were just pronouncing it incorrectly?!) It's on the east side of mainland peninsular Malaysia, off the coast of Kota Bharu. We flew into KL and stayed overnight then took a 1hr flight the next morning to Kota Bharu. The resort we found, Tuna Bay Resort included airport transfers - so a taxi was waiting for us when we landed. An hour later we arrived at the Tuna Bay office on the mainland and waited for the ferry to depart. The Tuna Express then took 45mins to get to the idyllic beach resort on the Perhentian big island.

There's not much on the island except resorts and when I Googled things to do, there wasn't much else besides scuba diving, snorkeling and jungle treking. Perfect! Universal Divers are connected to Tuna Bay Resort - Gaffa actually found the dive shop before we found the accommodation! The resort did a 3night/4day dive package including full board. So we opted for that and added an extra 2 nights which included breakfast only.

When we arrived we were greeted with a welcome drink and sat down in their restaurant on the beach front. Our bags were taken to our chalet via a wheelbarrow; which overlooked the trees but there are beach front chalets as well. Apparently the resort closes down in the wet season which runs from about Oct - Mar I think... we were actually lucky to get a last minute booking as another couple we met tried to book a few months in advance and were told it was a 6 night minimum stay.

Our routine for each day looked something like this:
Wake up
Breakfast
8am - go diving
Chill out on the beach
12pm - go diving
Lunch
More beach chilling out
3pm - go diving
Some more relaxing on the beach
Dinner
Sleep
Repeat!!

We did a total of 11 dives, including a night dive. The package included 7 dives and we added on some extra ones. There are loads of dive sites around Perhentian and there are a few more islands in the area with some more dive sites (like Redang), so we didn't get to experience it all. But that's just a good excuse to go back again!

The diving was super easy - just the way I like it. Universal Divers had 2 boats, a big one and a small one. All the dives we did were off the big boat except for the night dive when there was only 4 of us so we used the smaller boat. 30 degrees Celsius in the water meant no wetsuits, just boardies, a rashie and my Probe top. Each dive site was about 5-20 mins away by boat, entry by giant stride into the water and out via a ladder made for some easy and pleasurable dives. Not to mention the marine life: wow! So much to see on every single dive, it was crazy. As you can imagine I went a bit happy snappy with the camera underwater while Gaffa experimented with his GoPro. So much, that I saw Nemo on every dive and one crazy clown fish decided to take a munch at my right middle finger!!

Away from the diving we relaxed on the beach and the sun lounges. The resort also had a pontoon out on the water and a large swimming area with a net. One afternoon we went kayaking around to another beach in search for turtles - we found them yay! Gaffa made friends with some Canadians and played frisbee with them while I worked on my tan and practiced yoga and handstands on the pontoon and sand. At night we enjoyed a few cocktails and got an early night's sleep because diving wears you out sometimes!

The rooms were pretty good, 3* but very clean and had everything you needed, including an Aussie power point! The menu at the restaurant included both Western and Asian meals. In the full board package lunch was a Western meal: soup then meat and chips with salad. Dinner was Asian meals and always a lot bigger portions. Their drinks were good (juices & fruit lassi's) and cocktails even better - accoring to Gaffa!

On our last night there we decided to try the restaurant next door: Cocohut. We had heard mixed reviews about it, some guys got food poisoning but some had gone their every night and loved it...so we had dinner there with our new Canadian friends. It was good but the day after I had stomach cramps and a few days later Gaffa was really sick with vomiting and the runs. Eep!

The dive operator was very professional. Gear was in good condition - we used our own gear but had some hoses blow on our regs so we had to borrow a set. Rinsing tanks were clean and drying space was organised. We would definitely recommend them to fellow divers. The guides were fun and knowledgeable and most dives lasted about 60 minutes.

The weather was perfect during the day, hot and sunny and not too overly humid. The sun wad so bright you had to squint sometimes to see. It rained at night a couple of times but was always clear during the day. The island was simple and laid back, a great place to just get away from it all. Gaffa and I will definitely be back for some more diving!!