We are now into month 8 of Pulau Langkawi and Malaysia. This trip is rapidly turning into the longest one so far with the least amount of new places visited. Damn you Covid, damn you.
When I wrote the last entry we were staying at the cheap homestay located in a small, quiet Kampung (village) out in the rice fields. It was a beautiful location. We hoped we would be able to stay there until the end of MCO (movement control order) or until another country opened it's borders. But alas it was not too be.
We felt very settled where we were. Nice quiet place, lovely family that were hosting us and decent Wifi, with our teaching area all set up and working well. We knew we were getting a good deal there. We were only paying £176 a month, less than £6 a day for our own place with kitchen, living area and all bills included. We looked online and usually the family charge £30 a night to stay there. There are 2 bedrooms which means it is ideally suited for families and sure enough now that the restrictions had been relaxed allowing inter-state travel and domestic tourism it was only a matter of time before Arrow, the lady whose place it was would be able to get people booked in at full price.
We were given 3 days notice to move out, which wasn't great but there was nothing we could do about it. Arrow was genuinely apologetic about the situation and we totally understood that after several months of hardly any income she needed to do this to help support her family.
So with little time on our hands we went in search of some new digs for at least a month or two.
We checked a lot of places over a wide budget. Anywhere up to £250 a month. There was a nice apartment in a small complex with a swimming pool which was nice and modern and clean. But it didn't feel right for us. It was more a single room with no kitchen and your neighbours right on top of you. If we took the place we would be committed to it for a month and if people started to complain that our teaching was too loud there wouldn't be much we could do about it other than to have all our neighbours hate us.
Every other place we viewed also wasn't suitable. Either no WiFi, or the rooms were too dark and gloomy to teach in.
Jean, a friend of ours here had sent us a message about a place that she knew of that would be available in a weeks time. It looked good. Full house, good sized kitchen, nice living area and a nice outdoor area as well. It was more than we had been paying at the homestay but we expected that now that the island was starting to get busier with domestic tourists. We decided we would take it and booking a hotel for a week seemed the best option........now we just had to find one with good WiFi, a light enough room and not too expensive. This was starting to become a pain for us.
Come moving out day we had all our bags packed up and were sat outside with ours brains slightly mangled from trying to decide which hotel would be our best option. We still couldn't decide when all of a sudden I got message from Billy and Jane asking if we wanted to pop to a great local bar on the beach called Coconut. We thanked them for the offer and explained we were still in the process of trying to move out when as if by magic, as happens a lot when we are traveling everything suddenly came together for us.
Billy and Jane kindly offered for us to stay at their place for a week until our new house would be ready for us to move in. I really don't know how or why these things happen when we are traveling but for some reason, quite often, things just fall in to place from out of nowhere.
20 minutes later we pulled up at Billy and Jane's house and had our bags tucked away in one of the spare rooms and a cold beer in our hands. Our minds now well and truly relaxed from the housing situation.
We can't thank Billy and Jane enough for their generosity over the past week. They have been very good friends to us and really helped us out. They have also been great company over this week as well. Many a night drinking either at Coconut or just out the back of their beautiful house has ended as an early hours of the morning sessions with some very sore heads the following day.
I know Billy and Jane both read this blog, so once again many thanks to you both for your amazing hospitality, it is very much appreciated and it is great to have friends like yourselves on what at times is the crazy island of Langkawi.
Overall it's been a nice few weeks since our last blog update. Some good times with good friends. Some stunning sunsets and lightning shows (check out the photos). I have also still popped along to the Lassie animal shelter a couple of days a week to help out which as always is nice.
Billy and Jane's cat Tigger has a nasty infection in his neck so we have helped out by giving him some antibiotics. This is something that Tigger appears to detest at the highest level. I'm not sure if you've ever tried to give a cat tablets but trust me it can be a challenging and highly dangerous task. Akin to trying to give a tablet to the creature from Alien, this is not a task for the faint hearted. Trying to force open the jaws of a natural born killer and then to pop a tablet in and push it down the throat with your finger is Ninja level healthcare treatment. Needless to say I have now soured my relationship with said Tigger.
We moved into our new house a couple of nights ago and it already feels nice and homely. It has a nice relaxed sea gipsy/hippy feel about it and I think we will feel comfortable and enjoy our time here for the next month or two. The house is along at place called Pantai Tengah. It's a fairly relaxed area past the hustle and bustle of Pantai Cenang. One of our regular watering holes "Lan's bar" is now only about 50 yards from our door step. This could be either a good, or bad thing, I guess time will tell!
We are now also only a hundred yards away from a nice quiet beach and we are making sure that we head down each and every day for a couple of hours to kick back and cool off in the sea. Our days are certainly enjoyable and as always we feel grateful for the life we currently live. Three hours of online teaching every day is all we need to do to be able to live a nice life out here. We aren't quite there yet but hopefully we can increase our students and get to that point sometime soon. Three hours a day between us is not a lot to be rewarded with a nice place to stay, great food and a cold beer on the beach every day for sunset. It's a hard life!
Until next time, stay safe folks. Look after yourselves and those around you. Peace.
