The sun finally sets in Langkawi

Ahoy!!

Yes, it’s us. We’re back. Not that we went anywhere at all, but after 6 months of no posts we are finally back on the airwaves with something to write about.

It’s hard to believe it’s been that long. Over the last 6 months I’ve tried writing a new post many times and every single time something else has changed or happened and I’ve ended up deleting what I wrote. I now feel ready to post something with a bit of clarity. Well as much clarity as you can after spending 14 months on a duty free island.

The last 6 months have been somewhat of a Groundhog day time trap. To say we haven’t done much would be an absolute lie but at the same time it’s been hard to pull together stories of any real interest on a regular basis.

Our days and weeks have been like listening to the same CD on loop, all day, every day. Most days have consisted of some form of cheap breakfast to start the day with. Maybe a Mee Rebus, which is a delicious spicy noodle soup or sometimes just some simple fried rice dish at one of the smaller family run places. Usually we don’t pay much more than £1 each for our breakfast. After breakfast we usually head to the pool at a nearby resort for a few hours to cool off and have a swim. We don’t have our own pool so we messaged around some resorts months ago and came to an agreement with one of them to pay a small amount each month for unlimited pool, Jacuzzi and Gym use. It’s been a great deal for us costing less than £1 a day each and also it’s helped the resort a little as new guests are as rare as money trees right now in Malaysia.

The resort is The Frangipani and if your ever in Langkawi I really recommend you check it out. The owner is a great guy and the whole resort is built on the ethos of sustainability and minimal environmental impact. It’s right on the beach front so if you do get bored of the pool you only have a 15 yard walk to dip a toe or two in the Andaman Sea.

Aside from our daily pool trips our days usually involve a few hours teaching on an evening followed by some good food, drinks and socializing with friends. I know what your thinking, it’s a tough life eh? and your right, it’s not tough at all, it’s bloody great, but after a year of it on the same island it gets a tad repetitive. Now I’m certainly not complaining, it truly is a wonderful feeling living in the tropics, surrounded by great scenery, beautiful people and cheap food and drinks but it’s made us wonder if we could ever settle just in one place for the rest of our lives as ex-pats. It’s hard to say I guess as this crazy pandemic has created all sorts of unusual situations around the world. If it wasn’t for the restrictions we would have been free to enjoy some off island days in other places. All I know is that Langkawi has been one of the best places I could think of to spend a year sitting out a global pandemic. It’s certainly a year on the road that we’ll never forget.

That said I think my liver would disagree with it being one of the best places to spend the last year. My liver doesn’t like me anymore, we have well and truly fallen out and I need to start making my peace with it soon…..just not quite yet. When we moved out of the Homestay about 9 months ago we started renting a house in Pantai Tengah. Tengah is a lot more relaxed than it’s busier neighbour Cenang, but right next to our house is the small cluster of bars that Tengah has to offer. I say cluster, it’s more like a community now. With the borders closed and no new tourists coming into Malaysia we have made many friends through the small group of watering holes here.

Bagua bar (now Nico’s Chill and Grill), the German “Wunda Bar”, Waikiki and Lot 33 are the main places to grab a drink in Tengah and it’s the same crowd of tourists, ex pats and locals that float from one to the other every single night. We have had some fantastic nights out with great people, truly memorable, funny, fantastic nights. Halloween at Bagua was particularly crazy, genuinely like night of the living dead. By the time we got there after teaching everyone else was so drunk that it was hard to tell who was dressed up and playing at being a Zombie and who was just clinging to the bar or a post to stop falling over. Good times indeed. I think the videos on here will do Bagua a lot more justice in showing you the kind of nights we have had than any of my commentary can.

Christmas was spent at Billy and Jane’s who were kind enough to invite us round and cook for us.  Our dinner was tremendous and only the second roast dinner we have had since leaving the UK 2 years ago. It was a little tough though spending a second Christmas away from loved ones, but we didn’t have much choice. With most borders closed there was no way we could just pop back to see family and friends for a few weeks and then get back out to Asia. If we had returned to the UK we would be stuck there and back in the mundane mind numbing loop of looking for a job and a place to stay again. It’s only just recently that we’ve come to realise we are now fully fledged digital nomads. No house or security or commitments back home, just life on the open road, living day to day. Despite the fact the only road we have taken for the last 9 months is round the island and back to where we started. But that’s all about change.

I mentioned I had started writing many new posts but I always scraped them as things during this pandemic change quicker than Boris Johnston’s mind when he reads a tweet from Marcus Rashford. Since the start of the pandemic in Malaysia, just over a year ago, tourists have been allowed to overstay on their visa while nationwide restrictions have been in place. We have gone through the same nervy process every few months. The government announce restrictions are extended then maybe a week or so later the immigration department release confirmation that tourists are allowed to stay until after the rule extensions end. Sadly that grace period has now come to an end. Despite restrictions being extended yet again the government have decided it is now time for tourists to move on and finally leave Malaysia.

I’m certainly grateful that Malaysia have allowed us to stay as long as we have and I cant criticize the hospitality they have shown us, but it did come as a huge shock that despite the pandemic still raging around the world they have chosen now to tell us to leave. It doesn’t feel like much has changed around the world with Covid either yet Malaysia’s stance has for us visitors. It took a while for the confirmation to trickle out from immigration here and it’s safe to say a lot of us were in shock bordering on panic when it did. They gave us about 10 days notice to pack our things up and arrange a flight out of the country. Usually when traveling we can pack up and be off to a new country the following day but it’s a little different during this pandemic, given how long we have been here and how settled in we were as well as the difficulty in pulling everything together to allow you to travel internationally.

The two main obstacles to moving on are flight availability and a destination that will allow us to enter. Flights here are cancelled on a daily basis and most countries still have their borders closed. A return to the UK still doesn’t feel like the best or the safest option so we have been frantically trying to pull together our “exit stage left” plan.

We have kept a close eye on the other countries nearby to see if any of them were starting to allow non-nationals to enter. Our options came down to either Thailand or Indonesia, both of whom will let you enter as long as you obtain the right visa, cross their palm with silver and jump through a myriad of regulatory hoops.

Thankfully though the Malaysian Govt. eventually issued a fresh statement saying that tourists could obtain an extra 30 days extension. This bought us a little more time to pull together our exit strategy.

Thailand unfortunately started to see a massive spike in cases and also their visa process was fairly long winded and costly so we decided on Indonesia and a return to Bali. We love Bali, so the thought of spending our next 6 months there is something we are really looking forward to. It feels like the right decision.

Our Visa for Bali was really easy to sort out through an agent. We sent photos of our passport, some money and within 24 hours we had our visa, valid for entry within 90 days and lasting up to a maximum of 6 months if we keep extending it. So simple and easy compared to the Thailand option. With that sorted we booked our flights from KL to Jakarta and settled back in to the Langkawi life for another couple of weeks.

We are going to miss Langkawi a lot. Mostly because of the people we have been fortunate to meet over the last year or so. I was going to avoid mentioning too many people in this post. Not because I don’t care about these fine folks but because there are that many that it would end up like the credits at the end of Lord of the Rings if I simply started listing names. Also I don’t want anyone to feel bad if I miss them off but I figure I need to give thanks and credit to them as they have made the last year of restrictions a fun and memorable time.

Firstly Billy and Jane have been great mates to us. They’ve cooked for us and we have spent many a night round their house drinking on the patio until the early hours, and sometimes thanks to Billy the later hours of the following day. Thank you both for everything you’ve done for us, I’m sure we will be meeting up again somewhere in the world.

Daniel with his trademark silky thai scarfs and love of 90’s rave has been another great mate and I hope we get to catch up later in the year fella for some Mong Island iced teas in Bali. It would be great if we can and we will have a space for you to stay at ours if you can make it over.

Colin, the big bumbling Lincolnshire love child of Hagrid from Harry Potter and Santa Clause has been a great character to share a few beers with now and then and he’s never short of some crazy stories from his many years of globe trotting.

Billy, Jane, Daniel and Colin are all people we have know for a few years now from previous trips to Langkawi. It is always nice to return to a familiar place with familiar faces. People that you get on with and who you know you can send them a quick message any time you arrive in Langkawi and they will be out for a pint within an hour to greet you.

Also in the group of familiar faces in Langkawi are Balin and his lovely family and Murali the Langkawi Mackem (Mackems are people from Sunderland like ourselves). They are both locals who we have known since the days of Frankie’s bar Lepak (RIP Frankie, you are still missed and always will be). Lovely, kind and friendly people that make the island feel homely.

So that’s the longer term friends that we have here on the island, next up is the happy, fun loving drunken assortment of people from all over the world that we have had the pleasure to spend some great times with over the last year.

Lan and Molly are about as chilled as they come….or at least until Molly starts doing massive free pours at the bar, then it just gets messy in a very short space of time. Lan was running Bagua bar until he retired from there a while ago and he passed the reigns on to Nico a lovely lad from South Africa. That nicely brings us to Nico and the rest of the Bagua crowd who are like Langkawi’s equivalent of the Cantina in Mos Eisley from Star Wars! That’s meant in no disrespect guys as we are also part of that motley crew. Oh the times we have had there!

Nico took over the bar along with his lovely lady friend Pare. They have done a great job of continuing the beach bar vibe that Lan created and Bagua has always been a laid back place that anyone is made to feel welcome at. The bar was originally owned by Eejay who has the nearby scuba shop and in turn it’s meant that the scuba staff are also part of the Mos Bagua crowd as well as sometimes working at the bar.

Leanne and Joe are crackers. Well maybe Leanne more so! They are both dive instructors as well as fully qualified Drink masters and are truly part of the fixtures and fittings at Bagua. Marie, the crazy biking petrol head from Germany is another of the regulars and we wish you all the best Marie on your new biking adventures in Spain. Stay safe and have fun my friend.

Heinne, like Nico is another South African. Looking like a friendlier version of Vin Diesel this guy knows how to down shots and party. Unfortunately most of those shots are tequila. I hate tequila with a passion, to me it’s like drinking the devils piss and mangles my brain in seconds. Still good times though.

Last and certainly not least from the Bagua crowd is Ridz, the star bartender. I left you until last Ridz because you are the headline of the show, the glittering fun filled glue that holds the entertainment together. Just like Lan, Ridz is the kind of character every bar should have to give it a great atmosphere. He’s a young lad with more energy than the sun and that energy is infectious to all those at the bar. Ridz, you have certainly given us our fair share of hilarious and memorable moments at Bagua and we thank you from the bottom of our heart for that, we will be back for sure and will catch up over a few drinks.

Wow, half of this post is about the people we have met, but that’s great, that’s a big part of what traveling is all about. It’s the memories you make and the people you make them with. I also need to say a big thank you to Jim from Lot 33, a bar opposite Bagua. Jim, like many other locals has made us feel very welcome on his island. His hospitality has been tremendous and just like Bagua, if your ever in Langkawi I highly recommend a trip his bar.

So this is it really. A year and a half of Langkawi life has somehow flown past and finally drawn to a close. It really has been a great place to sit out this crazy pandemic that is still raging across the world. We would much rather have stayed if we could have as we felt safe and settled there but unfortunately it’s definitely time to move on.

Now that we are leaving I feel sorry for all of the locals on the island. I already did feel bad for them but more so now than ever before. Everyone’s business here is connected to the tourism industry in some way and it’s already been a tough year and half for most people on the island. Now with the remaining tourists having to leave it is going to be an even bigger struggle for these lovely people to survive on a daily basis. Our landlady now has our place as well as next door suddenly standing empty with a huge amount of income suddenly gone. Some of the smaller food stalls we eat at have now disappeared and I really fear for the future of Langkawi in the months and years ahead. I wish the best of luck to everyone there and hope that the future brings them both prosperity and good health. When we get a chance we will return to put our own little bit back into the community here, everything helps.

This post feels a little like a sad goodbye but it’s been nice to get back to writing again and hopefully with pastures new just around the corner it’s something I can get back to on a regular basis, I know I’ve certainly missed it.