Honeymooning in Langkawi!

Langkawi – for us was the first trip we took after getting married and so choosing this as our honeymoon destination involved a lot of discussions, research and checklists. We spent days zeroing down on our travel destination because Feb is very cold or rainy for almost all the conventional honeymoon destinations, and I don’t really appreciate the cold, also I love beaches. So when we came across the pictures of Langkawi on our friends’ timelines, we were eager to explore and know more about it. 

About Langkawi:

Langkawi which is situated at west coast of Malaysia is an archipelago of 99 islands. The turquoise blue waters and picturesque scenery is to die for. Also, you get duty free cigarettes, chocolates and Alcohol here! And most importantly it is not overcrowding with people yet, still some room left for peace. It offers something for everyone, amazing beaches for the lazy bum like me, snorkelling and other adventurous activities for an adventure freak and lots of amazing destinations for sight-seeing. Therefore, obviously this was a winner amongst all other locations we were researching upon.

How to reach Langkawi?

This was our first trip together and we wanted to plan as much of it as possible by ourselves. So opting for a travel package was out of picture. To reach Langkawi we had options to book a direct flight to Langkawi or Land in Kuala Lumpur, first visit the city and then head to Langkawi by a ferry or a flight. We went for the latter option and made sure that we book our tickets at least two months in advance. Although, our flight got rescheduled at the last moment and we both got a mini panic attack but somehow we managed to rebook a ticket from Chennai and things were in control again.  So I guess this is something which you have to be prepared for while planning anything in life in general: the uncertainty and the unexpectedness. Booking our flights was the first thing that we did after checking for the best prices at sky scanner. We booked our flights through MMT, Flipkart, Paytm and every source possible exploiting every coupon we could get. 

Visa:

For Visa in Malaysia for Indians, you can get an e-NTRI note printed through windowmalaysia.com, which provides you tourist access in Malaysia for 15 days and this note is valid for 3 months. After you have booked all your flights and hotels, you’ll need to create a hotel and flight itinerary and upload it on the website. Getting the note wasn’t a very tedious process once we had booked our flights and hotels.

Where to stay? 

After we booked our flights, making stay arrangements was our next agenda. We found Agoda really useful and convenient while booking hotels. It had all the options and they were offering great discounts. We were to stay two days in KL, one day each while arriving to Malaysia and while departing from Malaysia. We booked hotels in KL looking at the places we wanted to explore. We opted for a hotel closer to city centre on our arrival to KL. Since we had lesser time to spend during arrival to spend in KL, we booked a hotel in the same vicinity while going back to India as well. 

At Langkawi, we couldn’t decide between two beautiful resorts that we had our eyes on: Bella Vista and Resorts world. So we decided that we’ll stay two days each at both of these resorts. This turned out to be an amazing idea, because Bella Vista didn’t match up to all the hype its pictures had created and Resorts world was just amazing. We managed to upgrade our room to ocean view at Resorts world and it had an amazing infinity pool. 

How to commute in the city?

For Langkawi I’ll suggest you rent a vehicle, because that’s a much cheaper option than hiring cabs every time you step out. Also its very easy to drive around Langkawi. We spent 240 MYR to hire a one-year old fully automatic car for four days and this was our best decision. 

Same can’t be done in Kualalumpur though, as the hiring rates there are too high (Around 190 MYR for a day excluding toll and petrol). Here you can book cabs through Grab and if you book a hotel near city centre, where almost all major attractions are located, you can save a lot on cabs in KL.

Places to visit in KL:

For our first day in KL, we reached our hotel around 3 PM. We didn’t have much time in our hands and we were really tired. So, we decided on visiting Petronas twin towers, which was only 3 Kms from our hotel. To make sure that we were able to enter the Petronas Tower without getting stuck in a queue, we booked a coupon to visit the towers beforehand through Klook, which is very convenient as they provide pickup service from the hotel as well. The tower visit pass includes taking you upto the observation deck and then to the highest floor at the towers. They also click pictures of you during the entire visit which you can buy at the exit. We got our soft copies for 47 MYR.

After the twin towers visit, we explored the Suria KLCC mall near the towers, which is an amazing food & shopping destination. 

Next day we visited Batu Caves, which is a very famous Hindu temple, and is famous among the tourists for its colourful architecture. It is advisable to reach here early, so that the crowd is less and you get ample amount of time and space to click beautiful pictures in and around the temple. The dress code here doesn’t permit women to enter without their shoulders and knees covered. In case you forget to wear the appropriate clothing, you can rent a scarf for 3 MYR at the entrance to cover yourself.

We explored local markets of KL after coming back from Langkawi. Petaling street and KLCC Center market are the most famous shopping destinations here but don’t forget to bargain.

How to reach Langkawi from Kuala Lumpur?

For Langkawi, one can reach there through ferries as well but we decided to take flights as they were not very expensive, in fact surprisingly cheap and obviously faster way of transport. But  the flights provide cabin baggage facility only. You can pre book check-in baggage through air asia website 4 hours prior to departure. We paid 37 MYR for 15 Kg Baggage allowance.

Places to explore in LK:

For our 3D/4N stay we managed to explore the below mentioned places and it is almost everything unique that you can visit or do in Langkawi

Dataran Lang: Also famously and commonly known as eagle square is the face of Langkawi and a very beautiful place. Looks amazing in the evening and luckily for us was just 2 Kms away from our resort. So after a tiring day of travel from KL, we hired a car, reached our resort, rested for a while and left straight for Dataran Lang. 

Oriental Village: Oriental village is a place where you can spend almost whole of your day. It offers different activities like Skycab, Skybridge, Sky Dome, Sky Rex, 3 D art museum, etc. Also it has good opportunity to shop from its colourful market. I found the prices reasonable here and you can’t bargain here much. So if you are planning on taking some souvenirs home from LK you can explore the shops here. 

We went for Skycab, skybridge and 3-D Museum. 3-D Museum was complementary with the Skycab which cost 90 MYR per person and to visit Skybridge one has to pay 6 MYR additional at the top. 

Pantai Cenang: One of the most famous beaches and areas of Langkawi, where you can find almost everything. Water sports, Supermarkets, Cigars, Alcohol, Music and most importantly Indian food!! This was the most amazing beach, where we went almost every evening to relax and enjoy the view. This is strongly recommended if you ever visit Langkawi, especially during the evening hours.

Langkawi Underwater World: This is huge and so fascinating. This is the place where I saw the adorable seals and penguins for the first time. It has huge variety of marine life showcased and should  be in your list of must-visit places if you ever visit LK.

Island Hopping Tour: This was the highlight of our trip as they take you on a speed boat around the islands and make stoppage at one or two beautiful islands and leave you there for some time so that you can soak in the beauty of these amazing islands. We also saw the lake of Pregnant Maiden, which is a lake by the hill which looks like a pregnant women lying down from distance. We visited two islands: Dayang Bunting Marble Island and Beras Basah Island. We could also observe a lot of eagles on one of the islands. You can also go for a mangrove tour which is a little advanced version of island hopping and lasts for six hours but it covers nearly the same things as the island hopping tour and hence we skipped it.

Gunung Raya: This is the highest peak of Langkawi and we drove all the way to the top but the scary part was that we started a little late and there wasn’t a single soul whom we met during the entire time and till the time we reached at the top I was shit scared to even step out of the car to enjoy the amazing view from the observation deck and hence we drove all the way up there just to click a picture of the view from our car window.

Kuah Night Market: This was a very hyped about local night market which I found really disappointing. All it had was local food cooked in weird oil and beach wear. I thought I would buy souvenirs from here but it had literally nothing which I could gift to anyone.

Communication in KL & LK:

There is no need to buy any additional SIM Card, if your local network works in KL & LK. We purchased roaming packs for our Airtel and Jio SIM Cards and never faced a problem anywhere during our complete trip.

Pro Tip:

In case you are a vegetarian, just like me then don’t forget to carry some ready-to-cook food along from India. It is very difficult to find vegetarian options in Langkawi and if you are not pre-prepared you’ll end up surviving on French fries just like I did. You might find some vegetarian options near Pantai Cenang which are pretty good but priced at a higher end.