Getting sentimental

This afternoon we went to the small marina Awana Porto Malai Langkawi. It's a charming place with a few small restaurants and shops, as well as a terminal for ocean going cruise ships. We stayed there for a few hours chilling and admiring the beauty of the Andaman Sea and its magnificent islands.

Since we are about to leave Langkawi soon, we get easyily sentimental these days. It's a really peaceful island and we have had a wonderful time here. When we got back home to Chogm Villa we said good bye to our host Rob who had to fly to the Netherlands. He is such a kind guy who works hard to make his guests' holiday as great as possible. It doesn't matter what kind of problems you might face here, he fixes it for you right away, always with a big smile.

Tomorrow we are off to George Town (Penang) for two days and then we will be back to Langkawi for our final three days here. Next week we're getting into city mood again, starting with six exciting days in Singapore, followed by Kuala Lumpur again.

Nelly by the pool - The Movie!

Check out this short but sweet film of Nelly doing her morning exercise with mommy in the swimming pool. It's just another stunningly beautiful morning here in Langkawi, Malaysia.

Life's a bitch

We keep hearing complaints from friends and family back home that it's the coldest winter since Elvis left the building and how everyone been carrying around the same cold for weeks while waiting for a bus that never comes, and so on, and so on. Stop complaining people, we also have problems, not everything is peachy here in Malaysia. So with that said, please stand back and let us bitch a little.

• First of all it's really hard to keep beer nice and cold in this heat.
• The local Starbucks uses regular milk in the latte, not Barista milk.
• If you do not park in the shadow it takes the air con at least a minute to cool down the car.
• When you eat mango, your hands get really sticky (unless you have a napkin of course).
• During our vacation so far it has rained for more than one hour.
• Our swimming pool can get crowded (we spotted at least five people this morning).
• We have been eating seafood for over a month, how much more can you take?!
• And finally, it's hot! The heat makes you tired and it takes at least one nap a day to recover.
  

Wow, so glad we got that off of our chests, it actually feels a little better now ;-)

Half Swede half Poolish

This morning we took it real easy (vacation style). Just went down to the pool and let Nelly play around some. She was skeptical at first, like she always is but then she lit up.











It is an interesting neighborhood we live in! It feels like we got into a little society of its own, which created its own rules and if you happen to ignore them or misunderstand them, you will get a gentle yet determined warning so you behave next time. Our neighbors are nice and they insist on always greeting one another when there's an eye contact. It seems like it is important to them to keep the feeling that they know each other a little bit. They learned our names right away and they use them often, so you "almost" get a feeling that you belong. Not that we have any problem with any of this it's just ... I don't know sometimes it feels weird to be forced to be nice to strangers all the time (god I'm Swedish). It really is a closed apartment complex where we live, I'm not gonna go so far and say it's like in that movie "La Zona" but you never know what's gonna happen if you suddenly broke one of all the unwritten rules they have here.

Everyday people

We have moved out from Westin where we had our wedding. We're still in Langkawi but now in a 3-room apartment at the Chogm Villa apartment complex. This will be our base until 22nd March. But from here we plan to make several short trips. More on that later, when we know, you know. Life now seems much more like everyday life to me. For example today I had to drop off all the dirty laundry we had, it cost us 5 SEK per kilo (2 zl). Then I had to go grocery shopping. When I got home Beata made us pancakes.

Tonight we're just gonna stay home and chill, we have wine and we borrowed a couple of dozen DVDs from Rob our nice host so I think we're all set. Tomorrow we'll rent a car so that we can start exploring the rest of this beautiful island.

Picture below is our view from the balcony.