Padi field
I have already covered three full days of fun at Langkawi in my previous postings here, here and here. In this blog entry, I shall cover the accommodation, food and the shopping belt along Pantai Cenang.
Let’s start with our accommodation. For five days four nights, we stayed in the Holiday Villa Beach Resort and Spa, which is located at the end of Jalan Pantai Tengah. Our first impression of the resort was rather bad actually. Firstly, the room was not carpeted and hence it felt a little dirty. Then we had somebody who attempted to open our door in the middle of the night. Luckily we have the habit of latching the door and hence that stopped the “intruders” from entering our room. The “intruders” turned out to be some resort guests who had just arrived and were given the same room as us. Although the confusion was sorted out quickly with the front-desk, there was no apology nor any gestures of goodwill from the management. Despite such a big blunder, it seemed to be business-as-usual for this resort. ;-(
Holiday Villa Beach Resort and Spa
Taxis are easily available at a fixed rate.
A huge swimming pool with a pool-side bar
The kids had a good time with each other despite the lack of water features and slides.
Clarissa and her new found friend who doesn't speak English. But I guess toys is the natural communication bridge among kids.
What’s good about this resort is the beautiful beach behind it. Located just right beyond the swimming pool, the beach was really a hidden paradise. The beach was clean and the waves was gentle. As the resort is located quite a distance away from the busy Pantai Cenang (about 15 minutes walk) shopping area, the beach is rather “exclusive” to the resort guests. For quite a while, we were under that the impression that the beach was a private beach for the resort guests only. 😉
The beach behind the resort
Reverse view with the resort in the background
The beach at night
The beach at night
Seriously, the beach got to be the main (and maybe only) attraction of this resort. Like I had mentioned earlier, the condition of room was rather bad though we were not too bothered with it (since we were out most of the time). Hence if your dream holiday is to laze in the room, then I suggest you get a better hotel. 😉
The prices at its restaurants were also very expensive. But luckily there is a nice cafe called “Cactus” just opposite the resort. It serves good local and western food at very reasonable prices.
Cactus cafe just opposite the resort
Where we had our daily breakfast
There are two types of night markets in Langkawi. The first is the kind that we know very well where the stalls are perpetually at the same spot every night. These stalls sell souvenirs, shirts, toys and whatever a tourist might buy. You can find a lot of these stalls along Pantai Cenang.
A departmental store along Pantai Cenang
Stalls along Pantai Cenang
These T-shirts were very popular and the kids bought one each
The restaurant on the top right was supposed to be very famous and served good food. However, we didn’t had the chance to dine here and hence if you do, let me know if it’s really good.
This man makes customized name keychains at very reasonable prices.
It took him about five minutes to make one keychain
Happy customers. Happy seller.
Hopefully the above photos gave you an idea on what to expect from Pantai Cenang. Besides this night market which was more “touristy”, there was another type of night market which we found on our tourist map. Interestingly, there was a day (Monday, Tuesday, etc) labelled beside it. After checking with the locals, we then realized that these were the mobile night markets and its location depends on the day of the week. These markets sell stuff that are typically found in a wet market such as fishes, fruits and satay, which may not appeal to most tourists. Below are some photos taken from one of these markets.
As it was a make-shift setup, the ground was quite muddy after a shower
Located about 5 minutes walk from our resort, there was this restaurant by the name of “Fat Mum” which served very good Chinese food. If you travel from the resort towards Pantai Cenang, the restaurant is located on the right side of the road. Run-down as it may seem, the chef (i.e. fat mum) can cook very well. It was so good that we had our dinner there two days in a row.
Road leading to Fat Mum Restaurant
Fat Mum restaurant
Fat Mum's famous "Noodles on Fire"
The other restaurant (Deng Long) that we went to was just a few footsteps away from Fat Mum. Personally, I prefer Fat Mum’s cooking and it had a home-cooked feel. Deng Long restaurant, on the other hand, was more commercialized with waitresses in costumes. The food was ok though it was much pricier than Fat Mum.
So, this concludes our holiday in Langkawi and we are definitely looking forward to our next one – Taiwan in December! Yea!
Bye bye Langkawi
The Avid Photographer 