Weekend in a screensaver

Langkawi, Malaysia is a tropical island. As in green, green everywhere. Palm trees, ferns, trees with big leaves, and also warm ocean beaches. My goal for the weekend was white sand and blue-green sea, with palm trees and people bringing drinks to me while I relaxed under a beach umbrella. Definitely not my usual behavior on a trip, is it? I didn’t want to know all about the history or try out all the local specialties. I just wanted to act like a spoiled old tourist. 

 Background: I am in Malaysia for work, teaching and auditing. It's near the equator, so it's warm! Since I was here over the weekend, I booked a ferry trip from Penang, where the factory is, to Langkawi, where the white sand is. It’s a 3-hour trip on the express boat, with comfortable high-backed seats, and even movies showing up front. It’s a passenger-only ferry, so smaller than the ones in Seattle. It’s a single-hull ship, so not broad like the ones in Norway.

Boarding area

Almost to Langkawi!

Disembarking, showing the ferry itself

The Casa del Mar, where I had booked the most expensive night in a hotel that I have ever done, is right on the beach.

Does this count as living in a screensaver or what?

Saturday afternoon was lovely. I swam in the warm ocean. Even though I wore my swim goggles, there were no fish to see, sadly. I read my book while drinking an unfamiliar drink with a red color and some leaves. I took another couple of harmonica lessons on my laptop, and ate dinner out by the sea, after the storm passed. (It's monsoon season.) Of course, I couldn’t resist the warm-centered chocolate pudding with ice cream!

I had a second-floor room with a balcony overlooking the hot tub, pool, and beach. It had a hammock, in which I swung during the fierce evening thunderstorm, until the thunder got too close to the lightning and I retreated indoors.

The room was actually a suite, with a four-poster bed, fresh fruits, cookies, nuts, and drinks in the living room, shampoo, conditioner, and lotion in stone-containers in the bathroom, and even spritzer for your face while sunning. There was a library of books and DVDs. I watched two movies: Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie in “The Tourist”, and one about hearing from your dead spouse with Kevin Costner, called "Dragonfly".

 

Sunday morning was for swimming in the pool, and then lying on the beach drying my swimsuit while wearing it. HeeHee. There was a storm sweeping by, but it didn’t stop the folks with the parachutes pulled by boats, or anyone else, for that matter. It didn’t do more than sprinkle us. I got some sun on my shoulders and thighs, so I hope people will believe I was lying in the sun while it snows in Bergen!

Since it’s monsoon season here, there are heavy thunderstorms in the late afternoons. I was worried about the ferry ride back to Penang. Would it be rough enough to need those readily-available seasick bags? The storm caused some rocking, but I didn’t see anyone around me get sick, and I had no trouble, either. All in all, a very relaxing weekend.