Feb 9 - The hotel staff are kind enough to organize a Grab (Malaysian version of Uber) for us to get to Kuala Kedah, the port west of Alor Setar. It is about a 10 minute drive and costs 14 RM. I was unable to book a ferry ticket online because the booking site would not accept a US credit card. For this reason, we go an hour before departure so I can sort out an on-site purchase of the ticket. The procedure is simple enough, and costs 95 RM for all three of us, for the two hour ride to Kuah. The ferry is only about 3/4 full, and the seas are calm.
Pass some high cliffs that plunge directly into the sea, on the islands immediately offshore from Langkawi. The Kuah Jetty has a huge sculpture of a Brahminy kite. We push past all the taxi touts in the ferry terminal and go outside, where prices are better for the five minute ride to downtown Kuah.
The town is definitely geared toward the tourist market (domestic and international), but currently has a sort of abandoned look. The pentagonal MAHA Tower, the largest building on the island (138 meters), is at the end of a quiet road and we see no one else except a security guard while we walk around it. Past this there is a long line of little restaurants and other shops with little activity, except for the occasional water monitor swimming in the fetid, trash-filled canals. We go and review the prices and opening times at the water park, which we will go to at some point in the next few days.
One things I’ve noticed, both in Alor Setar and even more so here, is the sudden disappearance of ethnic Indians. The shop names in Tamil are gone, as are the women dressed in colorful saris, red dots on their foreheads. We are definitely moving into more east Asian territory now, more influenced by the proximity of Thailand.
We eat dinner down the street at an outdoor restaurant. The meal we buy is for all of us together, three bowls of rice with sautéed vegetables and a fish cooked in a sweet and sour sauce with pineapple. The style is like a mix of Malay and Thai.
Malaysia I