Day 70 - We completed our extra trip to Langkawi. When faced with the possibility of a potentially unused ticket from our Air Asia pass booklet, we decided to return to the same island we visited in December. This did cost us a one-way but that amounted to substantially less than $20 each.
It meant getting up at 5:30 in the morning! Ugh. If I wanted to do something stupid like that on a regular basis I could have kept teaching morning classes. No, thank you. Early retirement has meant such bizarre behaviours are seldom required.
I was a bit concerned because at 6:20 there seemed to be very few Uber drivers on the roads. We did snag one and had more time than needed at the airport. I have a hard time remembering that taking a domestic, Air Asia flight is more akin to grabbing a really-efficient, airborne bus.
We'd sort of decided to take the world's steepest cable car today. In fact, we were waiting for the 9:30 am opening of Langkawi SkyCab. The sky was gorgeous blue and it was so sunny. We figured we'd have a great deal looking at the island from the peak.
Alas, that wasn't meant to be. It seems as if there was too much wind on the summit to safely run the gondolas. The park surrounding the base has family style actives but none of those seemed especially interesting for us. So we waited with dozens and dozens of others until 11:00 AM, but still, the cable cars weren't moving. I guess it's better to err on the side of safetly. Damn.
We decided not to wait around as we'd heard stories that it might not open until 2:00 PM. We could go to the active beach side and get lunch and walk on the white sand. Cenang Beach was as beautiful as ever. We had brought only towels and swimwear as carry-on. It is quite a trip from the mountains to the beach but it took about a half hour using Uber. We didn't actually swim but looked for lunch and found a place where the locals eat. We're not much into expensive, boutique beach food.
We looked at our watches and decided to head back up to see if the cable cars would run in the afternoon. So, back we went for another half hour in an Uber to get us there. It was not good news when we arrived although it did turn out as a fairly pleasant place to hang out. We watched kids play in one of those random spouting fountains. We petted rabbits in an enormous fenced-in bunny-zone. We walked around the lake and fed the ravenous fish. We did all of these things until it was time to head to the airport for our 5:30 PM departure.
Wouldn't you know, just as we were leaving the go-ahead was given for the gondolas to begin operating. We had to leave to get at the airport by 4:45 PM. Oh, well. It was a nice day regardless. Maybe next time ...