Our first stop in Malaysia was somewhere we hadn't originally planned but decided to go to on a recommendation from Ross and Fran who we had met towards the end of our tour in Vietnam and what a great shout it was!Langkawi is an island off the east coast of Malaysia and after our tuk tuk and ferry ride and about 3 hours we arrived in our 4th country of the trip!We are now 8 hours ahead of the UK!

Our first impressions of the island were great - very hot, blue sky, blue water and lots of mountains - a good start.We jumped into a taxi with a German couple who were heading to the same resort to split the cost and arrived with no problems at our guest house.Room was fine although only had a fan (no AC) and the room was boiling - might be difficult to get a good night's sleep here!

We dumped the bags and got changed for the beach which turned out to be the best yet (they just keep getting better and better).Only problem was that it was still in season for Jellyfish so you couldn't relax too much in the water which wasn't great!Craig also said the water was too warm to cool off in!It was not!!We did some sunbathing then grabbed a bite to eat in a class beach bar, the Yellow Café at the end of the beach.They had the chilled out music playing, cushions all over the floor to lie down on, swing seats overlooking the beach not to mention by one get one free glasses of Tiger beer for £1 - result!!The beach seems to get a lot busier with the locals in the evening once the sun goes away and it cools off a bit so by 6pm there were more people on the beach than there had been all day!Grabbed a bite to eat at a food court near the beach that evening which wasn't that nice but both our meals came to about £4 so it wasn't too bad!Grabbed a drink in an Irish pub before bedtime - Laura was finally able to get a peach schnapps and lemonade - her first of the trip! (and it was amazing - I could've done with another 10

Decided to explore the island a bit more on our second day so we hired a car (some tiny Malaysian piece of crap) for around £13 for 24 hours which we thought was a bargain!First task was to put petrol into it and after about 10 minutes trying to figure out how to do that (with a bit of help from the girls who worked there) we were on our way with £8 of petrol in 'er - filled to the brim!We drove out past the airport and up to the cable car which took you to the top of the mountains.Got a couple of snaps around this area but didn't go on the cable car - we were off in search of a waterfall to cool off!Seven wells waterfall flows down from the mountains and has seven pools on the way - the bottom of which we were heading for.We were not disappointed when we arrived - it was amazing with crystal clear cold water - perfect for a cool off swim!Not many people about too which was nice, although most people were locals, and the women were completely covered - either in the water in trousers and long sleeve tops or not getting in and wearing the full veil thing.So I (Laura) felt a little uncomfortable getting in the water at first in my bikini, but once no one else was about I jumped (more like fell in) at the chance!Then when I was trying to get out, I fell again, and a local woman, in the full veil gear helped me out even though I soaked her in the process! Fun times!Spent about an hour or 2 here then got back in our car and off to the north of the island in search of the black sand beach - which turns out is just like any other beach - not a grain of black sand in sight!We stopped at an adjacent one instead which was beautiful and totally deserted - there was literally not one other person on it yet when we tried to walk along it we were stopped by security and told it was a private hotel beach and we couldn't go any further!Why have a beach like that if no-one is going to use it? Shameful! Last stop of the day was another waterfall which when compared to seven wells was pretty unspectacular so no swimming here for us.Drove back through Kuah (the port town) before heading back to the guest house and out for dinner that night!Went to a really nice Italian recommended by the lonely planet book - it didn't disappoint with the best pizza and pasta we had eaten since leaving!

We still had the car until 12 noon on our final day in Langkawi and the plan was to do a bit more exploring that morning- there is an animal shelter on the island you can volunteer at!We slept in however and didn't get up until around 11 so wasted the entire morning - oops!Decided to go for another day on the beach instead which was nice and went to the Yellow Café again for an early dinner.Had a baguette and some fries as well as a couple of happy hour beers but when the bill came (60 ringets) we realized we only had 45 on us and no cards - panic!!Craig had to do a sprint back to the guest house to get more money which was right at the other end of the beach, about 20mins away in 35 degrees, he was a bit warm when he got back!!!Laura meanwhile was trying to play it cool in the café, ordering another drink so I didn't look weird, wasn't fooling anyone, got a lot of strange looks and eventually asked if I was paying the bill!We paid the bill and left quickly and grabbed a couple of beers from the duty free shop.The whole island was duty free which meant the drink was really cheap - 6 tins of beer for around £2 or a litre bottle of Smirnoff for £6, I went for the beers!Got to Skype home tonight which was great, always nice to get talking to home and hearing about how cold it is!!Booked our hostel in Penang, our next stop in Malaysia and headed to bed ahead of another day on the move tomorrow!