The Blog

I recently traveled to Malaysia as part of my National Day Holiday break. Malaysia sits just above the Equator, so the weather was warm and sunny throughout most of the trip.

I traveled with five other people from my English teaching program — Leah, Steph, Katie, Katie and Al. Here’s a rundown of what happened, along with a few of the 200+ photos I took while there.

Day 1: A night at the “Fook Kiu” Mansion in Hong Kong
After what seemed like hours of filling out immigration and health forms, our group made it to the New Territories. Having spent two months on the mainland, it was refreshing to find signs in English and restaurants that weren’t just Chinese or McDonald’s. At night, we celebrated Leah’s birthday before returning to our interestingly named hostel.

We spent the night at the "Fook Kiu" Mansion. And I used to think signs like these only appeared in photoshopped memes.

Day 2: Kuala Lumpur (1)
Our group took a double decker bus to the airport. I’ll spare you the boring airport/flight details and skip to the part where we landed in Kuala Lumpur following a 3-hour flight.
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Since we landed in the evening, we didn’t have much time to explore the city. We did, however, get to see the end of the Mooncake Celebration festivities taking place near our hostel.

Even in Malaysia, we couldn't escape Chinese Mooncake festivities.

Day 3: Kuala Lumpur to Langkawi
Having no time to waste, we left for the airport at 6:00 AM. We were heading to Langkawi, an Northern archipelago near the Thai border.
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Upon landing, we were greeted with gorgeous weather.

The Gecko Hostel, our home for the next three days.

In the afternoon, we took an island hopping tour. In total, we visited three islands.

Leaving the dock for the Island Hop

Yes, the water was actually this color.

The "pregnant woman" mountain. Do you see it?

The first island had a ton of monkeys sans cages. One tried to steal Katie

The third island had beautiful beaches.

After we returned to the main island of Langkawi, we watched the sunset on the beach.

This photo doesn't even begin to capture just how breathtaking the sunset was.

Day 4: An unexpected adventure
We decided to visit the Seven Wells Waterfalls. Unfortunately, Langkawi was hit with remnants of Typhoon Kestana, so the weather was a little rainy. But that didn’t take away from the beauty of the falls.

Three of us standing near the falls. The rocks were so slippery that I fell over at least three times.

The view from the top of the Seven Wells Waterfalls

After that, things got interesting. We wanted to visit each of the seven wells at the top of the waterfall, but we ended up taking the wrong route. Instead, we ended up on a path to hike the main mountain. We thought more wells would be further up, but as our elevation got higher and higher, we realized we weren’t going to be seeing the wells anytime soon.

Any waterfall wells along this path?

What made the hike interesting was that we were completely unprepared for it. Two girls in our group were wearing dresses; three or four were wearing flip-flops. And then, in the middle of the hike, the rain started to come down hard. I slipped at least two more times because of mud.

In total, the climb took us up 1,736 meters (a little more than a mile). The last 20 meters were so steep that a rope was placed along the path. When we finally came back down, we saw a sign at the entrance that said visitors should seek assistance before hiking the mountain.

That would have been nice to know beforehand.

(Unfortunately there are no photos from the peak of the mountain because I didn’t want my camera to get any water damage).

Day 5: Mangrove Kayaking.
Fresh off our jungle-mountain hike, we were in search of another adventure. So we called up a German man living on the island to give us a mangrove kayaking tour. It was just as awesome as it sounds.

This is where we kayaked. I couldn't get photos from inside the boat because my hands were full at the time!

Our guide took us into a cave that soldiers hid in during World War II. Unfortunately, the trek to the cave required another climb up a mountain. And yes, I slipped again. Twice.

My shoes were just a little muddy after our mangrove kayaking adventure.

After kayaking, we talked with our guide about his Iron Man races over an amazing Thai lunch.

Day 6: Kuala Lumpur (2)
Sadly, we had to fly out of Langkawi because we had to eventually make it back to Hong Kong.

Goodbye Langkawi!

We were back in Kuala Lumpur in the afternoon. At night, we visited the famous Petronas Towers.

The Petronas Towers are supposedly the second tallest in the world.

Day 7: Back home (?)
We flew back to Hong Kong in the morning. Again, we had to fill out various forms. By the end of the day, we were back “home” on the mainland.

It’s strange to call Shenzhen home.