iluvcruising2

We fly AirAsia from Singapore to Langkawi, Malaysia. AirAsia is a very large budget carrier, owned by Tony Fernandez of Malaysia. It has been a stunning success, however, it was hit by a crash last year when AirAsia Flight 8501 crashed, presumably due to bad weather and some pilot error.

Anyway, putting that aside, we still fly with AirAsia. The flight was from Singapore Changi Terminal 1. Check in was smooth and we got into the restricted area of Terminal 1 very quickly. I explored the terminal and found an outdoor cactus garden that I didn't know existed. This is a video of the place, which is near the Burger King.

Here are some pictures. The cactus garden was outdoors.


The pub in the garden. Didn't see anybody drinking, but this was in the morning. Probably more people in the evening.


This cactus was labelled the 'rose cactus'.


This was the smoking area. The cactus garden was divided into smoking and non-smoking areas.


Back to the pub area, you could sit on these high chairs and get a view of the gates. Several Emirates aircraft.


Alright, now let's move on to the exciting flight. I've flown with AirAsia to Bangkok before, but this is the first time I'm flying on AirAsia to a destination in Malaysia. When I got to the gate, the plane hadn't arrived.


The plane was slightly late in arrival, but the disembarkation of passengers and our embarkation was relatively quick. In this video, I show you part 1 of the flight. We had to taxi for a very long while before take-off. During the taxi, I saw the upcoming Terminal 4, which is about 70% completed. I think Terminal 4 will open in 2017. Once we took off, I could see a large piece of land being cleared. This should be the site of the future Terminal 5. Here is the video.

Some still photos. From my seat, I could see the ground crew loading hold luggage.


Airasia imprint on the seat in front of me. They have black leather seats.


The menu is very attractive and slick. The prices are ok (all in malaysian ringgit).


You can save some money if you pre-book.


When I saw this plane coming in, I thought I had spotted a new Airline. Turns out to be an AirAsia aircraft, but in a 'Turn Back Crime' livery. Not sure what this livery was about, but it made for a good picture.


Spotted this FlyScoot aircraft as we were taxi-ing. Distinctive tail, however, this particular aircraft had plenty of red spots.


The flight time was quite short, only 1hr 20minutes, approx. Now the fun started. We had pre-booked our meals, however, it looked like a large number of pax also pre-booked their meals and turned out that the service was very slow. There appeared to be a large group of pax on the plane, travelling together. Many of them also pre-booked meals.

The pilot had announced the start of descent, yet we hadn't gotten our food! Then, the cabin crew (4 of them) started to dish out the pre-booked food more and more rapidly, even as the plane was descending. It turned out that we ended up eating our meals right through descent and landing! Is this normal? Well, I got the entire experience on video, and you can watch it to believe it.

Some stills. I spotted this very long bridge from the air.


Later on, I learnt that this was either the Penang bridge or the Penang Second Bridge (the latter bridge is longer). Not sure which one this is.


By the time I got my meal, we were already very close to landing.


This is how the Bukhara Chicken Briyani looked like. The taste wasn't bad.


Upon landing, the plane quickly taxi-ed to the terminal and I saw this Malaysian Airlines jet that had just pushed back.


This was a small airport, no aerobridge.


Another view of the plane, in the bright sun.

too2early

Entertaining landing video. Waiting for more on Langkawi.

dctravels74

Thanks for posting, good to see familiar sights

Thunderroad

We flew Air Asia to Langkawi also, and it was fine...though no last-minute meals!

Hope you liked Langkawi. We found it to be a friendly, pretty, relaxed island that was easy to drive around on the one day we got away from the beach to bop around,

iluvcruising2

Let me move on to some snippets of what I did in Langkawi. In our ride, leaving the airport.


Some signages.


Another picture of the signboard. Various resorts.


I stayed at Bayview Hotel, which is located at the Town Center. This is the view from my room, which was on the 10th floor.


I made a video of the room (a standard room), which was quite big. Rather dated but comfortable nonetheless. Good value, no doubt.

iluvcruising2

From my room, I could see these shophouses which had eateries and shops. So I explore the nearby vicinity of the hotel and come across this eating place called Domino's restaurant, not to be confused with the Dominos pizza chain.


The prices looked reasonable and I was just looking for a quick bite. So I ended up with this pasta and some iced coffee. It was a very hot day!


Here is a video of the place. Other than myself, only 2 other patrons. No worries, the waiter spoke good English.

And I walked around Kuah town center some more and entered an alcohol shop as well as a shop selling chocolates and other 'duty free' stuff.

This was how the hotel looked like in the evening.


This was a local eating house (coffee shop) along the same road, again rather near the hotel.

DanielW

Looks like half-decent briyani, even if it was a little late.

Bretteee

In the US it is not allowed to have your tray table down when landing. It is unsafe.

Now I understand why Air Asia have such a bad reputation in regards to training and safety issues.

However the meals look great and i wish US airlines would sell decent hot meals instead of cold sandwiches.

HangukStyle

Interesting to see they sell Korean Cass beer in Langkawi... I have no idea why anyone would buy it outside of Korea tho

iluvcruising2

Yeah, AirAsia is famous in this region for many reasons. One more positive reason is that their inflight catering is very good. Paid hot meals for very decent prices (given this is inflight). The meal I had tasted good.

iluvcruising2

For one of our dinners, we went to a place which sold good local seafood near the hotel. I think the distance was less than 1km. The place was called Wonderland seafood. Apparently, this place was quite famous. A rustic place to eat. Here is the video.

Here are some pictures. From outside.


Al Fresco style seating. Natural ventilation.


Picture of the menu. From the online reviews, they all said that the food was reasonably priced. Beer was about 4RM per can.


Some beer, as we decide what to eat.


Fried calamari. Pretty nice.


The steamed fish was very good too.


Other customers enjoying their meal. Pretty nice atmosphere in the evening.

iluvcruising2

Now, on to some sightseeing. We visited the Kilim Karst Geoforest Park, featuring breathtaking landscapes of nearly vertical hills, of various shapes and sizes, as well as a mangrove area. We took a 2 hour boat-ride and saw very interesting sights, including a bat cave (not flesh-eating, don't worry), and a fish farm. Here are two videos, before I proceed to some still pictures.

Video 1 - we start our ride on a small boat, and visit a bat cave.

Video 2 - we continue the ride, to see a fish farm, another cave and go out to the open sea.

Here are some still pictures. The main entrance. This place was about a 20 minute ride by car from our hotel.


Boats lined up, waiting for passengers. Each boat can take 12.


More boats. We were here in the afternoon and it was pretty hot. Our guide told us that usually people will come in the morning, when it is cooler.


Closer look at the boat.


We got off at a jetty quite near the start point, for the bat cave.


Gua Kelawar. Kelawar means bat. Gua means cave. This is Malay.


Bats are flying mammals. They need to hang. Their legs are too small to support their weight for long. In the video, you can hear the guide explain to us the hierarchy of the bats in the cave, depending on where they hang. I have no idea whether he was telling us the scientific truth as I am no bat expert.


Mangrove. This was low tide. All the roots are clearly visible.

iluvcruising2

Along the way, we noticed a good number of boats which carried women that were completely veiled up in black. Turned out that they were from Saudi Arabia, which I understand practices a very conservative form of Islam, hence the requirement for their women to dress this way in public. This video offers some glimpses.

Our guide told us that Langkawi was a very popular destination for couples from Saudi Arabia to visit, especially for their honeymoon. Here is an example.


Entire family, including baby on a pram.


Of course, there were Caucasian tourists as well, like this party.


Next we visited a fish farm.


They even had a mini drinks store on board, obviously set up for tourists.


Very rustic place. Everything felt stable but just be careful when walking around the fish tanks.


This is low tide.


After we go out to the open sea, we see this sign. Like Hollywood of sorts?


The geology is quite amazing indeed.

Bretteee

I would like to go to Langkawi.

However I read they have Box Jelly Fish there which are dangerous.

DreamTrip

Your video and pictures of Saudis are offensive. Just because their culture is different than yours does not allow you to expose them like that. Would you videotape a random person in shorts and t-shirt getting on a boat?