a lot of changes and reviews about some restaurants

After 5 years things have changed in Langkawi. Actually it's a more "alive" island now. When I left, even in high season, it was kinda couples getaway but now it's attracting more and more people. number 1 tourist area Pantai Cenang has grown significantly. This growth brought a lot of new restaurants, cafes and shops. I've tried some of them and I would like to share my thoughts.

Pantai Cenang Restaurants

Yellow Cafe

Well it's a cafe in a yellow theme because of the owner's nickname. He is my friend from my previous stay in Langkawi, a quite decent and fun guy. Back in 2007 it was just a tent renting jet-ski. Now there is a beautiful Yellow Cafe and just beside it Yellow Steak House. At my first night in Pantai Cenang we went to steak house for taste of good beef. I had rumsteak and my friend had a tenderloin. Service and food was very good. After dining, you can just relax in Yellow Cafe to have a few drinks and enjoy the night. There are nice events on special occasions like new year's eve. And people say they are usually very good.

Viva Italia

It's good to do one good and one bad review at a time. It was kinda late when we arrived here. This restaurants shares its kitchen with the Mexican restaurant next door. I first went to the kitchen as it was close to me asked if they are open, they said no. When I returned to my friends, guy on the door said they are open. So we went in. We ordered nachos, penne arabiatta, Italian salad and a margarita pizza. Penne was okay, came in a clay pot, but too much olives in it. But the rest was horrible; Italian salad didn't have any ingredients were listed in the menu, just some greens and onions, we couldn't see any mozzarella cheese on the pizza so when my friend asked the waiter where the cheese is, he said it's Italian style, not American. Nachos were also stale. We argued with the people a lot and in the end I was the only one had dinner. When they brought the check, there was also an error on it too, 3 drinking waters instead of 2. So we paid 47 rm (~$16) for almost nothing and a bad experience. Looked like a tourist-attraction-for-nothing to me.

nights in langkawi : sunba retro bar

lovely, friendly and exotic atmosphere. clean and quality service and very good drinks. when i first came here frankie the dj was the first (and the right) person i've met. he is a one hell of a dirtytalking good retro dj and a cheating go-cart racer (kidding, he is very good at driving). place is owned by jeffrey. you can see him; an asian with glasses and long grayish nice hair. he can help you out with anything.

place looks like a jungle bar. but it's totally closed. fans on the ceiling is usually enough to have some air, after a few of the exotic coctails you won't be needing any fresh air anyway. they have a flaming special coctail which is served with a nice show. usually the party boy/girl gets this one.

when you look at the menu, it seems like the most expensive bar in langkawi. but when you compare it to other places in malaysia, it's not. and drinking in malaysia is cheap compared to other countries.

music matches the name; totally retro. sometimes it's boring but usually people have fun with these well known old songs. "dancing queen" was the song i've heard most. maybe it's because of the swedish people always coming around. and one bad thing about retro is sometimes the age average is kinda high. but as long as people having fun, it's okay.

a must stop spot in langkawi. you will eventually hear about it when you ask "what can i do tonite?". there are really a few places in langkawi to spend a night drinkin' and dancin' . this is one of the good ones.

malaysia visa requirements

while i'm writing here about coming to langkawi, malaysia, wonderful beaches etc. i forgot to talk about legal stuff. here is the list of countries with visa details. Info is up-to-date from Immigration Department of Malaysia (you need IE to view the page properly, not all the features work with Firefox).

Countries that require visa:
Afghanistan (Visa With Reference), Angola, Bhutan, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Central African Republic, China, Colombia, Comoros, Congo Democratic Republic, Congo Republic, Cote D'ivoire, Djibouti, Equat. Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Guinea-Bissau, Hong Kong (C/I or D/I), India, Liberia, Mali, Myanmar (normal passport), Nepal, Niger, Rwanda, Serbia & Montenegro, Taiwan, United Nations (Laissez Passer), Western Sahara

Commonwealth countries that require visa:
Bangladesh, Cameroon, Ghana, Mozambique, Nigeria, Pakistan, Sri Lanka

Countries that require a visa if the visitors stay will exceed 3 months (90 days) period:
Albania , Algeria , Argentina , Australia , Austria (Vienna) , Bahrain , Belgium , Bosnia-Herzegovina , Brazil , Croatia , Cuba , Czech Republic , Denmark , Egypt , Finland , France , Germany , Hungary , Iceland , Ireland , Italy , Japan , Jordan , Kirgystan , Kuwait , Kyrgyz Republic , Lebanon , Lienchestien , Luxembourg , Morocco , Netherland , Norway , Oman , Peru , Poland , Qatar , Romania , St Marino , Saudi Arabia , Slovakia , South Korea , Spain , Sweden , Switzerland , Tunisia , Turkey , Turkmenistan , United Arab Emirates , United Kingdom , Uruguay , Yemen

Countries that require a visa if the visitors stay will exceed 1 months (30 days) period:
Armenia , Azerbaijan , Barbados , Belarus , Benin , Bolivia , Bulgaria , Cambodia , Cape Verde , Chad , Chile , Costa Rica , Equador , El Savador , Estonia , Gabon , Georgia , Greece , Guatemala , Guinea Republic , Haiti , Honduras , Hong Kong SAR , Kazakhstan , Latvia , Lithuania , Macao SAR , Macedonia , Madagascar , Maldova , Mauritania , Mexico , Monaco , Mongalia , Nicaragua , North Korea , North Yemen , Panama , Paraguay , Portugal , Russia , Sao Tome & Principe , Senegal , Slovenia , Sudan , Surinam , Tajikistan , Togo , Ukraine , Upper Volta , Uzbekistan , Vatican City , Vanezuela , Zaire , Zimbabwe

Countries that require a visa if the visitors stay will exceed 14 days period:
Iran (15 days) , Iraq , Libya , Macao (Travel Permit/Portugal CI) , Palestine , Sierra Leone , Somalia , South Yemen , Syria

USA: No visa is required for citizens visiting Malaysia for social, business or academic purposes (anything other than employment).

Other Asean Countries: No visa is required for a stay of less than one month for nationals of all ASEAN countries except Myanmar. For a stay exceeding one month a visa will be required, except for nationals Brunei and Singapore.

Israel: Visas are required and permission must be granted from Ministry of Internal Security.

Republic of Serbia and Republic of Montenegro: Visas are required and permission must be granted from Ministry Of Home Affairs.

Nationals of countries other than those stated above (with the exception of Israel): All citizens are allowed to enter Malaysia without a visa for a visit not exceeding one month.

cheap ticket season in malaysia; air asia vs malaysia airlines

air asia and malaysia airlines are in a battle on cheap tickets. it's holiday season here; gong xi fa cai (chinese new year, year of the pig) time and everybody's going somewhere. also the end of high season is very close.

whenever i open newspapers star or new straits times i see discount flight fares from malaysia to anywhere in the world. this year air asia started international flights with very cheap fares. also they always have a 0.99 rm or 1 rm (~$0.28) excluding airport taxes etc. domestic flights are getting cheaper day by day and with air asia increasing the number of destinations they are flying to. this is air asia web site and this is malaysia airlines web site. of course online booking is available on both of them. try to check them often if you are interested in having a vacation in southeast asia and looking for cheap plane tickets.

a few notes about service; malaysia airlines is always up to schedule. if you are flying at 15.45 you fly at 15.45 . but air asia is definitely not. sometimes it's worth the price difference. mas (malaysia airlines) is always more expensive than air asia. but as far as i know especially on international flights this price difference is huge. let's get back to schedule, 3 years ago while i was flying to johor baru to go to singapore my air asia flight closed the doors 5 minutes earlier. so me and a bunch of passengers couldn't get on the flight, than they gave us other tickets for the next day. than last year while i was coming to langkawi for the first time my flight delayed for 50 minutes. list goes on like that. but you don't have this kind of problems with malaysia airlines. but air asia has really pretty planes, well painted, nice leather seats, smoke effect air condition (yes, really fantastic). mas planes don't look that pretty. in flight service quality is good in both of them (i'm talking about domestic flights, i haven't had an international flight with air asia yet).

the prices varies a lot so i won't even try to give a hint.

tanjung rhu beach panorama

today me and my wife suddenly decided to go to northern parts of langkawi. but time was kinda late so we just went to bird paradise and tanjung rhu beach (pantai tanjung rhu).

it was one of the most beautiful beaches i've ever seen. all white sand together with beautiful trees very few buildings, a river's path, small islands and very few people. it was nothing like cenang beach (lots of water sports agents, lots of buildings at the edge of trees, but it's beautiful anyway).

water is not deep, you can actually walk 100 meters into the sea. but it's totally muddy because it's the end point of a river (i don't know the name yet). i took this tanjung rhu panorama over one of the dunes surfaced close to the small islands. we walked there all the way. sometimes in the water and mud, sometimes over small dunes. through the sunset water has started to rise and slowly close the way we came so we had to got back before the full sunset. but we watched a wonderful view in cool breeze totally alone right in the middle of the sea.

while taking this 360° panorama, i also took a photo of my wife which i've been thinkin' to do for almost a year and never find time or place to do so. or i was just lazy. so here it is, my first clone panorama photo.


there are some shops and big resorts there. two of them are tanjung rhu resort and four seasons resort. as far as i've seen tanjung rhu resort had a wonderful pool. we are thinkin' of spending a weekend there. next time we will check out the details about shops and resorts there.

my high season

since i came here everybody was talking about a high season; "it's gonna be good, langkawi will be crawling with people, business will be good, beaches will be full..."

yes, now there are hell a lot of people than it used be. but the high season came quite late. it was supposed to start around mid november, but it started in christmas. since than, it's getting better. it's not my problem though, but i have friends who have nice restaurants, bars here and i want them to have good business. i will start reviewing them as soon as i have some time to do so; red tomato splash and garden, jungle bar, sunba retro bar, sun cafe restaurant, adda maya cafe and restaurant (i love the nasi goreng there).

so, this year high season is between mid december and ... it still goes on.

okay, so what is nasi goreng; it's fried rice. but in adda maya they make it a little different. they already have the one with chicken, prawns, egg, chili etc, but i prefer the special one they make for me, it's made with tomato, lots of veggies, no soy sauce and egg. it's really delicious. anyway, i will get to the details of adda maya's menu in my next posts.