Days 45 – 49 – 23rd – 27th December – Penang
We’d booked a nice hotel for Christmas and we spent the days at the pool and in the hotel. We only ventured out on Christmas Eve to the local 7/11 to stock up on the essential Christmas treats; cider, crisps and chocolate!
Christmas Day was different. Whilst we have been travelling we have both missed being at home for Christmas. We like the build up and catching up with friends and family. It did not really feel ‘Christmassy’ this year even though everywhere we have been there have been decorations and Christmas trees. The hotel left stockings on each room’s door handle which was a lovely gesture. It contained gingerbread and biscuits. We spent the day by the pool and in the evening had signed up for the Christmas buffet which was actually pretty good! We put our Christmas hats on and did a lap of the buffet. You can’t rush these things! We had soup to start, followed by prawn cocktail and then turkey with most of the trimmings, although I missed my sprouts! I did have a slice of pizza though to make up for this!
We whatsapp / Skyped both sets of parents / sisters to wish them a merry Christmas 🎄 as we were 8 hours ahead.
All in all a good day, not the same as home but we are definitely looking forward to our Christmas dinners in June when we are home with the parents!

Day 50 – 28th December – Penang to Langkawi
We checked out of our hotel and printed the boarding passes for our ferry. The sultan was staying in the same hotel for a couple of days and so checkout time was busy and the printer wouldn’t work at first. We then struggled to get a taxi. Time was not on our side today! We were supposed to be at the ferry terminal 90 minutes before the ferry departed. It was going to be touch and go whether we got the ferry at all! We arrived at the ferry terminal 25 minutes before the ferry was scheduled to leave and boarded in time! 3 hours later we arrived in Langkawi.

We arrived at the hotel and went for a wander around the area. We were near the ferry port but there wasn’t much in the way of beaches where we stayed, just a lot of duty free shops! There also wasn’t much in the way of bars as we were in a Muslim area however we managed to find a bar and had a drink and then went to the only other bar which was a duty free shop with tables in the back. It was pretty cool actually and we began chatting to the locals which was nice to do.

Day 51 – 29th December – Langkawi
We had a pretty uneventful day as we had a lot of planning to do for some of the next destinations. We made this more enjoyable by going to the local bar and planning over a couple of ciders!

Day 52 – 30th December – Langkawi
Today we went to Chenang beach which was the busiest beach on the island. There was a lot going on in Chenang in terms of activities on the beach, restaurants and bars. We spent the afternoon on the beach and the evening in a couple of the beach bars. We decided that this was the place to be for NYE as it was a lot more lively than where we were staying!

Day 53 – 31st December – Langkawi
We had a lazy day by the pool in our hotel and early evening got a taxi to Chenang. We had planned to go to a restaurant that sold gluten free pizza as Dan had not had pizza since we left the UK. Unfortunately when we got there it was shut! We decided to walk to Thirstbar which is where we went the night before. This had quite a hefty cover charge and we didn’t really want to pay it as we had worked out that day we had already blown the budget for South East Asia and we had another three weeks to go! We went for a quick drink to decide what to do and thought we’d pay and go in as it was NYE, however by the time we decided to do this it was full! So far NYE was going really well! We ended up at other beach bar that had no cover charge and managed to get a table and see in the new year. Just before midnight we walked onto the beach just in time for the fireworks to be let off. I’m not sure they would have passed health and safety checks at home but all in all it was a great NYE!