Koh Lipe, Thailand - Jan 2016 - Day 1

One day my sister was leisurely scrolling the net, looking at the flight deal and found cheap ticket to Langkawi. Ok lah, less than RM150 return. So she came out with the idea to go to Koh Lipe, Thailand.

We took Air Asia and arrived Langkawi at almost midnight. Our AirBnB host, Mr Chong from Seaside Guest House has been waiting for us at the airport. The hostel is not too far about 15mins away. We got the triple beds room and was delighted to find it's very clean and comfortable. He was not lying when he said it's a sea view. It is exactly beside the sea and you can feel the sea breeze blowing into the room when we open the window. 

View from our room

We woke up early the next morning and get ready to depart to Telaga Terminal. Mr Chong took us to tapau breakfast at nearby stall. So cheap & good!!! Got some karipap and nasi lemak. Then he dropped us at the jetty.

Singgahler gerai makcik ni kalau OTW ke jetty

We arrived at the terminal with enough time to buy some snacks for our trip at nearby Petronas.

As soon as we arrived, they checked our ticket, then we headed to the immigration building for our passport to be checked out. They kept our passport before we boarded the ferry.

Immigration building

The ferry took almost 2 hrs. We were excited at first, joking and chatting but after half an hour, I was started to get dizzy, so I kept going back & forth in the jetty to keep me from throwing out. Most people slept during the journey since the windows were small and weren't kept clean so can barely see anything outside the windows. Upon arriving nearby the island, we transferred to smaller long tail boat like in below picture to get nearer to the beach.

Hello Koh Lipe!!! Kalau ikut hati mau je terjun into the crystal clear water upon arriving

We finally arrived at the jetty and headed to the immigration center which actually small hut for the officers and we all had to wait under the tree nearby. It was kinda confusing, lots of people, no particular queue. There was this one Indian guy who works at the immigration I think, tried to keep people in orders. He can speak Malay but sometimes I had a hard time understanding him. He gave misinformation (which we will find out later). So don't trust him 100% guys! 

Apparently, if your return ferry to Telaga Terminal then you can book the return ferry right away at this immigration center and if your return to Kuah, the ferry will be at another center which is further to the east of the beach.

So what happened was we had to wait for our passport to be handed back to us, and then we have to wait in line for arrival stamp. For some reasons, they gave priority to European & Americans. Malaysian will be given their passport lasts. Hm... 

Finally, finally after waiting for more than an hour, we got our stamp triumphantly and headed to our accommodation, Z- Touch Resort.

Z-Touch Resort... Talk about lazing under the sun heck yeah

After reviewing lots of resort online, I decided on this one. Boy, aren't we glad we chose this one. The beach became less dense and more quiet and peaceful upon reaching this resort area. Akira besides this resort looks more exclusive but I love this resort better. We got standard room which situated behind the main building. No seaview but secluded balcony so we can had private hang out creamcrackers-cicah-milo sessions. Room was decorated simply but cute.  There are some private bungalows which looks aweeesome but out of our budget *sob sob.

Good for honeymoon ey?

What's next?? Perut da lapar gila tunggu immigration punya pasal, so we headed to the walking street. Halal foods are aplenty here. We decided to eat at the first halal restaurant we came across, Mina restaurant. Ada bulan sabit tu halal ler, tak check pon ada certificate JAKIM tak opss.

Nampak cam best. Roti Mina Restaurant, halal toyyiban nampak tak tulisan jawi belah kiri tu?

I ordered pineapple Seafood fried rice and sticky mango. Both was good but I was hoping the serving size will be bigger. Well, of course it is kinda expected since we are on an island. The coconut shake tastes, well, very coconut-ty, they didn't put any ice cream so I'd rather say it is coconut ice blended. It was refreshing anyway. My friend was disappointed in her Nasi Goreng, do not remember what she ordered.

With our stomach full, we kept on walking along the street for awhile then headed back to have our day prayer and got information about snorkel trip from hotel reception. The guy was very helpful but there seems to be some clashing information in the brochure and from his pamphlet so we decided to book straight from the trip company. The shop was at the walking street. We went there and clarify the trip which included snorkel equipment & lunch. We took the combined trips for outside and inside area of the island. 

After that's done we decided to walk to the sunset beach. It's not far just at the other side of the island. We were walking along the path besides the buddhist temple when a dog starts to bark continuously. The area was shaded and a bit quiet area. I was ignoring the dog when another 3 dogs pop out from the jungle and start circling us. At this point my sister was freaking out and started to turn around and ran back to the intersection road. We all turned around. I think that dogs will starts to feel threatened if you run from them so I told my sister to calm down. My sister had bad experience running from a crazy dog when she was small so she was terrified.

Just to clarify, contrary to popular believes that Muslim hate dogs, I actually like them but only the cute and harmless type (lol) and used to help taking care of my friend's Maltese whenever she's away back when I was in the States. 

Well, we all were scared to cross the temple so we decided to take the motorbike taxi. It costs 50baht per person. This is better than sacrificing ourselves lol. 

The Taxi.

We arrived there too early. It was around 4.30pm and there were still about 3 hrs before sunset. We walked around the beach but it wasn't too much fun. Too many rocks which made it hard to walk in the water. After walking around for 1 hr we called taxi by asking help from nearby hotel then headed back to the resort. The rest of the evening was spent by having milo and cream crackers session at our balcony. 

The night came and time to partayyyy. Well haha not really. Our definitions of partying was going to the walking street, window shopping, eat street foods and talking to strangers (mostly Malaysians, org Malaysia ramai oiii). After equipping ourselves with snacks, we sat on beach while gazing at the night sky. 

The amahhh-zing coconut ice cream

It was almost midnight when a friendly dog crashed our quiet session. He came and sniffled our snacks. My sister got scared so we decided to go back to our room to rest. Yay snorkel tomorrow!