Langkawi has restored our faith in Malaysia! No more agonising between spending the daily budget on beer or food - because here we can afford to do both. Langkawi is a tax-free haven, beer is cheaper than water (well almost!).

The beaches don't really compare too favourably with Thailand's, but it is a tough comparison as Thailand's beaches are some of the best in the world. Nevertheless, Langkawi offers a pleasant stopover with long stretches of sandy beach front and relaxed night life. As an alternative to the beach, we headed inland to the seven wells waterfall where the moss-covered stones provide a fantastic natural slide. We slid from pool to pool over the smooth rocks, we collected a few cuts and bruises from our less than graceful landings in the plunge pools but had heaps of fun.

One of the things Langkawi is known for is its rich history of legends and ghost stories. Most of the legends are related to animist beliefs i.e. that there are 'nature' spirits living anywhere from in a tree to under a rock. These beliefs are still strong today as we discovered! One night we checked into a hotel then went out for dinner; two people we met that night told us the land the hotel was built on was inhabited by unhappy spirits and that this is why the hotel had changed hands three times in the last year - no-one could make a profitable business out of the cursed hotel. We laughed it off and thought 'what could possibly go wrong?' - the hotel seemed fine. After dinner we went back to our room... to find a plague of cockroaches! Not one, not a few, but dozens of them everywhere. They just kept coming and coming. We checked out that night - a little spooked!