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We’ve been on Langkawi Island now for almost 2 weeks and life at Zackry’s Guesthouse remains as sociable as ever. It is such a great place to meet people, chat, swop stories and even make plans to meet up later in the trip. Niamh, pronounced Neev, is from Ireland and is Zack’s girl Friday. She looks after everything here at the guesthouse and makes sure that things run smoothly. Our room has lots of shade so it’s lovely and cool to sit outside our cabin and catch up on mail and our blog.

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Christmas was great with a dinner on Christmas Eve of fish and chicken, Champagne provided by Florent from France and Chen, his Chinese girlfriend, to see in Christmas Day. On Christmas Day we had Roast Beef, washed down with fine wine and rounded off with lots of Old Jamaica Chocolate. The beef was excellent and it was fantastic to have a big slab of real meat on the plate for a change. Of course, there is nothing quite like a walk on the beach on Christmas day.

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We have a great mix of ages and nationalities, Swedes, French, Chinese, Japanese, Serb, A Brit teaching in Brazil, Czech, Ozzies, Kiwi’s, and lots if Irish. We also have 3 Neil’s!! Let’s not forget the South African lady, Leana, who, over the last 2 years, has cycled all the way here – respect!.

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This is a duty free island so things like drink and chocolate are relatively cheap. 2 litres of Bacardi costs £11 whilst a can of beer costs 25p. That’s cheaper than a can of Diet Coke!! But, cheap booze aside, we have been very good in trying to keep to the diet with only one trip “off piste” when Cheryl regretted those extra Bacardi and cokes and spent the next day in and out of bed feeling miserable. She says “when will I ever learn”? “Never dear, probably never”!!

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We do like Langkawi, it’s fun here, but we do miss the peace and tranquillity of Koh Chang. Langkawi is really quite touristy with lots of people and bars etc. There are also the world’s worst invention – Jet Ski’s. Zack’s is at the quiet end of town so we have to walk to go to the main shops etc. Since last year there has been quite a lot of development so this is probably the last time we will come here.

The New Years Eve celebrations commenced with the customary curry and beers followed by drinks in the guesthouse bar. We also took a break from the partying to go down to the beach to watch the “posh” hotels fireworks. It was full moon and quite magical sitting on the powdery white sand, sipping our homemade raspberry vodka & orange cocktail and watching the amazing firework displays for around 4kms down the island. There were also hundreds of Chinese lanterns being lit and floated into the sky.

After the fireworks died down we wandered into Holiday Villas, (very expensive) and blended with the guests who paid over £50 each for the buffet and entertainment. We managed to get one of the waiters to take our picture with the very large 2010 sign in the background. You will see from the pics that we “liberated” some garlands which we took back to Zack’s to hand out. It was quite hilarious as we blatantly walked through the hotel with all the staff wishing us a Happy New Year as we left. We giggled like naughty children all the way back to Zack’s. Flushed with our success at party crashing Neil wants to up the ante and get a full dinner as well next year. We’ve come to the conclusion that out here if you are western you just need to look confident and you can get away with most things.

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Partying at Zacks went on until we don’t know when as we can’t find anyone that remembers who went to bed last or at what time. After Cheryl’s misbehaviour of a few days earlier we were much more careful and we were tucked up in bed by about 2.30 a.m.

We are relaxing or a couple more days here before heading to the bright lights of KL.