Langkawi Cable Car

On my previous visit to Langkawi the cable car was closed for renovation. So this time I made a bee- line for it. The other advantage was it was but a short taxi ride from my hotel.

At the foot of the cable car is a touristy shopping village, but its only a bit on the tacky side. It could look ok from the right angles.

And you really cannot go wrong with water-lilies

But onto the cable-car. Apparently the world's longest free span - 950 metres - up the limestone mountain, covered in rain forest. If you pay extra you can get a cable car with a glass floor so you can see beneath as well. Frankly I would have paid extra not to see below me thank you very much. The views are quite thrilling, but also just a bit scary too.

In the distance you can see a waterfall which apparently you can both swim in and dive down from one pool to another. I thought about it but....

 Up at the top there are more than one viewing platform to take in the panorama.

And you can go on beyond and take the Skybridge - yes of course I did. A little later.

The views are breathtaking.

And this is my hotel from the mountain top view.

So then onto the Skybridge. You can either walk to this, which in hindsight I should have done, or take this strange combination between cable-car and elevator. The catch with the elevator option is needing to queue for it, and when we finally got on the operator said a couple of people needed to get off as we exceeded the weight, rather than the numbers limit. And when he said two people he almost certainly meant one, if the one was the truly massive German tourist who had got on and looked like he had eaten three locals for breakfast.

Finally it came back up and off we went towards the bridge.

 Now the bridge is obviously very safe and feels quite solid. But it is an odd experience having quite such a drop either side of you. I did have a strange compulsion to walk down the middle just in case...

 This is what you see if you look down. And it took a bit of summoning up courage to do that!

Finally time to go back down. Ended up in a carriage with a gang of Malaysian students out for a holiday on the island. I should mention that one of the charms of Langkawi, and indeed Malaysia, is the friendliness and cheeriness of the locals, even (perhaps especially) when the locals are themselves tourists.

Then back to my hotel, after a quick spin around the Marina.