This morning we headed over to a little tourist area just went of the marina called Oriental Village. On the way, we passed an inviting beach with white sand where ox were languidly meandering along. The parking lot for Oriental Village was packed. We found a spot and went inside. It is basically a shopping center, but the shops are in cute little Asian style buildings with tall roofs an Asian version of Seaport Village in San Diego. The shops are all situated around a small pond with lotus flowers in it. There are three bridges to cross the pond. It is an attractive site. We browsed the shops briefly. They mostly sell clothes, food, handicrafts, and assorted souvenirs.

Our real destination was the cable car ride that takes you to the top of the mountain, located at the back of the shopping center. We could see the cable car from the marina, and it looks steep and scary. We hopped into a car, and, as expected, we were lifted up incredibly high in a short distance. It was a little disconcerting to look down because it was a long way down and the cable car tends to rock quite a bit. Sadly, it wasn’t the clearest of days, but despite a little cloudiness, the views were still absolutely stunning. We could see the ocean and many of the small islands that surround Langkawi in the distance, and closer in we could see the dense jungle on the island below.

We reached the station at the top of the mountain, 652.5 meters above sea level and got out and took some photos. What we couldn’t see from the marina is that there is a second station farther up the mountain at 710 meters. We climbed back in the car for an even steeper, but this time shorter, ride to the very top. At the top there are two raised viewing platforms, as well as a suspension bridge leading to a another peak with a viewing platform. We climbed the stairs to the first platform and took some photos, then repeated for the second platform. At the second platform, we pulled out our little monocle and started scanning the tiny specks of ships on the horizon in search of our friends on Fafner. They were supposed to be arriving today. After quite a bit of debate about whether it was really them, we finally decided the smallest of the boats was them. We watched them approach the channel for a while before moving on.

We headed down the path to the third platform. Initially, the path takes you down a flight of stairs carved into the steep mountain. The people coming up were huffing and puffing, so we knew it was a fair way down to the suspension bridge.

Once we reached the bridge, we were pretty impressed by it. It is definitely an engineering feat. There is one fat steel pole in the ground that is taller that the bridge. From this one pole there are several large cables reaching down to hold up the bridge. The bridge is slightly wobbly as you walk on it. Hordes of people were walking back and forth across the bridge, making it rock all the more. The valley between the two peaks is an enormously large drop, and we kept looking at the cables and support pole and wondering how strong they really are. The view from the last observation platform wasn’t very good, definitely the worst of the four. It made us think that the reason for the bridge was more for Malaysia to show off its engineering abilities to the world than it was to give tourists the most beautiful views of all time. There is a staircase path at both ends of the bridge taking you down the mountain, at least as far as the bottom of the support pole, if not all the way down, but we decided to skip the hike through the jungle. It was just too steep. The first shot is of the bridge and platform from the first viewing station, the second photo is taken on the bridge looking up to the first viewing station at the very top. You can barely see the second viewing station, too.

We took the cable car back down the mountain and went back to the marina to see the crew of Fafner. We wound up spending the rest of the day with them, getting caught up on one another’s adventures since we had last seen them in Thursday Island.