Langkawi (mis)adventures

Our third and final family trip of the year, turned out to be a little bit more than what we had bargained for...:)

After an uneventful flight to Langkawi and treading the tarmac at Langkawi International airport, we were driven to Westin Langkawi in no time. The weather was actually nice and to my surprise, cool and breezy and not rainy as the weather forecast had advised.

When we arrived, we were actually quite happy with the place – it looked quite like a Banyan Tree-type resort and the front desk guys were nice enough to seat us down and serve us a much-appreciated drink after a long journey. Even when we checked in to the room, we had a good first impression – the plasma TV was as big as the one we had at home and the baby cot was all nice and ready in the room.

Somehow, however, it kind of went downhill from there. That night, we had ordered room service in after tucking Faith to sleep and the food quality I must say was not what we had expected from a Westin hotel. While the salad was of fair standard, the Won Ton Noodles that came was not hot and the fishball (in the Won ton noodle??) was actually not fresh and you could tell, pre-packed frozen. That night, I actually felt a bit chilly and tad bit nauseous.

When I woke, I immediately popped two panadols (thank goodness for our faithful travel medical kit) and that helped alleviate the nausea a little. Unfortunately, I was in no mood to indulge in the buffet breakfast and had only a small bowl of plain porridge.

To cut a long story short, because I was sick, we ended up eating in the hotel for lunch and dinner and unfortunately, that meant more food that was really quite not up to par and even a little unfresh. Unfortunately, by the second night, Eve had caught on a bit of the food poisoning and Faith in turn caught the bug – resulting in bouts of diarrhoea throughout the day. The last straw came, when on the second night, I heard Faith having diarrhoea again at 6am in the morning – I picked up my mobile, dialled Singapore Airlines and arranged for an earlier flight home.

If you ask if we’d ever go back to Langkawi or the Westin Langkawi again, I think it will very much depend on our spirit of adventure. Certainly, I think we’d be much more careful with drinking the water unboiled or even eating too much at the restaurant. I wouldn’t say we’d never go back, because the place had its redeeming points. For example, I must say the pool there was by far the best pool I’ve ever swam in – it was literally next to the islands, and the sea and it was an Olympic sized pool - quite different from the unusual shaped pools in most resorts. And because the pool picks up the warmth of the sun very quickly, I was literally swimming in a heated pool that was not over-chlorinated and yet glistening clear. And at the end, when we met with the manager of the hotel to give our feedback, we could tell the manager was genuine in making as much amends he could to make the rest of our stay more pleasant.

For now, however, we are all glad to be home safe and sound in our humble home in Ang Mo Kio in Singapore. Faith has now travelled to Indonesia, Dubai and Malaysia this year and Eve and I silently hope that whatever bug she has caught will make her more resilient for our trips in 2008.