Cobras, Bananas and Palm Trees

We have lived in Kuah on Langkawi for 6 months and even though the Apartment had a fantastic view, was nice and cool, we always hoped to find a 2 bedroom house with a little more space. A little garden, where Fiona could grow some herbs and vegetables as well as flowers would be a bonus. If this kind of place would be near the beach of Cenang hmmm... Udo always wanted to live under Palm Trees and looking at them from the 8th floor of a building and also to look at the sea from far away without the ability to jump straight into it,  needed changing! Living in Kuah had one more drawback...social life. Most people we know live in Cenang and whenever we were invited for an evening out we had to debate whether an expensive taxi-ride, drive on the motorbike at night in bad weather, or not drink.

Well, now we are a step closer to what we fancied. Take a look at the pictures below.

 Entrance

We have looked at quite a few houses and either they were far too expensive, in the wrong place, or in a bad condition. This place seems to fit what we wanted. 2 bedrooms and a little garden area at the back.

Veranda with fan and fridge (5 O'clock already?)

Elke our Landlady made us feel welcome straight away, so definitely helped our decision to move here.

Our welcome gift from Elke. These grow beside the house

The whole place is well kept, lovely flowers all round and at the back of the house the little garden patch for Fiona.

Living Room

We can hear the sea but unfortunately the short cut (5 Min to Cenang beach) has been blocked off. So it is a 15 Min walk (omg) along the country road, a 3 minute motor bike ride, or a jump over a wall to a hotel complex making it a 2 minute walk.(not to be tried when inebriated!)

Dining Area

Now Udo has his Palm Trees right outside the front door

The only little worry we have living in this rural environment is the fear of Cobras and other creatures visiting us. A Cobra had been found not too long ago near the side of the house, but this is quite rare, as they would normally be found in rice fields or jungle. We were told that sulphur (which Elke had already put at the back door) and goose poo  (haven`t got any geese yet) would keep snakes away, hmm.... :) 

Some of our Photos

I know a lot of our readers look at the posts here on our Blog, but I think it might be interesting to show you what we have in stock on our Photo Link. We have taken some sample pictures and made a little "quick gallery" just to give you a taste. Some shots make a brilliant desktop wallpapers and if you are interested just contact us and we shall send you a copy. Enjoy....and feel free to comment.

If it takes too long to load, let me know and we shall remove this post.

Rainy Season in Langkawi

Not much has changed in our daily life here and we are still enjoying the Lassie animal shelter which we visit twice a week in the afternoons after starting up with 4 times a week at first, which was just too much. We have become familiar with most of the dogs now and it is good fun and exercise (for the dogs and us) We are undecided where our next Visa run shall take us and are discussing either to go to Singapore or Bangkok (be nice to see Sarah and Clas) combined with a little trip here or there. I shall keep you posted as soon as a decision has  been reached. In the meantime I thought I would share a few views of Kuah from our balcony.

Rain approaching Kuah

We are at the start of the rainy season right now on Langkawi and I thought it might be interesting to share with you what a Tropical Island can look like when the sun does not shine. We are hardly getting blue skies and the humidity is sometimes well above 85% with temperatures always around 34°C.

Rain front moving in

 It is rather  nice when the rain sets in, as the wind picks up and it cools down a few welcome degrees. We always sit on our balcony (if at home) and enjoy the fresh air blowing, with spectacular views of clouds, wind and rain.

Unable to see the other side of the valley

The nights have been anything but comfortable. It is either too hot without a breeze, really windy, or best of all, thundering and lightning so loud and bright that we get out of bed. Sometimes this might be 1°clock, 3°clock or 5°clock in the morning. It is certainly different from when we first arrived here.

Rainbow in front of, what we call "Mole Hill"

The one thing though, the air is clean and refreshing after it has rained, the other is, the humidity soon sets in again. We do not know how this will carry on, because we heard it sometimes rains for two weeks solid and might even get cool.... Hey we already had to put long trousers on once, it went down to about 23°C and that felt rather cold!