Malaysia

Antoine's view

Two destinations little known, in a region whose tourist industry is less developed than her Northern neighbor, Thailand...
but has always made me dream,when I read the tales of Sailors who in the Seventies had found a true corner of paradise on the rivers of the Langkawi archipelago, which stretches from the west coast of the Malaysian peninsula, to the south of the border with Thailand.
Beaches, rivers, forests of hévéa which is the primary source of natural rubber, small fishing ports, deserted islands, sumptuous beaches, astonishing animals, even if they do not have the exuberant tourist animation of Phuket or Ko Samui!
The Malaysian islands have many assets.
Penang, where a giant bridge connects to the continent, was for a while one of the most important cities of the Malay peninsula;
we discovered an English colonial presence, along with sumptuous pagodas, small ports where boats unload miraculously large catches of fish and on vast beaches we can find international hotels with a very high standing.
Calmer, the Langkawi islands are surrounded by smaller islands which can be visited by motorboats; on one of these islands, a perilous trek up a steep path leads the way to an astonishing lake, legend says : a sterile young woman found herself pregnant one day after having bathed there? since then many women from Malaysia and all over Asia come to bathe in the waters surrounded by rocky cliffs.
Tourist resorts, some of them lavish have recently been built in this archipelago, which so far has been kept from prospering due to a malediction...
Now over it is time to discover these quiet islands.
This part of Malaysia is a far reach from other insular areas of Malaysia like Sarawak and Sabah, on the island of Borneo; the ethnic groups who live in Borneo's forests have spectacular habits and costumes, like Rafflesia which is considered to be one of the largest flowers in the world, it grows on the sides of mount Kinabalu. Malaysia is a safe country despite the travellers who were taken hostage in Jolo due to a revolutionary backlash, based in Saban, situated a few miles in the middle of small islands around Sandakan in the archipelago Sulu which belongs to the Phillipines, the actual base of the revolution.