Oh, beautiful Langkawi!

I kid you not, Langkawi is a slice of Heaven. I haven't been to Hawaii, or the Polynesian islands, or Phuket, or any of a number of island resorts you usually hear about. But Langkawi has to be right up there.

We woke up this morning to a beautiful sunrise, the sort that only ever occurs on non-polluted, crisp, virgin land that we haven't gotten around to screwing up. There wasn't much time to laze around looking at the sunrise, because we were expected at the hotel beach for an island hopping expedition.

Given the resort's remote location on the island of Langkawi, most activities that you take part in are organized by the hotel itself. We had arranged for this boat tour the night before, so after a light breakfast we waded out from the beach to a small motorboat that was anchored a decent distance out into the water. There was this cute, older, French couple that was also with us, and several times while we were splashing out to the boat I thought the tide was going to knock them both down. They proved amazingly resilient, however, and we all made it to our boat without mishap.

I was expecting a guided tour once the boat got going, but this proved not to be the case. Instead, our guide simply sat at the stern, guiding the boat to different destinations throughout the day. At first this bugged me, but I soon realized that there was no point being the control freak I am back home, so instead I gradually relaxed and just let the surprises of the day come to me.

The first wasn't long in arriving, as we rounded an island and came upon a large floating wooden structure in the middle of the sea. Apparently these were common sights out where we were. Fishermen will build floating sea farms - floating wooden structures that have openings that contain all sorts of fish that get trapped inside the nets that trail from the structure. I'm not sure how the fish get caught in the first place, but the farm is cool, designed to catch fish while the fishermen relax - there was a roof that stretched over a big part of the structure, beneath which lay plastic picnic furniture, as well as a hut that contained bedding and a television.

Once back on our little boat, we spent time exploring the many islands that surround Langkawi. Some contained beautiful cave structures that were supposed to be home to bats. Unfortunately, we didn't see any on our little adventure.

The coolest destination turned out to be an island that contained a large lake. We docked our boat on a beach, and hiked into this island until we broke through the foliage to find ourselves surrounded on all sides by tall hills. Before us lay a beautiful freshwater lake, perfect for a dip.

On our way back to our motorboat we came upon some monkeys who took absolutely no interest in us. This one dude was completely fixated upon stripping the flesh off a coconut before devouring it.

Our boat tour concluded by late afternoon, and following such an exhausting morning, it was only right to relax by the pool for a few hours, in preparation for the highlight of our evening - a private dinner on a hut positioned out to sea.

I will write more about the beauty of Starwood points later, but suffice it to say that they came in handy yet again, and enabled Saeeda and I to enjoy quite possibly the finest meal we have ever had.

The evening began at sunset, when our private chef and maitre d' introduced our menu to us. We had previously worked with the executive chef to craft a meal that was personalized to our tastes - I had no idea what I was ordering, but the chef had guided us throughout the process. Now, as we sat in this hut that stood raised on stilts, with water lapping all around it, our chef prepared the meal that we had designed earlier, and served it to us piping hot.

For all the adventure and exploration that we like on our trips, it was nice to kick back for once and completely indulge ourselves. Ah, Langkawi, what an amazing place...