I am leaving Langkawi! After 6 months I am moving on, I found a job in Southern Spain. William will stay a bit longer in Langkawi to sort things etc. Oh, it's so sad to leave these wonderful lovely people, they have become real friends. It was such a great experience living here, and I hope I will come back soon one day. Farewell-barbecue. Yanee's father invited us to spend a few days in Kuala Lumpur on him! As a thanks for all the work we did for the Panorama Hotel. How sweet is that. He booked us into a very nice posh hotel and we had a great sushi dinner with the family. We explored a bit of KUala Lumpur but actually felt quite overwhelmed from the hectic city after having lived on a tropical island for the past months.
At Kuala Lumpur airport it was time to say goodbye. William flew back to Langkawi and I was heading back to Europe - Spain!
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Day off and we explored a few more spots of lovely Langkawi which we haven't seen so far. One was Gunung Raya, the highest mountain of the island. You can drive all the way up (or walk of course, but we were lazy - hey it's our day off!). Up there the scenery is perfect for the next James Bond movie! Strange big buildings with dark secret conference rooms.. Also there is kind of a weird paranormal hotel, in a way luxury (saw lots of Bentleys and Jaguar cars parked), but in a way deserted and in need of renovation and - who stays there???) Up on the view tower you find a tiny little cafe. The highest restaurant of Langkawi. Wow. And our friends from TM (our internet provider)...always the best customer service...haha. And then in Lubuk Semilang (a small waterfall close to the place where we stay) a big monitor lizard was crossing our way...
When we stopped working for Revitacura, we moved on - basically we just hopped over the fence to our neighbors, the lovely people from the Panorama Hotel (or Paranormal Hotel, as we sometimes call it). Now we are living here at the staff quarters, and helping the family Yanee and Ayam with renovating and organising their run-down hotel.
The hotel belongs to the father of Yanee and had been empty for a long time. Now they want to restart the business - and it's hard work! But together with their 4 kids they moved from busy Kuala Lumpur to the countryside of Langkawi Island, loving it! We are helping them finding volunteers, renovate rooms, bringing the garden back to life and order, catering, and I also did some paintings for their lobby - the for Langkawi typical hornbills! A few days ago we did one of our first caterings in Langkawi with our new business Balini! At the Ocean Residence of Paul Penders we served a 6 course raw food menu - and they liked it :)
We also finally got our new labels for our products. Here is our first review: "Thank you for the wonderful dinner arrangement last Saturday. Everybody enjoyed it very much and it was one of the best dinners in my life! We also truly loved the performance of William; what a funny guy. Thank you very much again from all of us." - Dr. Eng Also check out our new website: www.balinifood.com! Yes! I finally learned how to ride a scooter! Overcoming fear of riding anything that is faster than my own feet: check!
Maybe the outfit helped.. And sometimes you find yourself on a 5 million dollar yacht in the harbor of Kuah!!
On our visa run to Thailand we made friends with Daniel who house sits this amazing luxury posh ship, and when we got back to Langkawi, he invited us for a drink. So we stopped working with Revitacura and The Garden of Eva - absolutely the right decision!
Now we are on our own quest of making healthy food popular in Langkawi. But first we enjoy a little bit of the good island life, for example at "Sugar", a super cool beach cafe in Pantai Tengah, where you can watch the paragliders land and the sun set, with a lush cocktail... Since the goal is to make the Garden of Eva a Farm-to-Table Cafe and we are in the process of planting a lot of fruits and veggies, we decided to take our team for a tour to the near Mardi Fruit Farm, to learn more about tropical agriculture.
Unfortunately we got disappointed. The tour involves being driven around the fruit farm. No explanations at all. Half-way through there is a stop where we got served fruit (mostly unripe). Basically the only thing I learned that it take 2-3 years to grow a pineapple (which shocked me a bit). Oh yes, and you could take a photo with Mr. Jackfruit (see above). During Ramadan we helped our neighbors, the Panorama Hotel, with their dinner for the orphans of Langkawi. A group of the cutest and best behaved girls and boys came over to have some prayers, and then food, followed by prayers and food.
We all got traditional Malaysian clothes from the hotel, and it was a fun and humbling experience to be part of this. This is what Ramadan (and Islam) is really about, remembering the poor and less fortunate, and giving something back. During Ramadan you are only allowed to eat before sunrise and after sunset. At the end of the day you break the fast with something sweet, traditionally dates. After that the feast can start. (All photos are from Nate, a volunteer of the Panorama Hotel - the guy in the 4th photo). |
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