Journey to Jakarta and Beyond: This Ain't Your Mama's Spring Break!

I never really took Spring Break vacations when I was in school, up until law school. At that time, three girls and I drove in a teeny, tin-can car for 21 hours to Key West, Florida for Spring Break. By contrast, for Spring Break this year, my children in Kindergarden and 2nd Grade hopped with us on an airplane for two hours and spent their Spring Break in Malaysia! Specifically, we went to Langkawi Island, a popular resort destination in Malaysia.

When we first arrived, we couldn't stop staring at all the lush, green, tropical greenery. We miss that a lot living in Jakarta, which has lots of trees and flowers, but almost no expansive green space. We were also very excited to encounter NO traffic! It was so much fun to just zip around the island in a taxi, and be free to go as fast or as slow as we wanted.

The resort we stayed at, thanks to Darren's hotel points, was the Sheraton Beach Resort - Langkawi Island. It is built into the side of a hill and overlooks the tranquil Andaman Sea. Complete with beachfront property, large infinity swimming pool, 3 restaurants, and gorgeous gardens, it was a lovely retreat from the congestion, smog, and traffic of Jakarta. (hummm, maybe this is why people in L.A. love to go to the beach, too?). From a vacation strategy perspective, we tried to combine our week in Malaysia with part-time sight-seeing and part-time relaxing. For our sight-seeing adventures, we first went to a crocodile farm where they breed crocs and, of course, do the obligatory tourist show with the crocodiles. We also took a cable-car ride up a mountain to 652 meters (2100 feet) above sea level. The cable car ride was very steep and the cars seemed to hang very precariously from small thread-like cables, but the kids really enjoyed it and they couldn't even tell that Darren and I were secretly praying we made it home alive.

Also during our visit, we climbed a short hike to see a beautiful waterfall - Temurun waterfall, one of three waterfalls on the island. Gorgeous!! And, we visited a bird and animal park, where visitors can watch, feed, pet and walk among dozens of different types of birds and other animals. In addition, we took a boat ride one day through the inner-island rivers, and the boat stopped off and let us visit a fish farm, a spot to feed bald eagles, and a real, live bat cave! (Adam West would have loved it!). Lastly, one day Darren and I let the kids to go to our hotel's kids camp, which they loved, and we went parasailing. I have done it once before, but still, it was so much fun flying high above the beach, seeing the lush, green countryside, and feeling the wind rush across my face. I frequently have flying dreams and this was the closest I have ever been to the feeling that my dreams conjure up.

I must say that I really enjoyed having so many fun things to do in Langkawi Island, but I also look forward to exploring the beaches of Indonesia too, which locals tell us are "more beautiful than Malaysia, and much closer." Needless to say, there's a bit of a rivalry between the two countries for the best beaches. And, I'm happy to test them all!

Okay, so now to the fun stuff. The pictures. Below are some of our travel pictures from Malaysia. If you want to see more, I will post more pictures soon on www.VBphoto.shutterflycom.

Our Sheraton Resort hotel had several families of monkeys that
lived at the resort and strolled through the grounds at their leisure.
They must have a LOT of hotel points!