Langkawi

Rolling with the punches

05.15.2014

We signed up for our first volunteer experience at a resort on the beautiful island of Langkawi, Malaysia. The island looks and feels very similar to Hawaii and mostly all Malaysians speak near perfect English. We planned to stay one month volunteering at the resort, where in exchange for a few hours of work per day we would be given free room and free meals. This particular workaway sounded perfect for us, with my customer service/sales background I expected to be working with the guests and Zach would be helping with the construction and remodeling. Yeaaahhh that didn't go as planned. The woman owner picked us up from the airport and we were instantly hit with a cold front. This women was straight cold and unfriendly. Where was the kind and wonderful woman written about in the reviews that was suppose to be welcoming us like family? Things went even worse when we got to the resort and saw our accommodations and found out that basically all we would be doing is painting for 3 weeks. There is huge story around the horrors and experience about this place, but me blogging about it won't do it justice. Maybe you'll hear a good story over a beer one day. In a nut shell, it just did not even remotely resemble what we thought we were signing up for. There was another volunteer, an easy going girl from Vancouver(thank god, I'm beyond exhausted from deciphering the British accents or speaking broken English to Europeans. Finally I can talk like me again!) . The three of us became close real quick and we decided just to leave. So we did. We booked a cheap hotel by the beach and toured the island and hung out for a few days while figuring out our next move. Since Keri is traveling alone, I think she's gonna join us for a bit so we should have some good times ahead.
We had a really great time exploring Langkawi, it's a beautiful island and I highly recommend visiting if you get the chance. We did also develop a great bond with the male owner of the resort as well as the Malaysian workers we volunteered with. Even after we left the resort we hung out with them a bunch and the owner even chartered us a boat and took us island hopping. It's been a long and fun week but I am ready to leave the island and start our next adventure!

Rafiis...the bar we somehow ended up at everyday