Tag: langkawi

Don’t Be Square

In the first part of my story on Austrian entrepreneur Alex Mark, I wrote about meeting the owner and chef from Moussandra some 15 years or longer ago. He has since settled in Langkawi and we lost contact.

Fast forward to 2017. I started the hotel booking portal. In the early part of this year I was researching unique and strange hotels and I came across Das Park Hotel in Austria. It is a collection of five freestanding cylindrical rooms made from re purposed metropolitan drainage pipes. I was wondering how Malaysians will take to sleeping in sewer drain pipes or longkang as they call it.

Incidentally, I have been to Austria only once because me and Malaysian student friend, George, drove from Chur in Switzerland to Austria to look for beers after midnight. The guard at the small border post had not even heard of Malaysia. He and his German Shehperd dog examined our passports hard.

Found out that, by coincidence, Alex is operating a similar concept hotel on Langkawi Island, Malaysia, where he and family settled. First thing I asked Austrian Alex Mark is whether it is connected to Das Park in Austria and he said no. He said he liked the idea and decided to tubocharged it. He gave it a less cryptic name – Tubotel Langkawi, The keyword being tube. It is affordable compared to many other hotels and resorts on the holiday island and has a great view of the ocean. Each pipe is air conditioned, has a double bed, TV but with external shared bathrooms.

Book Tubotel Langkawi here and see more pics: https://www.agoda.com/partners/partnersearch.aspx?cid=1775757&pcs=1&hid=337916

Pics from Tubotel website at http://www.tubotel.com/website/ Their slogan is Don’t Be Square!

#tubotel #langkawi #nalaysia #island #tubehotel #beach #mycenhotels

The Smoky Bandit

The Smokey Bandit

Royal Malaysian Air Force (TUDM) MiG-29N are nicknamed Smokey Bandits. One of its more famous pilots is lady top gun Major Patricia Yapp Syau Yin who flies solo. She’s Asia’s first female MiG-29 fighter pilot. The squadron based in Kuantan were at the LIMA Air show.

Aerial display and aerobatics do not necessary require a very long lens, unless you want to lock onto a solitary aircraft. For formation flying, a 70-200mm lens (of 35mm format equivalence) should be adequate. And another common myth is that one must get near or into the airport.

Langkawi’s terrain is hilly and that means you can find better spots on higher ground for a better vantage point. The back perimeter fence of the airport is good too because you can also capture the carnival-like atmosphere created by the villagers.

I must warn you that if you get your schedule wrong or if a session is cancelled, you won’t be able to get out from there. The narrow road will be jam packed with villagers, motorcycles, cars and hawkers.

Morning directional light is a good time for both white and colourful contrails. Even the black exhaust of the MIG 29N looks better. This was photographed during LIMA 2011.

Olympus E-3, ISO 200, f11, 1/800 sec.

#lima #lima2015 #lima15 #rmaf #tudm #mig29 #airshow #smokeybandit #contrail #langkawi #olympus

The Day I Became A “Jaga Kereta” For A Submarine

The Day I Became A “Jaga Kereta” For A Submarine.

With LIMA starting in a couple of days, I am looking at the many images I captured over the years. This is one of my favourite moments from LIMA and it was from 2007. It was so bizarre, funny and am honoured to be able to experience it. I stumbled upon the scene at Porto Malai naval harbour by chance. Was walking on the dockyard after a lunch cum tour hosted by a Royal Malaysian Navy ship earlier.

An Indian Navy submarine was trying to dock after resurfacing. There was such a big commotion, with every sailor shouting back and forth. One would think one was standing outside the noisy kitchen of a mamak restaurant. LOL. The confusion and pandemonium were probably caused by the unfamiliar territory and unconventional berthing. The captain was the coolest guy standing there (below the tower) unperturbed.

A submarine up close was such a rare sight and I was standing at the edge of the dockyard photographing the drama when, all of as sudden, one of the sailors threw a thick and heavy rope at me! I grabbed the the rope, hooked it to a bollard and started shouting “Gostan, Gostan” like a boss. More like a ‘jaga kereta’ (a self-appointed parking attendant by the roadside with a dirty rag), actually.

The local word “gostan” (to reverse) is believed to have originated from “go astern” in sailing terminology.

“Gostan sikit. Lagi, lagi… Oooppp!” Hand slaps submarine, jaga kereta-style.

Not an expert on submarines but a search of scant archived documentation of LIMA hinted it could be the INS Sindhurakshak, a Russian-made Kilo-class diesel-electric submarine of the Indian Navy. Hopefully it was not the INS Sindhurakshak. In August 2013, the Sindhurakshak sank after explosions caused by a fire on board when the submarine was berthed at Mumbai. There were fatalities.

Find or book a room in Langkawi here:

http://www.mycen.my/hotels-in-langkawi/

#lima #lima2017 #lima15 #maritme #navy #naval #submarine #india #langkawi #olympus

Where Prices Soar Like An Eagle

Where Prices Soar Like An Eagle

I went to my first LIMA in 1991. I stayed at the freshly minted Sheraton Langkawi, I think it is now the Century Langkawi Beach Resort. It was booked by the Australian High Commission in KL who hired me to photograph their military participation.

There was a mad rush to get the hotel and many other new hotels ready at the 11th hour. It was Dr M’s pet project and people were nervous. The Jacuzzi smelled of turpentine and shellac. I was thinking at that time that Langkawi was a pristine tropical Island or paradise and many hotels were not geared for the impact of such a show.

Many existing luxury hotels were already charging over RM 1000 per night. With the demand, many smaller and simpler hotels started charging ridiculous rates around show time. It was blatant price gouging. In the last 2 and a half decades, I attended LIMA, I have always fear the price and difficulty in getting rooms.

Not all visitors are rich or employees of aircraft manufactures. Many workers are there as support staff at the exhibitions, I met many airplane spotter hobbyists, Also, I met many German and Japanese journalists who were from specialised but low circulation military and aviation magazines. They always complain to me about the hotels exploiting the situation.

Today, it was published in newspapers that the Langkawi Tourism Association (LTA) finally admitted there are middle men or brokers who made block bookings for profit. Of course with technology, the overpriced hotels are pricing themselves out.

Shopping for a room is now much easier and comparison of rates are simpler and faster. Those days we needed to call each hotel, one at a time, after scanning the Yellow Pages. Today I checked via Agoda and many rooms are still available. During one year, I met a German who told me his paid booking for a USD 500 room was cancelled to give the room to a Malaysian VIP.

Few hotels want to disown a paid booking these days as they don’t want to risk getting dropped from lucrative online booking sites for breach of contract.

The beauty of a real time interactive booking system is that the popular ones were showing updated status like “last few rooms available” today. I think many of the hotels allow penalty free last minute cancellation because they know an unprepared roomless guy will walk in later.

I created a special page with tips to finding a hotel in Langkawi. I have also linked the many hotels I stayed at before. Your taste and budget may be different and I included a wide enough range at:

http://www.mycen.my/hotels-in-langkawi/

While it is easy to cast brickbats, people rarely praise the mom and pop shops run by locals from Langkawi. The makcik and pakcik gerai didn’t increase their prices although they could have. They redeemed the island’s image.

#lima2017 #lima #langkawi #airshow