Tijen & Neal's Wedding - Day 1

After an exhausting 12 hour flight, followed very closely by a second one hour flight, we have arrived safe and sound.

Once the aircraft doors opened on the Langkawi Airport tarmac, we were hit with a wave of intense heat and humidity - the short walk to the terminal was an indication of what was to come, and the terminal air conditioning was rather welcome. We were met by several drivers from The Datai, who had luggage labels prepared for us. Each bag was tagged and whisked away to be loaded onto the waiting vehicles. We all jumped in too, and 25 minutes later we arrived at the hotel to a warm welcome from Tijen and Neal.

Without a doubt The Datai has to be one of the most amazing hotels I have ever seen. The staff are well presented, very polite and exceptionally attentive - every guest is made to feel like royalty, which serves to ease you nicely into a comfortable and relaxing stay.

After 20 minutes relaxing in the bar, with ice cold drinks and cold face towels to cool us down, we made our way to our rooms - which are simply exquisite:

This is the view from our bedroom window:

We all had a shower at that point and then several of the party shot straight down to the beach, whilst the rest of us hit the sack for a few hours. After some well earned rest, Regan and I went to meet a few of the locals:

We took a stroll down to the beach and then along a jungle path where two enormous wild boar ran out in front of us and darted off into the bush - i was far too stunned to even think about taking a photograph of those two, choosing instead to just stand there, mouth agape, in total wonderment!

After another shower we all met up in the bar for our first evening meal together - the sudden thunderstorm meant that we were unable to eat under the stars, although the covered area where we sat was just perfect in any case.

At one point, Tijen was concerned she had spinach in her teeth, but Albert did his best to reassure her with a positive gurgle:

One by one, the party gave in to the exhaustion and the group petered out - Alison and Teresa, the obvious lightweights in the party :o) headed up first, whilst Tijen continued to practise for future motherhood:

So, at the end of the first day full of sun, heat and wonderful new friends we all finally went our own separate ways and got a much needed full night's sleep.

More tomorrow when some of us take a cable car up to 710m above sea level ... and some of us wish we hadn't ...