48 Hours At The Andaman, Langkawi

15th June 2019

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I am always on the lookout for an easy weekend away from Singapore. Being based in Singapore is an extremely fortunate thing for many reasons, one of them being the accessibility of South East Asia.

Langkawi is just a short 1 hour 10 minute flight from Singapore, and as it’s quite a small airport, immigration is a breeze. Within a short 30 minute taxi ride you can be in secluded paradise! The island is fairly small with minimal traffic (unlike say… BALI) so you are not stuck in jams all the way to your hotel. It is a very easy ride.

I knew about the LASSie Foundation from a previous trip to Temple Tree, so we popped over to drop off some supplies to them on the way from the airport. We skipped the expensive airport transfer and took a S$12 Grab ride to our hotel afterwards.

We chose The Andaman because both of us needed a mental break. We wanted somewhere where we didn’t have to think about food or activities, and could be properly pampered for a few days. The Andaman is based in the gorgeous private Datai Bay, which the National Geographic named as one of the top 10 beaches in the world in 2015. Because of its location you are fairly far from civilisation, so have no choice but to stay put in the resort - which was totally fine by us!

We arrived way before check in time but were told our room was ready, and after a short explanation of the various activities at our hotel we were whisked off to our pool access room. Now in hindsight, I probably wouldn’t stay in this room again. The pool access rooms share a pool with about 5 or 6 other rooms each and are extremely restricted from the sun, so we spent the majority of our time on the beach or at the main pool. Bit of a waste of money on the pool access room!

The room itself was lovely, it had a huge bath (a bath!!!), massive shower and a plush, fluffy bed. We were hungry, so ventured out of our room for food. There are 4 restaurants at The Andaman, and 2 lounge/bars. We ate most of our meals at Tepian Laut, the local themed beachside restaurant. The food was pretty good, but pricey as you’d expect for in-resort eating. We spoke to a few other guests and found out they were on all inclusive tours but had come from much farther afield. I didn’t even know all inclusive was a thing outside of Europe!

Breakfast was okay, the usual international buffet foods you’d expect to find. I always gravitate towards Asian food for breakfast, but the omelettes were really good. Apparently they had prata, but you needed to order it the day before - what.

The sun sets just on the horizon in Datai Bay, do not miss it! At dusk, a whole pack of otters swam right across the shoreline and ran up to their home behind the kayak hut, they were SO cute! It was very special.

There are limited things to do at The Andaman. Besides eating, drinking, going to the spa or relaxing, The Andaman also have an onsite Coral Nursery, an ongoing effort to reinstate the Andaman Reef which was damaged from the 2004 tsunami. You can help them take care of the coral or go on a private guided snorkel tour, where corals are rehabilitated prior to being transplanted.

We spent our short trip lying by the pool or on the beach, working on our tans, sipping ice cold water from the dispensers, patting our face with soothing cold towels that were brought around and actually finding time to read for the first time in months. The highlight of our trip was taking some kayaks out across the bay, and exploring the uninhabited small islands. The views were unbelievable, but I didn’t have my GoPro to take pictures! We also took a long walk down the beach, past The Datai (the only other resort in the bay) right down to the end of the bay.

Very quickly, our 3 day 2 night mini break was over and we had to drag ourselves into a car to take us back to our real, city life. We returned to Singapore refreshed, relaxed and less stressed! We know we will be back, it is too easy not to do again.

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