What Me? Afraid of Heights?

When at the top of falls, roughly 400 meters above sea level, we saw in the distance the World Famous Langkawi Cable Car. It was not far from where we were, and the cable stretched far above the falls. We decided we would take a gander on up the next day...

We tried to get out early, we did. But a night on the beach and a huge breakfast makes for sluggish travelers and we did not get to the dock until about 11. A $36 cab ride got us to the Cable Car around noon. The line was 2 hours long. We almost scrubbed the whole idea - who wants to wait in the hot sun for that long, anyway? But we decided to hang in there seeing as we had nothing else planned. Andrew and Matt decided to take a half hour elephant ride through the jungle while we waited. They enjoyed it...it was a time killer plus the elephant had a big ol' turd hanging off his tail that kept Matt entertained the whole time. Luckily he did not have a camera with him or I may have had a photo documenting something I never wanted to hear about in the first place...

We waited pretty close to 2 hours, with tickets that cost $35 to buy but $50 to replace if lost (yeah - explain THAT one...), climbed onto the car and headed up. We were about halfway - maybe 500 meters up and suspended over the treetops, and two of us, who shall be nameless, admitted to an as-yet-unrealized fear of heights. While I prefer not to name names, I will say that a picture is worth a thousand words, and one should not be fooled by ostensible bravado...My favorite part of the trek up was the emergency procedures, though....There was a locked box with a hammer attached. The note on the box said "In case of emergency, break glass." I have no idea what could have possibly been inside.

The view from the top of the mountain was incredible. We took pictures, which did not do it justice. We were 710 meters above sea level, which I have a vague idea of the conversion, English speaking, but can say from a visceral point of view is pretty damn high. We got to the highest point by climbing some steps (but not as many as the day before...although I did hear the not-so-faint cursing of an Indian guy whose words I did not understand but whose message was loud and clear...) and crossing a bridge that swayed, almost imperceptibly but not quite, in the wind.

We got down just in time to go horseback riding before the $36 ride back to the resort for another expensive dinner. We left content, with a photo of Andrew and Matt on the elephant that cost $20 and I can't find now, and we were back in time for happy hour....