We should never have been there.
Our flirtation with the five star life in the KL Ritz could just about be excused as a brief respite from the less salubrious predecessors we were more familiar with. It was after all my parents fault we were in there, it's not like we chose it. But the backpacking jury is not going to let us off with Pangkor Laut. PL is an exclusive Island where you can only get onto if you are staying there. Backpackers are not supposed to stay on Pangkor Laut. We only managed to afford it because the customer service manager, another Scot called Ross was able to pull a couple of rabbits out of the hat. He gave us the maximum discount on their best rate, and since my parents had booked their trip last year, he gave us the discount on last year's price, and even though we paid for the cheapest villa, he put us in the one next door to my parents which was a little bit more upmarket. He also waved a few additional costs that would normally have bumped the prices up all the more. All in all, we got a ridiculously posh 2 days for about the same price as you'd pay for a reasonable room in London for a night.
Our bungalow, just next to the infinite pool had everything you could imagine. And was perfectly fitted out in a well balanced mix of stonework, woodwork and glass. If we couldn't be bothered walking to one of the five restaurants or so, our weary five star legs could rest while we got driven across the island. Of course, that meant you would miss a stroll along the boardwalk between the slightly dearer (yes we had limits) bungalows on stilts that sat out into the water. If you were one of those people who were supposed to be there, then you would almost certainly have thrown some money at the spa treatments which would then allow you to use the even exclusiver infinite pool round the coast slightly. Pavarotti, by all accounts likes this place particularly and has decked out one of the villas to his own liking should he nip by for a few vino's upon a weekend. As it was, the swimming pool was spared this time and the restaurants had enough food to cater for everyone. The restaurants were not cheap, but given that you were a captive market, and had to eat, they could have been a lot dearer. The prices, though ludicrous for Malaysia were pretty much on par with a nice dinner on the town back home. Feeling the first pangs of backpackers guilt though, we decided not to buy lunch but instead to pull out our pot noodles which were nestled deep in a carrier bag. The carrier bag which we had handed over to the bell boy back on the mainland along with our proper luggage, had dutifully turned up on the island in our room with a posh label neatly tied round one of it's handles. We were trying hard to maintain the backpacker's code.
We had a lovely two days, pretending to fit in and just hanging about with Mum and Dad. They had longer to stay on the Island but we would be sharing a hire car with them and driving up to the Cameron Highlands so we spent the following day back in Lumut enjoying what the town had to offer. That took about fifteen minutes and then we hung around till they came over the following day.
Our flirtation with the five star life in the KL Ritz could just about be excused as a brief respite from the less salubrious predecessors we were more familiar with. It was after all my parents fault we were in there, it's not like we chose it. But the backpacking jury is not going to let us off with Pangkor Laut. PL is an exclusive Island where you can only get onto if you are staying there. Backpackers are not supposed to stay on Pangkor Laut. We only managed to afford it because the customer service manager, another Scot called Ross was able to pull a couple of rabbits out of the hat. He gave us the maximum discount on their best rate, and since my parents had booked their trip last year, he gave us the discount on last year's price, and even though we paid for the cheapest villa, he put us in the one next door to my parents which was a little bit more upmarket. He also waved a few additional costs that would normally have bumped the prices up all the more. All in all, we got a ridiculously posh 2 days for about the same price as you'd pay for a reasonable room in London for a night.
Our bungalow, just next to the infinite pool had everything you could imagine. And was perfectly fitted out in a well balanced mix of stonework, woodwork and glass. If we couldn't be bothered walking to one of the five restaurants or so, our weary five star legs could rest while we got driven across the island. Of course, that meant you would miss a stroll along the boardwalk between the slightly dearer (yes we had limits) bungalows on stilts that sat out into the water. If you were one of those people who were supposed to be there, then you would almost certainly have thrown some money at the spa treatments which would then allow you to use the even exclusiver infinite pool round the coast slightly. Pavarotti, by all accounts likes this place particularly and has decked out one of the villas to his own liking should he nip by for a few vino's upon a weekend. As it was, the swimming pool was spared this time and the restaurants had enough food to cater for everyone. The restaurants were not cheap, but given that you were a captive market, and had to eat, they could have been a lot dearer. The prices, though ludicrous for Malaysia were pretty much on par with a nice dinner on the town back home. Feeling the first pangs of backpackers guilt though, we decided not to buy lunch but instead to pull out our pot noodles which were nestled deep in a carrier bag. The carrier bag which we had handed over to the bell boy back on the mainland along with our proper luggage, had dutifully turned up on the island in our room with a posh label neatly tied round one of it's handles. We were trying hard to maintain the backpacker's code.
We had a lovely two days, pretending to fit in and just hanging about with Mum and Dad. They had longer to stay on the Island but we would be sharing a hire car with them and driving up to the Cameron Highlands so we spent the following day back in Lumut enjoying what the town had to offer. That took about fifteen minutes and then we hung around till they came over the following day.
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