Welcome to Paradise

Paradise is not a beach. It is not a bar. It is not even a cheap duty free bar. Nice as they are, it is not a Toblerone (just as an aside, why are they so prevalent in duty free shops? Are they hugely expensive normally?).

If I say that Langkawi was paradise, you will instantly google it. What you will find is that Langkawi is a designated Tourist Island, something we didn’t actually know when we chose to include it on our trip. Langkawi is a duty free island and booze especially is very cheap. There are beaches full of the usual souvenir shops, bars and an array of beach sport options including parasailing, helicopter rides, banana boating and the rest.

Which is all perfectly nice.

But it is not, for us at least, paradise.

Langkawi was paradise. Here, we fell in love with Malaysia. But not because of the Toblerones.

What we came to Langkawi looking for, was the jungle. The lush, green, bristling, humming teeming jungle, full of life, only a tiny portion of which can be immediately seen. We wanted jungle, nature, quiet and a break from the everlasting and somehow, especially recently, intrusive, internet.

And that is what we got.

We get off the speedboat, a little flustered from our disappointing transport here, and get into a taxi. The driver checks the price for where we want to go on a chart. We are asking to be dropped by a Chinese School, which is the nearest most populated thing to where we are actually staying, deeper in the jungle. The school is not on his chart as such and so he spends quite some time carefully working out the nearest destination which is.  In Vietnam the taxi driver takes us home the long way round, charging us on the meter for the privilege of his deliberately indirect journey. In Cambodia the Tuk Tuk drivers make up the price that they think you might be desperate enough to pay, and there are any number of scams involving Tuk Tuk drivers which you have to be careful of. In Thailand the taxi fares are hugely expensive and may go via their mate’s silk factory, or, if we widen this to transport in general, may tell any number of lies and take your money for a service which is not the one you thought you were getting. Here, they check the chart and charge you whatever is written down on it, smiling and chatting to you on the way.

We climb into the taxi and he drives us to the school where will be meeting our host, who I will call Gemmy. I can predict that he will read this blog and probably hate his pseudonym. Gemmy, I am sorry, it just popped into my head. I don’t know why. I considered using the name of one of his cats but, given we got to know the cats pretty well, it would feel a little weird. And then we would have to find a pseudonym for the cat.

Anyway – we get to the school but Gemmy is still on his way. We climb out, pile our bags up and prepare to wait around for a bit. But our taxi driver is too concerned about us. It’s about seven in the evening and it’s dark. We are next door to a mosque, there are residential properties around and  the Chinese school has a night watchman. But still he is uncomfortable. He shuffles his feet, asks us when Gemmy will arrive and is generally worried for us. If you think this is an indication that we are not safe here, think again – it’s one of the most safest places in the world. There is almost no violent crime and what there, is perpetrated by tourists.

The nigh watchmen, whose presence is, in the end, what makes ur taxi driver feel comfortable enough to leave us, speaks no English at all. But he flashes us a smile that gleams in the darkness, speaks volumes, and then hurries off, returning with two plastic chairs. He is not happy if, for the five minutes we will probably be here, we have to stand. He only actually has two chairs, so one of them is his own. He then stays with us, conducting the only completely non verbal conversation I have ever experienced while we wait. I cannot tell you what was ‘said’ but the gist was that we were very welcome, and that he was happy, and that it is good that we have chairs.

Minutes later, Gemmy appears. He steps out of the car with a characteristically huge smile, shakes our hands, gestures enthusiastically to the boot, greets us in perfect and warm English and then drives us to our home for the next two and a half weeks. As he drives he points out the landmarks to us, so that later, when we try to make our own way back, we don’t get lost in the jungle.

“This is the playground,” he says, “the children will say hello to you all the time. It is the only English they know. This is a Tsunami village. They lost their houses in the Tsunami and this is their new house. You need to turn here, when you see the boat at the front of this man’s house. He is building a boat for the next Tsunami. That’s his joke. Now look for the white house – this one on it’s own, and go past it. Now you see three paths. You can take any one.”

All three paths are jungle tracks, through some slightly better surfaced or wider than others. They lead straight up, into the jungle greenery on the mountain. Gemmy drives up one. It’s unlit and framed by inquisitive greenery, trees stretching their leaves out as if to try to touch us.  

“This is my neighbour,” says Gemmy, laughing to himself as he finally emerges from the path and parks on some grass next to what looks like a half finished house, “he ran out of money to build it,” explains Gemmy, “but he had money for a new car.”

There is quite a smart car parked outside the half built house.

“He lives in that bit,” says Gemmy, “it’s the only part that has all four walls. He is my only neighbour.”

And it’s true. As Gemmy opens the sliding gate to reveal a series of three rooms and an open air kitchen, framed with grass and a natural hill, atop which is a hammock strung between two huge trees, bamboo growing around, rocks jutting out from the natural hill, we can see that his only other neighbour is the jungle.

Gemmy shows us around.

“This is my rock for meditating on,” he says, “this is the patch in the grass where I do Tai Chi. Down here is a natural stream, very clear. If you put your feet in, the fish will nibble. Like the posh spas, only natural. This is my dipping pool, to sit in when it is hot. It is always hot. This is my herb garden. In this pen are the puppies. I let them out in the mornings. They are very playful. They might break things Sometimes they are very naughty. But they stop the macaque monkeys from ransacking my kitchen. This is your welcome drink.”

We are handed a coconut with a straw in. I take it, and as I do so I feel any ounce of tension still, miraculously, in me despite having been three months on holiday, melt away. Gemmy’s place is truly a jungle retreat.

I had expected this. It is billed as a holistic retreat. The reviews on Air BnB had talked about Gemmy’s ‘healthy breakfasts’ and ‘fruit juices’ and we know that Gemmy himself is a masseur and also a practitioner of Reiki healing.

“It might be quite healthy,” says M, mischeviously to me back when we first booked it, “It might be, you know, carrot juice and colonic irrigation for breakfast.”

“Enjoy yourself,” said M’s dad the day we set off for Langkawi, “go easy on the colonics.”

Already, it seems to me, that there is rather too much of a twinkle in Gemmy’s eye, for this to be a place full of stern health drinks and lectures on the benefits of a raw food diet.

“Come and join the other guests,” says Gemmy, interrupting my reflection enthusiastically, and pointing at one other couple (there are just two rooms here.) “we are having a party!”

He gestures to a row of pringle packets, chocolate, two huge boxes of wine, a palate of beer and a whole array of sprits tucked into the corner of his kitchen.

“Left over from New Year. You have to help me to get rid of them. Otherwise I will drink all of it.”

A word here – you can be as holistic as you like at Gemmy’s. If you want a retreat, you can have one. It’s just you can also have a party. Gemmy runs day or three day long health retreats and at those you are definitely not fed pringles.  But you are far from being force fed carrot juice and colonic irrigation.

“I am going to be teetotal in Malaysia,” I have been saying, “I was at my most healthy in Vietnam when we didn’t really drink much and I think we drank too much stout in Cambodia, and rice whiskey in Thailand. Also Malaysia is a Mulsim country and I want to live like the locals.”

 I drink a glass of red wine.

“Just help yourself to beers and things,” says Gemmy, “and put a donation in my tin – for my next big trip!”

I ask if it is difficult to get hold of alcohol in this Muslim country. Gemmy laughs heartily,

“What!” he cries, “this is a duty free island! It’s cheap!”

He opens a beer.

Later I find out more about Malaysia, and that in fact Islam does not have the vast majority I had thought in respect of religion. Malaysia teems with culture and with harmony. There is a lot of Chinese influence, and pockets of Chinese culture, plenty of Buddhism, some Taoism, a bit of Christianity, and Muslims. And then vast swathes, on Langkawi at least, of bikini clad, boozing tourists. Everybody is welcome. Everybody gets on together. Muslims in headscarves or in full Niqab work in canteens or restaurants alongside Buddhists in western clothes, (though rather more modest than what we are used to in the west). Alcohol is not sold in Muslim shops, but is in Chinese stores, of which there are plenty, and the law says that it can’t be sold to Muslims, but it can be to anyone else. Which makes sense.

When I finally fall asleep in our room, jungle swaying about outside, and monkeys whooping in the trees, it is with a feeling of having arrived. I, quite rightly, predict that I am going to love Malaysia.

M snorts,  “You always say that about everywhere,” and then, thoughtfully, “but I know what you mean. I think I might do too.”

The next morning we are indeed served with a lovely healthy breakfast, though the only sign of anything colon flushing is the freshly ground coffee. The puppies are cavorting, half mad with excitement, around my feet and trying to pull my trousers off with their teeth.

“They are getting big,” says Gemmy. “very naughty.”

We wander out on foot and explore the local area. One of the places we end up, as we walk around, is a posh resort, some kilometres away. We stop there for a drink mainly because it is boiling hot and we have been wandering about in and out of jungle for a while and need to cool down. The drink is vastly overpriced. The resort is nice. But the most interesting thing about it is the small group of scared looking black monkeys we encounter when we go for a walk around it, to look at the view of the bay. They are known as Spectacle Monkeys, for the rings around their eyes, or, more officially, Dusky Leaf Monkeys. They are fully vegetarian and much shyer than their gangster like, Macaque counterparts. They run away from us, but not before we can admire their furry blackness, their round mouths, making them look permanently surprised, and their bushy black tails. Later we discover that the baby Dusky Leaf Monkeys are born bright orange, gradually turning black as they get older.

“We can see these from our window in the jungle trees back at Gemmy’s” says M after we finish excitedly watching the monkeys become tiny black specks in the distance.

There is a pause. We look around the posh resort with its paving and chlorinated swimming pool and its tastefully pumped music.

I think about Gemmy’s dipping pool, strewn with leaves from the surrounding trees just seconds after he has painstakingly fished them out with his net. I think about the bird calls, the hum of the chicadas and the echoing call of the lizards. I think about the grass, and the hammock between the trees and the rocks jutting out from the hill. I think about the cold fresh water stream at the bottom of the garden. About Gemmy’s fresh herbs and fresh orange juice.

“Shall we go back now?” suggests M.

“Yes. Let’s go back to Gemmy’s now,” I say.

We will spend days over the next couple of weeks at Gemmy’s, walking in the jungle, lying in the hammock, listening to the wildlife, just being there.

We never return to the resort.