That phase of life when in your teens you went gaga over not just Hrithik Roshan, but also those turquoise & teal seas and the beautiful island in Kaho Na Pyar Hai! What if you suddenly got to reminisce about that phase while you are cruising on a speedboat at 100 km/hr speed right on those teal and turquoise waters?!
When I first moved to Singapore a decade back, I expected to see some beautiful beaches here, since, if not on an island, where else would you find beaches? But when that island happens to be a developed country and you resided right in the heart of the city and was totally caught up in the everyday routine of life, it didn’t matter whether there were beautiful beaches or not. After all, how many times have I even visited Marina beach all through my life? Anyway, a decade of living on an island had actually made me forget all about those deserted islands and pristine beaches.
When we planned for a trip to Langkawi, Malaysia, island hopping and mangrove tour were, indeed, part of our itinerary, like every other tourist. But, while reading through the itinerary of the package which we had chosen or even while watching a few YouTube videos of the places, I didn’t really notice the colour of the water.
Langkawi happens to be an archipelago which has geoforest parks having the status of UNESCO world heritage site.
Reaching Langkawi on a Friday evening, it was already 7 pm when we reached our hotel and, hence, we couldn’t do much that day apart from walking through some surrounding streets of our hotel and shopping at a supermarket.
The next day, we started our sightseeing with the island-hopping tour. It was some half an hour’s wait at the jetty before we could board the boat. It was an extremely unpleasant wait, though, thankfully in open space, with a strong smell of petrol in the air and no breeze whatsoever blowing.
I was distracted for some time initially, since my son, who was already scared of travelling by boat, had to sit amidst strangers since we boarded the boat last and couldn’t get seats together. I had to keep turning around to check on my daughter and son.
After some minutes, the beautiful landscape dotted with hills and hillocks on the edges of the water started grabbing my attention.
Suddenly, there was this tiny island-kind of hillock which was a mix of lush-green plants and trees and limestone and it was surrounded with what appeared to be a very beautiful shade of greenish-blue! It was then that those lovely bluish-green water and the island of Kaho Na Pyar Hai came to my mind! 🙂 Pyar Ki Kashti Mein, Hrithik Roshan, the island, the beach, the hillocks, the blue-green water!
The next few hours had me totally lost in the beaches, islets, white sand, a freshwater lake nestled amidst hills comprising lush greenery and limestone and, above all, the beautiful teal and turquoise waters all around!
If I thought I had seen the most beautiful colours of water on that day, the next day that followed had us cruising over even more beautiful waters! We had booked the mangrove and Andaman Sea tour for the next day.
That day too started off with quite a wait for the tour to start, this time at a different jetty but, and we were once again rewarded with a very beautiful visual treat of the lovely blue-green water dotted with islets, hillocks and, this time, mangroves bordering the water as well!
Travelling by a boat amidst mangroves, suddenly took my mind to my favourite character, Poonguzhali, the super-strong female character of Ponniyin Selvan.
The mangroves, the sight of lighthouse, the Andaman Sea water stretching endlessly – I was busy imagining how Poonguzhali would have traversed places like these with such a natural ease which comes to one with not just experience or expertise, but, more because of the innate fierce strength that one has! Didn’t she spend a lot of her time rowing away through rough seas to her heart’s content, come rain or shine, with nothing but her solitude for company? (This was written in August 2022, much before the release of Ponniyin Selvan 1 movie. Otherwise, I might even have imagined Alaikkadal playing 🙂 )
The tour ended with a short cruise on the Andaman Sea. I just couldn’t have enough of the sight of the endless sea stretching across the horizon, a lovely shade of blue till some point and then something like a bluish-green beyond that!
The sight of the sea stretching endlessly always puts me in a contemplative mood and that day too was not different. It never fails to remind me that we are nothing but a mere speck in this vast universe!
Most of the time, the speed boat was travelling at about 100 km/hr! The water was not rough at all, but for a few minutes on the first day. With cool sea breeze blowing and some stunning landscapes painted by nature for company, the memories of these boat journeys have become the ones that I turn to nowadays, whenever I crave for a bit of feel-good moments or contemplative musings!