The guide points out at a distant island, half shrouded in late morning mist. ‘That is Thailand,’ he enthuses. All of us are excited.We may not have stepped inside Thailand, but at least we can claim that we saw it
Our excitement knows no bounds as our media group boards the small aircraft for a short hop to the beautiful island of Langkawi. We are at Kuala Lumpur International Airport and have just completed a five-and-a-half-hour flight from Karachi. A seasoned traveller once said that if you haven’t seen Langkawi, you don’t know what a holiday resort is like. Sure enough, I am about to find out.
Thirty km off the coast of north-eastern Malaysia, close to the Thai border, is a cluster of 104 islands. At least five of which disappear when the tide is high. Most of the isles are little more than scrub clad rocks jutting out of the sea, and only three are inhabited. The largest of these is called Pulao Langkawi.
On arrival, we are welcomed by Bob, who has a long-winded Muslim name, but for the convenience of tourists opts for the simple name. He is stocky and picks up our suitcases with no difficulty. As we drive through the island, we feast our eyes on some of the most idyllic scenery. Bob, who doubles as a guide tells us that Pulao Langkawi is a much bigger island than Penang, a more well-known tourist destination.
En route, Bob refers to the hills that surround Langkawi as mountains. “Come on Bob, it’s only a mole hill. If you want to see mountains come to our country,” I tease Bob, but he is not amused. I recall the Camb in Cambridge which is called a river, even though it as narrow as Karachi’s Gujru Nala.
Suddenly we enter a forest where our beach resort is located. The reception area and the dining room are near the entrance to the forest. We check-in but we have to wait for a few minutes before a colourful vehicle, open from two sides, takes us to our respective blocks. Each block has four independent rooms with attached bathrooms. The decor and the material used — wood — are in keeping with the environ. Apart from all the amenities that one finds in a five-star hotel room, there is a fairly spacious private balcony. But I prefer to sit inside the airconditioned room and look at the lush greenery outside. It’s humid there.
“Don’t leave eatables in the balcony,” says a brochure, for there are monkeys all over. However, my excitiment gets the better of me. I place a banana on the table and return to the king-size bed facing the balcony. Two monkeys appear in less than ten minutes, the swifter grabs the banana and disappears, leaving his dejected friend behind. The only other banana in the room was consumed by his human cousin a few minutes ago.
In the evening Bob takes us to what he insists on calling the second highest mountain in Langkawi. We take the chair lift, one of our co-travellers, a young lady from Karachi, is nervous. She doesn’t realize that the climb would be steeper. The journey is thrilling but there is nothing on the peak. However, the beach hundreds of metres below, looks breathtaking. When we go down we find that there are attractive traditional buildings that house shops and restaurants.
Our next destination is the Craft Cultural Complex, which is located on the northern coastline of Langkawi Island. It offers a wide range of Malaysian handicraft. The hand drawn batik is particularly delectable.
Next morning while I am having breakfast, clad in my kurta and pyjama, a man speaking chaste Urdu enquires if I am a Pakistani or an Indian. I learn that he too was born on the other side of the Great Divide but moved to Pakistan in the fifties. He is Asif Qayyoom, head chef at the resort. He invites all of us to have dinner at the subcontinental eatery Spice Trader. The food turns out to be excellent and can be compared with the best in Pakistan and India.
But that’s in the evening, the first thing that we do in the morning is rush to River Kilim, where we share a boat with mediapersons from Bosnia and Croatia. The boat cruises through the still waters with mangrove forests on both sides. We see flashes of fascinating wildlife. The boatsman accelerates the speed as the vessel leaves the mouth of the river and enters the sea, the boundary is not marked though. The cruise is the high water mark of our trip. The guide points out at a distant island, half shrouded in late morning mist. “That’s Thailand,” he enthuses. All of us are excited. We may not have stepped inside Thailand, but at least we can claim that we saw it.
A boat which overtakes us has some more media persons from the former Yugoslavia. Merisa, the beautiful Bosnian, writes her name on the crystal clear sand, when we land on an uninhabited island. “Our language is not too dissimilar,” she says when I ask her if she can communicate with the Croats easily. I guess the difference may well be as little as the difference between Urdu and Hindi.
In the afternoon we go to Kuah, the neat little town on Pulao Langkawi. “Langkawi is a duty free island,” Bob tells us. But we are more interested in buying Malaysian crafts than the stuff imported from the West. We get much of it in Karachi also and at not too higher a price.
In order to build up an appetite for the meal at Spice Trader, we take a long walk on the resort, it’s like being in a rain forest. Someone narrates the legend of Langkawi, but that is too long and too absorbing to be presented in a paragraph or two. A tourism department brochure claims that many islands, inhabited or uninhabited, have legends spun around them. But the only legend that will live with us is the legendary beauty of Langkawi and the beach resort, where we spent two memorable days.
The guide points out at a distant island, half shrouded in late morning mist. ‘That is Thailand,’ he enthuses. All of us are excited.We may not have stepped inside Thailand, but at least we can claim that we saw it 
