No Pictures

I still remember the two blue buildings sitting on a small hill. They were my Uncle's company's holiday bungalows and my cousins and I would spend many childhood holidays here. They were called bungalows but really they were both small wooden structures on stilts, built like a village or kampong house. Each building had two bedrooms with bathrooms attached, a common hall and a kitchen. For safety and practical reasons, the bathrooms and the kitchen were not on stilts and had a cement floor.

On the side of the right building was a swing and sitting there in the cool of the evening was a popular activity. As the buildings were literally on the top of the small rise, sitting on the swing was like being king of the hill. In front of us, our kingdom extended some 300 m as the land sloped away. This was a great place for kids to be kids and let their imaginations run wild. The land was undulating and was primarily full of tall, swaying coconut palms. There were also patches of long grasses and here and there tiny pools of water when it had been raining. This was our playground, our jungle, our battlefields and our undiscovered lands.

Beyond that, was the coastal road and beyond that, beautiful soft sand and clear, warm waters of the Straits of Malacca. Behind us was a fisherman's village practicing an authentic rural lifestyle. It was like a world apart for city kids like me.

The beach was unspoilt and the sea great, complete with a small island just offshore that you could walk to at low tide. A great place to build sandcastles, to laze under the shade of coconut palms, to collect shells or to organise hermit crab fights. All around was serenity when you wanted it, nature to investigate and to be enthralled by and adventures to be savoured.

It was here that I learned how the fishermen would catch worms by spitting chewed bread on the sand near the waterline or dig for them in the mud near the mangroves. It was here that I learned to fish, learned how to build traps for crabs and had hysterical fun shrimping at night. It was here that I first fell in love with kayaking. It was here, I learned to love nature.

I had to leave this wonderland behind when I went away to do my studies and then I was distracted when I first started to work. When I finally had time to revisit it, I found that so much had changed and so much had been lost to time and progress.

The waters there today are so polluted that people risk infected sores if they swim in the sea with any wounds or scratches. The crabs, shrimp and fish are all gone too. The beach is littered with plastics and briken glass. The coconut trees have given way to buildings, roads and car-parks.

The two bungalows have also gone as has the village behind them, replaced now with high rise condominiums and holiday units. I don't see kids playing on the beach and there are no more fields to stir their imaginations. Instead, every one now comes and swim in the swimming pool which overlooks the now almost lifeless sea.

I have no photos to post tonight because the place that I remember and which brought me so much joy in my youth no longer exists and like many places in Malaysia, unfortunately, my memories lie buried under concrete and asphalt.