Ever since school days, nature has always offered solace to me...i find myself escaping to the beach or going hiking everytime my hormones act up, or i get all emotional, or even when i find my monkey mind jumping around in a frenzy...and after time out on my own, i come back to the world feeling great and with a crystal clear mind! :)
Today was one such day. Feeling like a rebel without a cause, i headed for balik pulau after leaving office. I just needed time alone to think things over and get things into perspective. So there i was, cruisading the lonely, deserted, precarious, land slid roads that linked urban Penang Driving through the backwaters of Penang, was a trip down memory lane. Little boys cycling non-chalantly, as if they owned the road, little girls taking their teddy bears and bunny bears for evening walks, aunties and uncles walking back to their kampung houses with bundles of paddy, grannies and granpas' chewing bettle nut on hand made hammocks...it was typical kampung scenery...far behind what has become of most urban districts in Penang. I wondered how they could look so happy, contented, satisfied. Pulau Betong, one of the villages i drove thru is one of the poorest villages in Penang. The main economy in this village, is fishing, and little vegetable farming. This was one village that was badly hit by the tsunami on 26 Dec 2004. These people are SURVIVORS...everyday they face the test of survival in a world filled with poverty. I was amazed how the villagers have picked themselves up and carried on with life. The sorrow of having lost everything - family, friends, belongings, their rice bowls destroyed, having to start life again from scratch - that would not have been easy? Yet, they looked happy...who knows what sorrow they bleed from inside??? My thoughts came back to myself...here i am...one bad week, and i am a concoction of emotions!!!...stress i call it? haha,sindhu girl, you ain't seen the world yet!
Passing the balik pulau stretch, i found myself winding around hills of dense rainforest. It was truly breath taking! What stood before my eyes, was plain greenery...as far as the eye could see, with a blotch of light here and there - obviously more homes that deep in the jungle - inaccessible by road. Then i came across the famous Titi Kerawang waterfall, and durian plantation stalls. All closed - couldn't stop to buy durians! As tempted as i was to park and climb the waterfalls, i reminded myself that i had no bodyguards that day, and it was getting dark! Driving on, i finally approached the teluk bahang end of the island. After driving through jungle, what greeted me was picturesque - the horizon where earth met sky. Nature was at its best as i saw its round ball of fire sink slowly into the sea!
Upon reaching Teluk Bahang, i knew my round the island trip was nearly over. As i made my way back home, i realised how miraculous that trip round the island was for me. I felt so much better - mentally, emotionally, and physically! All the jumbled thoughts which clouded my mind earlier int he day, were now distinctively clear. I knew what i had to do, what needed to be done, and how i could get it all sorted out. I am thankful and proud to be an islander! Many of my friends, the-out-of-towners, say Penang is a boring place, no life, nothing to do, yada, yada, yada...i feel, they have yet to taste Penang. Once an islander, always an islander.
24 January 2006
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