Tekek Conversation

Raj, Ari and Lucky the Jumping Cat

Yesterday we discovered that just because our international electrical adapter works in dozens of countries, that does not mean it works in Malaysia. We decided to take a walk into Tekek, the local village, to see if we could find one that matched the socket in our room. Without an adapter we can't charge our laptop or camera batteries and there are so many pretty things here to share in posts...

We climbed over the headland that had been crawling with monkeys the previous afternoon. As we approached the edge of the village we heard the strains of Arabic music from a hilltop bar and saw the owner waving, smiling to us and calling "Hullo". We determined to make a stop there on our way back.

Tekek was hot and dusty but not unpleasant. Near the jetty thousands of flying foxes were clustered into a couple of trees, screeching and fighting for space. There seemed to be a lot of other trees with no flying foxes in them so I don't really understand why they didn't spread out a bit, but I guess that's for the foxes to know and me to wonder. We eventually sourced our power adapter and a wide-brimmed hat for me. As we passed the school some kids ran up to us and enquired in turn about our names and introduced themselves. They followed us all the way up the road to the bridge. Kids here get to wear silk pajamas all day long. No fair.

The walk back was extremely hot and we were getting tired by the time we arrived back at the hilltop bar. To reach the part of the village with convenience stores we had walked quite a few kilometres in the mid-day sun. We were greeted with many smiles and big iced glasses of very cold Tiger beer. We were offered longans (lychee-type fruits) which were delicious, the perfect treat after a hot walk. Very quickly we were onto our second beer and had met a couple of the locals.

Ari, the owner of the bar who had called to us, was pleased when I complimented his very pretty bar mascot, Lucky the Cat. He showed me Lucky's only trick – if you twine your fingers and place your hands palm up in front of you, Lucky will jump over them. A few beers later we were deep in conversation with Raj, a Malaysian born diving instructor of Sri-Lankan Tamil parents. He ended up sharing a short version of his life story with us and a lot of interesting information about Tioman.

Raj freely admitted being a right rascal of a kid. His father worked for the government of Malaysia so he was fortunate to be able to travel all over the country as a child. When he finished school he wanted to study music, but his father was dead against it. They moved to Singapore and Raj spent many years enjoying the nightlife there, not ready to grow up too early. His second choice of career was in the hospitality industry, but at that time there was no place to study in southern Asia and his father could not afford to send him to Europe or America, a phenomenally expensive investment for a Malaysian family.

When Raj's father died he and his mother had to move back to Malaysia because they did not have Singaporean citizenship. Raj's brother-in-law visited him to tell him it was time to get a job and do the right thing by his family. Raj agreed and asked his brother-in-law to help him find a placement in a hotel. A few days later Raj was working as a bar-tender in the "in" club in Johor Bahru. He is very serious when he tells us he was an excellent bartender. We believe him, because he has been serving us excellently since we arrived. Raj worked his way up in the hotel industry until he was managing the largest resort here on Tioman, Berjaya. He explains that he started a union to protect his staff, but when the owners continued to treat the staff badly he was happy to leave to work as a diving instructor for one of the first diving outfits on the island. He grins when he informs us that after 20,000 dives (hehe), he has never yet been eaten by a shark.

He shows us a massive piece of spinal column which he tells us, improbably, is from a dolphin, and points out Ari's fine collection of giant clam shells. We ask about the destruction of the coral close to the beaches and Raj says that Tioman was a military reserve in the time of the British, and that artillery practice was the cause of much of the damage. As he talks a large goanna slithers across the campsite next to us and the late-afternoon tropical downpour begins. Doug, Ari, Raj and I are the only people left in the bar now. Raj magics up some vegetarian fried rice for us out of nowhere (earlier we had told him we were vegetarian) and Ari breaks out the coconut cookies, which are both utterly delicious. By this time we are rolling drunk.

At some point during the conversation I tell Raj I would like to collect stories from people of things that made them happy, or very good things that happened in their lives or those close to them. Raj frowns and launches into a quite philosophical explanation of his understanding of happiness. Essentially he believes that happiness is totally ephemeral and that it is only the perspective of the moment that makes an event happy or otherwise. Raj says "You want a happy moment? This is it. This is the happy moment. We are all smiling, it doesn't need more than that, eh?".

Doug and I grinned at each other. We were indeed very happy.

Eventually we staggered back to our beach chalet and fell fast asleep to the chik-chak of geckos and the rolling roar of the surf.