Looking for the Perfect Beach Escape (Part 1)

After what seems like an eternity of mental torture, I've finally completed a big project for my company. My boss presented the work to the KL mayor and Federal Territory minister yesterday. Good for him!

Time for me to go on another serial writings...to lose myself from work and all....

We all dream of the perfect getaway, from our endless dull routines and mundane lives. Though we're caught in our hectic lives of diffusing energies, hurrying from one task to another, we're really just sleepwalking through the different phases. Deep within, we're all bored, longing to wake up, dying to explode out to the universe like a supernova. Ha! Like real!

We all do dream of the perfect paradise, to escape from our grey, colourless familiar surroundings. We dream of lying on the perfect beach, a stretch of white soft paradise against the blue sky, clear ocean waters and the green tropical palms, in blissful silence. With absolutely nothing to do but just let go and relish every moment, every breath, every thought, receiving the healing rays of the friendly sun, energising the skin.

Almost a decade ago, they made the film "The Beach", based on Alex Garland's novel "The Beach", the story of a young Englishman Richard (it's an American in the movie played by Leonardo DiCaprio), leaving everything behind in England (or America), to live on the edge, in search of something radically different from everything he knew, everything he's from. The story somehow gripped my wandering soul then.

His introductory quotes in the movie immediately struck a resonance in me...

"My name is Richard. So what else do you need to know? Stuff about my family, or where I'm from? None of that matters. Not once you cross the ocean and cut yourself loose, looking for something more beautiful, something more exciting and yes I admit, something more dangerous. So after eighteen hours in the back of an airplane, three dumb movies, two plastic meals, six beers and absolutely no sleep, I finally touch down; In Bangkok."

And...

"The only downer is, everyones got the same idea. We all travel thousands of miles just to watch TV and check in to somewhere with all the comforts of home, and you gotta ask yourself, what is the point of that?"

And also...

"Richard: Trust me, it's paradise. This is where the hungry come to feed. From mine it's a generation that's circles the globe and searches something we haven't tried before.

So never refuse an invitation, never resist the unfamiliar, never fail to be polite and never outstay the welcome. Just keep your mind open and suck in the experience. And if it hurts, you know what? It's probably worth it."

Soon, he was searching for a rumoured legendary, untouched paradise, a lagoon hidden from the sea somewhere not found in common maps. There a small community of internationals have settled in their own Eden, created their own utopia. It's an engaging story right till the end....how even the perfect paradise can be ruined by the deceitfulness of human hearts. Lord of the Flies, anyone?

One last quote from the movie...

"Richard: But for me it's all about finding out something about a place, and something about yourself. And when you get off the beaten track, that's where you find out what there is to find out..."