Shah
Shah is a Malaysia man who I met in Langkawi. He is around 40 years old and is a qualified University lecturer in Social Studies. He used to give lectures in Washington, Dublin and some places in Japan (I believe he only told me about the biggest places, it was probably more of them) yet today he works as an Information in the Jetty Terminal in Langkawi. Moreover, he works almost ever day, from morning till late because none of his colleges speaks English as good as he does, therefore he sells majority of the tours and organizes the taxi trips to hotels as well as around the whole island. He does not take the commission from doing it. He told me he does it because he likes meeting new people and as a lecturer he didn't have as much opportunity for doing so as in here, on this little island in Jetty Terminal.
His story is not the first of a kind I heard while being in South East Asia. In fact, the observations I made while in here speak more than words and made me realize a huge difference between our, Western approach to things and priorities of people from South East Asia. The society of UK (and I believe to some extend it can refer to the Western world in general) is very wealth driven unlike what I have experienced in Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and Malaysia. Of course all the people in the world want to have a good standard of living but I'm talking about something different. Generally, we in UK would rather work and spend our time doing things we don't like but which give us high income than scarify our lifestyle and things we can afford and settling down for a less 'prestigious' work with lower income just because we like something about it or/and it keeps us close to our family. I have too many friends who constantly complain on their jobs and that they want to do something they like, yet the priority seem to be in money which make them hold on to this hated position. In Asia it seems like the basic comfortable living is enough, and much more important than mountain of money are family bonds and doing something that is comfortable and enjoyable.
Of course, I used a generalization for above and I understand that the observation I made is very personal and does not include every single person in South East Asia (especially in big cities) and in the West (I know some Western people who won their battle in doing what they love and it bring them substantial income, but again it all seem to come down to how much money you can make doing what you like), nevertheless this is my impression and what I experienced and have noticed while being here.
Langkawi - what a beauty! That's the best words I can find to describe the island. Its diverse landscape reminds me at times of New Zealand. Within my two full days of staying there, I visited the characteristic eagle square; the island is eagles natural habitat (and there are even eagle feeding trips available), the cable cars (or sky cars) which took me to the fantastic island panorama (in dry season there are no clouds, but I think they only added a charm to hills tops) and the Underwater World.
In the area of South Thailand as well as on this Malaysian island, there are a lot of man made forests
Langkawi gigantic map
Zakopane latem?
In da cloud
New Zealand or Malaysia?
And Underwater World. Although holds high position on TripAdvisor things to do list in Langkawi, I think I expected something different out of it. I don't like seeing animals in captivity and if I knew that it will just be another kind of zoo I would probably go somewhere else.
I liked Angkor Wat style decorations in aquariums
Happy fish is always a good view!
There are two fish on the picture, can you see?
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