My life Stories - Part 12
Stories
from my past memories - childhood, family, friends, growing up,
poverty, integrity, dreams come true, finding peace and
happiness, Buddhism, Yoga, and now...
After more than 10 years living and running yoga retreats in
Langkawi, we left Langkawi for good in February 2020. And so, here we are,
starting a new chapter of life living on another island in Malaysia.
Now that we have left Langkawi, I would like to summarize
some of our experiences in Langkawi as part of my life stories.
We are thankful to the nature of Langkawi which is the main
reason we had been living there for a decade, even though there were some
'difficulties' that we had to deal with for living and running yoga retreats
legally in Langkawi, that we didn't really talk about in the past. We
weren't denying the unpleasant experiences that we encountered in Langkawi. We
acknowledged all kinds of difficulty that we had to deal with, and lived with
them, but we tried to focus more on promoting the beauty of Langkawi when we
were living and running yoga retreats there. Initially, we thought of living in Langkawi
for as long as possible, as we love the slow pace of living that is still available
in Langkawi, but the time has come for us to let it go and be at somewhere
else.
One of the reasons that made me decide to leave Langkawi, is
that my dear father and big brother who had gone through many difficulties
and hardships in life, who were the very few loving kindhearted and down to
earth human beings in my life had passed away respectively over the last two
years. My father passed away on the 30th of December, 2017, while my big
brother who had been looking after our paralyzed father for many years, passed
away on the 30th of June, 2019. They had suffered a lot their entire life even
though they took things lightheartedly and smiled through all the hardships. I
respect their resilience a lot. My family was my motivation to work hard making
a living to support their life. Now that my parents and my big brother were
gone, I don’t need to work so hard anymore. This body is not getting any younger as well.
Although I myself had also been through many hardships, I
can choose to live life differently from my family. I chose to live a life that
has more wise impact. Life doesn't need to be wasted in deliberately dealing
with ignorance and the consequences of ignorance in the world. Yoga practice
talks about endurance or forbearance towards difficulties, but it doesn’t mean
that we should be wasting life and energy dealing with the ignorance and the
consequences of ignorance in the world. We can choose to be in an environment that has more wise impact, if possible. If that's not possible, it's okay. We accept the reality as it is, and live with it.
Living in a different environment on another island also has
certain 'unpleasantness' or 'difficulties' that we need to deal with. Life and
yoga practice isn't about expecting perfection and avoiding imperfection, but it’s
about no matter where we are, we learn to allow the world to be what it is, not
necessarily the way that we would like it to be.
On Langkawi, the blooming development for tourism might be
benefiting many of the plumbers, electricians and metal smiths in Langkawi, but
that also means that there's very limited plumber or electrician or metal smith
would come to our house to do a little bit of work. Even though more and more new guesthouses
and hotels have been building in Langkawi which provide jobs and business for
the hardware shop, the construction company, the construction workers, the
plumbers, the electricians or the metal smiths, but there are also more and
more existing guesthouses and restaurants couldn't survive due to the reduced tourists
flow in the past few years.
It's really difficult to find someone skillful enough to do
something for us in Langkawi. And when we were able to find someone to do
things for us, they couldn’t deliver a good quality of workmanship or service. We
couldn't even get a tailor to make a curtain for us. Once a tailor took our
order and our cloth for making curtain, and then she went disappear along with
our cloth, couldn't be contacted for many years until now. We heard that some
rich expatriates on the island import all their building materials and skillful workers from other
countries to build their houses that live up to the European standard.
Once a dishonest air-conditioner installer recommended by a
'friend' cheated us by installing a one horse power air-conditioner claiming
that it's a two horse power air-conditioner that we had requested. It's our own
responsibility for trusting our 'friend' and his recommendation, and we didn’t know
much about air-conditioning. And then the newly installed air-conditioner had
problem, we tried to contact him for months also couldn't get in touch with him.
And so, we went to our 'friend' who recommended him, then only we found out
that he had cheated us and were avoiding us deliberately. And it's pointless to
bring this issue to the police, which I will explain later.
After that this
'friend' recommended another air-conditioner mechanic to us, and he came once
to fix a problem of the air-conditioner, but after that he was too busy to come
to do even just a normal routine chemical service. And finally, we got another
company from Kuah to service the air-conditioners, but with higher price than
usual as they were reluctant to come to our place in the beginning saying that
it's too far for them to come.
Another very important reason is that my husband would like
to live a healthy lifestyle, cooking and eating healthy vegetarian food,
swimming and enjoying some outdoor time and space outside the house, he
couldn't do so while we were living in Langkawi. One time he got serious sun
burnt (for doing some painting under the shade at the car porch) and needed to
be treated in the hospital.
We had moved and lived in three different houses within the
last ten and a half year in Langkawi. When we spent some time outside the house, we either
suffered from heat-stroke, sun burnt, hornet stung, or poisonous ants and
mosquitoes bite. There were countless insects, leeches, rats, poisonous
centipedes, snakes, monitor lizards and scorpions coming into the house through
gaps and holes of the door, windows and ceiling, or coming in through the
drains, where we needed to keep doors closed all the time and putting a brick on
top the cover of the drain so that rats, monitor lizards and snakes couldn’t
come in from there.
Most of the non-sliding windows in the house were
unable to be opened as they were blocked by the mosquito netting, while the
entire house was having very low ceiling and non-insulated wall, where constant
heat was accumulated in the house throughout the day even when the sliding windows
that we replaced some of the non-sliding windows were opened and with the fans
switched-on. We reluctantly needed to use the air-conditioner
all day and night if we were in the house, or else, we would be suffering from heat-stroke and
overly sweating and wouldn't have a proper rest/sleep. The house was like an
oven. It built up heat due to the poor structure. We had a thermometer in the house,
and if without the air-conditioner switched-on, the temperature could go up
above 35 degrees Celsius, even when the outside temperature was actually a lot
lower. And if we were cooking, the temperature went up even higher. The room that was less hot in the house was the yoga hall, as the ceiling there is slightly higher, and we had the sliding windows installed that can be opened. Still, we needed to use the air-conditioner during the yoga sessions in the afternoon, as it would be too hot.
There were rats living on the ceiling and snakes living in
the post box, in the gap of the ceiling and under the rubbish bin. In the first wooden house, we had to put rat trap onto the ceiling everyday, and every time when we caught one, we would bring it out in the car and release it into the bushes about a few km away from the house. But, this process never had an end as there were so many rats around our neighbourhood. There were a group of scorpions living outside the back of the wooden house, and hence we didn't go to that area unless we had to.
There were
tiny insects coming into the house if we didn't have the outside lights turned-on
but with the inside lights switched-on at night. I had to 'get rid of' so many
insects and poisonous centipedes everyday in order to be able to live in the house, and to ensure a clean
and safe practice environment for our retreat guests. My work of constantly cleaning
the entire place was ceaseless. We had to ask the cooperation from the guests
to keep the place as clean as possible to avoid attracting insects,
particularly ants or mosquitoes, into the yoga hall. As once the ants found
food in the yoga hall, they will return with many others, and also
making their nest somewhere in the house, and it would be more difficult to keep them out.
Being bitten by poisonous ants and hornets is no fun at all.
We both, especially my husband, had been bitten by ants and hornets numerous
times while working in the garden. I have a few scars on my skin were from the ants bite. And we gave up, in the end. We also told the
retreat guests not to hang around at the garden in the last two years, as there
were too many ants and hornets that give nasty bites, or even allergic reaction
that could lead to death in certain people. My husband had been admitted to the
hospital a few times due the nasty hornet stung, where his body reacted badly
to the hornet stung. This house was also no longer suitable for running the
retreats, if our guests would be attacked by ants and hornets.
There were also too many house lizards in the house that
generate huge amount of 'shits' everyday, where I needed to clean up everyday,
and sometimes, a few times a day especially when we had the retreats going on.
And then there was constant sand mining activity in this area that generates so
much dust around the house.
Though the sea is very close to us, only about 5 minutes
drive away from our house/yoga studio, and we loved to be on the beach, while
my husband would love to swim in the sea, but we never wanted to get into the
sea for two reasons. One is that there are too many jelly fish, some of them
are extremely poisonous, already with several death cases in the past due to
jelly fish stung. My husband nearly lost his life being stung by jelly fish
while swimming in the sea of Pantai Cenang not long after we moved to Langkawi
from Kuala Lumpur. He had stopped breathing when we arrived in the hospital and
the medical people performed CPR on him immediately and gave him injections to
be able to breathe again. He was suffering from extreme pain throughout the
body for the next few weeks, and wasn't fully recover until more than one year
later. Another reason, is that the sea here is highly contaminated/polluted by
the drainage and sewage system in that area (Pantai Cenang). Even the dolphins
and turtles that used to come close to the seashore also had stopped coming
here many years ago. For those reasons, my husband wouldn’t swim in the sea
ever again even though it’s conveniently close by. There is no public swimming pool facility in Langkawi. More than a year ago, he started swimming at the pool in one of the big hotel not too far from our house, but the quality of the pool water wasn't great, and half a year ago, this hotel had stopped operating. Then my husband found another hotel that allowed him to swim at their pool, again he only went for a few months and then stopped going, as the pool water was in a terrible condition.
We were paying tourist's price for almost everything due to it's a touristy island. Langkawi depends solely on tourism and almost
everything are imported from the main land of Malaysia, or from the neighbouring
countries, or even from countries far away. Most of the imported produce are
catering for meeting the demand of tourism, and yet, many things are either
non-available, or shortage of supply, or commonly out of stock for many
weeks/months, or having higher price tags due to supply shortage on the
island. Food like chickpeas, sesame seeds, certain brand of muesli, certain
brand of jams, cheese (though there are very limited choices of cheese/jams/muesli here)
and eggs are often out of stock for some time (from a few days to a few months). Once we couldn't get sesame seeds for two months and muesli was out of stock for half a year, and there's no Parmesan cheese for the last few months. While the big hotels and the many restaurants that cater for tourists
might have the priority to be getting their supplies adequately.
The things that are very cheap
in Langkawi are the duty-free goods such as chocolates, sweets, alcohols and
cigarettes, which we don't consume. The imported cars, dining and kitchen wares
are duty-free as well, but how many cars, dining and kitchen wares that we actually
need? Before GRAB
exists in Langkawi, taxis are the only public transport available on the island
and the fare is even more expensive than in Kuala Lumpur. As residence of Langkawi, we were paying the same taxi fare as the tourists.
Whenever we needed to see a dentist, we had to travel to
Penang or Kuala Lumpur, as the only dentist that we knew in Langkawi was
incompetent, where my husband's teeth and gums were seriously damaged by the
dentist after one visit. From then, we would go to Penang or Kuala Lumpur for
dental works. We also took the opportunity to do some shopping for things
that we couldn't get in Langkawi during our trips to Penang or Kuala Lumpur.
Other 'problems' such as neighbouring cats constantly coming
into the garden and the terrace leaving behind dead animals/birds, shit/pee, fur and
fleas. Unfortunately, when we asked the cooperation from the retreat guests to not feed or stroke the cats to not encourage them to keep coming to the terrace, some of the cats lover weren't happy about that. We loved to have cows and buffaloes hanging around the paddy field, but
they would break the fence from time to time trying to eat the grass from
within the garden. We love animals and certainly we don't hate animals, but
they gave us too much work to deal with, unintentionally.
The entire family members of the house opposite us was
well-known for drug intoxication, house breaking-in and stealing. We didn't
know about it until after our house was broken in, as if we had knew before we
rented this house, we would look for some other houses. Again, it's our own
responsibility for not investigating more detailed about the surrounding
neighbourhood. And of course, in order to rent out their houses successfully,
the landlord wouldn't mention anything about all houses here were being broken into
countless times in the past. But anyway, it doesn't matter which area in
Langkawi, most houses had been broken into at least once before.
Langkawi was one of the areas with a high record of drug addicts in Malaysia. Though not many people knew about it due to many happenings in Langkawi were not reported publicly. People kept quiet about happenings that might affect the tourism industry. There were some expatriates being cheated in dealings of 'business start up with a local partner' and 'buying and owning' properties in Langkawi. Usually the local people who cheated were untouched by 'the law'. Someone who had been living in this village for many years in the past told us
that almost the entire villagers of all ages are all drug addicts. And due to
drugs problems, house break-in is so common in Langkawi. While I was filing police report AGAIN for another house broken-in, the police
said to me, "We know them. They are our neighbours and relatives. If we
have proof and we will catch them. We will bring them to court, and it depends
on the judge whether giving them warning and releasing them immediately, or
sending them to prison for a few days or few weeks. And after a few days/weeks
lock-up in the prison they are all out again, and will continue doing what they
love to do. This process will continue to go on."
Even children in the primary school are already smoking
cigarette and maybe some other 'stuff' and are involving with many 'illegal'
activities. We heard story about some drug dealers would give free sample of ‘sweets’
to the children outside the school to get them hook on it, and then these children would
buy ‘sweets’ from them and/or become one of their runners.
One of our friend's house was broken into four times within
a month, and one time, the thief 'carelessly' left behind his Identity Card.
When they brought the Identity Card to the police and told them, "This is
the person who broke-into our house and stole our stuff." The police took
the Identity Card from him and said, "Ah! I will give
this I.C. back to him. Thank you for returning the I.C." This is why it's
pointless to go to the police.
In the beginning, after we moved to Langkawi living in the wooden
house close to Pantai Cenang, we were so naive that we didn't think of locking the gate at
all. One day when we came back from the outside, the gate was wide opened and
there were cigarette butts left on the terrace. Then we knew that Langkawi
people are so 'friendly' that they would come into your house without
invitation if your door are not closed or locked. And so, to avoid 'uninvited
guests' we started to lock the gate. Not so much to keep people away as they
can climb in easily if they want, but to keep cows and buffaloes away as they
would damage all the plants in our garden. In less than a year, the wooden house
was broken-into when we were away, even with the gate locked. When our friends from Europe came
for holiday and stayed at the Airbnb house in the same village, their wallets
were stolen when he was in the shower. He even saw the guy running away and he
tried to run after him but lost him in the end.
Later we rented another house about 2 minutes walk away from
the wooden house, where we used the wooden house only for the yoga sessions and
the other house for living and cooking meals for the retreats. We needed to spend a few thousands Ringgit on this house to redo the flooring and the wiring before we could actually live in that house. And the old
landlord of this house would walk around our house in the middle of the night
with a 'Parang' knife, not so much about being a security guard for us and
keeping 'uninvited guests' away, but it's to check on us every night whether we
had 'invited guests' staying with us, and whether we did anything that he
didn't want us to do in his house, or not. As we were told that we were not
allowed to have any other 'guests' staying with us, that we couldn't have
non-halal food and drink or activity in the house. One night, he actually knocked on our door holding the 'Parang' wanted to see if there was anything that shouldn't be there. Other than that, he and his wife were nice people. We loved to talk to them from time to time. They told us about their life stories in Langkawi, and some history of Langkawi.
Five years later, we needed to find another house for living
and running the yoga retreats, due to the existing 'problems' with the wooden
house. The house on stilts was leaning to one side seriously until we
couldn’t close the door anymore, plus the issue with the building permit renewal, as
well as our landlord wanted to take back the house that he rented to us for
their own stay because their house was going to be demolished to make way for
the new highway. They were happy about that because they were getting huge compensation from the authority, which later they used it for building a guesthouse. When I went to renew the building permit for 2014, the
authority said that they couldn’t renew that permit anymore because the temporary
permit only valid for five years. After five years, we need to make new application
for the permanent permit, which requires a lot more money (that we didn't have) and all kinds of document
from the landlord, which the landlord didn’t have. And so, I went to cancel our
business license and was getting ready to go
through the entire ‘painful’ process of applying for a new temporary building permit
and new business license for the new place.
Even months before the landlord told us that they wanted to take back
the house, we had been trying to look for a suitable house to live and
run yoga retreats, but it wasn't successful not until a few weeks
before we had to move, we found this house beside the paddy field. We had to spend most of our savings to renovate the house and create a
garden to make it good enough for living and running yoga retreats. We didn't
make a lot of money from teaching yoga, but we managed to save some money
because we lived a very simple non-materialistic and non-sociable life.
Not
long after we moved into the new place, some kids climbed over the fence coming
into the compound, and when they saw us, they said they just wanted to 'see' if
they can 'borrow' something from us (after they had climbed in without asking
permission.) And we told them not to do that again (for climbing over the wall
to come into our compound and 'borrow' or 'take' things as they like.) And then
one night, whether it's related to those kids, or not, our house was being attacked where there were broken glasses in the
terrace and garden, resulting from someone throwing light bulbs into the garden
and the terrace area. We went to the police station to file a police report for
that incident even though knowing that the police won't do anything about it.
Even when we first arrived in Langkawi, we received a 'threatening' email from an expatriate who was a 'yoga teacher' and runs a business in Langkawi for more than twenty years, who thinks she is the head of the expatriate community in Langkawi, who wasn't happy that we came to Langkawi to teach yoga and run retreats, and wanted to 'lecture' us about how we should or shouldn't run our yoga classes and retreats in certain way. We didn't want to react or response to that, and continued to do what we wanted to do. Later, we heard from some other expatriates about the annoyance that they were getting from her as well.
In less than one year living there, our house was
broken-into. And then, followed by two other attempts of breaking-in, where
they damaged the mosquito netting trying to come in through the windows, but
after knowing that we were at home at that time, they fled. There were blood
drops on the floor during the break-in and the police came and took some
sample, but we were never being updated about whether they identified and
caught anyone, or not. When we asked the police what can we do to protect
ourselves if we would be attacked by the thieves, the police told us that we
can try to fight back but never to the point of causing serious injury or death
to them, as we will be prosecuted for injuring/killing others even for
self-defense.
After that, our landlord asked us to keep all the outside
lights and some of the inside lights on throughout the night all the time to
avoid house break-in, especially when we were not at home, to pretend that
someone is at home. Our electric bill was extremely higher than it should be
due to the need to use air-conditioners all day and night because of the house was
too hot all the time, as well as the need to have many of the lights on
throughout the night for just trying to minimize the chances of getting house break-in.
Because our landlord reluctant to fix the broken grill due
to the house break-in, they asked us to find someone to fix it. And so we asked
someone recommended by a 'friend' to come to install a new grill. The guy came
and took some deposit from us, and he didn't come back to us for a long time,
and we couldn't get in touch with him, until we told our 'friend' that we will bring this issue
to the police, then only our 'friend' gave us back
the deposit from his own pocket, and he would deal with the guy himself. Then
we 'found' another metal smith who said he would make the new grill for us,
came to our house and took some measurements. And then many weeks later, when
we called him as we didn't hear back from him, he told us that the grill was
ready and he would come to install on the next day, and we were waiting for him
to come on that day, but he didn't show up and didn't call us, and didn't want
to answer our phone calls from then on. This was ridiculous, but it's because
they all have other more 'important' big projects to do. We were just some
small business that didn't interest them.
Within the last 5 years, we had tried to call various
plumbers, electricians and air-conditioner mechanics to come to do some plumbing,
electrical and air-conditioning works for us, none would come, saying that they
were too busy with their respective projects with the many hotels and guesthouses.
And those (recommended by the landlord) who would come to do a bigger renovation for the house in the
beginning to make the house more suitable for living and running the retreats,
they delivered a bad quality of workmanship, where the sliding windows, the
paint work, the toilets, the doors, the plastering work, the wiring, the car
porch and the terrace were of low quality and had lots of defects. And there's
nothing much we can do about it unless we spent more money on it to re-renovate
it again, which we couldn't afford.
In Langkawi, either you might have the money, but you can't
get anyone to do things for you, or, you paid the money and have the people to
do things for you, but they are incompetent to deliver good enough quality of
workmanship. The guesthouses and restaurants owners whom we knew, were all
frustrated about the working quality and attitude of the local people that they
could get in Langkawi.
The low quality wooden doors of the house were being
affected badly by both the dryness/heat/sunlight and the humidity/rain, where
the door repeatedly going through a process of shrinking or expanding causing
it couldn't be closed properly/at all or couldn't be opened smoothly/at all,
and as time goes by, the doors were rotting away. The house was built on
refilled rubbles on top of the paddy field, where the flooring and the wall is
seriously uneven and cracking through time, and the cracks on the wall and the
flooring were widening/deepening in an incredible speed within the past
five years. And the owner was being acknowledged about all the problems, but
didn't want to do anything about it. He said, "Oh, that's normal-lah.
Every two years the intense vibrations from the LIMA airshow will shake the
house a bit." There were moisture coming through the ground leaving stains at the lower parts of all the walls in the entire house as well. We had tried to repaint the wall to cover those stains, but very soon, the stains built up over the new paint. It's pointless. This is due to the bad foundation of the house that they didn't do right when they first built the house. And that's common in most of the local houses in Langkawi.
And then, there were many 'hassles' that we had to go
through yearly for just trying to live a life as well as to be running yoga
retreats (legally) in Langkawi.
In order to have a business license and permit to run yoga
retreats legally in Langkawi, I had to bear ongoing hassle of 'threats' coming
from 'the authority' and 'the law of rules and regulations', where I had to go
through the 'painful' renewal process repeatedly every year. Not just that I
had to pay expensive fees for getting the initial application paper work done
(more than 8 thousands Ringgit for the two different houses) and the yearly
renewals for the building permit and business license, but I was being
'threatened' legally to bear all cost where the building or the house that I
rented for living and being legalized/permitted to teach yoga and run yoga
retreats need to be demolished, if I want to stop running yoga retreats and
cancelling or discontinue renewing the building permit, or if for any reasons,
the authority stops renewing the permit.
They said it's their 'fault' and
'mistake' in the process of granting me with the building permit under my name,
where it should be done under the landlord’s name (which no one told me about
that), BUT, even though it’s a mistake from them, it's still law binding that being
the permit and license applier and holder, I am legally obliged to demolish the
house/building, and be responsible for all the cost to demolish the
house/building if I ever cancelling or discontinued to renew the permit, or if
the authority decides to stop renewing the permit, and that it's my
responsibility that I had to negotiate any existing compensation to be paid to
the landlord/house owner for demolishing his house or building under that rule
and regulation, where the landlord/house owner wittingly rented the
house/building to me, acknowledged and allowed me to run yoga retreats in the
house or the building, and was aware of this 'ridiculous' rule and regulation.
The entire process of applying for the building permit and
the business license took more than nine months. And from the very beginning,
the authority, the owner and I, we all knew that I was only renting a house and
simply just want to apply for a business license to be running yoga retreats
legally in Langkawi. And the owner had to sign a paper granting me with the
permission to teach yoga and apply for a business license to teach yoga legally
in that house. In order to apply for the business license, I needed to apply
for a temporary building permit for the house, which had cost me thousands of
Ringgit each time. And if without the permission letter from the owner, the
authority couldn't process my application. And so, they knew that I am only
renting an existing house, but they only have one application format, which is
"Application of requesting permission to build a yoga studio on this
land." I told them, "This isn't right, because I didn't build the
house, the house was already existing and I am only renting the existing house
to live and teach yoga there. I am not asking permission to build a new building of yoga studio
on that land." They said, "We know. But it doesn't matter. This is the
only format that we have in order to grant you a temporary building permit that
allows you to apply for the business license. We are here to help you."
And so, every year, I had to renew the building permit in
order to renew the business license. And then when I wanted to renew the
temporary building permit for year 2018, the authority asked me to signed a
legally binding acknowledgement about I will have to demolish the building and
bear all the cost and compensation to any party, if I, or the authority, decide
to cancel the building permit. I wasn't comfortable with that, and told them
that I didn't want to get involved with such 'trouble' for just trying to do
things legally. I was ready to let go everything and stop teaching yoga in
Langkawi at that time. My father had just passed away a few days ago. I was
quite emotional. Then they told me, "Hey, don't worry. It's just some
standard paper work. It won't affect you because we have the permission letter from the
owner. The owner will be responsible for complying with the rules and regulations. Not you.
When you stop business or stop living there, you just go. If anything, we deal
with the owner. No problem."
"But then, I am the one who had the name and signature on
that legally binding document. It doesn't matter what you say, I am the one who is legally bound by this." Then they asked me to contact the owner to
explain the situation to him. They also said that they would help me by
changing the holder name of the permit to the owner's name, as it was their
mistake in the beginning where they should have use the owner's name to apply for
the temporary building permit, and not using my name. And when the owner came
to the office, the owner asked the officer, "What happen if she had to
demolish my house as requested by the authority?" The officer said,
"Oh! That depends on your rental agreement with her. You can request and
negotiate compensation from her." What?!
Does this hurt your brain as well? And this is the system
that everyone who wants to do things legally in Langkawi has to comply with.
That means, either I didn't want to demolish the house as I
was only renting the house, the house doesn't belong to me, but then I would be
prosecuted by the authority for not obeying the rules and regulations, or, I
obeyed the rules and regulations from the authority, spent money (that I don't have) to demolish
the house (which is illegal for me to do that), and then be sued by the owner
and had to pay compensation (that I don't have) to him for demolishing his property that he rented to me.
Even though they had created a letter for me and the owner
to sign stating that we requested to change the holder name for the temporary
building permit, but when I wanted to renew the permit for year 2019, the name
hadn't been changed at all, it was still under my name, but they accepted the
legal binding document was being signed by the owner, and not me. Even so, I
was really uncomfortable with the whole affair. I just wanted to do things
legally, but it's so difficult and complicated and PAINFUL to do things legally
in Langkawi, while there are so many illegal businesses and tourist yogis
teaching yoga classes on Langkawi illegally didn't need to go through all these ridiculous
hassles that I had to go through for trying to do things legally.
On top of that, we had to pay higher rental than what the
local people are paying as my husband is a European and I am a Malaysian
Chinese. Normally the locals would pay only half of what we paid for the
similar house.
The three houses that we rented for living/running yoga
retreats were rundown and unmaintained by the owners, where we needed to spent
quite a lot of money to renovate and maintain the condition of the houses in
order for them to be functional and good enough for living as well as to run
yoga retreats. When people came for attending the yoga retreats and said,
"Oh, what a nice place you have for living and for hosting the yoga
retreats." that is because we had spent most of our savings into making
the space suitable for running the yoga retreats and comfortable enough for the
people who come to attend the yoga retreats.
Anyway, when I went to cancel the permit before we moved, unsurprisingly,
they gave me a letter stating that I am being requested to demolish the building/house. The
officer said to me, “Your permit is successfully cancelled. My boss said you
need to demolish the building.” while pointing to the respective sentence. But
then, he immediately said to me, “You can ignore this sentence. You don't really need to demolish the house. You are just
renting the house. We won’t do anything. Next time if the landlord want to have
a permit, he can do so with the existing file.” I told him, “Really? This is a
legal binding document that is directing to my name, how can you tell me to
ignore this sentence? Why don’t you give me a letter that is without that
sentence?” He said, “This is a standard order from the boss. We can’t change
that.” There’s nothing more I could say. I can't change the system. I left and
let it be.
The village also has another issue. There is serious rubbish
problem. The locals are not keen on keeping the surrounding environment clean
and rubbish free. They throw rubbish everywhere as they like. In the beginning
we went out to the street around the village to pick up all the rubbish. And
then, we realized that not just it didn't bring awareness to the people, but we
were actually encouraging them to throw more rubbish everywhere, as they feel
it's okay for them to throw the rubbish everywhere because there were two
'stupid' people living here now will clean up the rubbish for them. And so, we
stopped doing that.
We would try our best to keep the front of our house as
clean as possible by picking up any rubbish being thrown by random people
passing by. But somehow, our next door neighbours weren't really helpful as
they would just throw anything over their fence into the paddy field. The paddy
field is no longer being cultivated but had turned into a rubbish dumpsite full
of food waste, plastic wraps, bags, containers and bottles as well as unwanted
old broken furniture, and etc. We had talked to the neighbours a few times
requesting them that maybe they could stop throwing rubbish over the fence like
that. But, they still do what they want to do. The paddy field in front of our
house used to be so picturesque but it wasn't anymore. And
then from time to time, the other neighbours would burnt some rubbish with all
kinds of plastic material that generate toxic fumes.
Another reason is that on the 1st of July 2019, I could have
been injured or losing my life on the highway towards Kuala Lumpur for
attending my brother's funeral because of the 'dishonesty' and 'incompetency'
of the car workshop that I had been bringing my car for regular service and
repair in the past 10 years. Somehow, they installed expired and non-compatible tyres to my car where they were in so bad condition
that they could have exploded and caused serious damages to myself and/or
others during my long driving journey from Langkawi to Kuala Lumpur that day,
which I only realized how lucky I was when my second brother saw the serious
damages of the tyres and immediately brought the car to a nearby tyre shop near
the funeral place to change the tyres immediately. Everyone said that it was
incredible that the tyres didn't explode when it could easily have, while I was
driving at a fast speed on the highway that day. Again, it's my own
responsibility for entrusting the car to that workshop and have limited
knowledge about car and tyres.
I told my husband, "Okay. That's enough. We leave
Langkawi. I want to appreciate the remaining life time in peace not being
threatened by dishonest people and the ridiculous system of this island." I am not fear of death, I am ready to leave anytime, but if possible, I do not want to suffer unnecessary suffering due to other people's dishonesty.
Despite all the mentioned difficulties, we did have a very good long
term grass-cutting man who would come to cut the grass for us once every two months in
the past 10 years. We are thankful for that. And the good thing about living in
Langkawi is there's no traffic jam (yet) and there are nice waterfalls, even though
the locals have the habit of leaving rubbish everywhere and maintenance is not great. And we are thankful to Langkawi and the houses that we lived in, allowing many retreats had been happening and people from all over the world came to be learning and practicing yoga with us there, allowing us to share yoga with so many people. Thank you for all the supports.
We chose to move to Penang Island for start, and then we
will see what happen. If we have to move somewhere else, it really doesn't
matter. The system in Penang Island could be worst or maybe better than
Langkawi, we don't know yet. And many parts of the world are going through certain difficulties. I don't need to have a
yoga studio or retreat centre. I don't need to teach yoga restricted to a
particular place. I don't need to teach yoga at all. I just want to have
a place to live and do my own practice, if possible. If it's not possible, I live and practice as I am. As a writer and editor, my
husband can live anywhere. And in terms of the writing and reading scene,
social, music, arts and cultural development, Penang has a lot more to offer
than in Langkawi.
Finding a place to rent in Penang also wasn't easy for us.
We had to spend quite some money coming here twice to be looking for a place. We met some 'good' people helping us in certain things, we also met some
'helpful' people who only interested to take advantage of us. Anyway, we found
a good enough place and paid the deposit to reserve it, even though the owner
has some issues and doesn't want to give us long term contract. As the moving
out from Langkawi is the most complicated difficult part. We need to have a place
secured even if it's temporary. Once we arrived in Penang, then even though if we
have to find another place later within Penang, or if we need to move to
another place in Malaysia, or even outside Malaysia, it will be a lot easier in
Penang than in Langkawi.
In this new place, my husband can swim everyday at the 50
metres well-maintained swimming pool, we seldom use the air-conditioner as the place is well
ventilated, the windows can be opened and closed, we don’t have to keep lights
on when we are not at home or when we go to sleep, there are security guards,
there’s convenience of getting grocery and fresh produce, there’s no lizard
shit, no cats leaving behind dead animals/shit/pee/fleas, no snakes or centipedes
coming into the house, there’s a balcony to sit out comfortably without being
eaten by ants and mosquitoes, there’s nice hill view and sea view from the windows and balcony, we can cook if we want with many choices of fresh produce available, or there’s
plenty of restaurants or food courts nearby that have plenty choices and good quality
of food at reasonable price (not tourists price), the people working in the
shops and restaurants are friendly and courteous, my husband can read and write
under proper lighting, there’s fast speed internet, there are many reading,
writing, arts and cultural events in Penang for my husband's interest, there’s
hiking trails nearby, there's good rubbish management, I found a car workshop where the people are really helpful, and many more, so far.
All is impermanent.
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