POSTCARD FROM READING
Painted landscape
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The coral reefs, the innumerable variety of fish and colours make for a picture-perfect holiday.
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Countless shades of blue: The sea off Redang.
NOTHING prepares you for a face-off with a shark in its elements when you are out of sorts, trying to breathe in through a snorkel. OK, a baby reef shark the size of your shank. But the same slow, swaying motion, the unseen mouth, those cold eyes and that notorious fin can make you suck in your breath. It slithers and whips its tail to dart ahead and disappear in the turquoise-clear water off the equatorial island of Redang in Malaysia.
The shark is a break from the sight of a coralscape that leaves you gasping for names of colours. Sea angels, Damsels, Jacks, Yellowtails, Giant Clams, Trigger Fish, Puffers, Spotted Porcupine Fish, Blue and Yellow Fusiliers, Pencil Fish, and Lion Fish swim lazily or zip occasionally to snap a bite from the coral surface.
Raise your head, get onto the dive boat and see specks of volcanic islands that are painted multiple shades of green. So many Hindi, Telugu and Tamil movies come to mind. The green islands have a white foreground, then a shade of green, the deepest of blue and speck of a boat in the calm waters of South China Sea. Is the painting nearly complete? No.
3D movie
Strip, strap on the mask and the snorkel, make another dive, and swim into waters that are a little deeper. What looked like hazy grey is transformed into a colourscape of unpaintable hues. You never knew so many colours could exist, but they are all there. One bloke exclaims that it is like a 3D movie. Come on, this is real.
Redang is an island with white coral sand, dappling blue waves, equatorial forests and the friendliest of people in the South China Sea, off the eastern coast of Malaysia. There are no direct flights to Redang. You'll have to take a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Kuala Terangganu from where you can take a boat to reach Redang.
Got batik?
But before you begin your snorkelling/ diving/ bare-torso-sun-worship, Kuala Terangganu is a good place to get in touch with Malaysian culture. The roads are wide, the traffic smooth and everything seems to be up for a bargain. The central market is the place to do a bit of basement bargain batik hunt (in the early-1600s, the East India Company used to purchase batik cloth from North Tamil Nadu and South Coastal Andhra to barter it for spices from these islands). Besides turtle eggs, giant coconuts, dry seafood and the fabled spices, you can find few other things that are exotic as well as Malaysian. Pick up a few batik bermudas, Hawaian shirts, and drink from the coconut that's the size of some four coconuts put together with an equal amount of sweet water in it.
From the airport fringed with coconut trees and an inkling of the sea, drive down to Merang Jetty. The water is crystal clear and a few silver fish can be spotted as you walk the plank. The boat journey to the Berjaya Resort in Redang island takes 45 minutes. Another resort of choice can be the Laguna Redang. While the Berjaya is an all-year resort, the Laguna shuts down during the South China Sea typhoon season for four months between October and January. Most of the other resorts too shut down during the typhoon season.
But, when there are no typhoons, there is the sun. It warms the sea to the right temperature for you to get into it. Shallow for yards, walking the coral sand and diving into the sea feels almost like sinning when you consider other blokes hard at work back home. And it is not just corals that give you delight. Step into the water and a slovenly giant grouper whips its tail and moves on as a few frisky damsels (the ones with fins) dart about restlessly. Thousands of tiny silver Cardinal fish dart about in an amazing display of synchronicity. All this without putting on the snorkelling mask.
If there is one discordant note, it is the food. Too exotic and adventurous for the uninitiated. But you can get around this by befriending one of the many Tamilians settled here for a bit of a taste of home.
SERISH NANISETTI
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