Land Ahoy!

Looking for land in Langkawi can be a really confounding experience.

First, there's figuring out who knows what is up for sale.  Our search for land took over a year, during which we made trips to the island every two to three months, following leads of land for sale.  Some came via friends who knew we were on the lookout, some came from sources as random as the Internet.  After several visits, we even had leads coming from people who knew people who knew we were looking.  You get the picture.

We traipsed across paddy fields.  We climbed big hills and small ones, through rubber plantations and orchards, peered through trees to uncover hidden vistas and pretty much saw most of the island.  

I have always known, deep in my soul, that I can have anything I set my heart on.  Call me a brat, but that's the way my life has always worked out.  I decide what I want and I just go and get it.  At times, confidence wavering, I wondered whether we would ever find something we liked.  After almost a year, we were both a little ragged from all the looking and looking over of plots previously seen. 

But on good days, I just knew.  Having Anim in the whole equation was also a huge help.  She's the more patient of the two of us, and whenever Speedy Gonzales me got irritated at the lack of progress, she was always the one who reminded us to take the deep breaths and let things just flow.

I distinctly remember a certain rainy evening in Langkawi when I was almost at the end of my rational tether.  We were due to return to KL in a couple of hours after yet another weekend of fruitless searching.  It wasn't that there was no land for sale.  It was just that nothing felt right.  Either a plot was too hilly and would cost too much to develop, or too far, or too small or too big, too rocky or too inaccessible.

Tired, I resorted to less pragmatic ends and decided to try a bit of wishful thinking.  I asked Anim to drive down a small village road in the pouring rain just to take a look at what was there.  During the entire journey, I recall telling her, "This is where we need to be.  We need our plot to be in this area."

And believe it or not, that was exactly what happened the next time we went to Langkawi.  

The first plot of land we were ever shown on the island was a strange little triangular piece that looked like a martini glass.  Its svelte figure aside, the piece of land was in a great location.  Subsequently, that plot was perhaps always our mental benchmark for location, location, location.

I don't know if it's serendipity or just the universe working its magic, but the plot we finally decided to purchase was directly across the road from the martini glass.  Weird, isn't it?