Islands

I have never been to an island. At no point in my life, from what I’m able to recall at least, have I ever set foot on a piece of land surrounded by water on all sides. Well, to be completely frank, that statement is a full-blown lie now. It’s been kind of false for the past two years, slightly more false since about four weeks ago, and completely, irrefutably, indisputably, and incontrovertibly incorrect for just under three weeks. Let’s dive into it.

Although I’m certain of the real possibility that I have been to an island as a child, I do not include that in my statistics here because a) I don’t remember it at all, and b) I know for a fact that I had only ever been to the ocean five times before I left for Malaysia in 2023. Both of these factors, taken together, rather inhibit my ability to miscalculate any island-going adventures, and so I am generally confident in my findings noted in the paragraph prior.

Knowing that I had never been to an island, along with the fact that I could count the number of times I had been to the ocean at all with the fingers of a single hand, I set out to alter both of those records when I came to Malaysia for the first time. Over the course of my exchange, I visited (which I counted by dipping my toes into) the South China Sea twice, and the Strait of Melaka four times. One half of my record had now been beaten: I could no longer count the number of times I’d been to the ocean using the digits of either of my hands. As for the second part of that record, that’s where things get tricky.

You see, I’d been near islands, close enough that I could nampak-nampaknya (see them) and tengok-tengoknya (admire their beauty), but I had yet to set foot on one by the time 2024 rolled around. At this point, I’d have done just about anything to cross this item off my bucket list. Luckily, a chance came for me to do so soon thereafter.

I was in Johor Bahru, the capital city of my state of Johor, for a short-term exchange at the start of March. It was just a few days long, but during that time, we visited Tanjung Piai, the southernmost point of mainland Asia, from which I could see both Singapore and Indonesia, along with a few scattered islands. My excitement was especially discernible as we explored the mangrove forest around Tanjung Piai, when it was mentioned that we might be visiting an island later on in the day.

To cut to the chase, we did. Pulau Kukup was the name, and we took a boat to get there. We sped past the kampung air, “water villages,” in which homes were set on stilts above the waterline, and though it was raining, it was all the more beautiful an experience because of it. As we approached Pulau Kukup, though, my excitement turned to dismay. Due to the rain, the island was off-limits to the public until it cleared up. We circled the island in the boat, then came back to shore.

After this experience, I learned not to get my hopes set too high. Although I had technically visited one island, Borneo, when I went on another short-term exchange to the state of Sabah in April, later that same year, that’s like saying I’ve seen a volcano because I’ve been to Yellowstone. Borneo is about the size of Texas, so I think I’m fair in my judgment that it doesn’t exactly count.

Noting all of this, by the time I returned to the U.S. in June of 2024, I still had yet to truly visit an island. I had done so on a technicality with Sabah, and that had been incredible, though I still found myself yearning for more. My trip back to Malaysia over winter break changed all of that.

I made it a mission, while I was back in Malaysia, to visit every single one of my temporary host families, while also spending sufficient time with my Amma, Appa, and Akkas in Segamat, my main host family and community. After about two weeks in Segamat, I went down to Johor Bahru again and visited the same family I had stayed with during that short-term exchange. Instead of visiting Pulau Kukup (which I had joked about being Pulau Tutup, “Closed Island”), this time the family brought me to Singapore. We explored for the day, visited all sorts of sights, and headed back to Johor Bahru that night.

Though this was much closer to my grand vision of visiting an island, Singapore is still about a quarter of the size of Rhode Island, and is larger than at least half a dozen European countries. It is thus my opinion that even this experience was at least an order of magnitude too large for me to count.

Not to fret, though, as lo and behold, just one week later, I had finally set foot on not just one, but two islands I could count. I was back in Sabah, visiting the host family I had stayed with nearly two years earlier, and together we crossed one of the biggest items off my bucket list. These two islands were just off the coast of Kota Kinabalu, the capital of Sabah, and as we sped off in the boat en route to them, I was reminded of Pulau Kukup. Just to our right was another kampung air, just like I had seen two years before. I snapped as many photos as I could, though I soon set my phone down and reveled in the fact that I was on my way now to a true island.

We spent the entire day between those two islands, swimming, searching for coral, building sand castles, burying me in a hole, and definitely, most certainly not feeding fish with bread from our packed lunches. It was one of the most memorable days of my entire life, and I have full faith that it will remain so.