Not everything turned to gold

THE music seems to have come to a stop at Langkawi’s version of the French Riviera.

There was hardly a soul in sight at this once happening waterfront known as Perdana Quay, although November to March is the peak tourist season.

It was like an episode of Twilight Zone, where things look familiar yet strange and deserted.

Perdana Quay is part of the scenic Telaga Harbour Park on the quieter side of the island. It was designed as a swanky enclave of boutiques, restaurants, spas and bars overlooking a sheltered bay, where the waters are always serene and blue.

Photographs from its earlier years show the place packed with tourists, mostly international ones, wining and dining al fresco alongside berthed yachts with names like Freedom, Jojo, Sea Falcon and Thor.

But the crowd seems to have moved on and nobody is quite able to explain why.

Not everything that Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad touched has turned to gold. More than half of the shops have closed down and the carparks are empty. It is mainly the handful of restaurants on the waterfront that have kept going.

Work on the proposed eco marine park on one side of the bay seems to have come to a standstill.

The Jalur Gemilang, the boat in which Datuk Azhar Mansor sailed around the world, is an exhibit piece and a reminder of a more glamorous time.

Many of Dr Mahathir’s ideas for Langkawi were too advanced and sophisticated for the civil servants to grasp or implement, and a few of them ended up as white elephants.

Tourism is a terribly competitive business and some projects failed because the owners did not have the business experience.

Another white elephant is the Pekan Rabu complex built at the cost of RM9mil on reclaimed land in Kuah town. It was meant for small Malay enterprises to partake of the tourism economy, but it remains half occupied till today.

There have been other failures which did not get publicity because of the tight control that Dr Mahathir had over the media then.

The Loaf, the restaurant associated with Dr Mahathir and the first to set up shop at Perdana Quay, continues to do quite well thanks largely to China tourists.

The Chinese make up 70% of international tourist arrivals, many of them flying in on direct flights from Guangzhou. They speak Cantonese and you think they are locals until you find them eating their salad with chopsticks and dipping roti canai into their soya bean drinks.

It is estimated that some 300,000 tourists from China visited the island last year and there are now restaurants that cater to their taste buds and preferences.

The China tourists are helping to keep the local economy going and Dr Mahathir would not dare to say some of the things he has said about China investments out loud in Langkawi.

Chef Yusuf Mahrom, who has been with The Loaf since its inception, said the tourism slowdown began around the time that MH370 went down in the Indian Ocean in March 2014.

That was roughly when the world economic downturn started to be felt. He said that during the peak years, you could not find an empty table.

Yusuf is also blissfully unaware that Dr Mahathir is planning to contest in Langkawi.

Ahmad Pishol Ishak arrived in Langkawi for a holiday not long after the duty-free policy came about in 1987. He was immediately hooked and now calls Langkawi home. He has dabbled in a little bit of everything over the years and his core business now is selling durian coffee, which is a hit among China tourists.

He has a dim view of most politicians except for Dr Mahathir, whom he describes as a great salesman for Langkawi.

“Whether he wins or not, life will go on. The infrastructure is already there, the authorities have to keep Langkawi going. I don’t agree with everything that Mahathir has done, but he has done a job that no one else has in Langkawi,” said Pishol.

Everyone seems to have a job in Langkawi. You do not get aimless young people racing around on motorcycles after dark because most of them have to work the next day.

Another sign of the household earning power is the way wooden kampung houses have given way to brick homes throughout the island.

Many of Langkawi’s early Malay millionaires were landowners whose property were located in areas sought after for hotels and other development. They were known as OKB or orang kaya baru (new rich) and many of them went on a spending spree.

The then Langkawi Development Authority general manager used to personally call up some of the OKBs to urge them to keep their new wealth in the bank instead of splashing it in Haadyai and Medan.

But some have managed to roll their money such as the Haji Ismail Group, which is owned by the richest Malay family on the island. The namesake Haji Ismail started out selling durians, but he was a natural businessman with many Chinese friends from whom he learnt everything, including how to play mahjong.

His children are as clever as him and they have taken the family business to a new level. They own hotels and run a successful duty-free retail business.

They have studied the Malay retail market and knowing the Malay love for Corelle crockery, they struck a joint venture with a China company to produce Corelle-ware with designs that appeal to Malays.

Their chocolate sales turnover is reputed to be RM2mil a month. Their homes in Langkawi look like palaces and they are living the Langkawi dream. – Joceline Tan