Journal of my stay at MahaRaja, by April Luo

1 January 2018: Liquid sun, 1980s music, started our New Year count down from 2017 to 2018.

Dancing from Jetty to the beach, someone set the fire, dreamed to have a bonfire. You can dream anything on this island. You are moving or pausing and keep shaping yourself with wind, exactly like the cloud above. You are flying as an eagle, exactly like the one circling on the top of the mountain behind. You are flowing like a fish, exactly the ones under or around. You jumped out of the ocean occasionally, when you feel the joy or simply you want to. Or you are one drop of the water, together with millions and billions of other drops of water, together shining under the moon. Let your imagination fly here. You are everything like here. You become part of it. 

You are far away, checked once, checked twice, no signal, no phones calls. Absolutely no internet, therefore, no Facebook, no Instagram, no Snapchat, no WhatsApp, no WeChat. Feeling anxious when just arrived, as I know there may be one angry client is looking for me everywhere when I forwarded my calls to office. I simply told my parents that would be out of touch for 6 or 7 days. They may not even have realized what does out of touch mean. And here I am. The most beautiful sky with different layers of colour on the right. I got goose bump every time I saw a beautiful sunset. Here I probably may get goose bump every single day. There are still some solar lights lead the way, but we are pretty taken care of by the milky moon on the left. It’s so quiet. And the waves hitting the rock is the loudest sound here. And the sound just calm me down.

2 January 2018: Dokri Effect.

The effect that when you are at Dokri Island, things are unusual compare the daily life.

Lost track of dates, time, simply know the time when wake up by sunrise, the shimmering water and the chatting noise of birds or the fish splashing the ocean out of room.

Turning head up, facing the endless ocean and feeling small about myself and human beings.

Discovering the moon rising from edge of the island not far away, fiercely red and fiercely big and round. Turning off the light hanging along the pass way. We don’t need them. The moon shines through the ocean, dim the way all over everyone. Having conversation with yourself with the shimmering water, opening to friends.

Finally the freedom is in mind, for real, and finally I’m chilled and enjoy doing nothing.

3 January 2018: Deep in woods.

Boating away from Dokri, we are determined to find the waterfall.

The narrowed waterway leads the way. The mangrove is all I can stare. Boat is moving slowly, it’s extremely quiet and calm, I can hear the sun burning above the tall trees, somewhere near us yet not been seen. I’m imaging things, the exposed root opening themselves and swallow us in a flashlight.

The villager at the top front of boat keeps himself sharp and focus. Leaving his back and afro to us. Years of ocean has made the hair curly and brown. I feel better and move myself from the horror imagination.

There’s no proper way to go up, only the villagers will find a way. They are barefoot, quick and light. We are wearing our sneakers and every step is careful is challenge for people like me. I can’t help and sigh, the nature and I have lost connection for long time.

Crossing the muddy road and stone walk in river, there you go, the beautiful waterfall. Everything is worth it.

4 January 2018: Today is a cloudy day. Today is the last day.

The waves are so strong last night, we slept after the sunrise, the cloud overtook the sun, everything is a little bit grey, yet blue.

Went down to the water three times, to grab all the time we have, and stay in ocean within one day. Got burned hardly, we have funny marks on our body and big smiles on our face.

Staring at the sky and ocean longer, taking as many mind photos as we could.

The sunset is different every day, we put our head down on jetty, and watched it upside down. The heavy cloud is changing slower today and the colour is changing constantly. All of a sudden, I’m thinking maybe we are in deep of the ocean, the cloud is the surface, who is coming to snorkelling and see us? 

Maha took us for a night snorkelling, with UV light. The ocean become a big pool of shining diamonds. And we are eager to see them every single one. We are excited when we caught a moving fish in a dark. Some tiny fishes are following us, with the light effect, they are sliver, like the silver lining in the sky.

Tonight has no moon, with the world become completely dark, the world become completely quiet. I tried hard to see this island one more time in the darkness and think, I will miss this so much.