One day, while walking along the foreshore, I came across a recumbent figure lying on a towel; not the kind of gauche thing you did in Paradise. I shall call him Northern Bob. He was one of the exceptions aforementioned who would be out of place and fail to appreciate Paradise for its unassailable glory. He lay on his back and was trying with his hands to shield his eyes from the agitation of the sun’s rays. His strained countenance indicated a lack of enthusiasm for life.

Paradise was never busy with tourists or day trippers. There were never families with rowdy, uncontrolled children or groups of picnickers bespoiling the place. No signs were warning about jellyfish, dangerous tides, or threats to the local ecology. There were no garbage cans, recycling bins, or refuse tips. There were no skateboarders, surfers, water skiers, body surfers, snorklers, or underwater or aerial anything. There were no garish blocks, car parks, or any public amenities. There was no development and no heavy construction. There were no bars, craft stores, amusement arcades, or food concessions. There were no retirement homes. There were no policemen, police cars, or any vehicles bearing the insignia of officialdom. In other words, it was lawless, natural, unspoiled, and peaceful, with no attractions for the insatiable appetites of sensation-seeking, loving mankind.

And so it seems we may be sympathetic with recumbent Northern Bob, who had flown nearly halfway around the world for a bit of fun but now lay suffering and burning under the tropical sun, his wife left back, inconsolable in their hotel room. In his northern English drawl, he explained the details of his package tour and the divergence between his expectations and reality. Woe is me, the fruit of a year’s grind, having all skin and seed and no pulp.

Struck by Northern Bob’s obdurate nature, but more out of compulsion than compassion, I sat down beside him. I began to exhort his finer feelings by explaining some aspects of Paradise that he was obviously overlooking, or worse, because of his insular Northern English parochialism, was incapable of seeing.

So I began to point out a few things that, although not particularly exceptional, were a world apart from the one he normally inhabited and should, for anyone not grounded by incurable provincialism, have aroused some curiosity and interest. He was not wholly beyond the pale. When I told him that at low tide one could wade out to the large rock at the western end of the beach and, clambering amongst the large boulders strewn around it, might with stealth see monitor lizards the size of half-grown crocodiles, he turned to look vaguely in that direction without raising his head from the sand. When I told him about the lethal creatures in the ocean, the sea snakes and poisonous fish, he raised his head a foot or so above the sand, supporting it on the palms of his clasped hands, and looked vaguely out to sea. When I told him about the rich biodiversity of the jungle, its crystal-clear streams cascading over rocks, and the excitement of being in its vibrant and scintillating atmosphere, he sat up on one elbow. When I told him about the unseen part of Batu Ferringhi village, back in the jungle, where the fattest pigs you’ve ever seen could be found, he got up on the other elbow. By the time I told him that, a short distance away at a fraction of the price he was paying on his package tour, he could savor the genuine, simple cooking of the three major ethnic groups in the country, namely Indian, Chinese, and Malay; he was sitting up with one of his hands resting flatly on his stomach. By the time I described to him the wealth of personalities to be met within that short convergence of land and sea, from royalty and writers to confidence tricksters, ex-convicts, and special units of the British army on maneuvers, he was sitting up straight and looking all around, primed and ready to go in any direction I pushed him. But he had to do it himself because I stood promptly up, bade him farewell, and made off down the beach with all the suddenness of a disappearing fairy-godmother.

Mr. G.K. Chesterton, in defending the bores against the bored, wrote, “There is no such thing on earth as an uninteresting subject; the only thing that can exist is an uninterested person. Nothing is more keenly required than a defense of bores. When Byron divided humanity into the bores and bored, he omitted to notice that the higher qualities exist entirely in the bores, the lower qualities in the bored, among whom he counted himself. The bore, by his starry enthusiasm, his solemn happiness, may, in some sense, have proved himself poetical. The bored has certainly proved itself prosaic”. Right on. Amen.