Beauty, activities and culture on Langkawi island

Where am I looking?” I ask Ary, our jet-ski tour guide, as I pull down my sunglasses and squint into the middle distance.

I can see nothing but dazzling sunshine and the same deep-blue ocean that licks at my ankles.

“Between those two islands,” says Ary, pointing to a small gap on the horizon that is barely separating two rugged limestone karst formations.

They’re much the same as the ones featured in movies set in secret paradises, such as The Beach, or James Bond’s The Man With the Golden Gun: movies set before those Thai islands were overrun with the tourists seeking to escape to the idyllic scenes they’d seen on screen.

“That’s as far as you can take the jet-ski,” says Ary.

“They’re miles away,” I think to myself, but I just twist my throttle and turn my handlebars and shout “OK Ary” over the roar of my motor as I send an arc of foaming brine into the air (soaking my companions) and start gleefully speeding towards the horizon.