Taiping revisited

it was during the last hari raya haji (aidil adha) we visited taiping again. people might wonder why we have these frequent trips. the simple reason was - someone was obviously very emotionally entangled with the town of taiping, which was his birth town and thus lots of memories down the lane.

but that's okay, for someone who was KL born and raised, seeing how Kampung Sri Medan and Kg Konggo have been demolished (the former) and has been developed till you have no longer trace of the old kampung setinggan (current Bandar Tun Razak) i actually envy him, so i don't mind to 'bagi muka' a bit. plus i do think roots are very important to personality development... ergh?

since it was a long week end, taiping was abuzz with tourists, all hotels were fully booked. this included the Legend Inn, Sri Malaysia, Panorama Hotel, and other hotels. we fortunately managed to secure a booking for a family room at Hotel Furama, which was situated near the Taman Tasek Taiping. the room was big enough and could accommodate 2 queen-sized beds and a single bed, has a cable TV, mini bar facilities and hot water/air conditioning. the only complaint was, the room was on the 3rd floor. plus the internet access did not work! but for rm139.90, it was a good value for money.

having stayed in so many hotel accommodations and facilities, be it locally and internationally, i have observed that malaysian tourism operators at these hotels have very unsuitable attitude. with this kind of sour, arrogant and not hospitable attitude they should pick other carreers other than manning these front desks of our tourism operations. for example, when is used to shop in australia, the cashiers will greet you "Hello, how do you do" and will never fail to wish " thank you, come again" or "have a nice day". our cashiers at big shopping complexes frequently visited by international tourists are so stingy with phrases of the simplest "thank you". this happened right before my eyes and at the moment i really felt ashamed of being a malaysian, at the moment when the tourist caught my eye, with a very snide twist of her mouth.

the workers of the hotels were also seen frequently with long faces and no hospitable manners. the taxi drivers only cared to sneak a few ringgit more of our pockets, only complained a lot about our country and how sadly misfortuned they were to be malaysians. i mean, we know the problems we are facing, do you really need to air our dirty linen to our visitors.

the first thing that always keep our visitors away other than the attitude, is the cleanliness, or the lack of it. most of our facilities are dirty, foul smelly and disgusting. the peopla has the bad attitude of littering and leaving behind their waste, and hoping other people to be responsible for them. this third class mentality is our hindrance and it takes forever to be inculcated in our culture.

with the economic downturn, affluent visitors from singapore, thailand, indonesia and japan would try to look for nearer places with cheaper rates and malaysia should grab this opportunity to grab these visitors. but first we need a complete overhaul of our attractions and teach better manners to our people.

'Ketegur' or 'ketegaq'

It's hard for me to believe in the mischiefs of the 'orang halus' that are around us. to say that they can actually cause you to be sick and suffer from an unexplained medical condition. do they really exist?

tell for yourself;
on 28th december 2008, at 6.30 pm aam and me, nur and aidid went to USM football field at the foot of the hilly terrains near VC rock. we climbed up the hill, picked up some bunga kemboja went through the small bush in front of the swimming pool to get to our car. upon going up the hill, mid-way i felt a sudden throb at the back of my head, behind my right ear. a spot which i can delineate around a 5 cm diameter of a circle.

right after and through 10 days, i suffered a very severe and annoying headache which did not get less with any pain killers that i took, this means paracetamol and ponstan. although i often suffer migrainous headaches before, i know this was very different from my usual pains. i suspected something to do with the 'disturbance' from orang halus as my mum used to say that these things do exist! am said this is mumbo jumbo and he refused to believe.

when we went to ipoh, am's uncle was refuted to be someone with the capability to 'jampi' and ubat. i was quite adamant in thinking that i'm not suffering from any simple illness, so i asked mak nun to request him to have a look at me and try to keep the headache away. with his jampi with a split shallot and some mantras, he asked me to salawat and spit on the split shallot and throw it away. i did as he asked, and know what, the next day the headache was completely gone! how do you explain that? it is possible they exist on another dimension?

Am's new obsession

Am's new obsession was on the old colonial buidings. read his web article here:

http://www.usm.my/comn/

A near brush with an anti-government protest

Pagi 26 hb November, aku dah excited nak pergi Bangkok, ada annual Ophthalmology (Cataract) meeting. Ada ramai Malaysian ophthalmologists akan hadir sama. From USM, aku dan Dr Adil bersama 3 org staff nurses. Shat dan dr Zunaina akan join pada 28 hb bila depa balik dari Mumbai. itulah plan kami. duit Baht dah dalam tangan, konon nak pergi shopping sakan, nak round habih satu bangkok!! tapi plan sahaja, manusia punya plan. allah yang maha mengetahui.

pukul 9.00 pagi, adil text aku dari airport kata semua flight ke BKK pagi tu dah cancel sebab protesters dah take over the BKK airport. aku buat donno aje sebab masih tak dapat apa2 berita dari airlines. semangat lagi nak pergi conference. pergi airport bayan lepas, airlines kata flight aku masih tak cancel. buka email website conference kata program berjalan macam biasa. area Bangkok Convention Centre and the Grand Centara Bangkok very peaceful. ada text from some participants yang berada di conference, kata mereka everything is as usual. aku masih berkobar2 nak pergi. ternampak baju-baju yang aku nak shopping tu dalam kepala!!

Pukul 12.00 tengahari - pihak Alcon (sponsor) kata mereka akan call aku balik nak confirm masih 'on' atau tidak. kawan2 dari hospital kuantan dah cancel plan depa, tak jadi pergi. tengahari punya news tunjuk protesters nak betul2 closed down the airport. aku fikir dlm hati, kalau dapat masuk bangkok pun (inbound flights masih boleh masuk), camner aku nak balik? aku dok risau kat anak2. sekarang dalam hati dah fikir 100x - nak pergi ke tak?

akhirnya the decision was taken out of my hands - pukul 3.00 petang, dapat sms ALL FLIGHTS TO BANGKOK CANCELLED. malam tu aku tengok semua pelancong yang stranded kat airport - aku terimagine diri aku salah seorang daripada mereka, teringat kat anak2 aku, ternampak wajah mak ayah aku - aku bersyukur tak berada di sana!