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.