PD birthday party.

Monday 23 April 2018.

Yesterday, Sunday, members of the Ujang-Banun clan, or most of them, gathered at Telok Kemang, Port Dickson, to celebrate the 80th. birthdays of Klemot and Kak Munah ( I call her Omputih). The surprise attendee was Pin's wife. The organizers also took the opportunity to declare a celebration for  the coming of Ramadan, only 3+ weeks away.

I had to sacrifice my golf match with Tok Sleman for this. So we left for PD early, although our event would not start before Zohor prayers. There were just the two of us - Dekna had spent the night at Haniff's parents' place and were to drive from there. Since we were early, I made a detour to PD town and we stopped for mee curry at a seemingly popular restaurant at one of the roundabouts in town, all festooned with PAS and BN flags, the GE campaigning having unofficially already started nationwide.

We didn't know the exact location of the chosen venue, but given the name of the place at Telok Kemang, I just drove slowly, keeping our eyes peeled. Although it was Sunday, and this is a resort town, traffic was suprisingly light. So when we sighted the place, we casually turned into the compound, and with no difficulty secured a parking spot.

Since no one from our group was seen, I left Idah in the foyer and took the longish walk to the beach, through the swimming pool area filled with frolicking children, around the footpath at the back of the apartment blocks, on to beach itself. This spot, I realized, is right at the end of the Batu 8 Telok Kemang picnic area towards the Tanjung Tuan lighthouse. I'm familiar with this area. I went to school here in 1961, for about 6 months. RMC  was further back towards Batu 4. This was all sea front and a long, empty beach, then. And cleaner.

I remember speaking in the Dewan Undangan Negeri about the need to manage the development in PD in 1995-99 period. I'd said that when Phuket in Thailand was still a tin-mining and rubber planting area, PD was already established as a resort town. To-day Phuket easily outclasses PD as holiday destination. The one main difference, I said in the Dewan, was how the Thai Government took care to build on the landward side of the sea front, leaving their God-given beautiful beaches unscathed by any construction. In PD they have built their hotels right down to the water, even flushing raw sewage right into it, and the authorities don't seem to care. Whatever I said in the Dewan ( you can check the Hansards ) was lightly treated by the MB as a joke.

Our gathering went successfully. There were serious moments for prayers, but mostly it was a fun family day. Mak Di even managed to make it although she'd just returned from Turkey, and she gave us some Turkish delights to prove it. There was the usual karaoke session, dominated by Ari, who wanted to be part of all presentations, also as usual. As always he's game, even if not entirely musical.

We broke up at about 6, as planned, although some had started leaving  from 5. I think everyone enjoyed the party, and Mastura and Kak Long made sure all got their kurma from Iran, Tunisia and Palestine. I took back one extra box snatched from Mak Di's bag. The best dates were the Jericho dates from Palestine.

So, next gathering is at Hari Raya Puasa. Insyaallah.

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Mubarak NS Cameron Highlands trip.

Sat April 7, 2018.

My first Cameron Highlands trip was as a 16-year old RMC student on a camping trip 57 years ago. That was for one whole week. This time it was just three days and two nights. But Copthorne Hotel is also on Brichang, just as our RMC camp was in an ex-army base on a barren Brinchang hill-top. But while the hotel is luxurious by any standard, the camp was exposed and barely kept dry by the semi-circular zinc roof, and only the army-green mosquito nets kept the millions of flies from the nearby vegetable gardens out and made life just bearable.

I remember the tortuous drive from Tapah in the army trucks that made most of us sick, and the drive was forever. But traffic was sparse, and the weather really cold and we all lowlanders shivered to our tiny  bones. This time around, it was wet all three days and that kept it cold, too, especially the two nights, and especially on the Strawberry Resort dinner drive.  But, my God, the traffic reminded me of Bandung, with the same type of narrow, winding roads. This was nothing like my first trip and the many trips in-between. Somehow it spoiled the "holiday atmosphere".

I could talk some more about that RMC camping trip, the "locate C.T. camp" excersises, Mr. Sekhon's picking a chemical-dusted tomato and promptly falling sick for it, and so on, but that calls for a separate posting. This last Mubarak-organized trip was, on reflection, as enjoyable for its own reasons.

There were 20 of us old men and women, the oldest being 83, the youngest 60! But nonetheless we enjoyed ourselves. Except, maybe, poor Ponniah. All 79 years of him ! On the second day, a Friday, we had to make adjustment for a Friday-prayers break. The non-Muslims, Ponniah included, of course, were supposed to be "free-and-easy" while we were at the mosque between 1 and half-past two. At the appointed time and place, everyone was there except Ponniah. The problem is, he doesn't carry a mobile phone, or wears a watch. He must have been lost for time and unreachable, but had enough common sense to get a ride back to our hotel, while Chong, Alan and Yazid kept on looking until Alan called the hotel and got the information. Otherwise, our 3-day stay was pleasant enough.

The government clearly has made an effort to make C.H. a bona fide tourist resort, with its cool climate as the main draw. I saw many Thais and the European types, and they seemed to enjoy themselves. Many of the attractions are in fact privately managed, and clearly government funds should be channelled to make them better-run. As it is, everywhere I saw the "Malaysian malaise" of poor maintenance which somewhat downgraded many of the tourist attractions.

We all parked our cars at Royale Chulan, Seremban, and took the charted bus that left the hotel at about half-past eight, Thursday morning, and after making many pit-stops (we're senior citizens, man) arrived at our Brinchang hotel at about 6 p.m. in a steady drizzle. We left Brincang on Saturday (to-day) at 9 a.m., and after, again, many pit-stops, arrived back at Royale Chulan at 5 p.m. We enjoyed the 3-day trip, and many agreed to the idea of doing this again.  Maybe Australia ?

While in C.H. we heard the long-awaited news of the dissolution of Parliament to make way for GE14, now fixed for exactly on the same date as the last one, on 5th. May.  In fact the news was a bit of an anti-climax. Yusof Misai, Sainy and I got into some loud arguments with our opposing views - me, alone, for Mahathir, and the other 2 for Najib. Yusof Misai even challanged me to a wager over Sikamat, which was won by PKR in 2013 by a small majority of about 500! I said BN will lose again. I accepted the bet - one week's lunch for the winner.

I'm looking forward to the lunch.

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