August 29, 2006

Days of shopping in Jakarta...

Classification :: Trip Report

We went back to Jakarta by car again. We tried to stop by the R&R area, but it seems like the Bandung's Highway R&Rs were not fully developed like us. The main highway was okay. So we stopped at one of the R&R and quenched our thirst!
Bob walking around looking for the mineral water!

Farah enjoying the coconut water while my mom and ina were standing the heat. It was hot like the desert!

It took almost 3 hours before we reach the relative house. During the journey, there was an accident, where a bus flipped to the side and laid in the middle between the opposing road.

Indonesian are better drivers. They drive like racing on the highways but accident rarely happens. They took over other cars no matter by the left or the right side. Thus, no jams on the highways. Even accident, the jam was not as long as what we experienced in our country.

The first place we went once we reached Jakarta was the house of a relative there. Then, they took us to the said hotel and we had dinner together at a Nasi Padang Restaurant, Sari Bundo. The place was not so clean but that was their choice. Looking at the bill; WOW, it was almost RM400. That was crazy. The food wasn't that nice. The only thing that I can eat was the Cow Brain, my favourite. Sounds yummy isn't it? Hahaha!

Pak Hassan and family in his house.


The next day was still the holiday for the Indonesians. So, the relative took us to a place where everyone went there to shop for cheap items; Mangga Dua Mall. I thought it was gonna be a mall something like Mid Valley or KLCC, but I was wrong. It was something like the upper floor of Pasar Besar Kedai Payang in Terengganu, or Pasar Besar Siti Khadijah of Kelantan, just that, it was air conditioned, so it feels like I'm in the Pertama Complex of KL, with all the sales people were the Indonesian.

My mom bought two big boxes of wedding souveniers for my sister's wedding. Me and Bob was reluctantly being 'pow'ed by the relative by following us everytime we go eat. How could they expect us to pay every time we go and eat? That was quite ridiculous. They ordered all the expensive food while I was just ordering food that cost me Rp5000, that's about RM2.00 in Malaysia. Gosh.

That was actually the people of Indonesia's impression whenever Malaysians went there. Everywhere in Indonesia, no matter whether in Tanjung Balai, Tanjung Pinang, Selat Panjang, Bandung or even Jakarta.

In the afternoon, we went back to the hotel and went out again in the evening. We went shopping for food as we planned not to go out for dinner. My father think the other way around. He needs rice. So we decided to take him out to a very nice restaurant just opposite of our hotel, Sari Minang. Nasi Padang again but this time, VERY NICE. IT was actually next to the restaurant that we were having dinner the night before. We should have gone here last night.

So the next day, it was Tuesday and we have a lot more time to spend. We decided to go to Ancol, something like a theme park. I thought it's gonna be big but it wasn't. I was hoping that it would be as big as the Disneyland. Well, we only managed to go to the Samudra where there were 4 shows, Seal, Dolphin, 4D cinema and Variety Animal show. I enjoyed 4D cinema the most. That was my first time being into such cinema. Shit man, the snake was so in front of me haha..! Then we had dinner at another Nasi Padang Restaurant by the sea side. Not bad this time!

The best shot of the dolphins that i snapped!

Outside of the Dolphin's Arena


In the afternoon, we went to Mangga Dua again. This time we bought some Rupiah again. Gosh, the RM value keeps going down. This is bad. We're so in loss. It was supposed to RM400 for each Rp1,000,000 or more but it didn't even reach the 1 million at all. RM400 can get only Rp950,000 only. I used to bought Rp1,300,000 at RM400. That was Rp350,000 of difference.

So we went there again. Oh god! There was a lot of price different between holiday and working days. So what happened was, I bought a lot of handbags! I bought a lot of souveniers for my brothers especially.

That night, we went out with a friend of Bob, who we call as Pak Danny. He drove us in his newly bought Starlet. Not even that. He was showing off. He was a rally driver so I had a really nice chat with him.

And Wednesday was the last day there. My mom noticed that she hasn't bought enough so we decided to shop at Mangga Dua again. I bought few more things too. By afternoon, we went back to get ready to go back.

On our way to the airport, we went (again) to east Nasi Padang at the Natrabu Restaurant. One special thing about this restaurant is that, they put the picture of Dr. Mahathir having his lunch there sometime ago at their entrance.

So bad isn't it? Why? They 'used' Dr. Mahathir to make people come to eat at their restaurant. Dr. Mahathir should be paid royalty for that! Then we went to the Soekarno Hatta International airport and waited there for almost 2 hours before departed back to Malaysia!

Ina and Farah


Smokers have special places in Indonesia. It used to be no smoking in almost everywhere but the people denied the ruling by saying, we smoke using our own money, not government money, so why stopping us? Hehehe...!

We arrived in KLIA at around 10PM with all those extra luggages; including my growing tummy!

August 28, 2006

Just get home from... Jakarta!

Classification :: Trip Report

The reason why i didn't straight away put up the sequence of my visit to Selat Panjang was because i wasn't able to figure out why the pictures i uploaded didn't appear in my blog, but now, I've found a way already!

And a few days after that, I went off to Bandung and Jakarta, so I didn't really have the time to update (plus most of my angau pets died because my brother thought that i was able to access the Internet in Indon).

There was me, my father, my mom, ina, farah, bob and his son, together we took the KLM flight (which was damn fuckin cheap as the return ticket cost us about RM270++ each) from KLIA to Jakarta. I was a lil bit excited as it was quite I haven't been travelling by flights. The last time was I guess, 12 years ago?

And that was my first time boarding from KLIA. I was there a few times, but just to send people off. Sent my father mostly, my ex-gf, my family members and so on. It was quite nice in the inside. With the man-made waterfalls, the train. It was quite another world experience, isolated.

I was a lil bit jakun there but I have to admit it.

So as the time passed by, we boarded at 3.50PM, on a B747-400 transporter. Nice! Food were provided (I was told Air Asia didn't serve any food). I was comfortably sated and I kept looking at the TV screen as it was displaying the information of the flights, such as the altitude, speed, outside temperature and so on. I didn't know that the outside temperature was very low, which was at around -38 degree celcius. That was cold!

As we landed in Jakarta, Bob negotiated the car rental and we made our move to Bandung. It took us two hours and we had dinner at a place that serves only noodles. it tasted like the Indomie Mee Goreng, so it was only me and Bob enjoyed the mee.

Ina was complaining the noodle was too sweet for her.


The rest, gone case. They just enjoyed the fruit juice. I'm telling you, the fruit juice there were all pure! Try the strawberry juice. Originally very sweet! Then we checked in to the Papandayan Hotel, which was quite a classy one. Per night was just about RM190 malaysian money. When everyone was asleep, me and Bob went down and both of us did sing at the bar just before it was closed at 12 midnite.

The next day, we went to the bazaar or marketplace where people were selling things at a very low price. Most of them were the clothings. As usual my mom will do her routine in shopping. Shopping till i felt like my legs were gonna drop off. We had problem with Indonesian Rupiah note so I went out of the bazaar to look for the place to buy Rupiah. I managed to take these pictures..

Farah by the roadside of the bazaar


A scenery at the bazaar area. The signboard clearly saying that no selling is allowed but look at it...!


Then we had lunch at the Restoran Suharti, a special dish of Fried Chicken, which was quite popular there. In the evening, we went to visit a relative there and went back to the hotel. That night, again me and Bob went out, take our late dinner and later took a 'BECA' to go round Bandung at night. Nothing much except for the girls to be taken home or the tranvestites. It was quite a sightseeing then.

The famous Ayam Suharti of Indonesia


Relative in Bandung, Pak Syed who claimed himself as one of Muhammad Rasulullah descendants with my father


Kak Bedah with my mom, ina and farah(sleeping)

The next morning, we went to another place to look around for things for the last time before we made our move to Jakarta. Then we checked out!



So, I think Jakarta should be in the next post then hehe :p Da!

August 14, 2006

A work trip to Selat Panjang, Indonesia (cont'd)

Classification :: Trip Report

Did I tell you that as I arrived, i was messed up by the 'OJEK' service operator who were bugging me to get their service? Ojek is actually the motorbike. And FYI, I dun think i see cars around here. So the main transportation is the motorbike.

As we arrived, the contact who were supposedly fetch us at the port wasn't there. After about two hours of waiting, I decided to get to the hotel and rest. We were heading to a Nasi Padang restaurant, Asia Baru when we met with Idros, the contact in Selat Panjang. We had lunch and checked in to the hotel, which I forgotten the name. Very bad hotel, at the price of Rp135,000 per night, I would say. At night, we walked around for a very nice dinner and went back to sleep.

Actually i cannot sleep. The surroundings were too loud as the hotel is operating the KTV call girls were walking around the corridor. At last, i fell asleep with the TV watching me.

The next day, nothing much happened. We went out for breakfast at this one nice coffee shop nearby the hotel. We were all served by cute girls, and it even does have the roti canai there. The girls who were opening the roti canai stall were quite cute and pretty I would say. No wonder the roti canai were nice too. :p

I decided to check out the hotel and get a better hotel. We went to a much better hotel with additional Rp2,500 and it was like a 3 star hotel. People serve us better and the TV service was better.

In the afternoon, we took a walk and captured some nice pictures. Well, the place was quite dirty but there are a few things that I think would be a unique for some of us.

Part of the town is built up from these platforms. The land was originally Mangrove so most of the soil are the soft kind. The platform like these were built kilometers long.

Quite a scenery from the small jetty. These jetty is the connecting jetty to all the small surrounding islands from Selat Panjang. I remembered they have the scheduled boats like going to a place named Chentai and so on.

Another scenery from the restaurant I was having the dinner the night before.

The Jetty that I was talking about. People also send cargo through this jetty. These people were waiting for their cargos to be unloaded from the boats.

At night, a relative to Idros and his friend came over to our hotel to take us out. There's actually nothing much to see at night so we decided to have dinner. Alright, this time we're so nailed. Nasi Ayam, with Flour Fried Prawn and drinks cost us almost RM50 our money. Ridiculous but what to do?

As we get back to the hotel, I was hoping that I can sleep to forget the food incident. Actually, this new hotel was exactly the same. The disco and KTV was just behind of our bed and i have to wait for them to close before I can properly go to sleep.

The next day, we went for breakfast at the same place, and when we're about to leave, those guide took us to their home, as one of them is running a jamming studio so he took me there to check it out. On the way back, school kids were doing the preparation for the Indonesian Independence Day.

So cute!


Then we headed back to Tanjung Balai. 3 workers followed me back. AS I arrived in Tanjung Balai, i separated from the workers as to avoid local people chasing our money for getting people to work in Malaysia. I bought myself some fruits and later boarded. When the boat is about to depart, i realized that the 3 workers did not manage to board in the same boat with me.

I tell you, he's gonna be in a very serious trouble! hahaha!

August 13, 2006

A work trip to Selat Panjang, Indonesia (Day 1)

Classification :: Trip Report

At first, i thought going to Tanjung Balai was gonna be as easy as getting into a boat trip and arrive.

I was wrong. Tanjung Balai wasn't the destination as I was actually going to Selat Panjang. As Riau islands were downsouth the Singapore, but Riau Islands actually spreading all over up to Sumatera island of Indonesia. Selat Panjang I would say somewhere near Batu Pahat of Johor.

On the August 9th, my brother, Izzat sent me off to Gelang Patah as I will depart from there. I'll be going there with our boat driver, Hamzah and 3 of the Indonesian workers; Ketak, Man and Man Lambok who're going back home. We managed to catch the 3.30PM boat from Kukup (Johor) which arrived in Tanjung Balai (Indonesia) an hour later. Amazingly, the whole Indonesia's time was set the +700 GMT, which is an hour earlier than Malaysian Time.

As we were unable to catch the trip to Selat Panjang on the same day, we decided to check in to a Hotel for one night before proceeding the journey to Selat Panjang. Firstly, we had tea at the small stall by the port.

Well, as Indonesia it is, I saw to believe that a lot of poor people there, much poorer than Tanjung Pinang. People unashamely ask for money. Patheticly, some people who knew Hamzah circled him and asked him for money.

Sounds scary isn't it? It's a normal thing for Malaysians to go over Indonesia and look for workers there. Well, the local authorities look at it as a chance to make money by asking the 'coffee money' from those who were known to take back workers to Malaysia, or else, they'll be facing a lot of problems by the Immigration counters.

Hamzah just said, he went there for GIRLS. The person, who were well-known as KUMIS (for his moustache) went off and he was like keeping an eye on us.

Yeah Tanjung Balai is actually well-knowned as the heaven island of girls. A pretty java girl can be booked for one whole night as low as Rp150,000, which is equivalent to RM60 of Malaysian Currency. That cheap? My partner even told me that at night, girls would be knocking on my door but luckily they didn't as maybe they noticed that i stayed together with Hamzah in one room. It was for the safety reason as I brought in some amount of money with me.

A contact, Usop went to the Hotel and i asked for his massage service. Painful but very refreshing. After sometime, we went down for coffee, but surprisingly, KUMIS, who previously asked money from Hamzah, was still around like he was really spying on us. Crazy!

After that nice cup of coffee, we went up and get to sleep. I slept late as being conscious, of anything that might happen. As I was going to sleep, it's getting even harder as Hamzah 'sang' his snores loudly all night long.

We woke up early in the morning, had breakfast at the same place we were having tea near the port and departed to Selat Panjang by a Jet Ferry Service. It took only one and a half hour to get to Selat Panjang. I hardly felt the ferry was moving forward very fast. On the way to Selat Panjang, it dropped by the Tanjung Samak to pick up a few more passengers before continuing it's journey. I was surprised as the ferry stopped by the Tanjung Samak Port, a lot of hawkers jumped into the ferry to sell their merchandising items, which mostly food, they even followed the ferry to the next station and turned back.

Well, I was a little bit mad as then I gotta know why the Malacca Straits was dirty. One of the reason was these irresponsible food hawkers thorew off their unfinished food into the sea. Not only that, theyeven threw off the content of the dustbin into the sea as well. I felt really bad.


Around 10.30 Indonesian Time, I arrived at the Selat Panjang and now I'm going to work!

August 9, 2006

KJ answers..

Classification :: Local Politic

After resting from writing about politic for quite sometime, I'm now ready to rumble!

Honestly, as a Malaysian, I would prefer KJ to step down. I think most of the UMNO members (and I'm an UMNO members too) would love to see him step down from the Naib Ketua Pemuda UMNO position.

WHY?

He selfishly thought that people attacked him as they are not in the position to attack the PM. I don't really get it now. What's wrong with him? He's nothing to me. People wouldn't need to tackle him off his position to put Paklah down. I'm sure he knew that once Paklah goes down, he would worsely dive in to the deeper part of the river (terjun lubuk).

This is not something like Sepaktakraw, where the weakest player (who we would also call the 'lubuk') would be the strongest point of attack. Definitely wrong. This is politic. People would use the weakest player to penetrate the weakest point of the politician, and would that be him?

He should also remember when he was first elected as the Naib Ketua Pemuda UMNO, for the first time in the history of UMNO, a leader was booed. Who was that? Hehe..

As an observer, KJ is just another trouble causing item to the PM. Some people think that they were softly forced by the leadership to give KJ the mandate to be the one of the UMNO leader. As a member of UMNO, what was his contribution to the party so far to make him deserve such a high party post?

As he joined in seriously, I would say the PM had lost most of his influential colleagues (not to mention TDM himself). If he's to booed, why UMNO picked him? I'm so confused.

More confusing when he explained about all the issues which I'm going to discuss about it one by one.

An affair with the vampire

He denied the marriage with the vampire but he didn't say anything about the affair with the vampire.

ECM Libra - Avenue

He said he borrowed the money? Proof? Anybody just can say that. Right? WHere do u get the money? Someone can just say I found it eventhough he stole it.

Another issue was, after a week of the buying over process, there was the announcement of the merger of the ECM Libra and the Avenue. Come on! Avenue is a big GLC company. I wonder why would such transaction was not being monitored by the MOF? Why would we need 2 ministers in the MOF? By history, there was no such thing as selling/buying/merging of GLCs in just a week or two.

MOF is not doing their work, or... family affairs trading?

Sales of equity of the local bank (Alliance Bank)

How dare u sell the local bank to the foreign entity. How dare you..!

Sales of Pantai Holding of more the 30% to foreign entity

Again, the MOF is not doing their work. MAKAN GAJI BUTA!

Sales of equity in MV Augusta

He was trying to compare the sales of MV augusta with the Air ASIA. Even though it's a through put point of sales (Air Asia at RM1 and MV Augusta at 1 Euro), Air Asia was sold locally, instead of MV Augusta that was sold to the foreigner.

Even though he is just nobody in the government, he keep saying that he wasn't the advisor to the PM, but he has always seen to be explaining the issues that the GOVERNMENT should explain? Don't you wonder? Pelik tak?

And lately, there are even warnings to all the bloggers out there!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! I'm SCARED to death!!!!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA....!

* I'm going to Tanjung Balai, Indonesia for a few days from today. Will update as often as possible.

August 3, 2006

Dilemma...

Classification :: Personal

My life was way a lot happier for the past few months. I met new people, do new things, ventured into new business, experienced things that i could've never imagined I would do and so much more! Life is just great not to live it.

Despite of all the other sorrorities and problems around the world, I sometimes found myself living in a total different world, within other people but my world was just for me. I cared about the others but people wouldn't just give it a damn about me.

Lately, I haven't been following the local and global news as it was all the same thing over and over again. Given my time was all occupied for work, and lately for angau.com, blogging's cut from the pie of my 24 hours time has to be shrinken. I have less to write, not to say the time for me to bloghopping as I used to do few months before.

Recently, a lot of things were coming up; personal, work, family and love life.

In a much more recent happenings, I'm in a deep dilemma.

How do u guys deal with dilemmas?

* Of course it was all about the available options.

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