Vacation

Thousand apologies for not updating my entries. Been kinda busy lately as we reach the end of the 1st quarter of 2008.

On 20th March, we decided to go for a family vacation as we have not done that for quite sometime. The destination finally chosed was Cameron Highland and Penang. Because there was a wedding that we had to attend to in Gurun, therefore we had to cut short for the Cameron Highland to just 1 night and the rest 2 nights to Penang. This would be Sofea's first long car journey and we hoped that she will be ok. The day before we went for the vacation, Sofea had a fever so we took her to the clinic. With hopes in our heart that she will be ok for the trip, we head out anyway to Cameron Highland from rumah Kent at around 12.30pm.

We decided to use the Simpang Pulai road to head towards Cameron instead of the insnane Tapah road. The journey from the Simpang Pulai Toll booth to the top took us about 1 hour plus with normal speed. The view was an amazing one as we climb further and further up. I kept wondering how did they manage to cut out the hills and turned them to endless road. As we climb further up and did the cornering, i guess Sofea finally couldn't take it anymore. She was crying, shouting, "mengengek" almost all the way and finally the big bang came in. She threw up!!! For now luckily it was just confined to her car seat. But i guess there wasn't much that you could do to calm her down. I don't blame her as not even many adults managed to survive the Cameron Highland roads without feeling dizzy and throwing up. After about and hour climbing up the hill, we managed to reached Cameron at last.

First things first, we checked in to the hotel. The Rainbow Hotel. The Hotel was rated with a 2 star. The cost of the room per night for the family room is RM 135. Unfortunate for us, that was a peak time and they slapped us with an additional RM65 surcharge which totals up to RM 185 with no breakfast and a small family room. I guess it was ok considering that we were just staying in for a night. The room had the facilities of a standard room. All you need is basically there. So, upon checking in and resting for a while, we head down to the food court nearby. By that time, Sofea was out of control. She refuse to sit still and we had to take turns to eat. Reminds me of the time when we headed down to KLCC. At first i wanted to take her to the park but as we reached there, Sofea fell asleep making the trip to the park pointless. So we just drove off in the car and stopping by to buy some strawberries. As we reached the parking lot and turning off the engine, Sofea woke up and she started smiling.

That night, we walk up towards the Pasar Malam to do a little pasar malam shopping. As usual, there were a lot of strawberries product and vegetables. After finishing up with the strawberries, we went back to the hotel. As soon as i were about to get my beauty sleep, that was the time that Sofea cried and woke up. It took us about and hour to put her back to sleep. Poor her. Her tempreature was still high that night as she refuse to take her medicine.


The next morning we woke up and checked out at around 11.30pm. First thing on the agenda was to eat strawberries. So we head up towards the strawbery place. Couldn't remember what it's called but i like the food there. It was my 3rd visit there for strawberry eating. We ordered Strawberry & chocolate ice cream with tea and scone. Though it wasn't easy for us to finish our meal due to Sofea's perangai, we managed to finish it up anyway. It's damn good i tell ya.


Next on the agenda was an unplanned visit to the BOH Sungei Palas Tea Centre. I didn't even know they had one but since we accidentally came across it, so let's just go for it. The entrance says that it is about 2.5km from the junction. 2.5km isn't that far so let's go for it. But we did not expect that the roads were damn narrow. Even the Tapah road isn't this narrow. At certain points there were only 1 car that could pass by making the opposite side had to reverse and find a wider road to let the other car pass by first. I think it took us around 30mins for us to reach to the parking lot. And i though the jam at Jalan Jelatek was bad enough. We had to climb up another 200m on foot because they will not let cars pass by there. So another 5 - 10mins more before reaching the centre. By then Sofea was already showing off her stripes ( tunjuk belang ). She wanted to go down instead of sitting in her stroller. Upon releasing her. She would walk off until the end of the road and she would come back again. As we were quite exhausted, it wasn't quite as fun to follow her around. All we wanted was to sit down, have some tea and enjoy the scenery. But none of that actually turned into reality.


After doing some shopping, we head down towards the car. Luckily the traffic was on our side as there were 3 other cars infront of us which makes me tumpang sekaki. Luckily getting out of the Sungei Palas tea centre was ok. As Sofea was still not well, me and wifey decided not to visit the other atrractions as we have visited them before. We just made a few stops at a few shops to buy some cactus and strawbberies before heading down towards Penang. The journey down was a bit better as Sofea slept 3/4 of the way before crying out loud again. I guess the fever, motion and the air pressure made her that way.

The journey to Penang was a bit better as it was just a straight line drive with minimal curve though it was pouring quite high at the time. Lucky we had the Lotus Ride and handling with the Michelin tyres. *LOL*. This is not a promotion ya. We reached penang at around 7 pm and checked in at the Gurney Hotel. The price per night was RM 185 but compare this with the hotel at Cameron, this one wins with more than 2/3 majority. Sofea & wifey was enjoying themselves as the room here were huge, had a nice view with a built in jacuzzi. We had dinner infront of the Dorsett hotel where i had nasi goreng ketam. Unfortunate for Sofea, she threw up quite a lot and the worse part was part of her output was on me as i was carying her at that time. After finished eating, i took her to the playground at KFC while wifey catched up with her old friend Mimi. She also took us around for a spin in Penang and sending us back to the hotel.

The following day was the day for us to attend the wedding at Gurun. We headed down to the coffee house for breakfast. As Sofea has still not recovered, she was rather feeling grumpy. She even refuse to eat and drink. So once again we had to take turn in order for us to eat. After all was set, we head towards Gurun. There, my mother & father in law was already waiting for us in one of the houses. We ate and sat down there in one of the houses. As i didn't really quite know this people, i managed to layan some Hindustan story as it was pouring down heavily.


Finally we head back towards Penang at around 4pm. On the bridge i asked wifey whether she wanted to go anywhere, she said she wanted to go to the Queensbay Mall. So we head down there where Sofea got a new cloth as the old one was errrr, bocor from her dung if you know what i mean. We just walked around there and stopped at a Starbucks coffee. We gave Sofea the chicken pie and during then she started eating. Damn, nak makan yang mahal aje. But what to do, anak punya pasal.

After that, i wanted to head down to Batu Feringhi just to purchase some DVDs. We did a little bit shopping of DVDs which eventually sums up to RM 120. Well, it's not often you get to go to Penang. As we head closer to the hotel, the traffic began to pile up. IMHO, the traffic is even worse compared to Bukit Bintang on a Saturday night. By that time, i was feeling tertekan with the jam and Sofea crying about and finally puked inside the car on the back seat. That was the peak of the vacation then. My shining lovely WajaBee has had the worse time of it's life. You could even smell the chicken pie back then. I think it even loss 2 - 3k of it's resale value :-(

Finally we reached the hotel and changed Sofea's clothes. I decided not to procede with the Kuey Teow longkang dinner but asked wifey to go along with mimi but she has to tapaw for me. As she went out, i tried to get some rest. Sofea did wake up once in a while but she went back to sleep. Wifey finally came back at around 1.30 am and i managed to eat the infamous Kuey Teow longkang. Luckily it was still good.

The last day of our vacation was free & easy. As there wasn't any place that we had in mind in going, we decided to enjoy the hotel facility instead. So we all went down to the pool area. The were 2 pools with humongous size. After taking a swim, we went up and started to pack our stuff before leaving Penang and heading back towards KL at around 1.30pm. We took the ferry instead of the bridge and after a stop over at Sungai Buloh, we reached home at about 8pm.

There were a few more incidents that i will post in a different entry. I would conclude this vacation as a mentally stressed vacation. There were a lot of things that we had to adapt to when there is a small child travelling with us. It wasn't as smooth as before. My advise to those with no excess baggage yet, enjoy your holidays as you can. But inspite all that, we manage to still smile whenever our little angel starts to laugh and make fun and jokes. No kidding.